His Other Wife Page 8

  If ever Hilary had reasons for giving Seth permission to go to this party, she certainly didn’t remember them now. “Don’t you know what happens at parties like this?” Pam asked as Hilary came back from the kitchen with dessert plates. “I’ve read about them on the Internet.”

  “They’re a great group of kids,” Hilary said flatly. “Seth has my permission and that’s all he needs.” But should he go? Had she gone against her better judgment? Or did she feel this adamant about the party now because it was a reason Seth couldn’t go with them? She reached toward her ex-husband. “Help me. It’s supposed to be a special day. Please don’t let this escalate. Please. For my sake.” Then, “I trust him, Eric. He isn’t going to get into trouble.”

  Seth stuffed belongings into the duffel bag on the table. In went his headlamp and a pillow. In went his bug spray and a warm jacket while, outside, the solo sound of Ben’s dribbling basketball sounded a reproach. In went a T-shirt and a swimsuit while Lily laid her chin on the table and stared at Seth’s bag. From outside came the faint whir of someone mowing a lawn down the street. Ice cubes dropped in the refrigerator with a dull clatter.

  “You go on and have a good time, Seth.” Hilary handed him a pair of boxer briefs. “It isn’t your fault that it worked out this way.” They should have talked to you before they got the kids’ expectations up. She hoped her eyes spoke volumes to her son. Don’t let them lay this guilt trip on you.

  Seth slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and stuffed the clean underwear where it wouldn’t be seen in a side pocket. “Thanks, Mom, but I’m a boy.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m not going to need those.”

  “And I’m a mom.” Her heart flooded with happiness. Maybe things hadn’t changed all that much. “So I have to make sure you have them.”

  “I meant what I said about doing something with them tomorrow.”

  “Which means you better get some sleep tonight.”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  She caught Seth staring at the truck keys where Eric had dropped them on the counter. “You could drive it, you know. It would be okay with me.”

  “I meant what I said to Dad.” Seth shouldered the bag higher. “I don’t want the truck.”

  “Are you sure? Really? Seth, I know what you’re doing. And there isn’t any need to punish yourself —”

  He interrupted her, brushed off the subject. “Emily asked Laura to pick us up. We thought it would be better to go together. We don’t want too many cars up there. It would make the police suspicious, you know?”

  “Look,” she said, the small fear needling her again. “You’re a legal adult, responsible for yourself and, unfortunately, responsible for others. When you mention that word ‘police,’ it makes me worry about underage drinking, drug use, disturbing the peace.”

  “Mom, you know there will be a little of that. There’s always some of that at high-school parties. But you also know you can trust me. There’s a whole group of us that just want to be together.”

  She made him stop and face her one last time. “You ought to drive the truck. It isn’t going to kill me.”

  “I know that.”

  “Don’t let me stand in the way. I didn’t mean to react the way I did. We all need to be fair.”

  “I’m making my own choices, remember?”

  “But you could take it up to the campsite. It might be safer. It’s bigger than other cars on the road.”

  “I’m riding with the girls. It’s okay.” A honk sounded from the driveway. She didn’t kiss him good-bye. He’d already taken that into his own hands and she didn’t want to overdo it.

  “There they are.” She couldn’t imagine why tears sprang to her eyes. “You go have a good time, you hear me?”

  In spite of everything, Eric knew Hilary. He’d been married to her for over a dozen years, and during those years they had shared a life that had knit them together.

  Once, when Hilary had been driving to his parents’ for Thanksgiving dinner, he remembered they’d hit a patch of black ice and, the whole time they’d been spinning out, sliding forever to a stop, her voice had remained deadly calm: “Pump the brakes, right, Eric? That’s what I’m supposed to do.” They’d crossed into the oncoming lane, with the headlights of another car bearing down on them, but she hadn’t panicked. Instead she had steered them up over the curb. When the world had stopped spinning, she’d looked at him and burst out laughing. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “Well,” he’d said, his own heart pounding. “Maybe next time you get the urge for some trick driving, let me know and we’ll go to a track somewhere. It’ll be a lot safer that way.”

