After #2
She focused on the water again, tumbling.
Their life would eventually tumble forward past this, too.
As if it had never happened. Gretchen could make that decision.
So much of truth was a choice. What we chose to see, how we decided to interpret events.
Relationships were not objective facts and figures.
It was for each person to keep their own accounting, to decide which costs were the right ones to bear.
Gretchen was startled by a rush of motion next to her. When she looked down, the tote bag was gone, and a tall, bald man in a khaki-colored jacket and jeans was striding away. Not running, but walking swiftly.
She jumped up to follow—she wasn’t even sure why. She wanted him to have the money. But he’d already disappeared into the fading light anyway, out of view down a path, maybe, or into the crowd of wandering tourists. Gone, for sure, and along with him any hope of closure.
—
It took hours for Gretchen to calm down after she got home. Forever to fall asleep after she was in bed hours later. When she finally did, it felt like two seconds later that she startled awake. There was someone in her room.
“What—who is that?” she shouted, scrambling back against the headboard, tugging the sheet up like a shield. The men. But she had just paid them! She blinked, hoping it was the leftover fragment of a dream, but the person was still there. “Get out of my house!”
“Mom!” Becks’s voice. “Sorry, sorry. It’s me, sorry…”
He stepped forward, then wobbled.
“Becks, are you drunk? What are you even—? You’re supposed to be back at school.”
It had taken some convincing to get him into an Uber to Penn Station. But he’d eventually agreed. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had refused to go back to the Community.
“Nah. Not drunk. Only a couple of beers with Luke.” But when he dropped down onto the bed next to her, he almost slid off.
Luke was a friend of Becks’s from Riverdale.
He was taking a semester “off” from Duke, though the rumor was he’d failed out and was living downtown with a bunch of “street artists” or some nonsense.
No one wanted to inquire too deeply with his parents.
He’d always been Gretchen’s least favorite—which was saying something, given some of the people Elizabeth had associated with over the years.
Luke was a troublemaker, plain and simple, had been ever since elementary school. Purposefully destructive.
Gretchen pressed her lips closed. What would be the point of scolding Becks? He was obviously upset about Richard, and everyone processed upset differently. Maybe Becks couldn’t process it at all. He was still so young on top of being, well, sensitive.
“Why is the room moving side to side?” he asked, gripping the comforter with his fists.
“Come on,” Gretchen said, getting out of bed. She placed her hands on her son’s shoulders and tugged. “Let’s get you to your room.”
Becks seemed to rally as he made his way down the hall, hugging the wall for support. “Why does Dad do this?”
Do this—there was no getting around the phrasing. Present tense, ongoing.
“Shh,” she soothed. “Enough of that, Becks.”
He was drunk and talking—that was all. Look at how he was wrestling with the doorknob.
“What?” he asked in a loud, childish whisper. “Dad’s in jail. Remember? He can’t hear me.”
“I remember, yes.” Becks was drunk, so drunk. Ridiculous for her to be taking any of what he was saying to heart.
“I know, I know. You like a sandy head.”
“What?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “A sandy head?”
“No, no.” Becks had finally managed to open the door, but remained frozen on the threshold.
She wondered if he was more than drunk. Maybe he was also high.
Gretchen was woefully inexperienced in such matters, despite Elizabeth’s shenanigans.
“Head in sand. That’s what Elizabeth says. You like your head in the sand.”
Becks launched himself toward his bed, flopping down face-first. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled into the pillows. “I’m sorry about everything. But I just…”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Gretchen said as she tugged off one huge shoe, then another. But he had already started to snore.
—
The next day, Becks slept until nearly noon, leaving Gretchen alone in the kitchen with Elizabeth and her opinions for far too long. Cassandra had yet to arrive for the meeting with Scotty and Mikey Pearce—a briefing about additional evidence that had apparently been disclosed by the prosecution.
Don’t worry!! Everything is going to be fine!!! Scotty had texted when he arranged the meeting.
Too many exclamation points and not enough details. Things were bad. Very bad.
Gretchen tried to focus on the pancakes she was making. It had been a while. These days, she and Richard split a grapefruit and maybe yogurt on a wild morning. God, pancakes. When was the last time? Even when Becks was home, he slept in long past breakfast.
But once upon a time, things had been so different. They’d been nearly perfect, hadn’t they? Gretchen hadn’t imagined it, no matter what Elizabeth thought.
