Everything We Ever Wanted

by Sara Shepard

Page 22

 

  Scott was on the porch. He was hugging himself tightly, and there was water dripping from the ends of his hair and the tip of his nose. “Oh. ” Sylvie whipped open the door. There was something embarrassing, or maybe vulnerable, about seeing him so late at night, in her robe and slippers, her makeup washed off.

  “I’ve been knocking for ten minutes,” he yelled over the sound of the rain.

  She opened the door wider and let him in. His T-shirt hung heavily past his belt and his waterlogged pant legs dragged on the ground. His shoes squished as he walked.

  “Damn,” he said, fumbling into the laundry room for a towel. “I kept knocking. I saw you on the couch. ”

  “The rain must be too loud. I didn’t hear. ”

  Scott rubbed the towel over his sopping hair.

  “You should change clothes,” Sylvie said. “I’ll get you something from upstairs. ”

  He nodded from underneath the towel. Sylvie dashed upstairs to Scott’s old bedroom, but his closet was bare. Charles’s was empty, too. She paused, considering, and then padded down the hall to her own room.

  She and James had separate walk-in closets, and Sylvie hadn’t gone into James’s side much since he’d died. His suits and shirts still hung in neat lines. His shined shoes, their leather smell so dignified, were in a row on the closet floor. He kept sweaters and T-shirts at the back on shelves. She pulled out an oversize gray sweatshirt and a plain white T-shirt. To her relief they didn’t smell like much of anything except for detergent. On one of the shelves was a pair of black sweatpants, the tags still on. She pulled them out, too.

  She quickly threw on a pair of khaki pants and a navy cashmere cardigan and kicked her slippers into the corner. On her way down the stairs, she paused. It was portentous seeing Scott tonight of all nights. They sometimes went days without interacting. Could he sense where she’d been this afternoon, who she’d been talking to? Had he come to ask what she thought she’d accomplish by talking to Christian’s father? For really, what did going to see him imply? Did it mean she doubted Scott’s innocence once and for all?

  Back in the living room there was a puddle of water at Scott’s feet. “I think I might take a shower, if that’s okay,” he said. “I’m freezing. ”

  “Sure,” Sylvie said. “Of course. ”

  They eyed each other warily, neither moving. “There’s a leak,” Scott finally explained. “Right over my bed. My sheets are soaked. And another big one near my bathroom. ”

  Sylvie swiveled around, searching the counter for the house keys. “We should go take a look. ”

  “It’s late,” Scott said. “I put a bucket under the leaks. No one will come to fix it now anyway. ” He paused to scratch his nose, staring blankly at a watercolor painting of a bunch of violets on the laundry room wall. “I was going to stay at Lee’s. I was waiting for it to stop raining so hard, but …”

  “Stay in your old room tonight. Until we have it figured out. ”

  He glanced out the window. “I could make it. At least there won’t be much traffic. ”

  Am I that horrible to be around? Sylvie thought. “You’re welcome to stay here. Really. ”

  “Fine,” Scott conceded, rolling his eyes.

  She followed Scott upstairs and got him extra towels, like he was a guest. Because she knew making up his bed would seem overbearing, she pointed out sheets and pillowcases. Scott nodded and then glanced at her. “It was so weird. That ceiling was suddenly like …” He extended his arms and made a boom sound.

  “Well, this rain is sort of …” She fluttered her hands, unsure of the word she was looking for, ” … angry. ”

  “All of a sudden this water drips on my head. Like that water torture method they use in interrogations. ”

  Sylvie looked away. She wondered if Scott even realized the irony in what he’d just said. “Well,” she said. “That certainly doesn’t sound pleasant. ”

  Scott paused on her for a moment, almost smiling. He reached out his hand and touched her shoulder. Sylvie stiffened, his touch unfamiliar. He pulled her in, just slightly, and then let go abruptly as though he had suddenly become aware of what his limbs were doing. A dull ache rippled through her. This tenderness was heartbreakingly ill-timed, too much to bear. She saw the picture of Christian propped up against that tree at Feverview Dwellings. The father leaning over his thighs, wracked with sobs.

  Scott turned awkwardly to the bathroom. “Well, thanks for answering the door. ”

  “Of course,” Sylvie said quietly. “Sorry I didn’t get there sooner. ” Then Scott shut the door.

  She stood there for a moment, and then gazed down the hall into her bedroom. James’s closet gaped open, the light still on. He was so meticulously organized. His ties on a rack, his sweaters neatly folded, his shirts organized by color. She scanned the blazers, searching for the one he’d worn his last day of work. They’d returned his clothes to her, after it was all over. His shirt had been ruined—they’d had to cut it off him—but he hadn’t been wearing his blazer when he collapsed, so she’d brought it back to his closet and returned it to its hanger, as if he still would someday return and wear it again.

