Into the Fall

Chapter 24

September 2016

The canoe trip was still two weeks away, but Bella and Charlie were buzzing. The night before, they’d gone to the backyard despite the cool September air, flashlights in hand, to hunt for night crawlers on the dew-dampened lawn. Sarah heard their giggles through the open kitchen window. This is enough, isn’t it, she thought, listening to the soft murmur of her family, and yearned to believe it.

As hard as she tried to put Grace behind her, the name that had popped up on Matt’s phone wormed its way back into Sarah’s awareness. When she gave herself time to imagine, Sarah pictured someone younger, thinner, less burdened by the baggage of kids and a nine-year marriage. In those moments, her mind did a passable job at dodging and weaving, like a demented Ms. Pac-Man avoiding the ghosts of infidelity as she barreled through the maze. It was working passably well, until she’d stumbled on an email the day before.

She’d rushed out of work in the usual late tailspin, a half-written email to the theater’s top benefactors still on her laptop. The art world was fed by the kindness of patrons, and she had already had the incoming message for several days. She needed to finish her response. Today.

Once home, she thanked her luck that the kids were actually playing quietly in the living room for a change. She put a frozen lasagna in the oven and opened her laptop. The screen remained stubbornly black. Belatedly, Sarah remembered the flashing message that had appeared on her screen just before she powered down at work; a warning that her battery was on life support.

“Shit,” she said under her breath, picturing the charging cable left on her office desk. Sarah sighed, thinking of the consequences of not responding to the email tonight. She toyed with the idea of loading up the kids and heading back to the office to grab the power cord, but that seemed overkill. Matt was at the gym, and his computer lay a few feet away. She’d rarely touched it, but she was sure she could log on to her work email and finish the last few lines.

She stepped into Matt’s study. The room had a permanent chill from old windows and poor insulation. She didn’t bother turning on the lights. It would only take a couple of minutes; light from the windows was enough.

Sarah’s thoughts fell into a free fall as soon as the screen awoke. An email program was open on the computer; she was poised to close it when a name caught her attention. Grace. It sat at the top of a list of emails, black against a white background, and still in bold. The email hadn’t been opened yet. Sarah’s hand shook as she reached for the mouse. Click. A short message sprang onto the screen, like a slap.

Dear Matt,

I understand that you want to see me more often. I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I have a life. I have a happy life and I don’t know whether more of you would make it better.

Please understand, I need time. You owe me that.

Grace

p.s. I’m already saving for my future so the money isn’t necessary, but I appreciate the gesture.

Every word on the page was English, but none of it had any meaning to Sarah. Questions exploded in her head, too quick for her to grab hold of one. Money. What money? How much had he given this woman? Why is he doing this? Who is she? Where did he meet her? But the final question—dripping with accusation—clawed at the gossamer trust she had weaved into her marriage: What is he up to? Sarah reread the email several times hunting for clues, but it was maddeningly silent.

“Mooom, we’re hungry.” Bella’s voice, a complaint and a demand. “When’s dinner?”

Sarah right-clicked the mouse. Her eyes scrolled her options: Delete, Junk, File. Her finger lifted off the mouse on the only obvious choice to her: Mark as Unread. In her mind, she watched the letters disappear as if consumed by a prism, the contents fractured into incompressible bits of light.

That evening, the email teetered in Sarah’s mind for a few hours until she stopped thinking about it. She said nothing to Matthew. Household discards—Charlie’s lost tooth, the laundry, a half-eaten apple left to dry between the couch cushions—settled over top like archaeological sediment. The email existed in a no-man’s-land of real and unreal, buried beneath the more important droppings of family life.

Grace, however, would not stay buried.

The next morning, Sarah searched for an umbrella before heading out to work while Matt and the kids negotiated breakfast in the kitchen.

“I completely get Sebastian’s parents give him Lucky Charms for breakfast every day, but in this house, it’s peanut butter toast. Now eat up,” Matt said in response to Charlie’s complaints.

“Has anyone seen an umbrella? Any umbrella would do,” Sarah said.

“Have you checked the closet?”

“First place I looked. Dammit!” Sarah accidently knocked a pile of junk off the hall table, sending Goldfish crackers skittering across the floor. She knelt to pick them up when the memory of the email came into focus, refusing to stay buried as the detritus of life was swept away. For a second, Sarah wondered whether she’d only dreamed about the email. Still crouched on the floor, bright-orange cracker crumbs in one hand, she heard Matt’s voice, and she knew. It would never stay buried.

“Look, Bella, I know you had your heart set on signing up for hockey this year, but we’ll have to see. It’s a really expensive sport. I’m just not sure we can swing it this year. We have to save for your future, you know.” Sarah heard the wink in his voice. “Maybe you can start next year?”

