Chapter 9 – Cora #2
He glances at me over the rising flames. “I’m making s’mores for my family.” The real answer is written on his face. Why are you asking me that after what you did yesterday? You know why I’m here.
My teeth grind. There are cameras in the nursery, and in the house itself. Security is close by, at the gate. There are cameras out here, too, but security is on the other side of the property.
“Why don’t you just send a guard down here?”
I watch him decide whether or not to bullshit me. “I want to be here. I don’t want anyone else watching you.” I can’t decide if he picked bullshit or not.
“I’m not going to do anything crazy.” I’m too tired. Bone tired.
He nods noncommittally and wanders off, searching the grass.
He comes back with a nice long stick and squats again to sharpen it with his pen knife.
Even though I hate him, I’m still fascinated to see him do something like this with his hands.
He’s such the stereotypical city businessman.
Building fires and whittling sticks shouldn’t come as easy to him as everything else. He should have an Achilles’ heel.
For a while, he’s quiet, but then, like I knew he would eventually, he clears his throat. “I was thinking last night that the best thing to do in a situation like this would be—”
Every muscle in my body tenses. Blood roars into my ears. He’s going to send me away. Have me locked up. Pick some other sucker off the street to raise his kids.
Winnie blinks at me, baffled to find my nipple plucked from her mouth. I grab my boob, nudge her lips, and she latches back on.
Adrian is still talking. I force my brain to tune back in. “—do you think?”
“What did you say?” I somehow ask through my thick throat.
He has stopped sharpening his stick to stare intently at me. “I said that I imagine the recommendation in a situation such as this would be for you to talk to a professional. A therapist of some kind.”
“No.” My spine snaps, and my nipple pops out of Winnie’s mouth again. She whines.
“We can talk to Farhadi—”
“I said no.” Winnie’s whimper stops cold, her wide eyes fixing on my face.
Therapists don’t help. They act like your friend for exactly fifty minutes, and then the chime on their phone goes off, a switch is flipped, and you’re a sad story and somebody else’s problem. And that’s the best-case scenario.
If you make a problem for them, if they know you don’t have anyone, and they’re sick of dealing with punk kids, well they’ve got a quiet room, right? And restraints and olanzapine.
“But—”
“Keep talking about it, and you’ll be sorry.” I stare him down. I can’t back up the threat—I have no ideas, no leverage—but I mean it.
After a pause, Adrian drops a solemn nod. “Okay.”
I wait for him to suggest the same thing a different way or give me some kind of ultimatum that makes therapy the only choice.
Instead, he blows off the tip of his sharpened stick and rises to his feet. “Do you want a s’more or just the marshmallow?” He rummages in the cooler, taking out a plastic bag.
I’m so surprised that he just dropped it that I say, “Marshmallow.”
“I figured.” His lips curve, his smile mostly confident, but if I look closely, and I’m not imagining it, also the smallest bit hesitant. Like he’s worried about how that conversation played out.
He spears three marshmallows and holds them over the flame, spinning the stick slowly to toast the sides evenly. I like bubbling and crispy, but not blackened. It’s a fine line to tread.
He toasts them perfectly and brings them over, a paper plate underneath to catch the goo.
“Did Minh pull this stuff together for you?” I ask as he sits next to us. I got Winnie back on the nipple, and now she’s passed out on the boob.
“He did.” Adrian offers me the marshmallows. I slide one off the stick, careful not to hold it over Winnie’s head. I pop it in my mouth. It’s gooey and delicious.
It takes me a while to swallow and lick the stickiness from my lips. Adrian sits beside me, staring at the fire, holding the stick level so the remaining two marshmallows don’t slide down it.
“You can’t make things right between us by being nice to me, you know.” I don’t say it to be mean. It’s just a fact.
I take another marshmallow before he can get angry and walk away with them. To my surprise, he leans back in his seat and manspreads. His thigh presses mine. I’m suddenly very aware how close we are and that we’re basically alone out here, except for the girls.
“Were things ever really right between us, Cora?” he asks quietly.
