Chapter 18
Three nights before Bethany planned to return to Savannah to prep for Felix’s surgery, she had a panic attack. It was the first panic attack she’d had since medical school, one that rollicked through her stomach and kept her stationed on the sofa for a full thirty minutes, waiting for her heart to stop racing. When she regained control over her body, she slumped over and stretched across the cushion. From out back came the sounds of her children playing. They were none the wiser to her misery.
The front door opened to bring Rebecca into the living room. She carried grocery bags and said, “You wouldn’t believe what they were out of at the store. No watermelon! No sliced bread! I know it’s fully tourist season, but this is ridiculous.”
And then, she saw Bethany. “Honey, are you all right?”
Bethany closed her eyes. “I just had a panic attack. But I’m fine now.”
Rebecca hustled into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water, which she ordered Bethany to drink. “Do they happen often?”
“They used to. I thought I was over them.”
Rebecca rubbed Bethany’s back and sighed. “It’s just one thing after another lately, isn’t it?”
Bethany tried to laugh, but it got stuck in her throat.
“Do you know what caused it?” Rebecca asked.
“I can’t stop thinking about Nick,” Bethany admitted. “We haven’t spoken at all since the kids and I left. And he’s turned into a monster in my head. I don’t know if I can face him. But I know we need to talk sooner rather than later.”
Rebecca grimaced. Although she’d had a happy and wonderful marriage prior to her husband’s death, she understood the complexities of joining your life legally and emotionally with another. (And because of her work in the restaurant business, she knew the complexities of dealing with narcissists, which they’d decided Nick was.)
“I think you should face him,” Rebecca said after a pause. “Call him. Now. Don’t let it wait. Don’t let it fester. It will just get bigger and bigger if you do.”
Bethany knew Rebecca was right. But when she pressed her phone against her ear and listened to the call ring out across the East Coast, she felt on the verge of another panic attack. When he didn’t answer—not then, nor the five times she called throughout the day—she both thanked her lucky stars and felt a different sort of panic rise. Where was he? Was he all right?
“Why don’t you call the hospital?” Rebecca suggested as she sliced onions for a curry that evening.
Bethany grimaced and made the call. A receptionist answered immediately and, having recognized her name, said, “Good evening, Dr. Sutton. How can I help you?”
Bethany asked to be transferred to the surgical ward, where she asked the receptionist if Nick was at the hospital that evening.
“I thought you and Nick were taking the same leave of absence,” the receptionist said, sounding shocked that Bethany didn’t know where Nick was. “I assumed you were together.”
Bethany’s mouth was dry. “He hasn’t been at work in a while, then?”
“No. I haven’t seen him at all.”
Bethany thanked her and hung up. Now, her heart rate spiked, and she poured herself a glass of wine and struggled not to imagine the worst possible scenarios. Perhaps Nick still hadn’t left his office. Maybe he’d done something horrible to himself. Perhaps he’d run away.
What if Bethany couldn’t find him? What if he needed help?
“I think I have to leave,” Bethany said. “First thing tomorrow.”
Rebecca wrinkled her nose. “No sign of him?”
“No. I have a terrible feeling.”
Rebecca abandoned her sizzling onions and touched Bethany’s shoulder. “I’m sure he’s just nursing his wounds. Maybe he’s trying to get a rise out of you.”
“I know. But I’ll feel better when I know he’s safe.” Bethany sighed.
The following morning, Bethany woke up at three, unable to sleep a moment more. Because she’d packed last night, she tiptoed downstairs with her suitcase, drank two cups of coffee, wrote a letter to her children, and stepped into the fresh morning air. The first ferry left at four thirty—for those on the island who worked elsewhere every day—and she planned to make it.
Bethany got out and hung over the edge of the ferry as it embarked across the Nantucket Sound. The motor surged beneath the great vessel, and water burst out behind them, creating an enormous wake. The other islanders on the earliest ferry mostly kept to themselves, and many of them didn’t even get out of their vehicles. They were accustomed to the sight of the water this early in the day. Nothing surprised them.
Presumably, they weren’t on their way to figure out if their marriage was still viable. They weren’t on their way to face their husband.
As the ferry pulled up in Hyannis Port, Bethany considered the next several hours of her life. How could she make the drive bearable? She pulled up an audiobook but struggled to put the pieces together within the first ten minutes. Her brain was too frantic. Eventually, she found a radio station that played nineties hits, and she pretended that she and Rod were traveling to Manhattan together in 1997. The weight of the rest of her life fell away.
It took another nineteen hours to get to her home in Savannah—requiring a stop in Virginia at the same hotel where she’d stayed with her children. She ate a salad and had a glass of white wine in the hotel restaurant, listening to the families and married couples around her, all of whom seemed to be having normal, everyday conversations about where they’d driven today, going to the store before heading out tomorrow, or an incident at a child’s school that needed dealing with. Bethany ached with a strange envy. It had been a long time since she’d felt normal.
