Envy by Kathryn Harrison

“With rice inside and something else, I’m not sure what.”
    Across the table, his father is patting the many pockets of his sportsman’s vest as if to remind himself of their contents, a gesture that has become habitual, even compulsive. Once he’d sold his veterinary practice and discarded his lab coats, he created what is in effect a new uniform: the khaki vest with numerous pockets, all of which he fills; wide-wale, navy blue corduroy trousers; and a fishing hat that looks like an upside-down flowerpot. The hat might be funny on another man—on anyone but his father—and Will has himself to blame for the vest. After he complained to his mother that he and Carole were receiving too many of what they’d begun to refer to as his father’s “booty calls,” his mother bought the vest so his father wouldn’t have to carry his cell phone in the back pocket of his trousers, into which he’d jam the thing and then sit on it while driving, inadvertently putting pressure on whatever button he’d programmed to speed-dial Will’s home number. Whoever picked up would hear the thrum and whoosh of highway travel punctuated by random throat clearings and sometimes the strains of whatever song was playing on the local oldies station. “Dad!” Will would yell. “DAD!” But his father never heard the tiny voice coming out from underneath him, and once Will had answered the phone, he found it difficult to hang up and sever the connection. Though his father was oblivious to his phantom presence in the car—or perhaps because he was oblivious— there was an unexpected intimacy in having been summoned to ride along with him, invisible and undetected, returned to his ten-year-old self, happy to be with his father, no matter how workaday the errand.
    â€œSo,” Will says to him after the waiter has left, “I talked with Mom.”
    â€œOh,” his father says. “And?”
    â€œShe told me it’s that woman you met at the gallery. The one who bought all those prints.”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œYou’re living with her?” Will asks.
    â€œI like the city.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you how you felt about New York. That’s not—”
    His father smiles. “I know.” Silver hair and laugh lines have made Will’s father improbably handsome, more so than either of his much younger sons, more than when he himself was younger and women already found him irresistible, so that they’d linger in the exam room, schedule appointments for healthy animals, drop by the clinic with questions about dewclaws or ear mites or housebreaking, whatever they could think of. Will remembers his mother being good-humored about this, but then, his father hadn’t given her reason to be jealous, not back then. Or at least he hadn’t as far as Will knew.
    His father plays with a rubber band on his wrist. “I spend a few nights in town, then go back home.”
    â€œWhat about Mom?”
    â€œShe’s busy enough that she doesn’t seem to take much note of where I am.”
    â€œIs that what this is about? You feel like she’s not paying attention to you?”
    â€œShe’s not. But that’s not what this is about.” The waiter sets their plates before them, and his father picks up his fork. “Your mother and I have been married for nearly fifty years,” he says. “You don’t think we’ve paid attention to each other the whole time, do you?”
    â€œI guess I’m just trying to figure this out—what it means.”
    â€œDoes it have to mean something? I like spending a few nights a week in the city. I like spending time with Lottie.”
    â€œLottie?”
    â€œCharlotte.”
    â€œShe’s good company?” Will says. “What do you talk about?”
    â€œNothing much. We rent movies. DVDs. She has a good setup. Big screen. Like a little theater,