The Secret Ingredient for a Happy Marriage

by Shirley Jump

  She slid her thumb over the little green symbol for the phone app, took a deep breath, and pushed the fifth number on her Favorites list, below the numbers for her sisters and her mother. The other end began to ring, and Magpie hesitated, about to push end when she heard, “You are one hard woman to get in touch with.”

  Charlie’s voice. She’d missed the sound of it, deep yet edged with laughter. He was the kind of guy who didn’t take life seriously, who didn’t take anything seriously, not even his job. That was what had made him the perfect sorta-boyfriend. A casual relationship with good sex and no expectations. Exactly how Magpie liked things.

  “Sorry. I’ve been working a lot since I got here.” Which wasn’t true. She had barely been able to write five words in the last two days. “And helping my sister with the kids. Just busy.” Too busy to return texts. Too busy to answer calls. Too busy to make decisions she didn’t want to make.

  “You’re just using me for my beach house, aren’t you?”

  She worked up a laugh. “You know it.”

  “Good. I want you to. And I want you to have a good time while you’re there. Speaking of which, how about I join you?”

  She froze. “Join me?”

  “Yep. As in I catch a flight out of here and come spend a few days enjoying fall on the Cape. It’ll probably be the last time I get out to the house before I have to button it up for the winter.”

  “I…I thought you weren’t going to be back in the States until December.” She had met Charlie when she’d been on assignment for Redbook, researching a piece on women entrepreneurs in India who had started a university for girls. Charlie had been there to write about the school’s innovative medical program. He mostly wrote about medical news while she focused on stories about women being empowered, and they’d found a commonality in their shared world of crazy editors, insane deadlines, and the heady rush of jumping from place to place, always chasing that last elusive detail.

  “My editor changed his mind about the piece on that heart machine. Turns out the guy who invented it was brought up on some kind of corporate espionage thing from his previous employer. Now they’re sending me to Cleveland to do a piece on some new cancer treatment and then over to Boston on Sunday night to do a thing on stem cells. If you’re in town, great, if you’re at the beach house still, I’ll shoot down there. Since I’ll be a couple hours away, I figured I could spend a couple days with you before I have to fly to Denver and let you refresh my memory of how that pink bikini looks on you.”

  “It’s too cold to wear a bikini.” Like that was a valid reason to ask him not to come? How about telling him the truth? her conscience whispered.

  “You’re still beautiful, Maggie, even when you’re bundled up in a parka with the snow falling around your face in the middle of Leningrad.” A voice sounded in the background, and Charlie called out, “On my way…Sorry, but I have to go. I’ve got a meeting to wrap things up here; then I’ll be on my way. I’ll see you soon.”

  Before she could say, Please don’t come. I’m not ready to see you, the call was disconnected.

  Nora sat on the ottoman, with the same leggings and shirt she’d been holding for the last twenty minutes, trying to cajole a defiant eight-year-old into cooperating. All the parenting books would tell her she was failing at Mom 101, that she should lay down the law or nix Halloween for Sarah, but the part of Nora that was swimming in guilt over the house couldn’t bring herself to play bad cop.

  “Sarah, we need to finish getting your costume together so you can go trick-or-treating.” Ben had texted after lunch, saying he’d be there around four, to be sure he got back to their house in time for the start of trick-or-treating. They had less than a half hour until he was going to be here, and Sarah had yet to put on a single item.

  “I want to be a princess.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and repeated the same argument she’d been using all afternoon. “You said you were going to sew me a princess costume.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, but I left all the stuff for that back at the house.”

  “You lied! You said I could be a princess! I hate you!” Sarah spun on her heel and ran out of the room.

  Nora followed, giving Sarah’s door a perfunctory knock before she entered. “Hey, kiddo, that wasn’t nice. You know better than to yell at your mother.”

  Sarah raised her chin. “I don’t care.”

  Nora sank onto the bed beside Sarah but didn’t touch her. Everything about Sarah screamed closed off, needing space. The wall between them had grown every day they’d been here, becoming more solid, less yielding. “Honey, I’m really sorry about the costumes. Sometimes things don’t work out as we plan, and we have to create a new plan.”

