“The other thing I was gonna ask you is —” Carver glanced around, but the only people out here were Maggie and the kids, who were far out of earshot now. “Did Dad tell you about his affair?”
Chip froze as he was winding up to throw, then lowered his arm. Ralph, who’d darted out a few yards in expectation of the ball, came back to them and whimpered. “His what?”
“His affair.”
Chip looked floored. He stood there for another moment, his brow knit, then glanced down at the waiting dog and threw the ball. “What are you talking about?”
“He told me he had an affair before Mom did, when his work seconded him to Tokyo.”
“With who?”
“Some Japanese woman, apparently.”
“Dad?With some Japanese woman?” Chip let out a long whistle. “Holy shit. Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That’s fucking wild. Did Mom know about it?”
“I’m guessing she knows now, if he felt okay telling me. If she knew about it at the time, he didn’t say, he just said she had good reason to feel lonely and abandoned… and have her own affair, was the implication.”
“You sure he wasn’t making this shit up to cover for her?”
“No, I got the feeling it was real,” Carver said. “He said it kind of nostalgically, like there were memories associated.”
“Oh, dude, gross.”
“I know.”
“Still, good for him,” Chip said. “That honestly…” He laughed. “That does make me feel a little better.”
“Yeah, I thought it might.” Carver hesitated, then added, “I don’t remember if I said it last night, but if I didn’t, thanks for telling me.”
Chip shrugged as if brushing this off. “You needed to know.”
“I did, but nobody else was gonna say it. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome, man.”
“Alright, I gotta go talk to my wife.”
“Are you seriously going to dump that grade-A Wagyu piece of ass so you can go fuck your boy Scott?”
“Yep!”
Chip heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Man, you piss me off sometimes.”
“I’m supposed to, I’m your little brother.”
Chip reached up to tousle his hair, and did so with the force of a noogie. Carver twisted away from him, dancing backward in the direction of the house. “If I’m back in like two hours, you’ll still be here?” he called.
“Yeah, yeah,” Chip said dismissively, flapping his hand, and then threw the ball for the dog again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Carver texted Lillian and asked her to meet him at the edge of the four-mile stretch of beach that ran along the upper half of Bitterfeld and into Mamaroneck; she agreed to this and asked him if he’d like her to bring him a flat white from the cafe she was at. He was still relatively hungover, but he didn’t want to cede authority by letting her give him something, so he said no thank you.
She was already there when he drove into the parking lot, leaning against the concrete base of a light pole and looking like an off-duty model in a black puffer vest and aviators. He pulled up in the spot next to her, and she lifted her hand in a sort of salute, her expression unchanging.
