Chapter Seven: Tuesday Evening
At home, Laura had set two bowls on the table.
She had made tomato soup, the meal we ate whenever one of us had a cold or a difficult day.
I sat across from her and tried not to mistake familiarity for repair.
“I told counsel everything I remember,” she began.
“Good.”
“They suspended me pending review.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“I am sorry that we’re here.”
“You can’t say you aren’t relieved.”
“I don’t want you hurt, Laura.”
“But you want me punished.”
“I want the people whose words were changed to have a chance to correct them.”
She stirred her soup without eating.
“I spent years writing reports about clients whose names I barely remembered.”
“You were good at understanding people.”
“I was good at making them sound like what the client wanted.
”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“I know that now.”
We ate quietly for several minutes.
Then she asked whether I still loved her.
I looked at the wedding photograph over the sideboard.
“I love who we were.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have tonight.”
She put down her spoon.
“Adrian made everything seem possible.”
“What did he promise?”
“A new life where I wasn’t the responsible person all the time.”
“You didn’t have to be responsible all the time.”
“That’s how I felt.”
“I believe you felt it.”
“You don’t believe I had a reason.”
“A feeling can be real without justifying what followed.”
She looked out the window.
“He said we could move to Seattle when this project finished.”
“Did he intend to go?”
“I don’t know anymore.
”
“Did you?”
“I wanted to believe it.”
I nodded because there was nothing useful to add.
She asked whether we could keep living together while the investigation unfolded.
I told her I would move into the apartment above my brother’s garage for a few weeks.
“You’re leaving now?”
“I’m not asking you to wait while I decide whether I want someone else.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither was what happened to us.”
“I made a terrible mistake.”
“You made a series of decisions.”
She began to cry.
I brought her a glass of water and stood beside the table without touching her.
“Are you trying to make me feel smaller?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then why won’t you hold me?”
“Because I don’t know what holding you would promise.”
We stayed in that difficult silence until she looked away.
Later I packed a suitcase, leaving most of my clothes in the closet.
I was not trying to stage a dramatic departure.
I was trying to create enough distance to hear my own thoughts.
Before I left, Laura stopped me in the hall.
“Michael, why did somebody send you that folder?”
“I still don’t know.”
“Adrian must have enemies.”
“Possibly.”
“Maybe they wanted to ruin him.”
“Then they also revealed real problems with our work.”
“You aren’t curious who it was?”
“Of course I am.”
“You haven’t tried to find them.”
“I’m trying to fix the thing we can see before chasing the thing we can’t.”
She opened the door for me.
The hallway light fell across the beige folder still resting on the kitchen counter.
For the first time, I realized she had not moved it because she was afraid of forgetting it.
