Janice Lee: The Expatriates

It feels like looking at pornography, making her feel sick with guilty pleasure, knowing that she shouldn’t be doing this, that she’ll feel worse afterward, filled with an empty despair, but she watches the short clips, tears streaming down her face, letting herself remember his high-pitched voice, the way he clung to her leg, his first steps.

She hears someone behind her, quickly closes the window, and sits up straight. Luckily, it’s not Clarke or the kids. She surreptitiously wipes at her eyes. She didn’t have a chance to go in too deep, so she can recover relatively quickly.

She went to a talk on parenting at the end of the school year where the speaker had said that doing good things, charitable things, was actually a selfish act, because it made you feel good. She has been mulling that ever since. Should she do something selfless, something good? Should she reach out to someone who really needs her forgiveness? Would this make her feel better?

What would it be like to see Mercy again?

She starts typing an e-mail, ferociously, savagely, and hits Send before she can think about it any more. Doing something, anything, feels like progress. She puts down her phone and waits for Clarke to come so they can order breakfast.

SHE HAS SAT through several sessions on adopting, started to process the paperwork, and otherwise gotten things rolling. And today she is meeting David for lunch to talk about what she had brought up at Clarke’s party. Nothing too emotional — she e-mailed him to see if he would be free, and he replied. They agreed to meet at the sushi restaurant in the mall that houses his offices. Twelve thirty. His secretary e-mailed her an evite, which made her wonder how much Pansy knew. Probably all. Maybe Pansy was the girl. She was pretty.

Hilary showers, gets ready. A purple shift, a chunky silver bead necklace clasped around her neck. She wants to look professional, accomplished, a woman who can handle becoming a single mother. Sam drives her into town. She hasn’t been in town in days, and she looks at all the efficient people striding around with purpose and drive. They carry briefcases or peck away at iPads in the coffee shops. They huddle, speaking urgently, or talk to the air on Bluetooth headsets curved around their ears. She has opted out, but she doesn’t know when that happened, when she gave up the chance to become one of them.

It’s partly the money in her family. While it doesn’t seem as much these days, compared with all the hundreds of millions being minted by young men in tech, it’s always been enough to know she doesn’t have to work. After she got married, it wasn’t as if she felt passionate about her job in PR, so it seemed natural to quit, to be able to travel with David on his business trips and wait for the family to start to form.

Except it hadn’t. And then David was gone too. And now she’s trying to find who she is in the midst of all that she is not.

She is early to the restaurant and sits down, orders green tea, peruses the menu. She sees David at the hostess station, pretends not to until he sits down.

“Hi,” he says awkwardly.

“Hi,” she says. “Thanks for coming.”

“Probably overdue,” he says.

She gives a surprised laugh. “Yes, probably,” she manages. She studies his familiar face, trying to find the difference in him, now that he is no longer with her.

They talk about mundanities, the weather, what they will order, until they have sorted all those things out, called over the waiter, given him their desires. Then they pause.

“So,” she says.

“Yes,” he replies. “I know. You say your piece, and then I have something I need to share with you as well.”

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath.

“I want to adopt Julian. You know this. I’m sorry I brought it up in such an abrupt way and at the wrong place, but I was emotional at the time. I still am. It’s a big decision.” He is listening to her, with a kind look on his face.

“And after you left, I didn’t know what had happened. David, I want you to know I don’t understand what you did, but I don’t hate you and I don’t blame you. I don’t think you were happy, and I wasn’t that happy either. We were just coasting, seeing what would happen, and then you pulled the plug. Right?”

He nods.

“But I’d really like for you to support me on Julian. I really want this, and I think you might owe it to me.”

He clears his throat as the waiter pours his Diet Coke. “Hilary, I want to apologize to you. I should never have done what I did in the way that I did.”

She nods.

“I don’t know why I did, but I was feeling like I didn’t have much to lose, and I wanted to do something that I wanted to do instead of what I was expected to do, which I had been doing for so much of my life, and I was kind of sick of it. I thought, if not now, when? When am I going to live my life? I didn’t want it to slip away without my noticing.”

“Okay,” she encourages.

“So I was a total bastard and just dropped out. And a coward, because you deserved much better. You deserved an explanation and a respectful way out of our marriage, and I didn’t give that to you.” He looks down at his drink, takes a sip.

“And I want to tell you that I’m fine with your adopting Julian. You can put me down. I actually don’t even know what I want my role to be yet, so we’ll work it out later.”

The waiter sets down trays with salads and miso soup. Hilary starts to sip at her soup.

“But there’s something else,” he says. “Something I need to tell you that is going to be very difficult for you, and I wish it weren’t.”

He pauses, visibly nervous.

“Things happen that you never imagine, and I never…” He stops. “I’m worried you’re not going to hear me out.”

Dread washes over Hilary. “What do you mean?” she manages to ask.

“I never meant to hurt you. But I met this girl and…” He stops, unable to go on.

“Are you in love?” she asks. “Was it before you left?”

“No, no,” he says. “The girl is not the thing.”

“Then what is?”

At this crucial point, their main courses arrive — dishes filled with colorful sushi. He waits until they are alone again.

“Well. I guess I have to tell you that this girl is pregnant.”

It’s almost as if Hilary can hear the whistling of the bomb coming through the air and then landing, BOOM, right next to her. She feels as if the wind has been knocked out of her. She cannot breathe.

David looks at her, tries to grab the hand that is holding on to the edge of the table as if she might fall down without it. She clamps down even harder, not giving him anything to hold on to.

“Hilary? I’m so sorry. I didn’t want it. I didn’t even think it could happen, with our history, and I didn’t think. I mostly took precautions too.”

She shakes her other hand in front of his face to stop him from talking any more. She can’t listen to any more words from him. She feels as if she is going partially deaf from the pressure building up in her head. The ambient noise of the restaurant disappears — all that remains is David’s face, with his mouth grotesquely large, saying unsayable things. She breathes in and breathes out, as if this will save her life.

“Please,” David’s enormous mouth is saying slowly. “Please say something. I’m so sorry.”

Hilary closes her eyes, to escape briefly into oblivion. She breathes in and out again.

“Okay,” she manages to say. “Okay. Just give me a second.”

David looks worried.

“You know,” she says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so concerned in our entire life together.” But what he’s said is still unfolding in her mind, and she goes silent again, trying to understand all the ramifications.