In Between Days Read online

  As she exhales, she shakes her head again. “How is this happening?” she says finally.

  “What?”

  “This,” she says, motioning toward the phone on the floor, the room. “I mean, what did we do wrong? What did we do to deserve this?”

  Elson puts his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off.

  “Just start at the beginning,” he says, sitting down now on one of the stools at the counter. “Tell me what she said.”

  “It’s what she didn’t say,” Cadence says. “It’s what she’s not telling us.”

  “Okay,” Elson says. “But she must have said something.”

  “She did. She said she needed more time.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “Well, how much more time does she need?”

  “Two more days.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes, two.”

  Elson shakes his head at this. “Jesus,” he says, losing his calmness now. “And that’s it. That’s all she said?”

  “No. She also said that if we called the police, or spoke to anyone, we would be ruining her life.”

  At this, Elson stands up and begins to pace. “Is she still in Houston?” he says.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, what were the two of you talking about?”

  “We weren’t talking. I was yelling at her. I don’t know. All this shit, you know. What she’s putting us through. I just lost it.”

  Elson walks over and picks up the phone. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Elson.”

  “Seriously. This is ridiculous.”

  “Not tonight,” she says.

  “Why not tonight?”

  “Because I don’t think I can take any more tonight,” she says, and then pauses. “And besides,” she says, looking down, “I have somewhere to go.”

  “Where?”

  “I have to meet a friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  Cadence says nothing.

  “Which friend, Cadence?”

  “Elson, one of the privileges of being divorced is that I don’t have to tell you every fucking little detail about my life.”

  Elson stares at her, catching on. “You’re dating someone?”

  “I’m not having this conversation right now.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Elson.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s no one you know.”

  At this, Elson can feel the ground beneath him giving way, his body loosening. He feels as if he’s just been hit by a very large weight. Moving over to the other side of the kitchen, he sits down at the kitchen table and stares at Chloe’s journal. He’s known for some time that this was going to happen, that sooner or later Cadence would meet someone, but now that it’s a reality, now that she’s actually telling him it’s a reality, he doesn’t feel prepared to accept it.

  On the other side of the kitchen, Cadence is quiet and perfectly still, perhaps preparing herself for an explosion, bracing herself for a fight, but Elson doesn’t move. He doesn’t do a thing. He is somewhere else now, outside of himself. He is back in the front seat of his car on that late-summer evening in 1981 when he first saw Cadence coming out the front door of his friends’ house, moving slowly across the lawn. He is remembering the way her body emerged from the darkness, the way her face was suddenly illuminated by the lampposts along the street, and the excitement he felt upon seeing her, this beautiful woman, the future mother of his children, the way he knew, even before she spoke, even before she said a word, that something remarkable was happening.

  3

  IF SHE HAD TO BE HONEST, she hadn’t expected it. She hadn’t expected that reaction. She’d expected something else—maybe a fight, or an argument—but not that. She hadn’t expected he’d actually cry. In all the years she’d known him, in all the years they’d been married, she had only seen him cry once, when his father died, and even then, he’d done it privately, in their bedroom, with the door shut. She hadn’t known how to interpret it, how to react. She’d been expecting him to explode at her, to lose his cool, but instead Elson had sat there quietly, saying nothing, staring out at the pool. When she finally walked over to him, he looked up at her with something like desperation, and that’s when she’d realized he was crying.

  “Elson,” she’d said and touched his shoulder, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he just turned around and looked back at the pool.

  “I should go,” he’d said finally.

  “You don’t have to,” she’d said. “You can stay. We can talk.”

  But he shook his head. And later, as they stood at the door, he’d said, “I’m sorry, Cadence. I’ve done some terrible things to you. I really have, and I’m sorry for that.” Then he’d turned around and, without saying anything else, had walked down the pathway to his car.

  After he left, she stood by herself in the kitchen for a long time, staring out at the pool, trying to process what had happened. For years, she’d believed she was incapable of hurting him, or that he was incapable of being hurt. Even throughout their divorce, he’d been impervious to her insults, her attacks, her accusations. He seemed to have this ability to deflect almost anything she said. He seemed to have this barrier around him. So what had happened since then? Had he really changed? Or had he always been this way? As much as she hated to admit it, she’d been strangely touched by it all, the whole scene, the sight of him crying, his grave, unexpected apology. She wondered what he was doing now, where he had gone after he left. For the first time in a long time, she found herself wondering if he was okay.

