Mrs. A ignores me. “Is that an Irish accent I hear?” she asks Kate. “Where are your people from?”
“Most recently, Baltimore. My father owns a construction company there.”
I tense, wondering if the Andersons will recognizeconstruction companyas code formob-owned business. But Mrs. A sails on, oblivious. “And before Baltimore?”
“County Donegal,” Kate says with a touch of pride.
An alarm rings in the kitchen, and Mrs. A jumps to her feet. “That will be the chocolate cobbler.”
“Chocolate cobbler!” Kate says, as if someone’s just awarded her a pony. “My favorite.”
That’s news to me. It occurs to me I should know my wife’s favorite dessert. It also occurs to me that I should come up with a diversion immediately, if I’m going to keep Kate from following Mrs. A into the kitchen. It’ll be a landmine in there. There are too many things I haven’t explained to Kate, too many secrets I’ve kept buried. I’m a different man here at the Andersons’ house. It was a mistake bringing her here today.
But it doesn’t feel like a mistake when I hear Kate laugh—actuallylaugh—from the kitchen. And it doesn’t feel like a mistake when Mrs. A says something in a confiding tone. It doesn’t even feel like a mistake when Mr. A says, “I know you’refar too old for me to give you a lecture on treating a woman right.”
Evan Anderson would need CPR if he ever found out how I treat my women. But I tell him, “I’ve watched you with Mrs. A. You’ve taught me a lot about how to be a good husband.”
And he has. I just haven’t had a chance to apply that knowledge, because Kate and I aren’treallymarried. We’re partners in a business transaction. I landed a client when I needed a new one. She got out from under her father’s thumb—with expert medical care for her grandmother tossed in for good measure.
That’s it. That’s all we share.
Well, that, and a mutual taste for my dungeon.
Not enough to build a real marriage. Not enough to last for decades, the way the Andersons have done.
My answer has embarrassed Mr. A. It’s embarrassed me too, admitting to how broken I am, how I didn’t have a clue what a normal family could look like before the Andersons brought me home, gave me a meal, and folded me into their lives.
“How do you think the Nationals look this year?” Mr. A asks.
“You can never have enough starting pitching,” I say. Years ago, I learned that answer works for any baseball question, whether a team is good or bad. My response works its usual magic; Mr. A goes on about the team until Mrs. A calls us in to dinner.
We sit down to industrial-size vats of pot roast and potatoes and carrots. There’s a green salad and a plate of pickles and a basket of hot rolls that look—and taste—homemade.
After grace, Mrs. A tells a story about looking for Irish butter once at the local supermarket. She spins it out for laughs—she recruited other shoppers, summoned a cashier, and finally brought in a manager who climbed into a freezer looking for Kerrygold. She paints a vivid picture of the poor man’s legs dangling above the frozen foods. I chuckle—obligingly at first, then giving way to a full belly laugh.
For the rest of the meal, Mr. and Mrs. A do their best to learn more about my wife. Kate has figured out that I’m supposed to work for a defense contractor. She gives herself a job with the Baltimore Public Schools—a mid-level coder, which would be a brilliant occupation except Mr. A wants to know if she’s ever met any of his friends in the field.
Kate deflects the questions easily. She recognizes one of the names, but they’ve never met in person. She’s never met the other folks, but that’s probably because she works out of the regional office up in Timonium.
I wonder if thereisa regional office in Timonium, but if there isn’t, Kate seems to have hit on a believable lie. It doesn’t take her long to turn the conversation to the robotics club, which keep us all occupied through the rest of dinner, dessert, and coffee.
Kate and I offer to do dishes, but Mrs. A won’t hear of our taking over her kitchen. Instead, we head out a few minutes after Mr. A catches his first yawn against the back of his teeth. Kate gets kisses on the cheek from both Andersons. I get the usual cheek-kiss from Mrs. A and a brisk one-arm hug from Mr. A.
Kate shakes her head as I pull the Camry away from the curb. “You certainly have the two of them wrapped around your little finger.”
“You’re one to speak. What did you and Mrs. A talk about in the kitchen?”
“Nothing important,” she says breezily. “Just girl talk.” She looks out the window for a long moment. When she speaks again, her tone has changed to something deadly serious. “Thank you,” she says. “For taking me with you tonight.”
“The better to feed you, my dear.” We both cleared our plates and asked for seconds. And I didn’t have to insist that Kate take a single bite.
I mean for the pet name to make her smile, but it has the opposite effect. She spends another minute or two looking out atthe city streets. She fidgets with her rings. “They’re good people,” she finally says. “It felt bad to lie to them.”
“You didn’t lie.” I keep my eyes on the road, but this conversation suddenly feels important, like each word carries extra weight. We can’t back away before we’re done.
“Linda cried.”
Fuck. I hoped Kate hadn’t noticed.
