The Headmaster's Wife(51)

They eat. For a moment there is only the sound of chopsticks picking up shiny pieces of fish on rice, dipping them into soy sauce and wasabi and then lifting up to their mouths. He watches her. She enjoys eating, and though he has no right to do so, he loves her for this.

Finally, he says, “I have to ask you. I am sorry.”

“Say it,” she says.

He hesitates. He sips from his wine. “Okay,” he says. “Shit, I don’t know how to say it.”

“Just say it. You can ask me anything.”

He breathes deep. “It’s none of my business.”

“Go ahead.”

“You tried to kill yourself.”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why?”

She puts down her chopsticks. She looks out the window.

He says, “You don’t have to say anything.”

“No,” she says, turning back to him. “I want to. This is important.”

“Okay,” he says.

“I couldn’t.”

“Okay.”

“I mean: I couldn’t. Something happened. I jumped, right? Jumped into the frozen water. I wanted to die, I did. I wanted it all to go away. I wasn’t well. I really wanted it to go away. But then something happened.”

“What?”

“I hit the water and I sank. It was so cold. Coldest thing I ever felt. And it was like—it was like hands pulling me down. It was so easy. Just go, Betsy, I thought. Let go. But then suddenly I didn’t want to. It was like my body said, ‘Fuck that. You need to live.’ I remember looking up, and everything was hazy. I couldn’t see anything. Next thing I was above the water gasping. I wanted air more than anything. And I swam. I didn’t know I could swim. How silly is that? But I did. I swam. It was like someone else was swimming for me.”

“You wanted to live.”

She smiled. Played with a piece of salmon on her plate. Outside, a barge moved down the river, and he saw it from his peripheral vision, lit like a Christmas tree. “Yes, I guess that’s true. Something wanted me to live.”

“Something?”

“It was so cold, Russell. I can’t remember what I was thinking. I just went for the bank as fast as I could. And when I climbed up it, I knew I wanted to live. I knew I needed to live. Maybe for Ethan, though I know that sounds hokey.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You’re kind.”

“There’s nothing I can say that will sound right.”

“I always loved that about you.”

“What?”

“Your honesty.”

“I work for the district attorney.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. Something about you. I don’t know. You are only yourself.”

“I know,” he says.

She cocks her head. “Yes, you do. That is your beauty.”

He laughs. “I didn’t know I had beauty. I mean, look at me…”

“I like you,” she says.

“You once loved me,” he says wistfully and then immediately regrets giving this idea words. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“That was another life,” she says.

“Yes,” he says.

“I didn’t mean anything by that,” she says.

“I know.”

They sit in silence. He reflexively takes a piece of dragon roll into his mouth, though he is not hungry. He eats because it gives him something to do with his big hands. It gives him something to do besides stare into her green eyes.

He says, “I have overstepped.”

“No,” she says.

“Arthur—are you?”

“We were done a long time ago,” she says.

“Okay,” he says.

“I want him to be well.”

“He will.”

“I hope so.”

“Betsy?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to be foolish.”

“Stop.”

“Okay.”

“I mean I am not ready for anything, you know?”

“Yes,” he says.

She smiles. “Sushi is good.”

“Sushi is great.”

“Yes, it’s great.”

He drops his head and cracks a smile. She is across the table from him. He looks out to the winter night. It has been forever since someone else shared this space with him. And he thinks about the nature of the world, that after all these years she is here and he loves her as if they were sixteen again, but he cannot say this to her, and that is okay, that is as it should be. He looks out to the winter night. Far below them is the river, timeless and uncaring. It moves to the sea as if they were not there at all.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I began this novel in the neonatal intensive care unit at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in the summer of 2009. Our second daughter, Jane, had just been born and born far too early. She weighed less than two pounds. Her lungs didn’t work. But nevertheless she was a miracle, and while I was in the middle of the arduous work of starting a college, I spent every moment I could next to her bedside during the six months she lived. And what began as one novel eventually became a very different one, a novel of grief and one that I dedicate to her, for though she did not live long, she taught everyone who came into touch with her the true meaning of courage and fearlessness. She was a remarkable brown-eyed baby girl, and this book, the most honest thing I have ever written, is for her.