They let the first two go, then they gave her a warning. Ma'am, I think you've made a mistake here. I'm sure you didn't mean to put that hairbrush in your bag. When she did it again, they had her arrested.
The cops were polite, even embarrassed. This was America. If you were accomplished, if you'd made money, even the police wanted to believe in your innocence. Their embarrassment was more dreadful to Constantine than their hatred would have been. They suggested that Mary see a psychologist. He'd nodded, signed the papers, shaken the hand of the man who brought his wife to jail. What else could he have done?
Mary pulled into the driveway and he followed her. Inside the house, she stood in the kitchen holding her pocketbook in two hands and looked around with a dazzled expression, as if this familiar room had been suddenly rearranged.
“Mary,” Constantine said, behind her. She was nicely dressed, in a short dark skirt and green jacket. Constantine was surprised to find himself noticing her shape, the swell of her hips and the strong symmetry of her stockinged legs.
“Don't,” Mary said.
“Don't what?”
“I don't know. I don't want to talk. I don't have any right to ask that, do I?”
He heard the ragged intake of her breath. He came and stood in front of her. She was crying, though she stood straight and held her pocketbook in both hands. He could hear the effort of her breathing.
He knew he should be angry. He knew in fact that he was angry, but his anger burned somewhere outside of him. It dipped and glistened, just out of reach. All he could seem to feel was confusion and shame, as if he himself had committed a crime.
“Mary,” he said again.
“Oh, please, Constantine,” she said, and her voice was strong through her tears. “There's no conversation for us to have.”
“Cologne,” he said. “A key ring. A bar of soap.”
She nodded. “They were for Billy,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I was thinking about him when I took them. Oh, Con, I'm going to bed. I think I just need to go to bed for a while.”
“Why?” he said. “We have enough money. We could have bought that stuff. What did it cost? Ten, fifteen dollars?”
“About that, I suppose.”
“Then why?”
“I don't know.”
Constantine looked at her, and saw the girl she had been. He saw her breezy self-assurance, her hard shining indignation and the heartbreaking ease with which she had danced, conversed, sipped from a glass. He saw that now, in this kitchen, she was and was not that girl. Something had wilted and dampened, touched the hard underlayer of bone. Something erect and determined remained.
“I don't understand,” he said.
“That makes two of us,” she said. “Maybe you should scream at me and break the dishes. Maybe you should knock me down. I wonder if that might make us both feel better.”
“Mary, I—I'm sorry.”
She laughed, a sudden breathy little sound, as if she was blowing out a candle. “All these years,” she said. “And you finally feel regret—”
She stopped, and stared at him with a black emptiness he had never seen on her face before.
“I'm going to bed,” she said. “I'll talk about this in the morning, I'll do whatever I have to do, but right now all I can think about is going to bed.”
She left the room without touching him. He heard her footsteps, soft and unwavering, as she ascended the stairs.
Constantine poured himself a drink and stood in the kitchen sipping it. The ice cracked; the new teapot-shaped clock swept its face with the thin red line of its second hand. He watched the house go through its own silent life until Billy came in through the front door. Constantine heard his footsteps in the hall, the particular clatter those boots of his made on the tiles, a reckless sound, like a pony.
Billy came into the kitchen, expecting Mary. When he saw Constantine his face changed.
“Hey, Dad,” he said.
He wore a flowered shirt, purple and orange, with sleeves so full and fluttering Constantine wondered if the shirt had been made for a woman. His hair tumbled wispily down over his eyebrows, shrinking his face, and that along with his erupted skin gave him a dim-witted, oafish look.
He's a scholar, Constantine reminded himself. He's got a scholarship to Harvard.
“How ya doin', Bill?” he asked.
“Groovy.” He opened the refrigerator, peered inside, closed it again. He took an Oreo from the cookie jar, nibbled delicately along its outer edge.