This time, it’s Derek who brings it up.“Any word from our wandering boy?”he asks.The way he talks about Daniel is different from how he discusses crime and safety.His voice when he mentions Daniel is toler-ant, bemused, and morally superior.
“As a matter offact, I talked to him today.”
“Really?”Derek says, his voice rising a little.
”He wanted to pick Ruby up at day care.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Well, it was just as well for me.I knew I was having the alarm system put in, but they wouldn’t give me an exact time.”
“So? Is she going to spend the night there?”
“Yes,”she says.“I could use a night off.”
“Well, I guess it’s good for her to have a male role model or something.”
And now the subject is properly launched, it wafts above them like a big lazy balloon.
“This place where he’s living,”Kate says.“I finally got the courage to go over and take a look at it.”
“He’s over on SalterTurnpike.”
“A little suburban-style house, with a carport and fake shutters.”She stops herself, realizes that sort ofarchitecture wouldn’t disturb Derek, that in fact his own house could be described like that.“And inside, really dreary.I asked him,‘Who decorated this place? Lee Harvey Oswald?’”
“Three years ago, I was called out on a domestic abuse on SalterTurnpike and the guy turned out to be my tenth-grade English teacher, Mr.
Machias.Man, I loved busting that guy, and he’s like trying to strike a bargain with me while I’m leading him out to the car, he’s saying,‘Mr.
Pabst, we’re both men ofthe world.’Men ofthe world.His poor old wife’s in there with a broken nose and a chipped front tooth and he’s try-ing to bond with me.”
“So what are you saying, Derek?That it’s a bad neighborhood?”
“Here’s what I think.There are no bad neighborhoods, there’s just bad people.”
Oh, thank you for your hard-won wisdom of the streets.“Daniel looked really uncomfortable, having me in his house,”she says.“He was swaying back and forth, talking a mile a minute, and he had his hand sort oftucked be-hind him, massaging his kidney like he does when he’s very, very nervous.”
“He was nervous? He should beashamed.He should be on his knees begging you to forgive him.”
Kate shrugs, but Derek is saying exactly what she wants to hear.She finds that she has a practically limitless need to hear her side ofthings af-firmed when it comes to the breakup ofher household.Once, she would have guessed that she would want to preserve her pride, that she would put up a brave front and mount the traditional romantic defense ofnon-chalance, or philosophical acceptance.But that hasn’t been the case.Kate wants there to be no mistake in anyone’s mind about whose idea it was to separate.She is the wronged party, any spin on that is immoral.And whenever she thinks she has had her fill ofpity, she finds that she has a craving for just one more helping.
“He looks terrible,”Kate says.“He must have lost at least twenty pounds, and he’s got these crepe paper dark patches under his eyes.His health is shot.”
“He shouldn’t even be talking to you about his health,”Derek says.
“He’s lost that right.”
“It’s not like cops and robbers, Derek, this is real life.Whatever he’s done, he’s still important to me.And ifhe’s developed some kind of heart condition…”
“He had a heart attack?”
“I don’t know what he had.But I do know he’s wasting away.And for what?”
“HamptonWelles,”Derek says softly.
”But that wasn’t Daniel’s fault!”
Derek nods.It is, in fact, what he, too, believes, but he doesn’t like to hear Kate say it.
“And I do think,”Kate continues,“that in terms ofhim and Iris, it’s been devastating to them.I think it’s hard for them to even see each other.”
Derek is entirely sure that Daniel and Iris are seeing a lot more of each other than Kate cares to realize—he has seen them coming out of theWindsor Bistro, seen her car in front ofDaniel’s house—but he thinks better ofmaking the point.Sometimes you can lose by winning.
“You’re a very brave lady, Kate,”he says.“I mean it.You’re really taking it well.”
“Can I offer you another cup ofcoffee?”
“No, I better not.I’m having trouble sleeping anyhow.And this stuff is a whole lot stronger than anything I get at home.”
“Meow,”says Kate, making Derek laugh with such a burst ofmanic nervous energy that his face goes crimson.Kate looks at him with a mild gaze, but soon she is laughing, too, and they continue to laugh, as ifher joke were a kiss and they wanted to prolong it.
And then the laughter subsides and they are left with each other and the silence, which Derek, finally, cannot endure.
“You ask yourself,”he says, shaking his head.
”What?”
“What you’d do in her particular individual situation.”
“Iris? WithDaniel, youmean?”
“Whatever anyone says about it being an accident, Daniel lit the fuse.
What would you do with someone who did something like that to yourhusband?”
“Well, first I’d like to actually have a husband.”She realizes as soon as the words are out that it’s not a good or even acceptable joke.She knows Derek is attracted to her, that he has been coming around with the hope ofone day taking her to bed, and she doesn’t want to encourage him, any more than she would want to absolutely discourage him.And, sure enough, the wisecrack has made him uncomfortable.He shifts in his seat, recrosses his legs.
“You know Hampton, don’t you?”Derek asks.
”A little.”
“What’s he like?”
“Extremely dignified, what people used to call a Credit to His Race.”
“Man,”Derek says, with a sad shake ofthe head, as he so often does when Hampton’s fate is discussed.He touches the hollow ofhis own throat, also a practically ritualized gesture between them.
“Poor Daniel,”she says.“I can’t help thinking Iris is sort ofholding him hostage.”
“Hostage?”
“Psychologically.”
Derek glances away, as ifthis were a bit rarefied for his tastes.
”Daniel feels responsible…AndIrisisnofool.She’s perfectly capable ofmanipulating the hell out ofDaniel, without even halftrying.
He’s doing her shopping, he’s mowing the lawn, he’s like her servant.”
“I can’t believe you,”Derek says.“You’re sitting here feeling sorry for him.The whole town’s talking about what a rat he is, and the person he hurt the most is feeling sorry for him.You’re a very understanding person.”
“I’m not understanding.I’m hurt.I feel incredibly hurt.It’s just…
well, it’sDaniel.He’s a sweet man.But he’s rootless, that might be the problem.I should have put it together when he came up with the plan to move back to this place.He wanted to be near his parents, strange as it sounds.All that unfinished business, it’s true what they say.Some of those unloved kids have the hardest time leaving home.They think it’s al-ways just about to happen, the things they’ve been waiting their whole life for.And then they get fixated on the idea ofpassion, some big bang theory.You know what I mean?An explosion that will create, or re-create, the world.Maybe that’s why he got so attached to this woman, this woman who is really basically a stranger to him.He wants to be res-cued from his own emptiness.And I think he sees her as the perfect mother, too—even though she was willing to throw her marriage out the window.But she’s very touchy-feely with her kid.Daniel loves that, be-cause he understands it, and it’s what he missed.Then you take all that, and you mix in all ofDaniel’s goddamned pro bono idealism, and his whole fixation on theblackthing, and how they’re supposed to be more feeling than us, more emotionally present.All that nonsense.”