The Sweetheart Deal (22 page)

I
walked back through the plastic and past Christopher.

“You okay?” I said. “Your mom okay? What's going on?”

He shook his head. He wouldn't look at me.

Audrey was in the passenger seat. I opened the driver's side and peered into the car.

“Are you okay?” I said.

“Drive,” she said. She wouldn't look at me either.

I got in and started the car. “Jesus Christ, Audrey, what the fuck is going on?” I said.

She didn't answer me. I drove for three blocks.

“Pull over,” she said.

I started to laugh.

“Pull over,” she said again.

I pulled over. I was really laughing now. “What is all this?” I said. “All this, ‘Drive. Pull over.' All this melodrama. You don't do melodrama.”

“Turn off the car,” she said. She still wouldn't look at me. I stopped laughing. Something wasn't right.

I turned off the car.

“What is this, Garrett?” she said. She plucked the paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to me. The paper that was in my socks. That had been. It wasn't there anymore.

I took it and folded it back up and put it on the dashboard.

“What the
fuck
is
that,
Garrett?” she said. “Is
that
why you can't keep your hands off me?” I wanted to start laughing again. “Because of my jackass husband? It's because of him you're doing what you're doing?”

Had Christopher said something to her? Circumstances had forced my hand with Chris, and my telling him what Leo asked of me had been a risk. When I made the decision, I didn't know how making him a kind of participant would turn out, but it had seemed like the right thing to do. The very thing I'd been incapable of sharing with Audrey, I had burdened her son with, and while it certainly hadn't gone well, I didn't get the sense that he would go running to her. I knew I could have been wrong, but that was weeks ago, and my mind tried to fill in the blanks. Audrey wouldn't have had any reason to search through my drawers, and in those seconds before I responded I couldn't imagine how she'd found it. And it clearly wasn't the time to ask. But I did have the answer to one question. She hadn't known anything about the paper, and I wasn't about to tell her Leo mailed it to me. I'd take that to
my
grave.

“No,” I said. “None of it's because of him.”

“Spare me whatever wooing works on all your other women,” she said. “You did this. You both did.” She grabbed the paper and unfolded it and waved it at my face. I leaned away from it. “What do you think I am? A woman who needs a keeper? Some pathetic woman two men think they can make decisions for? I was married to him, Garrett, for nineteen years. I am raising our sons. I made sure his body got off that mountain and I buried it. Anyone could finish the house. You think I need a substitute husband
willed
to me?”

She was right on every count. What I didn't know how to convince her of was that what she held in her hand had nothing to do with it. How I felt about her. How I felt about the boys. I hadn't seen any of it coming. It would have happened with no promise, signed paper or not. I was dying inside the car. The windows were down but it didn't matter. It was so hot. I had to get out.

“I have to get out of this car,” I said. I walked to the sidewalk. She got out and followed me.

“It was twelve years ago. It didn't mean anything,” I said. “You know how he was. He wouldn't leave it alone. We were drunk and he got sentimental. He wasn't going to die. I did it to get him off my back. He was being a pain in the ass and I signed it and it was over.”

We were fighting on the sidewalk. A couple fighting in public. People drove by and slowed down and stared at us. Someone I didn't recognize waved. A woman came out of the house we were parked in front of and sat in a chair on her porch. Wonderful.

“But he did die, Garrett,” she said. “And why didn't you throw this away if it was so ‘stupid'? If it didn't mean anything?” She shrieked and waved it like a lunatic. In front of God and everybody. “
You
kept it,
you
brought it out here with you and
here
it is.” She wouldn't stop waving the paper. I turned my back toward the street. I didn't look at the woman on her porch.

“And
you
.” She gritted her teeth and got in my face, her face as close as she could get it to mine, and I stretched my neck back as far as it would go but I left my feet where they were. I did, as the saying goes, have this coming. “When was it?” She was whispering now, her mouth inches below my chin. “When I told you about that guy Wade Reynolds and you sat there, you sat and did your fucking
Oh, Audrey, now there, there,
and I believed you.
No, Audrey, there's no other secrets. Settle down, honey. Leo only ever had good intentions
. Right, he's perfect. Leo, always so perfect. He wasn't perfect. And you're a fucking liar. Your whole sorry life is a lie, Garrett. And all this time you've spent here, that's been a lie too.

“I hate you. I hate both of you right now,” Audrey said. She stepped away from me and waved the paper one last time. A big white sweep with one hand. “There
is
no promise.” Then she held it between both hands and ripped it—once, twice, three, four, five, six times until she couldn't tear anymore and it was just a small white shredded pile on the sidewalk between our feet.

She walked to the car and I followed her.

“Drive me home, then get out,” she said. “I don't care where you go or how you get there, but get the fuck out of my house.”

A
fter Garrett left, I ordered a pizza and drove the Land Cruiser, for the first time since losing Leo, to pick it up. Even after everything I'd done with Garrett that was far more momentous, it still upset me to move the seat forward, changing one of the things I'd preserved inside the car for five months, and drive it now. I brought the pizza home, told the boys they could eat and watch a movie, and lay on my bed and sobbed into my pillow. I wished I could undo everything. All of it. And replace it with what hadn't happened: that we had gone skiing on Brian's birthday; that I told Garrett to go home after the funeral; that we hadn't repainted the bedroom; that I hadn't kissed him and followed him to bed; that I hadn't started it again after we'd put the first time behind us. That I could rewind time and not have spent the last two months sleeping with him and, without meaning to, let my feelings for him run away with me and allow him to fill a portion of the void that Leo had left. I should have been acting like a responsible adult and I had done everything but.

I wanted to hurt Leo. He had always joked with the two of us,
If I die, you guys have to get married. You both know all the secrets, all the history, and you guys love each other.
But that was all it had been. So I thought.

