Page 72 of Wrong Mail

"You're not helping me either." He softens it with his good half of a smile. "Please. It's your birthday. Let one of us salvage something of it."

Henry appears at the door.

I get the feeling he’s been outside the whole time.

That’s the thing about him. He’s always just outside the door of the thing that's happening to me. He has my arm wrap in his hand, the one I left on the back of my chair out on the terrace.

I didn’t ask him to fetch it. I didn’t see him fetch it.

He says, to David, “I can run her home, if you like. I’m about to leave, anyway.”

David looks at him, then at me. For a breath, I think he’s going to say no. But he is tired, bleeding, and probably feels cornered.

“Sure. Thank you, Henry.”

The first fat drops hit the windshield as we come off the club road. Three of them, then nothing, then three more. The storm is still making up its mind.

Henry drives carefully, both hands on the wheel, taking his time. The club falls away behind us. The dark closes in on the cedars, the water and the long road as he takes me home. For a while neither of us says anything, and the silence is a relief, the first quiet moment of the whole night.

“That’s a birthday you won’t forget,” Henry says.

I almost laugh.

"He'll be all right," Henry says. "David. It's a split lip and a bad story. Both will heal."

"The story doesn't." I watch the wipers clear drops and wait for more. "You saw them all. You saw their faces. By tomorrow it's a thing that happened. By the weekend, it's the story everybody is telling, and it doesn't matter what's true."

"No," Henry agrees. "It rarely does."

He's quiet a while. Then he asks it lightly, his eyes never leaving the road. “Do you think there is anything to what Chris said tonight? You know… about David and Julia?”

"No." It comes out fast. "Not a chance. Julia and David are complete opposites. She's always making underhanded remarks about him."

"Maybe so." He lets it sit. "But people put on a front sometimes to steer you away from the truth."

"Not David. You don't know him like I do." I don't look at him when I say it.

He doesn't argue. I’m grateful for that. The last thing I need is to defend my marriage.

We turn onto the point. Houses glow behind the cedars on either side of the road, with the lake black beyond them. I close my eyes for a second and let the car carry me.

"Can I ask you something?" Henry says. "You can tell me it's none of my business."

“Sure.”

"Your husband." He says it carefully, his eyes on the road. "I know what he said about your diagnosis. But do you ever wonder if that's the only reason he doesn't want you looking into Oregon?"

Chapter Twenty-Three

Idon't answer him, and Henry lets it go.

That’s the thing about Henry I keep forgetting when he isn't around. He asks the question everyone else keeps circling, then turns his eyes back to the road and lets the silence do the work.

And somehow, because he doesn't push, I want to tell him.

“He’s just being overly protective,” I say finally. "It's not Oregon. It's the diagnosis. Kane told him that if I went back to work too fast, if I started forcing memories before my mind was ready, I could fracture whatever's holding me together." I hear how practiced it sounds. "David took that like scripture because it gives him peace of mind.”

I look out at the road.