  Then she turned and stared down the hall into James’s office. It was just the same as it had been the last time she looked inside this morning. The same generic desk, the same dust on the bookcase, and the same locked filing cabinet, the only place she hadn’t yet searched. Sometimes she wondered if she would’ve been better off never knowing she had a reason to search at all. For if the door hadn’t been left unlocked and open just a few months ago, in the fall, if she hadn’t gone inside to dust, maybe she would have never seen it. Their whole lives could have gone by and she might have never found out. Would she have been better for it?

  For she hadn’t even suspected. Yes, they had gone through periods of distance. Yes, there were certain points in his life where James seemed inconsistent, resentful, frustrated. They certainly didn’t agree on how to raise their children. But she kept herself busy through their rough patches, and so did he, and lately, with the kids grown up, things had become better between them.

  But that day she’d noticed dust on his new, modern desk of his, while holding a feather duster. She innocently cleaned the glass top of his desk and then his bookcase, marveling at the items on the shelves. This was the first time she’d been inside the room for years, probably since James had replaced her grandfather’s desk with this new furniture. James had cleaned out all of her grandfather’s knickknacks, too—the old sculpture of the gray whale, the small, tan-colored globe, the jade paperweight—with some items of his own: a Lucite plaque congratulating him for helping launch an IPO in 1999, those busts of Laurel and Hardy he oddly found so funny. On the third shelf, she noticed a velvet box; stamped on the lid was the name of a jewelry store that had been out of business for ten years. Sylvie picked it up and turned it over. Then she opened it.

  Inside was a bracelet made of white gold, chunky and modern. A feeling swept through her; she knew right away. The bracelet was an odd choice, surely selected to suit someone’s taste. Someone who wasn’t her.

  She brought it to him at dinner, holding it by its clasp, afraid to touch it fully. She laid it next to his dinner plate and waited. His eyes rested on it. She watched for telltale signs—paling skin, a shaking hand, darting eyes. James simply looked angry. His whole face tightened.

  “You went in my office?” he finally said.

  “Who did you buy this for?” she asked.

  “You went in my office?” he repeated.

  She blinked, aggravated. “Yes! I went in your office! Is this why you keep the door locked? Because … this was in there? Who is this for?”

  “I told you not to go into my office. ”

  She stared at him, astonished. She pointed at the box. “You bought this at Goebel’s. They closed ten years ago. ”

  He said nothing.

  “Was this for someone else? Some
one ten years ago?”

  “Sylvie,” he said. And then he hung his head. “It wasn’t like that. ”

  Her mouth fell open. Then what was it like? “Tell me her name,” she demanded, starting to shake.

  “It wasn’t—”

  “Tell me her name,” she screamed. “Do you still see her? Do you still think about her? What’s she doing now? Is it someone I know?” And then, “Why would you do this? What reason did I ever give you?”

  “Sylvie,” he pleaded. “Please leave it. ”

  She mined her memories for clues. Ten years ago. Eleven. Twelve. Both kids had been in high school. Charles was getting good grades, dating Bronwyn, and he had all those nice friends. Even Scott seemed steadier, doing so well in wrestling, only an occasional detention here and there. Okay, so things with James weren’t at their most romantic. She was harried with all the work she did for Swithin, and he’d just switched to his current employer. Sometimes they were so tired they fell asleep without really talking; sometimes he came home after she was in bed. He’d eaten a lot of dinners with clients, heavy meals with a lot of meat and wine. He’d purchased a membership to a health club right around that time, too, saying that all the other guys at the office went and it was a good place to make connections. Could that have been a cover-up for something more sinister? Was health club a code for … for what? He’d taken lots of business trips back then, but she couldn’t recall where. She thought of the time she’d called her father’s hotel in New York. Are you looking for Teddy? the woman in his room had asked. She had a thick city accent, a husky smoker’s rasp.

  Sylvie dug her nails into the kitchen table. “Tell me her name. ”

  A little sound escaped from the back of James’s throat. “I can’t. ”

  She’d been so blindsided and stricken that she’d fallen ill, spiking a fever that lasted for days. James took time off work. Sometimes she woke and heard him down the hall in his office. The filing-cabinet drawers slid open and closed. She had a feverish dream about him stuffing a woman in the filing cabinet, putting her in ass-first and folding up her legs and then closing the door tight so that only a few locks of hair hung over the cabinet’s sides. Sometimes she woke and he was sitting next to her, a look of remorse and concern on his face. I’m sorry, he kept mouthing.

  When her fever broke, they went out to dinner. He slid a velvet box across the table. It was from a different jeweler; a better one.

  “No,” she said when she gazed upon the canary-yellow diamond ring. “I can’t take this. ”

  “I just want to show you how I feel about you,” he said. “I just want you to know. ”

  In the end, she accepted it. Maybe she shouldn’t have—it conveyed that she forgave him. It meant she wouldn’t bring it up again. But she felt too breathless to fight. She wanted it to be over, forgotten, and maybe she could forget. So she took the ring and slid it on her finger and pretended it was simply a gift, something without subtext.