Jeffrey Archer Presents

by Mark Trainer

  When he returned home that evening, he realized he didn’t feel the tension that usually descended on him when he came into the house after work. It had never been a huge deal, just the subtle interaction by which he and the woman who was once his wife justified their time in each other’s presence. Things had changed with Sean. It had started when the word “household” entered their shared language. If you were watching TV, then you weren’t doing much about dinner, which wasn’t cool because I did dinner the last two nights in a row. And if you went off to check your e-mail, then you weren’t finding out where Sean stood with his homework, which, sure, you did yesterday, but you know Thursdays are insane for me. This tension had been at its worst when Sean was an infant and a toddler. Then it had eased up some. But the nervous energy that animated their evenings seemed to have stayed fixed at the same level.

  Not tonight, though. He wasn’t so insanely aware of what this other woman was thinking—how or even if she was judging him. She seemed to have a good, frank manner of addressing what needed to be done. Come to think of it, the other one had had that, too, but he’d learned to read the signals beneath it. Maybe it was only that he hadn’t spent enough time yet with this new-model wife. He hadn’t learned to recognize the… He was brought up short in his own thoughts: What were all those ways he’d had of reading Eve’s mood, sensing when he’d displeased her? A few days ago, he’d have been able to type out a numbered list—and not a short one.

  His wife was on her notebook computer at the dining room table as these thoughts were bouncing around his head. He was sitting in the living room looking at a four-day-old copy of the New York Times Magazine without much conviction. She looked up at him through the doorway. “You’re thinking about Sean, aren’t you?” He lowered the magazine and drew a breath. “I’ve been hanging up on it all day,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  “You try to talk to him about it?”

  “You know how he is. I tried to let him know it was okay to talk about it. No dice.” He knew this wasn’t entirely true. Danny had called him “buddy,” helped him find his missing anime book, suggested they do one of their bike rides on Saturday. All of it sounded to him as though someone other than himself were saying it. And any time there was a silence in which Sean might have dredged up the stuff about school, Danny had filled it with offerings of goodwill.

  He thought she was asleep when he came up later, but she turned away from the wall to face him. “Hey,” she said, “how about taking my mind off the boy for a while?”

  She’d long ago fallen off to sleep when Danny crept to the bathroom. He was counting on the harsh light and the cold tile to jolt sense into him. He’d lain in their postcoital calm feeling that he’d now, in the most literal way, cheated on his wife with this woman who, by every indicator, was his wife. He set aside his welling panic long enough to note that he’d done rather a good job of it, too. His desperation had expressed itself in a vigor he usually had trouble mustering at this time of night. Honestly, he couldn’t have said if it was the appearance of this new wife or the idea of those kids picking on—on his son.

  Danny made his way back out into the bedroom. She didn’t move. He stealthily opened their door and pulled it to behind him. He turned the knob of the door down the hall slowly. Opening it made only the lightest sound against the carpeting. Danny winced at a creak that suddenly erupted from the hinges, but nothing in the room moved. He lowered himself gently down onto the end of the bed. The boy was turned toward the wall, his wrists crossed at his face as if he were shielding himself from a blow. Once his eyes adjusted to the moonlit room, Danny could make out the fine, downy hair on the boy’s leg that had found its way out from beneath the covers. There was the gentle scent of perspiration in the close air. Danny laid the flat of his fingers against the arch of the foot next to him. He’d never held an infant before he’d had a child of his own and remembered specifically holding that same foot to extend the newborn’s leg, how it would pull itself back again, how Danny wondered what the baby was thinking. Somewhere nearby, were the fathers of those fifth-grade bullies sitting beside their sleeping sons? Those kids that used to delight in knocking him down—whatever their names were—did their fathers do this?

  And where were they now, anyway? Did they think about what they used to do to him? And the people everyone marries and makes children with—where do they fit in, and what are they remembering? Are they the leftovers of someone else’s bullying? Or maybe they aren’t. For all he knew, the woman he’d married might have had the ability to make schoolgirls cry. There might be countless forty-something women wishing his wife ill for the person she once was. It made all this present-tense stuff feel like a pretty narrow wedge. The first kid he hated—Ryan Boyle, that was the kid from second grade—and Staci Jensen, the one he’d seen on the skateboard—they’d had no precedents, and he’d always remember them. Just like almost everything in those fifteen years that were the entirety of his life’s short scope back then. Now, in his forties, fifteen years didn’t mean much more than how long it had been since they’d last bought a dryer.

  He awoke there just before the sun was up and lay at the foot of the bed staring at the posters on the wall—skateboarders, musicians, pretty girls—before dragging himself to the shower without waking the sleeping boy.

  That morning they found Danny wandering around the office park, uncertain which building to enter. He was thinking about the end of the school year, those last days in the classroom with the air hot and heavy, when the new wife arrived.

  They had seated him inside on a bench in a little atrium with a view of the parking lot. He saw her moving purposefully over the patterned brick toward the doors.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, crouching down in front of him.

  “A little out of it,” he said.

  “Maybe a dose of sunstroke,” the voice next to him said. “It’s pretty hot out there.”

