The Comfort of Lies (17 page)

Give Nathan credit. He didn’t pretend ignorance. He sat next to Juliette. “Her again? Her doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “I’ve kept my word. I’ve never even been tempted.”

She lifted her face just enough to look at the corners of his mouth where the lies showed first.

Not lying.

Big deal.

Though, really, it was.

But they had business to face. She didn’t want to. He touched her leg and she wanted to pull him down and make love in ways that weren’t routine, or were, but who cared, because the act would scrub everything out of her brain. She wanted to become stupid with sex.

Well, la-di-fucking-da, Juliette. Tough luck that the past is toddling around somewhere on Max’s legs and wearing Nathan’s hair.

“You have a daughter, Nathan.” His hand froze.

“She’s five.”

He drew his hand away.

“Maybe you already knew, huh?” she asked. “Did you know about her?”

“Did I know?”

He was buying time. She saw the wheels turning.

“Do you know about Honor?” Juliette asked.

“Honor?” Now he sounded genuinely puzzled.

Okay, so he didn’t know her stupid Tia name.

“Savannah?” Juliette asked. “Do you know about Savannah?”

“Savannah? Honor? Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t know the names, or the topic?”

“Neither,” he said.

Now he was lying. His lips quivered that millimeter she knew.

“Liar,” Juliette said. “I know.”

“You know what?”

She knew he wanted to jump out the window. “I know you knew that Tia was pregnant. I know that.”

Of course, that woman used the baby as leverage to pressure him to leave Juliette. An obsessive stalker who sent Hallmark heart cards would do anything.

Nathan moved away from her and slumped at the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands.

“What are you going to do?” Juliette asked.

“Do? Do about what? I barely have a clue what you’re talking about. How do you even . . . ?”

Juliette crossed her arms. “I opened the letter she sent you.”

“What letter?” A bit of anger tinged his words. “A letter to me?”

Screw you, Nathan. What, you have a privacy issue going on here?

Juliette reached into the top drawer of her nightstand. The envelope looked as though she’d carried it through ten storms. “Here. Read it.”

He slipped the letter and the photos from the envelope. He
looked at the photos first. Was Nathan more curious about the child than he was about Tia, and if so, was that good or bad?

He stared at the girl for long minutes. His daughter. Juliette knew he was trying to keep his face impassive; she could see his emotions, she just wasn’t sure what they added up to.

He unfolded the letter. Juliette kneaded the bedspread, and then went to lean over his shoulder.

When he’d had enough time to read it five hundred times, Juliette burst out, “What are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“
About what?
” Juliette jumped off the bed. “What do you feel? What do you feel about this child? About her?”

“Juliette, I didn’t know about the child until I opened this. I haven’t spoken to . . . to her, since—”

“Since when? Since you swore it was over? Since she told you she was pregnant?”

Nathan remained silent.

“Which is it? Which? Answer me!”

He sank his head back into his hands.

“Don’t play hangdog.”

“Jules, give me a minute at least.”

“It takes no time to tell the truth. You don’t need a minute. Talk.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet. I need to absorb this.”

“We have to plan everything together: how you’ll respond to Tia, to the news of Savannah, or it will drive us apart. Please, Nathan.”

“Enough. You’re right, you’re right. But you’ve been thinking about this, obsessing about it—I just found out. Surely you can understand that?”

She paced around the room, picking up a necklace lying on her dresser, putting it in her jewelry box, and then folding a towel from a basket of laundry in stiff, jerky movements. “Damn it, talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Not yet.” He shook his head as though she barely registered. “I need to sort it out.”

After squeezing the white towel until her hand ached, she threw
it at him. “What are you
feeling
?” she shouted. “Do you feel like you have a daughter? Does this make you feel connected to Tia? What about Max and Lucas? Do we tell them?”

He stood up and grabbed her shoulders. “Give me some time,” he said through gritted teeth. “I mean it. I can’t handle you like this. Not right now.”

CHAPTER 14

Caroline

The San Diego Marriott lobby was nearly empty. Caroline glanced around, guilty as a kid cutting class. She’d tried to give off the air of a doctor called out to tend to a life-or-death situation as she’d slipped out the back of the lecture hall, but she just wanted to breathe fresh air and shake off her jet lag.

