Lies of the Heart

by Michelle Boyajian

  —Maybe Nick only has room for one challenge at a time.

  —It isn’t just work, Dana, Katie said. And then, more quietly: —We haven’t had sex in over two months.

  —All couples go through dry periods, honey. Especially when there’s stress.

  —We don’t. Or at least we hardly do, Katie said.—How are we going to have a baby if we aren’t even trying?

  Dana blew out a long stream of smoke.—Did he ever take a look at those pamphlets I dropped off?

  —He doesn’t want to adopt.

  —What about the one on in vitro? I know it’s expensive, but it’s an option.

  Katie watched a squirrel furtively digging for nuts in the backyard. It bounced to another spot, bushy tail swishing, and started digging again.

  —Dana, I see him looking at other women all the time, and I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he wants to have an affair, or maybe he’s thinking that if I can’t give him a baby, someone else can.

  —Nick wouldn’t have an affair. That’s crazy—

  —You don’t know that. He could, Katie says.—Sometimes I can actually see him with another woman, and it’s like I can’t even breathe, Dana. I couldn’t handle it if he decided to be with someone else, if he wanted to start a family with another woman.

  —Kate, even if that happened, even if there’s the off chance he is seeing someone else, then you would still live your life—

  —No, Katie said.—No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to.

  Dana sighed, started to lift the cigarette to her mouth, stopped; her face filled with panic. Katie turned, saw Jerry standing at the door, peeking out. His eyes wide with terror.

  —Your dad say to tell you coffee is done, he said, covering his face with his hands.

  She told Nick that she was going to Sarah and Arthur’s to film the last interview, and since he never asked questions anymore, he had no idea that she had wrapped up with them in the fall. The strain of the filming schedule had started to show with Sarah—she lost her concentration easily, her focus wavering and wandering back to Katie and Nick’s marriage, her questions endless and prying—and Arthur had suggested that they double up on their sessions to keep her on track. Katie hadn’t understood how interviewing them two times a week instead of one would help, had her own suspicions about why they were speeding up the process. Arthur had a long bout of coughing one day, and she was afraid that he was sick, that time was running out for him. Sarah’s concerned look when he passed a handkerchief across his lips only added to Katie’s fears for her friend.

  She was parked on Warwick Neck Avenue, a block up from her own street, waiting. This isn’t stalking, she told herself, not when it’s my own husband. There were still a few hours until Nick picked up Jerry for the weekend, and Katie’s gut feeling was that he would leave the house soon after her, on his way to wherever it was he went these days. She thought of finally catching them, what she would say after she had pulled the nose of her car right up to his, snapping on the high beams blinding them temporarily. And then Nick’s face—the quick succession of anger, guilt, and apology playing across his features. And the woman he spent all his time with now, too. Her hands coming up to shield her face. Gotcha!

  Fifteen minutes later Nick’s car turned out of their street and onto Warwick Neck. The darkness settled quickly, the traffic heavy on a Friday night. She kept a two-car distance behind Nick, followed him onto Rocky Point Avenue, and then left onto Palmer. Past the Seven Seas Chowder House on the right, where Nick and Katie had their first official date, Nick devouring a bucketful of steamers by himself, dipping each one in the plastic cup of butter, because Katie was too nervous to eat.

  When he turned right onto Samuel Gorton Avenue, toward the Longmeadow Fishing Area, Katie pulled to the side of the road: there was only one way in, and Nick would see her if she followed him.

  For the next hour, she tracked his progress around Warwick—next to Conimicut Point then to Gaspee Point, passing Jenny’s Ice Cream along the way, Jerry’s favorite place to get pineapple sundaes—following Nick’s trek to see the ocean from every available access road that led to it. She almost lost him on the way back on Warwick Avenue—an accident near Korb’s Bakery had clogged traffic—but she caught up with him again when he took a right onto Sandy Lane, and then another right onto Strawberry Field Road. She thought he might be headed to the airport—Strawberry Field Road dead-ended into Industrial Drive, the access road on the other side of T. F. Green—and wondered if this was it: Nick finally escaping forever, taking flight from his life with Katie. But then he made a sudden left onto Burbank Drive, a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood, and pulled in to the driveway of a blue house.

