Thirteen years later, I was standing in line at a sandwich place on Ninth Street just before the start of my residency when I noticed a handsome guy with a mop of wavy dark hair wearing the very same Duke tee that I’d bought for myself at a bookshop hours earlier. When our eyes met, he squinted, and then he shook his head in disbelief. “This is going to sound really weird, but did we go to summer camp together?” he asked, abandoning the guy who was reaching across the counter to hand him his turkey on rye. “Are you Daph? Daphne Mitchell?”
He was about to start his residency, too.
We found a bench somewhere and ate our lunch. Mustard spilled down my shirt and we both pretended not to notice. We moved on to afternoon beers in a dark pub where somebody kept playing Joni Mitchell on the jukebox and we discovered after a few drinks that we both remembered the words to “Fried Ham.” The next week, we found time in our packed orientation schedules to share a walk across campus, and under the archway of an old stone building, we had our second kiss, all those years since the first.
What were the chances that we’d both end up here? In Durham, North Carolina? After all of these years? We kept saying it, over and over again, to each other, to our parents, to anyone who asked how we met. There was eventually an apartment together, and five years ago, a wedding, and now the farmhouse, which we fell in love with last fall despite its iffy foundation and the cracks in its windows. It is slowly coming together. Everything is falling into place.
Nine o’clock.
The laundry is folded. The floors are swept. I am answering emails and halfheartedly watching a TV cooking competition when I see Owen’s headlights finally bouncing up the long driveway. I close my laptop and head into the kitchen, where I pull one of his favorite IPAs out of the six-pack that I bought on my way home from the airport. I’m pulling the top off of the bottle when he comes in the side door. He looks exhausted.
“Hey.” I smile. Blue beats me to him and I gently nudge her away with my knee so that I can wrap my arms around him. I press my head to his chest and he kisses my cheek. “How was your day?” I ask.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he says, his lips vibrating on the top of my head as he speaks. “I had my phone on silent all day.”
“It’s okay,” I say, running my hand up and down his back. The news isn’t good. “I’m guessing that you don’t want to celebrate?”
“Actually,” he says, taking the beer from my hand, “Actually, the scan was good.”
“What?” I take a step back and put my hands to my face. “He was clear?”
Owen smiles. God, he looks so tired. He nods. “Crystal clear.”
“Owen! That’s such good news!” I squeal. “We need to celebrate! His family must be so happy. Have you been with them all day?” I don’t want to dampen the mood but I can’t help but ask: “What took you so long to get home?”
He walks to the kitchen table, where he puts down his beer and runs a finger along the top of the box that holds his present.
My stomach flutters. I don’t want to fight tonight. Lately we’ve been arguing a lot. Well, not arguing, but bickering, picking at each other, starting little fires about nothing—whose turn it is to pick up the dry cleaning, the way he refuses to rinse the peanut butter off a knife before he puts it in the dishwasher. I’ve stalled on having the talk we need to have though I know why it’s happening. I want to have a baby. Owen’s still not ready. We’ve been talking about it for months—or, more accurately, I’ve been talking about it. A few days ago, just before my trip, I brought it up again, reminding Owen that I am turning thirty-seven in a matter of weeks. Thirty-seven! He brushed it off, in the way that he always does, and the tension’s been building ever since. I could feel it every time we talked while I was on my trip.
“Daph,” he says, turning to me.
“I’m sorry,” I start. “I know that things haven’t been great. But it’s your birthday and—”
“Daph, please.” He runs his hands through his hair. “We need to talk.”
“Owen, come on. It’s your birthday,” I say again. “And we have great news about Kevin. The other stuff can wait.” I go to him and start to put my arms around him again but his body goes stiff. He’s never brushed me away before. “Owen?”
He rubs his palms up and down his face and then I watch the way his eyes scan the room. He starts to say something but then he stops.
“Owen, what is it?”
“Daph, I…” He looks at me for several seconds before he speaks again. “Daphne, I met someone.”
Wait. What?
“Daphne, there’s someone else.”
Chapter Two
How could anyone know Owen Monahan like I do? His dark hair has been graying at his temples for years. His eyes are the same shape and silvery green color as his mother’s. His favorite candy is Snickers, and when I remember, I stock bags of the fun-size bars in our freezer. He is a lifelong Red Sox fan, and the ticket stub from his first game at Fenway, where El Tiante pitched, has been in a frame on his dresser for as long as I’ve known him. He is afraid of spiders but not of blood scans, reduced white cell counts, or poking around a person’s body for tumors. I know his hands—the scar on his third knuckle (an oyster-shucking mishap), raggedy hangnails. I know that he doesn’t dance, even after several drinks. He uses a black office-supply binder clip instead of a money clip or wallet. He watches old comedies like Airplane! when he’s stressed. He worries that his father isn’t proud of him.
We have roots, a history.
“What do you mean, someone else?” I can taste the bile in the back of my throat. “What do you mean, Owen?” The room is spinning.
He shakes his head as if this isn’t going how he’d expected it to go. How did he expect it to go? “Let’s sit down,” he says.
I collapse into left side of the sofa, my usual spot. Twenty minutes ago, I was emailing Annie, inviting her and Jack to dinner next week. Owen sits down next to me—right next to me, in the center of the couch—and I recoil as if he is a stranger and not the person I love more than anyone or anything on earth. He pulls back, giving me space.
