by Nancy Thayer
“Let’s play bridge,” Ethan suggested. “Jane’s agreed to be my partner. Dad, want to play? Poppy?”
“I’m exhausted,” Poppy told her brother. “Patrick has to rub my feet. After all, they’ve been carrying his baby all day.”
“Good night, all.” Patrick waved as his wife pulled him up the stairs.
“We’re going up, too,” David said. “I’m going to curl up with my laptop and catch up on the news.”
“Isn’t he romantic?” Alison complained, but her eyes twinkled. “I’ve got a book to finish. Can’t wait to see how it all turns out.”
“I guess I’ll go up, too,” Jane said.
“What?” Ethan protested. “You old fogies are going to leave me down here all alone? It’s too early.” He caught Jane’s hand and tugged gently. “Stay and keep me company.”
There was that damned sexual electric spark again! Jane knew her mother could see how she was blushing.
“Scrabble,” Ethan specified. “Let’s play Scrabble.”
“I don’t know. I’m tired.” In truth, Jane felt anything but tired with Ethan standing so near, holding her hand.
“Just one game,” Ethan implored.
Jane hesitated. It would be one thing to agree to be his partner in bridge, with two other people at the table with them. But spending any time alone with Ethan could be dangerous. Yet she was so angry with Scott for not coming with her for this long weekend…“One game,” she said. “In the kitchen.” That room had the brightest lights.
“Be good, children,” Alison called as she and David went up the stairs to bed.
Ethan brought the game out of a cupboard and set it on the kitchen table. He sat down, and Jane sat across from him. Ethan’s blue T-shirt fit smoothly over his muscled torso and tanned biceps. The sun had bleached his hair to a shining gold, and he hadn’t had it cut recently, so it fell down over his forehead and shaggily around his face. He looked younger than he was, like a carefree surfer dude. An appropriate look for him, Jane thought. He may not surf, but he certainly seemed carefree. Did he not care at all that he was trying to seduce a married woman?
And how could she blame him, when she knew she was, at the least, approachable.
Ethan spilled the tiles out onto the table, and Jane helped him turn the letters facedown, being careful not to let her hand touch his.
After they chose their seven tiles and were arranging them on the tray, Ethan asked, “Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’m going to have trouble sleeping without adding caffeine to the mix.” As soon as Jane spoke, she wanted to call the words back. Hurriedly, she added, “Because of work. I’m tasked with a complicated project, and I guess I feel guilty being here instead of being at home. At the office, I mean. I should be at the office.”
“Hey, Jane, it’s summer. It’s the Fourth of July weekend. Your boss wouldn’t expect you to be working on a holiday.”
“Maybe not. But I certainly have worked on weekends and holidays before. I guess I don’t feel comfortable being here.”
“I think you’re too hard on yourself,” Ethan said. He stopped talking and set his tiles on the board, forming the word cheese.
“Hey, thanks for all the E’s,” Jane said, and quickly made the word greater.
She loved words. She usually won at Scrabble. It was a relief, the way her mind latched onto the game, overriding her other concerns as she focused on winning points. She snickered smugly when she got an X. “Ha!” she exclaimed as she made the word example, with Ethan’s E at the end of the word.
“Well done,” Ethan said, writing down the points on the scorecard.
He built his word from her E: desire.
Jane’s body flashed with heat. Ethan’s hand was on the table, close, male, with long, clean nails and hair on his knuckles. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick with muscle, and the palms of his hands were calloused from working on the farm. All she had to do, and all she wanted to do at this moment in her life, was to touch her hand to his, to allow herself to accept the current of pleasure that rushed through her whenever they touched. Here he was, this beautiful man, and no quarrel lay between them, their relationship was new and fresh and, because of their families, fraught with a kind of playful wickedness. She imagined what Scott was doing now, probably already home from his Fourth of July party, in his office, diligently working away. Had Jane become just as assiduous? Had her work routine fallen around the hours of her life like a cage? Could she never be spontaneous? Were her wild, hedonistic days over? Had she become a living blueprint with all her next moves blocked out, never to be changed? If she stayed with Scott, she would never know how it felt to be pregnant, to hold a baby in her arms. If she stayed with Scott, her life was laid out in a pattern as gridlocked as a jail cell.
But she loved Scott. She did love him. She had vowed to be faithful to him.
What she had with Ethan, whatever foolish relationship she was building with him, was only a game, with no more meaning than the Scrabble letters on the board.
Jane stood up. “I’m sorry, Ethan, but suddenly I’m exhausted. I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Jane…” Ethan stood up, too. “I didn’t mean to insult you—”
“No, I know that, it’s not that. I’m just terribly tired. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She went out of the room and up the stairs, leaving Ethan behind to put away the Scrabble game.
