Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [98]
“What?” He seems completely unconcerned as he unbuttons his shirt.
“It’s lipstick,” she repeats. “The orange bit.”
“So?”
“So?” she repeats.
“So there’s lipstick on a handkerchief,” he says, slipping the shirt off and tossing it on the bed — almost but not quite covering the offensive handkerchief. “It must be yours,” he says.
“No,” she says, mildly astonished that he seems unaware of the fact that she hardly ever wears lipstick now.
“Maybe I lent the handkerchief to Vivian,” he says.
“You’d have to shoot Vivian before she’d wear that brand of lipstick,” Honora says.
“How would I know who used the handkerchief?” he says. “I could have lent it to almost anyone.”
Neither of them moves — she by the window, Sexton peering down at the bed as if he stood at the precipice of the Grand Canyon.
“Honora,” he says.
“What?” she asks, looking up at him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she says, rubbing her eyes.
“You’re exhausted,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” he says, pulling a clean shirt from a shelf in the closet. “I guess I’ll just have to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Benefit of the doubt?” she says, looking up.
“Today at lunch. That was uncalled for.”
“That was my opinion,” she says.
“But it was humiliating,” he says. “A wife doesn’t contradict her husband in public.”
“It was merely an opinion,” she says. “It wasn’t meant to humiliate you. It’s what I think. I think guns are a terrible idea.”
“And what are you going to do when thugs show up here with sledgehammers and baseball bats?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she says, “because most of the time I’m alone here.”
“Just my point,” he says.
“For heaven’s sake, Sexton. Surely you don’t expect me to carry a gun.”
And, no, he does not expect her to carry a gun; it is he who wants a gun. “I really don’t understand you,” he says, turning toward her and tucking in the shirt. “First you make a fool of me at lunch, and then you suggest I’ve been . . . what? . . . playing around? You used to have more sense than this, Honora.”
The marriage might so easily end, she thinks. It could end right this minute. It is both a frightening and a thrilling thought.
Her silence makes him anxious. And anxious, he isn’t at all handsome. His eyes seem to settle closer together even as she watches. He puts a hand to his forehead, a man in anguish. “I’ve never given you a single reason to suspect a thing,” he says, and perhaps he sounds a bit more righteous than he needs to.
Honora glances out the window and then back again. Is it possible she has made a mistake?
“Cooking and cleaning for all these people,” he says, deftly collecting both the dirty shirt and the handkerchief in one swipe with his hand. She watches as he balls the shirt and throws it into a corner. Though she doesn’t see him do it, she is almost certain that he has pocketed the handkerchief. “I’ll tell them to leave,” he says.
“Don’t do that,” she says.
“I probably just lent it to someone on the line,” he says.
Is it possible she has misread the orange blot, that it’s as innocent as he says?
“Come on, Honora,” Sexton says, moving toward her. He touches her shoulder and she flinches. He stands behind her chair and begins to rub the back of her neck. “Why don’t you take a nap?”
Perhaps it is only the strike, she thinks. Or the men in her house. Or the work on the newsletter. She is not herself. No, she is not herself at all.
Sexton walks to the bed and turns the chenille bedspread down invitingly. Honora can hear the printing press with its clunky, rhythmic movements, a high feminine laugh, men’s voices on the porch. Out on the beach, McDermott and Alphonse are throwing a ball, with Sandy running back and forth between them. A gull swoops down in front of the window and flutters in place for a moment.
Honora stands and moves to the bed. She climbs inside and closes her eyes. She can feel her husband’s lips on her cheek.
“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he says.
She hears him crossing the room, opening the door and then closing it with a soft click. She rolls away from the door and sleeps