by Susan Wiggs
He stood there, sweaty and exhausted, his smile kind of sad but his arms wide open, waiting for her.
Forty-One
The late-autumn fog carried a heavy chill that settled in the bones, and there was no defense against it. Sarah stoked the fire in the wood-burning stove and layered on extra socks and a sweater. She could only hope the boys didn’t feel the chill as she put them down for their morning nap. They didn’t complain or fuss; they seemed content enough zipped into their red one-piece pajamas and snuggled beneath lambs’ wool blankets. She no longer felt clumsy and inept with her babies. She was getting the hang of this.
She went into the kitchen to brew a cup of tea to warm herself up. While she waited for the water to boil, she studied a photo of her and Will, taken at the Oyster Festival. It was a romantic shot with the shadowy bay as a backdrop; the two of them were dancing and they looked completely lost in each other. Defiantly, she had stuck the picture on the refrigerator. She was finished hiding her feelings for him. She wanted to learn to trust those feelings instead of constantly questioning them. But given all that had happened, she couldn’t help it.
The explosion at the oyster farm still haunted her, sneaking up on her at odd moments, a reminder that in his profession, Will was one step away from death at any moment. With Jack, she’d lived with the fear of impending loss, and she was only now discovering how deeply that had affected her. The thought of going there again with Will was unexpectedly terrifying.
She reached down and scratched Franny behind the ears. You can’t tell love to come when you’re ready, Gran had said to her. Love comes when love is ready.
The teakettle rattled, and she took it off the flame before the whistle blew. While she waited for the tea to steep, she took out the cottage guest book and paged through it. Like a schoolgirl, she was tempted to record the first time Will had made love to her and spent the night, but she restrained herself. She didn’t need to commit it to paper, anyway. All she had to do was close her eyes and think about him, and she could bring back every single detail, every touch and kiss and whisper, every pulse of ecstasy she’d felt that night. She and Will acknowledged that being in love was going to be hard work, given their situations. Yet there was something else she knew—the only thing harder than loving him was not loving him.
He had promised to call the minute he found Aurora. Sarah had slept fitfully last night, and just before dawn, the phone had rung. “She went to Vegas with my aunt,” Will reported. “She’s fine now. Tired. We’ll call you later.”
So all was well, though Sarah worried about what would happen now. Will still had to deal with the anger and hurt that had driven his daughter to pull this stunt in the first place. Sarah’s role was unclear; the one thing she knew for certain was that loving a man with a half-grown daughter was no simple matter.
As she stirred honey into her tea, the thump of a car door sounded. She hurried to the door, finger-combing her hair.
“Hello, Sarah.”
She froze in disbelief, dropping her hand, which suddenly felt numb. “Jack,” she said.
He studied her, his assessing gaze taking in her short, tousled hair, the haphazard layers of clothes she’d put on to ward off the chill of the fog. Against her will, she felt herself flush as that gaze took her measure. At least, when he’d seen her in the hospital, she’d had an excuse. After the ordeal of birth, no one expected good grooming from a woman. She used to primp for Jack, to dress in smart slacks and sweaters because that was the image he wanted her to project. And now, even after all this time, she felt self-conscious.
Cut it out, she told herself. You’re not his wife anymore.
“Come in,” she said, her tone completely neutral. “You should have called first.”
“I kept meaning to, but even after I landed in San Francisco, I still thought I might change my mind.” He came inside, bringing the dampness of the mist with him on his Burberry coat and in his light, reddish hair. His eyes were bright, searching. Perhaps troubled.
Oh, God, she thought, her pulse kicking up to panic mode. He’s sick again. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Please tell me you’re all right.”
“Clean as a whistle,” he said. “I’m down to yearly checkups now.”
She was glad about that, at least. He looked disgustingly good—fit and groomed, miraculously unwrinkled in spite of the trip. He offered a small smile. “Sweet of you to ask. Sometimes I think that was when you loved me best. When I was sick.”
