Best Intentions (30 page)

T
here is the chance, of course, that I am wrong, that Ben doesn't even know of Deirdre's death. All through the night, I feel a creeping guilt about my phone call to Gibbs, the way I led her to Ben, then pushed, then shoved her there when she didn't seem to quite grasp the import, the likelihood of it all. I got the disturbing feeling that the strength of my convictions made her suspicious not of Ben but of me, my motives.

His name, it seems, was not new to her.

They have been doing their job after all.

“You're saying they were still dating?” Gibbs asked. It seemed such an anachronistic word, too flimsy for Deirdre and Ben's inexorable pull to and away from each other. “What about Jack Handel?”

“I don't know.”

“Would you say Erickson is a jealous man?”

Questions, more questions, as if she wanted to purposefully diminish what I was trying to tell her.

But I refuse to give in to doubt.

Lying in the dark, Sam sleeping beside me, I go over and over the conversation in my head, the case I built for Gibbs's benefit, for my own. I told her of the bruises I had seen, the erotic aggression that worried Deirdre, puzzled her, gripped her in ways I will never understand. Deirdre, with her mischievous glint, her fierce desire to be
claimed, her provocations. I am betraying her, giving pieces of her away, pieces I held tight until now, pieces that I preferred not to examine too closely, but I have no choice.

“Did you ever see bruises on other parts of her body?” Gibbs asked, more interested.

Sam shifts slightly, pulling the sheets into a tightly held bunch.

I imagine a phalanx of policemen greeting Ben in customs, taking him away.

I imagine this being over.

Sam said little last night when I told him of Ben's presence in New York, his face grim as I described the subterranean tendencies I had never told him of before, out of loyalty to Deirdre. He has never liked Ben, never trusted him, sensing a certain shrewdness he found distasteful. He is willing to believe the worst. Though he was measured in his response, he, too, would like this to be over, attention turned away from us, from him.

At ten the next morning, I put together a bag of juice packs, water, fruit roll-ups; I give the girls knee pads and jerseys for the school sports day on Roosevelt Island. I have begged off, pleading a headache, but the truth is I do not want to be distracted from the concentrated act of waiting for news, for affirmation, for confession or formal accusation.

I kiss the three of them good-bye.

“You'll call if you hear anything,” Sam says as he buttons his coat, shepherding Phoebe and Claire out.

“Of course.”

I close the door behind them and feel their absence in the newly silent apartment. I go back into the kitchen, scrape the uneaten breakfast into the trash, load the dishwasher. I straighten the newspapers, turn the radio on, flip impatiently around the dial, turn it off. And still, only twenty minutes have gone by.

All through the morning, as I attempt to stay busy, going into the girls' rooms, picking up clothes, trying to organize the flotsam of their lives in a way that they will not vociferously protest as soon as they get home, I wait for a sign, for word that doesn't come.

An hour goes by, two. I long to call Gibbs to find out if they have brought Ben in, what he has said, what he knows. I cannot help but worry, too, that they have told him of my role.

Instead, I reread old e-mail from Deirdre, short notes filled with typos about where and when to meet, her detailed list of everything she ate that day—she had a compulsion to confess whenever she thought she went overboard—the chain letters she was oddly susceptible to that promised good karma if you passed them on within thirty seconds. Silly things. We saved everything that really mattered for conversation. These snippets are the only concrete record I am left with.

When I have finished them all, I sit staring at the computer screen. On impulse, I click on the file labeled “finances” but there is nothing there I haven't seen before. I keep going down the list of documents. Some of Sam's are password-protected and will not open.

Before Gibbs got off the phone yesterday she said that she had one more question. “On another topic, we are trying to track the money Sam borrowed from Deirdre. It's a complicated trail but our people believe the entire amount might be gone. Has Sam discussed that with you?”

“I don't know anything about it,” I told her.

I am not sure if she was looking for information or imparting it.

I cannot help but feel that the detectives are condemning us for the messiness of our lives as much as anything else. Certainly when Callahan and Gibbs chart our steps in such a logical and linear manner it seems impossible that we did not see our own mistakes in the making. There were so many times when intervention would have been possible. But we were asking all the wrong questions. We were misreading all the clues.

The trajectory of any life, laid out across a table, reduced to jottings in a pad, would no doubt seem both damning and inane, our imperfections difficult to justify despite our best intentions.

At least that is what I would like to believe.

I shut off the computer.

I cannot sit still any longer, I have waited myself out.