After another ten hours of driving the following day, she cut the engine in the driveway and stared up at the massive house, remembering the first time she’d ever seen it. She and Nick had been so sure they would fill the place with children. They’d joked about having five, even eight children. They’d imagined having to get an even bigger house.
The house was far bigger than Esme’s place. Ironically, it only held one lonely man, while Esme’s place was currently home to six children, Rebecca, Bethany, and Esme. Sometimes Victor even slept over.
Bethany pressed the garage door opener and walked through the darkness of the garage to enter the house through the kitchen. This was something she came to regret. The kitchen was a pigsty. Empty pizza boxes lined the countertops. The fridge was filled with beer, molding cheeses, and salami. There was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s near the sink—a brand Nick wouldn’t have deigned to drink prior to this “breakdown.” Bethany’s stomach curdled at the smell. It reminded her of Nick’s friends’ apartments back in medical school. They hadn’t been able to keep up with their own filth.
“Nick?” Bethany called, her voice wavering. “Nick, are you here?”
She knew he was. She could sense him lurking upstairs, maybe in his office. His car was here, and the keys were in the wooden bowl by the front door.
“Nick, honey? Are you here?” Bethany sounded pathetic. She hovered at the bottom of the stairs and peered through the darkness. She could hear music—rock music from the seventies. She went up the stairs, hating how much the wood creaked beneath her, announcing her. But she didn’t want to surprise him. She didn’t want to burst in on whatever he was up to. She wanted them to be adults, facing their problems with adult-level education and emotions. If possible.
Bethany stood in front of Nick’s office door. The music was louder than she’d thought, which meant Nick probably hadn’t heard her calls or the garage door. Hesitantly, she pressed her knuckles against the door, took a deep breath, then knocked. The knock rang out, echoing. There was a startled grunt. He turned the music down, then stomped across the office floor to reach the door. Bethany was frozen with fear. She couldn’t imagine what was on the other side, what he could possibly look like. She’d completely divorced this version of Nick with the one she’d married.
“Nick?”
There was the sound of Nick dropping his head on the door.
“Nick, can you hear me?” Bethany’s heartbeat pounded in her ears.
Finally, he said, “I can hear you.”
Bethany was taken aback. His familiar voice offered a direct connection to her heart and soul. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Nick, will you let me in? Please?”
Nick groaned. “I don’t know, Bethany.”
“Please, Nick.” Relief flooded through her. A part of her hadn’t really believed she would find him. A part of her had really assumed the worst. “We can get through this.”
After another painful thirty seconds, Nick cranked the doorknob. The door creaked open to reveal another manifestation of Nick’s depression. More pizza boxes were piled in the corner, beer cans were scattered throughout, and a Quentin Tarantino film was frozen on the screen on the opposite side of the room. Clearly, he’d built himself a nest in his office, drawing the curtains and cranking the air conditioner.
Nick himself looked worse for wear. His cheeks were ruddy and unshaven, and it looked like he’d lost a great deal of muscle and put a bit of weight on his belly. His hair was tousled and unwashed.
Still, he was her husband. Still, this was the man she’d slept next to for hundreds of nights. The man she’d made love to. The man who’d held her babies while they’d slept.
Bethany let her shoulders drop. Nick raised his hands and shrugged.
“I didn’t want to let you in,” he said, almost accusatorially.
Bethany stepped into the office and shut the door behind them. She wanted to meet him on his terms. She removed a pile of magazines from the sofa and sat down, still looking up at him. After a long silence, he walked to the desk, poured himself a stiff drink of whiskey, and sat beside her. Bethany wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t offered her any. That wasn’t his way.
But she wanted to stay sober for this anyway. She wanted to be alert. To guide them.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” Bethany began.
Nick’s gaze went straight to the carpet.
“The kids have been worried, too,” Bethany said although she wasn’t sure it was true. They were having an adventure-filled summer, free of the disappointments that had festered in their family home.
“How are they?” Nick asked.
“They’re safe. They’re fine.”
Nick was quiet. He sipped his drink.
“Will you just talk to me, Nick?” Bethany asked, hating how vulnerable she sounded. “Will you just tell me what happened?” Tears streaked her cheeks.
Nick coughed. “I messed up. That’s all.”
Bethany frowned.
“And it’s not the first time,” Nick said. He palmed the back of his neck. “Far from it, in fact.”
“Okay. That’s okay. People make mistakes.”
Nick gave her a sharp look. “You don’t.”
“I have.”
Nick coughed into laughter. It sounded unkind. “You can’t understand what it’s like.”
