Bright, Precious Days

34

WHEN SHE LEFT HER OFFICE THAT NIGHT, a fierce rain was falling — slanting, in fact — angling at the behest of heavy gusts of wind, which lifted Corrine’s umbrella and turned it inside out. She was soaked through long before she escaped into the subway.

Riding home on the number 1 train, reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist, she looked up and spotted Russell way down the car, drenched and bedraggled in his old Burberry. On second glance she almost thought it wasn’t Russell, but someone who looked like him — an older, worn-out version of her husband. But it was Russell, and she was shocked by his slumped comportment, his slack demeanor, even by the gray in his hair. Did he actually have that much gray? When had that happened, and why hadn’t she noticed it? He looked like one of those exhausted souls she saw every day on the subway, men she imagined stuck in jobs they hated, going home to wives they didn’t love, or perhaps to an empty room somewhere out near the end of the subway line, to heat a can of soup on the hot plate and watch TV. What was most surprising was that he wasn’t reading — Russell was always reading. But now he was standing, staring at the empty window, holding the overhead rail, swaying with the motion of the car. She was so unsettled by his appearance that she slipped out the door at the Houston Street stop and waited for the next train before continuing on to Canal Street.

When she got home, he was sitting on the couch with Jeremy, watching Lost, a flagrant violation of house rules on a school night. Neither of them even glanced up until she stepped between them and the TV, at which point Jeremy yowled, “Mom!”

Russell looked up at her with mild interest. He didn’t seem quite so haggard and affectless as he had on the subway, but neither did he seem like his normal self. It was as if he’d aged while she wasn’t paying attention, becoming thoroughly middle-aged. Unnerved all over again, she walked away without speaking to either one of them, retreating to their bedroom, where she promptly burst into tears.

—

That night, while she was helping Jeremy with his homework, he asked, “What’s the matter with Dad?”

“Why do you think anything’s wrong with Dad?” she asked.

“He doesn’t seem happy. He doesn’t tell jokes and funny stories at dinner.”

“I think maybe he’s working too hard.”

“Is he still depressed about that fake memoir?”

“Well, probably.”

—

It was 3:32 a.m. when she woke up suddenly, alone in their bed. She found him in the living room, watching an infomercial for an exercise machine.

“Are you all right?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

She was disturbed, though, that he was watching an infomercial, but it seemed too embarrassing to allude to, almost as awkward as if she’d caught him watching porn. She remembered at least a dozen times when he’d flipped around the channels at night or on the weekends, saying, “What kind of losers actually watch these things?” Now he was actually watching a bunch of aging athletes demonstrating some stupid machine. Russell played tennis and skied but hated exercise for its own sake. The only possible excuse she could think of was the cute blonde in the blue leotard with the spectacular bod who was providing the narration.

“Why don’t you come to bed?

“I’ll be in soon.”

“Russell, what’s wrong? Is something worrying you?”

“Just the usual.”

He continued to stare at the screen. The chick in the blue leotard was chatting with some washed-up boxer.

“Would you tell me if something were really wrong?”

He nodded without looking away from the screen.

“Have I done anything to make you unhappy?” This was as close as she could come to asking him if he suspected anything.

He shook his head.

After a few minutes, when it became clear he wasn’t going to move, she said good night and waited for him in the bedroom.

She wondered if her own absorption in her romance with Luke had prevented her from noticing her husband’s decline. Was it possible he’d discovered something, overheard some conversation between them? Could he have gotten into her e-mails and found one from Luke? But no, few as they were, she scrupulously, unsentimentally erased them as soon as she’d read them and discouraged that form of communication. She’d heard of too many others discovering affairs that way. It was possible that Kip had told Russell about running into her with Luke at Teterboro. On reflection, though, she thought it more likely that he was still suffering from the fallout of the Kohout scandal. It had been a terrible blow both to his pride and the balance sheet of the business, although he hadn’t been very forthcoming about the latter, and she hadn’t pressed him very hard on this. She knew he’d rather not tell her if he didn’t have to.

When he finally came back to bed, she pretended to be asleep, though she remained awake beside him, sensing that he, too, was awake but incapable of breaking the silence between them.