Page 79 of Gifted & Talented

“I did think Arthur would do the trick for a while,” Yves admitted. “I thought Mouse and I could put aside our difficulties and share in our affection for him for quite a profound stretch of time, which I suppose we did. He is such a lovely person, very lovely—but you already know this.” He nodded sagely at Gillian, who was still trying to do very complicated mathin her head. “Unfortunately, such a thing is not fair to Arthur. And while it pains me what our separation will mean for him—the lies, the deceit, the sense at various moments that Mouse would like to stab me with the nearest butter knife… I simply cannot do it anymore. My heart is, you know, not vacant, but hugely uninspired. It is tired,” Yves determined eventually. “The problem is that my heart is very tired and needs to rest.”

That part made sense to Gillian, so she did not ask “what” for the fifth time even though she wanted to, retroactively, about several other factors in the conversation. It was such a sadness that she felt she wanted to express something to Yves in a way he would understand, and so she carefully, very carefully, with extreme and meticulous slowness, reached over to brush his hair from his forehead. His eyes shut briefly as if she’d caressed him, and Gillian felt an unsteadying lightness, a slow leak of affection.

He made as if to lean forward and kiss her cheek, then to Gillian’s great relief he didn’t. He smiled and rose to his feet, wandering elsewhere in the house to be alone with his thoughts, or to use the bathroom.

“I see you two are getting very cozy.” Gillian looked up with a start to see Philippa standing in one of the darkened corridors, the one that led away from Arthur’s bedroom. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest. “I suppose you think you’re very saintly, don’t you? The perfect wife.”

I’m ninety-six percent sure I had a psychological breakdown yesterday, Gillian thought about retorting, but knew that tactically it wasn’t a very choice maneuver. Gillian had never been very good at these kinds of wars, but she understood at least one thing about Philippa, which was that fear was a very strange motivator, and one rupture—however small—could send the dominoes cascading.

Already, Gillian felt sure that something was coming undone. Secretly, she felt responsible for what was happening to Arthur. She had broken her routine, she had done things differently, and now Arthur was starting to die, things were collapsing all around her. She reached for the grip of fear and it was easy, terribly easy to find. For Gillian, it never really left.

“Would you like a drink, Philippa?” asked Gillian.

Philippa’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t,” she said with an air of weaponry. “I’m pregnant.”

“Are you?” Gillian countered coolly.

“Yes,” said Philippa. “It’s Arthur’s.”

For a moment, at the possibility of such a thing, that something so preciousand transformative could be treated so casually, Gillian felt a stab of pain. Not the same kind of pain that she’d felt over loving Arthur, because that was a deeper ache, something worse and more corrupting; it was a pain she acted on daily, because love was an ailment she couldn’t cure. Philippa was trying to use jealousy as a weapon, but Gillian refused to cut herself on any blade she hadn’t forged herself. Besides, she knew what pregnancy looked like.

“I’ve seen this one,” said Gillian quietly.

“What?” said Philippa.

“With my mother,” Gillian continued, louder. “A few times. A lot of different versions. She loved soap operas. Though I have to say, a baby? With times as they are, politically speaking, you really shouldn’t play around with that kind of thing. Reproductive autonomy is very important to Arthur.” Gillian felt increasing pain when, after mining the entire contents of her marriage, she still could not be sure if a baby was something Arthur wanted. He had never brought it up to her, as they did not usually engage in reproductive activities, so Gillian didn’t know if it was something that mattered to him, which felt worse than any tactical miscalculation. The idea that maybe it did and she’d let him believe something else about his life and the things he was allowed to have in it was suddenly iron-wrought and cold.

“I’m not lying,” said Philippa.

“Okay,” Gillian generously allowed.

Philippa let out a heavy sigh, then fell sulkily onto the sofa beside Gillian. “It wasn’t a lie at first,” she said, and then grimaced. “Damn. You really are a good wife.”

“And you are a terrible mistress,” said Gillian, miming a toast.

“I’ll drink to that, if you won’t tell Arthur.”

Ah, the pain was back. Because how indeed to tell Arthur—how, now, to soften his world as Gillian wanted so badly to do? It was a constancy, the difficulty. It was so… unsexy, the tenderness she felt, the raw wound that was her love for a grown man who already understood the nature of life and disappointment. If only personal success would salve it; the longing to set everything right, like tending a garden so it always bloomed, evergreen and everlasting.

“Be careful with Arthur,” Gillian said.

“Because he’s fragile?” asked Philippa, sounding dryly amused.

No, because he’s mine, thought Gillian. Mine to love, mine to care for, mine to lose.

But Gillian had a keen sense for when a situation wasn’t about her. So while Philippa shamelessly unburdened herself of a month’s worth of lies, Gillian fixed them a companionable pair of drinks, ever the selfless hostess. Gillian had never cared for melodrama, personally; considered herself well above it, choosing instead to regard the woman who had lied to Arthur as a sympathetic figure, even a friend.

“So you see, the problem is and has always been the patriarchy,” Philippa concluded with a conspiratorial sigh, to which Gillian offered a nod of reflexive feminism, participating in the call and response of womankind. You go, girlboss! Yaaaaas, queen!

But couldn’t Gillian have an agenda, too? She’d been so good for so long. What could it hurt to try a tiny little ultimatum, as a treat?

“Tell him the truth,” Gillian delivered to Philippa with a tactical sip, “or I will,” and then neither woman spoke again.

The next day, when Gillian woke up in the bed she shared with her husband, she reached out to brush his hair from his forehead. By then, that particular show of physical affection had been adequately rehearsed and a degree of performance anxiety had meaningfully eased, given that it had worked once on Yves and might very well work again now, when it counted, on Arthur. Her fingers were nearly unfurled when she realized, cruelly, that Arthur wasn’t there.

She thought for a moment she might have overslept. Then she checked her clock and saw that no, she hadn’t, it was six thirty just as it usually was, and it was Arthur who had risen unusually early.

Gillian felt a stab of dizzying confusion, the hurt of a broken routine. The peril of it, the unknown. Who was she when she woke after Arthur, when his toothbrush was wet in the sink before hers? It was like pigs flying. What had Eilidh said about plagues, about apocalypses? Gillian felt one now, overrun by the terror of whatever unplanned calamity was to come.

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