Chapter 2 #2
“The exposure levels are negligible,” Silas said.
“These guys want to lower the cutoffs, run the calculations for each chemical individually, which is insane. We use thresholds, that’s how it’s done.
We can’t just stop applying them or change how we do our assessments.
We tested the dialkyl sulfate. Genotoxicity isn’t a concern. It’s diluted in the air.”
June nodded along, thinking again of Val. When Val and Cash left the park, June had watched them walk away, wishing they would stay a little longer—and that was how she first caught sight of the mysterious figure between the tennis courts and the eastern side of the park.
From June’s perspective, the moment Val disappeared, this new person emerged, linking them in her mind as two parts to some whole.
The ball-cap-and-sunglass-wearing woman was lingering where passersby often stopped to watch the dogs through the chain-link fence.
Sometimes they were parents with small children, who would crouch and point, asking See the nice doggy?
Do you know what the doggy says? Sometimes they were teenagers with their phones aimed at catching a meme-worthy moment.
(Wait till they got a load of Val’s little maniac.) And sometimes it was mourners.
These were the people whose sorrow June could feel from across the field.
Half here in the present and half somewhere in the past, longing for something long gone.
This new person was one of them, June was sure of it.
Willow, who could catch the scent of sadness like a day-old piece of fish, noticed it, too. She scampered to the fence to better assess the situation.
June watched the woman remove her sunglasses at the appearance of the busybody pawing at the chain-link barrier, snorting and whimpering.
The cap-and-sunglasses combo was a sartorial pairing that always reminded June of her high school soccer coach, whose colorful collection of hats and lenses had inspired a cultlike following of young impersonators, including June, for a while.
Whether one’s ponytail should be kept inside or pulled out from the back of the hat to sway in the wind was a point of contention among June’s friends.
She was on Team Free Pony, whereas Coach K and the woman before June now were fans of the stuffed pony look.
Perhaps it was this resemblance to Coach K, along with a similar tall, athletic build, that made June feel like they had met before, though this woman’s eyes were a striking shade of green that June would have remembered, so perhaps not.
Still, to be safe, June hedged her uncertainty like she did with Silas’s colleagues at work events, with a just-familiar-enough “How are you?”
Her casualness in tone was meant to provide cover if they had met before, and would only make her appear friendlier if they hadn’t, but it seemed to backfire.
The stranger before her reddened from the tops of her ears to the bottom of her neck, as if she had been caught doing something unseemly. “I was just walking by,” she said, sounding apologetic and defensive.
“That’s okay.” June felt compelled to reassure her, put her at ease. When she introduced herself, she tried to seem extra welcoming.
Alex was her name. Again, June tried to place her. Maybe they had played against each other at some point? Or participated in the same camp or summer league?
Willow went up on her hind legs and stuffed her nose through an opening in the chain-link, trying every tactic she had to get a pet from this human.
Alex took a step back. “Is she a full golden, or mixed with something smaller? Maybe a Cavalier King Charles?”
Aha. So she did know dogs.
“We think she’s got some corgi in her, or maybe some Cavalier. We aren’t sure.” June took charge of Willow, calmed her to a whimpering sit. “But I’m certain she wants you to come inside.”
“I don’t have a dog,” Alex said. “I did. But not anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not—” Alex paused. “It’s not as morbid as that. I’m recently divorced. My ex-wife got the dog.”
“How awful!” June’s strong reaction got a smile from Alex that seemed to melt away some of her reticence. Soon after, June had convinced her to walk around to the park entrance, where June unlatched the gate and guided her toward the others.
“Ahem.” Silas interrupted her thoughts. “Are you alright?”
June returned to the present, where she was near the bottom of her bowl of chili. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s like you’re sitting here, but your mind is someplace else. Are you bored?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Are you unhappy?”
June began clearing the table to give herself something to do. “Silas, where’s this coming from?”
“You would tell me, wouldn’t you? If you didn’t love me anymore?”
June remained very still. He knows.
