Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [86]
“No, no,” she said. “I mean, he confronted me. About us. He knew. He figured it out.”
“Oh. Wow,” Charlie said.
“Yeah. But then it was weird—he didn’t seem upset, really. I mean, I’m sure he is, but—well, you know Ben. He keeps a lot inside.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He went out.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I guess in a way it’s a relief. I hated lying to him.”
Charlie looked out his office window at a pigeon sitting on the ledge. He reached over and tapped the glass with his finger. Fly away, pigeon. The bird didn’t budge.
“So what about Alison?” Claire asked.
In bed that morning, before the kids were awake, Charlie had molded his body around Alison’s sleeping form. She stirred, opening her legs slightly, and he found his way in, stroking her until she came, arching back against him, and then he came, too, shuddering quietly and drifting back to sleep. When he woke up a little while later he could hear her downstairs with the kids, making breakfast—pancakes, by the sound of it. Noah was clamoring to crack the eggs, and demanding a dinosaur shape; Annie chimed in asking for a heart.
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “She hasn’t said anything. But … she suspects. Something.”
“Umm,” said Claire. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “So what are you going to do?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Charlie had meant every word he’d said to Claire in Atlanta, but—Christ, this was soon. He stared out the window at the pigeon, which, as if sensing the intensity of his gaze, bobbed its head at him and turned away.
“I’m not saying you should do anything,” Claire continued. “I was just wondering what you were thinking. And also—well—I guess there’s a chance Ben might call Alison. He didn’t say he was going to, but. You never know.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, thinking, Holy shit. This is happening. He thought of the children’s fable about the dog with a bone that, seeing his reflection, mistakes it for a dog with a larger bone, and drops his own in pursuit of the illusion. “I need to figure this out,” he said. “I guess … I’ll call you later.”
“Listen, Charlie.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean to set anything in motion prematurely. You should wait until you’re ready. If—if you’re ready.”
He nodded abstractly, then realized she couldn’t see him. “I’ll give you a call in a few days,” he said.
When he hung up the phone he felt a grim foreboding. He stood up and went to the window, leaning his forehead against the cool glass. The bird was gone. Below, on another window ledge, Charlie could see several pigeons huddling together, and he wondered for a moment if one of them was his pigeon; if it had left his ledge in search of company, or if it had flown off to someplace else by itself.
AT ABOUT FIVE-THIRTY, as he was finishing up, Charlie called Alison from his office and asked if he could pick up anything for dinner on the way home.
“I was just about to boil water for pasta,” she said.
“No, don’t. You should take a break. How about Chinese?”
“All right.”
“I can be in Rockwell in forty-five minutes. I’m just about to leave.”
“I’ll call in the order,” she said. “Do you want anything special?”
This was a formality. In fact, their order was always the same: sesame noodles, dumplings, chicken and broccoli for the kids, garlic string beans, and Alison’s favorite, spicy shrimp and eggplant. She would call their order in to the least mediocre of the mediocre Chinese restaurants in town (and the only one that served brown rice, as Alison told newcomers to town who asked for a recommendation, though they never actually ordered brown rice themselves), and he would pick it up.
But this time he said, “Maybe so.” It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that he wanted something special, but perhaps—yes—he did. “How about—uh—a noodle thing, like chow fun. With pork.”
“Instead of shrimp and eggplant?” He could hear the surprise and disapproval in her voice.
“We could do both.”
“That’s too much food,” she said. “And we already have a noodle thing, sesame noodles.”
“So cancel the sesame noodles.