Barefoot (40 page)

She loves you still.
This was a huge statement, especially considering the source. It was a gift from his father. And yet, it was too much to process on a flat, hot morning at the end of the most tumultuous summer of his life. He would have to pocket the statement and think about it later.

“Right,” Josh said. “But I don’t think what’s happening this summer has anything to do with . . .”

“That may be,” Tom Flynn said. “It was just a thought I had.”

“Okay,” Josh said. “Thanks.”

Tom Flynn stood up to his full height and squared his shoulders. “As for being in love, I’m out of practice. I don’t have any fatherly advice other than: Be careful.”

“Be careful,” Josh repeated. “Okay. I will.”

Heat and humidity were no friend to the pregnant woman. Melanie couldn’t stand to be in her own skin. She felt fat and sweaty and lethargic. The cottage was unbearable, it was a kiln, even with all of the windows open and the three oscillating fans running on high. Melanie made two or three trips to the market per day—primarily for cold juice, Cokes, and Gatorade for herself and Vicki, but also because the market was air-conditioned. She went to the beach and swam, but it wasn’t unusual for Melanie to feel faint walking home, confused, fatigued, forgetful. It was less than half a mile from the beach back to Number Eleven Shell Street, but Melanie arrived home feeling like she’d been lost in the desert.

And so, on the day that she saw Peter standing at the front door, she thought she was hallucinating.

She saw the cab first, an Atlantic Cab right in front of Number Eleven, and a cab, generally, meant Ted. But it was a Wednesday, not Friday, although Melanie had some vague sense that Ted was coming earlier than planned for his vacation so that he could be with Vicki for her post-treatment CT scan. But that was still another week away, wasn’t it? This was the kind of thing Melanie kept forgetting. Still, when she saw the cab, she thought: Ted. Because who else could it possibly be? They never had visitors.

It took another few seconds for Melanie to notice the man standing in the shade of the overhang, a very tall man in a suit. From the back he looked like Peter. Melanie blinked. It was always like this at the end of her walk home; her vision splotched. She was thirsty and tired. She had been out with Josh the night before, back home so late it was early.

The man turned, or half turned, searching the street. Melanie stopped. It was Peter. Her stomach dropped in a quasi-thrilling way, like she was careening down a roller coaster. The voice in her head screamed:
Holy shit! It’s Peter! Peter is here!
How was this possible? He took off from work? He
flew
here? He thought it would be okay to show up without
asking?
There had been phone calls, three to be exact, not counting the call that Melanie had placed from the market, not counting the call that Vicki had answered. So five calls in total—but not once did Peter hint that he was thinking of doing this. He asked Melanie when she was planning on coming home—and that was the correct question. That left Melanie in control. She would come home when she felt like it, and at that point they would deal with the detritus of their marriage. Melanie could not
believe
Peter was standing by the front door of the cottage. She imagined the baby inside of her doing backflips
. How dare he!
she thought. And simultaneously, she thought,
Thank God Josh is gone for the day.
Josh. A second later she realized that she was not only horrified by Peter’s arrival, she was flattered by it. Before everything happened with Josh, this was exactly what she had wished for.

She couldn’t make herself move forward; she wanted to remain in this moment of seeing Peter but being unseen herself. The front door of Number Eleven was always unlocked. Had he tried the knob? Had he knocked? Vicki would be asleep with the kids, Brenda was probably still out. Melanie stood in the shade of the neighbor’s elm tree, watching him. He looked distinctly out of place in his suit, but the suit also brought to mind the fact that Peter was an adult, a man with a job in the city—and not a college student.

Melanie remained there a few seconds longer, but she was a hostage in her own body. She was dying of thirst—and, as ever, she had to pee. She moved forward, pretending not to have noticed him and trying not to worry about her appearance. She hadn’t seen the man in nearly two months. She was bigger now, with a swell at her abdomen. She had been swimming at the beach, and her hair looked like . . . what? When she touched it, it was curly and stiff with salt. The skin of her face was tight from too much sun. And yet, Melanie felt beautiful. Because of Josh, she told herself. She felt beautiful because of Josh.

