"People die in Alaska all the time," Aaron echoed.
"Exactly," I said.
"He'll come around, sweetheart. He's not that dumb." There was a pause, in which I imagined her glaring at her son, then putting another pancake on his plate. "Are we still on for shopping on Thursday? I have nothing to wear for my cruise."
See? Things were fine if she still wanted to go shopping with me. I assured her I was, then hung up.
I was supposed to have lunch with Rachelle. Good, that would be good. I'd get my mind off things, and who knew? By the time I got back, Eric might well be sitting on the front porch, waiting for me with a bouquet of roses in his hand and regret in his heart.
I wouldn't tell anyone about this. It would only make things awkward when Eric and I got back together.
I showered and dressed with care, trying to empty my mind. Put on a cute checked dress, long silver earrings and strappy sandals. There. I looked like myself again, slightly plump (curvy, Eric liked to say), cute as a bug's ear.
Except I could see the shadow of anxiety in my eyes.
We'd never parted on angry terms. We'd never gone to bed mad. We were that special couple, two halves of a whole.
Rachelle and I were meeting at the Blessed Bean, a sweet cafe in the historic downtown section of Cambry-on-Hudson, not far from work. I rode my bike into town, past Kate's still-new studio, photos of brides, grooms, babies and animals in the window. She liked to say that photography showed the truth of people, and over the years, she'd taken a few pictures of Eric and me. We looked happy in every damn one. There was no I haven't been happy for some time anywhere.
Or maybe there was. Maybe I should check.
As I passed Bliss, the bridal gown boutique, I tried not to look in the window. The dresses were works of art (especially the short lace one I saw out of the corner of my eye). But I couldn't be thinking about weddings right now. No. Eric had some crawling to do.
There was Rachelle, checking her phone in front of the restaurant. "Hey!" I called, plastering on a smile.
"Don't you look cute!" she said. Like me, she loved clothes. Shopping was one of the ways we'd become friends. "Did you check out the lace dress in Bliss? Oh, my God, I have to get married just so I can wear that!"
"It would look great on you. I'm starving," I said. "Let's go in."
We were seated by a window and she flirted with the waiter. Rachelle was single and on the prowl, and he was pretty cute.
"So guess what?" she said after we'd ordered. "I have office gossip."
"Oh, goody! Do tell."
"Captain Flatline went on a date last night. Can you believe it?"
"Really?" I drank some water to cover. Of course, I'd seen Jonathan last night--not that I'd realized it was a date. It had looked about as romantic as a bunionectomy. But I didn't want to tell Rachelle. After all, Jonathan had seen me in my moment of humiliation. He'd ignored me as I left the restaurant, and I was grateful. I knew he'd never talk about it with anyone.
Rachelle chattered and speculated away, and I nodded and smiled but didn't comment. We then moved on to where she could meet a nice guy--her last date had tried to convince her to become a Druid--and I promised to give her the number of one of the Wall Street crew she'd met at Eric's party.
"I could use a rich boyfriend," she said. "I had to cancel my cable and I'm in deep mourning. And what's-his-name was pretty cute."
God, if only we could do that party over. I'd make sure Kate's glass was full. Nathan would still be alive, and I'd be engaged.
When the bill came, I grabbed it, handed over my Visa and subtly checked my phone.
Nothing from Eric. Maybe he was home by now.
"What are you guys doing tonight? Anything fun?" she asked.
"Oh, no plans yet." I forced another smile.
The cute waiter came back with the bill. "I'm so sorry," he said, "but your card's been declined."
My mouth fell open, and humiliation burned its way up my chest and throat, into my cheeks. "Oh...uh, right! I...I forgot, our card number was hacked. I'm so sorry. I was supposed to throw that one out. Here."
Our credit card had not been hacked.
I dug in my wallet and handed him two twenties. "Sorry. Keep the change."
Eric had canceled the card. I knew it in my bones.
Holy guacamole. Fear pricked my knees. "Listen, I should check in on my sister, so I'm gonna cut this short," I told Rachelle.
"Of course," she said. "Give her my best, okay?"
"Will do. See you Monday!" My heart thumped erratically.
I'd like you to move out.
