by Sarah Jio
I heard a sound behind me, and turned to see Evelyn. I hadn’t heard her enter the room.
“Who is she, Evelyn?” I asked, pointing to the photo. “I saw her in a photo at Henry’s house. Bee wouldn’t tell me. I have to know.”
Evelyn sat down, clasping something in her hands. “She was once Henry’s fiancée,” she said.
“And your friend?”
“Yes,” she said. “A very dear friend.”
She sighed and walked toward me, and when she did, I could see the deep fatigue—the finality—in her face.
“Here,” she said, handing me an envelope that had been carefully folded in half. “I want you to give this to Bee.”
“Now?”
“No,” she said. “When I’m gone.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Thank you, Emily,” she said, squeezing my hand again. “You are special, you know. All of this”—she paused and swept her hand out toward the sound—“all of this was meant to be. You were meant to be here. You have such purpose, my dear. Such purpose.”
I hugged her, wondering if it might be the last time.
“Are you going to go through with it?” Rose asked me when I returned to the table and told her the two paths Elliot’s letter had laid out: Meet tonight and start a new life together or say good-bye to him forever.
We both knew that the stakes were high. I clutched the envelope as if it were his hand. I could see the whites of my knuckles, and my nails were digging into my palm. It was as if I had somehow believed that if I let go, I’d let go of Elliot, and I couldn’t bear to see him go. Not again. Not another time.
“I don’t know,” I said, and I truly didn’t. How would I sneak out? The baby didn’t fall asleep until after eight, and how would I explain to Bobby that I needed to leave? Stores weren’t open that late, so I couldn’t lie and say I needed eggs or milk. Plus, even if I found a way, what would I say when I got there, when I faced Elliot? And what would I do? This is the part that scared me most. What in the dear Lord’s name would I do?
“Esther,” Rose said in a practical voice. “I want you to know that I will support you in whatever choice you make.”
Bobby caught an early ferry home and surprised me at five with a bouquet of daffodils from the Pike Place Market. “I thought you’d like these,” he said. “I remembered that daffodils were your favorite.”
I didn’t tell him that he’d gotten it wrong, that my favorite flowers were tulips. Instead, I hugged him and thanked him for the gift.
“I bet you’ve forgotten,” he said, “being so busy with the baby and all, but I haven’t.”
I gave him a puzzled look. It wasn’t my birthday, or Mother’s Day.
“Forgotten what, Bobby?”
“Happy anniversary!” he said. “Well, I mean, happy anniversary a day early. I got so excited I couldn’t wait. I’m taking you out tonight so we can celebrate properly.”
Of all the nights to surprise me, why did it have to be this one? Fate, the wretched witch that she was, had just slapped me with her cruel, cold hand.
“But what about the baby?” I said, eager to find a hole in his plan. She reached her little hand up to my necklace, grabbed the starfish on the chain, and cooed. I rewarded her with a kiss on the cheek.
“I’ve already made arrangements,” he said. “My mother is coming over.”
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Elliot would be waiting for me tonight, and I would be with Bobby.
Bobby took me to the Crow’s Nest, a beautiful restaurant perched high on a cliff overlooking the sound. Elliot and I had dined there many times, but this was a first for Bobby and me. You see, Bobby was frugal. Spending money on dinners out just wasn’t something he did. So when he held open the big knotty pine doors to the restaurant, there was an air of pride in his swagger. “Only the best for my Esther,” he said as we made our way inside.
We were seated at six, but the food didn’t arrive until at least seven thirty. No matter how fast I tapped my foot, how tightly I clenched my teeth, or how many times I glanced at the clock, the evening just inched along.
Bobby didn’t notice my mood. He was too busy questioning the waiter: “Is the duck cooked in a wine sauce?” “Are the oysters fresh?” “Do the potatoes come mashed?” “Could we substitute salad for soup?”
I tapped my finger against my leg under the table, trying to hide my frustration, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone looking my way. I glanced up at the bar, where Billy, my old high school boyfriend, was seated, holding a drink and looking a little bleary-eyed. Billy had proposed to me just before Homecoming our junior year. He gave me a ring, and I said yes—well, actually, I said maybe. I loved Billy, and we had grand times together, but that was before Elliot came into my life. Frances always said that Billy never got over me, and there was a look in his eyes that evening that told me she was right. Yet he never hated me for my decision—not for a minute. That night, I even got the feeling that he felt sorry for me.
He waved from the bar, where he was sitting with another man. They were both in suits. I waved back.
“Who’s that?” Bobby asked.
“Just Billy,” I said, gesturing toward the bar.
