by Wendy Wax
Our eyes meet. Despite the early hour he’s completely awake and has apparently already been out for a run if the running shorts he’s wearing and the T-shirt currently plastered to his chest and abs are any indication.
“Morning.” He raises his coffee cup in greeting and I’m pretty sure I smile back.
I watch his face, looking for signs of residual anger or hostility or even smugness at having a relationship with Lauren when I don’t. But he sets his mug on the counter and reaches for the coffeepot.
“No offense, but you look like you could use some.”
“In my experience almost any sentence that begins with ‘no offense’ is offensive to one degree or another,” I say even though he’s only speaking the truth. If my hands weren’t full I’d be running one of them over my hair or checking my face in the nearest mirror.
I walk past him to set the basket of muffins near where Dee has put out bowls, homemade granola, and pitchers of milk and juice. “But I think I’m already overcaffeinated.”
“I imagine sleeping is a challenge right now.”
I nod noncommittally and try to focus on what I’m doing, which is rearranging the already perfectly aligned breakfast things. I cut a look toward Dee’s office door.
“She ran over to her place to get something,” Jake says helpfully. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
I don’t turn around, but I’m ridiculously aware of him. “Are you still considering buying the Dogwood?” I throw the question half over my shoulder, too nervous to ask what I really want to know, which is whether he’s been in touch with Lauren. “It’s hard to imagine this place without her,” I babble even as my mind pulls up images of Jake here full-time managing the B and B despite the fact that Warner Holdings belongs to him and the chances of him running an individual property are probably zero.
“I’d actually love to add it to our portfolio,” he says. “But Dee’s still on the fence and . . .”
I can hear his voice, but my thoughts are now focused on him managing the Dogwood. Which would put him just a bridge away. A stunning thought after decades spent trying not to think of him at all. So stunning that I can’t let go of it and come back to reality only as he finishes with, “That’s why I’m exploring other possibilities.”
He falls silent, but I can’t seem to find my voice or bring myself to turn and face him. I startle when he places his hands on my shoulders and turns me gently around. For a long moment we stare into each other’s eyes. Everything is there. The enormity of our past, Lauren’s existence, her rejection of me, his wife and the fact that she’s gone. Every bit of it is there between us, yet wrapped around us, too.
He drops his hands and takes a step back, but our gazes remain tangled. I try to pull my focus back where it belongs. On finding out whether he’s in touch with Lauren and whether he’d be willing to speak to her for me. Something I’m pretty sure I have no right to ask.
I’m still trying to find the courage to begin when he says, “Have you heard from Lauren?”
He once knew me so well that for an instant I think he’s read my mind. Then I remind myself that he’s a parent—one who, according to my aunt Velda, raised two children pretty much on his own—and has to know how much I need to speak to my child. Our child.
“No. She won’t pick up or return my calls.” I fall back a step, because it’s hard to think when he’s standing so close. “Have you?”
“Yes.” He shifts uncomfortably, but he doesn’t look away. “She asked me to come up to visit.”
“Oh.” If he were lording it over me, I could be angry. But his expression is almost apologetic. I feel a dull ache in the pit of my stomach.
“I want to know Lauren. I want my sons to know her.” He swallows. “I was incredibly angry when I first got here, but even then my goal wasn’t to ruin your relationship. At least I don’t think it was. I just . . . I really needed to see her. And I wanted her to understand that I hadn’t ignored her.”
“I think that came across loud and clear.” There is anger and chagrin and regret in that sentence. I feel all of those things and more. Whether he meant to or not, he’s won our daughter and I’ve lost her. But if I’m going to rebuild my relationship with Lauren I’m going to have to be able to deal rationally with the father she’s just discovered.
This is the man I loved and longed for even after I knew he was engaged to someone else. The man I unthinkingly compare every other man I meet to.
“I understand there were problems, and I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what was your wife like?” I don’t ask the other things I want to know. What attracted you to her? Did you love her more than you loved me?
He studies my face for a long moment then says, “Angela was beautiful in a fragile, fairy-tale princess kind of way.” He sighs. “She seemed so lost at times that I guess I felt she really needed me.”
“Sir Galahad to the rescue. You always did have a protective streak a mile wide.” I don’t even come close to the teasing tone I’m looking for.
“Only, as I recall, you never wanted to be protected.”
It’s my turn to sigh. I spent my life striving to prove I could take care of myself. That I was strong. “You knew my father,” I say. “He always acted as if my mother’s ‘issues’ were just a matter of weakness. That she could have ‘cheered herself up’ or ‘pulled herself together’ if she’d only tried. It’s ridiculous, of course. But he was a man of absolutes. Black or white. Good or evil. Weak or strong. He had no middle ground. I always needed to appear capable in his eyes.”
Jake shakes his head in memory. And I recall how much easier it was to breathe around Jake’s parents than around my own, where I was always tiptoeing carefully so as not to set anyone off.
