Acts of Contrition (31 page)

“Goddamn, MM. I can’t get her out of my head! I open and close my desk drawer eighty times a day just to look at this grainy newspaper photo I have of her.”

“Landon…”

“I just want to
know
her. I want to know what she’s like, what she likes. What’s her favorite food, color? Is she athletic or artsy? Is she competitive or laid-back?”

“Landon…”

“I lie in bed at night and make up conversations, pretend that she and I are sitting on the steps of the Capitol, looking out at the Washington Monument.”

“Landon!” I hiss into the phone. “Knock it off.”

“You have no idea what’s it’s like,” Landon says. “Now that I’ve seen her, I want to know her.”

“What can you possibly think you can do about it?” I ask through clenched teeth, cutting right to the chase, because all of a sudden I feel the gun at my head.

“I don’t know!”

“You’ve got to know.”

“I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m just going to suffer, that’s all.”

The self-pity again. “Do you promise you’ll let it go?”

“All along I thought that I was the smart one, avoiding risk at all costs. But you, Mary, were the tactical genius. You knew that fortifying a life with love was the surest way to stay strong. Me? I’ve been starving myself of it forever.”

“Are you going to stay away?” I ask again.

But he doesn’t answer me. Instead he sighs, and when he speaks it’s in little more than a whisper. “There are days, Mary,” he says, “that I look around me in whatever meeting I’m in—and I’m
always
in a meeting; that’s my
life
now—and I think,
What is your
deal,
James? You’ve made it—not all the way there, but damn close. The Republican candidate for Senate, with more than a fighting chance to win the seat, if the pollsters know anything.
But all I’m thinking about is…spending a day with Sally.”

I hit end before responding to this, without saying good-bye, because jogging up the road is my husband.

After showers, the girls and I dress casually in sundresses and sandals. Tom and the boys wear shorts. Together we walk down the beach road about half a mile to the Catholic Church that looks more like a revamped convenience store. This morning’s Mass doesn’t disappoint. There is a group of beachy musicians at the altar, shaking tambourines, cowbells, and maracas while singing folksy church songs. The readings and homily fly by without notice. Before we know it, the kids are chomping on doughnuts in the lobby. When Tom brings me a peanut doughnut, I tell him I’m not hungry.

“Too many pancakes,” he says, and I nod in agreement, though I haven’t eaten a bite all morning. A phone call from Landon, his
threat to my life, his desperation to know Sally, is enough to steal much more than my appetite.

The next morning I wake up early and stand under the heat of the shower for longer than usual, trying to convince myself to calm down. The fog is thick, and though I can’t see an inch in front of my face, I have to believe that the road is there. I have to have faith. I know Landon, probably better than anyone, and though yesterday his desperation bordered on crazy, I’ve got to believe that he wouldn’t dare risk his career for Sally. For the decade I knew him, the smart money was on Landon’s selfishness. I bet against it and lost. Now I’ve got to believe that Landon’s regard for only himself will prevail again. There’s no way he’d follow through with his “I’d give it all up for a day with Sally,” would he?

After breakfast we make our annual pilgrimage to Ocracoke Island, driving our car onto the ferry and disembarking a half hour later, our heads dizzy from the boat fumes and happy to be breathing fresh air. We walk around the island, ducking into souvenir shops. We watch a guy cast a fishnet into the water. He offers to let the boys try, and they clamor at the opportunity. Tom shadows Danny’s body first so that he doesn’t hurl himself into the water. Danny swings the net, but it lands in a clump; the graceful fan the fisherman was able to achieve seems to require practice. Dom tries next, having the same result as his brother. They’re excited anyway, to have thrown a real net.

Sally pulls out her art pad and sits on a bench, sketching the marina in front of her. Her golden hair shimmers in the sun like a halo. She’s staring at the horizon, thinking. Intense concentration forms a hood of her eyebrows. Her defiant chin juts forward. Her cheekbones seem more angular than normal. The resemblance kills me. I wanted her to look like Tom and so she
did, in my mind. But now I see her through new eyes. And all I can see is Landon.

Emily’s atop a concrete divider, lifting her knees and kicking her feet in an Irish jig. Her upper body is as straight and still as a statue, her arms anchored to her sides, but her legs flail and flip. There’s a family with two daughters sitting on a bench one down from us, watching Emily, the little girls pointing with admiration. Emily’s oblivious. Dance springs from her as easily as walking. It doesn’t occur to her that she’s talented.

We eat dinner at a nice waterfront restaurant before heading back onto the ferry. The boys fall asleep in the car, Sally stares out the window, Emily sings from
Evita.

I look over at Tom. He’s calm and relaxed and in him I see the man I was married to a mere eight months ago, the one who found goodness in every human being, the one who hadn’t yet been robbed blind. When he catches me looking at him, he turns, meets my eyes. “What?”

“Nothing, hon,” I say. “I love you.” I reach over and rub his arm because he believes we’re over the hump, though after the call from Landon, guilt sits in my stomach like a bag of coins, heavy and indigestible. I know I should tell Tom about the call, but I can’t. Not after last night.

The days fall into a steady rhythm: dodging waves, searching for shells, and making sand castles in the morning. Back to the beach house for lunch, picnicking on the deck, already reminiscing about the morning at the beach as if an hour ago were five years ago, setting the memories in concrete so that we’ll never forget the sting of the cold waves hitting our backs or the salt of the water sneaking into our mouths or the caress of our feet kneading the sand.

