Prayer by Philip Kerr Page B

firms these days put in twelve-hour days and more. I made a choice, Gil. A choice to be a wife and a mother. Besides, I really don’t want to leave Danny with a nanny.”
    “Lots of women do.”
    “I didn’t try so hard to have our child just to farm his care out to a stranger.”
    “All right. I understand that, honey. But please, let’s try to work this out.”
    “Work it out.” Ruth smiled a weary little smile. “What do you think I’ve been doing these last few months? What do you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been desperately hoping that I could see some sign that you were happy with just me and Danny. That you’d forgotten about her. Nancy Graham. There, I said her name. I lie awake at night and see it written in the atoms of air above our bed. But I know you haven’t forgotten her. I can see it in your eyes. It’s not just God and the church that you don’t believe in, Gil. It’s me and Danny. It’s our life in Houston. It’s us.”
    “Oh, that’s nonsense, Ruth.”
    “Is it? I don’t think so. Your atheism is a symptom—an important symptom—of something much more profound. Of a deeper fracture between us as a couple. Maybe you can’t see it. But I can and I just don’t want to deal with it. Not anymore. You think you can humor me with—what was it you said? With what you are prepared to pay lip service to for the sake of family harmony? Well, I’m through with lip service. And I’m through with you. I want more than just lip service from my marriage. I want a connection. I want a union. I want a conversation. I want—I want you gone.”
    “Do you honestly think I’m just going to walk out of here without a fight? No way.”
    “As you like,” she said. “But don’t you think we’ve done enough fighting? That’s why I’m telling you that you have to leave.”
    “This isn’t over, Ruth,” I said, grimly picking up my car keys.
    “Yes, it is,” she said.
    “We’ll talk about this when I come home tonight.”
    “No, we won’t,” she said.
    “Yes, we will,” I said. “Not to talk about it. You think that’s what God wants? Not to give me a chance to put things right.”
    “You should go,” she said.

SEVEN
    W orking late kept my mind off what was happening at home. Ruth and Danny were no longer there. She was already back with her parents; their home—a twelve-hundred-acre hilltop ranch in Corsicana—was the first place I telephoned when I discovered Ruth was gone, and it was all Bob could do not to sound pleased when he said that she didn’t want to speak with me. He always felt that Ruth could have done better than pick me. I suppose all fathers feel that way about their only daughters; but it’s not often they tell you as much.
    Corsicana is less than two hundred miles north of Houston and I thought of driving there to straighten things out, but I stayed in Houston and told myself she’d come home when she was good and ready. After that, I only called her cell and I must have sent her about a hundred texts but she never answered. Every marriage has its ups and downs. I figured that Ruth just needed time and space to get her head around what was important in her life. There was plenty of space in Corsicana.
    A couple of times I sent Danny some books and a new Xbox game from Amazon so he’d know I was thinking of him; I knew they were delivered all right, but he didn’t reply, either—or at least Ruth didn’t allow him to send me a text or an e-mail, which struck me as mean. It was odd how quickly I felt removed from them both—almost as if they had ceased to exist, so much so that I started to question just how much I had loved them. Would I have risked the affair with Nancy Graham if I’d been the loving husband and father I ought to have been? Was that how it was for most men when their marriages end? I asked a few of the guys around the office and the consensus was that it wasn’t them who had ceased to exist, it was me. After a while, they said,