But the fact that he had made Garrett sign something, that Garrett had come out and played house and bedded me, made me feel like an object or property—not a person—that they thought needed a keeper. Their friendship—I didn't care how special it was. It didn't make their assumption okay. We weren't living in another century and I didn't need to be taken care of. At the very least, I couldn't believe Leo had never told me after Garrett's visit, later laughing about it, admitting he'd done such a thing. I could picture it.
Well, babe, I've made Garrett promise to marry you if I die. I should have had you sign it too, but you were in bed already, and by the next morning I'd come to my senses, and then he took it with him. You would marry Garrett, right, if you had to? Oh, come on, darlin', don't look at me like that. It was all in good fun, and you and I both know I'm not going anywhere.

I
was never so happy to get off a sidewalk. What else could I do? I drove her home. I hated Leo a little that day. And I hated myself, for signing the paper, for hanging on to it and bringing it with me and stowing it in a place where it could be found. For wanting Audrey so badly and getting in so deep. For that, I hated myself, but it wasn't something I regretted. I left the house and called a cab a block away and had it take me to the White Eagle on Russell Street.
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
I thought
. You bring ruin everywhere you go.

I called Kevin and asked him to meet me. “Things have changed,” I said. I told him where I was.

“On my way,” he said.

I explained what happened, the only part of the story I knew. I told him I had no idea how she'd found it.

“But it was inevitable,” I said. “The clock was ticking.”

“It was a matter of time, I suppose,” he said. “Sorry the clock didn't run out different.”

He put his hand on my shoulder, heavy, and left it there for a minute before he took it back. “How'd you leave it, then?” he said.

“You're looking at it,” I said. “Like this. She wanted me to leave and I did, and she'll want me to go back to Boston, I'm sure, so I will. But I'm coming back—I just don't know when.” The thing was, I did know when, but I wasn't ready to tell him.

“Sure,” he said. “You can do that. There you go.” I'm sure I sounded like a grown man who should have known better: full of naïveté, denial, and hubris, imagining a hopeful solution for a situation that was doomed. But Kevin wasn't going to kick me while I was down, and I appreciated that.

“I don't have any expectations,” I said. “It's just that I'm done back there. There may be nothing here for me, but there's even less there.”

“Right,” he said. “Sure, I get that. Hey, I left too. That's the pioneer spirit.”

I let his levity work on us. “Yeah, embarking in unchartered territory, trail blazing, all that. I wouldn't be the first Boston ex-pat.”

“Certainly not,” he said.

“What about the room?” Kevin said.

“She can figure it out,” I said. “In the meantime she can live with it. Those studs aren't going to give out tomorrow.”

Kevin nodded. “It's been really good working with you,” he said. “It really has. I'm really sorry about this. You'll figure it out. You let me know when you're back. If I don't hear, I'll find you.”

“Yeah, of course,” I said. “Of course I'll do that. I'll be in touch.”

I didn't feel like getting drunk. I wanted to sleep. Kevin wouldn't let me leave any money on the bar, and offered me his couch for the night.

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I'm just going to get a room here. It's easy,” I said. “And I'll be asleep in ten minutes.”

“Come on,” he said. “Really.”

When I insisted, like he had paying the tab, he left and I checked into a room. I had wanted to do right by Leo, and Audrey and the boys. Up to a point I had, until whatever good I'd done I'd also unraveled. The unfortunate combination of my relationship with Audrey and my secrecy had had a far greater impact than anything else. It had been too much to ask. Leo had asked too much of me, more than I was capable of, more than anyone would have been. He had left behind shoes too big for anyone to fill, an absence no one could replace. That was my last thought before I fell asleep.

I
hadn't thought I would, but I slept. The sound of Garrett opening the front door woke me before six. I had left it unlocked. When I got downstairs, he was unloading the dishwasher.

“I made coffee,” he said.

“Stop,” I said. “Stop what you're doing.”

“Audrey,” said Garrett. “We need to talk.”

“There's nothing to talk about,” I said. “It's time for you to go home. I booked you on a flight at two-thirty. I printed your boarding pass. It's next to the computer.”

“I know how mad you are,” he said. “And I know you're grieving. I would never have dreamed of making things worse for you.”

“Don't patronize me,” I said. “Don't you dare tell me you know I'm
grieving
. You don't know anything. You've never been married. And you've never been married to someone who died.”

“You're right,” said Garrett. “But I knew him longer than you. We knew things about each other no one else did.”

“You need to start packing,” I said. “And keep your voice down.”

“I will start packing. It won't take me that long,” Garrett said. “But I have something to say and you're going to hear it.”

“You have more news?” I said. “Enlighten me, Garrett. Should I take notes?”

“Don't,” he said. “Don't tell me ‘I don't know.' I
do
know. I'm losing you. It's happening right now. You didn't even know about it and you
still
took me to bed. Again and again and again.”

“We're done,” I said. “I don't need to hear this.”

“I'm not done.” He didn't scare me, but I'd never heard Garrett's voice so low and contained, like he was wrestling with himself not to yell. “You don't have to hear any more after I'm done. After I'm gone. After two-thirty today. You let me finish.”

I shrugged like I didn't care.

“I am so fucking sorry. On behalf of Leo and me, we are both so sorry. And, Audrey, what about you? You just helped yourself to me.” He said it slow and quiet. He was so angry, his lips barely moved. “
You
made me your stand-in. How did you manage it every time, Audrey? How did you live with yourself? I want to know. Every time my dick was inside you, did you just shut your eyes and pretend you were fucking a dead man?”

I didn't want to be, but I was crying. “I'm not going to listen to this,” I said. “Are you done?”

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I'm done.”