The Tenth Circle Read online

Doing something wrong, it turned out, packed a heady adrenaline rush. Seth was dark and uneven and unpredictable and-oh, God, just thinking about him was making her drive too fast on this road. On the other hand, Laura’s husband was the most solid, dependable, mild-mannered man in all of Maine. Daniel never forgot to put out the recycling bin; he set the coffee to brew the night before because she was a bear when she didn’t have any in the morning; he never once complained about the fact that it had taken a good decade longer than he’d liked to make a name for himself in the comics industry because he was the stay-at-home parent. Sometimes, ridiculously, the more perfect he was the angrier she got, as if his generosity existed only to highlight her own selfishness. But then, she had only herself to blame for that-wasn’t she the one who’d given him the ultimatum, who’d said he had to change?

  The problem was (if she was going to be honest with herself) that when she asked him to change, she was focusing on what she thought she needed. She’d forgotten to catalog all the things she’d lose. What she had loved most about Seth-the thrill of doing something forbidden, the understanding that women like her did not connect with men like him-was exactly what had once made her fall for Daniel.

  She had toyed with the idea of telling Daniel about the affair, but what good would that do, except hurt him? Instead, she would overcompensate. She would kill him with kindness. She would be the best wife, the best mother, the most attentive lover. She would give him back what she hoped he never realized had been missing.

  Even Dante said that if you walked through hell, you could climb your way to paradise.

  In the rearview mirror, Laura saw a carnival of flashing lights. “God damn,” she muttered, pulling over as the police cruiser slid neatly behind her Toyota.

  A tall officer walked toward her, silhouetted by the headlights of his vehicle. “Good evening, ma’am, did you know you were speeding?”

  Apparently not, thought Laura.

  “I’m going to need your license and…Professor Stone? Is that you?”

  Laura peered up at the officer’s face. She couldn’t place it, but he was young enough; she might have taught him. She offered her most humble expression. Had he gotten a high enough grade in her class to keep her from getting a ticket?

  “Bernie Aylesworth,” he said, smiling down at Laura. “I took your Dante class my senior year, back in 2001. Got shut out of it the year before.”

  She knew she was a popular teacher-her Dante course was rated even higher than the Intro to Physics lectures where Jeb Wetherby shot monkeys out of cannons to teach projectile motion. The Unauthorized Guide to Monroe College named her the prof students most wanted to take out for a beer. Had Seth read that? she thought suddenly.

  “I’m just gonna give you a warning this time,” Bernie said, and Laura wondered where he had been six months ago, when she truly needed one. He passed her a crisp piece of paper and smiled. “So where were you hurrying off to?”

  Not to, she thought, just back. “Home,” she told him. “I was headed home.” She waited until he was back in the cruiser to put on her signal-a penitent motion if ever there was one-and pulled into the gentle bend of the road. She drove well within the speed limit, her eyes focused ahead, as careful as you have to be when you know someone is watching.

  “I’m leaving,” Laura said the minute she walked through the door. Daniel looked up from the kitchen counter, where he was chopping broccoli in preparation for dinner. On the stove, chicken was simmering in garlic.

  “You just got here,” he said.

  “I know.” Laura lifted the lid on the skillet, breathed in. “Smells really good. I wish I could stay.”

  He could not pinpoint what was different about her, but he thought it had to do with the fact that when she’d just said she wanted to be home, he believed her-most of the time, if she apologized for leaving, it was only because it was expected. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  She turned her back to Daniel and began to sort through the mail. “That departmental thing I told you about.”

  She had not told him; he knew she hadn’t told him. She unwound her scarf and shrugged out of her coat, draped them over a chair. She was wearing a black suit and Sorel boots, which were tracking snow in small puddles all over the kitchen floor. “How’s Trixie?”

  “She’s in her room.”

  Laura opened the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of water. “The crazy poet is trying to stage a coup,” she said. “She’s been talking to the tenured professors. I don’t think she knows that-” Suddenly, there was a crash, and Daniel turned in time to see the glass explode against the tile floor. Water spread in a puddle, seeping beneath the edge of the refrigerator. “Damn it!” Laura cried, kneeling to pick up the pieces.

  “I’ve got it,” Daniel said, tossing down paper towels to absorb the spill. “You’ve got to slow down. You’re bleeding.”

  Laura glanced down at the gash on the pad of her thumb as if it belonged to someone else. Daniel reached for her and wrapped her hand in a clean dish towel. They knelt inches apart on the tile floor, watching her blood soak through the checkered fabric.

  Daniel couldn’t remember the last time he and Laura had been this close to each other. He couldn’t remember a lot of things, like the sound of his wife’s breathing when she gave herself over to sleep, or the half smile that slipped out like a secret when something took her by surprise. He had tried to tell himself that Laura was busy, the way she always got at the beginning of a trimester. He did not ask if it could be anything more than that, because he did not want to hear the answer.

  “We need to take care of that,” Daniel said. The bones of her wrist were light and fine in his hand, delicate as china.

  Laura tugged herself free. “I’m fine,” she insisted, and she stood up. “It’s a scratch.” For a moment she stared at him, as if she knew, too, that there was another entire conversation going on here, one they had chosen not to have.

  “Laura.” Daniel got to his feet, but she turned away.

  “I really have to go change,” she said.

  Daniel watched her leave, heard her footsteps on the stairs overhead. You already have, he thought.

  “You didn’t,” Zephyr said.

  Trixie pushed her sleeves up and stared down at the cuts on her arms, a red web of regret. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. “I started walking, and I wound up at the rink…I figured it was a sign. If we could just talk-”

  “Trixie, right now Jason doesn’t want to talk. He wants to take out a restraining order.” Zephyr sighed. “You are so Fatal Attraction.”

  “Fatal what?”

  “It’s an old movie. Don’t you ever watch anything that doesn’t have Paul Walker in it?”

  Trixie tucked the phone between her shoulder and her ear and carefully unwound the screw neck of the X-Acto knife that she’d taken from her father’s office. The blade came out, a tiny silver trapezoid. “I’d do anything to get him back.” Closing her eyes, Trixie scored the blade over her left arm. She sucked in her breath and imagined she was opening up a vent, allowing some of the enormous pressure to ease.

  “Are you going to complain about this until we graduate?” Zephyr asked. “Because if that’s the case, then I’m taking matters into my own hands.”

  What if her father knocked on the door right now? What if anyone, even Zephyr, found out that she was doing stuff like this? Maybe it wasn’t relief she was feeling, but shame. Both made you burn from the inside out.

  “So, do you want my help?” Zephyr asked.

  Trixie clapped her hand over the cut, stanching the flow.

  “Hello?” Zephyr said. “Are you still there?”

  Trixie lifted her hand. The blood was rich and bright against her palm. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess I am.”

  “Good timing,” Daniel said, as he heard Trixie’s footsteps pounding down the stairs. He set two plates on the kitchen table and turned around to find her waiting in her coat, carrying a backpack. Her cascade of hair spilled out from beneath a striped stocking cap.

  “Oh,” she said, blinking at the food. “Zephyr invited me for a sleepover