Jake’s features are stronger, more handsome in person than in my memory. So is his impact on me. I don’t know if I intentionally turned him into less than he was to ease the loss or if my memory just faded over time. “When Lauren was little and I was struggling to take care of her alone and earn enough to keep a roof over our heads, I would probably have jumped right on the back of that white charger of yours without a minute’s hesitation.”
“Yeah. I know a bit about single parenting,” he says. “Definitely not for sissies.”
We share a smile. We were babies ourselves on our wedding day; so young and inexperienced. I up and ran without conscious thought—all reaction and emotion. Jake stayed with a woman who was in and out of institutions. He raised his sons and kept his family going despite the emotional upheaval. And somehow he managed not to become hard like my father. Or maybe my father was just born that way.
“Did you love her?” The question is out before I realize I’m going to ask it.
Once again he pauses to think before he speaks. His answer is not the automatic yes or no I’m expecting. “I thought so. And when I became unsure, I told myself I did. But Angela was never convinced. Until the day she died, she believed that I was still in love with you.”
My heart pounds, but the rest of me goes very still.
His eyes turn bleak. “I stayed. I loved and took care of my children. I did all I could for her. But . . .” His voice trails off and he hesitates once again. “As much as I hate not having known about Lauren and that my parents died never knowing they had a granddaughter, you were right. If you and Lauren had become a part of the equation it could have set things off on a scale I’m not sure any of us would have survived.”
I feel a weight lift at his words. I may have blundered in my handling of things, but my instincts were right. There’s movement upstairs, but no one comes into the kitchen. We stand in a bubble of our own as the past washes over me and I wonder but cannot bring myself to ask whether Angela was right about Jake’s love for me.
“Why did you run?” At first I think I have imagined the question. But when I make myself look, I see the wound I dealt
him deep in his eyes.
I drop my gaze to the window. April sunlight dapples the outdoor fireplace. Cocoa the cat sleeps in a rocker. The rich, sweet scent of jasmine slips through the open window. Life goes on even as you examine the life that fell apart. “My parents’ marriage wasn’t exactly a shining example of wedded bliss, but I honestly don’t know what made me panic like that.” I force myself to meet his eyes again. “When I finally calmed down enough to think about it, it made no sense. I mean, your parents seemed perfectly happy and you were certainly nothing like my father and I couldn’t have been more than a few weeks pregnant so I’m not sure I can blame it on hormones. In all these years since, I’ve never come up with a good answer or reason. You were the first and . . .” I stop just short of adding last “. . . the first man I ever truly loved.”
We contemplate each other. Time spools out between us, past and present.
“Did you ever think about how it might have been if we’d gotten married?” he asks softly.
I shut my eyes briefly but there’s nowhere to hide. I owe him as much truth as I can muster. “There were times when it was all I thought about. When Lauren was colicky and on a crying jag or when I was exhausted and let myself think about how alone we really were. Or when she smiled for the first time. Took her first steps, said her first words. That’s when I would think how much nicer life would be if we were sharing it with you.”
A door slams upstairs and I attempt to bring myself back to the present. To reality. “Of course, our marriage might not have been everything I imagined. We might have ended up divorced. Or we might have stayed together, but fought all the time and been cruel to each other. Or the love and attraction might have faded over the years until we took each other for granted.” I name all the things I used to tell myself when I missed him the most.
“Or maybe we would have gotten lucky and been gloriously happy.”
His tone is so wistful it hurts. His eyes are the warm golden brown of aged whiskey or fresh honey. He lowers his head and leans closer. My body sways toward his. It knows before I do that he intends to kiss me.
“Kendra?” Dee’s voice reaches us through an open window. Hurried footsteps sound on the deck.
Jake and I jump apart like teenagers about to get caught doing something they shouldn’t.
“Would you like to go out for dinner one night?” Jake asks.
“Oh.” It’s possible my mouth drops open in surprise even as my heart leaps a little.
“It doesn’t have to be a date,” he adds as the doorknob turns.
“It doesn’t?” I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“No. Of course not.” He looks down and meets my gaze clearly. “Not unless you want it to be.”
Twenty-nine
Bree
Title Waves
Today, as we straighten the store post–book club meeting, I’m finally able to answer Mrs. McKinnon’s and Leslie Parent’s almost daily questions about how my manuscript has been received in New York with the news that Heart of Gold is finally ready to be submitted to five meticulously researched literary agents.
“Oh, my dear. That’s wonderful!” Mrs. McKinnon clasps her hands to her chest.
“Yes, it is.” Leslie high-fives me. “You go, girl!”
The B’s raise their last glasses of wine in a toast and down them like shots in my honor.
Wonderful is not the word I would have chosen. I would have gone with wretched, frightened, and nauseous, because the very real possibility of rejection is no longer comfortably off in the future.
It took a week and a half to do a complete read-through and tweak of the manuscript, which I’m fairly certain doesn’t completely suck.
I’ve also prepared a proposal, which consists of a synopsis (shoot me now!), the first three chapters of the manuscript (polished within an inch of their lives), and a cover letter in which I’ve carefully omitted the fact that it’s taken me fifteen years to complete this novel (lest they think, as Lauren does, that makes me a pathetic underachiever who is not serious about having a writing career).