The phrase tore through Sarah’s mind, carving a valley that drew all thoughts toward it.

Save for your future. Whose future did Matt mean? Certainly not Bella’s. Not when he was sending money to a mistress who said she wanted nothing to do with him.

“Your umbrella, madame.” A purple umbrella with pink polka dots appeared in front of her eyes.

Sarah spun to see Matt looking down on her, a triumphant smile on his face. “That’s Bella’s,” she said.

“Yes, well, beggars can’t be choosers, I’m afraid.” Matt chuckled and turned back to the kitchen.

Sarah felt as if the floor had disappeared. The coffee and yogurt in her stomach sprang up, burning her throat. She swallowed and stood, leaning onto the cold plastic of the childish umbrella in her hand. The email’s presence burbled up from the depths of Sarah’s consciousness, like molten rock breaking through the crust.

“You’re going to be late,” Matt said as Sarah stepped out the door without looking behind her.

Though she tried to push thoughts of the email aside at work, it was futile. She felt like she was a Peanuts character walking through a world of grown-ups whose mangled and distorted voices were nonsensical to her ear. Walking home after work, Sarah’s nerves quivered with every step. She barely heard the conversation at dinner and welcomed the distraction of Charlie and Bella’s prattling arguments. The kids talked animatedly about the canoe trip, with Bella leading much of the conversation.

“Now, Charlie,” Bella said in her best imitation of an adult voice, “you’ve never been canoe camping before, so you’ll have to do everything I say. No arguments.” Charlie nodded; his face scrunched in concentration.

Matt winked at Sarah, inviting her to share in his amusement, but all she managed was a sliver of a return smile. His eyebrows raised a silent question that she ignored.

“Right, dessert?” Sarah said to a clamor of “ice cream, ice cream” from the kids. “I have an idea. Why doesn’t Daddy take you to Canadian Tire to get those headlamps you were talking about, while I clean up? And maybe, if you’re good, you can stop at Dairy Queen after?”

“Yaahhh!”

Sarah thought she saw a brief look of annoyance cross Matt’s face, but it vanished before she could be sure. “Ice cream it is?” he said while getting up from the table. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll take care of the dishes. You guys go.”

Charlie came to give her a hug. “It’s okay, Mommy. We’ll bring you a slurpy cone.” Sarah hugged her son, unexpectedly relieved by his kindness.

After hastily cleaning the kitchen, Sarah went straight to Matt’s study and flicked on his computer. The screen blazed to life. She input the password and then sat in front of the Windows-blue screen, unsure how to begin. Sarah had a complicated relationship with computers; she appreciated their utility, but their special language stymied her. Through past mistakes, she had learned how to find deleted emails, so she started there. Most of the names on the email chains meant nothing to her, but then, why should they? She knew nothing about Matt’s work. A contract IT professional, he worked for several different organizations, sometimes at the same time. The names and subject lines all seemed normal, though she doubted she would notice anything abnormal if she saw it. She bounced around in Matt’s electronic life, feeling desperate and foolish.

She was about to abandon the search when the name surfaced in Matt’s inbox once again: Grace . She clicked.

Matt: Here is my email address. Grace.

The email had arrived on May 25, almost four months ago. Sarah’s body shut down, as if the pixels entered her bloodstream and severed her mind-body connection. She forgot how to draw breath and felt her face burn hot in warning. With effort, she willed her lungs to draw and expand with air. And then again. Until muscles and nerves were able to respond once more.

Sarah glanced at the clock. She guessed she had twenty, maybe twenty-five, minutes before Matt and the kids walked through the door. She rifled further through Matt’s emails, looking for Grace’s trail. But there were no other traces of her. Even the email she’d seen the day before had vanished. He was hiding his tracks.

Sarah closed any windows she’d opened on the computer and replaced the chair under the desk. She scrutinized the desk, making sure her presence would not be noticed, and left the study.

She squinted under the sudden bright light in the kitchen. Her mind whirled thoughts around like a blender, grinding away at the image Sarah had of her husband. He was lying to her. Denying their children. Pretending that he was a devoted husband and father while feathering a nest with another woman. Sarah’s mind traveled the paths of her next steps, each one seeming worse than the last. Confront Matt? Tear apart her family? Find this woman, this Grace? Tell her to leave her husband alone? Her head thudded with each unpalatable option.

Her feet led her to the basement. The space was cool. Sarah tucked her hands into the sleeves of her sweater. He could have left in May or last month or last week. Questions bounced around her head: Was he having an affair? Was it a threat to the life she had built with Matt? Was it over? Or was there more to come? One by one, each gave way to the most important one: Why was he hurting their family?

