Round Robin

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Suddenly she was grateful that she had not told Kevin about him.

  The meetings in the bookshop turned into long chats over coffee at a nearby diner. They would discuss politics and literature—and themselves. Jack, she learned, traveled the country acquiring books for the shop; that explained his frequent absences. He had never married, though he had come close once, years before. “I came to my senses just in time,” he said, laughing. He had not yet decided if he wanted to take over his aunt’s shop after her retirement.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to be held in one place.”

  Carol understood. He wanted the pleasure of discovering a first-edition Mark Twain at an estate sale, not the drudgery of placing books on shelves and making change. That was all right every once in a while, but not day in, day out. That was no kind of life for a man like Jack. That was for a man more like—well, like Kevin.

  Sometimes they went for long walks after the coffee, and Carol would have to race home as fast as the stroller would go in order to have dinner ready by the time Kevin returned from the office. She found herself thinking about Jack when she wasn’t with him. More than once, when Kevin made love to her, she closed her eyes and imagined Jack inside her, her hands tangled in his dark hair, his mouth on hers. Afterward, waves of guilt would wash over her, but she would tell herself she had done nothing wrong. She was unfaithful to Kevin only in her imagination, and no one could condemn her for that.

  She knew that Jack had a girlfriend, a woman he had been seeing off and on for nearly three years. As the weeks passed, Jack mentioned her less and less frequently. Once, after a long walk through the park, as they sat on the grass under a tree watching Sarah play, Carol asked about her.

  “I haven’t seen her in weeks,” he said.

  Her heart pounded, but she kept her voice steady. “Why not?”

  He met her gaze. “I think you know why.”

  She trembled inside and couldn’t speak. She wanted to rip her eyes away from his, but she couldn’t. She felt as if he could see into the very heart of her and knew what she was thinking—and what she imagined as she made love to her husband.

  Jack took her hand. “Carol, I want to be with you.”

  “We can’t.” She felt her eyes filling with tears. “I’m married.”

  “He doesn’t have to know.” He began to stroke her arm with his other hand, and she shivered, dizzy with arousal. “Please, Carol.”

  She wanted to say yes. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to open herself to him and love him until she was sated, complete.

  But—“I can’t.”

  It came out as a sob. Sarah looked up from her play, startled. Hurriedly, Carol snatched her up and placed her in the stroller. Jack had told her how he despised the manipulation of tears, and she would not let him see her cry.

  “I won’t ask again,” he called to her as she walked away.

  She hesitated. Was it a promise or a warning? She knew it made no difference. Without looking back, she continued on her way.

  At home, she put Sarah down for her nap and flung herself onto the bed she and Kevin shared. Alone, she wept, mourning everything she had never had and would never feel. She wept until she was too exhausted to do anything but stare at the ceiling. She lay on the bed in silence, wondering how she would fill up her days with no more long talks over coffee to look forward to, no more meetings in the bookshop. She could never return to the store, that was certain.

  The next morning, not long after Kevin left for work, the phone rang.

  “I’m leaving,” Jack said.

  “Why?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. I just—I can’t stay here.” He paused. “I said I wouldn’t ask you again—”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes. I’m coming. Don’t go.” She hung up the phone and rushed Sarah into her clothes. She left her with the next-door neighbor, a widow whose children were grown, with the excuse that she had an emergency doctor’s appointment. When she reached the bookstore, Jack was waiting outside. Through the window she could see his aunt at the cash register, helping a customer.

  “Are you sure?” he asked her when she reached him, breathless from running.

  She nodded and gave him her hand.

  He drove them to his apartment, where he began kissing her before he had even closed the door. She felt drenched and new and alive in his arms, and when they had finished making love, he held her close and stroked her hair. He held her for what seemed like a long time, and yet when he shifted to reach for his clothes, her heart broke that it was over so soon.

  Her drove her home—or nearly there; he pulled over to the curb a few blocks from her house. They kissed swiftly, fervently, before she got out of the car and hurried down the street to the neighbor’s, where Sarah waited.

  That evening as she served Kevin his pot roast and potatoes, she wondered how he could be so blind to the change in her. A warmth had come over her, a sensation that she had never known, and she knew she could never return to what she used to be.

  Jack didn’t leave after all, now that she had given him a reason to stay. Over the next two months they met as often as Carol could get away, as often as she could get the woman next door to care for Sarah. “She’s going to think you have a terminal illness if you keep having so many doctor’s appointments,” Jack teased. In response, Carol hit him lightly with a pillow. Their lovemaking was joyful, playful, so unlike her perfunctory moments with Kevin, when she waited for him to finish so she could go to sleep.

  The comparison was not fair, and she felt ashamed for making it. From then on, she tried her best not to think of one man when she was with the other. It was if she were two women, one demure and dutiful, the other passionate and reckless.

  Sarah provided the link between those two halves of herself. She was too young to know what was going on, too young to divulge their secret, but she was a constant reminder of Kevin, and Carol felt herself withdrawing from her daughter as she drew closer to Jack.

