I also know this isn’t what Win wants to know.
“He’s still married,” I say softly.
Her hand tightens on the edge of the quilt, and then relaxes. She reaches for the phone. I watch her peer at the photo, touching the screen to enlarge the details of his face.
Win closes her eyes. “It’s not him.” Her voice is raw, her relief palpable. “It’s not him.”
—
AFTER DINNER THATnight, I tell Brian I have some paperwork to finish and I go into my office. On my laptop, I receive a notification from another search engine. This one has found the name Thane Bernard in, of all places, a 2009Rolling Stonemagazine. David Bowie had done an interview from his London home, discussing his collection of art by old masters like Rubens, Balthus, and Tintoretto as well as more modern art by Henry Moore and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He also mentioned a recent acquisition by artist Nathaniel Bernard. The painting, sold for $10,500, was calledPrometheus,and styled like the famous Rubens, but instead of chains wrapped around the subject’s wrists there were ethernet cables and telephone cords and power lines. The mythical eagle was not picking out the victim’s liver, but instead a beakful of British pound notes. Part of the joy of art, Bowie said, was finding artists no one else had discovered yet—likeThane.
The reason I haven’t been able to find Professor Thane Bernard is because he isn’t teaching art. He iscreatingit, and signing the pieces with his full first name.
I keep searching, using this new information, and find sales from auctions in France, Belgium, Italy. An announcement of a show at a Gagosian gallery. An appearance at Art Basel. Although there is an e-trail of his career, there is almost no personal information about him. He doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. I can’t find a photograph.
But then, in Google Images: a picture from a charity auction in London to raise money for a homeless shelter. There are five men in black tie.From l. to r.: A. Rothschild, T. Haven-Shields, H. Ludstone, R. Champney, N. Bernard.
N. Bernard.
When I blow up the image, it’s grainy. His head is bald. His eyes are dark as night, the pupils and the irises almost indistinguishable.
I print a copy of this photograph so that I can bring it to Win tomorrow.
Then I reply to the original email from the site that found the original reference. For another fifty dollars, do I want them to find a last known address?
Yes. Yes, I do.
I click out of my mail app. I’ve done what Win asked; I should close my laptop and go to my husband, who is in bed, watching Stephen Colbert. But instead I find myself opening Facebook. My fingers find the search bar of their own accord, and type in Wyatt’s name.
I’m not sure if I’m relieved or upset when there are no results.
That should be it. I should feel like I’ve dodged a bullet. But then I think of Win’s voice:Picture the person you thought you’d wind up with.
It isn’t cheating, if I loved him first. It isn’t cheating, if I never act on the information. It isn’t cheating, if Brian was the first to look away.
There are so many ways to lie to myself.
If my relationship with Brian has any chance of stabilizing, and we can’t go backward, maybe I need to even the distance between us. As Brian said: nothing happened. But for a heartbeat, he wondered what it might be like to be with someone else. And so will I.
Unlike Thane Bernard, Wyatt Armstrong has a robust Internet presence. He finished his dissertation in 2005 and published a book that analyzed the text and grammar of the Book of Two Ways. He became the head of Yale’s Egyptology program after the death of Professor Dumphries—I skim the eulogy he wrote in our alumni magazine. I read about his search for the missing tomb of Djehutynakht, and his discovery of it five years ago. To date, he hasn’t published his findings.
Then I click on the link for images.
It feels like a punch to the gut. Wyatt is still lean and long, folded like a jackknife as he looks over his shoulder in the cramped chute of a tomb toward a camera. His face is familiar and unfamiliar at once. His searing blue eyes—the ones that lookintoyou rather thanatyou—are tempered by a wariness, and there are lines at the corners now. I am reminded of everything that has come between us: people, distance, time.
As if this was donetous.
As if I didn’t do it to myself.
“Oh.” I hear a soft voice behind me, and I turn to see the wound of Brian’s face.
For a sinking, terrible moment, I wait for the ground to swallow me whole, and when it doesn’t I follow Brian back into our bedroom and close the door. My mind is spinning so fast for an explanation that the words are already tumbling out of my mouth. “I was looking up Win’s old boyfriend—”
“And you found yours instead?” Brian interrupts.
The pain in his expression is so acute that I stumble. “You…you know who Wyatt is?”
“I’m not stupid.”