Though I’m not at all sure that “doesn’t completely suck” is good enough to land an agent or a publishing contract, I’ve promised myself I will hit send no later than tomorrow morning.
“Thank you all for your enthusiasm and support,” I say, as if I’m giving an acceptance speech of some kind. “I’m not sure I would have ever finished if it weren’t for all of you believing I would.” I tear up at this because it’s true. I started on a journey and got lost somewhere along the way. The fact that I reached the end is nothing short of miraculous. I owe it not only to myself, but to everyone who’s cheered me on, to see this through, whatever the outcome.
All of the B’s stay to help tidy up the store. Mrs. McKinnon supervises. Title Waves is theirs as much as it’s mine. While no bookstore owner is in it solely for the money, I’m happy to make a more than decent living in a profession I feel passionate about. As we put things in their place, straighten chairs, wipe off tables, put the empty wine bottles in the recycle bin, I wonder what I would do without the store and the customers who come through it.
When I get home the house is quiet. Lily, whose observations about her father and my role in enabling him have pierced me to the core and shaken the world as I know it, is cheering at an away basketball game and spending the night with her cocaptain afterward.
Since it’s just Clay and me for dinner, I throw together a salad and warm up a loaf of frozen sourdough bread. After we fill our plates he begins to eat. His head is down as he scrolls through messages on his cell phone, and I take a mean kind of pleasure in the small balding spot this reveals.
“So, how was your day?” I ask when I can’t take the silence any longer.
“Hmmm?” He doesn’t look up.
“What happened with Sands-A-Lot? Did the tenant decide to stay an extra week?” I prompt.
“Oh, umm, yeah. I gave them a bit of a preseason discount and they extended.”
He finally seems to register the silence that follows and looks up. “How are things at the store?”
This is his default question whenever he’s unsure of what I may or may not have been talking about. Not waiting for an answer he reaches for another piece of bread. A text dings in and his gaze strays back to his phone.
“Great,” I say with my eyes on the bald spot again. “There was a small fire in the back storage area, but Mrs. McKinnon threw herself on top of the cartons of books and smothered it with her body.”
“Hmmm,” he says without looking up. “Interesting.” A small smile plays on his lips and I wonder if it’s Carla Andrews, whose smug sister we ran into in the bathroom at Blue Point, that he’s texting.
Once again I think about the fact that Lily knows. That she believes that my lack of action means that I condone it. Or, more accurately, that I’m too big a coward to address it. If Lily knows so does Rafe. Yet I continue to spin out the story, to feint and jab at his inattention, rather than raise the real issue. “Thankfully, Mrs. McKinnon’s burns weren’t too severe and her heart attack was minor. I kept her alive until the paramedics got there by performing CPR and a song or two from the musical Cats.”
“That’s nice,” he says as he fires off another text. His head jerks up when he registers what I said. “Sorry. I just had to organize a, um, something.” He waits for me to give him some shit for not paying attention. Or for texting at the table, which I’ve begged him not to do and which is, let’s face it, incredibly insulting. But what is that compared to his cheating?
As he lowers his head again it’s impossible to ignore how little we have left to say to each other. When Lily’s here our conversation is targeted at and through her. When we’re alone we talk about things that need to be taken care of. Errands, Lily’s schedule, house repairs, car maintenance, the detritus of everyday life.
“I’ve got a showing up in Duck and then I need to stop by the new house in Corolla to fix a leaky faucet. I may just stay out there and have a beer with Stan.”
He deposits his plate in the sink then goes up to change. When he comes back downstairs freshly showered and shaved, the cologne I bought him for his birthday wafts off him. (Yes, that’s the kind of thought that goes into our gifts to each other now. And no I don’t believe he put it on for Stan.) “I’m not sure how late I’ll be.” He pecks me on the cheek. “Don’t wait up.”
After he leaves the house is even quieter. The normally reassuring tick of my grandmother’s grandfather clock is low and steady, but tonight instead of filling the silence it counts it out and amplifies it.
I turn off the kitchen light and head upstairs, where I pause to peer into Lily’s room. Some mothers would be irritated by the habitually unmade bed, the half-opened drawers, the clothes and shoes strewn across the floor. To me it’s confirmation that she’s secure enough not to constantly strive to please or pursue perfection. Secure enough to call me on my cowardice.
In two years when Lily goes off to college this room will be unbearably neat. And I will be left alone with my inattentive, often absent husband.
Normally I brush this and other troubling thoughts aside. Over the last twenty years, I’ve sidestepped even the most insistent aha! moments by convincing myself that it would be wrong to take my children’s father away from them. That keeping my family intact is more important than being loved and respected the way I deserve. The way we all deserve.
All this time I’ve told myself I’ve been hiding their father’s affairs from the children in an effort to save our marriage for them. That the most important thing was keeping our family intact for them. But they know. Which brings me to the question of whom I’m actually protecting. And what kind of an example I’ve set for my children. Why am I still bowing to the emperor when our children already know that he’s not wearing clothes?