Lady in Waiting: A Novel

by Susan Meissner

  Late in the week, I had my second appointment with Jonah Kirtland. There was nothing in the bowl as I sat down at the glass-topped table in his office. No pistachios. Nothing at all. The bowl had been wiped clean.

  “No snacks today?” I asked as I settled into my chair.

  He smiled. “Are you hungry for some?”

  I wasn’t.

  I began with telling him about the weekend at my parents’ and then Brad’s surprise visit to the apartment. And then I told him about Brad’s accusation, based on the punch-bowl discussion, that I had the same doubts about our marriage that he did.

  “The thing is, it was a dumb conversation while I was making punch. I had no idea Brad heard any of it.” I leaned back in my chair. I had been talking for close to fifteen minutes with little interruption from Dr. Kirtland.

  “Why do you think it was a dumb conversation?” he asked.

  “Because it was! I didn’t bring it up. Leslie did. And I never would have said what I did if I had known Brad was listening.”

  Dr. Kirtland now leaned back in his chair. “No, you probably wouldn’t.”

  “But I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  He shrugged. “Then why do you think you said it? Do you still think about this guy Kyle?”

  “I never think about him!”

  “So he’s perhaps a representation of what you wonder when you think about why you married Brad? Maybe you wonder how your life would be different if you’d made different choices? That’s not so odd.”

  I stared at the empty bowl on the table.

  “Who do you think you risk disappointing by being honest, Jane?”

  Only for a second did I entertain the thought of continuing to insist the punch-bowl chat had been silly talk and nothing else. “Well, Brad, of course.”

  “You sure it’s Brad?”

  “My parents too, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  I lifted my head. “I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I’m here.”

  Dr. Kirtland sat forward in his chair. “I’d like for you to think about that. Who do you risk disappointing by being honest about how you think your life is playing out?”

  Molly’s revelation sprang to my tumbling thoughts. “Look. I know what you have figured out about me. I know you’ve figured out I’ve let everyone make all my decisions for me, and I admit you’re right, and honestly, I’m glad you’ve figured it out, but I can’t undo the past—”

  He cut me off. “Where did you get that?”

  “What?”

  “Where did you get the idea that I think you’ve let everyone else make all your decisions?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him Molly told me. “Isn’t that what I have done?”

  “Did someone tell you that’s what you’ve done?”

  My cheeks bloomed with heat. I thought I had marked a milestone by embracing this uncomfortable knowledge about myself and that Dr. Kirtland would be proud of me for admitting it. But he was hacking away at the notion with a calm voice and disarming questions.

  “But … but it’s true,” I said. “I don’t like it that it’s true, but it is. Isn’t that what you were getting at last time I was here? That I needed validation from my parents and from Brad and that’s why I let them make my choices for me?”

  Dr. Kirtland was silent for several moments. “I have a little assignment for you. A couple, actually. I want you to make a list of all the qualities you appreciate about your husband. Don’t ask anyone else for input on this, okay? No one. Not Molly. Not your sister. All right?”

  I nodded.

  “I also want you to make a list of things you like to do. Or things you would like to try. Or things you would like to learn. Again, no outside help. Will you do that?”

  “So you’re not going to answer my question.”

  He smiled. “You are.”

  “By making lists.”

  “The lists are a start, yes.” He stood.

  “So we’re done?”

  “For today.”

  “And what about this weekend when I go to New Hampshire to see Brad? What am I supposed to do?”

  “You told me you were going to New Hampshire so that you and Brad could watch your son compete.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “One thing at a time, Jane.”

  The empty bowl seemed a challenge to me then. As if it were up to me to fill it.

  On Friday evening I locked up at eight and headed to Molly and Jeff’s to stay the night to make it easier to get to the airport the next morning. Molly invited me over with that rationale, and I accepted her invitation, but the truth was she knew I was nervous about the next day. The plane ticket Brad bought for me had my return flight on Sunday. He called me midweek and asked if I could stay overnight since the last flight back to Newark on Saturday left Manchester too early. We’d miss seeing Connor after the meet. I told him I could stay, but I didn’t know if he meant we’d be at a hotel near Dartmouth and did that mean separate rooms or would we be driving back to his place? And where would I sleep then?

  Meanwhile, I had started Dr. Kirtland’s lists over a caprese salad at lunch. At that moment Brad’s looked like this:

  Brad

  Gentle

  Smart

  Good father

  Careful

  Strong

  Th

  I had started to write Thoughtful. Brad had always been a considerate person. Polite. Even to people who didn’t deserve it. But I didn’t finish it. His gentle cruelties of late kept me from writing the rest of the word.

  On my own list, I had written only one thing. Only one thing had come to mind.

  Things I want to do:

  Find out where the ring came from

  I carried the lists with me as I walked the seven blocks to Molly and Jeff’s, and as I walked, I wondered what Brad would write on his list if he wrote one about me.

  Molly looked at the clothes I’d brought to wear to Connor’s track meet—jeans and a loose-knit blue sweater Brad gave me for Christmas the previous year—and promptly escorted me into her bedroom to find something else to wear.

