“What conversation?” I gave her my best wide-eyed innocent face on the way out. “I can’t remember a thing.”

Chapter 53

AFTER SOME REHEATED supper that night, and long after the kids had gone to bed, I got a call from Christine.

The second her name came up on the caller ID, I felt torn in a big way. I couldn’t just ignore her, but the last thing I wanted right now was more talk. The only reason I picked up in the end was to keep her from possibly coming over to the house again.

“What is it, Christine?”

Right away, I could hear she was crying. “It was wrong, what you did today, Alex. You didn’t have to push me away like that.”

I was already walking from the bedroom up to my office, and waited until I’d closed the door behind me to go on.

“I kind of did,” I said. “You showed up out of the blue and, even worse, you lied. More than once.”

“I only lied because I thought our son deserved to see his family together!”

It was as if we’d started fighting in record time, which was saying something for us. The whole thing made me feel exhausted. It brought back the terribleness I’d felt during the court case over Ali.

“Ali sees his family together every day,” I said. “Just not his mother.”

She sobbed again. “How can you say a thing like that?”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Christine. I’m just telling it like it is.” My patience, meanwhile, was hanging at the other end of a very thin thread. Christine had brought this on herself with her terrible inconsistency as a mother.

“Well, don’t worry, because you got your wish. I’m at the airport.”

“My wish is that we could all be happy with the choices we’ve made,” I said.

“Just as long as you’re happy first, isn’t that right, Alex? Isn’t that how it’s always been?”

And then my thread snapped.

“Do you remember leaving me?” I said. “Do you remember how I begged you to stay in Washington? Do you remember leaving Ali? Damn it, does any of that even register with you anymore?”

“Don’t you curse at me!” she shouted back, but I wasn’t finished.

“So now what? You think just by showing up here, you can change everything that’s happened since then? It doesn’t work that way, Christine, and I wouldn’t change it if I could!”

“No.” Her voice was constricted now. Tight as a drum. “Apparently not.”

Then she hung up on me. I was stunned but also a little relieved. Maybe this was some kind of test, to see if I’d call back, but I wasn’t even remotely tempted. I sat on the office couch, staring at the ceiling and trying to collect myself again.