  “I don’t want a new plan.” Her daughter’s face was tight and pinched. “I don’t want to be a superhero. It’s dumb.”

  “Well, it can be cool, too, because we’re inventing your costume. That means you can be any superhero you want.” Nora affected her best this is awesome face. She wished Magpie hadn’t left to walk the beach. Since they had arrived in Truro, her sister had been the one who could almost always coax Sarah out of her bad mood and had often run interference between Nora and her oldest child. “How about Supergirl? You used to love Supergirl.”

  “That was when I was a baby. I’m not a baby anymore.” She planted her feet and gave Nora that I dare you to disagree face. “Daddy would have let me be a princess. He would have taken me to the store and bought me a princess costume and not made me wear this baby one. Daddy wouldn’t make me be a stupid superhero.”

  Nora sighed, her heart fracturing. In Sarah’s face, she saw the sweet infant she’d welcomed into the world eight years ago. It seemed like just yesterday when Sarah used to curve her whole body into Nora’s lap, like a baby bird settling into its nest. She would fall asleep, her head on Nora’s chest, the sound of her mother’s heartbeat a soft lullaby to a little girl who was scared of the dark.

  Where had their relationship derailed? And how had Nora missed the signs?

  Maybe it was all the upheaval with being away from home. The new setting, new bed, new routine. And maybe Nora was lying to herself about this too.

  “Honey, I know this sucks, and I know it isn’t what you wanted, but you will still have lots of fun trick-or-treating with your dad and Jake. I’m really sorry about your princess costume, but maybe”—Nora touched Sarah’s cheek and waited for her daughter to face her—“we can get creative and make a princess superhero.”

  “There’s no princess superheroes.”

  Nora gave her daughter a smile. “There’s one right here. I think you’re a strong, smart, amazing kid. And if you ask me, that’s what makes for the best kind of princess and the best kind of superhero.”

  Sarah considered that for a moment, her watery eyes locked on Nora’s. “Okay…I guess.”

  That was going to be about as much of a concession as Nora was going to get. She’d take it because it was a step forward, and that was better than all the steps backward they’d been taking. She rooted through their suitcase and Magpie’s, and a few minutes later came up with some options.

  One of her sister’s long pink skirts became a dress on Sarah. A sparkly beach cover-up became an improvised cape. And a handful of rhinestone butterfly barrettes clipped onto a headband became a crown. Nora added some usually off-limits makeup to give her daughter pinker cheeks and lips before curling Sarah’s long hair. Sarah stood in front of the mirror in her room, her mouth twitching from side to side as she assessed her mother’s work. “I do kinda look like a princess superhero.”

  Nora leaned down and hugged her daughter. It took a moment, but then Sarah yielded to the embrace, relaxing against her mother. “You do indeed. And you’ll be the most special one because no one else will have the same costume as you.”

  Sarah lifted her gaze to Nora’s in the mirror. Her lower lip trembled, and the sweet little girl that had been hidden behind a wall of defiance reappeared in the sof
tening of Sarah’s features, the shimmer in her eyes. “Do you really think I’m strong and smart, Mommy? After I got in all that trouble?”

  “I do, honey, I really do.” God, she loved her daughter. And oh how she had missed the sound of the word Mommy. Nora pressed a kiss to Sarah’s head and held the moment for as long as she could.

  Jake burst into the room, his homemade cape spinning in a wide arc behind him. Sarah stepped away from her mother, the moment broken by Jake’s exuberant entrance. “I like being a superhero! I look like Batman!”

  Magpie had used a short black skirt for Jake’s cape and used a pair of Sarah’s leggings for tights. Her creative sister had even printed out the Batman symbol to affix to Jake’s black T-shirt. Jake, the easy one, had been as pleased with his homemade costume as he would be if Batman himself dropped off a replica.

  Jake buzzed ahead of them down the hall and into the kitchen, his arms in front of him, the makeshift cape fluttering behind him. “I’m gonna fly to every house. And I’m gonna get lots of candy!”