  On the other side of the Hyatt Regency bar, Gavin is talking to the bartender, a slim older woman, who is making them drinks. Cadence is sitting by herself at a small table in the corner, watching him, trying to think up a good excuse for why she can’t stay here tonight, hoping she doesn’t have to, though of course it had been her idea to come here in the first place. She had actually insisted on it—to spice things up, she’d told him earlier—though in reality it had been much more complicated than that. Ever since she’d last made love to Gavin, she’d been dreading the idea of going to his apartment. She found it depressing, she realized now, the darkness of it, the smell of sweaty gym socks, the constant clutter around the room. Initially, Gavin had suggested another place, a small motel down the street from his apartment, where they could meet. It would be closer, he’d said, and cheaper. But she had bristled at this. “I’m not a prostitute,” she’d responded. “If you’re worried about money, I’ll pay.”

  He hadn’t said anything to this but had eventually agreed to go to the Hyatt. Later, when they arrived, they’d gone straight up to the room and tried to make love, but Gavin had had some trouble, something he blamed on the medication he was taking, and so they’d finally given up and come down to the bar.

  Now, however, as she sits here, staring at him, she feels only sadness, sadness and guilt. She feels guilt for the way she left Elson earlier, the way she didn’t comfort him as she should have, and sadness for the way she yelled at Chloe, the way she ruined any future chances for reconciliation. She realizes now that ever since the night that Chloe disappeared, she’s been blaming herself for what happened, for her disappearance and, more specifically, that she’s begun to associate Gavin with this guilt. If she’d been at home, after all, instead of with him, this might have never happened. She might have been able to stop her. This isn’t fair to Gavin, of course. He’s been nothing but supportive. But still, she can’t help it. Every time she looks at him, every time she stares at his face, she sees the evidence of her own bad behavior, her own guilt, and has to turn away. In retrospect, she should have just canceled with him the moment she got that text message from Chloe earlier that day, or at least after she’d spoken to her that night, but for some reason she hadn’t. For some reason she’d thought that seeing Gavin might provide her with a temporary respite from it all, a little
distraction, though now, more than anything, she simply wants to leave.

  When Gavin finally returns, he places a vodka tonic down in front of her and shakes his head.

  “Guess how much these cost?” he says, smiling.

  She looks at him.

  “Just guess.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Twelve bucks apiece,” he says. “Can you believe that?”

  “I’ll get the next round.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he says defensively. “I’m just saying that that’s a lot of money, don’t you think, for a shot of vodka and a little tonic?”

  She shrugs. Lately, his obsession with money, with the amount things cost, has begun to annoy her. Every time he looks at a menu, he’ll shake his head in disbelief, or roll his eyes, and later, as they’re eating, he’ll say things like, So how does that ten-dollar sandwich taste? or Hey there, how’s that three-dollar latte? It seems ironic to her. For someone who majored in business, who actually teaches classes in business, he seems to be constantly surprised by the concept of a free-market economy and cost-push inflation. In a way, that’s why she chose the Hyatt. She wanted to test him, to see how deep his stinginess ran. Now, however, as he sits there silently, she feels bad for her rudeness.

  “So you were telling me,” he says, after a moment, “about your daughter.”

  She looks at him. “I was?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was I saying?”

  “That she called you tonight.”

  “Oh, right,” she says, trying to remember how much she’d told him. Somehow the day’s intake of alcohol has muddied her memory, sullied her thoughts, and she feels suddenly regretful for saying anything. Long ago she had vowed never to mention any of this stuff to him, to leave him out of it.

  “You were talking about the cops,” he continues, “how you were thinking about calling them now.”

  “Yeah,” she says, nodding. “Well, I’ve changed my mind about that.”

  “You have? Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, looking over at the bartender. “I just don’t think we should.”

  He looks at her, sips his drink. “Oh yeah?” he says finally.

  “She asked us not to.”

  He seems to consider this, says nothing.

  “You disagree?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s none of my business.”

  “You look like you disagree.”

  “I don’t,” he says. “I don’t know enough about the situation, actually, to have an opinion.” Then he pauses for a long time, and she can see that he’s turning it over in his mind, processing it. Finally, he says, “It’s just that she seems a little young, you know.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that you’re putting a lot of faith in a girl who’s only twenty-one.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well, she’s not a dolt,” she says. “I trust her.”

  He looks at her, says nothing, and she realizes then that she might have misspoken, that by suggesting that her own daughter was not a dolt, he might have thought she was implying that his son was. His son, the kid with special needs. His son, the boy he never talks about.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

  “I know,” he says. “It’s fine.” He picks up his drink then and turns toward the jazz trio in the corner who are setting up their instruments.

  The truth is, he talks so little about his son that she often forgets that he exists. He had brought him up once, that first night, had talked about him for a while, about how he was mentally challenged and so forth, but ever since that night, he hasn’t mentioned him. There are no pictures of his son in his apartment, no drawings on the refrigerator, no toys hidden in the closet. No evidence at all that he exists. In her weaker moments, she often reverts to her initial suspicion that he might have made this child up for the sole purpose of luring women back to his apartment, of gaining their sympathy and trust. It’s a ridiculous suspicion, of course, but for some reason she feels it returning to her now, feels the weight of it on her mind. She stares at him for a long time, then finally says, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why don’t you ever mention him?”

