Ink and Bone(27)

Wolf glanced at the clock. It was 2:35 in the afternoon. He had to leave in exactly fifteen minutes to pick up Jackson from school. Last year, Jackson was raging that Merri wouldn’t let him take the subway home. Everybody takes the subway, Mom! You’re turning me into a freak show! Now, the poor kid wouldn’t go anywhere without one of them. He was as fragile a person as Wolf had ever seen. And Wolf would be there on time to get his kid, who needed him. He wasn’t going to let anyone else down. Ever.

“Look, Kris,” he said, trying not to sneak another peek at the clock. “Can’t we talk about this later?”

“Later when?”

She sat on the red felt bar stool, leaning on the quartz countertop. Her face was blotchy and red from crying. She held a tissue, regularly dabbing the corner of each eye in a practiced effort to keep her mascara and eyeliner from running. He moved toward the door, hoping she’d take the hint and follow.

“I have to get Jackson,” he said. “This is not a good time to talk.”

She subtly—almost imperceptibly—rolled her eyes. He was trying not to hate her.

“I need to know when, Wolf,” she said. “It’s been almost a year. I’ve been patient. Most women wouldn’t have waited around this long.”

There was a wide, unbridgeable gully between them. Why didn’t she see it? Did he have to spell it out for her? Maybe he did. He had been sleeping with Kristi for a year and a half. It had started a few months before they lost Abbey and had, in spite of his desire to end it, dragged on after. And the longer he was with her, the less knowable she seemed. The less he wanted to know her. Beneath that well-coiffed, (once) sunshiny exterior—what was really there? What moved her? Inspired her? Frightened her? What did she love? Hate? How many times had he heard her say blandly, “Wow, that’s awesome.” Or, all pouty: “That’s so not-awesome.” Had she ever been truly awed by anything? He didn’t know.

“Your marriage is over,” she said. “It has been for a long time. You said so yourself. I know it’s been hard.”

She bowed her head here. Why did it seem like she was trying to look sad, understanding—like she was acting? “But we need to move forward.”

That she could be sitting here, saying this to him, made him think of Blake.

“Man, that girl is—”

Wolf thought Blake was going to say “hot” or “sweet.” Wolf had kind of sprung Kristi on Blake. Blake was his best friend, and Kristi at the time, in the beginning, was making him so happy; he needed to share it. So he had her pop in just quickly at the Upper East Side bar where Wolf was meeting Blake for a drink.

“Empty,” Blake finished. “She’s completely vacant. No offense, man—you know I love you. But when you have a woman like Merri, and two great kids, why would you do something like this to your family?”

That moment, after which Blake paid the bill and left, had put a real strain on their friendship.

(Blakey and Claire canceled for the cabin, Merri told him the next day, disappointed, mystified. They’d been vacationing together most summers for a decade. Any idea why? She’s been acting so weird. They’d tell us if they were having problems, wouldn’t they?) Wolf had been pissed, knowing that Blake had told Claire that Wolf was f*cking around, breaking the sacred man code.

Now, Wolf inched toward the door. He didn’t move fast anymore, which is one of the reasons he needed to leave soon. The city that he used to navigate with the arrogant ease of the young and healthy was now a painful obstacle course of stairs and uneven sidewalks, crushing crowds, and uncomfortable subway rides where suddenly younger people offered up their seats—seeing at first his crutch, then his obvious limp. Even the kindest touch could hurt when you were a raw and bleeding open wound, which he was.

He was healing, but not quickly. But he was glad for the almost constant pain. He deserved it. He deserved a lot worse. The bullet had just missed the major artery but broken the bone, lodging itself into his femur. (In dark moments, he’d wished it had killed him.) The doctor had opted to leave it in, rather than risk nerve injury. The bone would heal around it, apparently. Wolf imagined that he could feel the cold bit of metal inside the knitting flesh and bone, a hard, icy reminder to carry with him forever, to remind him how he had failed his beautiful Abbey. How he had failed them all. Ever since they’d been kids, Wolf had always wished he were more like Blake. Nothing like this could ever happen to his friend; Blake wouldn’t allow it.

“You know, Wolf,” Kristi said now. “I’ve been suffering, too.”

He almost laughed. A young, pretty, childless woman of privilege did not know suffering.

“Did you just say that?” he asked. “Do you have no idea what we have been going through?”

Of course, she didn’t. She was a spectator, had no skin in the game. He didn’t want to blame her. Everything rested cleanly on his shoulders. But deep down inside where he might hold a little bit of love or affection for her, there was only a cold, angry feeling. If it hadn’t been for you—

But that was the old Wolf. The Wolf who had not yet been harshly punished by the universe. The new chastened Wolf was trying to be there for his sundered, shattered family. He was trying to wade through the deepest, most unimaginable mire of horror, grief, and regret possible for a human to endure. And he only kept moving because of his beautiful, damaged boy who needed him to get whole again somehow. But Wolf was still f*cking Kristi. How could he excuse this? He couldn’t.