Free Sing It to Her Bones by Marcia Talley Page B

she wait so long to report it?”
    “I don’t know, honey. I can’t explain it. The only truth I know is that I spent the night at the Sheraton and that I slept alone.”
    Just as I had slept alone. Too sick from chemo to attend the annual football rivalry, I had passed thatchilly autumn evening alternately watching the game on TV and miserably hugging the toilet bowl.
    “What about her roommate?”
    “She didn’t sleep with her roommate. Apparently they’d had a fight. No one seems to have any idea where Midshipman Goodall spent the night, Hannah, but it certainly wasn’t with me.” Paul poked at the beer bottle with his index finger, toppling it onto its side. Half a bottle of tepid liquid dripped through the holes in the wrought iron table onto the slate below. “We had one drink together—”
    “You had a drink with her?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “How could you have been so incredibly stupid?”
    “I didn’t invite her to, for Christ’s sake, Hannah. I was sitting alone in the lobby bar, nursing a beer and reading a paperback, when she walked up and spoke to me. I recognized her from Differential Equations her plebe year. She sat down. We ordered a round of drinks. Then, when I realized how drunk she was, I tried to convince her to go back to her room. She refused saying, ‘no, no,’ she was fine, so I left her sitting in the bar and went back to my room.”
    “But someone must have seen her! Another mid. A waitress. Hotel staff. Maybe she slept on a couch in the lobby.” I shook my head, trying to clear it.
    “You could end up in the Washington Post ,” I muttered. “You could lose your job.”
    “I know.” There was a long silence. Wind rustled the newspapers. A blue jay somewhere nearby jeered at the neighbor’s cat.
    Paul lifted my chin and tried to look into my eyes,but I turned my head and stared, unfocused, at the stone wall that separated our property from our neighbors, refusing to meet his gaze. “Look at me, Hannah! You’ve got to believe me! I was never alone with her. Never! Not for a single minute!”
    “But it doesn’t matter, does it, Paul? In this political climate, who’s going to listen?”
    “Simon believes me, and I hope you do, too. You are my rock, Hannah. If I lose you …” He looked as if he were about to cry.
    “Does Emily know?” I whispered, wondering if Paul had called our daughter.
    “No, and I’m not planning to tell her, unless I have to.”
    We sat for a while in silence, each waiting for the other to speak. “What happens now?” I finally asked, after what seemed like hours. “What can we do?”
    “Nothing. Simon is handling it, and believe me, he’s going by the book. There’ll be a formal investigation, of course. Until then it’s business as usual. Officially no one knows anything.”
    I studied the pin oak tree that Paul had planted on our tenth anniversary. Tiny green buds shimmered on the branches, promising spring. What did the future hold for us? Suddenly I saw it plainly. We were living in a cheap one-bedroom condo off Bestgate Road with Paul writing articles for sailing magazines and me working as a Manpower temp. For richer, for poorer .
    “A job,” I heard myself say, as if from a great distance.
    “What did you say?”
    “A job. I’ll need to get a job.”
    “Hannah, I think that consideration is a long way off.”
    I shook my head and studied the man who had been my husband for twenty-five years. “Paul, you know I’ll support you one hundred percent. I’ll take on the secretary of the navy if I have to. But I need some time to take all this in.”
    I left him sitting in his solitary misery while I shut myself in the bedroom with mine. I lay on the bed and let the tears fall freely. I felt as if some alien from outer space had sucked out all my blood, leaving my bones to rattle around loose inside my skin. I wanted to believe Paul, but I had been so sick. Could I really blame him for wanting a break from all the