The Husband Hour

by Jamie Brenner

  “Hon? Have you seen your father?”

  Lauren looked up. “Yeah. He showed up like twenty minutes ago. Did you know he was coming back today?”

  Beth, not wanting to admit how little they had communicated, said only “Where did he go?”

  “To the beach. I think to see Stephanie.”

  Matt met Craig at Sack O’ Subs. That had been Craig’s request; a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, Craig was familiar with the Philly–Jersey Shore connection and the regional obsession with cheesesteaks.

  They sat at a booth near the back and ate potato chips while they waited for their sandwiches.

  “I have to say, the interviews are more than I’d hoped for,” Craig said. “Lauren doesn’t just confirm your thesis, she adds a depth of humanity to the whole thing. I feel the loss of Rory emotionally, not just intellectually.”

  Matt nodded. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

  The waitress arrived with their cheesesteaks on paper plates.

  “These alone are worth the trip,” Craig said. His steak was topped with provolone, onions, and sweet peppers. “It’s the bread that makes it. And they can’t duplicate this in New York because of the water.”

  “Didn’t know that,” Matt said, distracted.

  He wrestled with the issue of whether to show Craig the footage of Stephanie. A part of him felt he should hold back. Maybe the Stephanie angle wasn’t a place he wanted to go with the film. However, he wasn’t in a position to play it safe.

  “Craig, there’s some footage I’ve been grappling with. I didn’t use it in the cut I e-mailed you. It’s relevant from a character perspective, showing Rory’s personal weakness in contrast to his public accomplishment. But it sends the narrative of the film maybe too far in one direction.”

  Craig pushed his plate aside. “Well, now you’ve got me curious! Let’s take these to go.”

  When they arrived at the house, Henny greeted them in the driveway.

  “Matt, I’ve been calling you.” Her smock and left cheek were smudged with turquoise paint. “Oh, a friend! Hello there,” she said to Craig. “Henriette Boutine. I’d shake your hand but…”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Boutine. This your place?”

  “It is! Matt, sorry to interrupt, but I have a new renter coming at the end of the week if you’re certain you’re leaving.”

  “Yes,” Matt said. “I’ll be out tomorrow. Is that enough time for you?”

  “Of course! I don’t mean to shove you out the door.”

  “Not a problem, Henny.”

  Craig followed him up the stairs. “Do you need more time here?”

  “You tell me,” Matt said, letting him into his room.

  Craig scanned Matt’s index cards while Matt booted up the computer and opened the file of Stephanie’s most recent interview.

  “Just grab that bench over there…yeah, drag it over here and we can share it.”

  Side by side, they watched the footage of Stephanie, nervous and emotional, answering Matt’s questions. When it was over, Matt turned to Craig.

  “What do you think?”

  Craig drummed his fingers on the desk. “There’s no question you have to use it.”

  Matt had been afraid he’d say that.

  You knew Rory’s flaws but still loved him, right? Then you have to trust that the world will too.

  Could he do this film right without hurting Lauren?

  There was no dignified way to walk on hot sand. Beth sprinted from the house to the ocean, scanning the beach for her daughter and husband. She turned left at the water’s edge, stepping around shell fragments and small marooned jellyfish the size of mini-pancakes.

  A few yards away, near the lifeguard stand, she spotted Stephanie’s long blond hair. Howard was dressed in shorts, a polo shirt, and a baseball hat.

  Seeing him from a distance was like looking back through time; he was twenty-five again. Maybe Howard actually looked younger after some freedom from the daily grind at the store. And maybe her weeks at the beach were having an effect on her too.

  Howard noticed her and waved. Okay, that was a good sign. A friendly start.

  “Mom!” Stephanie said, following her father’s gaze. “Look who showed up!”

  “So I see. This is a surprise,” she said, accepting Howard’s kiss on the cheek. She realized that she’d missed him the past few weeks, and not just in sentimental moments like the Fourth of July fireworks. As challenging as it was to be together, it felt wrong to be apart.

  “Welcome home,” she said, pointed in her use of the word home. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  They walked a few feet away, out of Stephanie’s earshot.

  “I’ve left you messages,” she said, trying not to sound too accusatory.

  He turned toward the ocean. “I’m sorry. I wanted to use the time apart to think.”

  Swallowing her hurt, Beth said, “I used the time apart to think too. And I might have found a solution to our problem.”

  He looked at her, crossing his arms. She explained her idea for subleasing the store. He seemed incredulous at first, but as she spoke, he began nodding.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t consider that,” he said.

  “You’ve just been too close to the whole thing. Come on,” she said. “I have paperwork back at the house to show you. And some good leads on tenants. But we have to follow up.”

  They walked back to the house and Howard called out to Stephanie, “I’ll see you and your sister at dinner.”

  “Dinner?” Beth said.

  “I thought we’d go out to eat. I made a reservation at Tomatoes.”

  She smiled.

  Howard adjusted his hat, and she wished she had one of her own. She tried to make it a habit to use sunblock every day but still forgot sometimes. She shielded her face with her hands cupped over her eyes until they reached the house.

  “This sublease strategy…you did a good job, Beth. Thank you.”