Bobby turned to smile at him too, a gesture with a singular purpose: to underscore the fact that I was his. I sometimes got the feeling that Bobby was less in love with me than he was with the idea of me. I was his trophy, one he liked to polish up and take out and parade around every now and then.
“Esther,” he said after our dinner arrived, and after he’d downed two glasses of beer, “I was just thinking that maybe”—he lowered his voice—“maybe we should try for another baby.”
I spilled my water in my lap just as I heard the word “baby.”
“What do you say, sweetheart?”
“Well, isn’t it a little too soon?” I said. “I mean, she’s just four months old.”
“Give it some thought,” he said.
I nodded.
We finished our dinner, and Bobby suggested dessert. “I’ve been feeling like baklava ever since Janice brought some over to my office last week,” he said.
“Why was she at your office?”
“She had an appointment on the floor below,” he said, wiping a few breadcrumbs from his lips. “She stopped in to say hello.” He picked up the menu and lowered his glasses on his nose. “Do you feel like dessert, sweetheart?”
No, I didn’t feel like anything except leaving. I looked at my watch: It was nearly nine thirty. Elliot hadn’t specified a time, but it was getting late, almost too late. If I was going to go, I needed to go soon.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually feeling a bit tired. I think we should call it a night.”
Bobby paid the bill, and as we left, I deliberately dropped my purse beneath our table. It would be my alibi.
Once at home, Bobby thanked his mother and walked her to the door, while I checked on the baby, sound asleep in her crib. I felt the passage of every minute, every second. Then, Bobby undressed and got into bed, waiting for me to follow.
“Rats,” I said. “I left my purse at the restaurant.”
“Oh no,” he said, standing up and reaching for the trousers he’d laid over the chair. “I’ll go get it for you.”
“No, no,” I said. “You have to get up so early for work in the morning. I’ll go. Besides, I forgot to drop something by Frances’s house, and I can do that on the way back.” Brilliant, I thought, as my heart raced. I’d just bought myself another thirty minutes.
“But, Esther, it’s so late,” he said. “A woman shouldn’t be out on the road at this hour.”
Bobby believed his lot in life was to protect me, and that my lot in life was to be protected.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
He yawned and climbed back into bed. “OK,” he said, “but don’t be long. Wake me when you get home so I know you’re all right.”
“I will,” I said.
Bu
t I knew I wouldn’t. I would be gone much too long for that, and as I closed the door to the house, I could hear the sound of his snoring down the hall.
I drove the Buick fast that night, too fast, past the restaurant, past Frances’s house, and down the long road that led to Elliot’s. I looked in my rearview mirror a few times, just to be sure no one was following me.
It was after eleven when I parked my car on the street in front of Elliot’s property. I smoothed my wool twinset and ran my fingers through my hair, chastising myself for not brushing it before I left, or even looking in a mirror, for that matter. The trail that led down to the beach was dark, but I had memorized every step.
The full moon lit up the sky and beamed down on the beach I knew so well—the beach where we had made love for the first time, and the last. I looked around, expecting to see him sitting on a log or lying on a blanket in the sand, the way he used to wait for me so many years ago. He’d hand me a bit of beach glass or some beautiful shell he’d found to add to my collection and we’d fall into each other’s arms.
But he wasn’t there. I was too late.
The house lights were dark. Could he have already gone? I gasped at the thought. Our timing had always been dreadful, so why did I expect anything different on this night? Still, the pain surged out of my heart like an electric shock. I turned back to the trail, and I would have raced up the embankment to my car had it not been for the glimmer of light purple petals underfoot. I shook my head. Wood violets? I hadn’t seen them since I was a girl, when they appeared one summer in my grandmother’s garden. I’d never noticed them on Elliot’s property. What were they doing here?
Many on the island, me included, believed that these flowers had mystical powers, that they could heal wounds of the heart and the body, mend rifts in friendships, even bring about good fortune. I knelt down and ran my hand along the carpet of dusty purple nestled into pale green leaves.
I stood up suddenly when I heard distant music floating through the night air. I recognized the melody in an instant; Billie Holiday’s voice was unmistakable. “Body and Soul.”
My eyes searched the front porch for Elliot, but all I could make out was a fishing pole angled against the railing. The scene was as I remembered, a vision frozen in time.
And then, out of nowhere, arms wrapped around me. I didn’t flinch or pull away; I knew his touch, I knew the smell of his skin, I knew the pattern of his breathing—I knew it all by heart.
“You came,” he said into my neck.
“How could I not?” I said, turning around to face him.
“Have you thought of me?”
“Every second of every day,” I said, allowing myself to fall into his arms completely. His pull on me was magnetic.