  “You think?”

  There had been childbirth classes and the pillow from their bed she’d insisted he carry to class and the way she’d needed him when Seth had been born. She’d been in transition (Eric kept teasing her and calling it transmission), the stage of labor that the nurses had all told him she would blame him for, and he’d been astounded by the way she kept asking, “How are we doing, Eric? Are we doing this right?”

  “You’re doing fine,” he’d told her as he’d washed her face with a cloth the nurse had brought him. He doubted Hilary even knew she was crying. “I don’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You have everything to do with it.” She’d clenched his arm bruise-tight. “You’re not getting out of this.”

  If she’d given Seth permission to go to this party, she really thought she was doing the right thing.

  It saddened Eric, seeing how he’d missed the chance to know all he could about his son, to understand how to be the daily parent of a teenager. There was always that awkward coming-up-to-speed when he and Seth got together, the careful questions (so hard not to be an interrogator when you wanted to find out so much so fast!), Seth’s first vague answers, and then finally, finally his getting around to details.

  Now, Eric stood beside the truck he’d found on CarMax, the one Seth had rejected. Through the window Eric could see Seth and his mother with their heads together, discussing something serious, and Eric couldn’t help feeling jealous. He heard the pounding bass a good thirty seconds before Seth’s friend’s car rounded the corner. It bumped over a dip and bounced into the driveway, an old Pontiac, with a rust ring around the exhaust pipe and so many decals on the rear window, it was a miracle anyone could see to drive. THE GIRL ON MY FAKE ID IS AN HONOR STUDENT, said the bumper sticker. It made Eric think twice, seeing this part of Seth’s life, knowing he wasn’t a part of it.

  That was always the question with life, wasn’t it? You had to let go of one thing to pursue another. Which discontent did a person want to live with? Maybe he’d only traded one set of problems for another when he’d fallen for Pam. When he’d been disillusioned by the pale exhaustion on Hilary’s face whenever she came home from her PCU shift and he could see she had nothing left to give him. You got to pick your own poison, didn’t you?

  The door opened and music spilled out. “Come on, Seth,” called a boy from the passenger side. “Let’s roll.”

  Here came his son, bounding down the stairs with his bag hoisted over his shoulder. “Hey, Seth.” He wanted to say something to make it better between them, like telling one of those knock-knock jokes or just saying, I’m proud of you. But Eric had waited too long. The kids were listening. “Son, wait up.”

  When Seth turned to him over the roof of the car, the boy’s face was unreadable. “Dad, don’t. Please. I knew this was going to happen.”

  “What?”

  “Not in front of my friends, okay?”

  Eric didn’t like his son telling him what to do. “How do you know what I was going to say? Maybe I was —”

  “Everything I do ticks you off.”

  “What are you talking about? I just wanted to tell you that I’m not upset, all right, Seth?” Eric’s anger rumbled up, ignited by the way Emily reached across and grabbed Seth’s hand, a sense of conspiracy. Oh, Seth thought he knew everythi
ng so well, did he? All the kids did. He had when he’d been that age. “I don’t care about you driving the truck. I don’t care if you don’t come with us.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad.” He was being pushed away again. It irked Eric how Seth’s voice stayed so calm. “Tomorrow I’m all yours. Make any plans you want.”

  Emily said, “Don’t be mad at him, Mr. Wynn. It’s just that it’s been tough for him, fitting into your life when you want him to but not having you around when he needs you. It’s been really hard. For Seth.”

  The air in front of Eric’s eyes turned red. So Seth and this girl had talked it to death, had they? Probably for hours, days. His mistakes had been a main conversation topic while his son and this girl had been hanging out.

  “Mr. Wynn,” Emily said.

  “Emily, don’t,” Seth said.

  “You go,” Eric told him. “You just go.”

  “I will.” Calm. Seth’s words, so calm in front of his friends, with that steel edge to them. “Thanks for your permission, Dad.”