  She beamed, thinking maybe the time apart had been a real blessing in disguise. He opened the sliding-glass door to the kitchen, and a rush of cool air greeted them. Beth walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a lemon and a pitcher of iced tea she’d brewed earlier that day. She was bending down to the lower cabinet for the cutting board when Howard said, “But we do need to come to an agreement about this house.”

  She stood up and turned to him. “If this sublease works out, we won’t be on the hook for the monthly rent. And we can live here. There’s no reason to sell this place.”

  “I’m not living here year-round. It’s freezing and isolated in the winter.”

  She stared at him, incredulous.

  “You’ve always loved this house.”

  “As a summer getaway! Not as our home.”

  “Why not?”

  His face turned red. “Because it feels like failure, that’s why not. I didn’t want to lose the store, but I did. I didn’t want to lose our house—I can barely live with the fact that I did. But I’ll be damned if I’ll spend our retirement in your parents’ old place, freezing our asses off ten months out of the year in a desolate town because it’s our only option.”

  “What about what I want?”

  Howard sighed. “I just can’t do it, Beth. And if that’s really what you want, I have to admit, I don’t see the compromise option here.”

  “Neither do I,” Beth said, the words catching in her throat. He left the room.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Howard had picked a restaurant that Lauren typically never set foot in during the summer. Tomatoes was one of the trendier establishments in town; it had brightly painted rooms and pop-art lithographs lining the walls.

  The hostess led them to the back dining room, and Lauren spotted a lot of regulars from Nora’s sitting at the octagonal bar. It was strange for her to wait on people by day and then be a customer alongside them at night.

  The three of them sat at a table under prints of Marilyn Monroe a
nd Superman. The empty fourth seat was glaring.

  “Isn’t this nice? A night out with my girls,” Howard said as the hostess handed around menus.

  “I still don’t get why Mom didn’t come tonight. If you two would just start acting normally, things would go back to the way they were,” Stephanie said. It took all of Lauren’s strength not to roll her eyes at this typically simplistic and self-serving comment.

  “If it’s that easy, why didn’t you just ‘act normal’ with Brett?” Lauren said.

  Stephanie snorted. “You’re comparing Mom and Dad to me and Brett? They’ve been together, what, thirty-five years?”

  “It’s complicated, sweetheart,” Howard said, looking at the wine list, then closing it abruptly.

  “Are we getting a bottle?” Stephanie asked.

  “I don’t think we need to drink tonight,” he said, glancing at Lauren. She gave a subtle nod of agreement.

  Stephanie slumped in her chair.

  “So tell me what’s been going on the past few weeks? A good summer so far?” Howard said.

  “Are you serious?” Stephanie said. “We’re going to sit here and pretend this isn’t totally fucked up?”

  Lauren was shocked to see tears in her sister’s eyes.

  A waitress came by to take their drink orders. Howard asked her to give them a minute. “Sweetheart,” he said to Stephanie. “I don’t want you to take this so hard. Whatever happens between your mother and me, we’re still your parents. I’m here for you, always.”

  Stephanie started bawling. What the hell?

  “The one thing I could count on was you and Mom. No matter how messed up things got, I knew I could always come home.”

  Lauren felt bad for being cynical, but really, what had Stephanie lost? A crap husband of a year and a half? And of course she had to make the whole dinner about her.

  Their father got up from his seat and embraced her.

  Is something wrong with me? Lauren thought. From her perspective, okay, her parents were having problems, but it wasn’t the end of the world. She didn’t want either one of them to be unhappy, so if this was what they needed—ultimately, it was their lives, not hers. And, yes, Stephanie always tended to make things about herself. But this was an unusual degree of drama even for her.

  “We’re still a family,” Howard said, finally sitting back down. Nearby, the waitress hovered like a moth. “Right, Lauren?” He looked at her, and she recognized her cue.

  “Um, yeah. He’s right, Steph. It’s going to be okay.”

  In a summer filled with craziness, this was maybe the most absurd moment yet: she was reassuring Stephanie—who had been pushing her away for years, who’d boycotted her wedding, who hadn’t shown up when her husband died—that they were a family no matter what.

  Maybe she’d been too quick to say no to the bottle of wine.

  Beth tucked Ethan into bed, closed the door, and stood alone in the dark hallway. All night, she’d fought a persistent creeping sense of unease. Maybe staying home instead of joining them for dinner hadn’t been the right thing to do. She was just so angry with Howard!

  As a young wife, she’d sacrificed her dream of catering to join his family business. Her mother-in-law had seemed eager to pass the torch to the new Mrs. Adelman, hoping to attract a younger clientele. And she’d told Beth that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it wasn’t children that kept a marriage intact, it was the common interest of working together. “Someday you’ll thank me,” Deborah Adelman had said.

  Restless, feeling like the house was too quiet, Beth sat on the couch in the living room that had been decorated by her mother’s own hand. She missed her terribly in that moment. She opened the latest Michael Chabon novel, but she doubted she would have the concentration to read a word.

  She should go to bed, but she wanted to talk to Lauren. A conversation had been brewing in her mind for days now, and the reappearance of Howard and his push about the house gave it a sense of urgency.