* * *
—
Tuesday, after a lazy morning, they all sailed to Coatue on David’s boat. The sky was a high sapphire blue and the long curved beach at the fourth point was quiet and unpopulated except for the usual shrieking gulls. They ate sandwiches and potato chips and cookies, and swam in the cool turquoise water, and lay back on their beach towels, surrendering to the warmth of the sun. To Alison’s surprise, both Ethan and Jane spent time with Daphne and Hunter, playing with them in the water, walking along the shore, searching for treasures, and Poppy was able to put her straw sun hat over her face and fall asleep. Patrick took the opportunity to go for a long, challenging swim farther away from shore than usual, and he came back grinning from ear to ear.
“You went far out, Daddy!” Daphne said.
“I know,” Patrick said. “Just giving my muscles a workout.” He picked his daughter up and swung her around while she squealed with glee.
In the late afternoon, they sailed back to the island and moored the boat and drove back to the house. Even the children were quiet, partly from the sunny day, partly from the ice cream cones they were enjoying. At home, Poppy took the children off to shower and David fell flat on the bed and was instantly asleep. Alison took a brisk shower and dressed, loving her tanned limbs and the glow of the sun on her face. She pulled on a loose cotton shift, slid her feet into sandals, and went down to the kitchen to unpack the picnic baskets. But Jane and Ethan had already done that.
“We’ve ordered pizza,” Ethan said. “Patrick’s gone off to pick it up. We want to eat in front of the television and watch a movie.”
“It will have to be PG because of the kids,” Alison reminded them.
“My brain’s so melted, PG is about all I can handle,” Jane joked.
The family crowded into the den with drinks and pizzas and lots of napkins to watch Descendants 2. David came down with bedhead hair and joined them, and for a while Alison was content, not worried about anyone.
Except, maybe…Ethan and Jane were becoming awfully chummy. They sat side by side on the floor, leaning against a chair, their arms and thighs not quite, but almost, touching. It looked as if they were a couple. What did that mean?
Nothing, Alison told herself. David had often teased Alison, saying that if she didn’t have anything to worry about, she’d worry because she wasn’t worrying.
She smiled to herself and took another piece of pizza.
<
br /> eighteen
During the middle of July, Felicity’s children, and Poppy’s, too, were signed up for camps, and Jane and Scott were crushed with work. David needed to work, too, so Alison invited her best friend, Margo, down for a few days. They walked and talked and shopped and dined, and in the humid evenings they sequestered themselves in front of the television and watched very romantic and completely unrealistic movies. It was better than seeing a therapist.
Still, even after Margo’s visit, Alison continued to worry about David’s family and hers. The whole idea of coming to the Nantucket house as often as possible in the summer was to gradually knit her family with David’s. Alison had romantically envisioned herself as the wise and gracious matriarch, providing this newly formed and energetic family with a stable and generous center.
That wasn’t why she was marrying David, of course. She really didn’t need any more family. At this time in her life, she should be relaxing, exploring her own desires and dreams, her “bucket list.” She certainly should be enjoying the unexpected and almost miraculous love she’d found with David.
But she wondered what was up with Jane and Ethan. Right from that first morning with the bread, they seemed to be entering into some sort of relationship. The very way they looked at each other all the time made Alison uncomfortable. But what could Alison do? What should she do? Their children were not adolescents! She felt a heaviness in her belly that seemed very much like fear.
She had not raised her daughters to be cheaters. She had tried to teach them that marriage meant fidelity. But of course, hadn’t Alison set the pattern when she’d left Jane’s father to marry Mark? She’d explained her reasoning to her daughters, as clearly as anyone could explain the complicated muddle of life. She’d been so young when she’d married Flint. He’d been the first boy she’d had sex with and they’d married because she was pregnant. Had she loved Flint? Had he loved her? It was necessity and the need to do the right thing that caused them to marry. And she would have stayed with Flint, really, she would have. When their beautiful daughter was born, Alison and Flint made a home together and worked hard to create a life. But how hard they had both had to work to make their little family seem like a happy one. Alison knew Flint harbored a festering anger toward her for trapping him—how old-fashioned, that thought, that she had trapped him, as if her entire goal in life had been to obtain a husband. As the months went by, they had not grown to love each other. Alison had tolerated Flint, and Flint had resented her. But he was a good man, and his parents were religious and strict and judgmental. Flint would never have left Alison.
She did not regret for one second that she’d been the one to leave Flint. She hadn’t cared if Flint hated her. Alison had been drowning, and Mark was air and sunshine and moon glow and joy.
Maybe her daughters couldn’t understand all this when they were little, and Alison had never told Jane how unhappy she’d been with Flint, how he had married her but then disliked her, rejected her. After the divorce, Flint had cut himself off completely from Alison and, more important, from his own daughter. He had moved across the country and never been in touch with Jane at all, never sent child support, never sent a birthday card or Christmas present. Alison didn’t even know where Flint was now. She supposed she could google him, but she didn’t care enough to bother. Flint’s parents had chosen not to be part of Jane’s life, either, although Alison could sense that there was regret in their anger.
But Alison and Jane and then Felicity had had Mark as the man in their lives, and he had been wonderful.
Now Alison had David. But that did not mean that David had replaced Mark in any way as a father to Jane and Felicity. Alison knew full well she would never be considered a stepmother to Ethan and Poppy, and she didn’t want to be. The “children” were all adults now.