  “I’m going to drive you home,” she said.

  “Let me help you get him to the car,” the guy next to him said.

  Danny stood up from the bench. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “Thanks, Matt,” she said to the guy. “I’ll check in with you later.”

  They were most of the way to the house before someone spoke. “What happened there?” she said.

  “Not sure,” Danny said. “Maybe he was right. Maybe it was the heat.”

  “You’re going to lie down—take the day. You haven’t been yourself.” He could see there was an edge of annoyance to her concern that she was trying to conceal.

  “There’s the barbecue this afternoon.”

  She looked over as if she were surprised he remembered that but not where he worked. “Sean and I can go,” she said.

  After they got home, he lay on the master bed, the curtains drawn. She came up with a sandwich and a glass of water on a tray. “On the way to school,” she said, “I talked to Sean.” She put the tray on the bedspread next to him, then sat beside it. He watched the glass of water slide precariously as her weight shifted the tray.

  “It’s that damn Cullen kid. I asked Sean where he’d gotten that ugly scrape on his elbow, and he said Mike Cullen had pushed him off his skateboard. I asked if he’d been having trouble with Mike, and he said he had. Mike and a couple of his friends.”

  Danny raised himself on his elbow. “How in the world did you get him to talk about that? I never would have talked to my parents about something like that. Mom or Dad.”

  She stared at him. “I don’t—that’s not really the point, is it?”

  He lay back down and closed his eyes. “I was just saying.”

  “He’s got those two thugs for older brothers, and the father’s probably worse than any of them.”

  “Have I ever met him?” Danny said.

  “Don’t know. The mother’s usually the one that shows up at school stuff.” He heard her shift off the bed. “See if you can get some sleep. Today was a litt
le scary.”

  Yes, he thought after she left, he could see how that could be scary, your husband unable to remember where he was in a parking lot. But then, imagine how it felt to find a strange woman in your house in place of your wife. The things he could tell her… That he’d sat at a desk the day before and bluffed his way through dozens of e-mails from people he didn’t recognize, that he didn’t have any cash because he’d been unable to remember his PIN at the ATM. He’d forgotten these things and more, things he knew objectively were important. But he hadn’t forgotten Michael Wunderlich and Paul Perotti, and he lay in the dark, air-conditioned room thinking first about his son, then about those two assholes, wondering what he could have done then, and wondering how much what he hadn’t done had to do with who he’d become..

  He was awakened by a door closing loudly down the hall. “Shhh,” he heard his new wife say, “Dad’s lying down.” He lay silently and listened to the remarkable sounds of the house, both familiar and new. A few minutes later he heard the bedroom door creak on its hinges, and he opened his eyes. “Listen,” she said, “we’re going to the school thing in a few minutes. How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he answered.

  “We should be back by six or so.”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”

  “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  He raised himself and lowered his feet to the floor. “No,” he said, “I’m fine. I want to come.” She looked at him uncertainly. Behind her he saw a figure in the doorway, a boy of maybe ten or eleven. “I don’t want to be here alone.”

  This place they went, this school, was disarmingly similar to the school he’d gone to: a couple of pale-red brick stories set back from a wall of green cyclone fencing. She parked the car in a side lot among the scores of others, and with the boy they walked toward the people spread unevenly across the patchy grass of a playing field. She held a covered bowl of potato salad in one hand and the boy’s hand in the other until he withdrew it. The parched dirt was orange and cracked. It was hard like the ground Danny remembered being pushed down on in that scene that wouldn’t leave his head. “Oops, Danny, you fell down. Get up, Danny Boy.” He looked now at the boy walking next to him. What was his problem? Why did he look like he’d rather be anywhere else and rather be with anyone other than him and the woman he walked beside? Before they’d reached the gathering, the boy broke away and cohered with a group of similarly uneasy-looking children who stood apart from the larger group.

  The woman squeezed Danny’s hand. “‘Mom and Dad?’“ she said. “‘What Mom and Dad?’“ When he looked over, she smiled an unhappy little smile and led them toward the name-tags table. “I had no idea we’d be so uncool so soon.”

  He was greeted by a number of folks who seemed to think he should know them. He did his best to reflect their smiles and general conversation. It was easier than it ought to have been. Yes, the year had gone quickly. No, he couldn’t’ quite believe it was almost over. Summer plans? As few as possible, thank God. His new wife brought him a root beer and joined him in these content-free conversations. She put her hand on the arm of another attractive middle-aged woman moving past and revived some running joke apparently shared between them. When they found themselves without company, she looked over as if to appraise him. “You seem a little more yourself.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  She laced her fingers into his. “Is there anything…anything I need to know about? That stuff this morning? The last few days?”

  He looked away from her. That could have been the same set of small steps off the gymnasium where Staci Jensen said yes, she would be his girlfriend and where, a few years later, Lori McFarland told him no, she wouldn’t.

  “And right now, for instance?” His wife took his chin in her hand, as you would to get the attention of a distracted child. “Where are you? What’s wrong?”

