“Nowhere? For eight hours?”
“I drove around.”
“For eight hours?” Benji repeated. “Where did you go?”
“I told you. Nowhere.”
“You didn’t see anybody?”
She didn’t like where this was going or that Benji, so quickly, knew how to get there. “Who would I see?”
He squared his shoulders, gazed long and hard into her eyes. “You tell me.”
“Benji. Stop.”
“Who did you see?” Evelyn asked.
“Claudia?”
“Stop!”
Benji pressed his palms to the table and leaned in. “You didn’t!”
Evelyn dropped her napkin and narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who else do you know?”
“Who?” Evelyn asked.
Benji put a hand on his mother’s back to stifle her. “You hate everyone else in this town. Who else do you know?”
“I’m not on trial here.”
“It would make sense,” Benji reasoned. “I mean Max is his son too.”
Claudia raised her hands to her ears as if he’d set off firecrackers next to them. “Can we not use that word right now?”
“Son?”
“Benji!”
“So you did see Nick?” A pause. “I thought he lived in Seattle.”
“I can’t listen to this,” Evelyn cried, hiding behind fresh napkins.
“Well? What does he say?”
Claudia balled her napkin into a hard little wad and dropped it onto the table. She didn’t answer.
“You didn’t tell him, did you?”
Again, nothing.
“You saw him, and you didn’t tell him? Your judgment is incredible. Unbelievable!” Benji said, “Not a word? I’m looking more level-headed and responsible the longer we sit here.”
“How could I not think of him? But I didn’t come here to see him, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t even know he was here. I thought he was three thousand miles away, but then I googled him.”
“You googled him,” he repeated flatly.
“I didn’t plan it, Benji. I didn’t. But then I saw Max, and I started driving, and the next thing I knew I was in front of the Anselmans’ place.” Benji’s head fell into the palm of his hand as he muttered some unintelligible curse, but Claudia went on. “I wanted to tell him. I actually thought telling him would make it easier. That I’d be able to go back and meet, you know—”
“Max!” Benji shouted.
“What do you want me to say? I’m a coward? Fine, I’m a coward. But I thought maybe if we went to see him together, Nick and I, that I’d be able to get through it. But then we started talking.”
“About what?” Benji pressed. “I’m dying to know.”
“Ridiculous things. I don’t even remember. The supermarket he’s building. And Compton’s Mound.”
“Max is in tears because you’re a no-show, and you’re out there talking real estate development.”
“It wasn’t like that. He asked me what I’d do with the property and—.”
“And?”
“He asked me to draw up some plans.” She sounded like a little girl lost.
“Even better. It was a job interview.”
“It was comforting, you ass. I may be in the wrong here, but I’m not beyond needing that.”
Benji’s eyes widened with disbelief as he grabbed her hand and hissed, “Did you fuck him?”
She pulled away to show the depth of the offense, but the prickle of heat dancing up her cheeks betrayed her.
“You did.”
With that, Evelyn slapped Benji out of the booth, heaved herself up, and with an admonishment that she didn’t have to listen to this anymore, limped away.
Claudia glanced with horror after her. She turned back to Benji. “Thank you for that.”
“You fucked him?” Benji asked again, bringing the volume down to his inside voice.
Claudia leaned in close and whispered, “I didn’t go there to fuck him. We were talking, and somehow—”
“It just happened.”
“Somehow. Besides. It’s none of your business who I fuck.”
“You’re right. It’s not. It’s not my business. Is it Oliver’s? I’m pretty sure it is his business. Who, by the way, is convinced that you’re dead in a ditch somewhere. Have you called him?”
Oliver. Certainly worse than any vow she’d broken was that she hadn’t given him a serious second thought.
“I texted. He’s fine.”
“Oh? You found time to text your husband between fucking your ex-boyfriend and your job interview?” Benji pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed a few steadying breaths. “Is this your plan?” he asked. “To go off the rails?”
“You, whose train hasn’t seen a track in twenty years. Don’t lecture me about going off the rails.”
“But here’s the thing: we’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about you. And a kid, a kid, who is handling this situation with a level of maturity and grace that seems beyond you.”
“I didn’t ask for this, Benji. I never asked for him to find me.” The conviction that she lived in a universe careless enough to send meteors crashing through the roof of her home unleashed a wild tremor in Claudia’s voice. “He wasn’t supposed to find me!”
Benji folded his arms across his chest, unmoved. “But he did. And now you have to deal with it. You’re his mother.”
Claudia stood.
“Mother. Son. What other words aren’t you ready for?” After a moment, he wrestled his phone from his back pocket and, after a few swipes, handed over a picture of himself and Max, arms around each other on the Fishers’ front porch.
Claudia looked at it for a long time.
Benji kept his mouth closed, watching to see if the mirrored eyes and mouth would work their magic.
“He’s beautiful,” she said, putting the phone on the table. Her eyes fell on her brother like he was a stranger, a salesman trying to sell her something she didn’t need, couldn’t afford.
“Then come home,” he pleaded.
“I can’t,” she said, turned, and walked away.
~ ~ ~
I come home with sawdust in my hair and find the women sitting on the porch. Evelyn waves, but averts her eyes. Jane raises her cigarette and watches me through the twisting vines of smoke. They have sweating glasses of tea on the arms of their chairs, a bowl of cherries on the table between them. Jane presses the little black book she carries everywhere to her stomach, as if transmitting her poems through her skin, into the dark, solitary cell where the baby flutters and kicks. Flippy, she calls it. You want to take my hands. You want to take my tongue. It is a topic between us: whether Flippy can hear these things, whether Flippy should hear these things, but asking the question again isn’t worth the storm it would bring. Evelyn invited us for dinner, Jane says. Without Evelyn, all we would eat is SpaghettiOs. Jane writing, me writing, nothing more to wash than a saucepan and two plates. Evelyn says what she always says: It’s no trouble. Jane stubs her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe. She fans herself with her little book, puts a cherry in her mouth, and chews. You bloom and thorn. But I’m the one who bleeds.
9
Max made introductions. Evelyn. Benji. Arnav. Arnav’s best friend (and Thanksgiving Day orphan), Paul. The group cinched together for handshakes, embraces, the passing of a foil-wrapped casserole from guests to hosts, then drifted apart on separate streams. The Fishers headed for the kitchen after directing Max and his friends into the living room, where Cat, looking cozy in a fawn-colored cowl-neck, offered them drinks. Paul announced his sobriety without footnotes or fuss, but Max and Arnav jumped at the chance for whatever amber concoction bathed the tinkling cubes and orange twist at the bottom of Cat’s glass.