The Guest Room(38)

“How’s the hotel?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Fine. It’s a hotel. I wasn’t all that far from the theater where you saw the puppet whales.”

“I like hotels. You should have ordered room service. I love room service.”

“I should have, right?”

“Yup.”

“How’s Cassandra?”

The girl rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest: “Weirded out.”

“Is she eating?”

“Uh-huh. But she jumps from one piece of furniture to the next. It’s like the carpets are quicksand or something.”

“Where did she sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“But not with you or Grandma?”

“Nope. Grandma thinks she might have slept on the high shelf in the coat closet.”

“The one in the front hall?”

“Yup.”

“Well, with any luck she can go home soon. We all can.” He turned toward Kristin, but her eyes were still riveted to the menu. Abruptly she looked up and for a brief second he thought she was looking at him, and he felt almost giddy with relief. But he followed her gaze and understood it was only that the waitress had returned and was standing behind him. Over his shoulder. She was about to ask if they would like coffee or tea. Her hair was as black as her dress, and her eyes were the reassuring brown of freshly tilled soil. Her voice was chipper. She was, he guessed, in her early twenties. After she had taken their order—he and Kristin both ordered cappuccinos, while Melissa was having hot chocolate—he turned back toward his wife. Now she was staring at him; he couldn’t decide if she was disgusted or merely bemused. He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“I used to think I understood men,” she said. “I don’t. Or maybe I just overestimated all of you.”

He nodded. He parsed the code: she thought he had been checking out the waitress and was irritated. “Wasn’t thinking what you thought I was thinking,” he told her, hoping he sounded playful and not defensive since Melissa was present.

“What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about coffee versus cappuccino,” he said. He wanted to tell her that he was no more aware of his surroundings—including the people—than anyone else. Yes, he thought the waitress was pretty, but he took no more notice of her than he would have if the person taking their order had been male. He registered what she looked like; that was it. He swiveled his body in his seat and focused on their daughter: “Tell me more about the musical,” he said. “Tell me all about the whales.” It was probably going to be impossible to make this brunch…normal…but he was, he decided, sure as hell going to try.

…

As they walked as a family the few blocks back to her mother’s, Kristin finally broached the question that she had shied away from at brunch because Richard was trying so hard to make the meal pleasant for Melissa. She was grateful for his efforts; she wished she had had it in her to do the same. “Will you talk to that detective today?” she asked.

“Patricia?”

“Yes. You call her Patricia?”

“I’m not sure I have ever called her anything. If I phone her—which I assume is where this conversation is going—I expect I will call her Detective Bryant.”

She noticed a family strolling toward them: a family of three with a son who was probably nine or ten. They looked so happy, Kristin thought. The parents were smiling at something their son had said. She tried not to be jealous, but she pined for that sort of casual joy. She missed the experience of communicating with her husband without sarcasm, anger, or wariness—or (worse, perhaps) depending upon Melissa as a semaphore. How was it possible they had had that only two days ago?

“If you’d like,” Richard was saying, “I will call her. And, yes, I’ll ask her when we can go home.”

She considered correcting his use of the plural pronoun, but that would only be bitchy. They could discuss when he should return home later. By phone. When their daughter wasn’t walking beside them. “That would be great,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Of course. There is one more thing.”

She almost stopped walking. Instead she succumbed to superstition and took a long, careful step so that her foot did not land on a sidewalk crack. “Okay.”

“Well, it’s good news. I can seriously help whatever cleanup team we bring to the house—whether that’s tomorrow or Tuesday or, I guess, even Wednesday. The bank wants me to take a little leave of absence. But I’m fine. It’s all good and it makes sense.”

“How long is a little?” she asked. The news didn’t knock the wind from her the way it might have before the bachelor party. Before two men had been killed in her house. Before her husband had taken an escort upstairs, stripped, and…

She pushed the thought away.

She knew this was devastating to him and he was putting a brave spin on this for her. Like most men, he was what he did. He was an investment banker. He worked hard. He liked his job. He probably liked (And what was the right noun? How could she have been married to him for so many years and not know?) banking more than she did teaching—and she enjoyed teaching a very great deal. At least she did most of the time. She turned toward him and tried to see the hurt and the fear (because surely this scared him) behind the facade. And she did see it in the way his lips quivered ever so slightly when he tried to smile, and she could see it in the way that he blinked.