After lunch we pack into the car for a field trip. We see the Wright Brothers National Memorial one day, watch the hang gliders at Jockey’s Ridge another, swim on the sound side another, digging for hermit crabs and admiring the kite surfers. Most afternoons we park at the marina, stand on the wooden docks, and watch the fishing boats come in, waiting in anticipation as the captain tosses the prized catches of the day: yellowfin tuna, dolphin. The boys are hoping to see a blue marlin like the one hanging in the restaurant the other night. Tonight we’re headed to play miniature golf at Jurassic Putt in Nags Head. The boys are giddy with excitement. They can’t wait to see the gigantic dinosaurs. Dom’s hoping to see a T. rex.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Working the Steps

SEPTEMBER ROLLS IN AND THE
kids head back to school. Sally enters the fifth grade and Emily enters the fourth. The boys stride confidently into kindergarten. It’s October before we know it. Leaves turn, Halloween comes, and the children sprint from door to door, collecting their bounty of candy.

Soon it’s November and the coverage of the election has reached monumental proportions. Talk of Landon is everywhere. On Sunday morning he appears on
Meet the Press
. An hour later he’s on
Face the Nation
. He and the Democrat are neck and neck. Both are giving it all they’ve got, slinging mud, impugning each other’s credibility. The Democrat’s commercials accuse Landon of hating women, of wanting them dead, because he is against federal money going to support Planned Parenthood. Landon’s campaign is just as skewed, slandering his opponent for sending our troops into harm’s way ill-prepared. It’s hard to watch. The media feigns disgust but offers more coverage than ever. The dirtier the better. The only saving grace:
there’s no mention of my photo, my name; no reference to me is ever made again. Housewife and mother Mary Morrissey means nothing to anyone. And I no longer worry about Landon wanting Sally. The passion behind his plea was fleeting. I should’ve known better than to expect constancy from Landon James, and for once I couldn’t be happier to be denied it.

On Election Day—November 6—I go to cast my vote. I vote for Landon not because I believe he’ll be an effective senator—though that’s true—but because his success is my salvation. A US Senate term means a solid six years in which he’ll be in the public eye and thus out of my life. Any thoughts stirring in his mind about Sally will be put to rest. I hold no animosity for this man who was ill-equipped to love me in the way I needed to be loved. I gave and he took a decade of my life because I was hopeful that he would come around. With various degrees of effort and success, he tried. He swam upstream against the current of his past.

Yet all these years with Sally, he stayed away. He kept his promise to stay out of my life. So yes, I voted for Landon, gave him one more vote in the direction of his dream, one step farther away from me and Sally.

By design I steer clear of all news channels, leaving the boys’ Nick Jr. on until bedtime. If Tom guesses my motives, he doesn’t say anything. By ten o’clock that night, I go into the bathroom and check my phone for the results. Landon has won, made his victory speech with aplomb, and accepted a congratulatory phone call from his opponent. I mute the sound on my phone and press play, watching him work the crowd. Part of me can almost feel the elation I’m sure he is experiencing. Despite myself, I’m proud of him.

When Tom and I crawl into bed, I’m surprised when he turns on the news. There’s Landon grinning, pumping hands, waving to his supporters.

“
Seinfeld
’s on channel forty-two,” I say.

“Your boy won,” Tom says. The hair on my neck tingles.

“Come on, Tom,” I say.

“To think, Mare, you gave up all that for all this.”

“I didn’t give anything up,” I say, snuggling into him. “It was a pure gain on my part. Zero sum.”

“But you loved him,” Tom says.

I roll away. Here we go. These last few months have been good. We’re almost back to normal, so I’m a little surprised that Tom’s picking a fight. But then I think: a man, his ego, watching his rival win a US Senate seat.

“Don’t do this,” I say. “Please.”

“We’re just talking,” Tom says. “Openly. No secrets, right?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“You had to love him,” Tom says. “Or you wouldn’t have stuck around for so long, right?”

“People stay at jobs they hate for twenty years because they think it might get better. Or they think there is nothing better out there. It was like that,” I say, taking an enormous breath.

“Did you love him?”

“Not like I love you,” I say.

Tom smirks. “What does that mean? You loved him more?”

“I loved him less,” I say, rolling back into Tom. “I loved him much less,” I repeat, rubbing his arm, coaxing him down from the ledge of his jealousy. “He was a boyfriend, but you’re a husband. Do you know how much more significant that is?” I kiss his arm. “You’re a
man
. He was just a
boy
. You were able to do
what he couldn’t. You were able to step up and make a commitment. You’re a
man
, Tom. The difference is huge.”

I lied to my husband,
I’ll say next time I’m at confession, because lying is the only way out of this conversation. There is no way in hell I will ever tell Tom how much I loved Landon James. Some secrets should never be told.

Thanksgiving knocks on our door like a lost child looking for shelter.
Is it safe to come in?
it seems to ask.
Are the Morrisseys celebrating Thanksgiving this year?
My sisters come, Mom and Dad, and we go through the motions: I brine the bird, roll out dough for the pies, roast red peppers for the soup. Sally and Emily set the table, pull out the craft projects from school years past, attempt to make origami cranes out of the stiff fabric napkins. The smells of rosemary and garlic infuse the house, logs kindle in the fireplace, the Macy’s parade marches across our television screen.