Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [100]
It is a hot afternoon in July. Claire and Charlie are looking at apartments in their price range and feeling the sting of sticker shock. What they can afford, given Charlie’s financial burdens and Claire’s sporadic income, turns out to be uniformly cramped, dark, and charmless.
Claire goes to the window and tries to open it, but the sash is broken. This apartment is in the East Thirties near the river, a part of town with which Claire is unfamiliar, and she is fighting a feeling of panic at the idea that they may have to live here, so far from her usual haunts. They would get a better deal in Brooklyn, she knows, but she doesn’t want to cross a bridge; the East Side is distant enough. The Realtor calls this an “emerging” neighborhood, but all Claire sees out the dirty window are a parking garage and several dreary buildings, fronted at their bases with locked grille work. They look to her like bared teeth.
But wait—down on the street, now, a woman with dark hair and Jackie O sunglasses is walking by, pushing a baby stroller. From this distance she looks like Alison, and Claire feels a twist in her gut. Alison’s hair, as shiny as a blackbird, her eyes watchful like a bird’s, hopping down a branch, head cocked to one side. Her maddening deliberation, her hesitation and careful weighing. Her kindness and constancy. Alison was always there, taking what Claire had to offer and giving back more than she probably deserved.
How profound this betrayal is—to hurt the person she once loved best.
Everything is muddy. Claire can’t make the fine distinctions; they seem to have escaped her. Alison, the accident, Ben—dear Ben—creating a new life in Boston. She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to think about all the repercussions, to contain these other lives in her experience. It’s hard enough to know what she feels for herself.
Twelve years is a long time to love someone without acting on it. In a way, Claire thinks, she has been more faithful to Charlie all these years than she was to Ben. Had she been inclined to unfaithfulness, she might have moved from Charlie to other obsessions. Her love for Ben was reinforced by their vows; her love for Charlie was spun out of air, suspended in time. Doesn’t she deserve to be happy now? Doesn’t she deserve to spend the rest of her life with the one man in the world she has ever truly desired?
“Ah, there he is!” the Realtor exclaims, and Claire turns to see Charlie amble into the room.
“The toilet’s broken,” he says, coming over to join Claire at the window. “This building is monstrous.”
“Yes. It’s a big, healthy co-op with a solid financial history,” the Realtor says, her voice resolutely chipper, as if she’s trying to fix up an unattractive friend on a blind date.
Charlie wraps his arms around Claire’s shoulders. “You hate it,” he whispers.
She shrugs, determined not to be ill-tempered. “What do you think?”
“I’m with you.”
“I know that, but what do you think?”
He squeezes, pulling her close.
For a moment she shuts her eyes. These enveloping arms, his grip on her so different from Ben’s tentative grasp. Ben never just held her like this, fully in the moment, without worrying about whether he was crushing her or if she wanted to pull away. If she wants to pull away, she’ll pull away. Charlie knows this. He has a doglike faith in her ability to push him off her lap.
The apartment isn’t really so bad, Charlie thinks, but he knows Claire doesn’t like it, and it’s pointless to try to talk her into it. He’s happy enough