by Minka Kent
“I’ll bring you back something, Grace,” I say. “Daddy and I will bring something back for each of you, but you have to be good. If Grandma tells me you got in any kind of trouble, I won’t bring you anything.”
My threat is empty, and she knows it. Her hollow brown eyes stare up into mine, blinking once, not showing any sign of excitement or willingness to agree to my rules. I’m not worried about Rose and Sebastian. They’ll behave. But in my heart of hearts, I know Grace won’t. And I can’t come home with only two presents.
Even at her young age, Grace already feels like an outsider. I can tell. And while we’ve yet to tell her she’s adopted, she’s getting to the age where she’s going to start asking why she doesn’t look like anyone else.
The hum of the garage door signals Graham’s return home from work. Our packed bags are already resting by the back door. I spent the better part of today preparing a road trip playlist; mostly songs we used to listen to back in the day. Before we had kids. When the spark was still alive and well with no end in sight.
The clink of Graham’s keys on the kitchen counter are followed by the soft tromp of his shoes on the wood floor.
“Hey, hey.” He wraps his arm around my mother’s shoulders, giving her a kiss on the cheek. She lights up like a Christmas tree, the way she always does around him, and runs her fingers mindlessly through Rosie’s hair. “Looking good, Graham.”
“Not as good as you, Mom.” He smiles wide, giving her shoulder a squeeze before bending down to scoop Sebastian up. “Hey, little buddy.”
Enter Super Dad.
“Daddy!” Grace leaves my side, drawn like a magnet to Graham. Rosie clings to my mom, probably enjoying the fact that for once she doesn’t have to share her with anyone. “Can I come with you guys?”
Graham bends to kiss the top of Grace’s head and then cups her chubby cheeks with one hand. “Sorry, Gracie. It’s a Mommy and Daddy kind of weekend. We’ll be home in two days. It’ll go by so fast. Be over before you know it.”
My jaw slacks. The way he speaks to Grace, it’s as if he’s trying to remind himself it’ll be over before he knows it. There’s nothing excitable about Graham right now. Nothing that tells me he’s dying to get away, just the two of us. He’s acting as if he’s about to go on a business trip and this is business as usual. An obligation.
I brush it off, chalking it up to hormones or something else that could cloud my judgement and sensitize my feelings.
“You ready, honey?” I ask. Mom smiles at me. She’s happy for us. She always has been. The day we married, she pulled me aside and told me I was the luckiest girl in the world to have found a man who loved me as much as Graham did, and she told me to never let him go, not for anything, or else I’d spend the rest of my life regretting it.
Graham looks up at me, like he’s seeing me for the first time – like he didn’t notice me until now.
“Yeah,” he says. “We all packed?”
I nod. “Bags are by the back door.”
Graham checks the bold-faced watch on his left wrist before clapping his hands and slicking them together.
“Let’s hit the road.” He smiles, and I question his authenticity. But only for a moment. And then my excitement takes over.
This weekend, I get Graham all to myself.
I couldn’t ask for anything more.
“Oh, look at that Acura.” I swat his hand and point to the red car passing on our left. We’ve been on the road forty-five minutes now, and I can almost see the lower Manhattan skyline in the distance. “It looks just like the one you drove in high school.”
Graham’s mouth pulls wide and his gaze follows the speedy little car. “Look at that. Same model year and everything.”
“Same color too. Matador red.” Crazy how I remembered the name of his car’s paint color, but back then I knew everything about him. His shoe size. His favorite gum. The name of his hair products. The brand of chinos he liked best. I was obsessed. Suppose I still am in many ways.
“Huh.” He watches the car until it fades into the distance, disappearing over a hill. “Those were the days, weren’t they?”
“I’d give anything to know what simple and carefree feels like again.” I close my eyes, resting my head against the seatback.
My world tilted on its axis the day Graham showed up at Northville High. At the time, I was reserved seventeen-year-old who mostly kept to herself, nose buried in a book or behind a camera lens. I got good grades and had a small group of reliable, plain Jane friends who never caused any trouble. The first time I saw Graham, I was eating breakfast in the cafeteria because my mother had to drop me off early that morning, and she needed my car because hers was in the shop. A dark-haired boy in gray slacks and a fitted navy polo strutted past me with a leather messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. I stared, unabashedly, figuring I wouldn’t be detected since I never am.
But without warning, he turned, noticed me, and then smiled his dimpled, easy-going smile.
I remember glancing to my right and then my left to make sure he wasn’t looking at someone else, but I was all alone in my corner of the cafeteria, and that moment marked the first time in my entire high school career that a boy didn’t look right through me.
My cheeks burned, and I couldn’t meet his gaze. He was head to toe confidence, dressed for prep school and walking with purpose, and before I could muster the courage to look his way again, he was gone.
For the remainder of that day, I watched for him everywhere I went. I even broke free from my silent demeanor to ask around about him and get his name. I knew he was new. Our town didn’t produce anything that looked like him or dressed like him or walked like him. For the better part of the hours that followed, I half-wondered if I’d dreamed him up.
