Demon

“Sheila?” I said, confused. I had left the number of my resort with her in case anything came up at work—or if the committee felt compelled to rush me any good news that couldn’t wait until I returned. In fact, Sheila was the only one with my hotel number, as Mrs. Russo had not yet returned from Haverhill.

I thought again of Lucian’s warning to keep away from Mrs. Russo.

“How—how did you do it? How do you get by?” Her voice caught repeatedly as she spoke, making her sound like a child that had cried too hard to talk except in hiccupping gulps.

“Sheila, what’s going on?” My alarm mingled with impatience. I was in Cabo. I had come here from the opposite coast on two long flights in a carefully researched package deal to get away from the office, from my single life in Boston, and from the winter.

I had come here to write.

“How did you do it?” she choked between staggering breaths.

“Do what, Sheila?”

“Get by. After Aubrey left.” The last word was a sob.

“What do you mean, how did I do it? Sheila, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know how to do it.”

My impatience sparked annoyance. The last thing I felt like dealing with was Sheila’s self-inflicted turmoil. “I just did, Sheila.”

“He just doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know.” Her voice squeaked up an octave.

I’d never heard Sheila like this before—Sheila with her empathetic ear, who had never demanded much, if anything, of Dan, who turned the warm light of her love so readily on her family and children and friends.

“He doesn’t know what? What’s happened?”

“He’s left. He left.”

“I know, Sheila. But what happened tonight to cause this breakdown?” I hated the calm, measured sound of my own voice. It reminded me of the way Lucian talked to me that day in the bookstore.

“He—he doesn’t know if he’s coming back. Oh, Clay!” My name became a tight keen.

I sighed, tried to summon empathy. Had Aubrey cried like this when she left me? Had she ever shed a tear even? “Sheila, where are your children?”

“With Dan. They’re with Dan. He took them. I don’t mean he took them, but for the night.”

“All right. And you’re not worried about them, right?” I couldn’t imagine either one of them doing anything stupid when it came to their children.

“No. I’m not. I’m all right.” She inhaled sharply, her breath catching. “He doesn’t know what he wants. It’s all right. I’m not angry.”

I stared at the receiver. She wasn’t angry? She had cheated on him, and she wasn’t angry? I had to work to suppress my rage, rising like tar on hot pavement. “I don’t know what to tell you. It sounds like you have it figured—”

“You can’t hate her,” she said suddenly.

“Who?”

“Aubrey. She just didn’t know what she wanted. It was a mistake. She knew it. She had to know it.”

“Sheila, you’re babbling,” I said more firmly. I was trying to be diplomatic but found it more and more difficult. I was glad I wasn’t in town where I might feel compelled to ask if I ought to check on her. I was sick of being a good guy. “You know what I think? I think you need to figure out what you want.”

Silence. And then a sniffle. “You’re right. You’re right, Clay.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Thank you.”

I nodded, though I knew she couldn’t see it. I waited a moment more to hear the soft click of the line before hanging up the receiver.

25

On the morning I left Cabo, my plane sat on the tarmac for an hour. The storm had caused cancellations and delays, and now that the sun was shining again, planes were baking in line on the runway like fish laid out to dry. I glanced repeatedly at my seatmate, trying to ascertain if he was less human than he looked in his Bermudas and flip-flops, until he dropped his head back, let his mouth fall open, and started snoring.

Gazing out the window, I stared at the gray cement until I, too, dozed. I woke, dry mouthed, just before the plane began its descent into the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. I wondered if I should have kept Sheila on the phone longer or called Helen, wondered where Lucian had been these five days, what the committee thought of my book.

My book. Sometime in the last few days it had evolved from my manuscript to “my book.” I had already decided that if Brooks and Hanover didn’t take it, I would submit it elsewhere. Maybe I would ask Katrina to represent it, to take it to one of the Titans—Random House, perhaps, or Hachette.

But I needed to know how it ended.

Sitting in a bank of seats at my gate in Dallas, I reached for my cell phone but hesitated before turning it on. Pushing that button carried so much finality; either there would be a message waiting from Helen, or there wouldn’t. If there were, I might know now, before I even boarded my plane, the fate of my book. Or at least whether I should be calling Katrina.

What I would not know is how to finish it.