A Good Marriage(14)
Rehab. That was the obvious solution. But, as Sam was always quick to point out, we didn’t have the money for the high-quality private treatment that wouldn’t be covered by insurance. The kind both of us had heard was really the only effective kind. Getting sober and staying sober is expensive. But there was one option Sam refused to consider: his parents.
Sam came from an extremely wealthy family, generations of money, going all the way back to the railroads. These days, his father, Baron Chadwick, was a tax partner in a prestigious Boston law firm and his mother, Kitty Chadwick, a society wife. But Sam had not had a happy childhood. No abuse, just unbearable coldness that had frozen into cruelty as Sam continued to disappoint his father with the passionate, creative, sensitive person he turned out to be. Sam’s father wanted an athlete, a class president, a lawyer, for a son. He wanted a corporate raider and a locker-room brawler, someone who would cut down enemy and friend alike. Anything to win. Meanwhile, Sam handed over study guides to struggling classmates and had once decided not to interview for an impressive internship his best friend had his heart set on. Sam’s dad couldn’t really see the point of a son like that. He couldn’t see the point of Sam. Sam had been estranged completely from his parents since right before our wedding. It seemed only fair to me that they pay for the damage. But Sam couldn’t bear the thought of asking, which was absolutely understandable, and also totally convenient.
“Oh, hey,” Sam said sleepily, stirring on the couch. He looked toward the windows, where he was always sure to keep watch for my cab. “Sorry, I missed you coming in.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”
But I was not fine. I was suddenly overwhelmed by this deep, tar-like anger. Stuck to everything. Was it sweet that Sam stood sentry, waiting for me to get home? Sure. Would I rather he express his love by getting himself sober once and for all? Um, yes, definitely.
What I could not explain for the life of me was how I could be that angry and yet want to climb up on the couch next to Sam and curl my body inside his.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost eleven.”
“And you just got home?” Sam squinted his blue eyes, bright even in the dim light. “That’s late even for the gulag.”
“Yeah.”
And then I was supposed to tell Sam everything. About Zach and Amanda and the call out of the blue. About my trip to Rikers, and how I’d backed myself into a corner by saying I’d ask Young & Crane. On the way home, I’d been puzzling over my impulse to blurt that out to Zach, but I had no interest in looking under that particular rock. And so I also decided to say nothing to Sam. To keep it all a secret. After all, what was one more?
“That’s like a …” Sam reached and spun his fingers through my hair, his voice dropping sleepily as he fumbled to calculate. “A twelve-, no, fifteen-, sixteen-hour workday.” He exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry, Lizzie.”
I shrugged. “You don’t assign the cases.”
“But it is my fault you’re working there in the first place,” he said, and he sounded so sad. The way he always did whenever he apologized, which was often. Still, I believed he meant every word.
“It’s okay,” I lied. Because nothing good would come from more of Sam’s guilt.
I closed my eyes, lost in the warm feel of Sam’s strong fingers in my hair, in the memory of how he’d done the same thing on our second date and in our second year and last week. And in the end, wasn’t that the key to marriage? Learning to pretend that a few unspoiled things could make up for all the broken ones.
I remembered back to the first weekend Sam and I spent together in New York City. When I’d traveled nearly three hours from Philadelphia, first on the SEPTA train and then New Jersey Transit and then the subway, all just to get to him and that electric pulse he’d sent through my bones the night we met. We’d had sex three times, then slept on Sam’s pullout couch, the only piece of furniture that would fit in his postage stamp of an Upper West Side studio, our heads pressed up against the stupidly oversize refrigerator. Before we went to brunch the next morning, we’d stopped at a nearby homeless shelter so Sam could drop off some notebooks and pencils he’d bought for the kids staying there. Maybe it had been planned for my benefit, but he was wrapping up work on a piece about the need for city-subsidized school supplies. And the way his eyes shone was real. Afterward, he said: “It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.”
What if this, now, was Sam’s best?
“Let’s go to bed, Sam,” I said as he reached forward to pull me on top of him. “People will see. We need those stupid curtains.”
“Let’s stay here,” he murmured as he unbuttoned my blouse, slid the fingers of one hand inside my bra as the other hand lifted up my skirt. “Let’s not go anywhere.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
And then I closed my eyes. Because Sam wanted me. Because, despite myself, I wanted him, too.
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June 24
To: Brooklyn Country Day Board of Directors From: Krell Industries Subject: Data Breach & Cyber Incident—Introductory Report This memorandum shall serve to confirm the retention of Krell Industries by Brooklyn Country Day’s Board of Directors to evaluate a potential data breach compromising certain personal information of students and their families. All information contained in this memorandum and all future communications are to be considered Privileged and Confidential Attorney Work Product, not intended for distribution.