He found me again after sixth period, stopping me in the hall and telling me he liked my sweater. It was a thrift-store find, though he didn’t need to know. He said everyone at his old school wore that brand, and he instantly recognized the little embroidered lizard on my left breast.
He said I reminded him of home.
By seventh period, I could think of nothing but the new kid. And by eighth period, he walked into my photography class, my sacred space, and took the chair beside me. By the time the three o’clock bell rang, he’d introduced himself and asked if he could take me on a date that Friday.
Months passed, and I maintained my place as the apple of Graham McMullen’s eye.
Most days it felt unreal.
Unquestionably too good to be true.
I wasn’t just lucky; I was the luckiest.
By Christmas, I was drowning in crazy, teenage, hormonal love and Graham was my lifesaver. My love for him was the kind that made me write cheesy love letters and obsessively daydream about the future and walk around in a dumbfounded stupor. The kind that made me float everywhere I went; made me feel like I was some kind of special for the first time in my life.
In many ways, we were all wrong for each other. His family was wealth and luxury and I was the latch-key only daughter of a working single mom. He said I reminded him of a famous actress, and that he had this thing for long-legged girls. Graham liked to have the kinds of things no one else had, and he joked that I was exclusively made just for him. He’d traveled the world with his parents. He’d seen a lot of things and met a lot of people. He even spoke four different languages.
He was only eighteen, but he knew exactly what he wanted.
And for some insane reason, he wanted me.
Rich, charismatic boy. Quiet, underprivileged girl. He offered me the world. Who was I to say no?
At seventeen, my love for him knew no logic, and I don’t suppose that part of it has changed much over the years.
At thirty-six, I’m still as obsessively, unreasonably, and irrationally head over heels with a man who can’t even remember what kind of flowers to get me anymore. A man who traitorously fulfils his physical needs in the bed of another woman.
“Don’t s
ay that.” Graham’s voice carries a scolding tone.
“Pardon me?” I snap out of my nostalgic haze.
“Don’t say you miss simple and carefree,” he says. “It sounds like you wish our children were never born.”
His accusation stuns and silences me, and I swallow the shame that rises like bile in my throat. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve longed for the days before Gracie. Before Rosie. Before little Sebastian. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve wondered what path our life together would’ve taken if it was only ever us against the world.
Our trajectory took a one-way detour the day we adopted Grace.
“How could you suggest such a thing?” I throw his accusation back in his face. “Do you honestly think that I regret my children?”
“No.” He laces his fingers through mine. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
I’ve never felt such an intense amount of emerald-green jealousy as I did the first time I saw Graham with Grace. He looked at her the way he used to look at me: nothing but the deepest love humanly possible.
Oh, how I wanted to be her, wrapped tight and safe in his arms, placed on a pedestal so high only he could reach me.
Graham adored her, worshipped her. She was all he talked about from the moment he woke up until the moment he fell asleep each night, and I was no longer the only one for whom his heart swelled.
“I love those kids with all my heart,” I say. I do. I love them in my own way, as much as a mother who never wanted to be a mother could love her children.
“I know you do.” He releases my hand, fixing both of his to the steering wheel as we approach heavy traffic.
Shortly after we married, Graham’s father passed. He was forty-seven when he and Greta welcomed Graham, their only child, into the world. When Arthur died, Graham became obsessed with the notion that he should have children at a young age. He didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to have them later in life and miss out on all the momentous occasions in their lives. A man’s legacy, he was suddenly convinced, was the whole point of life, and it killed him that his father would never have a chance to hold a grandchild in his arms.
My heart was breaking for Graham. We’d always planned to start our family once we hit our early thirties, after we’d had an entire decade to explore the world together tether-free, but Arthur’s death changed things.
Graham was determined to start a family as quickly as possible, and I was young and terrified and less than ready, so I lied. I never stopped taking the pill, hoping I could draw things out a few more years.
Never one to back away from a challenge, Graham insisted I seek a fertility evaluation and proceeded to go full speed ahead with the adoption route in the interim.
The agency said we could be waiting for years.
I thought we had time.
We got the phone call about Grace within three months.
I’d never seen Graham so excited about anything in his life. Wrapped up in nervous energy and blinded by his contagious excitement, I quickly climbed on board, and we rushed to the hospital, waiting anxiously to hold our new daughter as some teenage girl from Connecticut signed away her rights.
The adoption was closed, and we never met Gracie’s biological mother. But I think about her often, to this day, wondering what circumstances brought Gracie into the world. Wondering if Gracie’s mother, too, was special in the same kind of way Gracie is.
I suppose we’ll never know.
And maybe it’s for the best anyway.
Fourteen
Daphne
“How’s your steak?” I ask, watching Graham slice into his filet with quiet determination that night. He hasn’t uttered more than a handful of words to me since we arrived at Jocasta. It’s as if his mind is somewhere else entirely, and it’s taking all the strength I have not to show my frustration. I’m not exactly looking forward to spending a weekend with his shell. “My fish is incredible. I live for their sea bass.”
