Page 126 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“You said we were going to try,” Grace countered, her eyes hard and cold when she looked at me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

But she looked away and didn’t answer me.

“Just go,” she said.

“Damn it, Grace,” I said, coming around to the other side of the bed where she was. She took a step away from me, as if my impending touch repulsed her. I grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her toward me so that she was in my arms.

“Look at me,” I said.

“Get your hands off me,” Grace snapped.

“Mommy?”

We both looked over and saw that our bedroom door was slightly open, and there was Charlotte, her hand on the handle, staring at us.

Grace turned away from her so she couldn’t see her face.

“Why is Mommy crying?” Charlotte asked.

Damn it. Was this really happening?

I let go of my wife and went over to the door and picked up my older daughter.

“What do you say we get an Eskimo Pie?” I asked, putting on a smile.

“Okay,” Charlotte said.

I carried Charlotte downstairs to the kitchen and dug two Eskimo Pies out of the freezer. Then I took her out to the back patio and we sat on the steps, looking out at the lake. Not an hour ago we had all been out there on the water, having the best time. When had everything gone to shit?

“Won’t she be mad we’re eating these?” Charlotte asked, licking a piece of melted chocolate off her finger.

I sighed. I didn’t know how to be there right now. I was too angry—too furious at Grace—and if I stayed, I knew I would do something that I would regret.

“Charlotte, I need you to be a big girl and look after your mother while I’m away,” I said. “Do you think you can do that?”

“You’re going back already?” she asked.

“I have an early meeting in the morning,” I lied.

“Don’t go,” Charlotte begged. “You promised you’d take me out on the boat again tomorrow.”

“Next weekend, okay?” I said.

“Can I come with you?” she asked.

Christ, how bad was it there that Charlotte didn’t want to stay? When I was a kid, I would have killed for a place like that to go to in the summer. But maybe Grace was too preoccupied with licking her wounds from her failed affair to pay attention to our kids.

Part of me wanted to take Charlotte with me. To just pack a bag for her and Seraphina and put them in the car and get out of there. But I knew Grace would cause a scene if I tried to do that. She’d run out crying and screaming and she’d scare the shit out of our kids, and then I’d have to pay for therapy for both of them for the rest of their fucking lives so they could erase that image of their pathetic mother.

“I need you to stay here and look after your mother,” I told Charlotte again. “Can you do that for me?”

Charlotte nodded, and I patted her head and stood. I went inside to finish packing. Grace wasn’t in our room when I returned. I don’t know where she went, but I didn’t bother looking for her to say goodbye. I went straight to my car, threw my bag in the trunk, and peeled out of there.

Peter Hindsberg. Peter fucking Hindsberg. As I drove, I couldn’t get those photographs out of my head, and I couldn’t stop making my own mental pictures of the two of them together.

Halfway to the city, I stopped my car. I thrummed my fingers against the steering wheel. I turned the car around.