  “But Brad gave this sweater to me,” I protested.

  “Yes, but think about when he gave it to you. Six months after hearing you tell Leslie you wonder why you married him.”

  I plopped onto her bed. “Why do you and Leslie have to keep bringing that up?” I had already decided I wouldn’t mention that she and I were both off somehow in our conclusions about what Dr. Kirtland thought my underlying problem was.

  She ignored me. “You want to wear something that doesn’t remind him of last year at all. Or any of the last twenty-two years for that matter.”

  “They weren’t all terrible.”

  “I didn’t say they were. I am just saying you want to wear something that doesn’t remind him of the past. Here.”

  She tossed me a pair of silky taupe capris and a pink shell the color of cherry blossoms. As I caught them, she threw a summer-white fitted jacket at me and a striped scarf in pale teal, rose, and cream.

  “It’s a track meet, Moll.”

  Molly turned from her closet to face me. “No. It isn’t.”

  And she left me with instructions to try them on.

  Later, while Molly, Jeff, and I were watching a movie, Molly’s cell phone trilled. She reached for it on the ottoman next to her.

  “It’s my mom.” She rose and took the phone with her into the kitchen.

  The twins were watching something else in their bedroom, so Jeff and I were alone in the living room. It was the first time since Brad moved out that I’d been with Jeff when the girls weren’t in the room with us, and I was sure he’d subtly planned it so that he didn’t have to be alone with me. I looked over at him, and his eyes darted to Molly standing in the kitchen with her back to us. I decided to be completely honest. I had nothing to lose.

  “Shall I just ask it and get it over with?”

  He jerked his head
back to face me. “What?”

  “Shall I just ask what you and Brad talked about when he was here last weekend?”

  “I … um …,” he faltered.

  “Does Molly know what you talked about?”

  He had a bit of the deer-in-the-headlights look about him. “Jane, I don’t think … I don’t think I’m the one you need to talk to about this.”

  I turned my attention back to the television. “So she doesn’t know?”

  “I … This is between you and Brad. Really. I don’t want to be in the middle of it. I don’t want Molly in the middle of it. We think the world of you and Brad.”

  I turned back to him. “I’m just afraid it’s too late. Is it too late?”

  Jeff hesitated a moment before he spoke. “I don’t think it’s too late. But I also don’t think anything will change until you two sit down together and decide what you want out of your marriage. I told him that. I can tell you that much. Look, I think it’s good that you’re going up there to see him. You both have too much invested in this relationship to let it just … evaporate.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do if he tells me it’s over,” I murmured, though not really to Jeff. “What am I going to do then?”

  Molly was saying good-bye to her mother. Jeff eased back into his chair. “I don’t think it’s up to just him, Jane.”

  A second later, Molly walked back into the living room with a bag of jalapeno kettle chips, the kind that once you start, you can’t stop eating, because when you do, the burn crawls down the back of your throat and refuses to be calmed.

  Twenty-Four

  Molly’s shoes were a bit loose on me as I made my way from the arrival gate to the area by baggage claim. Although I had only a carry-on and a shoe box of cookies for Connor that Molly and I made at midnight the night before, Brad and I agreed to meet in baggage claim anyway.

  Brad was waiting for me at the first set of doors to the outside. I could see him studying me as I walked toward him; aware perhaps that I was wearing something he had never seen before and intrigued by the slight hitch in my step from wearing shoes a half size too big.

  He wore stonewashed 501s and a heather gray Henley. He had his hands in his pockets, but when I was just a few feet away, he pulled them out as if to wrap me in an embrace. I stopped short, ready to fall into those arms, ready to hand over my overnight bag if he reached for it.

  “Hey,” he said. He took the step between us, kissed me on my cheek, and took my bag. His other hand rested lightly on the small of my back as he guided me away from the press of people from my flight and several others. “Flight okay?”

  “It was fine.”

  He swiveled his head to look at me. “You look nice.”

  I blushed slightly. “Thanks.” I lifted a corner of the scarf that hung over my shoulders like a priest’s stole and a sudden burst of blabbermouth came over me. “Molly.”

  “Molly?”

  The blush deepened. “She didn’t like the clothes I had brought to wear today. She actually dressed me. I think she forgot Connor’s on the track team, not the polo team.”

  Shut up, shut up, shut up.

  “Well, you look great.”

  So do you.

  We stepped outside and headed toward short-term parking.

  “Molly’s shoes?”

  I was practically tripping over a suitable answer for, “Yes, doggone it, I am also wearing Molly’s shoes,” when I noticed he was looking at the shoe box I carried, not my feet. “Oh! No. These are cookies I made for Connor.”

  “He’ll be thrilled.” He nodded to my hand. “That’s a new ring.”

  I glanced down at Jane’s ring on my pinkie, surprised that Brad noticed. “Old one, actually. Found it in a box of old books I bought from Emma. It was hidden inside the binding of an old prayer book.”

  “Strange place for a ring,” he said.

