The Red Hunter(80)

“There’s no magic bullet for this, Chad,” she said.

Was it gambling? She couldn’t think of anything else. He barely drank. She’d never known him to take drugs. She really didn’t think he was having an affair.

“What if there is a magic bullet,” the stranger asked her. The desperate, dark-eyed stranger.

Zoey burst through the front door then. Heather had asked Crystal to take her day on carpool. Zoey planted kisses on each of their cheeks, then breezed through the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the refrigerator.

“Ugh,” she said. “I have so much homework. Heading right up.”

She thundered up the stairs, oblivious to what was unfolding between her parents.

“What are you doing home, Dad?” she yelled from upstairs. But she wasn’t interested enough to wait for an answer. Heather heard her door slam. Homework. Sure. She was going to get right online and play one of those stupid games with her friends.

Chad got to his feet.

“I have to get back,” he said, as if he’d just happened home for lunch.

“No,” she said, leaning forward. “I need to know everything. What are you talking about? What magic bullet?”

He lifted his palms in surrender. “Nothing,” he said. “You’re right. I’ve fucked up and we have to fix it. I assume this means you aren’t going to Key West.”

He was distant, blank almost. She wanted to reach out and grab the stranger and shake him until her real husband came back. The one, whatever his faults, had always taken care of her and Zoey.

“Well?”

Key West. Mary Jane’s wedding. Heather’s heart sank. She’d been looking forward to this little getaway so much, even more so when Chad stubbornly refused to come. She wanted the time to herself, without the shadow of his needs and under-the-breath comments, and all of it.

“I’m still going,” she said. She held on to it, like a jewel clutched in her fist. The smell of the ocean, the swaying palms. Mary Jane said there would be a string quartet. Heather had begged him to come; part of her had wanted that at first. But he’d said no. Now she knew why.

“Fine,” he said. He wasn’t even looking at her. She wasn’t even there. “What difference does it make at this point, anyway?”

When had she stopped loving him? When had she stopped craving his closeness, admiring things about him? Or maybe she was just angry, deeply angry. She tried to think about how she had felt on their wedding day. Relieved. She’d felt relieved like she had on graduation day, as if she’d accomplished something that her parents had both very much wanted her to do. Her dad had loved Chad, the son he never had. Heather was a good girl. She always did what was expected.

He started to leave and then stopped in the doorway without looking back.

“I’m going to fix this,” he said. “You’ll see.”

“Chad.”

But then he was gone. She got up and watched him from the kitchen window. He sat in the truck for a minute, gripping the wheel with both hands, head bowed. Then he drove away. She didn’t even wait five minutes before she called Paul.

? ? ?

AT THE AIRPORT, SHE STEPPED out of the car and into Paul’s arms. The airport was far from home, so she wasn’t worried about being seen. She didn’t care. She came alive when Paul was there. That night they shared, so long ago, it lived inside her. It sustained her. She clung to him. He put his mouth over hers, and her whole body released the tension, the worry, the deep unhappiness she’d been carrying around. He was coming with her to Key West. She was going to the wedding, and the rest of the time they’d just hide out in the hotel, being together, figuring out the mess they were in. She’d been counting the seconds. But now that they were here . . .

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She didn’t even know there was something wrong until he asked. The joy of it, the illicit thrill of what they were planning to do, her suppressed desire for him, her love—was it really about Paul, about her? Or was she just trying to get even with Chad? Doing the thing she knew would hurt him more than anything else, a betrayal to match his. But hadn’t she betrayed him, too, long ago? Hadn’t she been betraying him all these years?

Heather and Paul stood there awhile, holding each other. She didn’t have to say a word.

“It’s okay,” he said, pulling back from her, smiling. “I’ll stay. You go.”

They sat in his car and talked—about what had lived between them all these years. About their shared love and loyalty for Chad. How what they wanted could never truly be.

Even after he’d gone, she’d sat a long time thinking. She missed her flight. Then she went home. Because she was a good girl and always, always did what was expected.





thirty-one


“Let me see it,” said Raven.

“Just wait,” said Troy.

He was lying on his belly in front of the locked door, trying to open it with a bobby pin and a paper clip. Claudia knew, had told them, that there was no way that they were going to pick the lock with those things. But they were convinced. After all, they’d watched a YouTube video. She kind of admired their confidence, their complete faith in themselves and their abilities, a kind of DIY mentality that this generation—Generation Z, was it?—seemed to have. They didn’t need to look to authority or professionals for answers. They looked to Google.