Painful memories began to surface as I painted, old, stupid fights we’d never resolved, and so they remained wedged in my hippocampus, incapable of loosening their grip. We were at the bank in Hartford. My mother had called me from Ohio earlier in the day, a rare occurrence, while I was at my father’s. His health had noticeably declined since the previous week—his skin looked like the yellow underbelly of a snake—and he was refusing to eat the creamed corn I had made him at his request.
“Come on, Dad,” I said and tried to shove the spoon in his mouth, more forcefully than I should have, and he began to cry from frustration.
Then my mother called. I had forgotten Mother’s Day, she said. She told me that I cared about my father more than I cared about her, when she was the one who had looked after me when he was drunk. I hung up the phone, put my father to bed before the hospice nurse arrived, and left the creamed corn on the table. Then I picked you up and we went to the bank.
It was a Friday and I was depositing my last check from The Courier for an article I’d done on back-to-school fashion. I waited in line for a teller while you sat on the bench behind the partition.
“Next,” said the teller.
I patted my back pocket, but my wallet was in my purse with you.
“Dennis—” I said and saw that you were now standing on the other side of the bank talking with Bruce and Genine Skinner, both of whom taught at St. Gregory’s.
“One second,” I said to the teller, who leaned back in her chair and waited for me to return.
As I approached, everyone turned toward me, smiling, and Genine said, “There she is!” in her usual passive candor.
“I was just telling them about how you’re writing for The Courier now,” you said.
Genine and Bruce were both grinning wildly, like two bystanders held captive, trying to signal to me with nonverbal cues.
“Oh, yes. That. It’s keeping me busy.” They smiled some more. “Dennis—I need my wallet.”
Crossing the parking lot on our way to the car, I held you by the arm.
“Why did you tell Genine and Bruce that I’m writing for The Courier?”
“Because you are.”
You sat in the passenger’s seat and began fiddling with the radio.
“If they look for an article they’re not going to find one. That was my last check, remember? They let me go.”
You landed on a classic rock station and turned down the volume.
“They asked what you’ve been doing and I told them. Who cares about The Courier? You’ll find another newspaper.”
“I wish you’d just avoided the topic.”
You turned your head to the window and pressed two fingers against your chin.
“How’s your dad doing?” you asked.
“Not great. He’s refusing to eat. And he cried again.”
“I’ll go check on him later today.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I thought you were going to say more, but you didn’t, so I turned on the ignition and drove.
We didn’t talk for the ten-minute trip home. When we pulled into the driveway you opened the door halfway and said, “I won’t talk about your writing until you tell me I can,” then went into the house.
You kept your promise. You didn’t mention my writing again, and I never did find another newspaper. My father died a month later, and six months after that we were on our way to Brazil.
The Provost had been enthusiastic, if not emphatic, that we meet his wife for the first time at the Mercado Municipal. He described it as a cultural epicenter—where life in São Paulo happened. When we approached him and Melinda at the gray-stone entranceway, it was clear that they had been in an argument. The aftermath of bickering rested on their faces. Eduardo extended two arms and embraced you. Melinda gave you her hand, which you kissed (something I’d never seen you do before), and you introduced me as your wife, Linda, who didn’t speak Portuguese but would try.
You kept telling me how much Melinda and I had in common. Melinda, the Provost’s wife, the wealthy socialite, the Paulistana. I didn’t see how that connected us, but you insisted. I think it had to do with the fact that we were both wives of historians, which meant that she too knew this particular isolation, when you left the present for the past, hundreds of years back, hundreds of pages back, with no return in sight.
“I think you’ll understand each other,” you kept saying. “She’s intelligent and very connected in São Paulo. She knows some fascinating people.”
We both sensed that, between the two of them, Melinda had the money. Eduardo brought in a good salary as Provost, but not enough for a penthouse suite in Morumbi, a chalet in Saint-Malo, a vintage wine collection, and a library. Melinda exuded an overprescribed wealth, as though the world’s sharpness had to be dulled just to manage the injustice. Why her and not the millions of others?
The first thing I noticed was her impatient, anxious energy, as though she was already late for a board meeting she needed to attend next, when in reality, she had nowhere else to be. She shifted her weight from one stiletto to the other, looked side to side, up and beyond.
We entered and you joined Eduardo ahead of us, while I stayed behind with Melinda, who walked with restraint. She lit a cigarette next to a fruit stand inside the market hall.
“Keep an eye on your purse, Linda,” she said and adjusted my strap for me. “The pickpockets will rob you if you leave it hanging like that.”
We followed you to various stands—cured meat hanging from chains, woven shoes and bags, large barrels of nuts and spices—but Melinda always stayed a few feet outside. She said it was because of her cigarette (she tapped one after the other from a soft pack in her purse), but I sensed that it had more to do with association. The entire building smelled like smoked cod and mandioca; not even her Chanel No. 5 could mask it. I asked her if she wanted to come outside with me for a change in scenery. It was the first time I saw her smile.
“I would like nothing more,” she said.
I suggested we lean against the building, out of the way of the pedestrians hurrying down the sidewalk. She reminded me of a flower that had been pressed inside a book to preserve its beauty, so she had to present herself at an angle to mask her flatness. Maybe that’s why it bothered me that you implied she and I had something in common. I always considered myself planted, not yet plucked.
“You’re beautiful,” she said, more like an accusation than a compliment. “You know your name, it means beautiful.”