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It’s a lot harder to do than it is to say. Especially on days like today.
When I let myself into the house at seven-thirty, I’m not quite sure what I’m going to find. I’ve been in contact with Chloe all day—phone and text—and she seems like she’s holding up pretty well. But then, she’s a master of disguise. God knows, she’s had years of practice at falling apart on the inside while staying totally calm, totally composed on the outside. Chloe doesn’t like to be exposed, doesn’t like to show her wounds to anyone, not even Tori and me. So trying to gauge her moods sometimes is more like practicing magic than actual human observation.
Which is just one more reason I’m so glad to be home. I’ll let her keep the stiff upper lip as long as Tori is here, but once we’re alone, I’m going to push. The woman who was so upset that she spent the morning dry-heaving in the bathroom isn’t suddenly okay with what’s going on, no matter what she says to me when I call.
I wind through the house looking for my wife, end up following the sound of music to the kitchen. That’s where I find her, cooking dinner and drinking what looks like Pellegrino out of a champagne glass. Although, cooking dinner is somewhat of a loose term in this situation. What she’s really doing is dancing around the kitchen with Tori to Mark Ronson’s and Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk.”
It’s so far from what I’m expecting to find that it takes me a little time to adjust. So I just stand there, in the shadows, watching my wife giggle as she tries a particularly intricate dance move. She looks good. She looks really, really good. And, judging from the empty bottles of sparkling water sitting out on the counter, she isn’t even drunk. Which makes her a better person than I am, because if I’d gone through what she has today, I’d probably be drowning my sorrows at the bottom of a tequila bottle.
The song ends with a flourish and Chloe catches sight of me as she takes an imaginary bow. There’s a part of me that expects her to flinch or to grow pale—something, anything that lets me know that she blames me for getting her into this mess to begin with. But she just smiles and holds out a hand to me as a Needtobreathe song comes on next.
I take her hand—of course I do—and pull her into my arms. Then I dance her around the kitchen as the words to “Something Beautiful” wash over us. It could be any other night, one whose day hadn’t started with half the English-speaking world calling my wife a whore. I don’t know how she does it. How she can stay so calm and look so happy even in the face of everything that’s going on around her.
I search her face, her eyes, for telltale signs of stress. She’s still too pale, but her eyes are soft instead of anxious, the skin around her mouth relaxed instead of drawn. The time with Tori has
obviously done her good.
I look over at my wife’s best friend, find her leaning against the counter, a champagne flute filled with water lifted to her lips. It’s the first time in pretty much our entire acquaintance that I haven’t seen her with an alcoholic drink in close proximity to her person and I mouth a heartfelt, “Thank you” to her as I spin Chloe around the center island. She nods back, a silly grin on her face.
The oven timer goes off just as the song ends. “So, that’s what you spent the day doing?” I ask as Chloe reaches for a pot holder. “Cooking?”
“Only the last couple of hours. We spent most of the day alternating between watching John Hughes films and the news.”
“And don’t forget cursing Brandon Jacobs’s existence,” Tori adds. “We did plenty of that, too.”
“Well, yeah.” Chloe looks a little embarrassed admitting that, but to be honest, I’d be more shocked if she hadn’t spent the day wishing my brother dead, or at least badly maimed. God knows, it’s what I did.
“We turned off the TV a while ago,” Chloe tells me as she reaches for a pot holder. “Couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I get that.”
But still I walk over to one of the cabinets that line the side of the kitchen and push a button on the side. The top opens up and a television set slowly lifts out of the console below.
“We have a TV in here?” Chloe asks, dumbfounded. “Why do we have a TV in here?”
“In case you want to follow along with a kitchen show while you’re cooking. Or catch up on the news. Whatever.” I grab the remote from the small alcove carved into the wood next to the TV stand and change the station to CNN. Currently they’re just starting their Washington recap, which means that—while they’re talking about the president’s economic policy right now—it won’t be long before they hit on Brandon. He was the huge front-runner for his district, and as such makes for good political fodder.
“We’re just about to eat,” Chloe tells me as she pulls a pan of roasted chicken out of the oven. “Maybe we could watch this later?”
“I’ll turn it off in a couple minutes,” I promise. “But right now, there’s something coming that I think you’ll want to see.”
I hate the way her voice has suddenly gone small and stressed. And if I hadn’t gotten that text from Stu a few minutes ago, I never would have turned the TV on to begin with. But I did get the text, and something tells me she’s going to want to know Miles is standing up for her. It might be seven years too late, but it’s something, especially today. Especially right now. And she deserves to see it.
“I think I’ve pretty much seen it all today. But thanks—”
“It’s not what you think. I mean, it is. But Stu just messaged me. In a few minutes—”
“Miles!” Tori exclaims.
“What?” Chloe turns to look at her as if she’s crazy.
But Tori’s pointing to the screen as I turn up the volume. “He called me today. He wanted to know how to help you.”
We’ve missed the reporter saying who Miles is and the list of his credentials, but not what he has to say. Which, it turns out, isn’t that much. But, looking at my wife’s face as she watches her brother explain how Chloe was railroaded into signing that agreement only to have her parents use the money to start a company for him, I also know that it’s everything.
He’s taking the last shred of doubt away, turning Chloe from a pariah into a paragon. And I couldn’t be happier.
“You did this,” she tells me, voice choked and tears pouring down her cheeks as she buries her face in my chest.
