Chapter 3
Chapter Three
B enny was the first to spot Joel’s SUV as it cut down the road toward their place. With exuberance, Benny jumped up and down at the window, where he ate an apple slice and hollered, “Uncle Joel is here!”
Alexis sped up behind him and picked him up by the armpits to whirl him in a big circle. Benny cackled and gazed up at his mother with adoration. This is it, Reese thought to himself. My family is getting back together again. Reese and Oriana hurried outside to greet the returning islanders. After leaving ten years ago, Joel and Lauren had finally decided to come home.
It was unfortunate and confusing that Reese hadn’t told Oriana the whole truth. Joel had begged him not to share the details of his job loss, and Reese had kept his word. It seemed not to matter anyway. Oriana was euphoric. The second Tyler and Peter jumped out of the SUV and ran into the yard, Oriana raced after them with more energy than her fifty years should have allowed. Joel walked to Reese, beaming, and hugged him.
“How was the drive?” Reese asked.
“Not bad,” Joel said. “We went by the rental house on the way.”
They could move into the new place tomorrow, but they’d decided to come one day early to get settled in. Behind the excitement in Reese’s eyes, Joel could see a darkness, and he imagined the past couple of weeks hadn’t been easy on him. Joel had been frightened to take Lauren, Tyler, and Peter out of an environment that worked so well for them. It was almost certain Lauren had given him a hard time.
But they’re here now. Things can change.
Lauren got out of the SUV last and tentatively looked at Oriana and Reese’s home as though she didn’t really want to believe this was happening to her. As though she’d gotten on a roller coaster she couldn't just get off at random.
Reese urged himself. Be nice to her. All that stuff in the past is in the past.
“Lauren! Welcome home,” Reese said.
Lauren grimaced and gave him a side hug. “I only lived here for about a year, and that was ten years ago. Providence is home for me.”
Reese’s stomach twisted in knots, but he managed to maintain a smile. He fought every urge to give Joel a look. Why is your wife so mean-spirited? Reese reminded himself that Lauren didn’t have all the information about the given situation. Husbands and wives were meant to share everything. Really, it wasn’t fair.
“We’re ordering pizza!” Oriana called from the yard. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starved,” Lauren said.
Alexis and Benny joined them outside. Benny was the same age as Peter, so the two were already fast friends. Their giggles echoed across the houses and over the swelling waves of the Atlantic. It was music.
Reese poured Lauren, Oriana, and himself a glass of merlot at the kitchen counter. Alexis, Benny, Peter, and Tyler had moved to the backyard, where Reese had built Benny a little playground. Peter flew down the slide like a maniac and whipped around to clamber up again.
“I don’t know how they have so much energy,” Lauren said.
“It’s a tough age,” Oriana agreed. “But a fun one.”
They discussed tomorrow’s logistics and what time the moving company planned to arrive. Oriana suggested she make sandwiches in the morning so they could have lunch at the new house. Reese waited for Lauren to volunteer to help, but she stared glumly out the window as though it wasn’t one of the most beautiful sites she’d ever known. Reese had to fight himself not to roll his eyes. Providence? How could Providence be better than this? Are you really that spoiled?
The pizza arrived. Oriana hurried off to pay the driver and returned with a stack of six: pepperoni and sausage; vegetarian; pineapple and ham; and a few others Reese had no interest in—including one Alexis liked with feta cheese and banana peppers on it. “Where on earth did you get that idea?” Reese teased her, as usual. His mouth was already full of sausage and cheese.
They sat on the back porch and watched the sun dunk into the water in an orange explosion. Reese took a moment to look across the table at his entire family, enjoying their time together, eating and laughing. He imagined this was the sort of thing they’d do all summer and into autumn. They could build a fire in the fireplace when it got colder like old times. They could bundle the kids up and make snowmen in the winter. It was going to be perfect.
There was a lull in the conversation. A pregnant pause. Reese was totally at peace.
And then Lauren said, “I can’t believe you guys never built a new pool house.”
Reese gaped at her as his ears rang. Had she really said that? Oriana struggled to put a smile back on her face and set down her pizza. Joel stared at a point on the grass while Alexis shot daggers at Lauren. So far, she’d been the only one in the family not pretending to be a fan. Not pretending to forget.
Lauren took another bite of pineapple and ham pizza and chewed contemplatively.
“What’s a pool house, Mommy?” Peter asked.
“It’s a spare house rich people have in their yards,” Lauren explained. Her voice was spiky and charged with emotion.
“That’s not exactly right,” Alexis snapped.
Reese’s heart pumped with fear. He forced himself to look at Joel again. What was he thinking? But Joel refused to look at any of them. He ignored his pizza.
“I think the yard looks lovely without anything blocking our view,” Oriana said breezily. “Who wants another slice?”
“Me!” Peter, Tyler, and Benny cried in unison.
