Vision in White

She seared him with a glance. “Do you know nothing? Do you need Bob’s list to tell you you’re supposed to say something like she’s nothing compared to you?”

“She’s not. She never was.”

“Please. Bee-stung lipped, sloe-eyed D cup.” She took another sip, pushed the wine back to him. “I know it’s shallow for me to hate her for her looks, but I don’t have much else. And they’re a lot. I get she caught you off guard. But the fact is, Carter, she blindsided me. Both times. All I know is you had a serious, live-together relationship with this woman, and she broke it off. You didn’t, she did. You loved her, and she hurt you.”

“I didn’t love her. And the hurt? I suppose it’s relative to the circumstances. I realize I’ve made this more complicated, and more important, because I’ve avoided talking about it. It’s not my finest hour. I met her at a party at the Gordens. The mutual friends. I hadn’t been back long, just a few months. We started seeing each other, casually at first. Then, ah, more seriously.”

“You started sleeping together. I’m on to your semantics, Professor.”

“Hmmm. She thought I’d eventually go back to Yale, and couldn’t understand why I wanted to teach here, to be here. But that was a small, subtle thing initially. Living together just, well, it just sort of happened.”

“How does that just sort of happen?”

“She was moving to a new place. A bigger apartment. Something fell through there, I can’t remember the details. Exactly. But she’d already given notice where she lived, and had to move out. I had all that room, and it was only going to be for a few weeks, maybe a month. Until she found another place. And somehow . . .”

“She never found another place.”

“I let it happen. It was nice, having someone there to have dinner with, or go out to dinner with. We went out to dinner quite a bit now that I think about it. I liked the company, having someone to come home to. The regular sex. And apparently I do need Cyrano.”

“Everyone likes regular sex.”

“I thought about asking her to marry me. Then I realized I was thinking about it because it was expected. Everyone just assumed . . . Then I felt guilty because I didn’t want to ask her to marry me. I was living with her, sleeping with her, paying the bills, doing—”

Like a traffic cop, Mac threw up her hand. “You paid her bills?”

He shrugged. “Initially she was trying to save for her own place, then . . . It got to be a habit. What I mean to say is we were living together very much like a married couple, and I didn’t love her. I wanted to. She must have felt it, and I could see she wasn’t completely happy. She went out more. Why should she be stuck at home when I was buried in books and papers? She realized I wasn’t going to be what she wanted, or give her what she wanted, so she found someone else.”

He stared at the wineglass on the counter. “I might not have loved her, but it’s painful, and it’s humiliating to be cast off for someone else. To be cheated on. She had an affair, to which I was oblivious. Which I wouldn’t have been, admittedly, if I’d been paying more attention to her. She left me for him, and while it was hurtful, and embarrassing, it was also a relief.”

Mac took a moment to absorb. “Let me just sum all that up, take it down to its basic formula. Because it’s one I know very well. She maneuvered you into providing her with housing—for which she paid nothing.”

“I could hardly ask her for rent.”

“She shared none of the household expenses, and in fact sweet-talked you into fronting her for her expenses. You probably lent her cash from time to time. You’ll never see that again. You bought her things—clothes, jewelry. If you balked, she used tears or sex to smooth that out and get what she was after.”

“Well, I suppose, but—”

“Let me finish it out. When she got tired of it, or saw something shinier, she lied, cheated, betrayed, then laid it all out as your fault for not caring enough. Would that be about right?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t factor in—”

Mac held up her hand again. “She’s Linda. She’s . . . Corrinda. She’s the same model as my mother, just a younger version. I’ve lived my entire life in that cycle, except for the sex. And I know it’s easier to see the cycle from outside it. You and me, Carter, we’re a couple of patsies. Worse, we let them convince us we’re at fault for their selfish, demeaning behavior. If I’d known all this I wouldn’t have . . . yes, I would. I’d have reacted exactly the same way because it’s knee-jerk. It’s the Linda factor.”

“That doesn’t erase the fact that I helped create the situation, and let it continue when I didn’t love her.”

“I love my mother. God knows why, but I do. Under the seething resentment, the frustration and rage, I love her. And I know that under the selfish, abusive whininess, she—in her strange Linda way—loves me. Or, at least, I like to think so. But we’ll never have a healthy relationship. We’ll never have what I want. It’s not my fault. Corrinda—as she will now and forever be to me—wasn’t yours.”