Page 36 of Fox
I remember the bag from Dina’s in my hand. I remember the dogwoods. I remember all of it.
I remembered it the moment I opened my eyes in the ICU and found him sitting next to my bed, one hand on mine, the other on his knee, carrying himself like a man being taken apart.
I remembered it when he looked up, and I saw his face—the jaw, the dark eyes, the particular quality of his expression when he is not performing, when the management has run out—and I thought, with perfect clarity:I know exactly who you are.
Then he said, “I love you. I love you so fucking much,” and I snapped.
How dare he say that now? Was he performing for the doctor? Why was he saying this when he’d told me to my face that he didn’t love me?
And that’s when another thought emerged—he doesn’t know that I know who he is.
It wasn’t a decision…not exactly. It was more like an instinct, you know, one of those that arrives fully formed, even though there isn’t much reasoning attached to it.
My body cashed this check that my brain hadn’t signed off on, and I looked at Fox, the man I loved with every cell in my body, the man who told me he never loved me, who let me drive away crying and didn’t stop me, and I thought, “You don’t get to know what I know.”
So I said, “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
And then I watched his face, and what I saw is something I’m going to be thinking about for a long time. It was not—and I want to be exact about this, because I am trying very hard to be accurate about everything right now, to see clearly without the fog of drugs or pain or confusion—it was not the face of a man who was caught.
It was not guilt. And it was not relief. It was devastation.
Brief, total, and immediately folded back behind the composure before most people would have seen it.
But I am not most people. I know the difference between Fox’s real face and his performed one, and what I saw in that half-second before he put it away was real.
I don’t know what to do with that.
So I’m doing this instead. Faking amnesia like I’m in a movie or a book. I mean, who does that? Not anyone sensible and grown up.
But I have my reasons, right?
And they’re good reasons, too, right?
His name, he tells me, is Fox.
“Fox,” I say, like I’m trying it out. “That’s unusual.”
And he tells me about the foxes in the woods when he was seven, and I listen to it like it’s new, like I haven’t turned thisstory over in my hands a hundred times, worn smooth with handling.
I nod at the right moments.
I ask the right questions. I think.
I am, and I will not pretend otherwise, a surprisingly competent liar when sufficiently motivated, which I am.
He tells me about the diner.
The cassoulet.
“I didn’t leave until two in the morning.”
He tells me about the courthouse wedding with my family, Dina, and Percy, and about the pasta at Rolf and Daughters afterward.
He tells me about our home.
“You planted the fig tree. I’ve made sure it’s taken care of while I’m here with you. The peonies are growing very nicely.”
I listen to him describe my own life back to me with fascination.
