18. Blair #2
It surprised me, that sound. It had been so long since anything about this situation had felt funny. But the sight of Will Beaumont, heir to generations of Newport old money, constructing a pillow wall with complete seriousness, struck me as deeply absurd.
He looked up, and his whole face changed. Warmth and hunger and hope bloomed in his expression, and I had to look away from it.
“I missed that sound,” he said.
“You said that at the engagement party.”
“It’s still true. It’ll be true every time. I could listen to you laugh for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.” He caught himself, pulled back. “Sorry. I’m not. I’m just being honest.”
“I know.”
The moment stretched between us, awkward and charged. Outside, thunder rumbled, and the rain intensified, drumming against the windows with renewed fury.
“You should shower,” Will said. “Get warm. I’ll wait.”
“Will.”
“I’m not trying anything. I’m just being practical. You’re soaked. You’re pregnant. You shouldn’t be cold.”
He was right. I was shivering, and the bathroom looked warm and inviting, and there was no reason to refuse basic common sense just because my husband was standing ten feet away looking at me with those eyes.
“Fine. But the pillow wall stays.”
“I wouldn’t dream of touching it. The pillow wall is sacred. The pillow wall is inviolable. The pillow wall is the only thing standing between us and chaos.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I learned from the best. Twenty years of friendship with Trip Vanderford has to count for something.”
I snorted and grabbed my bag, retreating to the bathroom before I could say anything else. Before I could acknowledge the strange warmth spreading through my chest at the easy banter, at the glimpse of the man I’d married beneath the careful stranger he’d become.
I showered until the hot water ran out, standing under the spray, trying not to think about the man waiting on the other side of the door. The bathroom filled with steam, and I breathed it in, letting the heat seep into my bones, washing away the chill of the storm and the tension of the evening.
I thought about the last three months. The separation, the anger, the slow rebuilding of myself into someone who didn’t need him. I’d been doing so well. Had started to believe I might actually survive this, might actually come out the other side as someone whole and independent and free.
And then one night in a shared hotel room, and all of it was trembling.
By the time I emerged in my pajamas, he’d changed into dry clothes and was sitting in the armchair by the window, watching the storm. Lightning flickered across his face, throwing shadows, making him look younger and sadder than he had any right to look.
“Bathroom’s yours,” I said.
“Thanks.”
He passed me on his way to the door, close enough that I caught a whiff of rain and cologne and a warmth underneath that was just him. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe until the bathroom door clicked shut and I heard the shower start.
I climbed into bed, carefully positioning myself on my designated side of the pillow wall. The mattress was soft, the sheets were clean, and I was more tired than I’d realized. I closed my eyes.
I didn’t sleep.
The shower ran. Turned off. Will emerged, moving quietly, clearly trying not to disturb me. I kept my eyes closed, listening to him pad across the carpet, feeling the mattress dip as he climbed in on his side.
Silence.
The rain beat against the windows. The wind howled around the corners of the building, making the old inn creak and settle. Two people who used to share everything lay three feet apart with a barrier of decorative cushions between them.
“Blair?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I tell you something?”
I considered pretending to be asleep. Decided against it. Whatever he wanted to say, I probably needed to hear it. And besides, neither of us was going to sleep anyway. The tension in the room was too thick, the awareness of each other too sharp.
“Depends on what it is.”
“I started seeing someone. A therapist. Last week.”
I turned my head toward him, though I couldn’t see him in the darkness. The storm had knocked out the lights across the vineyard, and our room was lit only by the occasional flash of lightning.
“Really?”
“Really. Dr. Reyes. She’s brutal. Doesn’t let me get away with anything.” He paused. “I like her.”
“What made you decide to go?”
“You.” His voice was quiet, almost lost under the sound of the rain. “Losing you. Almost losing you. I needed to understand why I did what I did. Why I let my fear matter more than my faith in you.”
I lay there, staring at the ceiling I couldn’t see, processing this information.
Will Beaumont in therapy. Will, who had been raised to believe that feelings were weaknesses, that asking for help was admitting defeat, that Beaumont men handled their problems alone, behind closed doors, with a stiff drink and a stiffer upper lip.
“That’s good,” I said finally. “That’s really good, Will.”
“It’s not an excuse. There is no excuse. But I want to understand it so I never do it again. So I can be different. Better. So I can be the man you deserved all along, even if you never take me back.”
“What have you learned?”
“That I’m more like my father than I wanted to admit.
” His voice cracked on the word father. “That I grew up inside a lie and didn’t know how to live outside of one.
That my whole understanding of marriage was built on watching two people destroy each other slowly, politely, behind closed doors.
That when I saw signs with you, even fake ones, I just-”
“You saw them becoming us.”
“Yes.”
The word hung in the darkness between us, heavy with everything it contained. The years of fear. The inherited assumptions. The way patterns repeat themselves across generations, even when we swear they won’t.
“I grew up watching my parents love each other,” I said.
I didn’t know why I was telling him this, why this moment felt safe enough for confession.
Maybe it was the darkness. Maybe it was the storm, creating a cocoon around us, separating us from the rest of the world.
“Really love each other. Fight and make up and laugh at inside jokes. Embarrass me with how affectionate they were in public. I never understood what you were afraid of until this happened. I thought marriage was supposed to be easy if you loved someone enough.”
“Is it not?”
“Nothing worth having is easy.”
We lay there in silence, the rain filling the space between us.
I thought about my parents. About the way my mother used to look at my father, even after twenty years, with surprise and delight, as if she couldn’t quite believe her luck.
About the way he’d bring her flowers for no reason, just because he’d seen them and thought of her.
About the way they’d dance in the kitchen sometimes, no music, just the two of them swaying and laughing.
They’d died within a year of each other. My father first, a heart attack that came out of nowhere. My mother followed, what the doctors called natural causes but what Nan called a broken heart. She just didn’t want to live without him, Nan had said. Some people are like that.