  “All right, kids, let’s take some pictures,” Nora said. But before she could grab her phone, the doorbell rang. Ben. With impeccable timing, as always.

  Sarah pivoted in an instant, beat Jake to the door, and flung it open. “Daddy!”

  Two syllables, dancing with joy. Everything about Sarah shifted the second she saw her father. Her eyes lit, her arms went out, and a smile exploded on her face. She clung tight to Ben when he lifted her up, burying her face in his shoulder as if she hadn’t seen him in a century.

  No one could deny the love that Ben had for his kids and they had for him. Nora shouldn’t be jealous, shouldn’t wish that the kids would run to her like that, but she was. That little moment with Sarah in the mirror had been a blip, over and done already.

  Ben hugged Sarah tight for a long moment, then swung her onto one hip and put out his free arm. “Hey, who’s that in the cape? I think that’s Batman!”

  “It’s me, Daddy! Jake! And I can fly! Watch me!” He ran forward, arms outstretched, making a whoosh-whoosh sound, and leaped into Ben’s embrace.

  Nora stood, not twelve feet away from her own family, and watched them as if they were on the other side of a glass wall. The outsider, the one who had fractured their little quartet. For a moment, she wanted to take it all back, to tell Ben to forget the divorce, forget the auction. Just go back to the house and live in a cloud of denial until the sheriff kicked them out.

  Except she’d been living in that cloud for years, and it had brought her here. To a daughter who hated her, a husband who didn’t love her anymore, and a home that had disintegrated.

  Ben lowered the kids to the floor. “Let me talk to Mom for a second, okay?”

  “Okay! I’m gonna get my bag for all my candy!” Jake buzzed across the room with Sarah hurrying behind him.

  Ben shifted his weight and met Nora’s gaze. For a second, she thought he was going to say what she’d been thinking—forget the divorce and the auction and just go back to where they were before all this.

  “Do you mind if they stay with me tonight?” Ben asked instead. “It’s a long ride up here, and I was thinking it might be nice to have some one-on-one time. We still have the house for like three weeks, and I haven’t moved anything out yet, so it’ll be like normal to the kids.”

  “You don’t have…someplace else you’re going to go on a Friday night?” Wherever he’d been going on Friday and Saturday nights for the last few months. All those nights she’d spent alone, her mind picturing one worst-case scenario after another.

  Ben held her gaze. “No, I don’t.” He paused, just long enough for a weird flutter of hope to run through her, and then he added, “At least not this Friday night.”

  So…nothing had changed. Why did she even care anymore? He was entitled to his life, a life that would soon be unencumbered by a wedding ring.

  Standing with him, here in the foyer of the beach house, with a spattering of sand at their feet and the soft sound of the ocean in the background, echoed their honeymoon. They’d gone to Ogunquit Beach in Maine for four days, staying in a little inn that sat right on the beach. Every night, they’d gone to sleep with the sound of the ocean and a gentle breeze blowing in the open French doors. It had been a magical, amazing honeymoon, and for a second, she wanted to ask Ben if the sand under his feet made him think of that time too.

  “So, is it okay, Nora? I’d really like to spend some time with the kids. You’ve had them all week.”

  The icy words jerked her back from the beach in Maine and into the present day, where she no longer had a house and she was getting a divorce. Reminiscing was only going to make this harder. She cleared her throat, past the damned lump there, and called down the hall. “Kids, grab some pajamas and your toothbrushes. You’re going to stay with Dad tonight.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  “No problem.” Nora stood in the foyer, awkward and unsure with the man she had slept beside for a third of her life. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away, each click sounding as loud as a gunshot.

  Ben cleared his throat. “You doing okay here? Need anything?”

  “Three hundred thousand dollars?” The joke fell flat and Ben’s face soured. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Anyway, we’re fine. Having a great time.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” He toed at the floor. “You needed a vacation, Nora.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or nice. Ben’s face, once as familiar to her as her own, had become something she couldn’t read, couldn’t interpret. It was as if their marriage had become a high-stakes poker game, and neither one of them wanted to betray what they were holding. The irony of the thought nearly made her laugh. “Thanks. Uh…how’s work?”

