Before She Knew Him(56)
The phone in her jeans buzzed and she looked at Lloyd’s text, saying that he was on his way home.
She put the phone back in her pocket and suddenly knew that she wasn’t going to confront him tonight. It felt important, somehow, that she hold on to the information she had about him for a while, that she spend some time knowing more than he did.
And when he eventually entered the house, sullen and quiet, and gave Hen a perfunctory kiss on the top of the head and went straight to the refrigerator for a beer, Hen watched him, and it felt like she was watching a stranger.
Chapter 27
Matthew got home just before dusk. The inside of the house was dark, but he didn’t turn on any lights. He went to his office and thought about the conversation with Hen. It had gone so much better than he’d ever imagined. He’d told her things about himself that he’d never told anyone, and she’d stayed in her seat, listening, her dark brown eyes looking right at him. Every word he’d said had lifted a weight from him, and now he felt as light as he’d felt in years and years.
He replayed the conversation to himself many, many times, his breathing getting shallow. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought up Lloyd to her so soon—she’d been out of there as soon as he did—but he needed her to know that she wasn’t immune from what men did to women, that Lloyd was as full of lustful thoughts as anyone. He wasn’t sure, of course, that he was cheating, but it was a definite possibility. He was a man, after all, and that’s what men did.
The name he really wished he hadn’t mentioned was Michelle’s. Why had he said that thing about her suffering at the hands of Scott Doyle? He did want to be entirely truthful with Hen—wasn’t that the plan?—but that didn’t mean he needed to tell her everything right away. No, the reason he shouldn’t have mentioned Michelle was that Hen could look her up if she wanted to, go talk with her. Not that it would lead to anything, but the thought made him feel queasy, the way he felt knowing that his brother had probably sent Michelle an email. Jesus, he’d forgotten all about that. All the good feelings he had from his conversation with Hen suddenly drained from his body.
To make himself feel better, he called Michelle on his cell phone just to make sure she was okay.
“Hey, Matthew. Strange. I was just going to call you.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Look, I just talked with Donald, and I’m going to take the rest of this semester off. He said he can get a permanent sub and that he’d hold the job for me if I wanted to come back in January.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s just that . . . with everything going on, with what happened with Scott and with what’s happening with my father, I just don’t think I have the time and energy to focus on work. I’m going to go home and live with my parents for a while—God, just saying those words out loud . . . No, it’s the right thing to do. I feel good about it.”
“Well, that’s what matters the most.”
“I feel good about it.”
“Then I think you’re doing the right thing.”
“You do? It makes me happy to hear that.”
“I do, just so long as you eventually come back. If not in January, then hopefully next year. You’re a good history teacher.”
“Okay, now I’m going to cry,” Michelle said.
“When are you going to leave?”
“I’m driving to my parents’ house tomorrow morning.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know. Donald already has a sub—it’s the same woman who stepped in when Mandy was on maternity leave, you remember her?”
Matthew pictured a semiretired public school teacher, silver hair and purple dresses. “Yeah, I do. Your students will be okay.”
“They will, won’t they?”
“I can’t believe we didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.”
“Want to come over tonight?” Michelle asked, the words coming out rushed, almost as though they’d been planned.
“Um,” Matthew said, hesitating.
“I know it’s last minute, but Mira’s still away, right? It would be great to see you.”
“I’m busy,” Matthew said, “but sure. When would be a good time to drop by?”
“Now? Or anytime. I’ll probably be up all night packing and getting organized. Come by anytime.”
After eating a bowl of cereal—it was all his stomach could really handle—and FaceTiming with Mira, Matthew drove to Country Squire Estates, a sprawl of cheap apartment buildings with fake beams crisscrossed on the exterior siding. The sign at the entrance was forest green, country squire spelled out in a faux medieval script. Matthew parked in the visitors’ lot next to the swimming pool, which was covered with a tarp for the season. The tarp, filled with brown rainwater and fallen leaves, sagged in the middle, and Matthew suddenly had second thoughts about what he was doing. He knew that Michelle harbored romantic fantasies about him and that coming here to say good-bye would only encourage her. Still, he did value her as a colleague and maybe also a friend. He wanted to say good-bye. Unable to decide what to do, he asked himself: What is best for Michelle? What is best for Mira? He decided to return home.
Back in his house, the lights still turned out, he watched out the window for signs of his neighbor. Her living room lights were on, and he occasionally saw a shadow cross the sheer curtains of the side window. He couldn’t believe that there was another human being so close to him who now knew all his secrets. Not all of his secrets, of course, but she knew who he was. He pressed a hand to the windowpane and felt an ache of longing, something he hadn’t felt for many years. He was startled out of his trance by Richard, calling him.