Silas began to rise from his chair, then thought better of it and remained seated. “Because I’d rather you be honest with me.” The look of pain on his face was brutal. “I’d rather you just come out with it, rather than try to deceive me.”
Only just recently had June considered divorce for the first time. She’d gotten as far as some rudimentary online research, but she’d quickly gotten spooked and closed it all down.
“I love you as much as the day we met,” she said. “You know I do.”
She had been careful not to leave a trail, but she must have missed some dumb little thing.
Silas stared deep into June’s eyes, looking as hurt as she’d ever seen him. His expression reminded her of Willow’s heartbreaking confusion when June would take away something sweet and wonderful that Willow picked up from the sidewalk, something June could not explain to her was also poisonous.
It did not help matters that Silas had the disarming, winsome charisma of an American Hugh Grant in his Notting Hill era, whom everyone always said Silas resembled.
Part of June wanted to tell him the truth, that it was a moment of weakness and frustration after he’d scolded her for something stupid, that it meant nothing.
Because ultimately June did still love Silas as much as they day they met; she just loved him differently.
It no longer felt like the pink valentine heart kind of romance, but it was childish to expect to swoon in her thirties.
Adult life wasn’t rose-colored glasses, kissing and hugging, feeling perpetually giddy over her sweetie-pie soul mate.
The thought had crossed June’s mind that maybe Silas wasn’t her soul mate after all—or maybe soul mates weren’t even real—but either way, it didn’t matter; he was still her husband.
Does Silas cheat? Does he drink too much? Take drugs? Gamble? These were the questions June imagined a divorce lawyer might ask. Has he ever hit you or threatened you?
Nope. But it got to June sometimes, all the correcting of her behavior, Silas’s constant refrain of How many times do I have to tell you.
Glasses go on the top rack of the dishwasher.
Don’t walk around while you’re brushing your teeth.
Push in your chair. Close the cabinet. How many times did he have to tell her, June wondered, before he would stop telling her?
“You’ve read one too many romance novels,” June’s mother once said, before June stopped going to her for advice. “Husbands can be grumpy and a little bit bossy. Welcome to real-time married life.”
There was no doubt something more complex going on with Silas.
Undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder, perhaps, coupled with a fear-based need to control his surroundings.
Both of which were serious issues that deserved sympathy and a gentle touch.
It was June’s problem—not Silas’s—that she was having more and more trouble finding that sympathetic gentility within herself.
Now, their staring contest ended with a stalemate. Enough time passed that Silas turned away, sulking. He picked up his water glass and took a long sip. Longer, longer, so parched he was by her failure to admit the truth.
Then some distant intrusion too slight for human detection startled Willow to her feet. Someone out on an evening stroll or riding by on a bicycle. Whatever it was, it was June’s cue.
“Willow has to be walked,” she said, heading for the leash still resting guiltily on the credenza, instead of the hook specified for that purpose.
Silas followed close behind. “But we’re in the middle of something.”
“Do you want to explain that to her after she pees on the floor?” June wrestled her feet into her sneakers, grabbed her house keys. At times like this, when Silas was hell-bent on having a fight, she could not escape the house fast enough. There was no other way to defuse him.
Fortunately, Silas was too in his own head to notice any of Willow’s highly predictable needs and wants. He was oblivious to the simple fact that June usually let Willow out into the backyard for her after-dinner potty.
Willow, though, was quick to catch on to the exciting surprise of a bonus walk.
She jumped and snorted, unable to stay still as June knelt to attach her leash to her collar.
Once it was connected, she beelined for the door.
Then she lost faith for a moment, as if this rare delight might be too good to be true, or maybe she was confused into thinking Silas was joining them because of the way he was hovering.
Who could say for sure what the reason was?
Dog logic was unreliable at best, but something made Willow double back, turn, launch forward again and figure-eight around Silas, tangling him up in her leash and disarming him like one of the robbers in Home Alone.
“For heaven’s sake!” Silas unwound one calf at a time. “How many times do I have to tell you? Hold that leash closer in. One of these days you’re going to get somebody killed.”