  Once, when Carol could not get a sitter, Sarah accompanied them on a picnic in the city park. They found a secluded spot in a grove of trees and spread their blanket. Carol ached for Jack, but she could not kiss him, not with Sarah there.

  An elderly man walking his dog paused to watch them as they murmured to each other and watched Sarah play. He apologized for his intrusion and said, “It’s nice to see such a happy family enjoying this lovely day together.”

  Carol flushed, but Jack merely grinned and thanked him.

  Later that day, Kevin came home from work early with good news: His hard work had paid off, and he had been promoted. He kissed Carol deeply, then swung Sarah up in his arms. “Did you hear Daddy’s good news? Did you, my little sweet pea?” he said, nuzzling her until she crowed with delight.

  Watching them, Carol felt a pang of guilt. Kevin worked so hard to take care of them, never realizing that his happy family was a sham. What would he do if he learned the truth?

  Day by day, her worries accumulated, affecting her encounters with Jack. She thought about what they had done and wondered where it was going to lead. “What are we going to do about this?” she asked him once as he drove her nearly home.

  “What are we going to do about what?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

  She shot him a look. “About us, of course.”

  “What do you mean?” He glanced at her as he pulled the car over to the curb. They had reached her usual disembarking place, but he left the motor running.

  I love you, she almost said, but something in his eyes made her hold back the words. “Nothing,” she said instead. She kissed him quickly and got out of the car.

  Jack didn’t phone her for the rest of that week, and when she stopped by the bookstore, he wasn’t there. Another week went by with no word. Finally she fought back her embarrassment and returned to the bookstore, where she casually asked his aunt why they had not se
en him around the shop recently.

  “He’s off on another buying spree,” the older woman said. “He’s traveling up and down the East Coast looking for bargains. Is there anything you’d like me to hold for you when he brings back the new stock?”

  “No, thank you,” Carol murmured. She left the store, dazed.

  When Jack finally came for her a few days later, her first question to him was, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out of town?”

  “Hey, slow down,” he said, laughing, holding up his palms as if to ward her off. Then he paused. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, furious, too hurt to speak.

  “I go on these business trips all the time, you know that.” His voice was soothing, but there was an undercurrent of warning in it. “You aren’t going to get all serious on me, now, are you? I thought we both understood that we don’t make those kind of demands on each other.”

  She went cold. They were in a dangerous place now, she could feel it. “But to go away for so long without telling me—”

  “I don’t ask what you and your husband do when I’m not around, do I?”

  Stunned, she shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice sounded very far away. “No, of course not.”

  She understood then that he did not love her, not in the way she had thought. They would not be running away together to live penniless but happy in a room above a bookshop in another city where no one knew them. Jack would not become Sarah’s doting stepfather, and Carol would not be his loving wife. He had no intentions of marrying her and never had.

  Whose bed had he shared last week? How many other women had stood before him with lowered eyes, fighting to keep the grief and shock off their faces, pretending that they, too, had been in it just for laughs? He had never promised her anything more than what he had given, but still, somehow, she felt that she had been deceived.

  When she told him she could not go home with him that day, he shrugged, unconcerned. The stroller supported her weight as she walked home, numb.

  The dark clouds enveloped her again, worse than before, and this time her mother was not there to see her through. She stopped her daily trips to the bookstore. While Kevin was at work she let the phone ring unanswered, knowing it was Jack. Eventually he stopped calling. She often forgot to eat and had to remind herself to care for Sarah. Her life felt like it was happening in slow motion, and every part of her cried out silently for Jack.

  Surely, she thought, this was her punishment for lying before God when she married a man she did not love.

  As her condition worsened, Kevin grew worried, then alarmed. He called his mother-in-law for advice; he pleaded with Carol to see a doctor. She sat on the sofa, staring at the floor as he spoke. Then he was on his knees before her, grasping her hands. His eyes were full of tears as he begged her to get help. “I can’t bear to see you like this,” he said, his voice breaking. “Please, let me call the doctor.”

  He loved her, Carol realized, and thought the remorse would kill her.

  “I don’t need a doctor,” she told him, and she began to cry. Hot, heavy tears fell soundlessly upon their clasped hands.

  Kevin looked at her. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded, and then she told him.

  He was furious, but he did not show his rage the way her father would have. The color drained from his face and he tore himself away from her. Her monotone confession still hung in the air between them. Now she was silent, waiting, unable to look at him.

  When he finally spoke, it was with an effort. “You will not—” He broke off, glaring at her, breathing heavily. “You will not take my daughter with you when you go.”

  Distantly, she marveled at his restraint. Her father would have beaten her senseless by now. “I can’t leave without Sarah,” she heard herself say. It was a stranger’s voice.

  “I will not have my daughter raised by a whore,” he said. “When you go, you go alone.”

  “I have nowhere to go.” But he had stormed off to their bedroom. Their voices had woken Sarah, who started to wail. Carol sat frozen in place, unable to go to her. Moments later Kevin returned with her suitcase, only half closed, with clothing hanging out of it. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. She cried out and tried to free herself as he closed her hands around the handle of the suitcase and propelled her to the door.

