This past month has been agony. I have been afraid even to post here for fear that Charlie will read it. But now, considering what’s happened, I guess it doesn’t matter if he does.<\/p>\n
The night I smelled her, Charlie’s lover, in my bed I ripped the covers from my body and swung to my feet. So clumsy. So like a man not to think of changing the sheets. Didn\u2019t he know I could smell her? Didn\u2019t he know I could feel the impression she had left in my bed, my emotions, my life? I reached a hand to Charlie\u2019s blind offending face, then stopped before it touched his cheek. I wouldn\u2019t wake him, yet. No. If I\u2019d been less certain, I would have wanted to sample his excuses, explanations, prevarications. As it was, I needed evidence, not to convince myself, but so that we could get past the denials. So we could deal with whatever lay beyond.<\/p>\n
And so over the next six days, I searched. It\u2019s a strange demeaning business to spy on your own husband, to ferret in his underwear drawer; to wake at midnight and take his wallet into the bathroom; to sift files in his briefcase; to pore over the phone bill; to scan a hard drive for the words \u201c2dance\u201d \u201cbig bear\u201d and \u201clove.\u201d It\u2019s horrible and corrupting to read code into your husband\u2019s half of a telephone conversation. Once, when he said he was going to the driving range at Chelsea Pier, I took a taxi down just to see if I could catch him not being there. Another time, on my way home from work, I staked out the entrance of his office, hoping to follow him to his lover. I only gave up when I remembered that Lucia had to leave by seven that night. Working moms make poor shadows.<\/p>\n
Through all this, Charlie must surely have known something was wrong. In the good old days of our marriage, I only had to answer a question too slowly or to gaze too long out a window, for him to ask me what I was thinking about. Now I stared at him, rolled from his touch in bed, shrugged when he asked me how my day had gone — and he didn\u2019t remark on the change. Chatterbox Charlie, whose probing used to wear me out, didn\u2019t want to talk about Us. Instead he filled the silence with comments about the weather or the odd habits of a client. It seemed almost like a way of telling me he knew that I knew.<\/p>\n
Finally, when I found myself scanning the yellow pages under \u201cInvestigators,\u201d I stopped. Whatever I had to go through in hashing out my grievances with him, couldn\u2019t be worse than continuing down that slide. I got home first that night, but so late that Lucia had already put the kids to bed. I thanked her, and walked her to the door. Before she stepped out she touched my arm, her wheaten face worrying. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u2026 nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her hand on my forearm squeezed.<\/p>\n
I shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t work so hard!\u201d<\/p>\n
I shut the door behind her and headed for Dante\u2019s room where I picked Backster the stuffed pig off the floor and set him back in bed. Chloe needed to be turned 180 degrees and tucked in altogether, but her eyes didn\u2019t flutter through the whole procedure. I took off my shoes and stockings, and went into the living room to wait.<\/p>\n
Charlie didn\u2019t come home until after eleven. His russet tie was loose, his blazer slung over one arm. He stopped short when he saw me at the dining room table. \u201cHello!\u201d<\/p>\n
Even after two hours mental rehearsal, I didn\u2019t know where to begin. \u201cLots of work?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredible, some of these new regulations. I feel like I don\u2019t know any more than the clients.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIncredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou waiting up for some reason?\u201d He came to the table and leaned over me. Faintly I whiffed baked apples and smoky leather. \u201cLouis of the FBI,\u201d he read. \u201cThat would be Freeh. F-R-E-E-H.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t fill in the squares. \u201cCharlie?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n
I twisted to look up at him. \u201cAre you seeing someone?\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever I wanted to observe \u2013 the pinch of guilt, the wrench of anxiety \u2013 didn\u2019t register. His head jerked as if in surprise. \u201cSeeing someone? What are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to sit down?\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned a chair around and sat with his arms folded on its back. \u201cWhat\u2019s happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA few months ago I turned on the computer. It was in standby mode and you must have thought you turned it off. I read what was on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes didn\u2019t focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharlie. There were letters from a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, that!\u201d Charlie gave me one of the fat grins he uses on prospective clients. \u201cZulya! That was just some stupid Internet thing. You know how it is when you\u2019re online, you go into all these chat rooms and say all kinds of things. It never means anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDoesn’t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that New Yorker<\/em> cartoon?\u201d His eyes wandered. \u201c\u2018On the Internet, no one knows you\u2019re a dog.\u2019\u201d He chuckled, as if we were at some kind of East Side cocktail party.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlie, I\u2019m torn up about this.\u201d<\/p>\n His face shifted back to me, softer.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes lately when you say you\u2019re working late, I call your office. No one answers.”<\/p>\n \u201cI turn the ringer off. It\u2019s easier to concentrate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou should leave it on; it could be me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrom now on.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt like I was watching us on TV. This couldn\u2019t be Charlie, couldn\u2019t be me sitting there, my life, my disaster. \u201cAnd one time you went to a restaurant. In Harlem.\u201d<\/p>\n The dramatic eyebrows came together. \u201cWhat have you been doing, studying my credit card receipts?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you buy dinner in Harlem? You don\u2019t even have any clients there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do indeed. A prospective client. You know how chic Harlem is becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA hundred and thirty-seven dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an important client. Anyway, I have to say I\u2019m a little irritated that you\u2019ve been rifling through my stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n This was it; I was watching my life fall apart as surely as if I\u2019d left a flame going on the stove and burned down my building, forgot my baby in a taxi, overdosed a patient. For half an hour Charlie swerved and ducked and I, on the insecure footing of this unknown land, couldn\u2019t lay hands on him. I knew because of the smell that had filled my nostrils in the middle of the night — the smell on his shirt right now — that Zulya had been in my bed, and yet this most visceral evidence seemed laughable when I thought of putting it in words. How can you document a scent?<\/p>\n \u201cLook,\u201d he said finally. \u201cIt\u2019s late. We\u2019re both tired. We\u2019ve been working hard. It\u2019s easy to make mistakes at this time of night. Say things we don\u2019t mean. Let\u2019s give it a rest. In the morning, if you\u2019re still not satisfied you can spend the day following me around, or plant a listening device on me. Whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n I slumped in my chair and he got up to commence his bedtime routine. After he turned his light out, we lay like corpses on our opposite sides of the bed. Then he reached across to touch my arm. \u201cHey, Adrienne. I love you. Whatever you think, whatever you\u2019re feeling right now, I want you to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n I believed he was sincere when he said that. But holding that belief in my head along with the other horribly opposite conviction shorted some circuits. Over the next two days I found myself trying to put a broom in the refrigerator, or getting onto the wrong subway line. I bought buttermilk for the kids\u2019 breakfast cereal. If it weren\u2019t for Dante and Chloe keeping me tethered, I might have wandered out of the apartment and into the path of a bus. If it weren\u2019t for my training as a resident \u2013 when I had to save lives while in a total stupor \u2013 I could never have functioned at work. Charlie watched with compassionate concern, as if I\u2019d contracted cancer. Both days he brought dinner home for us. He spent extra time tucking the kids in.<\/p>\n Was he trying to confuse me or win me back? The only way to answer the question was to finish my investigation, and, finally I was zeroing in.<\/p>\n Sorry I have to go now. I’m at someone else’s computer right now. More later. I hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This past month has been agony. I have been afraid even to post here for fear that Charlie will read it. But now, considering what’s happened, I guess it doesn’t matter if he does. 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