The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [65]
Knowing instinctively that if she hesitated she’d be paralyzed with indecision, Kathryn took the lottery ticket out of her pocket and laid it on Jack’s desk. She lifted up the telephone and once again punched in the number written on it. A voice answered, the same voice as before.
“Hello,” Kathryn said quickly. “Is Muire there?”
“Who?”
Kathryn repeated the name.
“Oh, you mean Muire,” the voice at the other end said, and Kathryn heard the corrected pronunciation: Meur-ah, with a bit of a drumroll on the R. “No,” the woman said.
“Oh, sorry,” Kathryn said, feeling a tremendous rush of relief. She wanted only to get off the phone now.
“Muire was here,” the English voice said, “but she’s gone back to her own place. Are you a friend?”
Kathryn couldn’t answer her. She sat heavily in the chair. “Who is this?” the woman in London asked.
Kathryn opened her mouth but couldn’t say her name. She pressed the receiver to her chest.
M at A’s, the lottery ticket in front of her read. Muire 3:30, the junk-mail envelope had read. Two notations, in Jack’s hand, written four years apart and connected with a phone call.
Robert took the receiver from her and placed it back on its cradle.
“What made you ask for Muire?” he asked quietly. “You’ve gone white.”
“Just a guess,” she said.
Who was the woman called Muire? And what was Jack’s connection to her? Might he have spent his last night with this woman? Had Jack been having an affair? The questions pushed against her chest, threatening to suffocate her. She thought about all the jokes people routinely made about airline pilots and flight attendants. She had always dismissed the jokes, as if no real pilot would be so obvious.
“Robert, can you find out anything more about one particular name?” she asked. “Where a person lives?”
“If you’re sure that’s what you want,” he said.
“This is hell,” she said.
“Then leave it alone.”
She thought about the possibility of leaving this alone. “Would you be able to?” she asked.
“She wanted to watch TV,” Julia was saying. “I had to think of something else instead. Someone once gave me Witness for Christmas.”
Robert had left the office. Kathryn thought he might be washing dishes.
“Jack did.”
“Well, she seems involved. She woke up at two. She’s eaten.” “Don’t let her watch the TV,” Kathryn said. “I’m serious. Cut the cable if you have to.”
Kathryn swiveled in the office chair and gazed out at a rising snow line on the outside windowsill. It looked like water in a fish tank. Muire was here, a voice had said.
“Robert is with you?” Julia asked.
“Yes.”
“He came here, you know.”
“I know.”
“Then you know about . . . ”
“The crew apartment? Yes.” Kathryn drew a leg up, wrapped an arm around her knee. Two notations, four years apart, connected by a single initial. Kathryn felt a squeeze of anxiety, one that immediately produced beads of sweat on her forehead.
“Don’t lose your faith,” Julia said.
“What faith would that be, exactly?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“They’ve revised the forecast,” Julia said. “Ten to twelve.” “I’d better come now,” Kathryn said, wiping her forehead with her sleeve.
“Don’t be silly. Don’t go out if you don’t have to. Have you got food?”
Just like Julia to think of food.
“I’ve eaten,” Kathryn said. “Can I talk to Mattie?”
There was a silence at the other end of the line.
“You know,” Julia said carefully, “Mattie’s occupied. She’s fine. If you talk to her, she’ll just get sad and distant again. She needs to rest for a few days, just watch videos and eat popcorn. It’s like a drug, and she needs it for as long as possible. She needs to heal, Kathryn.”
“But I’d like to be with her,” Kathryn protested.
“Kathryn, you