“A New Paradigm for Considering the Ramifications of Treatments of Retinoblastoma” had given her a new paradigm for sleeping with her eyes open. The lecturers at the Future of Pediatrics conference obviously meant well—more than well. They were dedicated people willing to share their expertise. If they gave out caffeine tablets when you entered, then she could truly appreciate their paradigms.

The hotel lobby opened to a wide concrete plaza. FedEx was to her right. Across the way was a row of small shops. Caroline turned left and was grateful for the sight of a Starbucks. Good. After spending an hour yawning, she craved caffeine.

“Large coffee,” she said when she reached the front of the line.

The barista looked at Caroline without hiding her boredom. “So you want a
venti?
” Why did this girl crayon her eyes so heavily? The thick green semicircles looked like a grotesque signpost announcing her foul attitude.

Caroline looked up to the wall for help.
Grande
sounded larger, but what was
venti
?
Tall
sounded large also, but it was the name for small, right? Starbucks made her feel stupid. How was she supposed to keep their drink sizes straight? Was she supposed to learn Italian to drink coffee?

She took a chance. “I think I meant
grande.
”

Green-circle smirked. “That’s a medium. Is that what you want?”

The man next in line tapped Caroline’s shoulder. “You want a large, right?”

She nodded.

“A
venti
for the lady and a tall iced latte for me. Skim milk, light ice, please.”

“Thanks,” Caroline said. “I get lost here.” He appeared familiar, a weedy type with wire-rim glasses and an eager-puppy look.

“My claim to fame,” he said. “I speak fluent Starbucks.” He put out his hand. “I snuck out of the lecture right after you.”

As Caroline shook his hand, she realized she’d missed Green-circle’s demand for money. She held out a twenty.

“Let me,” her new friend offered, his money already in the girl’s hand.

“Thank you.” Caroline tucked the twenty back in her purse, knowing she’d just given him rights to something. Nothing big. But something.

They sat inside—both Easterners afraid of the sun, as it turned out. Jonah—Dr. Jonah Weber—ran a private practice in Vermont. The Northeast Kingdom.

“It sounds grand, doesn’t it?” he said. “The Northeast Kingdom.”

“Is it?” Caroline sank deeper into the velvety club chair, awash in good feeling. She’d escaped the lecture and was three thousand miles from the gilded cage to which she returned each night.

“It’s beautiful in the extreme. And also horrific.”

“How?” she asked.

“How is it beautiful? Or how is it horrific?”

“Both,” she said. “Tell me about both.”

“The landscape is almost mythical. Craggy, and then suddenly
rolling hills. My house has a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. On the other hand, the town is filled with people poor in ways you can’t imagine.”

“Is your practice small?”

“Actually, too big. I cover a vast amount of territory. I could use help. Not many doctors want to live in a place where mud season outlasts summer. I’m not a pediatrician; I’m a family doctor. Where I live, that means being everything to everybody.”

“Did you grow up in Vermont?”

“I did. I escaped for a bit.” He looked happy, remembering. “I interned right here in San Diego. Stayed for a bit afterward. I loved being in a place where I didn’t need ten pairs of flannel-lined jeans or five pairs of boots.”

“So why’d you leave?”

“Not completely sure.” He opened his hands as though offering her something. “Crazy?”

“You don’t seem the crazy type.”

“I think maybe some of us who grow up so specifically one way—like a hothouse flower, or in my case, a mud weed—need that environment to function. Even if we don’t like it.”

Caroline thought about the solitude she’d treasured as a girl. Lying for hours on her neatly made bed, reading, sketching angled houses during the period when architecture interested her, listening to Jascha Heifetz during the years she played violin. She’d felt complete.

“So you need mud and snow to function?” she asked.

“I guess I do. I haven’t thought about it for a long time. I suppose I’m content being where I am.”

Caroline snuck a look. The reassuring wedding band circling Jonah’s finger took away her tickle of concern. This was safe; hardly even flirtation. Just colleagues playing hooky. Strangers offering each other revelations.

