Part 12 (2/2)

Inside, Jeremy springs for two first-cla.s.s tickets. ”Why not?” he asks. ”We could both use it.”

”I'm not arguing,” she says.

On the train, they sit across from one another. Jeremy thinks she looks as though the morning's news has literally taken the air out of her. Her skin seems to have drooped, her body to have crumpled, softened. She seems emptied, somehow-as though she's physically connected to Zoe still.

”You look tired,” he says.

”Tired and sad.” She adjusts her seat and leans back.

When the train starts to roll, Jeremy watches the same scenery he watched the day before. It's oncoming this time, but again he is filled with a terrible sense of leaving something behind. So much for optical stimuli tricking his brain. Apparently, it's just his fate to carry this sense of departure in himself.

They speak very little for the first hour, just a few pa.s.sing comments about the pa.s.sing scenery, how endlessly pretty, how English.

”Believe it or not, I miss the ugliness sometimes,” she says. ”There's nothing like the Jersey Turnpike over here. Hideous as it is, it was home.”

”But you love it here.”

”I do. I love it the way you love something that isn't ever going to be yours. Not really. I hate the idea of being buried here, you know. Funny, isn't it? Odds are I'll have lived here for decades by then, but I still hate the idea.”

He almost asks what keeps her there, but catches himself. ”It's good for Zoe that you're here,” he says instead.

Cathleen shrugs. ”I don't seem able to protect her,” she says. ”You know, I think it's all these pregnancies that made her... made her agree to you being here.” He doesn't say anything. ”I couldn't tell you this yesterday, but that's what I meant about her changing. She's a more sympathetic person now. More tender. I see her trying to take care of people now. And I'm sure it's because of all this heartache. I don't know if that makes sense.”

It makes perfect sense. ”It must be terrible for her,” Jeremy says. ”I can't imagine it.”

”Terrible all around.” Then, with a sigh of resignation to something greater than having to pee, Cathleen pushes herself up and goes to use the loo.

Alone, Jeremy stares out at the painterly landscape, thinking it all through, and it begins to be obvious to him that he's gone about this all wrong. All of it. Not just the shameful thirteen years during which he more or less abandoned her, but this visit too. This meekness. This civility. Why did it never seem real to him that time was a limited quant.i.ty? Only with Rose is he aware of moments flying by, of a strand of pain running continually through him because of that. What did he think he was doing? He should have taken Zoe aside and begged for her forgiveness right away. He should have asked outright how he could make amends. Or not taken her aside at all but begged in front of Colin and Cathleen and the wandering cow and the old man on the tractor and the cat and the dog.

What had he been waiting for? A slaughtered bird?

When Cathleen comes back, she trips over the handle of the little leather bag tucked beneath her chair and he steadies her with his arm.

”It's a wonder I didn't walk in front of the train,” she says. ”I'm barely in my own head.”

She pushes the bag back under the seat. It isn't much more than a big pocketbook, he realizes, nothing possibly big enough for the many days she'd been planning to stay. He asks her if she's forgotten her things at the farm. ”It would be understandable,” he says. ”Given what's going on.”

She frowns, looks puzzled.

He points to the bag. ”I just mean, that can't be enough luggage for all those days.”

”Oh no, it isn't.” She seems to hesitate. ”I keep some clothes up there.”

”Right.” Of course she would.

The train comes to a halting stop at a dingy little station. The building's brick is practically black, the windows either boarded or shattered. As far as Jeremy can tell, no one gets on or off.

”She told me last time it's an impossible kind of grief,” Cathleen says as they start up again. ”That people are always hurrying you past it. Telling you just to go get pregnant again. I feel bad sometimes that it never happened to me. It was so easy for us. I feel guilty about it.”

”I can't believe the doctors have no explanation.”

”You know, she wasn't letting herself think about there being a real baby, this time. She told me that. Christ, it was just yesterday. Right before dinner. Not even wondering about the s.e.x. She and Colin had a pact not to talk about it.”

When the food cart comes through, they both shake their heads no.

At one point, his phone vibrates in his pocket. He lets it go, then checks. Rose. Just waking up, no doubt. ”Not feeling very chatty,” he says to Cathleen as he puts it back.

”No. Nor am I. Was that her?” she asks. ”Rose?”

”Yes.”

After a few seconds, she says, ”I can't tell, Jeremy. Is this something serious?”

He thinks for a moment. ”Not really,” he says. ”It's not frivolous, but it's not what you mean.”

She nods, turns to the window.

This is where they failed, all those years back, he believes. In taking care of one another when tragedy struck. It broke them, broke them all. The truth about his life can wait for a better time.

”I suppose neither of us has had much luck along those lines,” she says. ”Finding true love.”

”Not yet maybe,” he says. ”But there's still time.”

It isn't romantic jealousy he's protecting her from now. It's something else. Not that he's found love with another but that he's found love first. That he's leaving this limbo they've shared for thirteen years.

The train makes another quick stop and this time a quartet of boys get on. To Jeremy's surprise they settle in first cla.s.s. ”I hope to G.o.d they're not too rowdy,” he says.

”I can't believe anyone buys kids first-cla.s.s tickets.” Cathleen checks her watch. Then, just a couple of minutes later, she checks it again. He can't imagine her hurry.

”I was thinking we could have lunch somewhere,” he says.

Little furrows appear in her brow. ”I'm sorry, Jeremy,” she says. ”I should have told you. There's somewhere I need to go.” One of the boys laughs raucously and another pa.s.senger shushes him. ”I have to leave you at the station, I'm afraid. I'm heading the other way.”

He almost asks, ”The other way from what?” since he doesn't have a destination, no hotel room, nowhere he has said he needs to be, but he catches himself. It isn't a mistake, he realizes. It's a lie. ”That's fine,” he says. ”I know my way around.”

”Maybe another time.” She's looking down the open, empty corridor. He watches as her brow's furrows begin to smooth, some knot of tension leaving her face. Gradually, the ridges vanish, the shadows disappear. A network of thin lines remains. Lines that weren't there a decade before.

When she catches him staring, he smiles without much conviction, then turns to the window once again.

It doesn't make any sense. There's no reason for her to lie. Though it's possible that she made an appointment, a rendezvous, while in the bathroom. It occurs to him that she may be protecting him in precisely the way he just protected her. The thought is an appealing one. Two lies told for kindness, a bookend to the parallel confessions they made years before.

Outside, the landscape begins to show unfortunate signs of civilization. Beige, concrete buildings spring up like the mushrooms he has studied all these years. Just as ugly, just as poisonous in their way.

”We're going to be late,” Cathleen says, just as they enter a tunnel. ”A little over fifteen minutes. Nothing to do about it, I suppose. Did you notice, Jeremy? I'm not afraid of tunnels anymore. Remember how bad I used to be?”

In the darkness, the gla.s.s has become a mirror. He watches her reflection as she checks her watch again, then begins to drum her fingers on the armrest. She's clearly impatient to meet whoever it is.

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