  “Get out,” he roared, wrestling her outside. She pleaded with him to stop, but he shoved her along the front walk to her car.

  “Kevin, please—”

  “Get out!”

  “Please, don’t make me go, don’t make me leave my baby!”

  His face was contorted in grief and rage. He was sobbing now, too, she saw, and then suddenly he crumpled. He released her, dropped the suitcase, and slid to the ground with his back against the car. He buried his face in his hands and wept in loud, aching sobs, as if she had ripped his heart out.

  She threw her arms around him and kissed him, shushing him, promising that everything would be all right. He pulled her to him and held her so tightly she thought she would smother in his embrace, but she clung to him, welcoming the pain, needing it.

  He did not divorce her as she had expected.

  At first she was grateful and thought him the most generous of husbands. Only as the years went by did she realize that he had let her stay so that he could punish her, so that he could show her what it was like to live without love. He let her remain his wife, but after that night he never loved her again. Kevin let Carol stay with Sarah, but he never let her forget how unworthy she was to live in that house with the husband and daughter she had wronged. All the love he had once showered on his wife he now gave to their daughter, who grew up adoring her father and believing her mother critical and unfeeling. What Sarah did not know was that Kevin punished Carol every day for the rest of his life. He punished her by not forgiving her.

  She tried to regain his trust. She lived a sinless life from that day forward, but nothing would soften his heart. It was as if she were a child again, desperately striving for perfection so that her father would love her. Her efforts were as futile then as they had been so long ago.

  In one last, desperate attempt, she sought perfection through Sarah, pushing her, teaching her, trying to raise her to be the most perfect child a father could want. Then he would see how Carol had atoned for her betrayal, and he would let her be a part of the family again. In this, too, she failed. Kevin already loved his daughter and had always thought her perfect, flaws and all. All Carol managed to do was to nurture resentment in Sarah, who grew up thinking she would be forever inadequate in her mother’s eyes. That was not what Carol had intended. Nothing had worked out the way she had intended.

  There was no harder person to live with than a man who did not forgive, except for a daughter who despised her.

  Chapter Ten

  Usually the end of spring semester brought Gwen a sense of deep satisfaction. Another school year completed; another batch of hungry young minds fed—although it might have been more accurate to say another batch of resistant young minds pummeled into submission. But not this year. Within a week, the day she had long dreaded and hoped for would arrive: Her daughter would be graduating, and after one last brief summer in Waterford, she would head off to graduate school at Penn. Judging by her own experience, Gwen knew that Summer wouldn’t be coming home much after that. She would soon think of Waterford as her mother’s home, and Philadelphia as her own. Gwen would be lucky to see her more than a few times a year. How awful that would be, after seeing her virtually every day since she was born! Summer had had her own apartment in downtown Waterford ever since she began college, but she still came home several times a week to do her laundry, quilt, or borrow something. But there would be no more long heart-to-heart talks over cups of tea when a quick errand turned into a leisurely visit. Now the house would be an empty nest, a hollow shell, a lonely outpost on the frontier of motherhood.


  “Now you’re getting melodramatic,” Gwen muttered as she tied her running shoes and began to stretch. She went jogging every morning, rain or shine. Actually, it was more of a brisk waddle than a jog, but at least she was moving. She had a favorite two-mile circuit through the Waterford College Arboretum that took her about forty minutes to complete. Other runners left her in their dust, but she didn’t let it bother her. Everyone had to move at their own pace, whether along a running trail or through life.

  A mist shrouded the woods that morning, and Gwen’s breath came out in barely visible puffs as she ran. The only other sound was that of her footfalls on the wide dirt path. Spring was her favorite time of year in Pennsylvania. Other people preferred autumn, when the changing leaves covered the hills in brilliant color, but the renewal of spring soothed Gwen’s spirit like nothing else. Winter had been vanquished at last, and the hot, humid days of summer were not yet upon them. The regular school year had ended, and the summer session had not yet begun. These few weeks provided her with a restful interim in which to take time for herself.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t go to campus at all today. She could work just as well at home as in her office. Or maybe she’d put her work aside entirely and quilt instead. She felt too nostalgic to work on her conference paper today, anyway. In the middle of the section on antebellum textiles, she was sure to go off on a weepy tangent about the clothing mothers sewed for their daughters before they parted forever. That would certainly make a fine impression on the review committee.

  When she returned home, she showered and put on comfortable clothes—loose-fitting cotton pants and a long-sleeved flannel shirt, untucked. Far too many of her other clothes were getting snug around the waist. She would have to consider joining Bonnie and Diane for their evening walks. Better that than cutting back on treats such as the hazelnut biscotti she had with her tea for breakfast.

  When she finished eating, she poured herself a second cup of tea and took it with her to the extra bedroom she and Summer used as a quilt studio. With a pang, Gwen realized that Summer would probably take her fabric and supplies with her when she went to school in the fall. Gwen had often wished for a more spacious workplace, but this was not how she had wanted to come by it.