A Good Marriage(13)



Zach pulled his chin back. “Wait, but you could ask someone? You haven’t already been told no?”

Shit. I looked down and exhaled in a long stream. Why, why, why had I said that? Then again, maybe it wasn’t the worst approach—Young & Crane would certainly say no. Paul had once specifically said something about associates not being able to take on their own cases. After he officially said no, I would officially be off the hook.

“I guess I can ask,” I said finally. “But they will say no.”

“Sure, yeah. Okay,” Zach said, but I could tell he wasn’t listening.

“Zach, I’m serious,” I said. “It won’t change anything.”

“I understand, I do. And thank you.” His stare lingered. He smiled slightly.

“Visiting hours have now ended!” came a louder, more insistent voice on the intercom. “Please proceed to the exit immediately!”

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “I should have a lot more information by end of day tomorrow if you call then. Let’s say seven p.m.? Here’s my cell.” I wrote out the number and held it up so Zach could copy it down correctly. “I’ll be sure to pick up.”

“Thank you, Lizzie,” Zach said. He pressed a hand flat against the dirty plexiglass, looked at me imploringly. “Thank you.”

I hesitated before pressing my hand up to meet his. It was a weirdly intimate gesture, even though we weren’t physically touching.

“Try not to worry,” I said, and pulled my hand away.

“Because there’s nothing to worry about?” he asked. “Or because it won’t help?”

“Both,” I said, before heading for the door.

I was breathing hard as I made it up the stairs to our fourth-floor walk-up. I’d googled Amanda on the way home. There was nothing specifically about her death, but there had been stories in the Post and the Daily News about a murder in Park Slope over the weekend: “Peril in Park Slope” and “Slope Slay” were the headlines, respectively. Both stories featured a nearly identical photo—an ambulance parked outside a brownstone, a half-dozen police cars, police tape. Both had also been very light on detail, with no mention of Zach’s or Amanda’s names: “Pending notification of the family,” the papers demurred. They did not mention a cause of death either, but did indicate that an arrest had been made and that the police did not believe there was any risk to public safety. Sam and I had been at an old friend’s house at the Jersey Shore for the July Fourth weekend, so I’d missed the entire thing.

My searching did unearth lots of other pictures of Amanda and Zach elsewhere online—charity events, profiles of Zach. Amanda was beautiful. Hauntingly so. Thin and gazelle-like, with long, thick blond hair. She was the opposite in every way of my dark features and sturdy, capable frame. I couldn’t find mention of her age anywhere, but she looked young. Very young.

I was trying to imagine just how young as I stepped inside our apartment, the quiet and that familiar stuffiness greeting me. It was late, almost eleven. But Sam was usually up. Please don’t be out, I thought. Please don’t be out.

I dumped my bag in the hallway and worked my way out of my high heels, before stopping in the kitchen for a glass of water and something to eat. I grabbed a handful of Twizzlers out of the huge bag I kept tucked, pointlessly, out of sight. As I pulled the Brita from the refrigerator, I saw tomorrow’s lunch already packed for me. Oh, Sam, if only there existed enough turkey sandwiches in the world to make up for everything.

From the doorway to the dim living room I saw him, dead asleep on the couch. And I was pretty sure asleep and not passed out. He was curled on his side, the Yankees–Red Sox game on, sound muted.

I approached quietly and leaned over him. He didn’t smell of alcohol—that’s what we were reduced to, me smelling him—and on the coffee table was a bottle of seltzer. I lowered myself onto the edge of the table and watched him sleep. He looked so perfect like that, sandy blond hair tousled over his angled cheekbones. Sam’s deep-set, bright blue eyes were lovely, but so troubled these days. Asleep, he was only beautiful.

He was trying, too. So hard. I did love him for that. Sam had stopped drinking cold turkey for two whole months after the car accident. Since I’d joined Young & Crane four months ago, there’d been the occasional beer at a baseball game, or a glass of wine at a friend’s dinner party. But he hadn’t been drunk again—certainly not passed out, bleeding drunk—not until last week.

Once upon a time, I would have said that blacked out was the same as passed out. Someone asleep, basically, facedown on the carpet. Eight years into being married to Sam, I was now an expert in drunken vernacular. In a blackout, a person—your husband, for instance—stays completely ambulatory, going through all the regular motions, albeit clumsily. He does not seem “passed out” in the least, though he is not “there” either, because the most essential portion of him—the him you love—has effectively vanished. Leaving you speaking to someone who looks like your loved one and sounds like your loved one but is not him in any meaningful way.

Ten stitches and a mild concussion, that was all in the end despite the blood. Such a short time later, and the gash was so neatly hidden by Sam’s hair that even our friends in Jersey hadn’t noticed. Part of me wished Sam had been left with a ghastly scar right in the middle of his perfect forehead. I would never forget those moments of thinking he was dead. Why should Sam? Zach was right: the worst part of marriage was the way somebody else’s problems became your own.

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