Chapter 11
ELEVEN
HILARY
“You gave away the flowers?” Ben stared at her, wide-eyed. He didn’t attempt to conceal his hurt or seem to care that anyone might be listening. “Why?”
Hilary gulped down hot chocolate too quickly, scalding her tongue and sending a burning sensation down her throat. “It wasn’t intentional. I appreciate the gesture. I really do.”
His chin trembled as he shook his head in disbelief. “What’s going on with you?”
“Sorry. Really, I am.” She tried to move away from the small crowd waiting to talk with Samesh, but Ben didn’t budge.
“I gave them to Darby, Jim’s widow. It was symbolic since she decided she didn’t want to speak.
It didn’t have anything to do with you—with us.
I promise. It’s this—the event. It’s everything.
I have to make Passport to the Holidays a success, Ben. My job depends on it.”
Ben put his hands in the pockets of his ski jacket. “I—I don’t know what to do, Hilary. I feel like you’re pulling away, and no matter what I do, I irritate you. I came to cheer you on, to support you.”
“I know.” She ran her tongue around the roof of her mouth. It felt gritty, like sandpaper, and not just from the hot chocolate. “Ben, it’s not you, okay? It’s me.”
“Oh, God. You’re going to give me that line?”
“No.” She reached out to touch his sweater.
She had always loved him in the camel-colored wool fishermen’s sweater that brought out the flaxen tones in his eyes and hair.
“I understand that I’ve been a bit consumed by Passport to the Holidays.
I need to get through this event, okay? Then things will calm down.
We’ll have more time together.” She stared at the snowy, picture-perfect park.
It was like a scene from a vintage travel poster.
This should have been a great night. Arguably, it was for hundreds of holiday revelers, but Hilary felt empty as usual.
“Right, except anytime I come near you, you pull away like I have the plague or something.” He sent her a long, pained look, then stepped back. “I get that you’re busy. I just thought it might be nice to have a supportive face in the crowd cheering you on. Now I see that was a mistake.”
“Ben, wait,” Hilary started to say, but Samesh was waving her over to the stage. “Look, can we talk about this later?” Hilary hesitated. “I think they need me.”
“Go do your thing,” Ben said, motioning to the amphitheater, his voice unusually devoid of emotion. “I’ll see you later at home.”
She watched him leave. Why did it have to be this hard? No one had warned her about this stage of marriage.
They had breezed through the baby and toddler years in a sea of laughter and faces covered in mashed peas and carrots, walks to the farmers’ market on the weekends, each of them with a twin in a Kelty backpack.
Hilary remembered those easy days of park lattes, she and Ben sitting knee to knee on a bench sharing a chocolate croissant while the kids scaled the climbing structure and sailed as high as their chubby little legs would take them on the swings.
Sure, there had been endless diapers and two A.M. wakeups, but Hilary had loved the slobbery kisses and tiny hands reaching to be picked up.
During elementary school, she and Ben were classroom parents and had served on the PTA together; Ben had built sets for the fifth-grade production of James and the Giant Peach, and Hilary had organized the magic show.
Their weekends were spent organizing carnivals for fundraisers and soccer games.
They’d had the occasional special getaway weekend when the grandparents came for a visit, but they’d been content as a foursome, blissfully so.
Ironically, middle and high school should have served as a warning when the twins scurried off every other night to ski practice and swim meets.
Instead, Hilary had thrown herself into the booster club, organizing dances and the senior trip.
Ben volunteered as a coach and made sure the house was always stocked with snacks and sodas.
Hilary teased him that the athletic trainer’s kitchen had enough pizza and ice cream to feed a small army.
He had countered that being “the” house where the twins and their friends wanted to hang out was worth any caloric risk.
It hadn’t been until the night of graduation, when she found herself sobbing uncontrollably from the moment “Pomp and Circumstance” began to play, that she realized that her identity as a mom of kids at home had utterly vanished in a poof of eighteen sleepless years.
That was it. All the hours she spent carpooling, eavesdropping on giggling conversations in the backseat, dabbing away tears, holding sweaty little hands, cheering at races and recitals, falling asleep with a warm, cuddly body by her side—gone. Finished.
It had happened so fast.
Ben held her hand and offered her tissues as they watched their graduates cross the stage and take their first steps out into the great big world. But Hilary didn’t feel excited. She felt lost. Cheated.
Why hadn’t she paid more attention? Why hadn’t she been fully present in their growing-up years? How much time had she wasted?
Suddenly, the twins were their own people, off to carve out their own space in the world.
She knew that eventually, that would happen, but she never anticipated it would be like this, like someone had ripped open long-healed scars and left her bleeding out in the middle of a pervasively quiet and empty house.
How come no one talked about this stage?
Why didn’t anyone warn her it was going to be this hard?
Dropping the twins off at college had been even worse. She put on a brave face for them and tried to hold in the tsunami of tears until she and Ben got to the car. But once the flood came, it wouldn’t stop.
She spent three weeks moping around the house, sleeping in their bedrooms, huffing their sheets and pillowcases while their smell still lingered.
Ben recovered faster. He planned date nights and weekend getaways, but Hilary didn’t have the energy to leave the house.
Ben suggested that she go for long walks and have wine nights with her friends or consider talking to a therapist.
“It’s normal to feel sad during a transition like this, Hils. You don’t have to do it alone,” he said gingerly one night after she had ugly cried in the bathtub for hours.
His attempts to pacify her made her feel like even more of a failure.
He was functional. He was fine.
What was wrong with her?
So she threw herself into work, determined to make Passport to the Holidays a smashing success. The job had filled a void but cracked the crevice between her and Ben wide open. The scariest part wasn’t figuring out how to mend the fracture; it was whether it was even worth trying.