32. Zelda
ZELDA
Otto is concentrating on the red bird while Jeremiah warms a bottle at my sink.
“I’ll be back by four.”
“We’ll be here. Unless he asks me out for coffee.”
“Don’t give him any.”
Jeremiah looks over his shoulder. “He’d have to pay. I didn’t bring cash.”
I laugh. Then I check my bag for the phone I put in it less than a minute ago.
They have spent plenty of time together. This is the first afternoon I have left them at my apartment to do something social by myself. In the hall I stop to listen, already missing a child I can still see through the door.
Jeremiah tests the milk against his wrist. Otto objects to waiting.
“He’s got your patience,” I say.
“Go and have something cold to drink.”
I kiss Otto once more and go.
Suri’s garden is full of people and the smell of ripe peaches. It is late July. I have forgotten how to hold a drink without keeping the other arm free for a baby. I change hands twice before I settle into a chair.
A woman from the library asks whether Otto is all right. I say yes and reach for my bag.
“I meant generally,” she says, smiling. “You don’t have to check.”
I laugh at myself and leave the phone alone.
She tells me a boy has started drawing waistcoats on all his animals after our badger story. Even the fish. I describe Jeremiah adding a waistcoat with a hole in its pocket to my drawing, and for once saying his name in company doesn’t make me wonder which version of our marriage people have heard.
Suri brings peaches. I bite into one over a napkin.
Then Candace comes through the gate.
She carries pastries from the shop we used to visit after long shifts. I know the box before I can make myself look at her face.
Suri takes it. She says hello.
I put the peach down. Juice has reached the heel of my hand. I keep staring at Suri, waiting for her to look at me, to give me some sign that she didn’t know.
She looks away first.
I go into the kitchen to wash my hands. Candace follows.
“You look well.”
I turn the tap harder than it needs.
“Don’t.”
“I was being civil.”
I watch water run over my wrist. I came here for an afternoon in a garden. I left Otto happy with his father. She should not be in this room with me.
“Did you send the video to my director?”
“Nobody signed that email.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
She takes a paper towel from the holder and holds it out. I get my own.
“You’ve made up your mind about me.”
“You helped me make the footprints. You knew what that table meant.”
“And Jeremiah knew what my business meant.” Her voice lifts. “I have one booking where I used to have seven. A woman I’d known for years canceled her anniversary.”
“Because you lied about me.”
“Because he told everyone.”
I turn off the water. The kitchen is quiet enough to hear the garden outside.
“He should have told them sooner.”
Candace looks at my bare hand and smirks. “Still no ring.”
I fold the wet paper towel, stay silent.
“Is he just being a father, then? Or have you decided that’s enough?”
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“You told me every time he let you down.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I was the one who listened.”
I want to say she was. I hate that she can still reach that part of me, the cold car, the tissues, somebody staying until I could finish a sentence.
“And then you told the room,” I say.
The woman from the library comes in for ice with a child on her hip. Candace moves aside, courteous mask sliding into place. She watches the woman reach for the scoop.
“You were fifteen weeks at the Christmas party,” she says. “I did the sums once. He was never home that autumn, Zelda. You told me so yourself. Has anyone asked Jeremiah whether he’s counted? If he’s sure?”
The scoop stops against the ice.
I don’t understand at first. Weeks of what?
Then I do, and I see Otto on the rug with the red bird. His father bending over a bottle. The little life I left safely at home.
I have crossed the kitchen before I know I am moving. My hand is up, level with her face.
Candace smiles.
I bring it down flat on the counter.
The sound makes the child jump. Pain shoots through my palm. I leave it there, spread against the surface, because I cannot trust it in the air.
“Don’t you speak about my son. Don’t speak about my husband. Don’t speak about my marriage.”
My voice is so low that Candace leans a fraction nearer.
“I only?—”
“Get out.”
“Out,” Suri says from the doorway.
She has been cutting peaches. She sets the knife down behind her and comes into the kitchen.
