Chapter 15: What Clive Saw

"Yes," Clive said.

He did not look at Brendan.

He looked at me, and he kept his hand where it was on the wall.

"I saw her name on his phone in the waiting room," he said. "It lit up at three in the morning and I knew who it was."

"And I never told you myself."

"That's all of it?"

"That's all of it. There isn't a better version."

I waited for the rest.

I waited for the sentence that started with "but."

It didn't come.

"You let me tell you about the ride on your office floor," I said. "You let me cry on you."

"I could see you didn't know."

"You knew for a year, Clive. You stood beside Brendan at that wedding and watched me ask him about it, and you knew."

"I did."

"Why didn't you tell me yourself?"

He took a breath.

"Because he'd said he would. Because after that I was the guy who'd seen it and done nothing, and every week I didn't say it, it got harder."

"And then I wanted you, and telling you would have looked like I was clearing the way."

"That's an excuse."

"It's the reason," he said. "It's not a good one. I'm not offering it as one."

Behind me Brendan made a sound.

"Clive, it was my job," Brendan said. "It was mine, not his."

"Stay out of this," I said, without turning.

"Justine."

"Get up off his floor and go."

He got up.

He picked the coffee cups up from the landing, and I watched him realize that was absurd.

He set them down again.

"I'll be at my mother's," he said. "If you want me for anything."

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