As expected, Phil has already signaled a few thoughts to Terrence, but I’ll probably need to wait until the last minute to get them. Terrence is also concerned that excitement over my new ideas willovershadow his desire to talk, at length, about our mutual funds. If consistent with each of my previous appearances, Phil and Hardwin will both ask me to take all the time I need and then will stir up a lengthy discussion with the trustees. It’s never too early for that, but I’ll feel Terrence’s heat to keep the focus on the bulk of our business. The heat is more like flames from a campfire than a raging inferno, but in either case, burns are possible.
I respond with appreciation and then notice the battery life on my phone. Emails will have to wait. I plug in my phone on my bedside table and then am digging in my camping bin when my fingers close around something I haven’t felt in a very long time. The scratchy fibers are unmistakable. I lower my overnight duffel from the bench at the end of my bed and sit. Unfurling the sock pair, I raise the wool to my nose and mouth and breathe in. Earthy winter air smells locked inside the weave.
My roommate and I went missing on a hike in late spring of my sophomore year at Boston College. We’d been enticed to join a trip by a couple of upperclassmen outdoor club guys in our economics class. Wasn’t until we loaded the car that we realized there were only four of us. While Boston was in bloom, Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak, was still in snowpack. Wet, cold, and without even an extra pair of socks, Katie and I got separated from the guys. As night fell, and it got darker, we had no choice but to both climb inside my orange safety tent. Earlier that morning, I’d bought it on a whim from a Walmart endcap. The guys had laughed when I’d pulled out the folded instruction sheet in the car.
The next morning, as we huddled together inside the reflective material, we heard the voices of wardens. With our bare feet shoved inside one of our backpacks, we hollered back. Katie’s insistence that we peel off our sopping-wet cotton socks had saved our toes from frostbite.
I squeeze the thick wool of the socks. Clint brought this pair in his Appalachian Trail rescue pack. The coarse material felt luxurious, once I could feel anything at all.
“Where’d you find those?” Clint asks as he steps into our bedroom.
“Do you remember?” My throat floods with warmth as tears prick my eyes.
“How can you ask me that?” He pulls open the top drawer of his highboy.
“I want to talk about something real.”
“Something real,” he mumbles.
“Thank you for sharing the turtle story, but it seems lately we only dance around our conversations, avoiding anything that stings. We used to share it all.” I suck in my top lip and then lean forward. “I want to stop the pretense. I want to—”
He swivels toward me. “You’re having an affair.”
I’ve shot to my feet even before I fully comprehend his words. “No!”
His face is blank, as if the act of saying the words has stripped all the emotion from his body.
“Never.” I lurch toward him. He can’t honestly think this of me.
He holds up his hand. “Stop. Don’t.”
“Why?” I sag but my knees knock, keeping me from pooling onto the carpet. “Why won’t you let me close?”
He slams the drawer shut. “Why won’t I? You’re the one. You’ve shut me out. You’ve so many secrets, you’re in knots around me.” Anger flies with each of his words. Only a weariness remains. “I knew I was too old for you.”
Tears flow freely down my cheeks. The platitudes I’ve used so many times before bounce through my mind. Words of love and assurance. The inconsequence of our age difference. Phrases that speak to who he is and how lucky I am that he wanted to be myhusband. No matter how I try to say it, my pleading always falls on deafness. My efforts rebuked, I often walk away in disgust over my inability to get him to believe me.
This time I can’t. I won’t.
This time I try something new. “You’re right.”
His body sags, like he’s crossed the marathon’s finish line. “I knew it.”
“Not about our ages. Irrelevant. And certainly not about an affair. But you’re right about me. I’ve kept too many secrets.”
His chin slowly rises and the muscles in his jaw pull his skin taut. “Tell me.”
36
I GRAPPLE WITH HOW TO HELPthe love of my life understand me better. “As you know, these past few years have been incredible. I mean, beyond the obvious success, I’ve learned a ton.”
Clint rests his shoulder against his chest of drawers. He knows I’m circling the building trying to find my way into what needs to be said. Instead of pounding on the front door, I decide to climb up to an attic window and squeeze inside.
“I always thought sales was about getting someone to buy from you or do something you really needed. Like the guy at the car lot that needs to get rid of the clunker that’s been sitting by the back dumpsters for too long. Not the case at Garman Straub. I’ve learned a whole new side of sales. In mutual funds and ETFs, it’s about building relationships.”
Clint sucks in his lips as if waiting for me to get to the point—for me to finally say that I’ve betrayed him. And maybe I have, but not in the way that he thinks.
“Sure, there’s banter, but with few exceptions, sales is professional and mutually beneficial.” I rub my upper arm remembering a late night a month ago.
