Aileen had this idea that no educated person could believe in God. Politely, Rhea had offered the counterargument: intolerance works both ways. When that hadn’t worked, she’d shut her down, which had been easy, because Rhea knew her Bertrand Russell.
The rest of them left to get the fresh babka that had just come out of the oven. She’d thought the argument was over. But then, red-eyed with fury, Aileen had scooted her chair close to Rhea, like they hadn’t been teacher-student at all. Like this was the schoolyard, and Rhea was still that awkward, scrawny kid who hid in hallways to avoid recess. Who called home from the office every chance she got. Once in a while, she’d caught her dad when he wasn’t at work but had stayed home sick. He always came when that happened. He’d drive her back home, car swerving. They’d always napped together on the couch the rest of the afternoon, watching old sci-fi.
“This is about your father,” Aileen had said, fast, so no one else would hear.
Rhea had stared down at her beer. The noise in the café had been so loud that she’d wondered if she’d misheard. “What do you know about my dad?”
“Everybody who clings to this fairy tale of an all-supreme being—it’s always daddy issues.”
Rhea had looked away, trying to hide her full eyes.
“I don’t care that you’re my teacher. I’m older than you anyway. Just be honest and admit that there is no God. He’s dead.”
“My father was perfect,” Rhea had answered.
Aileen had looked at Rhea askance, like there was something wrong with her. She’d unmasked something broken in her teacher that she’d craved to see.
The students getting their babka returned. Aileen excused herself, and then Rhea did, too. And then, somehow, she’d kicked in a door. Sprained her knee against it. The face on the other side hadn’t looked right.
Rhea’s knee burst with pain now, just remembering. Or perhaps she’d been hitting it with the Pain Box, that was why. Somehow, more than an hour had passed since Fritz had come knocking. The Black Hole had ended and started anew. It was at the opening credits, the John Barry overture wild and foreboding and even cheerful. After Star Wars and 2001, America had been so excited about things like gravity boots and rotating hallways, a future of space stations and galaxy exploration. They’d expected such great things.
She put Shelly’s box in her desk. Pain shooting through her bad knee, she got up and she shut the door behind her. Let The Black Hole keep playing in there, by itself. A loop upon a loop upon a loop.
Dishes had piled up in the kitchen. She’d cooked pasta with butter tonight, left it on the table for them, and retreated into her office, like she’d done most nights since Shelly. The house was quiet, the heat oppressive. Circulars and newspapers, letters of condolence, had all fallen to the tribal Persian rug. She’d bought it for the authentic indigo, so much more subtle than the typical methylene.
She climbed the stairs, where another tribal Persian rug ran the length. She listened first at Ella’s door, heard soft breathing. Next at FJ’s, heard the same. Last at Shelly’s. She listened for a long time. Imagined the breathing there. Willed it.
Time passed. More than should have passed. Fritz Sr. had to be asleep. It had to be safe, by now, to go to bed. She limped all the way down the hall, to her room. Opened the door. He was awake, even though it had to be after three. He sat on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, his shoes perfectly neat and facing out the way he liked. Beside him was a wet washcloth, which he’d used to clean his ears.
She sat a few feet from him, on the other side of their enormous bed. He smelled like tea rose, her favorite of his scents, and she thought that perhaps now was the time. In the dark, at night, with a man who’d been so invisible to her for so long that it would be like telling no one. She would confess about the Hungarian Pastry Shop, and about all those doubts she’d had, which she’d never voiced when she’d agreed to marry him. How she’d found herself so very alone on Maple Street. How she’d turned inward. How she’d used a brush. Most of all, she would tell him about the murk that had weighed her down ever since The Black Hole. The murk she couldn’t wash clean of, that had assumed a personality all its own. The murk that had committed unspeakable acts.
She’d tell him these things, and in doing so, unmake them. It would be as if going back in time, back before Shelly, back before the Hungarian Pastry Shop, washed clean to the better life she should have lived. She willed this so very much.