Chapter 56
Sam doesn’t come home for hours. I sit on the couch staring at the door, my stomach in knots, until eventually I call him, but he doesn’t answer.
I call twice more during the next hour, then finally send him a text message around eleven asking if he’s okay.
Now I get a response. A curt yes, followed by go to bed.
So that’s what I do. If Sam wants space, there’s nothing I can do about it. I climb between the covers and turn the TV on, mostly because the silent apartment is unnerving.
Then, at midnight, Sam comes back.
I hear the front door open, then close. A moment later, he appears at the bedroom door.
I think he’s going to try to make up. He’s right there.
I can see it in his face. But instead, he grabs his pillow and stomps off to the living room and the couch, slamming the bedroom door closed as if to punctuate his exit.
I don’t sleep for a long while, lying and waiting for him to return.
Hoping his anger will thaw. It doesn’t, and eventually I drift off into a fitful sleep.
I’m awakened early the next morning by the sound of Sam moving around the bedroom.
I pretend I’m still asleep, watching him through mostly closed eyes, as he showers and dresses.
When he’s gone, I lie there a while longer, then get up, make coffee, and sit at the island wallowing in a pool of misery.
I’m not feeling much better by the time I meet my mother for the lunch date we’d arranged over the phone several days before.
Stetski’s Deli is everything the name suggests.
They even declare their pastrami on rye to be better than anything found on New York’s Lower East Side, which is a dubious claim at best. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but it is the safe one, since my mother doesn’t exactly have adventurous taste in food.
A couple of years ago, Sam and I met my parents at an Indian restaurant.
She refused to partake of anything except the naan bread and even complained about that.
She has no such problem today and demolishes a corned beef sandwich while talking a mile a minute between mouthfuls about Dad, and how he’s working himself into an early grave.
When she asks about Sam—more out of duty than genuine interest—and how we’re liking it at the Glendale, I say what’s expected of me.
He’s fine. I’m fine. The apartment is fine.
Everything in my life is a bed of roses!
I tell her nothing of our conversation the night before, or what I’ve been experiencing, because I don’t want her to think I’ve relapsed.
And I certainly don’t want my father to hear about it, or he’ll be trying to book a session to crack open my head and rummage through my perceived psychosis.
Afterward, we make our way to Chestnut Hill and spend a couple of hours wandering in and out of stores.
It’s three thirty by the time I arrive back at the Glendale with a couple of shopping bags in each hand.
I take the elevator to the fourth floor and reach the apartment.
I drop the bags on the floor and rummage in my pocket for the door key.
But before I can use it, the door opens, and Sam is standing there. He looks surprised to see me.
I’m even more surprised, because it’s three thirty on a Friday afternoon, and he should be at work.
“Jordan. I didn’t think you would be home so soon.” His tone is flat and tense—no surprise, under the circumstances. He looks past me as if he was expecting someone else. “You’re always gone for so long when you go out with your mother. I figured you’d be at least a couple more hours.”
“Trust me, three hours is long enough.” I glance around, wondering who Sam is looking for, but I don’t see anyone.
But I do notice Kalina’s door, which is slightly open.
A thin sliver of apartment is visible through the gap.
A wood floor, a slice of dark-green-painted wall, and part of a swirling abstract painting. “Why are you home so early?”
“Catherine.” Sam looks over my shoulder one more time, his eyes roaming the hallway, then steps aside to let me into the apartment.
“She called me at work. Apparently, there’s some sort of problem with the pipes in a bathroom above us on the fifth floor.
She wanted to make sure water wasn’t leaking into our apartment.
She said you weren’t home and didn’t pick up when she called you. ”
“You knew I was having lunch with my mom today.” I take my phone out and check the call log—not that I’m in any way suspicious. There is nothing from Catherine or anyone else. “I didn’t get a call.”
“Just telling you what she told me.”
“Why didn’t Angelo take care of it?” The whole point of having a doorman is that he has access to the apartment if there’s a problem.
“How would I know.” There’s a weary Here we go again tone in his voice.
Sam’s explanation is perfectly reasonable, but I can’t help thinking that something is off with his reaction.
How his gaze kept shifting past me into the hallway.
A knot twists in my stomach as an image forces its way into my head of how I found Sam and Kalina down in the laundry room, huddled like conspirators. “How long have you been home?”
“Since about two thirty.”
It feels a little too convenient that the plumbing issue happened on the one day I’m not at home and working in my office.
I’m tempted to turn around and go upstairs, find Catherine, and ask her if Sam is telling the truth.
But I don’t, because that would only solidify his conviction that I need counseling.
And anyway, would he really be stupid enough to tell such an easily disprovable lie?