5. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
B ut everything wasn’t all right. At least not right away. She felt upside down. Although her initial impulse the morning after learning about her husband’s other family was to remain in bed, she forced herself to get up if only to see Emma off to school. Her teenaged daughter balked, but Nadine remained firm and insisted she go. What would she do at home? Probably the same thing Nadine was tempted to do: wallow and cry, then wallow some more. No, her daughter was going off to college pretty soon. Nadine simply had to get her over this hump. As for herself, she decided a dose of the same medicine applied. She made her bed quickly so she wouldn’t be tempted to climb back into it and fritter the day away.
Nadine Cook Eberhardt was a creature of habit and as her husband—soon to be ex—used to tease her, she was a slave to her routine. But now she depended on that routine to keep her distracted enough to function.
Despite all that was going on, they still needed to eat, the bills needed to be paid, and the laundry needed to be done. She threw herself into cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen and taking everything out of the cabinets and wiping down the shelves. Then she rearranged the pantry.
At home, she walked around in a pseudo-fugue state, not quite sure of who she was and how she fit into everything. It was as if she were a puzzle piece trying to fit into the wrong jigsaw. Her own home seemed unfamiliar to her as if she were visiting for the first time. Framed photographs depicting memorable or happy events seemed strange. She felt like a voyeur, staring at someone else’s life the way one trawled through online celebrity photos.
What she felt like was an imposter.
From afar, she watched as her husband began to openly get involved in his son’s life. Richard encouraged her to join them, to “get to know Sam.” Nadine was horrified. She had nothing against the boy, but she didn’t want to get to know him. Could Richard really be that clueless? The distance between her and her husband grew larger. It seemed inevitable, as if Richard had stepped onto a different path that didn’t include her.
But what was worse was that Richard refused to leave the family home. Refused to separate, which made no sense to Nadine as he’d spent years dividing his time between two families.
What worried her most was Emma. Her normally outgoing teenager was now sullen, prone to holing up in her room and slamming doors.
On Nadine’s weekly phone call to her mother, the older woman picked up almost right away, with some kind of maternal sixth sense that something was amiss.
“You sound different,” Louise Cook said.
“Do I?” Nadine asked.
“What’s wrong?” her mother asked, determined, like a hound with its nose to the scent, to get to the bottom of it.
How Nadine wanted to unburden herself to her mother, tell her everything that had happened, how her marriage was in pieces on the floor, like the fragments of an eggshell. More than anything, she wanted her mother to comfort her.
“Nothing,” she lied. If she were to reveal her current situation, she might not be able to stop. She felt like a weak dam trying to hold back too much water.
“Hmm,” her mother said, unconvinced. “How’s Emma?”
Nadine was relieved for the pivot to a neutral subject. She could go on about Emma forever. When Emma was younger, the two of them had spent every summer in Nadine’s hometown of Lavender Bay, New York, on the shores of Lake Erie. It had been important to Nadine that Emma have summers at the beach, like she had, and more importantly that she got to know her grandmother and her aunts and cousins well while she was growing up. Back then, Richard traveled constantly for work, dropping into Lavender Bay whenever he could. Nadine had loved those early years, when Emma was gap-toothed and brown as a berry from time spent outdoors, her hair perpetually damp from swimming.
She pushed those memories aside and launched into an account of Emma’s end-of-summer activities and her preparations for college in the fall.
“I don’t suppose you want to come home for a quick visit,” Louise said.
Nadine’s first instinct was to say no, thinking about all her obligations, but she found herself saying, “You know what, I’ll think about it. I’ll ask Emma if she’d like to come, too. It might be nice for you to see her before she heads off to college.”
“Really? That would be wonderful! And yes, I’d love to see Emma before school starts,” her mother said with such surprise that she must have been expecting a negative reply.
“Good, I’ll talk to her tonight.”
“What about Richard?” her mother asked, hopeful.
“We just came back from Hawaii. I don’t think he can take time off work again so soon.”
“All right. Call me and let me know what you decide.”
“Will do, Mom.”
“I’d love to see you.”