Bastard, she thought, shoring up her heart. “What do you want, Jack?” Then it struck her. Of course. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Mimi dumped you, didn’t she? That’s why you’re here. My friend Viv said this would happen. She said you’d turn up as soon as you got dumped.”
“Yeah, your friend’s a real wise guy.”
She noticed he didn’t deny anything she said. Yet she felt no vindication. She felt nothing at all, and she found this strangely liberating.
He slipped off his coat and laid it over the back of a chair. “Please, Sarah,” he said in the kindest voice she had heard him use since everything fell apart. “How are the boys doing?”
“They’re just waking up from a nap,” she said, motioning for him to follow her. Adam was grasping the rail of his crib and shoving it back and forth with all his might. When he saw Sarah, he crowed and put up his hands. Bradley pushed himself up and clapped. Even after a short nap, her babies always greeted her as though they hadn’t seen her in ages. She wished she could be half as wonderful as they thought she was.
“This is Adam,” she said, lifting him out of the crib, “and that’s Bradley. They’re both going to need clean diapers and then lunch. You want to help?”
“Sure,” Jack said, though he sounded anything but. “My God, they’ve grown so much. Sarah, I don’t know what to say. They’re just so...”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.” She changed Adam, who then clung to her knee while she attended to his brother. This was not going to harm them, she told herself. They were so little, there was no way it could affect them. Through a miracle of biology and technology, Jack was their father. It was a reality they would live with forever.
“Want to hold him?” she offered, picking Bradley up.
“Um, okay.”
“If you just act friendly, they’ll be fine with you.” She did him a small kindness by starting with Bradley. He was the more easygoing of the two, and tended to be relaxed around people. It was such a miracle, the way their personalities emerged, more and more, every day.
Jack seemed stiff and uncertain, but the baby didn’t appear to mind. He latched his chubby hands into the fine cotton of Jack’s dress shirt and stared with solemn eyes into his face. Jack smiled, the baby smiled back, and suddenly she saw it—a family resemblance. It was uncanny, the way Jack’s smile was mirrored in his sons’ faces. She scooped up Adam and they went to the kitchen, where she showed him how to get the baby into a high chair. To his credit, he did things smoothly enough. “Lock and load,” he said, grinning at the hungry looks on their faces.
Jack looked different, she noticed as she handed each baby a teething biscuit. Not better, not worse. Just different. She could still see the Jack who had knocked her off her feet—handsome, commanding, confident. She even felt a twinge of nostalgia about the things they’d shared and the way she used to feel about him.
“This doesn’t have to be happening to us,” he said quietly.
“This...meaning the divorce.” She couldn’t quite believe her ears. The divorce had been finalized at last, the decree arriving without ceremony in the mail, the Express Mail envelope sandwiched between her cell phone bill and a gardening catalog.
“We could start over, all four of us, a family.”
The four of us. A family. The nostalgia tugged at her, hard.
He must have seen the
softening in her face, because he pressed harder. “I mean it, Sarah. It’s killing my mom, not to be part of this.”
“Your mother is welcome to visit,” she said.
“I’m not talking about visiting. I’m talking about fixing this, working things out. Maybe this time, we could try harder to make it work.”
At that, she burst out laughing. Bradley clapped his chubby hands. “Try harder?” she asked, too amused to be angry. “You think I wasn’t trying the first time around?” Studying him, she finally understood what Gran was trying to tell her. “Every day we were together, I was the best wife I knew how to be. But that wasn’t enough for you. And that’s your problem, not mine.”
“All right,” he said, “have it your way. I was the one who screwed up. I’m sorry I wasn’t perfect like you,” he said. “I’m sorry I got cancer and you didn’t get pregnant. I’m sorry about the way I dealt with my frustration.”
“Aw, Jack. I wasn’t perfect. And I didn’t expect that from you, either. I did expect fidelity, though. That’s kind of a deal-breaker with me.”
