Promise Me

CHAPTER 11

Claire Biel stood by the kitchen sink and stared at the stranger she called a husband. Erik was eating a sandwich carefully, his tie tucked into his shirt. There was a newspaper perfectly folded into one quarter. He chewed slowly. He wore cuff links. His shirt was starched. He liked starch. He liked everything ironed. In his closet his suits were hung four inches apart from one another. He didn’t measure to achieve this. It just happened. His shoes, always freshly polished, were lined up like something in a military procession.

Who was this man?

Their two youngest daughters, Jane and Lizzie, were both wolfing down PB&J on white bread. They chatted through their sticky mouths. They made noise. Their milk sloshed into small spills. Erik kept reading. Jane asked if they could be excused. Claire said yes. They both darted toward the door.

“Stop,” Claire said.

They did.

“Plates in the sink.”

They sighed and did the eye-roll — though they were only nine and ten, they had learned from the best, their older sister. They trudged back as though through the deep snow of the Adirondacks, lifted plates that must have seemed like boulders, and somehow scaled the mountain toward the sink.

“Thank you,” Claire said.

They took off. The room was quiet now. Erik chewed quietly.

“Is there any more coffee?” he asked.

She poured some. He crossed his legs, careful not to crease his trousers. They had been married for nineteen years, but the passion had slipped out the window in under two. They were treading water now, had been treading for so long that it no longer seemed that difficult. Oldest cliché in the book was about how fast time went by, but it was true. It didn’t seem like the passion had been gone that long. Sometimes, like right now, she could look at him and remember a time when just seeing him would take her breath away.

Still not glancing up, Erik asked, “Have you heard from Aimee?”

“No.”

He straightened his arm to pull back the sleeve, checked his watch, arched an eyebrow. “Two in the afternoon.”

“She’s probably just waking up.”

“We might want to call.”

He didn’t move.

“By we,” Claire said, “do you mean me?”

“I’ll do it if you want.”

She reached for the phone and dialed their daughter’s cell phone. They’d gotten Aimee her own phone last year. Aimee had brought them an advertisement showing them that they could add a third line for ten dollars a month. Erik was unmoved. But, Aimee whined, all her friends — everyone! — had one, an argument that always always led Erik to remark, “We are not everyone, Aimee.”

But Aimee was ready for that. She quickly changed tracks and plucked on the parental-protection heartstrings: “If I had my own phone, I could always stay in touch. You could find me twenty-four-seven. And if there was ever an emergency…”

That had closed the sale. Mothers understood this basic truism: Sex and peer pressure may sell, but nothing sells like fear.

The call went to voice mail. Aimee’s enthusiastic voice — she had taped her message almost immediately after getting the phone — told Claire to, like, leave a message. The sound of her daughter’s voice, familiar as it was, made her ache, though she wasn’t sure for what exactly.

When the beep came, Claire said, “Hey, honey, it’s Mom. Just give me a call, okay?”

She hung up.

Erik still read his paper. “She didn’t answer?”

“Gee, what gave it away? Was it the part where I asked her to give me a call?”

He frowned at the sarcasm. “Her phone probably went dead.”

“Probably.”

“She always forgets to charge it,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Whose house was she sleeping over? Steffi’s, right?”

“Stacy.”

“Right, whatever. Maybe we should call Stacy.”

“Why?”

“I want her home. She has that project due on Thursday.”

“It’s Sunday. She just got into college.”

“So you think she should slack off now?”

Claire handed him the portable. “You call.”

“Fine.”

She gave him the number. He pressed the digits and put the phone to his ear. In the background, Claire heard her younger daughters giggle. Then one shouted, “I do not!” When the phone was picked up, Erik cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, this is Erik Biel. I’m Aimee Biel’s father. I was wondering if she was there right now.”

His face didn’t change. His voice didn’t change. But Claire saw his grip on the phone tighten and she felt something deep in her chest give way.