But she had hoped they would simply like each other.
And now Jane seemed to like Ethan too much.
And what could Alison do about that?
* * *
—
On the last Friday in July, Jane sat in a small armchair in their bedroom and watched Scott pack his suitcase. He wore a checked button-down shirt, jeans, and his hiking boots, because they took up too much space in his luggage.
“I can’t believe you’re really doing this,” Jane said.
“I can’t believe you’re not doing this,” Scott retorted. He folded his socks and tucked them around the edge of the case to cushion his other clothes.
Jane rubbed her face with her hands. They had been up long past midnight, talking and arguing. Jane had cried. Whenever she cried, Scott ignored her. He said her tears were unfair. He loved her, he said, and he didn’t want to make her sad, but they had agreed on this trip, just as they had agreed on not having children. Around three in the morning, Scott simply left the room. Jane waited. The apartment was quiet. Jane found him asleep on the living room sofa. She returned to their bedroom and fell asleep, exhausted, on their bed.
They slept late—and they both felt weird and guilty and slightly nervous because of this. They always felt off-kilter on their first days of vacation, when they didn’t follow their routine. They drank coffee and showered, moving around each other without speaking.
Today Scott was leaving for Wales.
He really was going on the hiking trip. Without Jane.
Jane said, “I’m going to make some eggs and toast. We both need food. You’ve got time to eat.”
Scott checked his watch. Of course he checked his watch. Jane wasn’t hungry; she was sick at heart, sick in her belly, too. But she knew they would both feel better after eating some warm food.
“We’re both so tired,” Jane said. “Your plane doesn’t leave until this evening.”
“But I have to get to the airport two hours early for security check-in.”
“I know. But we both need to eat.”
She padded barefoot to the kitchen. Summer heat oozed over the city, and although she had turned on the central air-conditioning, it was still warm in the apartment. She went around the rooms, closing the blinds and the curtains against the light. In the kitchen, she set out a bowl and several eggs and butter and cheese. While the eggs were cooking and the bread was toasting, she halved oranges and made fresh juice.
“Breakfast is ready,” she called and laughed wryly to herself. It was one o’clock in the afternoon.
Scott sat at the kitchen table across from Jane. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Oh, Lord, Jane thought, when had they become so formal with each other? Wait, she knew exactly when, sometime during last night after they had yelled at each other. Their silence as they ate was a kind of truce.
“I’ll clean the kitchen,” Scott said when they’d finished eating.
“That’s not necessary. You’ve got to finish packing.”
“I’m almost done. You did the cooking. It’s only fair for me to wash up.”
Jane laughed, jaggedly, almost hysterically. “Scott, Scott, this is crazy. We’re acting like two strangers who will be, I don’t know—murdered—if we don’t do everything absolutely equally.”
“Fine,” Scott replied. He stood up. “You wash up. I’ve got some emails to answer.”
When he turned to leave the room, Jane had a savage urge to throw something at him. Not a knife, but maybe the saltshaker. Aiming not for his head, but for his back. Instead, she buried her face in her hands as her laughter turned into tears.
She blew her nose on a paper towel and set about rinsing the dishes and loading the dishwasher. She returned to their bedroom and leaned against the door, looking in. “Three weeks,” she said. “We haven’t been apart for three weeks since we were married.”
Scott was folding shirts carefully, exactly. He didn’t turn from his task. “True.”
“I’ll miss you.”
H
e kept his back to Jane and said in a neutral tone, “I’ll miss you.”
Scott’s back was long and muscular, and his hands were beautiful. She’d always loved his hands. She approached him and held him against her, wrapping her arms around him, stopping him. She felt his heart beat—steadily, how else would Scott’s heart beat?—and felt the rise and fall of his breathing.
“You might have an affair in Wales,” she said calmly.
“I doubt it. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted from hiking.”
“I might have an affair,” she said, just as calmly, thinking of Ethan.
“Well, if you get pregnant from your affair, we’ll get divorced. I’m not raising another man’s child.”
“Whoa.” Jane dropped her arms and stepped away from her husband. It was the first time the word divorce had been used. “So you’re thinking of divorce?”
“Aren’t you?” Scott turned to look at her. He folded his arms over his chest. “Be realistic, Jane. If you want children so fiercely, you’ll have to divorce me and marry another man.”
“You would let that happen,” she said, heart pounding.
“If you make it happen,” Scott answered.
Jane took a deep breath. “I had hoped that this time away from each other, this break, might make you reconsider the whole having-children thing.”
“Jane, I’m doing what you and I have always done. I’m going hiking. I’m seeing a new world, a different land. I’ll be testing my own strength and stamina. Eating unusual food. All that. All that you and I have done together for years. Why would I want to spoil an exciting experience by rerunning our argument through my mind? I’m the same person I’ve always been, doing the same things I’ve always done, and I’ve said all that I have to say about your sudden bizarre need to have a child. When I go out the door, I won’t be considering the ‘whole having-children thing.’ And when I come back in the door, trust me, my thinking won’t have changed.”