“In my heart, I never left you.” He said it with a straight face.
“Oh, boy,” she said, “I need to remember that line for my comic strip.”
“Jesus, Sarah.”
“Watch your mouth in front of my children, please.” She leaned back, a feeling of enormous relief wrapping around her. Since leaving him, she’d been wondering where all the love had gone. Now she looked at her boys, that pair of beautiful miracles, and she knew. Being a mother had taught her so much in such a short time. She’d never known all the colors and shapes that love could take, had never known her heart could be so full yet still have the capacity to expand. Maybe if her mother had still been around, this all would have been explained to her long ago. Yet discovering it on her own was a special kind of triumph. Not that it was easy.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “I’m not the martyr here. I played a part in our troubles. I was focused on having a family, on making everything look normal. If we’d worked as hard on our marriage as we did on getting pregnant, we might have had a chance.”
He nodded, but his attention was caught by Adam, who was reaching out for the big yellow box of Cheerios on the counter, his chubby hands opening and closing in a mute gesture. Jack picked up the box and shook a few onto each baby’s high chair tray. The boys dug in with both hands, cramming Cheerios into their mouths and regarding Jack with nothing short of hero worship.
There was no resisting those wide, clear eyes, those adorable faces. A quiet rapture seemed to settle over Jack, and a beautiful smile—one she hadn’t seen in a very long time—curved his mouth. “They’re incredible,” he told her quietly, his voice rough with emotion. “My sons.”
The sweetness of his unguarded joy tugged at Sarah’s heart. She shut her eyes, swaying a little. This was her sons’ father. He was going to be a part of their lives forever.
When she opened her eyes, Jack was watching her with a curious expression on his face. “You look good,” he said. “Really good.” He touched her the way he used to, long ago, his knuckles gently grazing a line from her cheekbone to her jaw.
She was so startled by the poignant memories his touch evoked that she couldn’t move, or speak. Not even when she heard the front door open and shut.
“I can’t stay, babe,” Will called as he made his way to the kitchen, “but I wanted to tell you—oh.”
Both Adam and Bradley babbled greetings to him, little hands opening and closing in welcome.
Sarah’s chair scraped as she stood up. Guilt stained her face; she could feel it. Flustered, she said, “Will! Is Aurora all right?”
“Yes. We were late getting back, but she’s okay.” His voice was tight and hard. So were his eyes as they darted to Jack.
“This is Jack Daly,” she said. They’d brushed past each other at the hospital but had never been introduced. “Jack, this is Will Bonner. Jack, um, came to visit the boys,” she added for Will’s benefit.
“Uh-huh.” Will’s gaze flicked to Jack’s hand, the one that had just been touching her.
Sarah wanted to die, just die.
“Is everything all right?” Will asked her.
“She’s fine,” Jack broke in.
Will didn’t really change his expression or his stance, but he seemed suddenly protective, maybe even dangerous. “I was asking Sarah,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she blurted, echoing Jack, falling effortlessly into their old pattern. “Truly,” she added, “and thanks for calling me this morning, and for coming to tell me about Aurora.” She pleaded with her eyes, then gestured at her visitor. “I want to hear everything, but...”
“Later,” Will said, his gaze licking Jack with contempt one last time.
Sarah’s throat was dry. “All right,” she said quietly, hating this moment, hating the way she still felt Jack’s influence, even now. She walked out to the porch with him. “Will, I didn’t know he was coming. I had no idea.”
“It’s all right. Look, he’s their father. That’s never going to change.”
She had never seen him so down. Yes, there was the exhaustion and stress from the ordeal with Aurora, but there was something else, too. He seemed torn. Maybe even tormented. And the worst part about it was, she didn’t know how to fix it.
“I need to go,” he said. “Aurora and I have a lot of work to do.”
“Of course,” she said, her throat aching with tears.