  “Busy. I got the Harcourt project. Well, part of it. They’re going to see how it works out with the first couple houses.”

  “Oh, good. I’m glad.” Ben had been courting Harcourt Builders for a long time, hoping to get a chance at handling some of the building for their new subdivision going into Newton. It meant good money—when the project was done. Too bad he hadn’t worked this hard before, when it would have made a difference.

  For weeks after he got out of the gambler’s rehab program he’d gone to, Ben had sat around the house, despondent and frozen, as if the verve had gone out of his life when he’d quit gambling. It was only in the last few months that Ben had gotten back to a normal schedule.

  He shifted his weight again. “Well, traffic might be bad going back. I should probably hit the road. Kids? You ready?”

  The kids came back, bags slung over their shoulders, and slid into place on either side of Ben. This was how it would be, she realized, after the divorce. An awkward handoff in some foyer with neither of them having much to say.

  Nora pasted a bright smile on her face. “Have a good time, kids,” she said, her voice high, rushed, filled with faked happiness. “Be sure to listen to Daddy and don’t cross the street without him.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “I know, Mom. I’m not a baby.”

  “Then that means you can help your dad watch out for Jake. Okay?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “She’ll be great, won’t you, Sarah Bear?” Ben ruffled his daughter’s hair, and she beamed up at him. That little flicker of jealousy ran through Nora again. “Well, we better get going if we’re going to get back to Dorchester in time,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Bye, Nora.”

  The kids bounded out the door with their father, Jake in flying mode, Sarah chatting a mile a minute about how she couldn’t wait to go to the houses in their neighborhood. The three of them went down the walkway, climbed into Ben’s car, and left, without so much as a backward glance or a goodbye.

  And Nora realized something had indeed changed. She’d been shut out of her own family.

  FIFTEEN

  By six o’clock, Colleen had changed her clothes three times and finally opted for one of
her church skirts and a sweater. She’d slipped on hose, then the long gray wool skirt, paired with a pressed white blouse and a navy cardigan, along with the gold cross her mother gave her when she graduated high school. In the mirror, she didn’t look like a vixen at all. More of a dowager edging her way toward a rocker on the porch. Perhaps now Roger would give up this silly idea of dating her.

  She was just adding a handkerchief to her purse when the squat white phone on the hall table rang. Colleen was one of the last holdouts to keep a rotary phone, caving to the handheld type under duress. She still used the landline far more often than that itty-bitty cell phone the girls had given her two Christmases ago. When the cable man came to the house to repair a broken line last winter, he’d told Colleen he hadn’t had to install a telephone line in at least five years. “Most folks don’t bother with that kind of thing anymore.”

  “I like tradition,” Colleen told him. “And things I can depend on. When a storm hits or the power is out, those fancy cell phones quit working. This”—she’d patted the now-dusty white phone with the mile-long corkscrew cord that she could still see wrapped around the doorway with one of the girls on the other end, whispering to a friend or a boy who had called—“will always be there when I need it.”

  Colleen picked up the handset and said hello, half expecting Roger to tell her he had changed his mind. Instead, she heard Mary’s chipper voice. Ever since Mary had told Colleen that she was her real mother, Colleen had switched to calling her Mary instead of “my sister” or “my mother.” At her age, the moniker probably didn’t matter much anyway, but Colleen was a woman given to tradition and not partial to change. Hence the rotary phone and the regular schedule with Mass and family dinners.

  “Are you okay?” Colleen didn’t bother with a hello back or any small talk. All those things did was clutter a perfectly fine conversation. “Do you need a ride home from your friend’s house?”

  “I’m fine, just fine. Stop worrying,” Mary said. “Gloria said she will drive me home after we are done playing bridge so I won’t be walking in the dark, although I’m more than healthy enough to traverse three blocks on my own. I tell you, it feels good to be back out and among the living again.”