Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

It took him an hour to remove all the tape and plastic sheeting and when he was finished the loose pile of trash in the living room seemed much larger than was possible, given the compact stack of supplies it had been generated from. He thought for a moment that he might simply leave it there, a strange replacement for the sofa he and Peter had moved out to the field, but the thought was just as soon gone and he scooped up an armload of plastic and tape and walked to the door, opening it awkwardly and then stepping outside into the sunlight, his eyes clamping shut against the blazing light of the morning and the sudden onslaught of heat.

By the time he was in the shower the whining sound had come again and this time it was more present than it had been in all the weeks he had spent in the cul-de-sac, a long and endless and shrill sine wave moving toward him from some distant place. He had hoped that the migraines were gone altogether, that he had been miraculously cured of whatever medical mystery had beset him, and yet here again was the sound of his mind in its tinny unraveling. He would take another pill, thinking — praying even — that if he took one quickly enough it might be sufficient to stop what already felt like an inevitability, the whine, the sine wave, already bearing down on him from some initial point he was ever unable to locate.

The shower had been hot and he turned the water off in a fog of steam that had covered every surface of the bathroom and when her voice came out of that fog—“Hey there, neighbor!”—he turned abruptly enough to bang the shower door closed with a crash.

“Shit,” he said. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself quickly. “What are you doing in here?”

“The door was unlocked,” Jennifer said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

He looked at her. She was once again dressed in her workout clothes: skintight purple this time. Black shorts over tan thighs. “What’s going on?” he said.

“What’s going on?” she repeated.

He was silent, staring at her. “You’re in my bedroom,” he said at last.

“You’re right.”

“Is there a reason?”

“Not really. Just thought I’d come by to say hello.”

“OK,” he said.

“I saw you talking to Walt,” she said.

“Yeah, Walt,” he said. “You might have mentioned him.”

“I might have mentioned Walt?”

“Yeah, it would have been good to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know you were married.”

She laughed. “Oh don’t be so dramatic. It’s not like you’re divorced.”

“You knew exactly what was happening,” he said. “And you lied to me.”

“I did not,” she said. Her hands were on her hips.

“You did, Jennifer. It’s not right,” he said. He realized just how absurd he probably looked, standing there in the steaming bathroom, gesturing with one hand while his other gripped the hem of the towel he had wrapped around his waist.

“You didn’t seem to mind,” she said.

“That’s not the point,” he said.

“Really? I thought that was exactly the point.”

“I’m going to get dressed now.”

“Don’t let me stop you, Astronaut,” she said.

He shook his head and as he did so a lump of pain rolled back and forth, sloshing against the sides of his skull. What was he doing? What was happening? Who was this woman and why did he know her at all?

“Look, I’m sorry you found out about Walt so … abruptly,” she said. “But, hey, it’s fun, right? It’s not like we have something serious.”

“It seems more serious now,” he said. He opened the chest of drawers and pulled out a T-shirt and underwear and then pulled the underwear on under his towel.

If Jennifer had some response to his statement she did not acknowledge it. Instead she looked around the room and clicked her tongue against her teeth. “She really did clean you out,” she said. “The furniture, I mean.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about.” He let the towel drop and pulled the T-shirt on over his head.

“I don’t know why you’re so mad,” she said. “It’s just for fun, you know?”

“I’m not mad. But you’re acting like this isn’t something important and you’re wrong. It is important. My wife had an affair. I know what that feels like.”

“So do I,” Jennifer said.

He was quiet for a moment, standing there in his T-shirt and underwear, staring at her. Then he said, “I don’t understand why you’d want to do that to someone else, then.”

“Yeah? How do you think I know what that feels like?”

He did not respond.

“And guess who he was having an affair with?”

“I have no idea,” he said.

“Your fucking wife.”

He looked at her, frozen now, his slack-jawed disbelief replaced by belief and then disbelief and belief again and then finally an exhaling of breath as if the wind had been knocked out of him and the same question that seemed to ride with him always in the empty house in the cul-de-sac under the pressure of a gravity that would not release him: Why? Why marry someone if this was what it would be? Walter Jensen. And right across the street. He wondered if Quinn had known about it. The thought made him feel sick, the whining buzzsaw of his impending migraine rising all at once. He needed to get to his medication. He needed to get to it without delay.

“Christ,” he said. Just that one word. He did not move.

“Yeah,” she said. “And then she moves out and a couple of weeks later he’s out on business for a month? Am I stupid? Does he think I’m an idiot? I know what’s going on. He’s off with that whore in Atlanta. He’s not even good at hiding it either. He’ll just pay for hotel rooms and dinners on the same credit card bill that comes right to the house. Get a post office box at least.” Her eyes glassy with tears, her voice a thin monotone that rose in volume and intensity at random moments, as if she was very nearly unable to keep control at all.

There was silence in the room. He wondered if he should step into the closet and get a shirt and his jeans and then thought better of it. He wanted to pull the blinds and get into bed and hide. His mind and its thin wire of buzzing, the painkillers doing nothing to stop the onslaught now, the tide of his pain lapping up the beach. What time was it? Wasn’t there something happening today? “I don’t know what to say, Jennifer,” he said at last. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“No shit,” she said. “Walt never did anything like that. He’s not that kind of guy. He wouldn’t do that unless she just shook it in his face, you know?”

“OK,” he said.

“OK? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s not supposed to mean anything,” he said and when she said nothing in response he said, “I’m getting a shirt.”

He stepped backwards into the closet and pulled a short-sleeved button shirt from the rack and a pair of khaki pants and then stepped back into the room and put on the shirt and then stood buttoning it slowly, the pants draped over his arm. He looked at her, this beautiful woman whose husband had betrayed her. Indeed, they were more similar than he thought, not Jennifer and Barb but Jennifer and him.

“Look at me,” she said abruptly. “I’m actually tearing up over that asshole.” She closed the gap between them and embraced him and set her head lightly on his chest and was quiet. He put his arms around her, just as lightly, out of a fundamental instinct that was humanity itself.

“It’s OK,” he said.

She did not speak for a long time. Then she lifted her head from his chest.

“It’s fun, you and me, isn’t it?” she said.

It was an odd question but he answered it: “Yes.”