  Katie raced to the curb, threw her car in park. Popped open the door and started to jump out until she realized it wasn’t Nick’s car in the driveway at all. She had followed the wrong person, had lost Nick somewhere in the dark.

  5

  After an hour of watching her life behind closed lids, Katie rises, walks to the bedroom doorway. Looks down the hall toward Jerry’s room. After all the months of internal remonstrations—it is the spare bedroom now, the spare bedroom—it is still this: Jerry’s room. She trudges to his door, her legs heavy. Takes in a deep breath, opens the door.

  The last thing Katie expects is the pungent, clean smell of lemons. She was prepared for the heaviness of stale air, thick and peppery with dust, maybe even a sour odor, because sometimes Jerry would leave glasses of half-drunk milk or juice on the floor. She could have missed it that day in May when she tore the room down, ripping his pictures from the walls, tearing the sheets off his bed—trying to remove every trace of his having lived in it before she shut the door behind her for the last time. But there isn’t the clinging mustiness she expected, no curdled milk, just lemons and fresh air, evoking memories of childhood springtimes and her mother’s frenzied cleaning and screen washing as soon as the first buds flowered on the trees.

  She clicks the light on, sees that her mother has organized this room, too: the pile of Jerry’s drawings that Katie had let drop to the floor stacked neatly on the mahogany dresser now, the dark wood polished and shining. The bed that Katie had stripped and shoved against a wall lined up perfectly now underneath the window—the moonlight pushing through the lace curtains and falling across the mattress in patches. Against the opposite wall, Jerry’s books and pads and boxes of pens and colored pencils in a row, instead of scattered on the rug beside it—moved back onto the bookshelf, so her mother could vacuum the rug, which still had tracks in it. The big Bugs Bunny pillow Dana bought Jerry last Christmas sits flat on the center of the bed; if Katie flips it over, she’ll see the burned Coyote, the Acme dynamite box, the Road Runner’s beaky smile that made Jerry gasp in delight when he discovered this favorite character’s “friends” on the other side.

  Of course her mother would clean this room, too. Katie wonders absently now how her mother reacted to Jerry’s possessions as she organized them, placed them in neat piles. If she understood the significance of this room, the backdrop to Nick’s accusations, his packing, leaving. But no, of course Katie had never told her mother the details of that last fight.

  She turns off the light, lies on the bed. Cradles Jerry’s pillow in her arms and breathes in the lemon-filled air as her eyes adjust to the darkness. A weight creeps into her body, slowly crushing.

  How many times did Jerry do this, after Katie and Nick had said good night? How many times did he lie in the glow of moonlight across his bed, afraid that this would be the night when God would come, full of blinding vengeance? Reliving the torture of his childhood as he huddled under the blankets, as Katie and Nick wrapped themselves around each other down the hall, greedy for the taste of each other’s skin? Or later, lying side by side silently, both pretending to be asleep? And how many times had Katie watched the ceiling like this herself when she was younger, hoping God was watching her, praying He would come and show her what was missing in her life, what she co
uld do to make the loneliness go away and stop the endless longing that made her body ache?

  She’s ready now, finally ready to replay that last night with Nick, to dissect the pieces and examine them. To allow the reel to slowly unwind, the images and words to wash over her. For too long she has kept her eyes wide open, has watched everyone around her, not once trying to see what was right in front of her—within view if she only looked. She’s ready to see that night with Nick, to finally see herself, to let the pieces fall where they will.