Bethany knew this was a manipulation tactic—telling someone they couldn’t possibly understand that they weren’t empathetic enough.
“Try to make me understand.”
“I was raised as a Waterstone,” Nick spat. “I was always told I had to be the best in my class. I had to go to a prestigious school. I had to become like my father, or I was useless. I’ve never told you how cruel my father was when he learned you were deemed the ‘more successful pupil’ during medical school. The things he said about me and you were monstrous. Manipulative.”
Bethany’s throat was tight.
“I wanted to study you. I wanted to figure out what your secret was,” Nick rasped. “You were such an enigma. I hated you! I genuinely hated you.”
Bethany’s stomach thrashed. She thought she was going to throw up.
“But my father hated you so much more,” Nick said, his eyes glinting. “And I was drawn to you. Drawn to your beauty and your intellect. And before I knew it, I told my parents I was in love with you. Oh, they were upset.” Nick shook violently.
Bethany was speechless. When she finally mustered the strength, she said, “You’re saying you fell in love with me because your parents hated me? Is that really it?”
Nick’s face was pale. “No! I mean, no. I don’t know.” He got up and paced his office, back and forth, unable to meet her gaze. “You know, I never wanted to be a doctor.” He continued as though he hadn’t just said one of the cruelest things Bethany had ever heard. “I wanted to be a professor, or a writer, or a journalist. I wanted to travel the world. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of performing surgery, I think to myself, ‘I hate this! I would genuinely rather be anywhere but here!’”
“Maybe that’s why you make so many mistakes,” Bethany said, unable to stop herself.
Nick quit pacing and gaped at her. Bethany had gone too far. She thought he was going to yell at her or maybe smack her. But instead, Nick smiled slowly and nodded.
“I think that might be why I make so many mistakes,” he agreed. “I hate it. I hate it so much.” He dropped back on the sofa and drank from his glass.
Bethany felt discombobulated. She couldn’t imagine how she’d ever fallen in love with him. Even her more beautiful memories between them had begun to fizzle.
She decided to tell him. What did she have to lose?
“I never should have married you. I should have listened to my gut.”
Nick scoffed and raised his glass. “Cheers to that.” He smiled good-naturedly as though he meant no ill will. Maybe he didn’t. Perhaps he was too far gone. “Who else would you have dated? You were married to the hospital from day one.”
Bethany’s mind’s eye filled with Rod’s lined face, his kind eyes, and his thick head of hair. At the age of thirty-two, Nick had gotten hair implants and taken three months off work until they filled in. They’d told everyone he was volunteering abroad. Why had she gone along with that?
“I was in love before you,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be in love after you, too.”
Nick’s smile waned. “So that’s it, then. Isn’t it?”
“I don’t see how we can get through this.”
Nick wiped his hand with the back of his mouth. One day, probably soon, he would have a younger girlfriend and maybe he would even have more children. Perhaps Bethany”s memory would be like a blip.
“I’m going to quit the hospital,” Nick said. “Dad said he can get me a job in hospital management. That’s where the real money is, anyway. Less blood. Less death.” He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll move somewhere else. Get out of this heat. I’ve never lived anywhere else but Savannah, you know. I’ve been stuck.”
Bethany wanted to tell him that accepting another job from his father didn’t mean real freedom. But what other option did he have? It was either this or moving back in with his parents, probably.
“I want to enroll the kids in Nantucket schools,” Bethany said firmly.
For a moment, there was a spark in Nick’s eyes. She thought he was going to argue, to remind her that Tommy was a Waterstone and meant for great things.
Instead, he said, “That makes sense.” He scratched his hairy cheeks and turned his eyes to the window. “Maybe I’ll go to New York. I’ll be close by.”
Bethany softened. In the shadows of this reeking office, she felt as though she and Nick were strategizing the next years of their life. When it came to the children, they had to remain a team. Phoebe would be eighteen in eight years. At that point, she and Nick could be done with one another.
“You know,” Bethany said, “my parents are friends again. They’ve been divorced for decades, and now, they cook for one another and go for walks and tease each other.”
Nick’s eyes were hollow as though he wasn’t really listening. “Uh-huh.”
Bethany couldn’t bring herself to hope that she and Nick would be friends one day. Maybe he would surprise her; anything was possible. But right now, despite knowing it was foolish, all she could think of were Rod’s strong arms and his sturdy gaze. How he’d always put her above everything and everyone else. How he still respected her to his core.
“I’m going to make you some coffee,” Bethany said as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Tomorrow, we’ll call a real estate agent to put the house on the market. And I’ll get in contact with a divorce lawyer. We’ll get this squared away as quickly as possible.”
Nick bowed his head. “You’re always an overachiever, Bethany.” He said it with only a slight touch of annoyance. “But thank you. Really. It means the world.”