An Unwanted Guest(32)
No, he’s stuck here. Waiting for the police.
Henry, drowsing by the fire, starts at a sound and opens his sleepy eyes. His wife is coming down the stairs, holding the rail until about halfway down, when she starts to make a wide detour to avoid Dana’s body at the bottom of the stairs. There’s a look on her face that makes him uneasy.
He knows his mobile phone isn’t in his sweater pocket. He doesn’t think he’s dropped it, and besides, he’s retraced his steps. It’s nowhere to be found. But when he sees the expression on his wife’s face, the realization hits him. She has it.
That can only mean that she suspects the truth about him and Jilly. He wonders if she was able to get past his password.
Christ, he thinks wearily, watching his wife approach. Maybe it will be better to have it out in the open. Now she’ll understand that she has to let him go. She’ll be bitter, at first, but he’s in love with someone else. Beverly has a good job. She’ll manage. It will be difficult for both of them – harder for her, of course – but he will get back on his feet, and life will be good again.
His kids might hate him for a while, but they’ll get over it. Both Ted and Kate have friends whose parents are divorced. It’s totally normal these days. Kids don’t even blame their parents for it any more – they practically expect it. They even work it, playing the guilt card, to get more stuff they want. He prepares himself as she sits down across from him, her serious face on.
Beverly’s heart sinks when she sees Henry sitting there, as if he’s expecting her. There’s no way she’ll be able to put his phone back. Very well. They have to talk about it sometime – it might as well be now. There’s no avoiding it. Maybe it’s for the best.
‘There’s something I need to say,’ Beverly begins, taking the chair across from him and pulling it a little closer.
Her husband gives her a particularly hard stare. ‘Did you take my phone?’
She looks down for a minute at her lap, gathering her courage, and then looks up again. ‘Yes.’
‘I knew it,’ he says coldly.
‘I wanted to find out if you’ve been unfaithful to me.’ She waits a beat and then continues. ‘I managed to figure out your password.’ She looks at Henry, who seems surprised. ‘I bet you didn’t think I’d be able to do that, did you?’ She tries a smile but stumbles, unnerved by the expression on his face. But she has to keep going; she has to do this. Maybe Henry will see how ridiculous his affair is. She also wants to hurt him just a little – if only to show him how terribly hurt she is. Maybe she wants to shame him into dropping this girl. ‘I found the texts between you and your … girlfriend.’ When he doesn’t respond, she can’t help it, her annoyance shows. ‘It was very illuminating! I saw pictures of her. I even know what she looks like naked.’ She says this quietly, her eyes on her husband, while he sits frozen. ‘She’s considerably younger than you, isn’t she?’ She tries to keep a lid on her disgust. ‘I can’t believe what you call me, you two lovebirds.’ The outrage has crept into her voice, even though she has done her best to keep it under control. ‘The nag. You call me the nag.’ She tries to look into his eyes, but he shifts his gaze away. The coward. ‘How do you think it makes me feel to know that the two of you are having sex behind my back, and calling me the nag? I have to go away for the weekend with the nag.’ He still won’t look at her.
‘Do we have to do this here?’ Henry asks her now, his voice tight. ‘Can’t it wait till we get home?’
‘Actually, yes. We do. Why wait? Why pretend? It feels good to get this off my chest.’ She’s getting carried away now. ‘Do you know what I call you? I call you the man-child. Because you’re a grown man, facing the sad fact of ageing and mortality and disappointment just like the rest of us, but you’re having the childish, selfish reaction that so many men in midlife get – and it’s … sad. Sad and unnecessary.’ She pauses for a moment, gathering her thoughts. ‘You don’t love her, Henry – it’s just a phase.’ She lets that sink in. At least she hopes it sinks in. ‘You think you can run off with this young woman and it’s going to be fabulous. You’ll move into her apartment, maybe buy yourself a convertible. No more people carrier for you, ferrying the kids to soccer three nights a week! You’ll see the kids at weekends – when you feel like it – and renege on your support payments, like most men do. It’ll be all sex and dinners out and vacations and no obligations. Well, think again, because that’s not how it’s going to be.’ She waits a moment to let that sink in, too, and then pauses for a long moment and says in a more conciliatory tone, ‘It won’t last. You’ll get tired of her. She’ll get tired of you. You’ll miss me and the kids. There won’t be enough money. You’ll regret it – I’m sure of it.’ Her husband lifts his eyes and looks at her at last. ‘Henry, don’t destroy what we have. Forget her.’
This is his chance to choose her, Beverly thinks. She waits, holding her breath. But he doesn’t say anything at all. Her heart plummets, a body going over the falls in a barrel.
Suddenly she remembers how she felt the evening before, when they arrived here at the inn – it seems so long ago now. How foolish, how wrong she’d been to think that they’d merely drifted apart and needed only to spend time together to recall what they liked about each other. She remembers how he didn’t even come up to the room with her with the luggage, how he’d stayed down here, in the lobby, looking at excursions to keep them busy so they wouldn’t have time to think, to talk.