“Let me get this straight. Now the guy who had to be court-ordered to pay fifteen hundred dollars for summer camp can’t wait to shell out forty grand to join the country club? The same guy who wanted Ofelia, our elderly and child-phobic maid, to tutor the kids in Spanish and teach them to mop floors for summer vacation now likes the idea of them spending the day lounging poolside?”
“It’s an investment,” Richard said. “Good for business contacts.”
“We’re Jews. They don’t do Jews at the San Antonio Country Club.”
“Things have changed there,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
“All my friends are members. People I’ve known my whole life. Did you know I went out with Camille in high school?” He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, leaned into his reflection and straightened his right eyebrow with a spit-wet index finger. “Nothing serious. She just wanted to make what’s-his-name, the quarterback, jealous. Small world.”
“It’s your small world.” I said.
I didn’t need to be reminded that absolutely every high-end woman in town had been with him at one time or another. There had been at least ten women from the Jewish Old San Antonio clan on Esther and Stu Kleinberg’s A-List of potential bearers of grandchildren. My name did not appear on that roster, a fact my mother-in-law never tired of referencing in my presence. I did not need Richard salting that old wound. And I didn’t need him telling me San Antonio was a small world, as if I didn’t live here every provincial day of my life. Most of all, I didn’t need him sticking his nose into the little bit of space that was mine, if only for the short-term grace of our separation agreement.
We glared at each other for a minute. Richard’s eyes watered a little. I decided it was his contacts. The kids had let slip that he’d gotten new ones—green-tinted to intensify his eyes on camera.
“You’re so bitter, Nora,” Richard finally said. “I understand the bitterness is a symptom of your inability to deal with being disowned by your mother and losing your father…and now Howard’s gone.”
“My mother is irrelevant and my father isn’t lost. He’s dead. Just like Howard. D-E-A-D. Why can’t you say the word?”
“There’s no need to shout,” he said.
“I’m not shouting,” I shouted.
“Just stop,” he said. “You’re out of touch with reality.”
“Why don’t you ever say the word, Richard? Maybe because your parents are dead? Maybe you’re the one out of touch with reality. Maybe that’s the reason we don’t get along. Maybe it’s your fucking unresolved grief.”
Ordinary people might think psychiatrists possess an advantage in human relationships, some kind of insider knowledge that greases the interpersonal gears. In our marriage, emotional insights had been converted into weapons of psychic destruction—plowshares into swords. Months before, I’d come to the conclusion that the only accomplishment of our union, aside from the kids, was the defeat of the town’s best marital therapist. After two years of twice weekly appointments, Dr. Bradley had concluded that separation was the only hope of saving the marriage. So much for that theory. The three blocks between the house and my estranged’s fancy apartment obviously hadn’t changed a thing.
“You really should keep the shades drawn in the family room this late in the day,” Richard said, changing the subject, stepping from side to side, bobbing his head around, trying to scope out the house in search of additional maintenance failures. “I’ve told you a thousand times that direct sun drives up the electric bill and fades the rugs.”
Pugsley, the older of our dogs, had gotten the gist of the situation. He positioned himself at the foot of the stairs, growling softly like a canine motion detector when the former man of the house threatened to violate the boundary.
“How about we consider my household not your business,” I said. “Until further notice.”
“As long as I’m paying the bills,” he said, “this household is my business.”
Although I chose not to acknowledge it, he had a point.
The house and the money to renovate it to Richard’s standards came to us within weeks after our move to Texas, when his parents died together in an auto accident. Richard’s stubborn and mildly demented father was unquestionably at fault. Stu, as was his habit, ignored the No Left Turn sign at the busy intersection of McCullough and Hildebrand. The rule, he always maintained, didn’t apply to him, since he’d lived in the neighborhood for thirty years prior to the sign’s posting. That day, the slow arc of the elder Kleinberg’s perfectly preserved Cadillac put them smack in the path of a behind-schedule Pronto Produce delivery truck destined for the nearby TacoTaco Café.
Richard and I remained in lips-sealed, crossed-arms, standoff pose until Alex and Gizmo finally came barreling down the stairs.
“Shotgun,” Alex yelled. “I called it.”
“It’s my turn!” Tamar screamed from the landing. “Dad, tell him it’s my turn!”
She flung her backpack at Alex’s heels, startling Gizmo, who broke gait and skidded down the last two steps on her ample belly. She hit Pugsley like a well-placed bowling ball, sending him tumbling into Richard, who jumped back, brushing at his pant legs. Pugsley righted himself, shook his head and went directly to pee on the umbrella stand.
“He’ll keep urinating there until you get rid of that thing,” Richard said. “I spent a small fortune fencing the backyard so these animals could stay outside.”
“I’ll get rid of what I want to get rid of,” I said, trusting he’d get the subtext.
“I wish you two would stop fighting,” Tamar said, retrieving her backpack. “It’s not a good example.”
Richard mussed her hair. “Your mother and I are having a little discussion,” he said. “I’ll have them back right after the movie. Got an early day tomorrow.”
“Movie?” Alex said. “You said we could go to the batting cages.”
“I said if we had time,” Richard said. “Besides, it’s too hot.”
Now Alex’s arms were crossed too. “Why don’t you invite Mom to come with us?”
No one spoke.
I wouldn’t have gone anyway.
Chapter Five
What I’d perceived as Camille Westerman’s festive aura at Howard’s memorial service nagged at me the entire weekend. My kinder self told me she could be in shock and that I should give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she’d agreed with me that Howard being dead didn’t seem real. But my attempt at this empathic perspective failed to take hold. The sense that she had a role in Howard’s death and that I’d somehow been her unwitting accomplice chewed at me. I was still feeling uneasy when I woke up Monday morning, the one week anniversary of Howard’s accident. Anniversaries, even minor ones, power superstition and expectation.
I checked my voicemail as soon as I got to the office. In addition to the usual weekend tirades from Morrie Viner, my three o’clock patient, Allison had called in to tell me she wouldn’t make her session that day. The message had clocked in just before my twenty-four hour cancellation deadline, so I couldn’t charge her—as if she’d even notice the money. In a playful voice, she said that she’d scheduled