“Sensible.”
As they traveled from the church to the cemetery, the winter sun glinting off the hood of the rental car, Jackie thought of how far she and Harlan had come in their relationship. Only nine months before, Harlan had adamantly refused to attend Jackie’s sister’s wedding. Jackie had been hurt, and worried it was a bellwether for his lack of conventional commitment to anything beyond regular date nights. But those were early days, and now he was allowing her to share in his mother’s funeral—an order-of-magnitude change. She took Harlan’s hand in hers, and he gave her a distracted smile. She imagined his stoicism as a wall behind which a beautiful and terrible loneliness swelled like a sea whipped by hurricane winds. She would gently dismantle the wall. He would allow her. Only her.
His mother’s coffin was lowered into a hole lined with Astroturf. Harlan stepped out of the small gathering of mourners, most ancient, and bent to pick up a handful of dirt from the pile beside the hole. He dropped it in. The sound was large in the silence. He returned to his place next to Jackie, a hard knot in his jaw, his shoulders too square, as if he were propping himself up. He turned to her. She hadn’t expected it and wasn’t quick enough to adopt the neutral, calm attitude that had gotten her this far. Tears flooded her eyes; her pity for him was naked.
He absorbed it like a stench, his nostrils widening, eyes narrowing. She looked away. The wavering sight of the grave was more welcome than his stern disapproval.
The remainder of the day was filled with the business of death: a reception at his mother’s house and a final meeting with the lawyer, which Jackie did not attend. She asked no questions on the plane trip home, choosing instead to wait out his anger or grief or embarrassment—whatever it was he was feeling. Like so many of her stances with Harlan, this patience went against her nature. She saw this as a good thing since her nature had not previously succeeded in placing her in a relationship in which she could stay.
Harlan ignored her. When they landed at National, she followed him out of the terminal—practically running to catch up—and stood beside him waiting for a taxi. The flight had been delayed by weather, and it was past midnight, all yellow lights and sooty shadows. She shivered, tired from the journey and the emotional jockeying.
Finally Harlan spoke. “Now you see why you should’ve stayed home.”
“No, Harlan, I don’t.”
“I didn’t want you there.”
“Everyone needs support, and I—”
“Open your eyes, Jackie. I’m not like other people.” His tone was harsh, his face lined and drawn. The wall was as high as ever, and it was costing him.
“I know that.”
He laughed, a dismissive bark. “Then why are you still here?” He made a shooing motion with his hand and turned his back to her.
Jackie sucked in her breath. He had never been cruel. Insistent and exacting, but not cruel. This was his grief.
She said nothing—what was there to say? The taxi arrived and, twenty minutes of silence later, deposited Jackie at her house.
“Good night,” she said from the sidewalk to the back-seat darkness. “Call me if you need anything at all.” She shut the door before he could answer.
On Tuesday, her text to him suggesting dinner went unanswered. When he encountered her at work, he pretended not to see her, or spoke as if to a stranger. Jackie stayed the course. Grief was a process. Two weeks after her initial text, she texted him again. The following Tuesday, Harlan replied: Friday 7 pm Enoteca. She dressed carefully. He smiled when he saw her, a genuine smile. During dinner he was solicitous, if somewhat subdued. Still grieving, no doubt. After that night, they resumed their regular schedule and their regular level of fondness and intimacy, and Harlan’s sense of humor returned. She never mentioned his mother again, accepting her pallid victory for what it was.
She takes a sip from the water bottle on her desk and thinks how during the short conversation with Harlan in her lab, she was perplexed, unable to tease out his motivation. Jackie has known him for a decade, and he just wriggled past her understanding of human behavior again. The problem in trying to understand Harlan, and therefore truly know him, is that he is, by turns, transparent and inscrutable. When he chooses, he slips behind a layer of gauze.
Jackie closes up the lab and leaves the building. Outside, the air is sharp, and the leaf-scented breeze clears her head. A group of students passes her, their conversation an excited tumble punctuated with laughter. Jackie walks more quickly, eager to see Miles and get his take on Harlan’s behavior. Miles hasn’t known him that long, but he’s undoubtedly more objective than she is. Like standing too close to anything, it’s hard to gain perspective.
And when it comes to Harlan, Jackie admits she has little perspective, only regrets and bruises.
CHAPTER 7
Miles is waiting at the bar, his back to the door, his head tipped back slightly, following the game on the screen. Thursday Night Football. Seeing him there moves her, the way his jacket strains across his back as he leans on the bar, an inch of blond hair over the collar of his shirt, the square of him. Her husband, especially when seated and viewed from behind, reminds Jackie of her father. There are other similarities: the deft movements Miles uses to fold back his shirt cuffs; the way he lowers himself into a boat as if sinking into a warm bath; how he grows still at the sight of sunlight spilled across water or a dogwood in bloom. Jackie didn’t immediately recognize these parallels, but in retrospect they help account for why she felt drawn to him and is at ease in his company.
She winds through the bar tables, goes to him, places her hand on the nape of his neck. “Hey, handsome.”
He swivels and smiles. Under his jacket he’s wearing the teal shirt she loves so much. It’s a fairy-tale color, the kind of perfect shade that’s hard to find. Miles brought it home from one of his trips—San Francisco maybe.
“Hello, beautiful.” He pulls out the neighboring stool for her. “Okay here? Or should we get a table?”
“Here’s fine.”
Miles lifts a discreet finger to the bartender, and Jackie orders a martini. Normally during the week she sticks to wine, but Harlan put her on edge. She touches Miles’s arm. “How’d your trip go?”
“Good! I signed that quarterback this morning. Lucas Bell, the one who can run. And plays smart.” Miles shakes his head. “What a rugby player he’d have made.”
Jackie lifts her hand for a high five, which he gives, grinning. “Congratulations.” Her drink arrives. “To Lucas.”
Miles touches her glass lightly with his beer glass. “To Lucas. May his draft pick be high, his endorsements be numerous, and his career be long.”
“What’s his family situation?” Jackie has learned from Miles that nothing compromises a player’s success—however defined—more often than family, whether it’s desperation for money, conflicting dreams for the aspiring superstar, or, sometimes, absence of support.
“They seem solid to me. Invested but not overly attached.”
Jackie bumps her shoulder against his. “Look who’s picking up my shoptalk.” She takes another sip of her martini. Feeling close to Miles, she’s ready to get Harlan’s visit off her chest. “Just before I left the lab, Harlan stopped by.”