Page 46 of Brain Damage

I drop the paper sack of Chinese food on our coffee table so aggressively that I practically throw it. I fold my arms across my chest. “The kind of question you can’t answer, apparently.”

Clark doesn’t say anything for at least a minute. Finally, he sighs and runs his hand through his wet hair. “Who told you?”

“Kenneth Landers.”

Clark frowns.

“I ran into him at the Chinese restaurant,” I explain.

“Right,” Clark mumbles. He sinks down into the sofa, running a hand nervously through his hair again. He looks up at me with those blue, blue eyes. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry I lied.”

I don’t join him on the couch. “How about you tell me the truth?”

“Like, what part?”

“Like all of it!” I plant my hands on my hips. “Start with why you got fired.”

“I just couldn’t keep up, Charlotte,” he says weakly. “The pace they expected at G & P was ridiculous. I mean, they wanted us to bill for a hundred hours a week. I was always a week behind. They gave me a few warnings, but I just couldn’t perform at the level they wanted. So they fired me.”

“Okay…” I say.

“I thought it was really, really unfair,” Clark continues. “I was super pissed off about the whole thing and I wanted payback. Everyone knew that old man Patterson was fooling around with his receptionist every afternoon during their three o’clock ‘conference call.’ So I decided to schedule a little meeting with his wife at three-fifteen. Well, you can guess what happened.”

I wince. “Wow. That’s gutsy.”

“And dumb,” he says, shaking his head. “Patterson blackballed me so that no law firm in the whole city would touch me. I basically ruined my whole life for a little bit of revenge.”

“Christ,” I say. “So how have you been paying the bills?”

“I had savings,” he says. “And I did freelance work when I could get it. Friends, neighbors, stuff like that. But… it’s been tight.”

I bite my lip. “So how come you never told me?”

“Are you kidding me?” Clark shakes his head again. “You’re like this gorgeous, successful, intelligent doctor, and I’m supposed to tell you that I’m an unemployed slob? You wouldn’t have given me a second look.”

“That’s really unfair,” I say. “You should’ve told me the truth. I would have been fine with it.”

“Bullshit,” Clark practically spits. “You would have judged me the same way everyone else did!” His face is bright red now. “Why do you think my parents don’t speak to me anymore? Because I’m always a screw up, always begging them for help, never good enough. And they’re right. They’re right.”

There are tears in his eyes now. I see patients cry all the time, but I’ve never seen Clark cry. But he seems dangerously close right now.

“I wanted to be good enough for you, Charlotte,” he says, more quietly this time. “I was ashamed of myself. I was so scared that if you knew the truth, I would lose you.”

“You wouldn’t have lost me.”

Clark puts his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry that I lied. I wish I could take it back.”

God, I can’t believe I’m considering forgiving him for this. But then again, we’re married. What am I supposed to do? Divorce him because he got fired?

Clark lifts his face to look at me. It’s so hard to resist him.

“Charlotte…” He holds out his hands to me.

Really, is it so awful that he was trying to impress me? It just went a little too far.

32

AFTER