Ted thought about her. Sometimes he thought he could smell her perfume in the elevator. She wore Fracas—a perfume that came in a square black bottle. When she switched to the Events Planning Department on the tenth floor, he was relieved. He never had reason to go there. When he jerked off at home or when he traveled, thinking of her red hair helped him to come. When he made love to Ella, he wished his wife’s body were more like Delia’s—the feminine hollow of Delia’s narrow waist and the full S-curve of her bottom. Making love to Delia had made him feel complete. Happy. Was that what the married bond trader had been talking about? Ted was almost tempted to ask him as much. But Delia was a slut. This was what Ted reminded himself when he felt like punching her four-digit extension on his phone keys. She was a common Staten Island slut with a pretty face and a perfect ass. A whore. He had good reason to hate her, but even now he found that he could not.
Delia had taught him that it was possible to want two women, and to perhaps love two women, at once, and this knowledge terrified him, because it upset the way he thought of things. Life was easier to operate when objects were in their place.
He could hear Ella crying in their bedroom. What did she want him to do? If she told him to leave now and never return, he’d have done it, because she deserved as much. And he thought of church and God and all the things he had learned from his simple parents, who had worked in the same fucking cannery for thirty years, about never lying or stealing or wanting something that you have no right to have, to know his place in the world and to never overreach, and how he had disagreed with so many of their tenets because he didn’t want to be them. But now he thought: They never hurt me. Except by their failure. Ted clutched his head with both hands. The older men at the cannery always said his father, Johnny Kim, was a man whose yes was yes and whose no was no. Ted had let himself get defiled.
He stretched his legs and got up from the chair. He stood by the bedroom door.
“Ella, Ella, please let me in,” he said. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I haven’t seen her in a year. I made a terrible mistake. I know I can’t take it back. Please let me in. You are my best friend. You are my only friend. I have no one in the world. Ella—”
Ella wiped her face on the pillow and got up. She moved slowly toward the door because her steps were awkward. She twisted the latch to the open position, then returned to her spot on the bed. She laid her head on the hot, wet pillow. She could not face him and turned her body away from his. Ted lay down behind her, feeling safer there, and stroked her tangled hair. Ella let him do this, not knowing what else to do. He had killed her. Her mother had died in childbirth. Ella’s life had killed her mother. And now Ted had killed her. How fair, Ella thought. How just. How symmetrical life was. How many lives did a person have to die? She felt desperate to drain her mind of anything bad, and she tried to recall happier moments. Even as short a time ago as this morning, she had felt joy even as she experienced nausea as the call car took her to the hospital for her appointment. She had talked to her daughter in her mind, saying, I want to feel you so much, and I will take care of you forever. Even Ella’s limbs had felt hopeful or cooperative, if that were possible. She had believed that morning that her daughter was conceived in a pure kind of love. Ella believed in an infinite love—a kind of endless emotion that made life seem eternal. Ted was her heart first. You were supposed to forgive seven times seven times seven. Didn’t she believe that?
Ella had read stories about adultery, heard tales of people who had cheated or had been cheated on, and although she had compassion for them—the cheaters and the cheated—now she saw how flawed her feelings had been, because she hadn’t known a damn thing about it. All she felt was hatred. She felt a strong wish to disappear.
“Ella. . . Ella. . . I’m sorry. I mean it. I really am,” he said. “I said I was sorry, and I am asking for your forgiveness. You have to believe how sorry I am.”
Ella breathed as quietly as she could.
“Ella.”
“Ted, I want this child. I want everything for this child. For her to never lack. Do you understand me?” Her voice was tender.
Ted wrapped his arms around his wife, pressing his forehead in the space between her stiffened shoulder blades. Ella felt unable to say another word.
3 LUGGAGE
I THOUGHT YOU’D SEE IT MY WAY,” Sabine said, her Cheshire cat grin spreading widely.
“Very gracious of you. Really.” Casey winked. She didn’t mind the comment. In many ways, she felt good that she’d finished the business school applications. No matter what happened, at least they were off her desk. So for lunch they were celebrating her completion with veal Parmesan heroes from Ray’s. Thousands upon thousands of calories, Sabine had guessed with conspiratorial glee. “What the hell, send us the pumpkin cheesecake, too,” she’d said, placing the order. Having accurately predicted Casey’s decision that morning, Sabine had thought to bring champagne from her house for their Saturday in-office lunch, but it hadn’t been chilled yet. There wasn’t enough space in Sabine’s office refrigerator for it, and she’d been too busy that morning to call the cafeteria for ice. The imposing bottle remained unopened on the conference table, like a festive decoration. They’d drink it next week, Sabine promised, not that Casey cared. Champagne gave her a headache, but like a child, she loved holding the slim flutes and staring at the bubbles floating up.