An American Marriage(86)

“I know,” she went on. “You had been through a lot. I know it didn’t mean anything. That’s what you’re about to say, right?”

“Celestial,” I said, catching her up in my arms. I was wearing my trousers and socks, while she was nearly nude. She smelled of glitter powder and soap. “You don’t care, do you?”

“It’s not that I don’t care. I’m trying to be an adult about it.”

“I called her a second ago while you were in the shower.” I slowed my delivery, letting each word land hard. I didn’t enjoy unspooling the details. I swear, I didn’t want to hurt Celestial, but I did need to know if I could. I had to know if I still had that kind of power, that kind of sway. “When I was with her, she showed me how to be myself again, or maybe she introduced me to my new self, the person I have to be from here on out. It wasn’t purely sexual. I can’t lie and tell you that it’s nothing. She treated me like a man, or maybe just a human being.”

Celestial’s look was as blank as an egg. “Well, what’s her name?”

“Davina Hardrick. She asked what was up with the two of us. I mean me and her, not me and you.”

“What did you say?” Celestial sounded merely curious.

“I told her I was married.”

Celestial nodded as she killed the light and pulled me to the bed. “Yes, you are a married man.”

I lay in the dark, feeling unsure, as if I had forgotten my own name.

Davina said that the only question is something or nothing, but that’s as much a fantasy as a fresh start. For the rest of our lives there would be something between me and Celestial. Neither of us would ever enjoy the perfect peace of nothing. After the clock by the bed flashed midnight and Christmas was over, I felt my wife nibbling kisses across my shoulders. I smelled unhappiness on her breath, but she continued caressing me, saying my name in a mournful whisper. I turned to face her; Celestial’s head in my hand was as fragile as a lightbulb. “You don’t have to, Georgia.”

She shushed me with a kiss I wasn’t sure I wanted. In the light of the night table clock, I made out her taut brow and quivering eyelids. “We don’t have to,” I said. “We could just go to sleep.”

Her skin was hot against my thigh as I fingered the lace trim of her nightie. My hands, on their own, sought the rest of her, but her muscles tensed in the wake of my fingers. It was as though I were turning her to stone, cell by cell.

“This is how I love you,” she said, lying herself on the bank of pillows. Even in the dark, I could make out the rapid rise and fall of her chest, her bird-in-the-hand breaths. “Please, Roy. Please let me make this right.”

When I was in prison, Olive visited me every weekend until she was no longer able. I was always glad to see her but always humiliated for her to see me. One Sunday, she was different, but I couldn’t quite say how. She must have known about the cancer, but she didn’t tell me. What I noticed was her breathing; Olive was aware of it and her attention was catching. She took in air then like Celestial did now, up tempo and afraid.

“Little Roy,” Olive said. “There is no doubt in my mind. I just need to hear from your own lips that you didn’t do it.”

I leaned back, flinching as though she’d spit in my face. Olive reached for me the way you would lunge for a glass tumbling from the table. “I know you didn’t,” she cooed. “I know you didn’t. Please let me hear you say it.”

“I was with Celestial the whole time. You can ask her.”

“I don’t want to ask her,” my mother said. “I want it from you.”

I can’t remember this day without hearing the air around her words, without imagining the tumors multiplying, consuming her body. Olive was dying and I spoke to her with bitterness in my mouth. That I didn’t know makes no difference.

“Mama,” I said, talking to her like she was slow or didn’t speak English. “I am not a rapist.”

“Little Roy,” she began, but I cut her off.

“I don’t want to talk anymore.”

When she left, she said, “I believe you.”

As I watched her walk away, I made note of everything about her that I didn’t admire. I ignored the devotion that she wore like a cape, I paid no heed of her strength or hardworking beauty. I sat there thinking of all I didn’t love about her, too angry to even say good-bye.

In the quiet room, my wife lifted her lovely arms, encircling my neck, pulling me to her with a power I didn’t know she had. “I want you to be okay.” Her voice was brave and determined.

“I didn’t do it,” I said. “I never touched that lady. She thought it was me. You couldn’t tell her that I didn’t break into her room and hold her down. When she was on the stand, I couldn’t even look in her face, because in her eyes, I was a barbarian, worse than a dog. When I looked at her looking at me, I became what she thought I was. There’s nothing worse that you can say about a man.”

“Shhh,” Celestial said. “All that’s over.”

“Nothing is ever over,” I said, unwinding her arms from my shoulders. I lay beside her, remembering us sprawled on the asphalt, forbidden to touch. “Celestial,” I said, surprised by the bass of my own voice in my chest. “I am not a rapist. Do you hear what I’m trying to tell you?”