American Wife

appointed supervisory capacity, took a step back from the table, but when everyone was looking at her, she abruptly shifted modes, ducking her head to one side and looking at us from beneath her eyelashes. In a quiet voice, she said, “Never mind.” This was a new affectation—there was a girl in her class named Mindy Keppen who would freeze when called on by a teacher, and when I’d explained to Ella what shyness was, it had captured her imagination. (Oh, my drunk husband and my darling, disingenuous daughter.)

“You want to show him the cheer, right?” Jessica said. “How about if I do it with you?”

Ella looked up, smiling and nodding rapidly. Jessica stood, and more or less in unison, they raised their arms and swiveled their hips from side to side.

“Basketball is what we do,

And we’ll cheer it just for you.

Shake it high and shake it low,

In the hoop the ball will go.”

For shake it high they rattled imaginary pom-poms above their heads, and for shake it low they brought them down to their knees.

“Outstanding,” Charlie said when they were finished. “Superlative!” My heart sank as he walked around the table and took his place next to the girls, saying, “So it goes, Basketball is what we do . . .” Giggling, they taught him the words. Ella was purely ecstatic, possibly unable to imagine a better scenario—standing beside a cool older girl, teaching cheerleader cheers to her father, with an audience—whereas Jessica was a good-natured participant but was also, I suspected, analyzing the situation, trying to figure out Charlie’s motives. Jessica and Charlie had known each other for her whole life and probably never had a real conversation.

When he’d memorized the words, the three of them recited the cheer together, and at the end, Charlie shouted, “Go, Brewers!”

Ella laughed and clutched at his belt, saying, “Not baseball, Daddy, basketball.” He lifted her into his arms, something I could no longer do, and the two of them grinned together. Clearly, this was the climax of the afternoon, and the Suttons sensed it; they soon stood to set their exit in motion, gathering Antoine’s diaper bag and car seat, the presents and the pie dish. I put on a raincoat and walked out to the car with them. In the driveway, I said to Jessica, “Do you have plans for the summer?”

She was carrying Antoine, and she nodded down at him and said, “Here’s my plans right here—Baby A and V. C. Andrews. No, I’m teasing about V. C. Andrews, Mrs. Blackwell.”

“Well, we loved having you all here,” I said. I thought of Ella’s upcoming activities: swim team, the art camp she’d attend the last week in June, then in July, we’d be off to Halcyon.

When I reentered the house and closed the front door, Charlie was no longer in the dining room. I carried the plates and glasses into the kitchen, pushing back and forth through the swinging door, and I could hear the television in the den. As I loaded the dishwasher, I realized I had a headache. How large and empty our house abruptly felt.

I had squeezed the sponge a final time and set it in its spot next to the soap dish when Charlie came in and pulled a beer from the refrigerator. “That was one handsome Negro baby.” He grinned, and I couldn’t have said if he was trying to provoke me or if he was simply being himself.

We stood there facing each other, standing about five feet apart, and I thought of berating him, but I didn’t have the will. I had the energy for a disagreement perhaps once every few months, not twice in one day.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said.

“I have a headache. I’m about to go upstairs and read.”

“Aren’t you curious how golf went with Cliff and Langenbacher?”

“I assumed it got called off because of the weather.” I could hear the rain outside, soft but steady.

“You wouldn’t believe how pumped Langenbacher is to have me on board. It was Cliff who suggested me, which means I’m eternally indebted to him. But Langenbacher couldn’t be happier with what I’m bringing to the table—I’m a huge fan, I don’t have to fake that one bit, but I also have the business expertise.” Charlie’s cheeks were flushed, either with pleasure or with alcohol. “You’re not mad because I missed lunch, are you?” he said. “I’d say by the end, they got their money’s worth of the old Chas Blackwell charm. Come to think of it, maybe you were in cahoots with the meteorologists today.”

“As a matter of fact, your showing up was awkward, because I’d told them you were at a meeting.”

“I was.”

“A real meeting.”

“I was. Jesus, Lindy!”

“Then I guess I’m surprised Zeke Langenbacher doesn’t mind people drinking so heavily on the job.”

Charlie scowled. “What’s your problem?” he said. “This is a professional dream come true, and I don’t know why you’re being such a god-damn killjoy.”

“Of course I’m happy for you.” As if balancing out his force and volume, I spoke more quietly than usual. I said, “But I told you I have a headache, and I don’t feel very celebratory. My grandmother did just die.”

I had almost felt that I shouldn’t mention this, that however true, it was cheap, and the reminder would make him contrite but humiliated. I should not have worried. It is fair, I believe, to say that in that moment, he was glaring at me. He said, “For Christ’s sake, Lindy, she was ninety years old. What’d you expect?”

AS WE’D PLANNED, I walked to Jadey and Arthur’s house that evening before dinner, and as soon as she and I were a safe distance onto the golf course, she said, “Arthur came sniffing around my campsite this morning, but I ignored him.”

“Jadey, maybe you should give him a break.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Both of yours,” I said, but I wondered if I had it in me to have the conversation; I wondered if I should have canceled the walk. Since the Suttons had left our house a few hours earlier, I had been hovering between two possibilities: a torrent of tears or else—and I recognized this possibility as worse—a shutdown of all systems. It was the first time in over twenty years, the only time apart from Andrew Imhof’s death, that I had felt the pull