Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [36]
As soon as the boy’s funeral was over, and “Wind Beneath My Wings” came on the audio system, Charlie nudged Alison, and they tiptoed out. She had wanted to go up and speak to the parents, but Charlie had convinced her that it would be inappropriate—it was the last thing he’d want, if he were the father of the boy. She lingered for a moment at the back, then followed him out the double doors to the parking lot.
On the way home in the car, she turned to Charlie and said tearfully, “I know you’re angry at me.”
“I’m not angry, Alison.”
“Yes you are. Say the worst things you’re thinking. That I’m irresponsible and stupid. A drunk. A murderer.” She almost spat the words at him, daring him to agree.
He looked over at her warily. In truth, he was angry at her—for the insecurities that he was certain had led her to drink too much at the party, for her poor judgment, even for the anguish she was expressing now.
He had both hands on the steering wheel, and he lifted one to rub his cheek. “You’re not a drunk. Or a murderer.”
She gasped a little, as if his words had caused her physical pain.
Charlie drove in silence, wondering at his own capacity for inflicting hurt. He felt a stab of regret. But he couldn’t shake this anger he felt toward her. And he knew that, really, her culpability wasn’t the issue—it was that he’d been on the brink of self-discovery, a quest that had nothing to do with her. It was separate from her, from the children, from their life in Rockwell. But this accident made it impossible for him to pursue it. He felt, now, at the edge of a feeling more powerful, more dangerous than he could ever remember having experienced—a bottomless despair.
Chapter Nine
October 2001
At dinner with Claire and Ben one evening in New York, Alison and Charlie made plans to go away with them for an October fall foliage bed-and-breakfast weekend upstate. Charlie made reservations at what turned out to be a dilapidated bed-and-breakfast he’d chosen from an out-of-date guidebook he’d found remaindered at the Strand—typical of him, as Claire said when they got there. “Charlie’s such a cheapskate,” she grumbled to Alison as they followed the ancient proprietor up the rickety stairs to their rooms. “We should never let him make the plans.” (Charlie was a cheapskate, but Alison knew that he felt acutely the difference between his nonprofit job and Ben’s salary as a corporate architect.)
Charlie had left work early and taken the subway to a bus to the least expensive car rental place he could find, near the river on Thirty-first Street. He secured a shiny white Ford Focus and drove up West End Avenue to pick up Alison. Meanwhile, she had packed their bag. He had left a sloppy pile of clothes on his dresser—khakis and a moss green sweater, boxer shorts and socks and a few white T-shirts, a leather utility case containing a frayed toothbrush, a flattened tube of toothpaste, and a sample-size yellow moisturizer from a makeup promotion. She scanned her closet for something, anything, that wasn’t black. They were going upstate. People wore colors there.
Alison was standing in the lobby, chatting with Frank, the part-time doorman, when Charlie pulled up in front of the building. It was a cold, windy day. Frank carried her bag despite her protests, and she rolled her eyes at Charlie as he watched them coming to let him know that she had no choice. Charlie was sensitive about treating their doorman like a serf.
“Frank,” he said, scrolling down the passenger’s window and leaning across the seat, “you didn’t have to—”
“It’s a pleasure to serve such a lovely young couple, sir, a pleasure. A good weekend to you.”
Frank was from the old school, and all you could do was nod. Even Charlie realized this, and he waved good-bye with a pained smile, which Frank returned with a brisk salute.
“I suppose when we have a baby we’ll actually need a doorman,” Alison said as Charlie pulled into traffic.