I raced home, burst through the front door and went straight to my laptop--the latest Mac, a Hanukkah gift from Eric--and logged into our bank account, the one I used to pay the household bills.
My password was accepted, thank God. The dread didn't lift. Ollie whined, and I petted him automatically, waiting for my bank account to appear. Our bank account.
There.
Checking Account Ending in 7839: Balance: $35.17.
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and back.
Last week, there'd been more than twenty grand in there.
Savings Account Ending in 3261: Balance: $102.18
Last week, fifty grand and change. My breathing was fast and shallow.
All our--his--other money was held in a conservative stock portfolio. He kept some aside to play with; it was what he did for a living, after all. He liked to take some chances on new companies, always on the lookout for the next Google.
I sat back and tried to take a calming breath.
Back when Eric started making more than I did, I insisted on paying for half of our expenses (except rent, because there was no way I could've afforded our second apartment). But I paid for half the gas, half the electric, half the building fees. I didn't want to seem like a kept woman, even if his job on Wall Street had boosted us into another tax bracket. And now, please. I didn't earn enough at Hudson Lifestyle to live in the area the magazine covered. The irony was not lost on me.
When we bought the house, Eric told me to save my share of the down payment "for when we have a baby." Logistically, I couldn't manage a tenth of it, let alone half. I'd worried--a little, anyway--at the time, wanting a more modest house, but Eric had smiled, kissed me and said, "Honey, we can easily afford this."
By which he'd meant I can easily afford this.
Otherwise, I never thought much about money. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The name on the deed...only his. We'd never changed that, had we? Had that been deliberate? My God, had he done that on purpose?
I never once questioned that it was our money, our house, our families.
Once or twice a year, I'd wrestle Eric for the check and say, "This one's on me," and we'd laugh, and he'd let me pay.
I realized I was sweating.
I did have my own savings account, which I checked now. The balance was the same as last week: $12,289.43. Not a lot to show for a decade of work.
My heart should probably be broken, or I should be furious, but right now all I felt was numb.
He didn't mean this. A day or week from now, he'd be on his knees, begging me to forgive him. He loved me. He had always loved me.
But there was a voice in my head that sounded a lot like Candy's, and it was saying Eric was doing exactly what he wanted to do.
Chapter Ten
Kate
On the twenty-second day of My Exciting Adventures as a Widow, I found myself in a gas station bathroom, peeing on a stick.
Why? Because I was fun, that's why.
Still no period.
So I had to be knocked up, right? Right?
I recognized my own desperation. Eleven pregnancy tests had told me I wasn't pregnant. I opted not to believe them. Fuck 'em! So what if the Mayo Clinic, WebMD and the National Health Service of Great Britain said they were 99 percent accurate? If that was true, I'd have my period, so clearly, I was pregnant.
"I am going to have your
baby, Nathan," I said aloud, setting the test on the sink to do its thing. My voice bounced off the tiles on the bathroom walls. "You and I are going to be parents, honey!"
Keep on the sunny side, right? That was me! Widowed but not broken.
Why the gas station? Well, let's just say I was tired of irrationally hiding my used pregnancy tests at home. Having to do jazz hands to keep the lights on took away from what should be a special moment. Also, what if Brooke stopped over, unannounced, as she was prone to doing these days, and rifled through my trash (which she hadn't done, but still, it was possible) and found a pregnancy test, and her hopes got so high, and then I had to dash them?
What if my mother-in-law (was Eloise still my mother-in-law, since I was technically no longer married?)...anyway, what if Eloise brought her little dogs over, and they ran into the bathroom and grabbed one out of the trash and ran out and dropped it at her feet, the same way my childhood dog had barfed up a tampon in front of my first boyfriend?
I'd run out of pregnancy tests two days ago, so I had to go to the CVS three towns north (in case I ran into someone who knew Nathan, and their name was legion). The CVS was conveniently located next to a gas station.
And really, the two lines were much more likely to show up here. Right? Wouldn't this make a great scene in a movie? It was all so...grimy. If I was a teenager, I'd definitely be pregnant.
