immediately after she'd left, and she hadn't given him an explanation why. As for Daniel, she'd spoken to him only sporadically, economic transactions of information: had Trixie eaten (no); did she say anything else (no); did the police call (no, but Mrs. Walstone from the end of the block had, as if this was any of her business). Immediately, she'd thrown herself into a tornado of activity: cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming underneath the couch cushions, watching Trixie come back through the door with that hatchet job of a haircut and swallowing her shock enough to suggest a game of Monopoly. It was, he realized, as if she was trying to make up for her absence these past few months, as if she'd judged herself and meted out a sentence. Now, lying in bed, he wondered how two people could be just a foot of distance away from each other but a million miles apart.
“They knew,” Laura said.
“Who?”
“Everyone. At school.” She rolled toward him, so that in the plush dark he could make out the green of her eyes. “They all were talking about it.”
Daniel could have told her that none of this would go away, not until he and Laura and even Trixie could get past it. He had learned this when he was eleven years old, and Cane's grandfather took him on his first moose hunt. At dusk, they'd set out on the Kuskokwim River in the small aluminum boat. Daniel was dropped off at one bend, Cane at another, to cover more ground. He had huddled in the willows, wondering how long it would be before Cane and his grandfather came back, wondering if they ever would. When the moose stepped delicately out of the greenery spindled legs, brindled back, bulbous noseDaniel's heart had started to race. He'd lifted his rifle and thought, I want this, more than anything.
At that moment, the moose slipped into the wall of willows and disappeared.
On the ride home, when Cane and his grandfather learned what had happened, they muttered kass'aq and shook their heads. Didn't Daniel know that if you thought about what you were hunting while you were hunting it, you might as well be telegraphing to the animal that you were there?
At first, Daniel had shrugged this off as Yup'ik Eskimo superstition - like having to lick your bowl clean so you wouldn't slip on ice, or eating the tails of fish to become a fast runner. But as he grew older, he learned that a word was a powerful thing. An insult didn't have to be shouted at you to make you bleed; a vow didn't have to be whispered to you to make you believe. Hold a thought in your head, and that was enough to change the actions of anyone and anything that crossed your path.
“If we want things to be normal,” Daniel said, “we have to act like we're already there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe Trixie should go back to school.”
Laura came up on an elbow. “You must be joking.” Daniel hesitated. “Janice suggested it. It isn't much good to sit around here all day, reliving what happened.”
“She'll see him, in school.”
“There's a court order in place; Jason can't go near her. She has as much right to be there as he does.”
There was a long silence. “If she goes back,” Laura said finally, “it has to be because she wants to.” Daniel had the sudden sense that Laura was speaking not only of Trixie but also herself. It was as if Trixie's rape was a constant fall of leaves they were so busy raking away they could ignore the fact that beneath them, the ground was no longer solid. The night pressed down on Daniel. “Did you bring him here? To this bed?”
Laura's breathing caught. “No.”
“I picture him with you, and I don't even know what he looks like.”
“It was a mistake, Daniel”
“Mistakes are something that happen by accident. You didn't walk out the door one morning and fall into some guy's bed. You thought about it, for a while. You made that choice.” The truth had scorched Daniel's throat, and he found himself breathing hard.
“I made the choice to end it, too. To come back.”
“Am I supposed to thank you for that?” He flung an arm across his eyes, better to be blind.
Laura's profile was cast in silver. “Do you ... do you want me to move out?”
He had thought about it. There was a part of him that did not want to see her in the bathroom brushing her teeth, or setting the kettle on the stove. It was too ordinary, a mirage of a marriage. But there was another part of him that no longer remembered who he used to be without Laura. In fact, it was because of her that he'd become the kind of man he now was. It was like any other dual dynamic that was part and parcel of his art: You couldn't have strength without weakness; you couldn't have light without dark; you couldn't have love without loss. “I don't think it would be good for Trixie if you left right now,” Daniel said finally. Laura rolled over to face him. “What about you? Would it be good for you?”
Daniel stared at her. Laura had been inked onto his life, as indelible as any tattoo. It wouldn't matter if she was physically present or not; he would carry her with him forever. Trixie was proof of that. But he'd folded enough loads of laundry during Oprah and Dr. Phil to know how infidelity worked. Betrayal was a stone beneath the mattress of the bed you shared, something you felt digging into you no matter how you shifted position. What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?
When Daniel didn't respond to her, Laura rolled onto her back.
“Do you hate me?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes I hate myself, too.”
Daniel pretended that he could hear Trixie's breathing, even and untroubled, through the bedroom wall. 'Was it really so bad?
The two of us?'
Laura shook her head.