  “Who?”

  “Your son.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You never talk about him.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No,” she says, “you don’t.”

  He stares at her, shrugs his shoulders. “I guess I’m just protective of him, you know.”

  “But you don’t even have a picture of him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In your apartment. There isn’t one picture of him. Don’t you think that’s a little strange? I mean, there’s nothing. No toys. No video games.”

  “He doesn’t play video games.”

  She stares at him.

  “What are you implying?”

  “I’m not implying anything.”

  “You think I made him up or something?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Why the hell would I make him up, Cadence? Jesus. What purpose would that serve?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, raising her eyebrows now in innuendo. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  At this, though, she can see she’s hit a nerve, that she’s upset him, that she’s gone too far.

  “You’re sick,” he says.

  “Gavin.”

  “Seriously. You’re fucking sick. I know you’re upset about your daughter and all, but Jesus, Cadence, this is too much.” Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. She can see that his fingers are shaking. After a moment, he pulls out a picture and lays it down before her. The picture is of him and a boy standing outside a theme park in Houston, their arms draped loosely around each other, their faces beaming. The boy is a carbon copy of Gavin.

  She stares at the picture and feels her stomach drop, feels such a deep sense of shame that she can barely speak. What made her think she could mention this? What gave her the right to express her deepest, most irrational fears? Was it simply the alcohol, or was it something else? Was she finally losing her mind?

  “I’m sorry,” she finally manages. “I feel like shit.”

  He shakes his head, says nothing, then excuses himself to the bathroom. But when he returns, a few minutes later, he seems fine. He says he understands, that he knows she’s under a lot of stress right now, that he can’t even imagine what she’s going through. He suggests that they just forget about it.

  His kindness, of course, makes her feel even worse. She doesn’t deserve him, she thinks. Any normal man would have discarded her by now. She reaches across the table and grabs his hand. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “Truly.”

  But he says nothing. He doesn’t say a word.

  To appease him, and to mollify some of her own guilt, she agrees to spend the night with him. Upstairs in their room, she allows him to undress her, to sit there on the bed and stare at her naked body as she stands before him, something that she knows he likes to do. When it comes to the lovemaking, however, Gavin is unsuccessful again, something that he blames this time on the alcohol.

  They lie there for a long time in silence, but there is no warmth between them. Whatever warmth there once was is gone now. She studies his chest, the smooth hairless surface of it, the paleness of his skin. She runs her hand up and down his legs, across his ribs, but he doesn’t move.

  Later, after he’s fallen asleep, she lies there for a long time feeling empty and worn out. Her thoughts return to Chloe and the question that’s been bothering her all night: Should they have called the police, or should they just wait it out and trust her? What would a responsible parent do? What would her own parents do? Nothing she’s ever read about parenting has prepared her for this
particular dilemma. There’s no guidebook for what to do when something like this happens. After all, if they did call the police, they might end up implicating Chloe even more than they wanted. Then again, if they did nothing at all, they might end up putting her in even worse danger. She leans back on her pillow and closes her eyes, her mind returning to Chloe’s journal and a troubling passage she’d read earlier that day, a passage she’d decided not to show Elson, a passage written only a day before Chloe left:

  I guess if he wanted me to, I would. I mean, if I knew we could be together afterward, I would. I would do it.

  She thinks about these words, what they mean, then looks back at Gavin and the clock, wondering how much longer she has to stay.

  4

  FOR MONTHS, she had imagined bringing him home to Houston with her. She had imagined driving him around town, introducing him to her parents, showing him her old high school. She had always felt an affinity toward Houston that no one up at Stratham seemed to understand. To them, Houston represented big hair and cowboy hats and conservative politics, but to Chloe, it had always meant something else. Houston was the world of her childhood, a magical place, a place that she had always felt truly herself, and it was this side of Houston that she wanted to show Raja, and had circumstances been different she honestly believed that he would have embraced the city in the same way she had. Instead, however, they’d spent most of their time holed up in Brandon’s apartment, arguing and complaining about the heat, and she could tell now that he disliked it, that he wasn’t happy here, that he maybe even wished he hadn’t come.

  Of course, given the circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have been happy anywhere. Ever since he’d arrived, he’d been sullen and removed. It was a side of him she’d never seen before, and it bothered her. They’d fought more in the past few days than they had during the entire course of their relationship, and though she’d found ways of explaining this, attributing it to the heat or to their claustrophobic living situation, she couldn’t help wondering whether it was something else, if he had maybe grown tired of her, or if she had maybe disappointed him in some way. She wondered what else she could have possibly done for him. After all, she was essentially jeopardizing her own future to save his. But when she’d brought this up to him the night before, when they were fighting, he’d reminded her that it had been her idea for him to come down here in the first place.