I am just about to call Janine on a pretext I haven't quite decided on when the intercom goes off. The loud ringing, designed to be heard in every corner of the apartment, startles me. I put down the phone and go to the white video monitor in the kitchen that the children have named Oscar for reasons I no longer remember. I press the button that allows me to see whoever is downstairs.

I step away, my breath beginning to fray.

The buzzer goes off again, more insistently. He will not let it go.

I take a deep breath and let Ben in.

While I wait for him to come up, I glance around the apartment for backup, for anything to buttress me, but I am completely alone.

I hear the elevator door open and his footsteps in the hallway. Before he can knock I open the door.

Ben walks quickly in, disheveled, stubbly, visibly distraught. He looks at me, his eyes bloodshot, exhausted, jet-lagged, and heads into the living room without saying a word. I follow him, watching nervously as he paces back and forth, tense and wiry. When he finally turns to face me I see a fury that makes me take a step back.

“Why didn't you tell me?” There is pain in his voice, but more than that, an anger sharp and spiked.

“You talked to the police?”

“Yes, I talked to the fucking police. Two detectives were at my door before nine a.m. this morning.” He rests his hands on the back of a chair to steady himself. “Why didn't you tell me about Deirdre?” he demands again. “I can't believe I had to hear about this from goddamned strangers.”

“I'm sorry. I left messages for you while you were away.”

“You could have told me what it was about, you could have tried harder.”

“I didn't know what to do. It wasn't the kind of news you leave on voice mail. You could have called me back,” I add defensively.

Ben turns to me with a cold, hard steeliness. “What the hell did you tell them?”

“What do you mean?” I can feel the blood rush to my face.

“What did you say to the police about me and Deirdre?” He stops, shakes his head in rage and confusion. “You have no idea the kinds of things they were asking. I had nothing to do with her death. I didn't even know about it until this morning. I still can't believe I'm even saying these words. I can't wrap my mind around it. And then to have these idiots standing in my home accusing me of being involved somehow, spewing some bullshit about rough sex. Where do you get off telling them something like that?”

My legs are shaky, weak. “Those weren't my words.”

“They had to come from somewhere.”

“They asked me who Deirdre was involved with. That's all.”

Ben looms over me.

“Can we sit down? Please,” I implore him.

He doesn't move.

“Whatever happened with me and Deirdre was between us. You have no right to judge it. You have no right to judge me.”

“I'm not.”

“Of course you are. You always have. Don't you think I know that? Don't you think Deirdre knew it? And now you seem to have done a pretty good job of convincing the police that I was somehow involved. How dare you? How fucking dare you?”

“The police are questioning everyone, Sam, Jack Handel. It's not just you.” I will say anything to get him to back off, to leave. “It's an investigation. I'm sure they're talking to everyone Deirdre ever knew.”

Ben slows down, somewhat appeased. “Is that what they told you?”

“Yes.”

His shoulders slump and he collapses on the edge of a chair facing me, burying his head in his hands before looking up. “I can't begin to take this all in,” he says quietly. “The last time I saw her…” he stops before he finishes the sentence, either because he can't or because he thinks better of it. He looks directly into me, his eyes narrowed and focused and opaque. “She was very much alive when I left her apartment.”

“When?”

“Monday.”

“What were you doing there? I thought you two had broken up weeks ago.”

“It wasn't that simple. There were things we weren't finished with yet.”

“What things?”

He smiles slightly and then sinks into sadness. “Each other.”

“She told me that it was over.”

“Did it occur to you that Deirdre didn't always share everything with you? You know why she didn't want you to know we were still in touch? She thought you'd disapprove. She didn't want you to be disappointed in her.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She didn't have to.”

I flinch. “I know one thing,” I retort. “She was ready to be with someone who could make a real commitment to her and clearly that wasn't going to be you. Couldn't you have just left her alone? She had a chance at being happy. After all you put her through, couldn't you let her have it?”

“Who are you to decide what would or wouldn't make Deirdre happy? You assume that what works for you automatically would have worked for her.”

“If she was so damn pleased with you, why did she break it off?”

Ben leans back, runs his hands through his hair. “Deirdre didn't know what she wanted. She knew what she was supposed to want but that's not always the same thing.”

“She wanted a family. If you really loved her, you'd know how important that was to her.”

“You don't get to decide what my feelings for Deirdre were,” Ben replies angrily. “Love comes in all different iterations. Because I don't define it or expect from it the exact same thing you do doesn't give you the right to judge how much I cared about Deirdre. Or to judge her decisions either, for that matter. Deirdre was a grown woman. She was quite capable of deciding on her own who she wanted to be with.”

