Chapter 17
It wasn’t a green card marriage. Theo felt he needed to tell his friends and family this over and over again in the lead-up to his wedding.
They couldn’t get it through their heads.
Why had Marie chosen Theo? Yes, Marie Theroux was beautiful and charming and the very best at pastries in the entire culinary school where he’d met her.
Yes, she was way out of his league. But when Theo and Marie had begun dating, Theo had felt drawn into a world of joy and wonder.
He’d felt as though everything dark and sour about his life, prior to knowing her, could be forgotten.
As far as Marie said, she felt the same.
It wasn’t so long before Theo’s mother’s cancer would come back and take her for good.
During that brief yet beautiful period, Theo and Marie planned a wedding for fifty guests, then said their vows and drank champagne and danced the night away.
The wedding was in Bluebell Cove, of course—only a half mile from where Theo would soon open his market stall, with the hopes of one day opening his own restaurant.
“Baby steps,” Marie was fond of saying, her accent so French when she said baby that it sounded like “Bébé.”
Goodness, Theo loved her. Sometimes, he knew he loved her too much. He loved her with a desperation that frightened him because he wondered if it was proof he was too afraid to lose her.
He reasoned that everyone was afraid of losing their wife, their partner, their husband. This wasn’t a strange thing at all.
In the weeks after their wedding, Theo threw himself into creating brand-new recipes for his market stall, while Marie worked on the business plan for her bakery, which was planned for a February 2010 opening.
Needless to say, in a town as carb-crazed as Bluebell Cove, everyone was excited about Marie’s bakery, more so than they were about Theo’s market stall.
Everyone adored Marie. For some reason, they knew not to talk to Marie about what Theo had gone through back in high school.
Maybe they’d forgotten. Maybe they didn’t care.
During the first ten days of January, Theo and Marie planned their honeymoon.
It was perfect timing: immediately before Marie’s bakery opening, and during a hiatus at the outdoor market, as winters in Bluebell Cove were too gosh-darn cold.
The plane needed to be defrosted for a full hour before it could take off, and then they were off, shooting south for the Deep South.
Using the money they’d been gifted for their wedding, Theo and Marie sprung for a gorgeous room in an all-expenses-paid resort. They spent hours walking along the beach, dipping their toes in the warmest water they’d ever felt, and gushing about their future.
“It is hard to believe it, but soon, I will have the bakery, and you will have the restaurant, and we will be endlessly stressed and endlessly happy,” Marie said, raising on her tiptoes to kiss him.
On day six of their honeymoon, Theo decided to swim laps at the resort pool while Marie sunned and read her book.
Always, her books were in French and very difficult to understand, often about philosophy or dead French poets.
Finishing a lap, Theo rested his chin on his hands and leaned over the wall of the pool, gazing at his beautiful wife as she read.
How had he gotten so lucky? Because of him, terrible things had happened.
Because of him, some people hadn’t been allowed to go on.
Theo tried to get his wife’s attention. But she was so buried in her reading that she didn’t notice him waving.
Theo let his arms drop, then turned his head the slightest bit.
The woman three chairs from his wife’s was reading, too, but she was reading a trashy magazine, something glossy about fashion or something.
Maybe celebrities. Theo was about to turn back and swim another lap.
But then, he realized the model on the magazine cover was someone he knew.
Immediately, Theo felt the tremors of an approaching panic attack.
He gulped air and tried to drag his eyes from the magazine cover.
But each time, it pulled him back. Juliet’s dark, provocative gaze, her barely-clad body, so taut and shining.
During the years since Juliet had taken off, Theo had kept his head down.
He hadn’t looked into where she was, nor asked anyone.
He gave Ivy Harper (who seemed to have problems of her own) a wide berth.
And Wren had already left the nest, seemingly never to return.
Now, Juliet was here with him on his honeymoon in Mexico. It felt entirely unfair.
All at once, his thoughts sped up. He began to gasp, then reached for the ladder before falling back into the water.
Here it was, that panic attack he’d been fearing.
He could hardly swim. Soon, he felt strong arms around him, hauling him back to the wall.
A voice told him to hold on to the side of the pool.
Another voice told him to breathe. But Theo could hardly focus on a thing.
Instead, he felt stuck in a nonstop loop, experiencing that final night, the night of prom—the night that had changed his life forever.
He couldn’t go back. But here it was, living on in his head. He hated himself. He hated everything.
It wasn’t till more than an hour later that he pulled out of his chaotic mind and came to.
He realized he was on a bed, still wearing his swimsuit, listening to a woman speaking rapid, panicked French.
Rolling over, he assessed the space, then slowly began to convince himself of what he had to know.
This was his honeymoon suite, and that woman speaking French was his wife, his beautiful wife, whom he loved more than anything.
Although he still couldn’t speak much French, Theo knew enough to guess that she was talking about him, probably to her mother, who hadn’t wanted her to marry Theo to begin with. Her mother was back in Paris, presumably waiting for her to give up on her dumb marriage and return.
When Marie realized that Theo was awake, she got off the phone very quickly, then came over and got on the bed beside him and stroked his back.
Her cheeks were stained with tears, and she looked terrified.
“I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure if you’d come back.
You were saying all kinds of crazy things.
” She gasped with tears, then added, “You were saying so many names! Women’s names.
Names I’ve never heard of.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
Theo grimaced and put his hands over his face.
What on earth had he revealed to Marie? What did she suspect?
Did she think he was having an affair? He wouldn’t be the first chump to cheat on a wife who was way too good for him.
Men did that to feel more powerful and make their wives feel smaller.
But Theo was not the kind of guy to do that.
Marie cupped his head and gazed into his eyes. “My love, we can’t start our marriage with any dishonesty. We have to tell each other everything, if we’re really going to grow together.”
Theo didn’t know what to say. An awful fear crept through his mind, whispering to him that if she knew everything, Marie would never forgive him. she’d leave him. Maybe that was irrational, but all thoughts about someone leaving you like that were.
“What names was I saying?” Theo tried to laugh it off.
Marie looked deflated. She stood from the bed and went to the mirror, where she put on her lipstick and popped her lips.
“It really was just a bad dream, baby,” Theo told her, getting up and wrapping his arms around her. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Come on. Get dressed. It’s almost dinnertime.”
And that night, they dined and ate seafood and laughed and performed the act of being a newly married couple, en route to their happily ever after. But Theo wasn’t sure if Marie truly believed that he wasn’t hiding secrets. More than that, he wasn’t sure if she ever forgave him for holding back.
Could he blame her?