The Other Mrs.(37)
As Will takes a step back, the furnace man quickly gathers up his tools and flees.
We don’t speak, we don’t mention it again all night.
The next morning, I wrap the towel around myself as I step from the shower. Will stands staring at his reflection in the fogged-up mirror above the sink. The silver along the edge of it is tarnished by time. The bathroom, like everything else in the house, is suffocating and small.
I stare at Will staring at his own reflection in the mirror. He catches me. Our eyes meet. “How long do you think you’ll keep ignoring me like this?” he asks, referring to our silence in the aftermath of his blowup with the furnace man. In the end, the man had left without doing a thing and so the house is still uncomfortable. The furnace has begun to rattle, too. Soon it will be dead.
I’ve been waiting for Will to apologize for his behavior or at least acknowledge that it was wrong. I understand why he’d have been upset. What I don’t understand is the overreaction. Will’s response was over the top, completely irrational, and so unlike Will.
But what Will is expecting, I think, is that I’ll just sweep it under the rug and move on.
Instead I say, “I’ve never seen you like that, over a silly little thing like the cost of a furnace.”
Will is visibly hurt by my words. He draws in a breath, says woundedly, “You know how hard I try to take care of this family, Sadie. This family means everything to me. I won’t let anyone take advantage of us like that.”
When he says it like this, I see it differently. And soon I am the one apologizing.
He does so much to care for us. I should only be thankful that Will had done his research, that he wasn’t willing to let the furnace man price-gouge us like that. Will was protecting our finances, our family. That’s money that could otherwise be spent on groceries, on the kids’ college education funds. I’m so grateful he had both the knowledge and the intrepidity to protect it. If it’d been me, I would have unknowingly thrown hundreds of dollars away.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “You’re absolutely right. I’m so sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he says, and I can see in his demeanor that he forgives me. “Let’s just forget it happened,” and like that, it’s forgotten.
Will still doesn’t know that I went to the memorial service yesterday. I can’t bring myself to tell him because he thought we shouldn’t go. I don’t want him to be mad that I went.
But I can’t stop thinking about the strange exchange I witnessed in the church sanctuary, between Jeffrey and his ex-wife. I wish I could talk to Will about it, tell him what I saw.
After she left the memorial service, I followed the ex-wife in my car. I did a U-turn in the street, tailing the red Jeep by thirty feet as she drove the three blocks to the ferry. If Courtney knew I was there, following her, there was no reaction. I sat, idling in the street for ten minutes or so. She sat in her car, on the phone the whole while.
When the ferry arrived, she pulled her car onto the ship. Moments later, she disappeared out to sea. She was gone. And yet she stayed with me, in my mind. She’s with me still. I can’t stop thinking about her. About Jeffrey. About their altercation, about their embrace.
I’m also thinking about Imogen. About her silhouette in the corner of my bedroom at night.
Will runs his fingers through his hair, his version of a comb. I hear his voice, talking over the sound of the bathroom fan. He’s telling me that this evening he’s taking Tate to a Legos event at the public library. They’re going with another boy from school, one of Tate’s playdate buddies. Him and his mother. Jessica is her name, one Will casually drops in the middle of the conversation, and it’s the casualness of it, the familiarity of her name, that rubs me the wrong way, makes me forget for just this moment about Jeffrey and his ex, about Imogen.
For years, Will has been the scheduler of playdates for our boys. Before, it never bothered me. If anything, I felt grateful Will picked up the task in my absence. After school, the boys’ classmates and their mothers would come around to the condo when I was at work. What I imagined was the boys disappearing down the hall to play while Will and some woman I didn’t know sat around my kitchen table, hobnobbing about the other mothers at the elementary school.
I never saw these women. I never wondered what they looked like. But everything is different since the affair. Now I find myself overthinking these things.
“Just the four of you?” I ask.
He tells me yes, just the four of them. “But there will be other people there, Sadie,” he says, trying to be reassuring, and yet it comes off as sarcastic. “It’s not like it’s a private event, just for us.”
“Of course,” I say. “What will you be doing there?” I ask, lightening my tone, trying not to sound like a harpy, because I know how much Tate loves Legos.
Will tells me that they’ll be building something from those tiny bricks I find scattered all over the house, erecting rides and machines that move. “Tate can’t wait. And besides,” he says, turning away from the mirror to face me, “it might do Otto, Imogen and you some good, a few hours alone. Bonding time,” he calls it, and I harrumph at that, knowing there will be no bonding between Otto, Imogen and me tonight.
I step past him. I move from the bathroom and into the adjoining bedroom. Will follows along. He sits on the edge of the bed, pulling on a pair of socks as I get dressed.