I had to be pregnant. I had never once missed my period, which had been such a faithful pain in the ass since it had first debuted when I was twelve during my great-aunt Marguerite's one hundredth birthday party. "I see your Cousin Tilly from St. Louis has come to visit," Marguerite whispered in my ear.
I thought she was having a stroke. Turned out I had a big splotch of blood on the ass of my white (of course) sundress. Ainsley thought I was dying and had been inconsolable.
And since then, every friggin' twenty-eight days.
So where was my period, huh? Making a placenta, that was where.
"Placenta," I said out loud, just to make sure I wasn't in some weird dream. The difference was very hard to tell. I was drunk with exhaustion.
Since Nathan's death, I'd slept only in twenty-minute spurts, jerking awake in a panic. Was it true? Was he really gone? Or had I dreamed his whole death thing? Or maybe our whole life was the dream, those nine bizarrely idyllic months just an incredibly vivid product of my imagination.
Already, our marriage felt like it was dissolving. I could picture Nathan only in shimmery waves, as if I was looking at him across a hot parking lot in August. I could picture a photo of him, but not him in real life.
"Please come back," I whispered. "Please, Nathan."
There was no answer.
I glanced at my watch. In twenty minutes, I was meeting Eloise at the Cambry-on-Hudson Lawn Club for lunch. We were now shackled together in grief, she and I. This would be my first public outing aside from that trip to the supermarket, three late-night drives and today's fun-fun-fun outing to CVS.
Twenty minutes. Plenty of time for my hormones to create the appropriate lines on the pregnancy test. I wouldn't tell Eloise that I'm pregnant until I was well out of the first trimester, when the pregnancy was more assured. And then, oh, what happy news it would be!
I picked up the test.
One line.
"Well, fuck you, shit-bird," I said and threw it in the trash as hard as I could.
*
"Kate, my deah," Eloise said as I came into the club. "Thank you for joining me."
"Thank you for inviting me." I went to kiss her just as she hugged me instead, so the end result was that I kissed my mother-in-law on the neck, like a teenage boy going in for a hickey. She kindly ignored it but did step back a little. I couldn't blame her. Looking down, I saw that my shoes didn't match. Classy. I tried to hide this fact by standing with one foot behind the other, like a tightrope walker.
Looking Eloise in the eye was just too hard. Though I wasn't a mother (thanks for nothing, pregnancy test), it seemed to me that suicide might feel like a very reasonable option if your child died. Then again, Eloise had Brooke and Brooke's sons. And Nathan Senior.
"Right this way, Mrs. Coburn, Mrs. Coburn," the maitre d' said.
Technically, I wasn't Mrs. Coburn. Four months ago, changing my name had felt awkward and pretentious, as if I'd be flaunting my married status. Now I wished I had.
I followed Les or Stu or Cal--I knew his name had three letters in it--to a table by the window.
"Please let me say how very sorry I was to hear about young Mr. Coburn," he said.
"Thank you, Bob," Eloise said. Bob. That was it. "You're very kind."
"Yes. Thank you," I added.
"I remember his sixteenth birthday party here, when he--" Bob's voice broke off.
I swallowed. Everyone knew him. Better than I did, in many cases. Everyone had more memories. And rather than comfort me, these stories made me jealous and confused. What do you mean, you played poker with him? He never played poker! Not in the whole nine months I knew him! I wanted to bark. Or, Who gives a rat's ass that he got you through algebra? He was my husband, and he's dead!
"That was a happy day," Eloise said, graciously covering for poor Bob, who was struggling to maintain control. He gruffly assured us that our waiter would be right over and left the table.
Unable to avoid it any longer, Eloise and I looked at each other.
"So how are you?" I asked, my words squeaking, crushed by the vise in my throat.
"I'm doing as well as can be expected."
She looked good, that was for sure. Tall and slender, her thick blond-gray hair cut in a bob, Eloise was the type of woman who didn't own jeans or Keds. She wore a beige dress with a matching jacket and low heels. Very stylish, very flattering.
What was I wearing? I didn't remember, so I glanced down. Linen pants (points for that), a white shirt with a faint stain of spaghetti sauce. That's right. The meatball stain from a night at Porto's. A stain that predated Nathan.
"And how are you, Kate?" Eloise asked.