  Chapter 8

  Hey.” Remy nudged Seth. “Get over it, why don’t you? We’re supposed to be having a good time.” The girls were crammed so tightly into Laura’s front seat that she almost didn’t have elbow room to drive. There weren’t nearly enough seat belts. Megan, Laura’s friend, sat wedged between Laura and Emily.

  “Yeah,” Seth agreed. “A good time. I know that.”

  As the car entered the Eisenhower Freeway, it felt like light-years to Seth before he would be leaving for college. But his mother seemed obsessed with him moving out of the house, living in a different town. He loved his mom, no doubt about that. His dad had left him to take care of her. That responsibility made him feel like he was moving underwater with a barbell on his back sometimes. Add to that the conversation he’d had with his dad in the driveway. His dad, who couldn’t figure out why money, stuff, vacations, and promises wouldn’t be enough! Couldn’t his dad see it? Couldn’t his dad ever be loyal to anybody?

  Remy rolled down the window and stood halfway in his seat, shouting to the world and anyone else who happened to be driving along I-290, “Freeeedom!” They weren’t the senior class of Jefferson High anymore, were they? They were graduates. They had tonight left, and then the whole summer if they played it right — two long months of late nights and freedom-packed, sun-seared days. It had the potential to be great.

  From the backseat, Remy teased Laura’s hair with the corner of his smartphone.

  “Cut it out.” Laura tried to swat his hand. “I hear they’ve got meds for ADHD.”

  “Sit still, Remy.” Ian was already pressed against the door. “You’re killing me.”

  “We’d have plenty of room,” Will noted, “if Seth had driven his new truck.”

  Megan changed the song on the CD. A motorcycle thundered past. Seth scowled out the window as if he hadn’t heard.

  “Stop torturing me,” Laura demanded. “Remy, stop it.” But her flirty smile in the rearview mirror spoke otherwise.

  “Seriously, dude. That truck is amazing. If my dad gave me that truck, I’d have it clear to Madison by now.”

  “Shut up, Remy,” Emily said. “Don’t talk about it anymore. We’re supposed to be having fun. You’re the one who said it.”

  “Oh, what’s this?” Ian said. “You standing up for your boyfriend again? Just like you did with his dad?”

  “Shut up, Ian.”

  “Too bad your parents didn’t get a nasty divorce,” Ian told Remy. “I hear the guilt gifts are amazing.”

  Seth felt squeezed tight, smashed together inside himself the same way his elbows were smashed against him on the crowded seat. He felt a beast coming alive in him. Maybe it had been hiding there for months; he didn’t know. But after the conversation with his father, this thing had risen inside his chest until, like the osmosis they’d studied this semester in biology class, it had pushed its way out and filled every cell in his body. “Take the next exit,” he said.

  “What?” Ian asked.

  “Stop the car. I want to get out.”

  “You’re weirding out, Seth,” Remy said. “Why do you want to do that?”

  “Laura, stop the car right now.”

  She took the ramp as he’d said, darting across an extra lane of traffic to get there.

  “Seth, don’t.” Emily grappled with him for the door handle. The car skidded onto the shoulder. “Don’t. Nobody’s going to talk about it anymore.” But Emily was no match for him. He lurched outside the minute the car stopped, into a funnel of road dust and wind.

  “You’re kidding me,” Remy said. “He wants to fight?”

  Laura craned her neck to see Seth. “How should I know what he wants? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Remy,” Emily said. “Don’t get out. Just let him get over it. I don’t care what he tells you.”

  Seth’s face leered outside Remy’s window. “You want to fight or something?” Remy said through the closed window. “Find somebody else. I’m not up for it.”

  “Get in the car, man,” Ian urged. “Come on.”

  The thing inside Seth was speaking lies. It made him want to act like a demanding jerk. But then if his dad was going to treat him that way, why not? “Who died and left you king of the world, Ian? Remy, stop freaking out. Just let me stand out here a minute. Just let me breathe.”