He glances up, eyes squinting and trained on me. I bet he’s thinking about work. You can take Graham McMullen out of the office, but you can’t take the office out of Graham McMullen.
“Honey?” I release a nervous titter, my thumb worrying the handle of my knife.
Graham blinks, shaking his head and chewing his steak. “Sorry. Was thinking about something.”
“You can give yourself a day off, you know.” I fork a piece of fish and give him a wink. “You work too much.”
“Wasn’t thinking about work for once.” He gives me a half-smirk before returning his attention to his entrée. His narrative ends there, and I find myself questioning the timeline of our marriage, wondering at which point he stopped opening up to me, stopped caring about himself a little more and me a little less.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes, Daphne.” His brows meet in the middle. His shoulders tighten, a sign, I’ve learned over the years, that he doesn’t want to talk about it.
I finish my meal in silence, ordering a second glass of wine the next chance I get. When the server shows us the dessert cart, I look across the candlelit table at my husband. His elbows rest on the table, hands folded and covering his nose and mouth.
He doesn’t want to be here.
“No dessert, thank you.” I wave the server off with a polite smile and reach for my purse. Graham retrieves his wallet, grabbing some large bills. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room. I’ll meet you in the car.”
I don’t give him time to protest, though I’m not sure he would anyway. Gathering my things, I dash toward the restroom, hoping I can keep the tears at bay until then.
Flinging the door open, I inhale sharply when I see the restroom attendant. She locks eyes with me, a middle-aged woman with short gray hair and wide-set eyes.
“Good evening,” she says.
“Hello,” I say, lips wavering and eyes welling. I find a stall and lock the door, whipping out my compact and grabbing a wad of tissues to keep any mascara streaks from getting the best of me.
It was a mistake, coming here. Planning this little getaway weekend. I see now that he’d rather be anywhere but with me.
Pulling in breath after breath, I count to ten. And I count to ten again. I repeat it until my shoulders no longer shake with each inhalation, and I’m confident I can pull myself together enough to get out of here without causing a scene.
When I exit the stall, the attendant is still looking at me. I give her a quick smile, eyes honed on my reflection in the mirror, and she clears her throat.
“Everything okay, miss?” she asks.
I mentally thank her for not calling me “ma’am.”
“Yes,” I lie, washing my hands.
The woman hands me a warm towel.
“Forgive me for saying this,” she says. My heart sinks to my shoes. When someone prefaces their statement with an apology, it never goes well. “But you’re the other woman, aren’t you?”
I scoff at her audacity, meeting her deep stare with one of my own. “Excuse me?”
I splay my left hand against my chest, but she doesn’t look at my diamond ring. She looks me in the eye.
“You’re here with Mr. McMullen, aren’t you?” she asks.
My jaw hangs. How this random woman knows my husband by name is beyond me. We come here once, maybe twice a year. It’s a two-hour drive from Monarch Falls. I would hardly call us regulars.
“How do you know my husband?” I ask.
“Your husband?” Her brows lift. “Oh, my goodness. I shouldn’t have said anything. Please, forgive me.”
I step closer to her, my ears growing hot. “Please answer my question.”
Her eyes avert to the floor and she reaches for a white towel, cleaning up the sink area.
“I won’t say anything. I’m not going to get you in trouble,” I say. “How do you know my husband?”
She’s quiet, and our eyes catch briefly in the mirror. I reach into my purse and flip open my wallet, retrieving
a small stack of good-sized bills and handing them over because everyone has a price and judging by the looks of her scuffed shoes and wash-worn blouse, I’m guessing she could use a little assistance.
Her shoulders hunch over the counter and she sighs before turning back to me. “He comes in here every Thursday night with some blonde woman.”
I can’t breathe. My chest is tight and my skin is overheating.
“I . . . I thought it was his wife. I see them together all the time,” she says. “The way they act . . . everyone loves them here. We all know them by name. I . . . I thought you were the other woman, and I was about to give you a piece of my mind.”
My lips are numb, like the rest of me, and I bite them so I can feel something, anything, in this moment. I need to know this is real because right now, it feels like a lucid nightmare.
And it is. This is my nightmare. This is my living hell.
“What does she look like, this woman?” I rub my wedding band between two fingers, twisting it over and over. I saw her once, from a good distance, the day that Graham cancelled lunch plans. I saw a flash of yellow hair, a face covered in giant sunglasses, and a sexy little coupe speeding off into the distance.
“I’ve already said too much.” She waves me off, turning her back to me. “Please. I don’t want to be involved. It’s none of my business. I was prepared to defend Mrs. McMullen. I didn’t realize you were her.”
With dried, burning eyes, I storm past the attendant, purse flung over my shoulder, and make my way to the valet stand where my husband sits in our idling car.
Pulling the door open so hard, it nearly comes back at me, I drop myself into the front seat. I’m seething. Nostrils flaring. Heart racing. My vision is tinted red, fading to black with each second that passes.
“You okay?” Graham places his hand on my knee, and I flinch. That hand . . . the one that held mine as we said our vows, the one that held my hand as I gave birth to Rosie and Sebastian, the one that touched me in ways no one else ever has.