Jonah folded napkins into perfect squares and then triangles. “How about you? What do you need to function?”

All Caroline could think about were things that
didn’t
help her
function, like Savannah’s constant thirst for her and Peter’s need for the perfect family.

“Peace. I long for peace,” she said.

“Just that?”

“That’s plenty. Without it, everything else overwhelms me.”

“How is work for that?”

Caroline laced her long fingers. “Work is never a problem. Even when things get hectic, I can provide my own inner peace. I love my work. As long as I also get my quota of quiet.”

“And when you don’t?” Jonah asked.

She didn’t want to answer, so she didn’t. She simply gave a self-deprecating smile that he could take any way he wanted. That was the beauty of talking to a stranger. Low stakes.

“How about your husband? Have children?”

He’d noticed her ring.

“My husband is dead.”

What?

“Oh, I’m sorry. Recently?”

“Three years ago,” she said. “My husband and daughter. In a car accident.”

Horror passed over his face. Her stomach cramped. Had she gone insane? How could she take the words back without making him run away?

“I don’t like talking about it,” she rushed to say. “At all.”

“Of course, of course.” He covered her hand with his. She pushed away the awfulness of her words. His skin carried the chafing of a winter spent shoveling snow and chipping ice. It felt scratchy and yet good. Not like it came from a hothouse at all.

 • • • 

Caroline arrived home. She paid the cab driver. She opened the car door quietly, still greedy for solitude despite her four-day absence.

It was seven at night. Perhaps Peter had taken Savannah out for dinner. Just the two of them living the high life at McDonald’s, acting as though they were free, free, free, until Mommy came home
and laid down the law. Peter liked to play these games, putting Caroline in the role of the stern but loving mommy, while he played fun dad, making Savannah his companion in their domestic rebellion game.

Except it was just that. A game.

Where had this Peter come from, this man who wanted to poke and mold Caroline into someone different? He fell in love with her as a quiet researcher-doctor, claiming to love her safe aura of calm, so why was he trying to make her into a fun-loving, mess-enduring cookie baker?

As for the role Peter picked out for Savannah, the girl was as rebellious as an accountant. Savannah watched every move Caroline made as though measuring her against a secret measuring stick to which only Savannah had access.

The garage door was, of course, neatly closed. Peter hated it open, while Caroline disliked the grinding of opening and closing it. She had a crazy fear of it crashing down on her.

She hated their garage. Just as their house was a foolish minimansion for the three of them, the garage was a ridiculously massive home for their cars. It embarrassed Caroline, this conspicuous consumption in which Peter reveled—especially now, with so many suffering from the bad turns of the economy. Peter loved reminding Caroline how smart he’d been taking their money out of risky stocks and parking it in bonds at just the right time.

Her parents had managed to provide comfort without the sound and fury Peter required. She feared Peter might bury her in things before he overcame his upbringing. His background seemed perfectly acceptable to Caroline; whenever she said this, he’d bark his seal laugh and say, “Only the rich appreciate the beauty of poverty.”

Peter hadn’t grown up in poverty, just the bustle of keeping up. His father had hauled groceries long-distance, but he owned his own truck, and, later, three trucks. “Almost a mogul, my father,” Peter would say with a pained smile. Peter’s mother took in sewing, but it wasn’t as though she hunched over an underlit project in a freezing room, wrapped in rags. She’d been the first choice of anyone who
wanted a better fit, a copy of a designer dress, the perfect wedding ensemble.

Peter’s family enchanted her when she met them. They were a noisy, teasing bunch, so different from Caroline’s parents and sisters, who’d been muted except when playing team sports on their lawn—something that she never participated in anyway.

Caroline slipped her key in the door and inched it open. The smell of chocolate greeted her. In Peter’s family, food represented everything fun in life, and they shoveled in prodigious amounts. Caroline’s family portioned it out as though the supply was finite: here’s your half cup of peas and your chicken breast. Two quarters of roasted potato. Sauce was for restaurants, butter available only in pats, cake in the house meant a birthday or wedding.