The Threat

When she came out and clicked the TV off with the remote and hugged him he thought for a moment how nice this might have been, if it had been a normal homecoming. She’d changed out of her work clothes. Out of suits and heels, into what she wore around the house: loose cotton pants and sweatshirt, striped socks and backless clogs. Her hair was pulled back, careless, even untidy, but he’d always liked that. That was what hurt, that he still loved her.

He just didn’t trust her anymore.

It must have been his look that made her step back. She searched his face. “Bad, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Meilhamer said they sent you to Bosnia. Then I didn’t hear from you—”

He said that was right, and detached her fingers and went into the kitchen. Mainly because he couldn’t meet her eyes. He opened the fridge. There were the expensive dark ales that she liked to have maybe once a week, with dinner. He could have one. The trouble was, he couldn’t have just one. But he wouldn’t have to feel so betrayed, so furious, so empty.

He got a diet Coke instead and let the door suck closed on a cold breath.

Her arms came around him again, from behind. He closed his eyes against her warmth. Her scent. “Well, now you’re home. I’ll make dinner. We can just stay here.”

For a moment, even knowing what he knew, he wanted to hug her back. Pretend nothing had changed. But he couldn’t. Even if the truth hurt, he wanted it. He sucked air. It would have torn him apart a week ago.

Now, though, all he had to do was remember a room full of gray light and corpses. And his personal problems seemed to lose their importance.

“Okay, I give up,” she said. “I don’t have time for games, Dan. Is it something you saw over there?”

“You’re right. I don’t have time for games either.”

“Then why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind.”

“So,” he said, not looking at her but out the window at the house next door. Then, harshly, “So, how was it with De Bari?”

“How was what?”

“When you got it on with him? In Russia. And wherever else it’s happened.”

When he took a look she was staring at him, as if he were something broken, or malfunctioning, that she was trying to figure out.

“Are you serious? You come back from Sarajevo — Srebrenica — and that’s what you want to know?”

“Am I serious? What do you think?”

“You seem to be. It’s the question I’m having trouble taking seriously.”

“That you banged him? He’s not that fat.”

“He’s — wait a minute. That I banged him? Is that what I just heard?”

“I guess not.” He went past her into the dining room and looked at the table. The glassware. The dishes they’d picked out, with the hand-painted birds. Something shifted in his heart. He wanted to break everything, destroy everything, wreck the room. Then he didn’t care again. “No, that couldn’t be it. Could it?”

His voice sounded weak. He knew that was what sarcasm was, weakness, but Christ it hurt. He just wished this was over.

She pushed past him. Dropped into a chair, kicked off her clogs, curled her legs under her. Getting ready for a discussion. Which he for one did not intend to have. “You must have seen some ugly shit over there.”

“I saw a lot of dead people. A country coming apart. A policy that’s not a policy.”

“You let them know? At the NSC?”

“In the Oval Office. This morning.”

“You briefed him?” Just the way she said “him” hurt.

“Yeah.”

“And he said?” She cocked her head in her let’s-think-about-this gesture.

“It doesn’t seem to be a priority. Like a lot of other things this administration should be putting effort into.” He cleared his throat, feeling anger pushing up. It was there. It just took time. “I don’t want to talk about that now. How about we talk about you and him.”

“Me and Bobby-O.”

“That’s right.”

“Wait. Before this goes any further. Go over to the china cabinet. Look in the mirror.”

“What?”

“Please. Look in the mirror.”

When he looked in the reflective glass he recoiled. The white of his left eye was sheened with blood. As he pulled down the lid to examine it she said, “Let me put this as clearly as I can. Are you listening? I have never been sexually involved with Robert De Bari.”

It looked Night of the Living Dead horrible, but it didn’t hurt; it seemed to be limited to the sclera, the white of the eyeball; just a broken blood vessel. “You never had sex with him.”

“That’s what you meant, right? No, I don’t think ‘banged’ leaves much room for misinterpretation.” She said precisely, in her appearance-before-Congress tone, “I have not banged the president; I have not screwed the president. I have not fucked him, or blown him, or even given him a hand job. Now, does that take care of whatever’s eating you? I hope so, because you’re scaring me, Dan. Maybe you should see that doctor again.”

“Never mind her. You were never alone with him?”

She glanced away, and that was when he knew he was right. The knowledge tore apart parts of himself he’d thought were healed. She scraped her nails along the arm of the chair. The zipping noise raised the hairs on the back of his neck.