  “Fine,” Remy said, slumping against the seat. “So breathe.”

  Seth rubbed his neck, tilted his face toward the sky, and stared at the airplanes strung into the night like a kite’s tail as they made their final approach into O’Hare. He clenched his fists. A wind draft from a passing car plastered his shirt against him.

  Emily climbed out of the car to stand beside him. She didn’t reach for his hand and Seth didn’t offer. He didn’t get why everything triggered his anger lately. Even Emily made him mad, her standing there and she didn’t deserve anything.

  He thought if he acted like a self-centered idiot, maybe he’d turn into one; maybe someone would have to take care of him instead of the other way around for a change. Anything that would drown the angry ache in his chest. But Remy had stopped trying to talk him into the car. Laura hadn’t honked to make him hurry. They’d given him time to get over himself. Which made him feel better.

  Seth reached for Emily’s hand. “You ready to go?”

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  He held the door open, watched his girlfriend duck inside. “Gosh, man,” Remy said, rolling down the window in relief. “You were acting so weird. You were freaking me out.”

  “Remy —”

  “But all is not lost.”

  “No?”

  “Look where you stopped us, Seth.” Remy pointed toward the strip mall, its lights pooling on a sparse mix of cars just off the frontage road. “Just where we needed to be. You found the mother lode, baby. The liquor store.” Neon beer signs beckoned through the window. “Finally, the chance to try out my new fake ID.”

  Ian growled, “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t used it yet? What were you waiting for, Remy? College?”

  “Laura, go and park beside the building.” Remy yanked his wallet from his rear pocket. “I’m buying the booze. Who’s chipping in?”

  The girls dug in their purses and the boys thumbed through their wallets. Crumpled bills and odd change passed to Remy from every direction. Seth slapped two tens in his friend’s hand.

  “We’re getting beer?” Megan asked.

  “Beer? Are you kidding me? How about the hard stuff ? Bottles of Jim Beam.”

  “Beer,” Laura said. “I just want beer.”

  “It’s your money.”

  Emily called out the window, “Get us a twelve-pack!” as Remy hopped the curb.

  “Beam, baby.” Remy’s eyes challenged them before he squared his shoulders and headed in like a man. “We’ve got celebrating to do. I dare any of you lightweights to try to keep up with me.”

 
; Even now, even as many years as it had been, sometimes Hilary still dreamed she was breast-feeding her baby. She dreamed she was sitting in a rocking chair with tiny Seth bundled against her, his little cap tugged down around his ears to keep him warm, a night so still it could evoke carols. She dreamed of that delicious moment when her milk let down, that stunning tingle of her body responding. And then in her dream, the shooting milk, the relief of the baby’s mouth suckling. After which she always woke chasing something. As if it might be a moment she could catch. As if her shirt might still be wet. As if her breasts might still be laden.

  But Seth was eighteen years old. Seth, the proof that she and Eric had done some good things together.

  After their son had left in the car crammed full of teenagers, Hilary had stepped outside. She’d leaned against the doorjamb, watching in the direction where the car had disappeared. As she’d shoved her sweater sleeves up over her elbows, she’d felt Eric’s eyes on her. She touched her hand to her neck where the cardigan fastened. His gaze followed.

  “It was a horrible dinner,” she said.

  “You could say that again.”

  “I tried.”

  “We’re all trying,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” Even as she spoke them, she knew those words could mean many things: I’m sorry Seth left the way he did. I’m sorry he didn’t accept your gift. I’m sorry our marriage didn’t work.

  “What were you and Seth talking about before he left?” she asked. “It looked like you were still arguing.”

  “Hurt pride, I guess.” Then, “Mine. Not his.”

  “Probably both.”

  “You look exhausted,” he said.

  “Don’t I always?” She tugged a piece of hair at her neck while a fly droned around their heads and the fountain in Hilary’s front yard bubbled. For a moment they stood looking at each other, each of them realizing that they had done this together, this hurting of each other, both of them; it hadn’t been just one.