  It’s April, and she’s in Jerry’s bedroom, cleaning up the mess from last weekend and getting it ready, expecting Nick to walk in the door with Jerry any minute now. The window above the bed is open halfway, and the fresh spring air ruffles the curtains—there’s still a bite to it, but this is New England after all. By tomorrow it could rise into the seventies, and maybe the three of them would go down to the dock to get the boat ready for the season. Katie and Jerry waxing the fiberglass while Nick tooled around with the engine, and then putting on thick sweatshirts and motoring around the inlets . . .

  . . . Is this really what I was telling myself while I waited for them? she thinks now, lying on Jerry’s bed in the dark. Trying to convince myself that all Nick and I needed was the summer to make things better? But no, Katie remembers what came after—the creeping embarrassment at herself, the sensation of standing at a great height and looking down. The weight on her shoulders, the threat of falling, plummeting . . .

  She fluffs the pillows, waiting for the sound of Nick’s tires crunching over the rocky driveway. For the past two months, Katie has sent Nick to pick up Jerry alone like this, and she tells herself that her motives haven’t been completely selfish. Jerry has needed this time alone with Nick, and lately it seems to be working. Nick has been more at ease with Jerry around the house, and last weekend they went fishing together at Conimicut Point, alone the entire day for the first time in months. Katie wasn’t asked to go along, but she didn’t begrudge their time together. It was good for Jerry to rekindle his relationship with Nick, and he had come home smiling, relaxed, ready to draw pictures of his day at the beach. Besides, it gave Katie more time to search Nick’s office upstairs, to look for clues . . .

  . . . Donna’s words ringing in her ears again . . . obsessed, fanatical . . .

  So far her efforts in the preceding weeks have produced very little—a note found in Nick’s suit jacket from that college girl, Alicia, thanking him for all his support, signed with a childish heart over one i; a Post-it note on his home computer, reminding him to “talk to Stephen ASAP”; a phone message in his desk at the Warwick Center to call Robin; and, last week, Nick’s prolonged visit at a Cumberland Farms, though Katie couldn’t see who he was talking to from where she was parked, lights off, at Brooks Drugs across the street. She still has hopes that the Cumberland Farms incident will pan out (who talked to a convenience-store clerk for over twenty minutes anyway?), and after a little prying she found out from Veronica that Robin is Joey’s mother . . .

  . . . She cringes now at the image of Veronica standing at the entrance of Nick’s office, catching Katie in the act of sifting through his desk drawer. Was that really her? Snooping through his desk while he was out to lunch? Hunting the hallways even after Nick had packed up and left? Donna’s words again: “In fact, you spent an inordinate amount of time there, didn’t you? Sometimes three or four times a week?”. . .

  The sound of Nick’s car pulling in to the driveway. The front door opening. Maybe, if Jerry and Nick watch a movie together tonight, Katie can sneak out to his car, rummage through the glove compartment and between the seats . . .

  . . . Obsessed . . .

  Nick stands in the doorway, alone.

  “Where’s Jerry?” Katie asks.

  “At the group home,” he says, staring. “I saw you tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “You were following me. Again.”

  She turns to Jerry’s bed, places his Bugs Bunny pillow in the very center of the pillows. There’s a smudge on the top, something Jerry has carelessly spilled, and she’ll have to ask him to be more careful if he brings drinks up to his room.

  “I’m just finishing in here. If you want me to go for the ride to get him—”

  “Jerry’s not coming this weekend.”

  “Why not? He won’t understand—”

  “Why the hell were you following me?”

  She tries to close the distance between them, hand outstretched, and Nick takes a step back into the hallway. Katie stops midstride, wonders when it came to this—her husband recoiling from her touch.

  “You never say where you’re going. I needed to know.”

  “There’s nothing to know. I just wanted some time for myself.”

  “You have all your time to yourself lately—”

  “I can’t work through any of it here,” he says. His eyes moving around Jerry’s bedroom, then down the hallway.

  “I know you’re frustrated with Joey, and you’re disappointed that I’m still not pregnant—”

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

  “Then tell me. I’m so tired of watching you and trying to figure it out.”

  “I’m tired of it, too. Sick of it, actually.”