A fluorescent bulb flickered above Sarah’s head. Light struggled to reach the stone-gray walls of the basement. A familiar anger rumbled through Sarah’s body like an aftershock; it ran across her tongue, tasting of apple cider vinegar, and filled her ears as it moved down her throat, tightening her airway, making her feel like she was breathing through a straw. It thumped against her chest, anchoring itself as a sharp nausea in her stomach, before tumbling outward across her limbs.

The tent and sleeping bags were neatly laid out on the cement floor. Other items were scattered around, forming a constellation of camping needs: flashlights, a standing lantern, an old pot set, bug spray. In the center of it all, two large backpacks stood at the ready, their lids open like gaping mouths. She had no idea what brought her down here. A voice in her mind chastised her. What do you think you’re doing? What are you looking for down here?

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” Sarah said through gritted teeth.

As if from a distance, Sarah watched herself raise her leg and kick the empty backpack in front of her. A satisfying thump echoed against the stone walls. She raised her leg again. Her hands drew up in front of her chest in fists this time, giving her balance and purchase as her leg swung at the target. Again and again her leg fell onto the bag. Her hamstring screamed. Sweat pooled at the small of her back. Her breath gasped on the edge of a sob.

“Bastard!” Sarah screamed with each blow, until her voice gave out and she fell to her hands and knees. The now misshapen backpack lay on its side. “If you’re going to leave me for her, then just leave.”

As quickly as it had arrived, the fury leaked away, leaving Sarah spent and alone. She pushed herself up on a breath and noticed a flash of red at the lip of the backpack. Matt’s habit had always been to lay all the gear out first and then pack. Sarah looked around and saw everything laid out or still sitting on shelves. She was surprised he had already packed something.

She squatted and tugged on a red neoprene dry bag that had been shoved into the bottom of the pack. Sarah grabbed at it with both hands and pulled. The bag popped out on a sigh of air, tossing Sarah backward. When she sat up, the bag lay in her lap. She unclipped the latch and dumped the contents onto the floor. Matt’s wet suit. The sight of it rekindled Sarah’s slackened anger. The wet suit had been an extravagant purchase years before when Matt had been between contracts and Sarah was on maternity leave. She had been worrying about how they were going to make the mortgage payment when Matt had waltzed in with an expensive triathlon suit that had felt like a slur on their fragile life.

Sarah snatched up a screwdriver from a nearby shelf and brought the head down on the rubberized material of the wet suit. She felt the metal point slip through, leaving a satisfying slash in the fabric. The tightly woven neoprene closed together as the screwdriver pulled out. Sarah stabbed at the material again, the metal point gliding through like a paddle in smooth waters. She raised her arm again.

Only exhaustion stopped her assault. Matt’s wet suit lay prostrate at her feet, emblazoned with dozens of punctures. There was some satisfaction in the sight, enough to settle her anger into the pit of her belly. Sarah kicked the wet suit one last time before leaving the basement, sending it shuddering against the far wall. She stepped on the dry bag as she made her way to the stairs. Back to her family. Her final thoughts as she ascended: He’s still here; there’s still time to reclaim what’s mine. She imagined each step up bringing her closer to her home, her family, and the life she claimed as her own.

“Daddy let me have a big one!” Charlie said as he waltzed through the door. Sarah was sitting on the living-room couch, an unread book on her lap.

“What? He didn’t! Don’t tell me you ate it all?” Sarah said.

Charlie grinned, the answer in the milky crust ringing his mouth and across the back of his hands.

“Guess you better go hop in the bath then.”

“Look what Dad got us!” Bella said. She turned over a plastic bag with the candy-red Canadian Tire logo and spilled the headlamps, a number of chocolate bars, and a box containing a miniature chess set onto the couch. “See look, it’s a game. Well, it’s lots of games. Daddy says we can play checkers and chess and snakes and ladders and—what was the other one, Daddy? The one you said you’d teach me?”

“Backgammon.”

“Ya, backgammon! Daddy’s going to teach me how to play.”

“That’s awesome. Maybe he can teach me too,” Sarah said.

“Okay, but I’m first. Right, Daddy?”

“Right, Bella.” Matt nodded in mock seriousness.

“Up in the bath with you, too, Bella. Go start the water. I’ll be up in a minute.” Sarah said.

“Okaay.” Bella sulked up the stairs, casting annoyed glances at Sarah as she climbed.

Sarah watched her daughter, amazed with the boundless energy that seemed to inhabit both her children. Bone-weary fatigue descended over her as she battled every instinct to decimate her husband with what she’d found on his computer.

“You all right?” Matt asked.

“Just fine,” Sarah said, before disappearing up the stairs to help the kids into the bath.