When Trina passed her defense, Tom took her out to dinner at the burger joint across from their apartment. They ate fries and greasy cheeseburgers with chocolate shakes. It had been the perfect way to celebrate.
“I have to go.” Trina pushed past Addy, but the young woman reached out and grabbed Trina’s arm.
“You’re in trouble,” Addy said, her eyes steady and fixed on Trina. “There are lots of rumors going around the department.”
Trina’s brain was starting to cloud with the alcohol she’d drank so quickly. Was it the rumor that she was going to be fired? Or that the police were asking her questions down in the quadrangle at the center of campus?
“I know,” Trina said. She reached over and gently moved Addy’s hand.
“Dermot was a good guy,” Addy told her. Trina’s heart thudded against her chest.
“I didn’t know his name,” Trina said, before slipping out the door and into the cold air of the afternoon. The was of Addy’s statement held firm in Trina’s mind. Her head hummed from the whiskey and the stress and the knowledge that fucking Dr. Addy Simpson knew more than Trina realized.
CHAPTER EIGHT JOYCE
“Should I make a fire?” Joyce asked her husband. Simon nodded, and the two of them sat down in the leather wingbacks in their library, a glass of Scotch in his hand and a fire poker in hers. Of course, that wasn’t what Joyce was really asking. What she was really asking was whether they could draw a line, between the end of this day and the beginning of the next. Were they safe for now, nestled against the cold, dark night until morning came?
Joyce wanted confirmation that all that would be demanded of her now until sleep was a simple order of concrete tasks: place the fuel on the hearth, strike the match, rearrange the logs to keep the light and heat coming. That she could sit quietly with her love and know that—in this moment—he’d chosen her.
“Gary seemed a little off, don’t you think?” Simon said.
They’d had the Worthers over for dinner. Joyce made roast duck with new potatoes and asparagus. Chocolate torte for dessert with raspberries and cream. Gary and Erica hadn’t stayed for after-dinner drinks, begging off that the weather was turning and roads would be icy.
It occurred to Joyce that they were getting older, she and her husband and their friends, and that icy walkways were becoming more than just an inconvenience, but something to be accounted for and planned around.
“Their granddaughter has been sickly for some time. I know it’s weighing on them,” she replied.
“Of course.” Simon took a sip of his drink, thoughtful. They both stared into the fire. Joyce loved the glow that it cast on the well-appointed room, with the tall shelves of books emerging from the shadows in the warm light of the fire. Simon looked younger by the fire, less worn. He was only in his shirtsleeves now, his jacket discarded somewhere between the dining room and their own after-dinner libations. She loved his hands, his long fingers so capable and strong. How many lives had they saved, she wondered? What magical precision had they been taught that could stop death in its tracks?
“What are you thinking about?” he asked her, and Joyce paused because they didn’t speak to each other that way. Their thoughts were often their own. Just another reason their conversation at lunch was out of character for them.
Joyce should have stopped herself from asking.
Her mother’s voice rang in her head. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.
She decided to be honest with him.
“I was thinking about your work. About all the people you’ve helped.”
She looked up at Simon, allowing their eyes to meet. They hadn’t spoken about their lunchtime disagreement, nor were they likely to.
His face shifted subtly in the firelight, and Joyce thought she spotted a flash of pleasure.
“I had a surgery this afternoon. Gall bladder.”
“I know,” Joyce replied. Simon took a long pull from his drink and rearranged himself in the chair, crossing his legs.
“I shouldn’t have been in the operating room today.”
“Of course you should have.” The bite in Joyce’s voice didn’t surprise her or Simon. “Your patient is doing well, aren’t they? They benefited from your care.”
“Yes, but so many things could have gone wrong.” Simon held out his hand, and both of them looked at the noticeable tremor. “It’s getting worse.”
Joyce remained silent. There wasn’t much she could say that Simon didn’t already know.
“I want to talk about what happened today,” he said, standing up from his chair and turning his back to her as he faced the fire.
Something icy pulled at the back of Joyce’s neck. “You want to talk about the fact that you were drinking at lunch, even though you had a surgery scheduled in the afternoon? What’s there to say?”
Even Joyce hated herself as she said that. She was being cruel, poking at Simon in his weakest spots. Avoiding the intimacy he seemed to be seeking out in her tonight.
But that was the rub about letting someone see your soft underbelly—it made you vulnerable. And to expose herself to her husband was the worst vulnerability of all. Joyce had learned that the hard way.
She shouldn’t have drunk wine at lunch, in lieu of eating her entrée. She’d started something that she wasn’t ready to see through.
She waited for Simon to respond. The fire crackled, and Joyce reached for the poker to stir the logs into a deeper burn.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Simon finally said, still not looking at her. “I want to talk about Trina. I want to talk about why you’re so obsessed with how I feel about her.”
The emphasis Simon placed on the word “obsessed” startled Joyce. Even though she couldn’t see him, she could tell his teeth were clenched, the muscles of his jaw pulling the back of his neck tight.
She so desperately wanted to kiss that soft skin below his hairline. Joyce wished she could use her body like she once had, to place her claim on her husband without the risk of rejection.
Right now, though, she couldn’t bring herself to even reach out and touch his arm. Instead, she stared at the perfect seams of his exquisitely-made shirt. Money can buy so many things. Comfort, style, reputation.
And yet it was worthless where it really counted.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Why?” Simon countered.
“Because it’s irrelevant. I’m not obsessed with her. You’re not obsessed with her. She’s out of our life. Isn’t she?” Joyce was testing him, and they both knew it.
“Then why bring up what you did at lunch today? Why storm off like some spurned lover, embarrassing me in front of all those people?”
“I’d had too much wine and not enough lunch. It didn’t mean anything.” She found herself shrugging her shoulders, even though Simon was still turned away from her.
Joyce moved to put the poker back on its hanger along the side of the hearth, but Simon’s hand jutted out and snatched at her wrist. It had been months since she’d felt his skin on hers, and that was an accident when they’d brushed past each other in the kitchen, grabbing at cups and saucers while entertaining some other couple. Perhaps the Worthers. She couldn’t remember. All she did remember was how her hand had brushed against Simon’s, and the electricity it still struck deep inside her chest.
So much had changed, but Joyce still wanted her husband more than any other man. More than anything, if she were going to be honest with herself. Something which didn’t come as naturally to her anymore.
“Let go,” she told Simon now. Every piece of her wanted to scream the opposite.
“No.” He moved to face her. “I won’t let go. Not until you tell me that you’ll stop this. That you’ll stop letting Trina come between us.”
“I can’t promise that.”
With his free hand, Simon yanked the poker from Joyce’s hand. She couldn’t get a purchase on the smooth metal of the handle, and it slid almost effortlessly from her grip.