  He couldn’t avoid her eye. And he couldn’t tell her about Staci Jensen and Lori McFarland. Or Michael Wunderlich and Paul Perotti. He wouldn’t be able to find the words. They were names her original had never heard, and that would have even less context with her.

  But what he found most unsettling now was the realization that he had her absolute and full attention. She didn’t sound impatient, annoyed, anything. She’d asked him a question because she didn’t have the answer. And if he couldn’t tell her those names and everything they meant to him, he knew he had to tell her something true. She held both his hands.

  “I’m forgetting people,” he said.

  She waited for more, finally shaking her head. “No one remembers anyone at these things,” she said. “That’s why they have the name tags.”

  “No,” he said, “people I know. People…people at work. I forgot the mortgage. I forgot…” You, he wanted to say.

  “Spring was insane. With my seminar, you had to pick up the slack with Sean. Then you had all the travel.” She laid her hand flat against his chest. “I think you’re tired. I think you’re very tired. We’ll make it okay.”

  She led him to one of the picnic tables and sat him down. “Save us a spot here,” she said. “I’ll bring us some food.” She waited until he looked up at her. “We’re going to make it okay—you and I.” He watched her, rapt, as she walked away. She hadn’t gone far before she traced an arc back in his direction, trying not to call attention to herself. She leaned down, her breath warm in his ear. “By the barbecue—it’s what’s-his-name—the father of that kid that’s been bullying Sean.” Then she indicated the direction where a larger group of students had gathered. “The redheaded one in the camouflage shorts. That’s him. That’s the kid.” On her second trip, he watched her detour toward the circle of kids the boy had joined on their way in. She was only there a moment before the boy sent her away and they all turned back in on themselves.

  Danny looked from his new wife over to the Cullen kid, then to the small circle of kids the boy had joined. They all looked nervously aware of Cullen and his friends. Danny caught the boy’s eye. He looked at Danny questioningly. What do you want? And when Danny wouldn’t look away, the boy gave him a puzzled smile.

  When Danny stood, he felt unsteady on his legs at first. She was right, he thought—he was tired. As he walked toward the tables, he thought how another thing he could no longer remember was when he’d started to feel this tired. She had taken two plates and was pulling back the foil on a covered dish when he stopped just next to the man, who, now that he was beside him, he saw was several inches shorter than he and much broader of build.

  “You’re Mike Cullen’s father,” Danny said.

  The man, whose attention had been with two other dads, looked at him with a laconic amusement. “That’s right,” he said. “Have we met?”

  “My son’s a classmate of Mike’s.”

  “That’s great,” he said, turning back to the two men he’d been speaking with. “I hope they had a great year.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said, “so one of their teachers tells me my son’s been getting a lot of trouble from yours.”

  Mike’s father, who had seemed committed to ignoring Danny, now turned back to him. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” Danny said. “That is so.”

  “So what kind of ‘trouble’ are we talking about?”

  Danny looked away to the parched playing field. “Oh, you know, knocking him to the ground, sitting behind him in class and calling him names—”

  “Is that so?” he repeated, this time emphasizing each word.

  Danny raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Yep.” His new wife had noticed him from the tables and watched him now, frozen, her hand holding the end of a serving spoon dug into a pasta salad.

  The man looked to his two friends with a can-you-believe-this smirk. “Well”—he ostentatiously looked at Danny’s name tag—“Danny, do you really think this is the way you want to handle this?” “You know, Gabe,” Danny said, mimicking his gesture, “I’m pretty sure it is.” />
  “Let me give you a little advice, Danny. You’re going to want to let these kids work these things out themselves. You don’t want to be one of those meddling, anxious parents. Know what I mean?” He puckered his face, dismissed Danny with a nod, and began to turn away again.

  “No, Gabe, I don’t think I do.”

  Again Cullen turned back to Danny, this time with a theatrical sigh. He had to reach up to put his hand on Danny’s shoulder, but the fingers were thick and powerful. He leaned in toward Danny, affecting a confidential tone. “Let me put it another way for you: You don’t want to be a pussy, do you?” This elicited a sound from one of the man’s two friends, something between surprise and a small laugh. Emboldened, Mike’s father let a little smile lift one corner of his mouth. He gave Danny’s shoulder two quick pats. “You have a nice day now.”

  When Danny hit him, Gabe Cullen had just been withdrawing his hand. The moment broke apart and its pieces shuffled: the quick change of expression on the face of the guy who had laughed, the other side of Mike’s father’s mouth completing the smirk—just the place Danny would aim for—the paper plate of Pete’s Best Bar-B-Q that Cullen’s shoulder tipped as he collapsed to the ground, the painful tension pulling Danny’s hand into a fist at his side the instant before he struck.

  When the moments sorted themselves out, two guys were pushing him back, screaming hoarsely at him, their faces contorted and fiercely reddened. Mike’s father lay writhing on his back in the scorched grass with his hands covering his face, a scarlet trail of blood escaping beneath them onto his collar. The scene played to Danny like a television in another room with the sound turned low, as he saw behind it—vivid and horrified in an incontrovertible present—Eve and Sean, his wife and son, now restored to him.