  We were a few feet from the Jeep, and I was about to agree that it was, indeed, a very odd place to keep a ring, when he cleared his throat.

  “Something has come up at the hospital. I’m afraid I can’t go to the meet with you. I’m really sorry.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “I feel really bad about it,” he went on. “The guy on call this weekend is sick. I am going to have to go in.”

  An odd mixture of relief and frustration instantly poured over me. I had been dreading the hourlong drive to Hanover. And yet I wanted to be with Brad. I wanted him to be with me.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

  “You can take the Jeep to Hanover. I’ve already punched in the address on the GPS. You can just drop me off at the hospital on your way out of Manchester and then pick me up tonight when you come back through.”

  I was envisioning myself driving alone, sitting alone, eating alone in Molly’s carefully chosen clothes when Brad continued.

  “I’ve already texted Connor, so you don’t have to worry about explaining why I’m not there.”

  He caught the irony in the last half of his sentence and looked away.

  An audible sigh escaped me. I didn’t know how to feel about the turn of events. We reached the Jeep.

  “I’m really sorry about this, Jane.”

  And I could see that he was.

  He truly was.

  I would have to add Sincere to the list.

  Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of Brad’s new hospital, a building completely foreign to me. I stared up at its red-brick height. It looked like a hotel except for the people in white lab coats and green scrubs leaving and entering through the swooshing automatic doors.

  “Do you want to come in?” Brad asked, but his voice was hesitant.

  “I would like to sometime. But it doesn’t have to be today.”

  He smiled at this, like he was glad he didn’t have to give me a tour today and introduce me to any of his colleagues as his wife from New York, as if this was some permanent arrangement we have. Married but living in two different states.

  “I am really sorry about this,” he said again.

  “It’s okay.”

  Brad pointed to the GPS. “When you’re ready to come back tonight, just press Reverse Trip and you’ll be able to find me.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to laugh and say, is that all I need to do? But I didn’t. Instead, I asked the question I needed to ask or I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy Connor’s meet or seeing him participate in it.

  “Where am I staying tonight?” I stared at the GPS.

  Brad hesitated a second or two before answering.

  “Well, I thought you’d stay at my place. I was going to offer to sleep in the guest room. But I can … I can get you a hotel room if … if that’s what you want.”

  He sounded like I felt, unsure and tentative.

  “That’s not what I want,” I answered quickly, my eyes still glued to the GPS.

  Brad nodded, filing away my response, I suppose, into whatever system he used to make his choices these days. He seemed satisfied with my answer. Not pleased, exactly. But satisfied.

  “Then I’ll see you tonight,” he said, his hand on the door.

  “Right.”

  I got out of the Jeep to walk to the driver’s side as he pulled a gym bag from the back. At the driver’s door, we turned to face each other.

  He shook his head, another apology for the way things had turned out, this one unspoken. I told him not to worry about it. I almost added Connor and I were no strangers to last-minute changes in plans. But I caught myself in time. I knew what I was getting into when I married a doctor. That was something I did know.

  “Call me tonight when you’re a few miles out?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He swung the gym bag over his shoulder and then stood there for a second, looking at me. I wondered if he was thinking of kissing me good-bye.

  “I … Can we talk tonight?” he asked.

  I knew Brad and I needed t
o talk. Everyone said we needed to talk. Even Connor said we needed to talk. It surprised me that now that Brad wanted to, I was reluctant to agree. Dr. Kirtland had encouraged me to keep this weekend about Connor and his track meet.

  When I finally murmured, “Yes,” he tipped his chin as if marking a slot on his day planner.

  “See you when you get back. Tell Connor I’ll catch the next one.”

  “Sure.”

  He turned and walked briskly away. I stepped inside the Jeep and reached for the door handle. Molly’s scarf billowed toward my hand and obscured my view of Jane’s ring as I slammed the door shut.

  I didn’t get to see Connor before the meet. I arrived in plenty of time before his first event—the four-hundred-meter sprint, but the team was sequestered in a premeet pep talk, so I headed to a shady portion of the bleachers to wile away the afternoon.

  I could’ve befriended the parents sitting around me, but I didn’t feel like it, so the hours slipped away in relative seclusion. I cheered when Connor ran, blending my voice with the shouts of other Dartmouth fans. He turned in a second-place finish in the four hundred, took fourth in the two hundred—not his favorite race—and his relay team placed second in the four by four hundred.

  When he wasn’t running, I read a book I’d brought and occasionally watched the pole-vaulters sail into the sky, arching their bodies like dancers and falling like rag dolls onto the massive cushion below.

  It was after six thirty when the last event concluded and closer to seven before Connor came walking across the field to me.

  He looked so much like Brad. I wrapped my arms around him when he finally reached me.

  “Mom! I’m all sweaty.” He tried to pull away.

  “I don’t care,” I muttered, not wanting to let go. “You did great.”

  “I did okay.” He pulled away anyway. “Did you see that guy who won the two hundred?”

  “I saw him, but—”

  “I’ve never run against a guy that fast.”