Chapter 21
Nick was gracious enough to clean up the house before Bethany returned. She’d been staying at a hotel in Savannah, prepping for surgery, hashing out a plan. But now that Felix was in remission and en route back to Nantucket, it was time to return home, face Nick again, and let everything they’d built slip through their fingers. It was the art of letting go.
The Nick who awaited her in their living room was smartly dressed and clear-eyed. He was drinking tea rather than his usual whiskey, and he’d shaved his face and gotten a haircut. He looked more like the father who went to parent-teacher conferences alongside her, grilled out with Bob during family barbecues, and always called the furnace guy when they needed help. He looked like the man she’d been married to for fifteen years. It made it that much harder.
“Hey,” Bethany said, sitting across from him with a glass of water.
“Hey.” Nick smiled. “How did it go?”
“Really well. Felix is cancer-free and headed home.”
“I’m not surprised,” Nick said. “I can’t remember the last time you were unsuccessful.”
“It happens.”
“Not to you.”
Bethany glanced around the living room at this space they’d once shared with their children—a home they would soon put on the market and hand over to someone else. It was hard to imagine another family here. Would they love each other enough? Would they respect each other?
“I talked to the kids on the phone last night,” Nick said.
Bethany already knew that. Esme had asked Bethany if it was “all right,” and Bethany had approved it. She didn’t want her children to lose touch with their father.
“How did they seem?”
“They love that island,” Nick said. “It’s hard to believe. I thought they were Southerners like me. It turns out they always had more New England in them than I thought.”
Nick laughed gently and rubbed his eye. It was impossible to know how much this bothered him.
“I had a few interviews this week for gigs up in Manhattan,” he said. “They went well. I’ll hear back this week.”
Bethany already knew he’d secured a job. Dr. Bob Waterstone wouldn’t allow his only son to waste his life away. Nick remained his puppet.
“I wanted to tell you something before the news gets to you another way,” Nick said.
“Okay.”
Nick cleared his throat. “I’m moving to Manhattan with my girlfriend, Ceri. We’ve been seeing each other for a few years now. And now that you and I are calling it quits, Ceri and I can move our relationship out into the open. We can figure out what it really is.”
Nick said it easily, as though he spoke about traveling logistics or selling stock. Bethany tried to face it evenly. It wasn’t such a surprise that her rich surgeon husband had been having an affair, was it? Oh, but it stung just a little. It reminded her of when she’d learned about Rod’s relationship with Sandra.
“I know you think I’m weak for having an affair,” Nick said. “I wish I could tell you why I did it.”
“It doesn’t really matter now.”
“True. I guess not.” Nick sighed. “I always felt so much dumber than you, Bethany, like you didn’t respect me. And Ceri—well. She doesn’t work in the medical field. She thinks being a surgeon is the end all, be all.”
“What does she do?”
“Interior design.”
“Nice.” Bethany couldn’t help but imagine Nick and Ceri’s gorgeous future Manhattan apartment, glossy with Waterstone wealth and Ceri’s “artistic eye.”
Just as swiftly as it had come, her jealousy dissipated. She stood and stuck out her hand. “Let’s promise to be good to each other during this divorce. To keep everything out in the open.”
Nick stood and shook her hand. “Agreed.” He seemed surprised, as though he’d expected Bethany to fly off the handle at the admittance of a mistress. But they’d gone through too much for such theatrics.
Bethany wondered if this was because her love for Nick had officially dried up years ago.
“Before I go upstairs,” Bethany said, flinching, “I have a question.”
“About Ceri?”
“No,” Bethany said. “About your last surgery. Before you went to the hospital, I suggested you use that new technique. The AI method was minimally invasive. The one we’d learned about in that informational video last summer.”
Nick’s face was pale. “You did.”
“It’s been eating me up inside,” Bethany said. “Was the incident on the operating table a result of that technique? Did the patient nearly die because of my idea?”
Only now that she said it aloud did the massive weight of fear fully remove itself from her chest.
Slowly, Nick shook his head. “I didn’t use the technique.”
Bethany raised her eyebrows with surprise. “You didn’t?”
“No. I resented you for telling me what to do,” Nick said. “Turns out, I botched the surgery all by myself, without your help. Like usual.” He sighed. “Don’t worry. You had nothing to do with it.”
Bethany thanked Nick and practically floated upstairs to start another round of packing. Over and over again, her mind echoed with the truth—that it wasn’t her fault. None of it was. Not Nick’s botched surgery, not her failed marriage. But she had to open her heart to the next chapter, which would assuredly be filled with other failures and stories. She couldn’t wait to let it all unfold.