“I have to focus on her, Sarah. She needs me even more than I realized.”
She got it, then. He wanted her to back off, give him space and time to deal with what Aurora had done. In taking off, Aurora had demonstrated the truth they all knew. She was her father’s priority. She had planted herself emotionally between him and Sarah.
“Anyway,” he said, heading for his truck, “I’ll see you around.”
Trying to hold herself together, Sarah went back inside. Jack was watching the boys in the kitchen. The room was awkwardly quiet, and she reached over and turned the radio on, low. Her timing was exquisite—the song that drifted out was a nostalgic oldie, “Come See About Me.”
“That the guy you’re seeing?” Jack asked, his voice casual, as though her seeing someone was a nonevent.
“None of your business,” she said, then winced because she sounded juvenile.
He studied her face, and she could feel the heat creeping into her cheeks. “Shit. You’re in love with him.”
She didn’t deny it. How could she?
“And it sure as hell is my business, since I’m sending you a check the size of Milwaukee every month. That makes everything you do my business. The fertility treatments alone cost me a damn fortune. You’re giving me a shitty return on my investment.”
Just for a moment, a fantasy rose up in Sarah. She felt a blaze of violence toward Jack and she pictured her own drawn-back hand, the fierce set of her mouth, the wind on her arm as she swung out, the sting of connection as she hit him, then dropped her hand, loose with relief. But the fantasy vanished on a bitter laugh. “I suppose you think you can make me mad enough to tell you to keep your damn checks. Nice try, but I’ve got two kids to raise, Jack. Nothing can make me mad enough to throw away their future.”
He snatched the picture of Sarah and Will from the fridge, and the magnets went pinging across the floor. “You think you love this clown? Don’t be stupid, Sarah. You might think you’re in love with him, but you’re not. Nothing you feel is real. You’re still on the rebound from us.”
“You don’t even know me anymore, Jack.”
“That’s why I’m here. I thought I was going to reconnect with you on some level, you know, for the sake of the kids. Instead, I fly all the way here, and find the mother of my children fucking around with some local yokel.”
That did it. Sarah strode to the door and held it open. “You just said the magic word. Nobody talks that way in front of my kids. It’s time for you to leave.”
Jack hesitated, and there was something in his face, something she remembered from the time when she used to love him. He said nothing else, but turned and walked out the door. She stood watching him, hearing her babies in the background while Jack seemed to fade into the thick mist and then disappear.
Jack’s unexpected visit had clarified some things for Sarah. The notion that you “got over” a failed marriage did not apply to her, and never would. There was no getting over what had happened with Jack. This wasn’t a bad thing. It was one fewer item on her list of things to do.
She knew now that love was not just one thing; it changed in shape and intensity. Her feelings for Jack had been very real, but there was an end to them, and she considered herself one of the lucky ones. Staying in a marriage when the love was gone was like being half-alive. It was an existence, but it was flat and colorless, like one of the panels in her comic strip.
With Will, she had found new depths of love and new heights of passion, but shadows of doubt hung over her. There was a time when she thought Jack was the perfect man, and she’d been wrong. What if she was wrong about Will? What if time changed them, too?
She told herself to quit worrying about the answer to that. Her heart opened up like a flower, though she had become a realist. A person couldn’t endure what she had and escape with some pink romantic vision intact. It hurt to love so hard, Sarah found out, and it was so impossible not to. And it wasn’t just a state of being, but something alive and vital that was going to take everything she had. She had work to do.
Getting close to Aurora might be a fool’s errand. Knowing that didn’t stop her.
When you wanted to tear down a wall, you didn’t start with what was behind the wall but with the one who’d built it.
* * *
Aurora’s honors art class had gone to the Point Reyes Lighthouse to work on a project. Viktor Chopin had told Sarah she was welcome to visit the class anytime, and the field trip would give her the perfect opportunity to talk to Aurora. She left the twins with her grandmother and headed up the winding asphalt road.