My stomach chose this moment to growl. Loud and long, too, thunder rolling across the plains. "Hungry, I guess." I laughed.
Whoops. No laughing allowed. My husband was dead. Her son. The laughter stopped.
Eloise's face didn't change. She gave a small nod.
"Sorry," I whispered. I looked away.
"Have you gotten back to work yet?" she asked, folding her hands.
"Not yet," I said. "I had a wedding this past weekend, but my assistant covered it. Max. You met him, I think."
"Yes. A nice man."
"Yes." Another stomach growl. We both ignored it this time.
The waiter came over. "I'll have a martini, three olives, very dry," I said, even though it was only 1:12 in the afternoon. But wait! I might be pregnant. "Actually, just water. And a Caesar salad, and the filet mignon." Because the baby would need iron and stuff. Until Cousin Tilly from St. Louis came to visit, I was pregnant, goddamn it.
"House salad for me, thank you," Eloise said. "Dressing on the side, please."
Our waiter nodded and left.
From where we sat, we could see the golf course, acres and acres of unnatural, perfect green. Nathan had sponsored a charity golf event. I wasn't sure how golf charities worked, but he had one, and it was supposed to have been in August. Who would take over? Who cared?
"How's Na--Mr. Coburn?" I asked.
"He's...he's struggling," Eloise said. There was a pause. "And how are you holding up?"
I took a shaky breath. "It's hard," I said.
"We have to be strong."
I nodded, pressing my lips together.
How could she do this? How could she even be upright? "Eloise," I said, reaching across the table to hold her hands, "I'm so sorry you have to--"
She squeezed my hands hard, then pulled back. "Please, Kate. Not here, my deah."
My hands stayed across the table for a moment, like dead fish. "Of course. You're right."
&nb
sp; Everyone grieves differently, the saying went. And I knew Eloise was devastated inside. Her boy. Her baby. He was everything a person could want in a son. He'd never disappointed her...well, not that I knew of. Except, perhaps, in marrying me.
"Have you seen any of your friends, deah? Or your sister or brother?"
I took a deep breath. "My sister calls every day. Otherwise, no. Not yet."
I'd had a thousand texts and emails, cards and phone messages, though. I don't know what to say was a popular theme. Also, Call me if you need anything.
Nothing from Paige. That really stung. We'd been friends for so long.
Daniel the Hot Firefighter had emailed. Just a Thought you might like this and a link to a BuzzFeed article about why men shouldn't own cats. #4 had been because they'll try to see if the cat's head will fit into their mouths with a GIF of someone doing just that, and I'd laughed out loud, startling myself, startling Hector into a rapid swim across his bowl.
Otherwise, it had been mighty quiet in Nathan's house. Mighty quiet. I was considering getting a dog.
My stomach roared again.
"You're not eating well, are you?" Eloise asked.
I shook my head, swallowing, forcing my throat muscles past the rusty spike that seemed to be wedged there.
"Well. We cahn't have that. You'll have a good lunch."
But when lunch finally came, I could barely get down a mouthful.
I did it. For the baby's sake, no matter what those ignorant tests said. Chewed and chewed and chewed. Swallowing was an act of will.
This was my life now.
"Mr. Coburn and I have decided to go ahead with our anniversary party," Eloise said. She ate the European way, fork in the left hand, knife in the right. "And of course we'd love for you to do the photos."
"Sure. Of course."
"We cahn't just abandon the charity."
"That's very...good of you."
I'd be going to the party without Nathan. His parents got fifty years; we didn't get one.
Until April 6, I'd had a civilized relationship with my in-laws. Nathan Senior often called me Karen, and finding things Eloise and I had in common had been nearly impossible. We didn't read the same books; she didn't watch TV or go to the movies. Once we'd exhausted the topic of how perfect Atticus and Miles were, we were pretty much done.
Brooke had said all the right things when Nathan and I were dating, and she urged her kids to call me Aunt Kate after we got married. She'd invited me to one of those parties where guests buy jewelry made by African schoolgirls, and I sat there, trying to be open and positive and interested in everyone, buying lots of jewelry I wouldn't wear.
On Second Thought Page 12