“Do you have any idea how much you hurt her?”

“I was always honest with Deirdre about what I could or couldn't give. I never lied to her.”

“That doesn't make it all okay.”

“I realize that. But she was responsible, too. Maybe we wanted different things, but that doesn't make one of us the good guy and one bad. You see relationships as having only one possible useful outcome, marriage, and anything else is deemed a failure. But Jesus, how many people get married because they think that's what they should do, because it's expected of them? You think they're so happy?”

“That's not the point. You strung her along for years.”

He ignores this. “Look, I know you wanted what was best, or what you thought was best, for her. And I know that she was drawn to the life Jack was offering her.”

“She told you about him?”

“Yes.” He looks up at me. “Maybe she even loved him. But that didn't mean she stopped wanting me. Or that I stopped wanting to be with her.” His face is crooked with pain. “I don't want to argue with you, Lisa. I'm trying to make sense of all this. A few hours ago I didn't even know Deirdre was gone.”

“Why did you go to see her Monday night?” I ask cautiously.

“There was something I wanted to tell her. Something I wanted her to know before I left for India.”

“What?”

“I found out that morning that my divorce was finalized.”

“You want me to believe that after all your years of arguing that monogamy is a bourgeois pipe dream you had a sudden change of heart? Did she fall for that?”

“That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I said to her. I wanted her to hold off and give me a little time to think. Maybe I was tired of how I was living, I don't know. I wasn't promising her anything. I was asking her to wait, that's all.”

“You just didn't want her to be with Jack. She was finally leaving you this time. You'd do anything to sabotage that. It was all about your ego.”

“That's not true. If I really believed that was what she wanted, if she was completely convinced that was right for her, I would have let her go without a fight.”

I don't believe him. He is lying to me or to himself.

“What makes you think she wasn't sure?” I ask.

“Because of how we made love that night,” he answers simply.

It is a long while before I speak again. “It was you, then,” I say so softly I'm not sure he even hears me. It wasn't Sam, it was never Sam, it was you. “Did you tell the police that?” I ask.

“Yes,” he answers. “I didn't really have a choice. You made sure of that.”

H
ow do you reclaim what you never admitted you had lost?

Ben is scarcely out the door before I race to call Sam and tell him of Ben's admission, barely able to mask the swell of adrenaline and relief—it was not you, it was never you. Sam listens intently, asking a few questions, waiting for me to finish. If he feels vindicated, he gives no evidence of it. But then, he cannot say “I told you so” to a question I never dared to ask out loud.

“I will never understand why she chose to be in the same room with that man,” Sam mutters.

“You don't know what she chose. You're coming dangerously close to a blame-the-victim argument,” I warn him. “For centuries men have gotten away with that ‘she was asking for it' gambit. I thought we had moved past that by now.”

“You're right. I'm sorry. I'm certainly not about to defend Ben Erickson. Do the police think that he was the last person to see her alive?”

“I don't know. I assume so. I haven't spoken to Gibbs or Callahan. I'm a bit surprised they didn't hold him for further questioning.”

“I hate to say it, but having sex is not a crime. They'll need more than that. With Ben involved, it will be a high-profile case when it breaks. They're going to make sure to dot all the
i
's and cross all the
t
's.”

In the background I can hear the cries of the playing fields, a cheer rising up, petering out.

I hesitate. “At least this lets you off the hook,” I say tentatively. “With the DNA test, I mean.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“Callahan still wants the name of the source I was meeting with and I'm still not giving it to him,” Sam replies. “Hopefully this will get him to back off. Look, Phoebe is on the soccer field. We can talk more when we get home.”

He hangs up and I sit very still.

I know that Sam is right, at least in part. Whatever edge Ben pushed Deirdre to, emotionally or physically, she was obviously drawn to it. As Ben made painfully clear, Deirdre kept parts of herself and her desires tucked away from me. I'm not sure whether it was my perception of her or her self-image she was trying to protect. I cannot estimate how much she left out and I filled in with my own prejudices and expectations. Realizing the discrepancies does not make me miss her any less, though. Friendship, it seems, is not contingent on full disclosure. Perhaps quite the opposite is true.

