Die For You

hospital bed next to Fred’s, wrapped around each other like a couple of monkeys. Trevor snored lightly. Every now and then Emily would issue a low moan or a deep sigh. Fred looked so still and pale that a couple of times she’d gotten up and leaned over him to detect his shallow breathing.

Margie would be on a plane by now, on her way home. Linda had promised to wait at the hospital until her mother arrived. The kids didn’t want to leave her to go to Erik’s mother, so she’d made them as comfortable as she could. She was a little surprised when they drifted off quickly, clinging to each other.

Linda sat in an uncomfortable chair, staring at the ugly orange glow from the row of parking lot lampposts. It was a starless night, the moon nowhere to be seen. Another night when there would be no sleep. She would sit vigil, bear witness to whatever came next alone. Hours had passed since last she’d heard from Erik. She knew his phone was dead because her calls went straight to voice mail; the charge had been low when he left the hospital hours earlier. He had Isabel’s phone but that, too, went straight to the recorded message, her sister’s light, airy “Leave a message. I’ll call you back.” A sick dread had settled into her chest. Worry gnawed on her innards. Where were they?

The fresh rush of anxiety caused her to step out into the hallway and dial Ben. She didn’t worry about disturbing him or arousing the suspicions of his wife. She knew if he wasn’t able to take the call, he wouldn’t. But he answered on the first ring.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was soft, warm, and just the sound of it brought tears to her eyes. Was it just this morning that they’d been together, romping in a public restroom? Was it today that she promised herself she’d never see him again?

“Hey,” she whispered, looking around. The hallway was empty. Somewhere a radio played “Silent Night” very softly. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah,” he said, but didn’t elaborate. “Everything okay?”

“Not really,” she said, leaning against the wall. “Not at all.”

“Tell me.”

She glanced at the clock on the wall over the empty nurses’ station. It was late, nearly ten.

“Where’s your family?” she asked. Once, she’d been talking to him, flirting with him, talking sexy, and they were interrupted when his daughter asked him for some milk.

“Daddy, milk in cup?” she’d said sweetly. She was so little, maybe two, just starting to put words together in her own way.

She’d hated herself in that moment, felt so dirty and foolish. She didn’t want a repeat. He didn’t say anything for a second, and she thought they’d lost the connection. Then she heard him breathing, remembered how his breath felt on her neck that morning.

“They’re home,” he said. Then: “I’m not.”

“Where are you?”

“I left,” he said, solemn, final.

She remembered how he looked this morning. So sad and lost.

“Ben.”

“I know, Linda. You don’t have to say it.”

“I can’t-” she started. “I don’t feel-”

“I know,” he said. Was there an edge to his voice? Something angry? When he spoke again it was gone. “But that’s not the point. I can. And I do feel for you enough to leave my marriage and my kids. And that’s not fair to anyone, is it?”

She put her head in her free hand. Why was everyone always going on about what was fair? What about life or marriage or having kids was fair? When did happiness become the goddamn Holy Grail? Didn’t you sometimes have to put up with a little bit of unhappiness for the sake of other people-like your kids, for instance? Who never, by the way, asked you to bring them into the world to put up with your issues?

“When did you do this?” she asked. She found herself disappointed in him, somehow less attracted to him for his having left his family.

“Yesterday.”

She understood it now, his arrival at her doorstep, the desperate lovemaking. “Why didn’t you tell me this morning?”

“You were so worried, so distracted. I didn’t want to add to your problems.”

“I’m sorry, Ben.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, or if it was an apology at all. Maybe it was more an expression of her sorrow at the situation they’d put themselves in.

“You love him, don’t you?” he said, issuing a dry cough as though the words caused him physical pain. “Your husband.”

Erik had wept today when he told her what he had done. She’d never seen him that way. She’d sat close to him and held him, rubbed the back of his neck like she did for the kids when they were upset-even though she could have righteously been screaming at him, even hitting him. She was so angry with him, so frightened about the future now. His actions had stripped them of something vital to her sense of well-being, their financial security. He’d deceived her, gone behind her back and gambled with their future. Just like her father had done to her mother. It sickened her to think that her whole life had been spent trying not to be like Margie and yet here she was. But as angry as she was at her husband, as stung as she was by what he’d done, she realized that she could never stop loving him, any more than she could stop loving Em or Trevor, or Isabel. It was that kind of love.

“I do, Ben,” she said. “You know that. I’ve always been honest with you.”

In the heavy silence that followed, she could feel how her words hurt him. Her cheeks started to burn-from shame or anger, she couldn’t say.

“I should go,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called at all.”

“You needed to talk,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Take care of yourself.” Did she sound cold? She knew she did. She couldn’t help it.

“Linda, wait-” She heard his voice, but she pretended she didn’t, and pressed End, anyway. A second later, the phone, ringer off, started vibrating in her hand. It was him, calling her back. She pressed the button on the side of the phone that sent the call to voice mail and shoved it in her pocket. She slipped back into the darkened room and walked over to the window.

Trevor, Emily, and Fred all slept peacefully, their breathing a chorus of whispers-a high note, a low note, the rumble of a snore from Fred. A freezing rain started to fall, the icy flakes scratching at the window. Worry started up again, a restless anxiety that they were out there, Erik and Isabel, unreachable. She was momentarily distracted by the frame of the window, how the rain made crystalline images on the glass, how the orange glow she thought was ugly before looked golden now as it reflected off the rain. The rectangle of light from the door behind her was luminescent on the window, looked like a doorway to another place and time. She judged the light too low for the effect she’d want but itched for her camera just the same. Then she saw something that made every nerve ending in her body freeze solid like the ice on the glass.

A black Mercedes idled beneath one of the lampposts, its exhaust pluming up from behind, a filthy gray breath in the cold. She knew the car well, the dent and scratch on the driver’s side door, the custom rims he couldn’t really afford. She’d wept and laughed and made love and confessed in that car.

She saw the shadow of him in the driver’s seat; saw a bouncing orange point of light, the burning ember of a cigarette. It was Ben.

Was he out there watching her, waiting for her? Had he followed them here? She had been here for hours-had he been here all that time?

The phone started to vibrate in her pocket. She took it out to look at the screen.

Ben calling.

16

The cackling was really starting to grate on him. It sounded desperate and yet somehow cruel at the same time. He had observed women like this-wondering if it was a purely urban America phenomenon-older, the wrong side of forty, emaciated, their faces hardened masks, as if permanently set against the straining of vigorous