  But exhaustion won out, and she realized she had dozed off when the sound of the back door startled her. She moved the book from her lap, left it on the couch, and padded to the kitchen. Lauren was sitting at the table and drinking a glass of water in the dark.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” Beth said.

  “Hey,” Lauren said. “You doing okay?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, because of your problems with Dad.”

  Sweet Lauren. Beth turned on a light and sat down.

  “I’m fine, hon. Where’s Stephanie?”

  “She went to Neil’s.”

  Of course she did—without so much as a text asking about Ethan, never mind a call to say good night to him. All the more reason to have the conversation with Lauren.

  Lauren stood with a yawn, pushed in her chair, and bent to kiss Beth on the cheek. “Good night, Mom. See you in the morning.”

  “Wait, I want to talk to you about something.” Tonight, while Ethan was asleep and Stephanie was out.

  Lauren sat back down, wearily. “What is it?”

  “I want to live here, at this house. Year-round. And I want to ask Stephanie to stay too. To raise Ethan here.”

  Lauren’s face turned red. “Wait—back up. I thought you were selling this house?”

  “That’s your father’s idea. I don’t want to.”

  “So you plan to live here with Ethan and Stephanie? What about me?”

  “This is your home too. For as long as you want to live here. But I want to give Ethan a sense of family. He needs us now.”

  Lauren nodded. “I get it. Does Stephanie know about this?”

  Beth shook her head. “No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  Lauren bit her lip. “I’m really used to being here alone in the winter.”

  “Hon, if you want privacy, maybe it’s time to get your own place.”

  Lauren’s eyes widened. “Wow. Okay, um, I guess I’ve been selfish trying to keep this house all to myself the past few years.”

  “No, sweetheart. It’s understandable.”

  “I just love it here. Surrounded by all of Gran’s things, memories from when I was a kid. It’s like, when I’m here, I’m safe. I can’t explain it.”

  Beth nodded. At some point, Lauren needed to move on with her life. Beth was afraid it would never happen as long as she was wrapped in the safety net of the Green Gable. But if she still wasn’t ready, Beth didn’t have the heart to shove her out the door.

  “You don’t have to explain it, hon. I understand.”

  And she did. The Green Gable was her safety net too. That’s why she would never sell it. No matter what.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  A knock on her bedroom door woke her. Lauren checked her phone. Usually around this time, she was just getting back to the house after a run. She’d forgotten to set her alarm.

  “Yeah?” she called out, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

  Stephanie walked in, still dressed in her jeans and blouse from the night before. She had raccoon eyes, yesterday’s mascara and eyeliner having made an unfortunate migration south.

  “You’re still in bed? Are you sick?” Stephanie said.

  “No. I’m fine.” Had her mother already spoken to her sister about the house? Stephanie probably wanted to make sure Lauren was okay with it. And the truth was, Lauren didn’t really know how she felt yet. She’d woken up a lot during the night with her mind racing. Living with her family would be an adjustment, but maybe that was not a bad thing.

  “You have to see this.” Stephanie handed her a bunch of typewritten pages.

  Bewildered, Lauren looked down. The top page read The Rory Kincaid Story, an original screenplay by Neil Hanes. In the corner, the name and address of his agent.

  Lauren’s hands shook. She looked at her sister. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do,” Stephanie said.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I found it in Neil’s room thi
s morning.”

  “He’s writing a movie about Rory?”

  Stephanie nodded.

  “You knew about this?”

  “Just since last night. He was asking me so many questions that I finally was like, What’s your deal? And he told me. But he told me not to tell you—or anyone.”

  Lauren sat on the edge of her bed. So that’s why he’d been sniffing around all summer. “Oh my God.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you but I thought you’d want to know.”

  Lauren nodded, a wave of panic making it hard to speak. She thought frantically of her conversations with Neil over the past few weeks, wondering if she’d said anything about Rory.

  Stephanie sat next to her.

  “Thanks,” Lauren said. “I do want to know. Of course I want to know.”

  “Laur, this stuff with Mom and Dad makes me realize how I’ve taken so much for granted. I see it all falling apart and I’m scared.”

  It was probably the most real, honest thing Stephanie had said to her since they were teenagers. Unfortunately, it was coming at a moment when Lauren could not think straight.

  Lauren flipped through the screenplay, then jumped to her feet. “I have to go.”

  Matt woke to knocking on the door.

  He was exhausted. The visit with Craig had been invigorating and daunting at the same time, reminding him that good footage was just the starting point, not even close to the finish line of a successful film. He had tossed and turned most of the night, wrestling with how best to use Stephanie’s material.

  The knocking continued.

  “Coming, coming,” he said. He got up and answered the door bare-chested and in his boxers, the comforter wrapped around his waist.

  “I have to talk to you,” Lauren said, walking past him into the room.

  “Come on in,” he said, squinting against the sunlight. He closed the door and surveyed the room’s disarray: his unmade bed, the Sack O’ Subs takeout bag on the floor, the empty soda cans lining his desk next to a bag of ranch Doritos. “Sorry, the place is kind of a wreck. I’ve been going twenty-four/seven the past few days.”