Lauren reached for a bottle of wine and refilled her glass. She was drinking faster than the rest of them; perhaps it was proof that she was unhappy here, or perhaps she just wanted to spit in the face of their family’s decency. Her own father had lost all of their money during his failed attempt at that hotel resort nine years ago, and it was clear she resented Oriana and Reese’s money. She and Joel had never had as much of it until recently when Joel got that promotion. That was probably another reason Joel didn’t want to tell her what had happened. Finally, he was living up to Lauren’s preconceived notions of what a husband should be.
But Reese didn’t look down upon Lauren’s decision to be a stay-at-home mother. He was a former stay-at-home dad. He knew it was full-on, a twenty-four-hour gig. It didn’t let up until they left home and left you alone, questioning if you’d done everything wrong.
Their plates clean, the kids ran back out into the yard for a final hour of play before baths and bedtime. Alexis no longer lived with them, but she agreed to let Benny play a little bit longer. He couldn’t get enough. His cheeks were bright red with joy.
Lauren got up to make a phone call, and Alexis and Oriana cleaned up the table and went inside to look over some photographs Oriana was trying to sell to a client. Alexis was an artist; she had an eye for what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes Oriana needed her help.
This left Joel and Reese outside by themselves again. Reese’s heart swelled. “You want a beer?”
“One won’t hurt before bed,” Joel said, although his tone was soft and difficult to parse.
Reese returned with two domestic cans and passed one over. Together, they flipped up the tabs and gazed at the cerulean blue water beneath a dying sun. Reese could still feel the “pool house” comment floating in the air. He filled his mouth with beer.
“I thought we’d get started on Monday morning first thing,” Reese began. “I was considering renting a little office space in Oak Bluffs for the summer. What do you think?”
“It sounds good.” Joel took a sip of beer and didn’t look at his father.
Reese felt a creeping anxiety over his chest. It made it difficult to breathe. Is Joel regretting coming here?
“A client down in Florida needs an app that pairs up with a little thermometer. It checks the humidity, temperature, and a bunch of other crap in aquariums. The aquariums can be as large as this house or as little as a shoebox,” Reese went on. “I was thinking you could take that over as your first project.”
“Sounds good.”
Reese’s heart panged. “We can even work on it together if you want,” he hurriedly said, trying to fill the silence. “I know it’s been a while since you coded something. I’ll be right there in the office if you have questions, or…”
“I know what I’m doing, Dad,” Joel shot.
For a moment, Reese was ten years younger, talking to an eighteen-year-old Joel; a sinister Joel; a version of Joel that didn’t seem like Oriana and Reese’s son at all but rather a nightmarish copy. Where did you come from, Joel? Why do you hate me so much?
“I know, I know,” Reese said. His shoulders were slumped.
Joel rubbed the back of his neck and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was a long day for us.”
“I’m sure.” Reese’s voice was falsely chipper even to his own ears. “I don’t mean to talk shop on your first night back. Let’s just relax.”
Joel bowed his head and looked at his toes. From the upstairs window came the sound of Oriana, Peter, and Tyler singing a nursery rhyme that Reese had previously sung to Alexis and Joel when they were little. It broke Reese’s heart.
Later that night, Joel retired to the guest room and left Oriana and Reese alone on the back porch. Oriana had a small glass of white wine, and her short blond hair was pulled up in a clip that highlighted her face's beauty and sharp angles. Reese cuddled closer to her on the outdoor sofa and kissed the back of her neck. She sighed and wrapped her arms around him.
“I couldn’t believe Lauren said that,” she murmured into his shirt.
“It was an attack.”
Oriana propped her chin on Reese’s chest. “I sometimes wonder what our lives would have been like without that night. Maybe Lauren and Joel wouldn’t have latched onto each other so tightly. Maybe they wouldn’t have run away together and gotten married.”
Reese had the same thought but wasn’t as willing to engage with it now.
“I just don’t think Joel ever got over it,” Oriana offered. “Maybe none of us did.”
Before bed, Reese stepped into the little en suite bathroom he and Oriana shared. There in the soft glow of the overhead light, he unbuttoned his blue shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket by the door. With his undershirt off, he leaned closer to the mirror, closer than he’d gotten in many years. It was rare that he gave such attention to the scars. More often, he ignored them and chalked them up to just another thing about getting older. It was fascinating how they’d changed since the last time. The mass of scars had tightened in on itself and become a sort of tie-dye explosion of reds and whites and tans. His chest looked like an ancient stone wall in a Roman village. And just like an ancient wall, his chest of scars reminded him of the past. A past he couldn’t change.
Reese pulled a big sleep shirt over his head—a Nirvana band shirt he’d bought back in the early nineties before he’d had children. Oriana had checked once to find this particular band shirt worth nearly eight hundred dollars. It was rare, and Nirvana fans were fanatics. But Reese had worn it obsessively for too many years for it to be worth anything. Plus, he’d never part with it. It was attached to his soul.
For him, it was fascinating to think about a time “before” he’d become a father. Despite its endless complications, being a father was etched into his identity. He’d be lost without it.