Her mother had never gotten used to the fact that two of her four daughters lived away from Lavender Bay. They spoke for twenty more minutes, getting all caught up on news about Nadine’s sisters, cousins, and everyone back home. And when she hung up, she realized how much she missed everyone back in Lavender Bay. The thought of going home cheered her up to no end.
“Honey, you can’t ignore me forever,” Richard said to Emma.
Emma narrowed her eyes at him. “I can, and I will.”
“I think maybe you should stay in tonight,” he said sternly, looking at his plate of dinner. The sigh that escaped him was heavy and put-upon. Nadine almost snorted.
She hadn’t put in much effort for dinner. She wasn’t interested. There was plain baked chicken, baked potato, and frozen peas. She could throw it together with her eyes closed.
“Richard,” Nadine warned. Now was not the time to be punishing their daughter simply because she wasn’t speaking to him.
“Nadine, stay out of it,” he said firmly .
Nadine squared her shoulders. “She’s entitled to feel the way she does.”
“I don’t care, I won’t have any disrespect.”
“If you want respect, you have to earn it,” Emma snapped.
She stood, leaving her plate on the table, and stormed off with her father calling after her, “Your plate. Pick up after yourself. You’re grounded for a week, young lady.”
The sound of a door slamming shook the house.
Richard looked at Nadine as if it were her fault.
“Don’t look at me,” she said.
“Does she have to slam the door?” he asked. “This isn’t how adults handle bad news.”
If only it were that simple. Emma was still a girl-woman and she’d grown up thinking her father was perfect. Now she was dealing with a major imperfection of his: cheating, and the news that after being an only child her whole life, she now had a brother.
“It doesn’t help when you go along with her,” he huffed, pushing bits of baked potato around on his plate.
“I’m not going along with her. I happen to know how she feels, it’s only that I have a lot of life experience behind me to deal with it better.” There was a sharpness to her voice, but she didn’t care.
Without waiting for any further discussion, she stood and carried her plate of untouched food over to the dog’s bowl and scraped the potato and peas into it. Herman, sprawled beneath the table, stood, bumping his back on the underside of the table, and pushed through two chairs to get out.
“Don’t get excited,” Nadine said. “It’s only potato and peas.”
Her plan was to go upstairs and pack for Lavender Bay. She’d spoken to Emma earlier about a road trip and her daughter jumped on it, no hesitation. They’d be leaving first thing in the morning.
She wanted to be alone and indulge in thinking of her hometown. There were so many things she wanted to do when she got there. There would be long walks on the beach with Herman. The dog was no fan of the water, but he liked walks. There was her sister’s coffee shop, Coffee Girl, where the most decadent desserts she’d ever indulged in were available. And she could hang out with her Aunt Gail, who owned Prime Vintage, the town’s antique shop.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Richard said, joining her and scraping his dinner, minus the chicken, into the dog’s bowl.
She almost snorted. Almost. Her thoughts were worth a lot more than a penny.
“Before I forget, Emma and I are going to Lavender Bay in the morning.”
Richard rounded on her. “What? When did you make this decision? When were you going to tell me?”
“I made this decision today, and I’m telling you now. ”
“For how long?” he demanded.
Nadine shrugged. “I don’t know. My plans are up in the air.”
“Emma is getting ready to go off to college. I want to spend time with her before she goes. She can’t go with you. I forbid it.”
Had he always been this controlling? Her laugh was brittle. “She’s eighteen, she can do whatever she wants. Personally, I think the change of scenery will do her a world of good.”
“I’m still her father.”
She remained silent. There was nothing more to say. He was tiring.
“So you’re just leaving me high and dry?”
Now she rounded on him. “I want you to leave the house. I’ve told you that. We need to separate but you refuse. So I’ll leave.”
“We can work this out.”
“No, we can’t. And what about Julie and Sam? You’ve been living over there part time and now what? Just going to chuck them to the curb?”
He ground his teeth.
“You spent years living with two families, unable to make a decision and commit fully to one. I’m making the decision for you. It’s over. Go live with Julie and Sam.” She stormed out of the kitchen and said over her shoulder, “Come on, Herman, we have to pack.”