She opened the gate and strolled down the flagstone walk. Peter saw her, she could feel his eyes on her, but she would not look at him, she would not acknowledge him, she would not be the first to speak.

“Melanie?”

His voice was not filled with wonder, as she had hoped. Rather, his tone was the one he used when he wanted to call attention to something that was right in front of her face.
Earth to Melanie!
She responded to this not by acting surprised but by cutting her eyes at him, then quickly looking away. She reached past him for the doorknob and he touched her shoulder. His voice softened considerably.

“Hey, Mel. It’s me.”

“I can see that.” She looked at him. It was both familiar and strange, the way her neck arched so she could look him in the eye. Peter was tall, six foot six, whereas Josh was just a few inches taller than Melanie. Peter’s skin was a warm, golden color, despite his claims that he’d been trapped in the office all summer, and she’d missed his almond-shaped eyes, the intricate creases of his eyelids. This was her husband. The man she’d been with for nearly ten years.

Before she knew what was happening, he bent to kiss her. She closed her eyes. The kiss was distinct from the thousands of other kisses of their marriage, many of which had been dutiful, passionless, dry, quick. This kiss was searching, lingering, it was exploratory and apologetic. It took Melanie’s breath away.

But come on! Melanie told herself. She was not such an easy mark. She pushed into the house. Peter had to duck to get through the doorway.

“Be quiet,” Melanie said. “Vicki and the kids are sleeping.”

“Okay,” Peter whispered. He followed Melanie into the big room. She noticed he was toting an overnight bag. “This is a cute place. Not exactly what I imagined, but cute. Old-fashioned.”

“I love it,” Melanie said defensively, as if Peter had been insulting it. “It was built in eighteen oh-three. Vicki’s family has owned it for over a hundred years.”

“Wow,” Peter said. Because of the low ceilings, he was hunched in the shoulders. Melanie watched him take in the details of the room—fireplace, bookshelves, coffee table, sofa, kitchen table, rotary phone, silver-threaded Formica, sixty-year-old appliances, braided rugs, ceiling beams, doors with glass knobs leading to various other rooms, presumably rooms as small and precious as this one. He stood there, nodding, waiting maybe, for Melanie to invite him into her room.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“Oh,” he said as if she’d startled him. “Actually, I haven’t booked a place.”

“It’s August,” Melanie said. “It would have been smart to make a reservation.”

“I thought I would stay here,” he said. “With you. I thought . . .”

Melanie cut him off with some high-pitched laughing. Laughing because she didn’t know what to say or how to feel. She had to pee.

“You’ll excuse me one second?” she said.

“Uh, sure.”

She shut the door of the bathroom and locked it for good measure.
I thought I would stay here. With you.
Melanie pictured Frances Digitt with her cutesy-butch haircut and her lively blue eyes. Frances had always asked about Vicki’s in vitro in a confidential sotto voce.
How’s it going? My sister, Jojo, in California, the exact same thing. Must be so tough . . .
For months, Melanie had thought that Frances Digitt was genuinely sympathetic, but it was clear now that Frances Digitt hadn’t wanted Melanie to conceive at all; most likely, her sister, Jojo, in California, was fictional. Frances Digitt skied the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies; she was dropped into remote mountain terrain by helicopter. She was a person who sought out danger—so, another woman’s husband? Sure, why not? Frances Digitt’s chocolate Lab was named Baby; she was one of these women whose dog was her child. The dog probably knew Peter by now, the dog probably licked his hands and rested his head in Peter’s lap and whined to be stroked between the eyes.

I thought I would stay here. With you.

Melanie flushed the toilet. When she stood, her legs were jelly. She staggered to the brown-spotted mirror and smiled at herself. She looked okay; she looked better than okay. Her fury was empowering—and she was furious! She was about to pitch a fit like a little kid.
How dare you! You bastard! You asshole!
No doubt Peter expected Melanie to happily invite him back into her bed. He was, after all, her husband and the father of her child.

Melanie didn’t care!

She washed her hands and face, patted them dry with a towel, and drank from the children’s bathroom cup. Vicki could wake up at any moment, and Brenda would come home. Melanie had to figure this out, and soon.

