The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [9]
—There was so much harm then. He looked inward, possibly reminded of Catholic sins. Are you religious now?
—Only on airplanes, she said quickly, and he laughed. He tried to eat another bite.
—I am, a bit, he confessed, startling her, and he seemed almost bashful in the confession. My mother’s minister stayed with me for days after Billie died, though I hardly knew his presence. Very good in the clinches. Well, they are, aren’t they? We often play tennis together now, and I sometimes go to services. So as not to hurt his feelings, I think.
Her breath was tight and seared her chest. This mention of private disaster had come too soon. She heard the phrase again: After Billie died. . . .
He went on. I suppose I feel I ought to show some gratitude. Though they must know that in the end it doesn’t help. In the end, nothing helps. Drugs, possibly.
—Yes.
He leaned forward. Does this happen to you? I think of what we did, and I cannot believe we were ever so cruel.
She couldn’t answer him. He had paid more dearly than any man deserved. And she? What payment had she made? She had had love, and her children were alive. Against all the odds, she had been rewarded. What justice was in that?
She put her fork down, unable even to pretend to eat. There had never been a rehearsal for such a conversation. She folded her fingers under her chin. She could not go forward, for she didn’t know how much he could bear. She would take her cues from Thomas, not ask any questions.
The massive plates were replaced with smaller ones. The waiter filled their glasses.
—Do you still have the letters? he asked.
—I lost them, she said, relieved to have moved to safer conversational ground. They spilled out of a carton. I watched from a second-story window of a house my husband and I were moving into. He had been carrying it, the carton. I held my breath when he picked it up. They would have hurt him, even though . . .
(Even though I hadn’t seen you in years, she had been about to say.)
—No man likes to think there was another who mattered, Thomas said reasonably.
—And then, weeks later, when I thought to look for them, they were gone. Nowhere to be found. I tried to ask obliquely, but he seemed not to know what I was talking about. It’s a mystery. To this day, I don’t know what happened to them.
—He destroyed them, Thomas said simply.
Linda could not imagine that outcome, that act of subterfuge. Vincent had lacked the desire, and therefore the skill, for duplicity. Whereas she and Thomas had been acrobats.
Arms were laid upon the backs of chairs. Food was devoured or ignored. Mirrors against the walls doubled the diners, showing faces where faces had been hidden. A cohort of small men in soiled aprons threaded themselves around the narrow table like dancers. A lack of windows, reminders of the rain, made the room seem intimate. Those who had no gift for conversation suffered.
—When did you marry? Thomas asked lightly.
Discussion of the past invited pain, she thought, though it was foolish to imagine they could continue any conversation without mentioning the worst between them.
—Nineteen seventy-six, she said.
—Twenty-four years ago.
She nodded, and there was a moment when she knew what he was thinking: of herself preparing for a wedding. Of herself in the throes of the strongest physical love for another.
—And you have children? he asked. I think I might have read that.
—I have a daughter who is twenty-three, a son who is twenty-two.
And there, it was done: the mention of her children.
She watched Thomas struggle to compose his features. How bottomless the grief that could show itself in fresh tears years later.
—What are their names?
—Maria and Marcus.
—Maria and Marcus . . . ?
—Bertollini.
—Your husband’s name.
—Vincent, she said, not adding that he had died.
—It’s so I can imagine it.
She nodded.
—You dress beautifully now. Thomas kept his eyes on her face as he said this, though she knew that he had already assessed her.
—Thank you, she said simply.
—Billie would have