* * *
Gretchen had looked at Richard’s phone that morning two weeks ago only because she needed to see the time.
That was the truth. His phone had been there on his side table, hers all the way downstairs.
She could have leaned over to check the clock on her own nightstand, but something had drawn her to pick up the phone instead. Perhaps some deeply rooted instinct.
Before Africa, Richard had always been a put-his-phone-down-and-forget-it kind of person. But since he’d gotten home, he had been fixated on it—checking for messages, scrolling through Instagram constantly. He did it even when he and Gretchen were in bed together!
A wife could feel a real threat in her bones.
Sure enough, that morning there had been a text right there on the lock screen from Frankie. Hope you sleep well, too. xo. The xo felt like an electric shock. Even worse, it was clearly a response to something Richard had written.
And then there was the issue of when he must have sent the previous message.
He’d probably started texting Frankie the night before, while Gretchen was reading the new Elizabeth Strout for her book club like a fucking moron.
She was dying to know what his text had said—maybe there hadn’t been any xo.
But Gretchen purposely didn’t know Richard’s password.
She was too afraid she might be tempted to scour his phone someday.
Her suspicions were rooted in ancient history that she would have sworn had been wiped clean.
But no. This was what she had been reduced to: hoping the beautiful young woman her husband had been messaging while in bed with Gretchen was the first to send xo’s? It was utterly pathetic.
—
“What’s wrong?” Ilya had asked as soon as Gretchen had lain down on the reformer machine in his airy second-floor studio.
Gretchen had been seeing Ilya, a former member of the American Ballet Theatre who’d emigrated from Russia when he was fourteen, for ten years—more for his warm, attentive conversation than for the exercise.
He had glowing hazel eyes and sculpted features, gold-highlighted shoulder-length hair.
But Ilya wore his beauty lightly, like a diamond necklace he didn’t know the value of.
“What do you mean?” Gretchen asked as she slid herself up and down the rails of the machine. There was hardly any resistance—there never was.
Ilya shrugged his sinewy shoulders. “You just seem distracted. Like your mind is very far away. And a little bit…sad, maybe.”
Gretchen was quiet for a moment. “I think Richard is having an affair,” she heard herself say finally. Even though she had not been planning to. She hadn’t fully realized she suspected it herself until the words came out of her mouth.
“What?” Ilya asked as if he had no idea who she could possibly be referring to. Then his eyes popped wide. “No!”
Gretchen swallowed hard. “I think so,” she managed.
“Who is she?” Ilya demanded. “This is not okay.”
“Her name is Frankie Callahan. She’s an artist. Richard climbed Kilimanjaro with her.”
Ilya stuck out his tongue, mock retching. Gretchen nodded pitifully and bit down on her lip as she pushed back against the machine again. The tears in her eyes were multiplying, threatening to break free.
“You know,” Ilya said, “I have a cousin who might be able to help.”
Gretchen stopped moving. She was suspended in midair on the reformer, legs extended straight. “Help how?”
Ilya gestured at her to release the carriage. “Come on—take a minute.”
Gretchen did as she was told and reached for her water bottle. “Help how?” she repeated.
“He has friends.” Ilya gestured vaguely. “Maybe they could suggest she stay away from a man who is not her husband.” He locked eyes with Gretchen. “For instance.”
* * *
“Who are these pancakes for, exactly?” Elizabeth asked, her voice filled more with confusion and concern than disdain. Like Gretchen was a psychiatric patient.
“All of us!” Gretchen called cheerfully. Okay, perhaps too cheerfully. “Like old times.”
“You know I’m vegan, right?” Elizabeth said. “That I’ve been vegan for ten years?”
“Oh, that’s…right, the butter. I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.” Gretchen meant it. Remembering these kinds of things about your children was a mother’s love. She turned to look squarely at her daughter. “I know you’re vegan, of course I do. I wasn’t thinking. I just needed to do something.”
To Gretchen’s surprise, Elizabeth’s eyes got glassy, and she smiled sadly. “That makes sense.”
Did her daughter feel sorry for her? Head in the sand. It was a vicious thing to be judged by your own children. Even worse when you realized they might be right.
“This is all going to be fine, you know.”
“Unless…” Elizabeth said very quietly.
Gretchen clenched her teeth. “Elizabeth, please.”