Peter was standing right where she’d left him. A giant in the dollhouse. The cottage was hot, she realized. He must have been sweltering in his suit.

“Would you like a drink?” she said.

“I’d love one.”

She poured two glasses of lemonade and added ice. She sucked hers down and poured herself more. She collapsed in a kitchen chair; she couldn’t stand up another second. Peter remained standing until she nodded to the chair across from hers. He took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, and sat.

“How do you feel?” he said. “You look great.”

“What are you doing here, Peter?”

He rolled up his shirtsleeves. There were things about him that she’d forgotten—the muscle tone of his forearms, for example, and his brushed-chrome Tag Heuer watch, which he always kept facedown and jangled on his wrist when he was nervous. She’d forgotten how smooth his skin was, practically hairless; he only had to shave twice a week. And the glossy pink wetness of his lips and the faint scar on his nose, a half-inch white line with hash marks (he’d gotten the cut as a child in a bus accident). Melanie had touched that scar innumerable times, she had kissed it, licked it, batted it with her eyelashes. This was her
husband.
Before Frances Digitt, what had that meant? At first, they’d lived in Manhattan, they rode the subway, ate take-out food, went to movies and readings, worked out at the gym, volunteered at a soup kitchen and a shelter. They tried new restaurants and met in hotel bars for drinks with people from Peter’s work, people like Ted and Vicki. They had shopped for things: a new sofa, window treatments, a birthday present for Peter’s mother, who lived in Paris. They had plenty of money, and, more important, they had plenty of time. They spent hours reading the paper on Sundays and going for long walks in Central Park. Once they moved to Connecticut, they raked leaves and mowed the lawn, painted the powder room, and worked in the garden. But something was missing, a connection, a purpose to their union beyond the acquisition of things
,
the completion of tasks
.
Children! Melanie wanted children. That was when her marriage came into focus, or so it had seemed to Melanie. She and Peter embarked on a quest; they were united by their wanting. The gifts and the trips that arrived in place of a child—the orchids, the truffles, the oceanfront suite in Cabo—were meant to console Melanie, to make her happy. But they had only served to anger her. She was, in the final months, a woman who could not be made happy, except by one thing. The lovemaking became a job; Melanie did everything short of bringing her basal thermometer, calendar, and stopwatch to bed. Was it any wonder Peter had begun an affair with someone young, someone daring and fun, someone whose idea of a child weighed a hundred pounds and was covered with brown fur?

Yes, to Melanie it was a wonder. Peter was her husband. She’d assumed that meant they owned if not each other, then at least the relationship. The marriage was something they had agreed to value, like a Ming vase; it was something they were entrusted to carry, each holding equal weight. But Peter had dropped his end.

“I wanted to see you,” Peter said. “You’ve been gone forever
.
I miss you.”

“That’s bullshit.” Melanie touched her belly. “You’re only here because I’m pregnant.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, God, of course it is. Why pretend otherwise?”

“It’s over with Frances,” Peter said.

Melanie did not respond to this, though she was keenly interested by it. Did Peter end the relationship with Frances because he was overcome with love and longing for his wife? Or did Frances Digitt simply meet someone else at her share in the Hamptons?

“I said, it’s over with . . .”

“I heard you.”

“I thought you’d be . . .”

“What? Overjoyed? Relieved? I don’t trust you, Peter. You cheated on me and you cheated on our marriage and although you didn’t know it, you cheated on this baby.”

“I knew you’d overreact.”

Now,
there
was the Peter she recognized. It was as though he was torn between the mean person he really was and the kind, conciliatory person he was trying to be.

Melanie smirked. “Right. I’m sure you did. Get out of here, Peter.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, sorry.” He leaned forward and gave her a look that could only be described as beseeching. “I love you, Mel.”

“You do not.”

“I do. I want you to come home.”

“I don’t want to come home. I’m happy here.” She took a breath and counted to three, the way she did each afternoon before she plunged into the ocean. “There’s someone else.”

“There is?”

“There is.” Melanie’s stomach made some weird squelching noise, loud enough to offer some comic relief, but Peter’s expression remained shocked, incredulous.