He kissed me with the same fire, the same ferocity that he had years ago. I knew, as he did, that whatever was between us was still there, just as strong as it ever was. Just as real.
I heard a rustling sound coming from the trees near the trail that wound up to the road. But I didn’t stop to look or worry—not tonight, not when Elliot was taking my hand and leading me up to the house.
We walked through the door and into the living room. He pushed the chair to the side, and then the coffee table, and laid me on the bearskin rug by the fireplace.
As he unbuttoned my dress, I didn’t think about Bobby, the man I should have been with on this day of my wedding anniversary, or my baby asleep in her crib, or the lie I’d told to get there. I just felt the warmth of the fire on my face, and Elliot’s breath on my skin. It was all I wanted to feel.
March 8
I tried not to overthink Jack’s words. But didn’t he say he’d be back from Seattle today? I stared at the clock a dozen times before breakfast that next morning, wondering. I thought about the way Elliot had kissed Esther. I wanted to be loved with the same passion, the same fire that Elliot seemed to impart so naturally, so perfectly.
The phone didn’t ring at eleven a.m.; nor did it ring at noon. Why isn’t he calling?
I went for a beach walk at two, but the only sound my phone made was a chime alerting me to a text message from Annabelle.
By five, Bee began mixing a drink and asked if I wanted one too. I set the phone down and said, “Make it a double.”
After about an hour, Bee was back in the lanai, working her magic with the liquor bottles, but this time she didn’t offer me another. “Get dressed, dear,” she said. “Greg will be here soon.”
I had almost forgotten about the plans I’d made with Greg. I walked to my room quickly to dress, choosing a long-sleeved blue knit dress with a deep V neckline. I liked the way it felt against my skin.
Greg arrived at seven, just when he’d said he would, looking freshly scrubbed in a pair of clean jeans and a crisp white shirt. His golden skin almost glowed against it.
“Hi,” he said as I walked out to his car. “Ready for Chinese?”
“Sounds wonderful,” I said. “I’m starving.”
We drove into town, past the Town and Country Market, and parked where several restaurants and cafés dotted Main Street. It was a warm evening, at least by Bainbridge Island standards, and a handful of people were sitting outside, eating alfresco.
Inside the restaurant, Greg gestured to the hostess. She looked like someone I had known in high school: Mindy Almvig, with her dangly earrings and spiral perm. “I called in an order about forty-five minutes ago.”
“Yes,” she said, smacking her gum. “It’s ready.” The place smelled delicious, of Szechuan sauce and spring rolls fresh from the fryer.
He paid, and then picked up the rather enormous paper bag. We climbed into the car, and I noticed a little restaurant nearby. Diners were seated outdoors under heated lamps. And that’s when I saw Jack.
He was with a woman, that much was clear. I couldn’t see her face from my vantage point, just her legs, which were barely covered by the short black dress that clung to her thighs. They were drinking wine and laughing, and as Jack turned toward the direction of our car, I pulled the sun visor down and turned in the other direction.
Who is she? Why didn’t he mention that he’s involved with someone else? Maybe she’s just a friend. But if she was a friend, why didn’t he say something about her?
Greg drove for about a mile before he pulled up into a gravelcovered driveway. His home, a yellow farmhouse, complete with a white picket fence, frankly shocked me. Greg with a picket fence?
“Here we are,” he said.
“I’m so surprised,” I said.
“You’re surprised?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s so cute. It’s so Martha Stewart meets Old Mac-Donald. I guess I never imagined you living somewhere like this.”
He smiled and pulled the keys out of the ignition. I saw the edge of a tattoo I’d never noticed peeking through his sleeve.
The house’s interior was much too decorated for Greg to have accomplished it himself. Everything matched—the pillows and the sofa, the rug and the wall color. There was a wreath on the front door. A wreath. This was the work of a woman. What man chooses an ottoman covered in green toile fabric?
Yet, upon closer examination, I could see that if there had been a woman in his life, she hadn’t been around for a while. There were dishes piled in the sink. The counters hadn’t been wiped down, and there was a basket of laundry at the foot of the stairs.
“So, this is it,” Greg said, a little embarrassed, as if my being there had allowed him to see the place in a new light.
The bathroom door was open, so I took a quick peek: The toilet seat was up and there was a roll of toilet paper on the floor, not in the dispenser where it belonged. Here was the home of a single man.
“There,” Greg said, placing two napkins, plates, and sets of chopsticks on the coffee table next to the wine he’d poured for us. “Dinner is served.”
It wasn’t exactly dinner at Jack’s house—no linen napkins or gourmet cuisine—but it was Greg-style, and after the scene in town, it made me
appreciate Greg a little more than I had. At least he was being real.