concentrate. I kept rereading the first page, my mind skipping around between thoughts of my wife and wondering who had written the comment on my blog post. I filled my lungs with the stale air of my apartment, then slowly exhaled. Why did he call himself Doctor Sheppard? Because he was the killer, right? Still, that didn’t mean I needed to try and read the book. I put it on my nightstand, where I kept a stack of poetry collections. That’s what I read at night now, before I go to sleep. Even if I’m currently into a literary biography (even though I rarely read crime, I do read biographies of crime writers), or something on European history, the last words I read before I try to fall asleep are the words of poets. All poems—all works of art, really, seem like cries of help to me, but especially poetry. When they are good, and I do believe there are very few good poems, reading them is like having a long-dead stranger whisper in your ear, trying to be heard.
I got out of bed and went to my bookshelf to find an anthology of poems that contained one of my favorites, “Winter Nightfall” by Sir John Squire. I could probably recite it by heart, but I wanted to see the words. When I found a poem I loved, I would read it again and again. For one entire year I must have read Sylvia Plath’s “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” every night before I fell asleep. Lately I’d been reading Peter Porter’s “An Exequy” even though I understood less than half of it. I do not have a critical mind for poems, but I react to them.
Back in bed I read the Squire poem, then shut my eyes and let the final words gallop over me—“and the slop of my footsteps in this desolate country’s cadaverous clay”—again and again like a mantra. I thought some more of my wife, and the decisions that I made. When Patrick Yates came into her life, and I actually remember the date because it was March 31, my birthday, I knew right away that something momentous had occurred. Claire had done the afternoon shift that day at the bar, so as to get out early and take me to the East Coast Grill for my birthday dinner. “We finally hired a new bartender,” she said.
“Oh.”
“Patrick. I started training him today. He seems okay.”
The way she said his name, a combination of hesitancy and boldness, and I knew right away that he had made an impression on her. My body felt as though an almost imperceptible electric current had coursed through it.
“Does he have experience?” I asked, as I tipped an oyster back.
“He worked at a pub in Australia for a year, so that’s something. I thought of you because he has a tattoo of Edgar Allan Poe on his right shoulder.”
I was not a jealous husband, but I was also aware that Claire, unlike myself, was never going to go through life content with just me. She’d been with numerous men in college, and she’d admitted, more than once, that she’d go through periods when every time she met a man, or every time she’d pass a man on the street, she’d wonder if that man wanted her, and then she’d obsess over what these men might think about doing to her. I’d listen to these confessions and tell myself that it was better that she told me. Better than the alternative. Better than secrets.
She did have a therapist, a woman she referred to as Doctor Martha, whom she saw once every two weeks, but after her appointments she’d be in a dark mood, sometimes for days, and I wondered if it was worth it.
Part of me had always told myself that one day Claire would cheat, or maybe not cheat, but that she would fall for someone else. And I’d accepted that. And hearing about Patrick I knew that day had come. It scared me, but I had already decided what to do. Claire was my wife. She would always be my wife, and I would stand by her no matter what. It provided a sense of comfort, knowing that I was in it for the long haul, no matter what.
She did have an affair with Patrick, at least an emotional one, although I suspect it tipped over into the physical on at least a couple of occasions. I waited patiently, like the