Читать книгу The Affair - Colette Freedman - Страница 18

CHAPTER 12

It was close to two thirty in the morning when Robert finally returned home.

Kathy wasn’t asleep. She’d tried reading for a little while—the new Patricia Cornwell—but she gave it up when she discovered that she’d read the same paragraph at least half a dozen times and it still didn’t make any sense. Dropping the book on the floor by the side of the bed, she’d flicked off the light, then climbed out of bed, pulled back the heavy curtains, and stood by the window, staring down the road. Watching. Waiting. Though she was not entirely sure what she was watching or waiting for.

For the first few years of their marriage, she had never gone to bed until Robert returned home. As the clock ticked on beyond midnight, she’d feel her tension increase as she began to imagine the worst: a drunk driver, a car accident, a carjacking. She couldn’t remember when she had stopped waiting up for him. When he had started staying out regularly, she supposed, when it became the norm rather than the exception.

Finally, chilled through to the bone, she had climbed back into bed and had lain on her back, staring at the patterns cast by the streetlights on the ceiling. She was trying to make sense of the last two days, but she couldn’t.

It kept coming back to questions, with one question dominating all others: Why?

Why would Robert have an affair?

Was it something she’d done? Something she hadn’t done?

Why?

Kathy dozed off with the question buzzing in and out of her consciousness.

The dream was formless, incidents from eighteen years of marriage running together into an endless sequence. In the dream she was always alone, alone in the house, alone with the kids, shopping alone . . . alone, alone, alone.

Weekends alone, weekdays alone, vacations alone.

Alone, alone, alone.

Kathy came awake with a start, suddenly snapping from disturbing images to consciousness.

Even fully asleep she’d heard a key turn in the lock. She was out of bed and at the window before she realized what she was doing. A curious mixture of emotions—relief and disappointment—flooded through her when she saw Robert’s car in the driveway. Then she slipped back into the warm bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin.

Alone.

Listening to Robert moving around downstairs, trying and failing to be silent, she realized that the abiding emotion of the dream had remained with her. And it overpowered her.

She felt lonely.

Where had the boyfriend she’d married gone? What had happened to the man with whom she’d shared everything? Where was the man she’d fallen in love with?

A flush of emotion brought tears to her eyes. She blinked furiously, then brushed her fingers roughly across her face, wiping away the moisture. And suddenly, she was able to identify that empty feeling she’d been living with for the past few years.

She was lonely. She was just so, so lonely.

She filled her time—she took classes, she volunteered—but there was always something missing. She had the children to keep her busy, friends to keep her company, her sisters to confide in and fight with . . . but it still didn’t fill the emptiness.

She heard Robert start up the stairs.

And then she knew that if he walked away and left her in the morning, she’d miss him certainly, miss his presence in the house . . . but probably not much else. He’d withdrawn from her a long time ago, little by little. She was only realizing it now.

Would his departure make any real differences to her life, she asked herself? She didn’t even have to think about the answer, and it burned in her stomach. If he left, it would make very little difference to their lives.

And that realization disturbed her more than any other.

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming home tonight.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t wake me,” Kathy said.

She watched the vague outline of him pull off his tie and fling it in the general direction of the dressing-table chair. She heard the silk hiss as it slid to the floor.

“I only had a couple of drinks, and the roads weren’t too bad.” He pulled off his jacket, folded it over the chair, and began to unbutton his shirt.

“I called earlier.”

“I didn’t get it.”

“It went straight to your voice mail.”

“We went to the Union Oyster House—bad place to get a signal.”

Your precious girlfriend had a signal, she wanted to add, but didn’t. Instead she asked carefully, “How’s Jimmy?”

“Jimmy’s fine. He sends his love.”

“I’m surprised he remembered me.”

“Of course he remembered you.”

“So you didn’t get into Top of the Hub?”

Robert’s white shirt reflected brightly in the streetlights. He peeled it off and dropped it on top of his jacket. “I’m going to call and complain in the morning. They said there wasn’t a reservation.”

“That’s strange. Maureen usually doesn’t make mistakes like that.” Maureen had manned the front desk of R&K from the very beginning, and Robert always said employing her was the best decision he had ever made. She’d started out in the City of Boston Film Bureau as a production assistant, and had spent twenty-five years there before she went freelance. She knew just about everyone in the business.

“It may have been the temp who made the booking. Maureen’s out sick at the moment.”

“You never told me!”

“Oh, I’m sure I did.”

She allowed a snap of anger in her voice. “You did not! I most certainly would have remembered. I worked with Maureen, remember?” For a long time Maureen had been their entire staff, and the two women had worked closely together. When Kathy’s mother had died suddenly and unexpectedly eighteen months earlier, leaving the three sisters distraught, Maureen had made all of the funeral arrangements. “How long has she been out sick?”

“I dunno. Three weeks . . . four,” Robert mumbled.

“And you never told me!” Her voice rose, and she lowered it again with a deliberate effort. “You never told me. I would have called her, visited her.”

“I’ve been busy. I must have forgotten.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Chest infection or something. Doctor’s note says she won’t be back until January. And it’s the busiest time of year,” he added almost petulantly.

“You make it sound as if she got sick deliberately. I can’t remember the last time she was ill. Can you?” she accused.

Robert didn’t answer. Naked, he stepped into the bathroom, pulled the door closed, and clicked on the light. She heard the buzz of his electric toothbrush. That was another of his tricks: When he was confronted with a question or situation where he knew he was in the wrong, he simply would fail to answer, or he’d change the subject.

“Who’s the new receptionist?” Kathy asked when he came out, flooding the room with light, temporarily blinding her.

“A temp. Illona. Russian, I think. I got her from an agency. She’s very good.”

Kathy had used the few moments while Robert was in the bathroom to cool her temper. She had been close to losing it when she’d learned that her friend Maureen was out sick. For a moment, the conversation had threatened to drift, and she needed to keep it on track.

“Maybe Illona made the reservation?” she suggested.

Robert pulled out a fresh pair of pajamas and tugged on the bottoms. “Maybe. But it was about four weeks ago; I’m pretty sure Maureen was still around then. It’s not a big deal. I’ll complain to the restaurant in the morning, if I get a chance.”

“Do you want me to do it for you?” she asked, expecting him to say no.

He shrugged into the top. “That’d be great. Table for two, Friday night, seven thirty, in either my name or Jimmy Moran’s. I used his name too just in case he got there first.”

Robert got into bed, wafting icy air under the sheets. He leaned across and kissed her politely on the cheek, and she caught a hint of alcohol on his breath. Nothing else. No perfume, no scents of soap or shampoo that would indicate that he’d recently had a shower.

“Night,” she muttered and rolled over, utterly confused, second-guessing herself. Was she completely wrong? Had he really been having dinner with Jimmy Moran?

Robert’s breathing quickly settled into a gentle rhythm, but Kathy couldn’t sleep. Was she being nothing more than the paranoid, mistrusting, insecure wife of a handsome man?

Or was she slowly unraveling half-truths from a tissue of lies her husband had so carefully crafted?