This Place of Wonder (37)

“I guess.” I take a breath. “Do you mind if I ask about your wife?”

“That depends on the question.”

I feel censured, which is ridiculous. Not everyone tells everything to everyone, as I have been known to do. “Has she been gone long?”

“Six months. She drowned.” He gestures toward the water surging into waves. “You probably read about it. She was quite famous. Alexandra Zaitsev.”

I blink. “Oh. She was in the spy movie, the anti–James Bond thing, right?”

He nods.

It’s a little disconcerting, especially since I’ve been feeling that bloom under my skin, that first whisper of attraction. Zaitsev was an acknowledged beauty, and her death caused quite a stir. “How terrible. I’m sorry.”

He peers toward the horizon, then back to me. “Like you, I am ambivalent. We had been estranged for a few months, and I was quite angry with her, but one never wishes to see an untimely death.”

“Even harder to be a husband than a daughter,” I say.

“Is it?”

I watch a wave rise and begin to crest. “I don’t know, I guess. My sister is so brokenhearted she hasn’t even been able to tell her children, and my stepmother looks like she’s aged a decade.” I shake my head. “And all I can think is that I had something I really wanted to get off my chest with him, and he up and died, the bastard.”

Ayaz gives me a slow, sad smile. “Things are often not what we expect.”

“No.” Outside, darkness is falling, and I’m mindful of the walk back. “I suppose I should get going.”

“You will walk on the street, not the beach, won’t you?”

“Ah. Good thought. Yes.” I touch my belly. “Thank you, both for the food and the company. You’re easy to be around.”

“Thank you. Why don’t you leave your phone number? Perhaps we can have a meal another day.”

I hesitate, wondering if I need to articulate my position on dating or men or connections or whatever. My sponsor has been quite clear that I should not even consider dating until I’ve been sober a solid year.

But he’s newly widowed, from a woman so beautiful I feel like a toenail in comparison. He almost certainly doesn’t want anything, either. We can be friends. God knows I need people who don’t drink. When he waits, his fingers over his phone screen, I give him the number. It rings when he calls, and I type in Ayaz.

He walks me to the front door, much more modest on this side, and I can see the age of the place in the seventies-era redwood foyer. I start to open the door at the same moment he does, our inner forearms making contact in a weirdly intimate way. I smell faint soap and cedar, and the scent electrifies my nerves, setting them alive from scalp to toes. I look up, surprised, and his face is close and I can’t help but look at his mouth, and I’m very flustered, my ears hot, before he finally rescues the situation by straightening a bit.

But I notice that he’s looking at my mouth, then back to my eyes, and for one dizzying moment, I really think we might end up kissing.

Which would be against all the rules of sobriety, and we’re both in a messy place, and I really need a friend, not a lover. “Thanks,” I say, and dash out the door.

“Good night.”





Chapter Eighteen


Norah


In the morning, I get out before I hear anyone moving, bringing with me the clothes for work, my notebook, and my laptop. I grab a cup of coffee and an everything bagel with extra cream cheese to keep me going, and settle in to get my head in order. I landed a job as a server yesterday and will start this afternoon, but that leaves me the morning to work on my research.

What do I know about Meadow’s life before Augustus? He didn’t talk about her much, but when I confronted him about his feelings toward her, he said, “She had a terrible, terrible childhood.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged in his way. “I am obliged to keep her secrets.” He touched my cheek. “You are too young to know that there are things between two people that cannot be severed. I am obliged to love her always.”

I thought, But you left her!

What happened to their big, passionate marriage, one that neither of them is particularly over, if I’m honest? Yes, an affair, but what led to the affair? Was Augustus just an incorrigible womanizer and Meadow finally had enough, or was there something about that particular connection that broke them?

I rub my forehead, pausing in my mental spiral. I don’t need to know about the failure of the marriage, at least not today. That’s a personal question, one that my heart wants to understand, and maybe not at all necessary for the story I’m trying to find about Meadow. For that, I need to start with her childhood.

What made her childhood so terrible? I wonder if it was as terrible as mine, although honestly I know I got mostly lucky, considering. I had some really good foster parents and the bad ones were never violent, rather than actively cruel. Still, I know I’m a little unfinished. Augustus was my dream lover because he loved touching so much. Rubbing my head or my feet or my hands almost absently, pulling my leg to cross over his as we sat side by side, touching me always in sleep, his hand on my back, or his body pressed against my side. I’d never been with anyone who loved it as much as I did, who never got tired of touching.