What? The urge to scream in his face wells up inside me. Why is he asking me? I thought they were. I believed. I was happier than I knew a person could be on this earth.
But what about the prenup? What about the fact that I’ve been lying to him since I met him? The anger ebbs from my body.
“I guess not,” I mutter.
I figure that’s it. He’s made his point. End of scene. Drop the curtain. But instead, he stretches his arm to rest it on the back of the bench. His hand hovers centimeters above my shoulder.
“I can’t focus on work,” he says, staring at the fire. “My head hurts. Nothing sits right in my stomach. I’m fucking miserable. I can’t sleep without you.”
The words are so unexpected, my brain processes them in a delay, like I’m drunk.
“Sucks to suck. Go sleep with Delaney,” I finally say, not out of spite, but out of self-defense. I’m throwing the first thing that comes to hand. I can’t let what he says matter. I can’t give any air to the little voice in the back of my head, sobbing me neither.
He squares his jaw. “That’s over with.”
I press my mouth shut, trying to curve my shoulders away from his arm while not disturbing Winnie.
“Not on my account,” I say.
“Yes, on your account.”
“What you do—or don’t do—doesn’t impact my life in any way. You said so.”
“Cora—what I said—” He searches for words, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he’s at a loss, and I wish I felt even a little satisfaction, but all I am is cold.
“If you’re bored of Delaney, fuck someone else. Your private life has no bearing on this marriage. It doesn’t affect my day-to-day in any way.” I’m not at a loss. Every horrible word he said that night is right at my fingertips.
He draws in a deep breath. “I regret saying that.”
“I regret that I ever met you.”
“Your pride is hurt.”
“Yes. My pride. That’s all. Because this is a transaction. It’s not like I loved you or anything.”
“Cora, can you honestly say we even know each other?”
No. I can’t.
But I know he wears three deodorants, and which is for which purpose. I know how he smells first thing in the morning, and after a shower, and when he comes home from work. I know the exact location of every mole and freckle on his body. I could map them out on paper.
I’ve learned all the words from his world—sommelier, croupier, valet, amuse-bouche, scull, chukka, concierge, atelier. I know he works with money, and people are intimidated by him, and he’s insanely good at what he does.
I know he was kidnapped when he was a kid, and he still has nightmares, but he never talks about it. I know his mother abandoned the family, and his father couldn’t care less about him, and his brothers are all scary as hell, but I don’t know how he feels about any of it.
What is all that if I don’t know him?
“Come on, Cora,” he says. “Talk to me.”
I hike up my chin. “Talk to my lawyer.”
I’m glaring at the fire, so I don’t see his expression, I only hear the long silence. Then he raises the stick a little closer to my hand. “Last one,” he says.
I don’t move.
He waits. The marshmallow slides. It’s going to fall on the ground and get wasted.
I reach out and slip it free. It doesn’t taste as good as the first two, but it’s still gooey. While I chew, Adrian shifts his hand ever so subtly to thread a strand of my hair through his fingers. I pretend I don’t notice.
Eventually, he gets up to make Pearl her s’more.
I tuck a sleeping Winnie back in her carrier.
We sit around the fire, Pearl coating herself in melted chocolate and marshmallow, Adrian crouched beside the fire, poking the embers with his stick.
After Pearl eats her fill, I clean her up the best I can with a baby wipe.
I expect Adrian to bail, but he offers to push Pearl on the swings, and when she asks to feed the ducks the leftover graham crackers, he agrees. We walk along the river to the boathouse, stalked by ducks, and when Pearl begins to whine, he carries her back to the house for her nap.
Once both girls are settled, he takes his time seeing himself out of the nursery, examining various toys and then lingering in the doorway.
“Thank you for spending time with me today,” he says. It’s a smooth line, but it comes out brusque and awkward. His sincerity feels like lemon on a hangnail. It would’ve been worth something before. Now it’s so inadequate, it’s an insult.
I kneel and start returning toys to their bins to avoid looking at him. “You know, you can’t change your tune and be sorry now. It’s too late.”
“You don’t make the rules,” he answers, knocks once on the door frame, and disappears down the hall.