  “So you’ll try with someone else, is that it? Find a woman who—”

  “You aren’t listening!” he suddenly shouts.

  She’s too afraid to speak, because she knows it’s one of those moments in life, the kind that determines everything else that will follow. All she can do is stare.

  “Right there,” Nick says, pointing at her. His lip curling up. “Right there, Katie.”

  . . . She thought he was pointing at her, pointing out her inadequacies, taking in her whole body in one motion . . .

  “I’ve tried, I don’t know what else to do,” she says. Hating the whining need in her voice.

  “It’s not about you.”

  And it never was, she thinks now. Never. But even this, she knows now, is her fault. Nick didn’t ask for her devotion, to be the center of her life. He may have soaked it in, thrived under her encouraging words, but he wasn’t the one who put Katie on the sidelines. She did that all by herself.

  “If it isn’t about me, about us, then what is it?”

  “All of it,” he says. And when she waits for more, for him to finally reveal something she can hold on to, her eyes searching his face, his voice comes out in a growl. “Stop, okay? Just fucking stop.”

  . . . She wasn’t sure what he meant then—stop what? Waiting for him to talk to her, to open up to her? But no, after all this time something simple, almost absurd really. Stop looking.

  “We have to get Jerry, he needs his family.”

  “Are you that blind, Katie? We are not a big happy family.”

  “How can you say that? Things aren’t perfect right now, but—”

  “Jerry isn’t my son, and he isn’t your son.”

  “Is that it? I know you want your own child, and we’ll keep trying, we’ll have a baby eventually.”

  “It isn’t that. It’s you—it’s both of you, staring at me all the time. It’s suffocating.”

  “We’re worried about you. We love you, Nick. I love you more than anything else in this entire world.”

  His shoulders slump, and he shakes his head; his face, so angry and resolute seconds earlier, softens a little. “You don’t get it.”

  “I want to—I want to understand. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  His head dips down, and he stares at the floor, a muscle in his jaw pulsing. When he looks back up at her, his face is pinched with fear.

  “Everything,” he says. “Right now everything is off kilter.”

  She watches this raw, helpless look on his face, realizes that she’s holding her breath. “Tell me. Please.”

  He looks down the hallway, looks back at her. “At least Jerry knows, Katie,” he says in a whisper. “At least he knows. Did you ever think of it lik
e that?”

  “What? What does he know?”

  “About his father,” Nick says, his voice trembling. “That it was his fault. He left because of Jerry. Don’t you think . . . can’t you see that there’s comfort in that? Knowing?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know, but not the way his mother told him, how she accused him.”

  “My mother,” Nick says, shaking his head as if he didn’t hear her. “She always said—she always told me my father didn’t leave because of me.”

  . . . Finally, Katie remembers thinking, we’re here, we’re finally here . . . only good things after it all comes out . . .

  Katie tries to move to him, to soothe the tortured look off his face, but he does it again: takes a step away until his back is pressed up against the wall in the hallway.

  “If she lied, Katie. If she was lying about that . . . then what else?” This in a strangled voice.

  “She didn’t lie. You were only a kid, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “She used to do that all the time, too, while I was growing up. Stare at me. And I never knew. I didn’t know what she saw, what she was really thinking. If she believed what she said. Not just about my father, but about me. Brilliant from birth, right?” His face contorts with the effort to smile.

  “She didn’t lie about that, Nick. I know—I know.”

  “Sometimes I believed her. She said it all the time, Katie. My earliest memory, telling me I was destined for greatness. She made me feel like a fucking giant, like I could do anything. But then I’d see her, her eyes were always on me, and I knew. I felt like—I always thought, She’s lying, she’s just waiting.”

  “For what?”

  He turns away, looks back. “For me to disappoint her, to fall short. It was stupid little things, a C on a math test, or . . . or coming in in second place in an essay contest. Nothing big, but I’d know—bullshit, everything she said was bullshit.”

  “Nick, look, I won’t pretend that I like your mother, but it wasn’t—”