gave me no admittance. I should have dropped the matter there, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Who are you going out with tomorrow?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“You’re still my wife. We’re still married.”
“We’re separated.”
There was silence between us. Outside I heard the sound of the insects in the grass and the birds, too, and the slow building of the tide.
“Fran,” she said at last. “I’m going over to Fran’s house. Girls’ night out. Dinner and maybe the movies.”
“All right.”
I left then. I walked back up the flagstone to my ear. I was alone, but the smell of her was still with me, and the imagined feel of her body. It was almost dark. I could hear the tide rolling in, noisy, pushing the brackish water up onto the rocks. It was a sweeping, primal noise. When I’d lived here it had used to catch me by surprise. Like something rising from within myself that I had forgotten. Then I drove away, back to my trailer on Lucky Drive.
On Saturday evening, I went by Fran’s place. A jealous thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.
The house was lit up. Fran’s Mercedes stood in the driveway, and there was no sign of Elizabeth.
She had lied to me.
Then I told myself no, that wasn’t so—and I drove up Marsh Road toward Golden Hinde. Maybe Elizabeth and Fran weren’t going out till later. Or maybe one of them had canceled. Or maybe Elizabeth had just decided to stay in, to be alone.
I won’t bother her, I told myself. I just want to know. I just want to see her car in the driveway, at home.
The car would be there, I was all but positive. I was right. But there was another car in the driveway as well. A black Caprice.
I knew that car. It belonged to Minor Robinson.
14.
The next day I left my trailer and walked along the marsh. I had not slept much. I was feeling the way you might expect a man in my position to feel, clenching then unclenching, jealous, angry, then telling myself there was no reason to be so; all I’d seen was his car, after all. In my gut, I suspected otherwise. I was the fool, the cuckold. I walked onto the spit, to where the marsh meets the bay, where the dirt gets soft and the drainage rivulets intertwine. I began to feel morose—which is rare for me—and that moroseness turned to a feeling of nothingness—which is not so rare—and down there in the water, among the reeds, I saw a fallen log in the shape of a woman’s body, I imagined, its arms still above water, and I stood on it for a while until those arms, too, submerged, then I stepped off. All that remained now of the log was a small, black hump above the water, and I knew that pretty soon the tide would come in and that, too, would be gone.
15.
I had a sensation those days that my life was building toward something. Toward what I didn’t know. Though perhaps I am not altogether honest when I say that. I knew what had gotten me into this situation, and where it had led me in the past. Nonetheless, I felt at times an exhilaration—as if I were about to break free, to satisfy all my vagrant impulses—and then I would remember Grazzioni and his wild mouth, I would feel the trap closing in.
Around this time, I went over to see Nate Jackson, in his office in downtown San Rafael. San Rafael was getting spruced up—but it was always getting spruced up. There was an old mission at the center of town, and some high palms in front of the bank, but the large stores were vacant and the small ones were hawking used furniture and secondhand clothes. Jackson’s place was over a busy comer on Lindaro, not far from the bus station. There was a lot of foot traffic here. Latinos from the Canal District. Day laborers, on their way up Prospect Hill. Winos stumbling in the lurid light—and locos, too, from the rehab centers that lay along Lincoln Avenue, housed in old bungalows, alongside all those motels and falling-down joints that lined the road out to the county jail.
Jackson’s office
“Who are you going out with tomorrow?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“You’re still my wife. We’re still married.”
“We’re separated.”
There was silence between us. Outside I heard the sound of the insects in the grass and the birds, too, and the slow building of the tide.
“Fran,” she said at last. “I’m going over to Fran’s house. Girls’ night out. Dinner and maybe the movies.”
“All right.”
I left then. I walked back up the flagstone to my ear. I was alone, but the smell of her was still with me, and the imagined feel of her body. It was almost dark. I could hear the tide rolling in, noisy, pushing the brackish water up onto the rocks. It was a sweeping, primal noise. When I’d lived here it had used to catch me by surprise. Like something rising from within myself that I had forgotten. Then I drove away, back to my trailer on Lucky Drive.
On Saturday evening, I went by Fran’s place. A jealous thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.
The house was lit up. Fran’s Mercedes stood in the driveway, and there was no sign of Elizabeth.
She had lied to me.
Then I told myself no, that wasn’t so—and I drove up Marsh Road toward Golden Hinde. Maybe Elizabeth and Fran weren’t going out till later. Or maybe one of them had canceled. Or maybe Elizabeth had just decided to stay in, to be alone.
I won’t bother her, I told myself. I just want to know. I just want to see her car in the driveway, at home.
The car would be there, I was all but positive. I was right. But there was another car in the driveway as well. A black Caprice.
I knew that car. It belonged to Minor Robinson.
14.
The next day I left my trailer and walked along the marsh. I had not slept much. I was feeling the way you might expect a man in my position to feel, clenching then unclenching, jealous, angry, then telling myself there was no reason to be so; all I’d seen was his car, after all. In my gut, I suspected otherwise. I was the fool, the cuckold. I walked onto the spit, to where the marsh meets the bay, where the dirt gets soft and the drainage rivulets intertwine. I began to feel morose—which is rare for me—and that moroseness turned to a feeling of nothingness—which is not so rare—and down there in the water, among the reeds, I saw a fallen log in the shape of a woman’s body, I imagined, its arms still above water, and I stood on it for a while until those arms, too, submerged, then I stepped off. All that remained now of the log was a small, black hump above the water, and I knew that pretty soon the tide would come in and that, too, would be gone.
15.
I had a sensation those days that my life was building toward something. Toward what I didn’t know. Though perhaps I am not altogether honest when I say that. I knew what had gotten me into this situation, and where it had led me in the past. Nonetheless, I felt at times an exhilaration—as if I were about to break free, to satisfy all my vagrant impulses—and then I would remember Grazzioni and his wild mouth, I would feel the trap closing in.
Around this time, I went over to see Nate Jackson, in his office in downtown San Rafael. San Rafael was getting spruced up—but it was always getting spruced up. There was an old mission at the center of town, and some high palms in front of the bank, but the large stores were vacant and the small ones were hawking used furniture and secondhand clothes. Jackson’s place was over a busy comer on Lindaro, not far from the bus station. There was a lot of foot traffic here. Latinos from the Canal District. Day laborers, on their way up Prospect Hill. Winos stumbling in the lurid light—and locos, too, from the rehab centers that lay along Lincoln Avenue, housed in old bungalows, alongside all those motels and falling-down joints that lined the road out to the county jail.
Jackson’s office
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