“Candace. Front door. Now.”
“I just asked a question.”
“You know what you said. Go.”
Candace looks past her toward the garden, where two people have stopped talking. She picks up her bag. The pastries stay on the counter.
I look at them until the front door shuts.
“Zelda?”
Suri reaches for my arm. I move it away.
The child begins asking for a drink. Her mother takes her outside, giving me a look I cannot bear to answer. I want to tell her I have never cheated on my husband.
I want to ask whether she believed any part of it. The words would make me sick if I said them.
“Did you invite her?” I ask Suri.
“The invitation went out weeks ago. She accepted this morning.”
“And you knew.”
Suri nods.
The kitchen tiles seem to tilt a little. I put my unhurt hand on the counter.
“You promised.”
“I thought the garden was big enough. I thought?—”
“You thought I could be quiet. Could be good. Not make a fuss.”
“No.” She stops, then says, “I thought you could manage it. I should have called you.”
I breathe through my mouth. There is sugar on the pastry box, spilled in the shape of a thumb.
“I nearly hit her.”
“You didn’t.”
“That doesn’t make this all right.”
“I know.”
I want my bag. I cannot remember where I put it, although I have been sitting beside it all afternoon.
“Please get my things.”
Suri goes at once. When she returns, she has my bag and phone. I take them without thanking her.
“She still has an invitation to the engagement lunch,” Suri says. “I’m withdrawing it. And the wedding. Any invitation from me.”
I look at her.
“She can’t come here and do this again.”
“Then tell her. Don’t make me ask next time.”
“I will.”
She is crying now. I feel the old urge to tell her I know she meant well, to make leaving her kitchen less terrible for both of us.
I put my phone into my bag instead.
“Don’t invite me to anything for a while. I need to know a promise from you means more than whether the garden is big enough.”
Suri nods. She doesn’t ask how long.
Outside, somebody calls goodbye. I lift a hand and keep walking. In the car I discover I am still holding the crumpled paper towel. There is a red mark across my palm where I struck the counter.
I sit until I can unclench the other hand around my keys.
It isn’t four when I get home. Jeremiah looks up from the rug. Otto lies beside him, outraged that the cloth page has folded shut.
“The bird is still there,” Jeremiah tells him, opening it again.
I stop in the doorway. For one breath I want to leave the afternoon outside and have this instead.
“How was it?”
I put down my bag.
“Candace was there.”
He stills.
“Suri knew. She didn’t tell me.”
“What happened?”
I try to begin with the pastries, as if telling it in order will make it possible. Nothing comes out. Jeremiah gets up, leaving Otto safe on the blanket, and takes one step toward me.
“Zelda?”
“She asked whether you’d counted the weeks. She said you were never home that autumn.”
His face goes white.
“She was saying?—”
“I know what she was saying.”
I can’t look at him. I fix my eyes on the little folded corner of the blanket.
“It isn’t true.”
“I know.”
He says it before I can add anything. I look up.
“I believe you, Zelda. I don’t need a date or an explanation.”
My mouth is still open around the beginning of one. I close it.
“You’re not going to ask?”
“No.”
I sit down on the rug because my legs have begun to shake. Otto sees me and moves both arms. I reach for him too quickly, then slow down and lift him against my chest.
Jeremiah kneels beside us.
“Suri threw her out,” I tell Jeremiah, keeping Otto tucked against me. “She’s canceled the other invitations. I told her I need some time.”
“All right.”
I wait for the question I have already answered. It doesn’t come.
Otto pulls back to look at me, his eyebrows drawn together. I let out a wet, startled laugh.
“He looks offended.”
“Hedy warned us about the eyebrows.”
I look from my son to his father. Jeremiah’s eyes are wet too.
“I nearly slapped her.”
He looks at my hand. I turn the palm up.
“I hit the counter.”
He holds out his hand. I put mine in it, carefully. He cups it without pressing the sore place.
I sit between them until I can breathe without waiting to defend myself.