I was afraid of him just then. He had a wild light in his eye, as if something had snapped inside him.
He glared at me. “What were you doing, throwing yourself at him like that?”
“I—I wasn’t. I was saying good-bye.”
That dying dog look was back in his eyes. “You said good-bye to him like you’ve never said hello to me. Not even when I came back from the war.”
I was too raw, too torn up to deal with this. “I’m going to lie down.”
I went into the bedroom, put my face in the pillow, and cried.
•••
Charlie got drunk that night. It was the first of many times. And then he came into the bedroom, and he wanted to make love. I knew that I needed to, that he needed to, that it would be a good thing, a healing thing, but I just couldn’t pretend I wanted it. I didn’t say no, but I just lay there, crying. Afterward, he rolled onto his side, and the way his back heaved told me he was sobbing silently into the mattress.
My heart broke for him. I reached out and put my hand on his arm. “Charlie. Charlie, it’s okay.”
His hand covered mine. “I don’t want to lose you.”
The baby kicked. I moved his hand to my belly. “You won’t, Charlie. You won’t. We’re right here.”
But a part of me was somewhere else, and nothing I could say would really convince either of us otherwise.
27
matt
What book would you like for your bedtime story?” I’d been gone for three nights, and I’d missed the bedtime tuck-in ritual.
Sophie looked expectantly at me, her mouth foaming with toothpaste. “Can Hope come over and tell us a story?”
“What?”
“She makes up stories. Today she tol’ us about the ’ventures of Mr. Monkey.”
“It was pretty funny.” Zoey carefully rinsed her toothbrush and put it in the Cinderella toothbrush holder that sat between the double sinks of the girls’ bathroom. “Mr. Monkey ’scaped from the zoo in the zookeeper’s pocket, and everyone thought the zookeeper was a thief ’cause Mr. Monkey kept stealing things. When a policeman arrested the zookeeper, Mr. Monkey stole his hat.”
Sophie giggled, spraying foam like a rabid dog. “Yeah. An’ it looked like the hat was alive!”
“Finish brushing before you talk, Sophie,” Matt said.
She spit into the sink. “So can we call Hope?”
“No. We don’t want to bother her this late.”
“But she wouldn’ mind! She likes bein’ with us.”
“Daddy’s right. We shouldn’t call her,” Zoey said, primly dryingher hands. “Aunt Jillian said we shouldn’t get too ’ttached to Hope, ’cause she won’t be around very long.”
A nerve twitched in my jaw. I didn’t like Jillian talking to them about Hope, but even more, I didn’t like the fact she was right.
“I’ll read you a story. Which one should it be?”
The girls finally agreed on a book, and I went through the rites of bedtime—a story, prayers, kisses, and tucking in. I picked up the baby monitor I still used when I went downstairs, then waited down the hall to make sure they weren’t going to get up for an extra cup of water or some other sleep-postponement excuse. Ten minutes later, their whispers subsided and the house was quiet—oppressively quiet, quiet as a tomb.
Tombmade me think of Christine’s, which made me realize I hadn’t been thinking about her—which gave me a weird pang of something that felt like guilt.
I rubbed my head. Everyone had told me about the stages of grief, but no one had mentioned the aftereffects. I mean, I’m over the worst of it, but now that I no longer miss her so acutely, I feel kind of bad about it. I feel as if I’m abandoning her.