“Tell me,” I say, my ears ringing. “Tell me what you mean.” I’m certain we can both hear my heart pounding.
As he starts to speak, tears well in my eyes and the room goes blurry.
“I don’t know how to say it, Daph,” he’s says. He won’t look at me. He’s talking into his lap. It’s all so clinical, the way that he reveals the details.
It happened in January. He met her at the hospital. She’s a social worker in his division.
“So right after Christmas, then?” I say, my voice rising with each word. “After we went up to my parents’ house and invited your parents to join us and the six of us sat around my mother’s dining room table, eating pie and talking about whether we should hire someone to tile the guest bathroom? I assume you’d met her, your…relationship had started?” My skin is tingling. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“I-it’s not like that,” he stutters.
“What’s her name?” I say, barely able to catch my breath.
“Bridget.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long have you been seeing her?” I wail. My voice is shaking so much. My heart is beating in my ears.
“I’m not seeing her, Daphne. I just—”
“You just slept with her.” When the words come out of my mouth, the reality of what’s happened really hits me. I grab a handful of his sleeve and start shaking him. “Owen, how could you?” How is this possible? How is this happening? “Owen, how? How?”
“I know, Daphne, I know,” he says, his voice soft, as if it will cushion the blow. He circles his fingers around my wrists, attempting to calm me, and I snatch my hands away.
“You know?” I wail. “You don’t know how this feels! I can’t believe this!” I press my hands to my face, as if by not seeing him, I can make the whole thing go away. “How could you do
this, Owen?”
“I’m so sorry.”
When I look up at him, he’s shaking his head like he’s the one who’s been hurt.
“And she knows about me? Your wife?” I’m sobbing. I use my sleeve to wipe my nose.
He rubs his hands over his mouth.
“Owen, answer me!”
“She knows about you,” he says through his fingers.
I can’t believe this. How? How is there a she? I don’t understand what this means, why he’s confessing it now, but I can’t bear another second of it. Not now.
“Get out,” I say. “I need you to leave the house right now.”
“Daphne, can we—”
“Go, Owen!” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady as I stand and point toward the front door. “Get out now.”
For a long time after I hear his car reverse down our long gravel driveway, I just sit there on the couch. Surely this isn’t real. How could Owen—my Owen—cheat? Owen is not a cheater. He’s my husband, my best friend, the person who makes sure the doors are locked before we go to bed at night. He is upright, beloved by his patients and their families, the better one out of the two of us who rolls his eyes at me when I gossip. He is steady, solid, my north star, the thing I can always count on. There is no way that Owen would do this.
Sometime around midnight, I consider calling my mother. I’m sure she’s up watching Letterman as always, but this will kill her. Owen is the son she never had—she literally tells him that, squeezing his shoulders. When we visit, she bakes his favorite brownies and checks with us beforehand to find out what type of cereal is his current preference. She leaves him voicemails. You don’t need to call me back—I’m just calling to say hello! On the rare occasion when I vent to her about some argument we’re having, she’ll say, in her antiquated stand-by-your-man sort of way, “Oh, honey, Owen works so hard, cut him some slack.” As if being an internist at a cutting-edge medical practice is just something I do to pass the time until Owen gets home from the hospital. I suppose that’s easy to forget now, given Owen’s heroic cancer slaying. I suppose a lot of things are easy to forget, but not the events of this night.
I think about calling Lucy, my younger sister. I start to call Annie, my best friend. Instead, I stumble to the bathroom and I vomit, through the sobs, over and over again, because the only person who could make me feel better right now is my husband, and on so many levels, I don’t know where he is.
Praise for How Lucky You Are
“A nuanced, heartfelt debut, HOW LUCKY YOU ARE artfully honors the importance of dear old friends. I can’t wait to read more from Kristyn Kusek Lewis.”
—Allie Larkin, author of Stay and Why Can’t I Be You
“In this wise and compulsively readable debut, Lewis follows three thirtysomething female friends and tackles even the heaviest of subjects with a restrained and self-assured hand, avoiding sentimentality while displaying an impressive emotional range. I could smell the doughnut muffins, taste the margaritas, and feel each high and low right along with the delightful characters. If you’ve ever had a best friend or been a best friend, this is a book for you.”
—Meg Mitchell Moore, author of The Arrivals and So Far Away
“Kristyn Kusek Lewis’s HOW LUCKY YOU ARE is a moving, thoughtful story about what happens when friends become family and stay close despite all odds. It’s an honest, empathetic novel of love, commitment, and female friendship with characters I didn’t want to let go.”
—Meredith Goldstein, author of The Singles and Love Letters columnist at the Boston Globe
“Charming and achingly real, Kristyn Kusek Lewis’s HOW LUCKY YOU ARE is an endearing story about finding your way amid the many intricacies of friendship. I’m certain it will become a book club favorite.”
—Sarah Jio, author of The Violets of March and The Bungalow
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Acknowledgments
Reading Group Guide
Author’s Note
Questions for Further Discussion
A Preview of Save Me
Praise for How Lucky You Are
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Kristyn Kusek Lewis
Excerpt from Save Me copyright © 2014 by Kristyn Kusek Lewis
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook Edition: September 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4555-0202-8
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How Lucky You Are (9781455518548) Page 34