The house was silent and the sunlight had a kind of promise in it, a special light that happens in the Keys in December when the rest of the country is shrouded in snow. She looked out at the blue pool and the dark water and boats up on davits. The people who owned the house on the other side of the canal were only there a few weeks a year, and this was one of them. She had met them a couple of times over the last two years, and she and Henry had attended one of their parties, a catered event with tuxedoes and evening gowns and strings of pearls. Henry had been miserable, and they’d left after only an hour. Suzanne smiled with the memory.
A string quartet played The Four Seasons by Vivaldi and the balmy night shimmered with class and diamonds. The guests moved with measured grace and held their champagne flutes just so and smiled and lied and talked about yachts and skiing and how bad the help was. An ice sculpture of a mermaid was the centerpiece by the pool.
“You know,” Henry had whispered, “I’ve got PTSD. I might not get convicted if I killed these people.”
“Shut up,” she’d said, giggling. “They’re awful, I’ll give you that.”
“So let’s get outta here.” He’d kissed her neck the way he did when he really wanted to convince her, in the way he knew she couldn’t refuse.
“Okay. Another half hour. Then I’m all yours.”
“All right then.”
A couple was approaching, locked on. There was nowhere to hide.
“Incoming,” Henry said. “I say number four.”
“Three,” she’d said. “Usual bet?”
“Done.”
Then, “Hello, I’m Suzanne, it’s so nice to meet you…”
Yes, I wrote that. No, it wasn’t a movie. Yes, my husband is in the army. No he doesn’t have any exciting blood and guts stories for you.
A couple of hours later, lying in the bed with a satisfied sheen of sweat covering both of them, he caressed her back with feather fingers.
“You’re purring again,” he’d said.
“You know you love me.”
“Yeah. And you know that I know that you know it.”
“I guess that worked out well for both of us.”
“No arguments there,” Henry said in that husky voice he had when he was half-asleep and content. The old Henry, the one she’d fallen in love with so hard. Not the one who’d been showing up lately.
She’d rolled over then and touched his cheek. “How do they do it? Why?”
“I have no idea.” He’d done some interesting things, then.
An hour later, she’d said, “Seriously, why? How can one man decide to marry four different women? I mean, wouldn’t you at some point decide that enough is enough?”
“Well… you did see her, right. I get that.”
“Pigs.”
“That we are. But those tits were real. I can sort of understand.”
“Ugh.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Well, so are these…”
The sun was coming up, with that golden, sweet light filtering into the room. Henry turned on his side to face her and there was a sadness on his face she did not expect.
“Tell me,” he’d said, his voice soft. “Do you plan to trade me in on a new model?”
“Never.”
“Money seems to breed restlessness and stupidity. You’re rich now.”
“Give me a break.”
“How is that not true?”
“We’re rich, yeah. I guess we are. We should swing from the chandeliers. You’re a little beat up, but I happen to like the model. You’re a classic. You’ve got character.”
“You’re too good at it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The game. The dance. The wealthy charade. You’re like a fish in the water. You blend in without trying to blend in because you’re in your element. You’re not faking it.”
“Bullshit. You know that’s bullshit. There is no element. It’s called life. I sold a book. Be glad. Don’t try to—”
“Suzanne, you love the attention. You crave it because you never got it from your mother or your father because they never gave a damn about you and now you have this urge to fit in. You’re changing. Maybe you don’t see it, but I do.”
“Don’t you talk about my parents. Just because your momma was a worthless piece of white trash and your daddy was poor doesn’t give you the right. Money is just a tool. It doesn’t make you evil. It sure as hell doesn’t make me evil. And it seems like that’s what you think lately. Are you that insecure? You’re supposed to be a Ranger!”
He’d bolted from the bed then. Banging drawers and pulling on clothes. “Yeah,” he’d said. “You grew up with money. Good for you. Your old man is an asshole, and your mother was worse, and those are your own words. We’re done here.”
“Come back and fight like a man, damn it! Don’t run away!”
But he’d gone out the door and hadn’t come home until late that night and she couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong, what had poisoned the morning.
The memory of a good evening gone bad soured as Suzanne sat in the same room with the same kind of golden light and she put her head in her hands over a computer she hadn’t flipped open and a book she’d never finish.
“Momma!” Taylor said at the doorway, rubbing her eyes and wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. “I’m hungry. Can you make me some oatmeal?”
“Yes, honey,” Suzanne said. “Give Momma a minute, okay?”
“O-kay.” Taylor’s voice was a singsong of morning exuberance. “I had a dream about a big wolf last night. But he was a good wolf. A big black wolf. And he was helping people. He was nice.”
“Go watch some Sesame Street, Love. I’ll get you some breakfast in a minute.”
“O-kay,” Taylor sang. “Kisses first.” She ran up and put her arms around Suzanne’s neck and kissed her on the cheek.
Suzanne watched her daughter run away, cloaked in her softie-soft, little feet pattering on the floor and blonde curls bouncing.
Suzanne had not cried in fifteen years, not since her cat Missy had died when she was in high school. “Buck up and get your ass off your shoulders,” her father would say to her when she was young and in need of a good cry. Just a little kid.
“Tears are unattractive, dear,” her mother would admonish. “They make you look weak.”
The tears came now, anguished and angry, a deep chested howl born of pent-up emotions and regrets and the recognition of the kind of mistakes that shatter lives. She punched the desk with her fist, not caring about the pain. She cried for her past, for the little girl that had been told to buck up. She pounded that desk because she had screwed up her life. She had not been paying attention to the things that mattered. A perpetually happy four-year-old cloaked in a softie-soft blanket. The husky voice and earnest love of her man. The light over the water on a warm December morning imbued with promise. Those things mattered. She yearned for a life of purpose, yet seemed bent upon unraveling everything important.
It was over quickly. A brief outburst, a volcano of the soul, an immediate relief of pressure. She wiped her face.
She felt renewed clarity and purpose. The storm windows needed to be pulled down. She had to talk to her father, on the off chance that he was in town and that he could get them on base and that he gave a damn. Hit the stores now. Food, fishing gear, antibiotics, water.
She needed to contact Henry somehow, and tell him she had made a promise she intended to keep. She had regrets. She wanted to make it right.