There is one more call to place, though admittedly it does not come from my best instincts. Sam may not admit to feeling vindicated but I cannot resist the urge to set the record straight. Jack was wrong. About the past, long gone and immediate, about his flawed assumptions constructed out of fragments. I understand even as I dial his number that what releases me from doubt and turmoil—it wasn't Sam with Deirdre that night—will not do the same for him. Jack may have had the wrong man, but it doesn't change the fact of Deirdre's betrayal. I will never know, none of us will, whether her interlude with Ben was a final indulgence before she bid him good-bye or an avowal of their ongoing affair, if she planned to break it off with Jack or, after a flicker of weakness, steer headfirst into a future with him. We don't get to see how the story ends.

Jack listens in begrudging silence while I tell him of Ben's
visit, his version of that night. If I expected him to offer an apology for his accusations about Sam, he makes no move in that direction.

“Let me know when the police come to their senses and arrest Erickson,” he says brusquely.

“Jack, I'm sorry,” I offer quietly. I can afford to be more generous now. My husband has been returned to me in full. “I know this must be so difficult for you.”

“It's over, it's the past,” he replies coolly, quick to minimize his hopes and his disappointments, his own feverish anticipation of attaining what he had always longed for. I understand that it is far easier to get over a romantic failure if you diminish it, but the rapidity of his about-face stuns me nevertheless.

When Sam and the girls get home, covered in mud and grass stains, I listen to the roundup of soccer scores, the accusations of unnecessary roughness, the teams they almost beat but didn't. The exertion seems to have done both girls good, the concentration and sheer physicality required for play pushing aside the unhappiness of the past week. With their red cheeks and tangled hair and excitement, they seem almost like themselves again. I am glad of it even as I realize how tenuous it might be.

While Claire and Phoebe shower and get ready for dinner, Sam opens a beer and we go to sit in the living room.

“I called Gibbs after I spoke to you,” I tell him.

“Oh? What did she have to say?”

“Not much. She basically told me she didn't have the authority to share anything further about the investigation. I couldn't get any more out of her about Ben. She did say that they are ready to release Deirdre's body. The cause of death will be listed as a head injury, what did she call it, a subdural hematoma.”

“Did she say if it came from a fall or a blow?”

“I didn't ask. Do you think it matters?”

“Just curious.”

“I can't imagine Ben intentionally hurting Deirdre,” I admit.

“It could be that whatever they were doing got out of hand.”

“No matter what happened, I don't understand how he could have left her there.”

Sam takes a sip of his beer, then rests the bottle on his knee, running his forefinger around its circumference.

“People do strange things when they panic, things they may regret. Sometimes they just can't see a way back from them,” he says.

“That doesn't change anything. It doesn't excuse it.”

“No.” He finishes the rest of his beer in one long gulp. “Have you made a decision about a place for the memorial service yet?”

“Yes. The Quaker Meeting House on Fifteenth Street, the old red brick one with the white columns. Deirdre once went to a wedding there and the simplicity appealed to her. It's the only place that feels even close to right.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. I'll make calls and tell people to get in touch with whoever they think should be there. I want to do it as soon as possible, for everyone's sake. I spoke to someone at the Meeting House and he said there was an evening open next week.”

“Sounds good.” He leans over to kiss me. “I'm going to go take a shower.”

He rises and is almost to the doorway before I call after him.

“Sam? I've been meaning to ask. Is there any chance that we're going to get that fifty thousand dollars back?”

“The jury's still out. The VC guys are not buying in with any major commitment and without more capital there's no way to staff up properly. They're scavenging around but everyone is in a cautious mood. In the meantime, I will continue to cling to the masthead for dear life until they figure a way to outsource magazine writing to India.”

I watch him as he turns and walks down the hallway.

We will recover. We will stitch ourselves back together, mending the rip, and if the seams will never be invisible, the fabric permanently flawed, it will be a whole cloth nevertheless. I'm almost certain of it.

After we eat, we skip the news and spend the rest of the evening watching bits and pieces of old movies, paying little attention, until it is time to tuck the girls in.

We go to sleep side by side.

But Sam's insomnia has not abated; he is restless and twitchy, unable to get much rest. The next morning, though it is Sunday, I hear him in the kitchen making coffee at six fifteen. I do not ask what is eating away at him in the night: We are still standing on jagged pieces of land separated by a quake, it is understandable.

He spends the day at his computer while I take the girls shopping for winter coats.

By Monday morning, after another sleepless night, Sam is bleary-eyed and snappy.

I join him in the kitchen before the girls get up.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

“Fine. I just need to finish this story on the bank mortgages. Simon is losing patience and the police badgering him isn't helping any.”

“What do the police have to do with it?”

“They called him over the weekend asking him a bunch of questions including the name of my source. I thought they'd leave it alone by now but they haven't.”

“Does Simon know who it was?”

