Pru stopped chewing the gum in her mouth, waiting for Patsy’s response.
“I know that,” Patsy said, after a pause. “But she loves you, Jacob. Isn’t that what you wanted? Because, you know, you could have fooled me.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” Jacob said then, and she heard their steps rattle down the stairs and their voices drift away.
Soon Patsy returned, alone. Pru put down her book. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where’s Jacob?”
She shrugged. “Walking on the beach.” She began to move to the bedroom where she and Jacob were sleeping.
“Is everything all right?” Pru said.
“Sure. Why?”
“I don’t know. Jacob seemed a little freaked earlier, when Annali called him Daddy. That’s all.”
Patsy stopped, and turned around. “Pru, don’t you start,” she said, in an unsteady voice.
“I’m not . . .”
“Yes you are! And you’re going to freak him out, with all your prying and your demands and your usual bullshit!” Pru was so surprised she couldn’t speak. Patsy was shaking. “Just quit it, okay?” She hissed, and then banged into the bedroom.
Pru stayed where she was, struggling to understand what had just happened. Then she went to Patsy’s room and tapped on the door. When there was no answer, she let herself in.
She found Patsy sitting on the bed, plucking at a pillow on her lap. Pru sat next to her and took her hand. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Make me understand.”
Patsy leaned back against the headboard and looked at Pru with big, inscrutable eyes. “Just be happy for me,” she said. “Just get behind this. Why is everyone chasing him away?”
“No one is chasing him away,” Pru said. “But, you know, we’re not perfect. I know he thinks you are. But the rest of us—he’ll have to learn to put up with our ways, that’s all.”
She was trying to be cheerful, but she could feel how insufficient it was. If she only knew more—but Patsy hadn’t told her what was going on, and she didn’t know how to ask without setting her off. Patsy had always been moody, but her present state made those days seem tame, by comparison.
“Just be happy,” Patsy said again. “Look how good everything is. Just look.”
“I am happy,” Pru said. “Aren’t you happy? Isn’t Jacob?”
“Of course,” Patsy said. “You see how we are together.” She began to say something, then bit back the words. She looked as if she might start crying.
“Well,” Pru said, at a total loss now, but determined to stay in the game. “I am happy. Happy, happy, happy.”
Patsy pushed away the pillow she was plucking. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out,” she said. But she wasn’t laughing, and her eyes were sad.
PRU AND JACOB DROVE BACK TO D.C. THE NEXT DAY. It was overcast and cold. Jacob was different, silent and rigid. He didn’t play any music. He hardly spoke during the three hours it took to get back to the city, except to announce at a rest stop that he was going in for a coffee. Pru watched the light, steady rain out of her window. Every now and then, Jacob would shake his head, set his lips tightly, and grip the steering wheel, as if wrestling with something. She asked him once if he wanted to stop and eat, but he was so deeply immersed with the argument he was having with himself that he didn’t answer. Pru went back to watching the rain, lulled by the sound of the wipers.
When they finally pulled up outside her apartment, Jacob let the engine idle and grabbed her bag from the backseat. Pru wished she could think of something to say. Seeing him this way made her nervous. Jacob was many things, but morose and moody didn’t seem to be one of them. Everything had changed, somewhere. She didn’t know what, and she didn’t know how. The wipers slapped at the rain while Jacob held out her bag to her, practically wishing out loud that she would go.
“I guess I’ll see you at Thanksgiving?” she said.
He looked out the window at the rain, running a hand through his hair. There was a short silence. “I might have to be in the hospital,” he said. “I’ll have to see.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, we’ll miss you.” She tried to smile at him, but he wouldn’t look at her.
“Yeah,” he said, turning away. Two people holding newspapers over their heads dashed past the car, laughing. “You’ll explain it to Annali, won’t you?”
“That you’re working? I think she’s old enough to understand that.”
“She’s a great kid,” he said suddenly. “I love that kid. I really love her.”
He said it with such regret and finality that it made her shudder. Suddenly, she knew that they were not just talking about Thanksgiving. Why? Just because Annali called him Daddy? Was he kidding? She found it hard to believe that, given his obvious attachment to her, he’d be so alarmed at the return of his affection. What was going on?
She didn’t know what to say. She listened to the cold rain falling on the canvas roof of the car. “She’s really attached to you, Jacob,” she said at last, a statement, a plea.
He nodded. “I know. Good-bye, Pru,” he said.
She didn’t move. “You’re leaving them, aren’t you?”
“Listen,” he said. “Please—don’t make this harder for me than it already is.”
“Harder for you! What about Patsy? And Annali? Have you even thought about what this will do to them?” She didn’t think she’d ever been so angry in her life. She wanted to grab his face, make him look at her. She wanted to dig her fingers into that handsome jaw, to hurt him, badly.
He fell silent, and turned away again. She didn’t think she could continue to speak to him without screaming. Without another word she opened the car door and stepped out. The rain, heavy and chill, was beginning to come down fast, and she ran up the stairs of her apartment building. Before she’d even found her keys in
