Those Weekends In New England

Chapter Ten

Fear is such a motivation for every action under the sun. And the moon.

Hannah was out again.

Peter checked his watch before he flipped off the TV he hadn't been watching. Eleven o'clock. Eleven o'clock already.

Trudging upstairs to their bedroom, he turned off lights as he made his way to his destination. Living room. Hallway downstairs. Hallway upstairs. Let Hannah find her own damn way up here in complete darkness.

Where the hell was she? Probably still out with Georgi. She'd said something about dinner and shopping. Well, the stores closed at nine-thirty. He swore out loud.

In and out of the shower in five minutes, Peter yanked down the bedcovers. Before getting in, he rummaged through CDs in a small cabinet on the corner of Hannah's desk. Neither one of them had moved out of the CD generation yet. Tonight he needed music to quell his rising agitation.

What do I want to hear? Something calm. Something to take my mind off my missing wife. Ironic, isn't it, that I'm going to her sort of music to find peace, isn't it? His laugh was coarse.

He pulled out Lionel Richie. John Denver. The Pointer Sisters. Hannah's collection. She was so caught up in the past. Peter barely gave each a passing glance as he tossed them to the other side of the room. He had gravitated to her collection because he figured he'd find something soothing there.

But he didn't. It all made him that much angrier, especially the countless Denny Lorenzo CDs. Another. Another. More Denny Lorenzo. Remembering how Hannah had acted at Lorenzo's concert, seeing her in his mind as she watched him on stage, made Peter take Lorenzo's CDs and forcefully throw them at the wall. He tossed one at a time, enjoying the feel as they left his hands and the sound as they smacked against the hard surface on the other side of the room. He even felt satisfaction from seeing the nicks they created in the paint and drywall.

He turned back to the music and continued to rummage. Amidst all the familiar names he'd heard before, Peter suddenly saw, hidden to the side and behind a thick book, one never-before-noticed silver disc.

What's this? Another Lorenzo CD? Pirated from a concert, probably, maybe a favorite Hannah hid to enjoy in private time. With the two piano instrumentals he'd picked out for himself in one hand and the mystery in the other, Peter climbed into bed. The CDs he'd chosen were laid on his nightstand as he placed the mystery disc in the player connected to his clock radio.

At first, he decided he was right on the mark. What came to his ears was Lorenzo singing that damn song, "Gentle Lady." He listened without really hearing for a few seconds, preparing to silence the sound of the other man's hated voice. "Son of a bitch."

But as his finger reached for the "off" button, something—a lack of musical accompaniment behind Lorenzo's singing; or a stillness predicating a sound of hesitation; or Lorenzo clearing his throat. These were signs that suddenly made Peter draw his hand away from the button, allowing the sound to go on.

The song came to an end before a brief pause, and then Lorenzo's speaking voice, soft, deep, New York intoned, made Peter's eyes burn and his breathing come in short, erratic, agonizing snaps. He was suddenly hearing deeply-personal things being said to his wife, things certainly not in Lorenzo's usual concert patter.

Peter continued to listen as Lorenzo went on and on. He felt as if the other man's words laughed at him, called him a fool, told him how he had been cuckolded.

"Here are the stripped facts," Peter heard these words. "You're married and can't leave your husband without a personal, internal battle likely to leave scars. I'm married...."