bottom of the stairs, his heart leapt. No. He sent Claire one (vague) e-mail of apology, then another. She did not respond, but this wasn’t entirely surprising. Claire rarely checked her e-mail. Finally he decided he would stop by her house. This decision was both rash and carefully thought out. On the one hand, he didn’t want to see her cheerful, bustling household and feel bereft and lonely because his own home was as chilly and white as an empty icebox. After Siobhan had run across the two of them, together, in Claire’s car, they had made a rule about seeing each other during the day: they wouldn’t do it except in the name of legitimate gala business. There was, of course, a lot of legitimate gala business: Claire was working on production for the concert; she and Isabelle were back-and-forthing on the invite design, possible underwriting, and assignments for the committee members. Before the argument, Claire and Lock had had lunch on two occasions, once with Tessa Kline of NanMag. Tessa was doing a feature spread on Nantucket’s Children and Lockhart Dixon, executive director, and the annual summer gala, and Claire Danner Crispin, gala cochair and local artisan.
“I’ve always wanted to do a really in-depth piece like this,” Tessa said, “and bring in all these different, intersecting elements.”
They were at lunch at the Sea Grille, and Lock and Claire were sitting next to each other on the banquette while Tessa faced them, firing questions. At one point, Claire nudged Lock with her leg and he shifted away from her. They talked all the time about how important it was to “be careful.” Siobhan already harbored suspicions; they couldn’t have any more close calls. If they got caught, it would ruin everything: Claire’s marriage, her family life, Lock’s marriage, his reputation, and the reputation of Nantucket’s Children.
The affair was a grenade. Pull the pin, and everything got destroyed.
But Lock couldn’t stand thinking of Claire upset by something he’d done. He couldn’t let another day go by without seeing her.
He decided to go to Claire’s house under the pretense of dropping off a stack of underwriting letters that Claire had to sign and mail out, ASAP. Before the argument (and it couldn’t accurately be called an argument because they hadn’t fought or even disagreed—he had inadvertently offended her), Claire had asked him, all the time, to stop by and see her. It would be sweet, she said, and romantic, if he surprised her sometime.
Come in the early afternoon, Claire said. Jason is never home.
Lock wasn’t worried about Jason. He had actually bumped into Jason at Christmastime at Marine Home Center, where they were both buying tree stands. They stood in line together and made small talk.
Jason said, “Claire is really into that thing the two of you are working on.”
“Mmmm,” Lock said. “Yes. The gala.”
“Should be a hoot,” Jason said.
The man was affable enough, Lock thought. He had a toughness, a masculinity, that Lock lacked, but part and parcel with those traits was what Lock could only think of as ignorance. Lock wasn’t saying that Jason was stupid, but he wasn’t polished or worldly, and there were things he didn’t know or understand about Claire.
Once, after a few glasses of viognier at the office, Claire said, in regard to Jason, “Half the time, I’m his mother, and the other half I’m his sex slave.”
Lock said, sweeping her hair aside so he could kiss the back of her neck, “You deserve better, you know.” It was Lock’s opinion that Jason treated Claire like a feudal servant, and while he was angered by this, he was also grateful for it. The holes that Jason left were ones that Lock could fill. He could tell Claire she was beautiful, he could talk to her about her work, he could appreciate her, treat her gently, tenderly. He could clip poems out of the New Yorker or copy passages out of novels and know that the words and the sentiments were fresh. Claire kept the clippings in an unmarked folder.
“I love Jason,” she said. “But he’s not you.”
What did that mean? Lock took it to mean that he was giving Claire something she lacked, something she needed.
Claire had sex with her husband often. She used this word “often,” though she didn’t qualify it. For Lock and Daphne, once a month would have been often; before the accident, they had had sex once or twice a week. Lock feared that “often” for Claire meant even more frequently