“Of course not. I don't get why no one seems to understand the definition of
confidential
these days. Anyway, Simon assured me he'd back me up, but it's not winning me any points, I can tell you that. He is obsessed with the word
increasingly
lately. Every article has to have it as a justification within the first two paragraphs. As in, Simon is increasingly interested in downsizing our staff.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes. He's hired an efficiency expert to spend a month on premises and then submit a report. No efficiency expert has ever come to the conclusion you're doing everything right and there is no money to be saved. If nothing else, they have to justify their own fees. This guy is determined to figure out why it takes half the
number of people to get out a magazine in Europe than it does here.”

“Why does it?”

“I'm not sure. I'd prefer to think we have higher journalistic standards rather than that we are bloated and self-indulgent but I may be in the minority. Even if I'm right, I doubt it will matter. Head count is the mantra of the day.”

“I am going to get a new job, you know,” I assure him.

“I'm not worried.”

I raise one eyebrow.

“Okay, a little worried,” he admits, smiling. “But not about you.”

After Sam leaves I break down and call a headhunter who has come highly recommended.

“I would love to talk to you about the ‘Lisa Barkley' brand,” she assures me.

Despite my distaste, I make an appointment for eleven thirty the following day. I get out my résumé, update my history of employment and try to come up with answers for the inevitable question of why I decided to leave Merdale. I rehearse saying, “I am looking for a new challenge,” though in truth a challenge is the last thing I want. I've had more than enough, thank you very much. I don't suppose, though, I can walk in and say, At this point, what I'm really looking for is an easy ride.

Aside from a quick trip out to buy stationery to print my résumé on and another when I realize I am out of ink, I have an overwhelmingly unproductive afternoon. I wander the apartment, conscious of all the useful things I could be doing, but I don't even bother to fool myself that any of them are about to happen.

There has been no further word. If the police are coming any closer to arresting Ben, I see no sign of it. The dearth of any discernible progress baffles and then worries me, the solution I had been so sure of growing fuzzy around the edges, elusive.

On Monday night, Sam stays late to finish his piece. I order in food, put newspaper down on the living room floor and rent a dippy romantic comedy. Phoebe, Claire and I watch it while we eat, an il
licit girl party. They are surprised by my lack of discipline—it is a school night, after all—but they don't question it. They are weighing the signs of domestic aberrations, looking for clues. There was no milk in the house at breakfast, I did not scold them for leaving their beds unmade. It is beginning to make them both nervous. I vow to myself to be more attentive.

I am half-asleep when Sam comes home past midnight and assures me that everything is fine, he filed his story, go back to sleep, I didn't mean to disturb you. I drift off while he washes up.

The next morning, I dress carefully for the interview and make the girls hot chocolate. When Phoebe and Claire make their way into the kitchen, I try to convince them that they also need to eat something, but they both insist the hot chocolate fills them up far too much to contemplate anything else. I let it go. At least it's protein. And calcium. Things could be worse. Rumor has it that a few of the girls they know have Pop-Tarts for breakfast, though considering the nutritional compulsions most of the parents in their set display, this could well be an urban myth.

They don't protest when I tell them that I will ride part of the way on the Madison Avenue bus, leaving them to go the last twenty blocks alone, and the three of us walk out into the dank gray morning together. When the bus comes we find seats in the back and I ask them both what classes they have. I can never keep it straight. Is Tuesday a good day with art and gym, or a bad day with math and science? They answer as patiently as they can before Claire pulls out her iPod and Phoebe doodles on the cover of her history text.

When we reach Sixty-sixth Street I kiss them both good-bye, though they shudder at the mortifying public display of maternal affection, and rush off the bus before the doors slam in my face.

I have decided to follow Tara's advice and go to the benefit meeting this morning, knowing that if I continue to avoid Georgia I will have years of torture ahead of me. I figure my best course of action is to take the high road and pretend the whole thing never happened, which, I suspect, will have the added benefit of depriving
Georgia of the satisfaction of overtly cutting me. I have stashed an Ativan for courage and Tara's daughter's pig mug in my bag.

Six women have already gathered in Georgia's living room when her maid lets me in. A fire is lit against the chill and they stand a few feet from its warm radius, chatting amiably in indecipherable voices. As soon as they see me, all conversation comes to an abrupt stop. Georgia turns, noticeably shocked by my presence. She quickly regroups and walks toward me.

“Lisa, I'm surprised you made it this morning,” she says, smiling acidly as she approaches.

“Really? I've only missed one meeting,” I remind her.