May We Be Forgiven

suitcase. Upstairs, I open the bag on the bed and begin to fill it. Unsure of exactly what I am thinking, I pack as if to consolidate, to minimize myself. I assume that when Claire returns I will no longer be welcome. Pulling open the drawers, the closet, the medicine cabinet, I am impressed with the gentility with which things coexist, how they hang, nestle, rest side by side without tension or judgment. Her floss, toothbrush, Nair, mascara, my gargle, nose spray, nail clipper. All of it intimate, all of it human, all of it divided his and hers—there is little overlap.

    W e married late; Claire had already been married once, briefly. It was two years before I took her to meet my parents. The first thing she told them was “It was a small wedding, just friends.”
    “Why did you keep her from us for so long?” my mother asked. “She’s beautiful and has a good job. You thought we wouldn’t approve?”
    My mother took her hands. “We thought there must be something wrong with you—a reason he wouldn’t bring you, like you had a cleft palate, or a penis or something?” she said, raising her eyebrows as if to say, How ’bout it?

    W hat is the take-away? There is no logic to what goes in the bag—a few photos, trinkets from my childhood, a couple of suits, shoes, the canvas bag with the most recent draft of my unfinished manuscript on Nixon, the small black clock from her side of the bed. I don’t want much, don’t want to be obvious; I purposely leave my favorite things—I don’t want to be accused of abandoning ship.

    L ong after midnight, the doorbell rings. I tip the deliveryman heavily and sit at the table eating straight from the boxes, eating like it’s been days since I was fed. The flavor is amazing, hot, spicy, the textures a treat, everything from slimy mushrooms and tofu to hard cubes of pork. I paste plum sauce on the pancakes and douse it all in soy sauce—the extreme sodium and glutamate breathe life back into me.
    Tessie sits patiently at my feet. I give her a bowl of plain white rice—the starch will be good for her stomach. She eats quickly. I give her more, and then she again passes toxic gases.
    I think of looking it up on the computer, Googling “Ill effects of drinking blood,” but don’t want to leave an electronic record of my visit.
    “Tessie, how old are you? Are you twelve? That makes you over a hundred in human years—you’re someone Willard Scott should celebrate. Who was that cat? Do you know him from somewhere? You didn’t seem to mind that he was there.” I continue: “Here’s what I’m thinking: we’ll stay here tonight, and we’ll go back in the morning, in the full light of day.”
    I’m talking to a dog.
    I call Claire in China, figuring to give it one last go.
    “I’m in a meeting,” she says.
    “We can talk later.”
    “Is Jane better?”
    “She’s on a ventilator.”
    “I’m glad she’s feeling much better,” Claire says.
    The rhythm of the line is the same; the rest has been lost in translation.

    I n bed, I pull a pillow from her side, close, against my chest, missing her in a routine kind of way, Claire standing over my shoulder while I balance the checkbook, insisting that we have his/ hers accounts as well as one joint. Claire in the bathroom, using a squeegee stolen from a gas station to rake the shower door dry, Claire at the kitchen sink taking a glass of water and then washing and drying her glass and putting it away. Claire, who leaves nothing out of place, nothing to chance, always on it. What I liked about her, of course, became the problem—she wasn’t there. She asked very little of me. And that meant she wasn’t there and gave very little back.
    Tessie walks around, looking confused. I take a towel from the bathroom and make a place for her by the side of the bed. She is an old setter, bought as a pup at a time when there was hope and promise, when it still seemed like things might turn out okay.

    W e sleep.
    She comes at me, whacking me with a pillow. “Get out of my house, get out of my house,” she repeats. A man in a suit stands behind her. “That’s enough for now. We’ll get him again later,” he says. I rush for the door; a man is there, changing the tumbler.
    I wake. Who was she—was it Claire, was it Jane?

    T he dog wants to go out. The dog wants breakfast. The dog wants to go back to her own home.

    T he children are coming, arrangements have been made, cars have been hired to chauffeur them home.