It’s like a pissing contest. Even Meret can’t stop looking from one man to the other.
“It’s getting late,” Brian says to Meret. “You’ll never wake up in the morning.”
She rises from the swing. “I hope we can pick up where we left off,” Wyatt says. I can see her struggling to figure out what to do: shake his hand? Hug him? Neither?
He steps off the porch, off Brian’s property, saving her from making the decision. “Well,” Wyatt says awkwardly. “Good night.”
I take a step toward Wyatt, but Meret grabs my wrist before I can join him. “You’re not leaving again, are you?”
Brian and I have not talked about it: where I will stay,ifI will stay. But Meret’s face is so guileless, so fragile. I have just come back to her; how could I leave again?
“No,” I say, as if I never intended anything but this. “Of course not.”
At this, Brian turns and walks into the house. Meret waves to Wyatt, and follows. “Come say good night,” she tells me.
Wyatt stands underneath the field of stars. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I…”
“I know. I get it.” He takes the rental car keys from his pocket and flips them in the air. “Meret needs you tonight more than I do,” Wyatt reasons. “I’m willing to share.”
“You’re terrible at sharing.”
“Okay, that’s true,” Wyatt admits. “I’m willing to share thisonce. But I’ll be camped out at the curb at first light.”
He starts down the driveway, but turns around.
“She’s remarkable,” Wyatt murmurs, a grin playing over his mouth.
“I told you so.”
“You’ve been dying to say that to me, haven’t you?” He laughs.
I watch the taillights of the rental car disappear down our road, and then turn to the house where I’ve lived for fifteen years. I know every loose plank in the floor and where there is water damage to the ceiling and which rooms have the newest coats of paint, but tonight, it seems unfamiliar. A mausoleum, a crypt.
I find Brian making up the bed in my office. “You…you don’t have to do that,” I say.
He turns around, his cheeks reddening. “I figured you’d want to…I didn’t think…”
Nowmyface is burning. “I mean, yes. But. I can do it. You can…you can just leave everything.”
He sets the quilt and pillows down on top of the sheet he’s already tucked around the sofa cushions. He’s a foot away from me, and I suddenly remember being on the honeymoon we took with an infant Meret and my brother, to Miami. Kieran had spied a red-spotted newt that darted underneath a hedge before he could get a good look. Brian had spent a half hour laying a minute trail of crumbs and sugar, waiting for the little lizard to inch into the sunlight again.
The difference between him and Wyatt, I realize, is that Wyatt will dig till he finds something. Brian will wait until it comes to him.
“I’m going to say good night to Meret,” I tell him.
“I’ll leave my door open so I can hear you,” Brian replies, just before I cross the threshold. “If you need anything in the middle of the night, just call.”
Wyatt and a nursing staff have been monitoring me at night; this will be my first stretch alone. Brian realized that, even if I didn’t.
I know, without him saying it, that he will wake up like he used to when Meret was little and wheezing with the croup. That he will tiptoe down the hallway, and listen for my even breathing.
—
INMERET’S BEDROOM,I lie down on top of the covers beside her, the way I did when she was tiny. Moments before she tumbles into sleep, her voice curls like smoke over her shoulder. “It’s just like it used to be,” she murmurs.
But it isn’t.
When I slip away, the door of the master bedroom is ajar and the lights are off. I go into my office and lie down on the couch. I stare at the ceiling, but I toss and turn, unable to grab sleep every time it darts within reach.
