Chapter Sixteen
Dylan finds me standing on the back porch, where the fallen tree branch is still wedged in the shattered corner of the banister, waiting to be dealt with.
The sound of the Jeep’s wheels turning against gravel faded out a few minutes ago as Naomi and Trish departed.
The costumes and cutlass are safely tucked away in their archival papers and boxes.
The sun is setting beyond the house behind me, turning the sky a deep indigo where it meets the sea to the east. My forearms rest on an unbroken section of railing.
My hands are wrapped around my second mug of tea.
For at least a full minute, probably two or three, Dylan and I stand side by side without speaking, both staring out to sea and both in heavy sweaters as the evening temperature inches toward freezing, suggesting winter’s first snow isn’t far away.
“Vivian and I met in college,” he says, gracefully skipping an interrogation neither of us wants to have.
“We took a lot of the same classes, though I wanted to be an author, and she wanted to be an editor, identifying stories that would sell and making them shine. She was so confident. So smart. So ambitious. She spoke her mind and trusted whatever she said without worrying about whether or not she could’ve said it better, more kindly, or more clearly.
I questioned everything, so I found her certainty compelling.
She also saw something in my writing. That felt good, too.
” He pauses, swallows, and shifts his stance to mirror mine by leaning forward on the railing.
I sip my tea and pin my focus on the horizon, letting him tell his story at his own pace, without the added pressure of the curiosity I can’t otherwise hide.
“I asked her to marry me right after we graduated,” he continues.
“She said yes. We went to City Hall the day the license arrived. Bought a condo in Old Port. Slept on an air mattress until we could afford a bed. I started drafting my novel while modeling, delivering food, and working on a fishing boat, all part-time jobs that gave me the flexibility to write. She started remote work for a Big Five publisher in New York, quickly climbing the ranks. The higher she climbed, the less she understood why I was content to gut fish or deliver pizza. She was always networking, and she always wanted to be around people. I was the opposite. We pulled apart.”
He pauses again as six or seven seagulls fly past, cawing at each other, the noise sharp against the gentle rhythm of the waves below us, lapping the rocky shoreline.
I wait, replaying Dylan’s last few words while recalling “Seven Tiny Wars” and wondering if the story was a little bit autobiographical after all.
Wondering what he’d sensed when he wrote it, even if he and his wife never bought a plant together or shared a toothbrush holder.
“She often brought up the modeling work,” he says.
“Suggesting I use it to make industry connections, but I wasn’t as ambitious as she was.
If my novel didn’t sell on its own merits, it wasn’t good enough, and I’d have to try again.
” He draws in a slow breath, letting it out just as slowly.
“The rifts were small at first, but small things grow. Staying home to write, run, or just enjoy the quiet while she attended an industry social event was no big deal the first time. By the tenth or eleventh time, it indicated that I didn’t care enough about my career. Or about her.”
This draws my attention his way. He’s not telling his story with an edge of anger or resentment, but I can’t help picturing the arguments.
I can’t help sympathizing, either, growing up in a household where I was constantly told I wasn’t trying hard enough, as though all effort is visible or as though what’s easy for one person is easy for anyone.
Dylan takes another slow, deep breath, picking at a rough cuticle as the ocean breeze plays with the loose black curls that curtain his forehead and the tops of his ears.
“It started with a flirtation,” he says.
“She enjoyed the attention I wasn’t giving her.
She never tried to hide it. Told me flat out.
She wasn’t trying to sneak around. She wanted me to fight for her.
I tried for a while. I showed up. Dressed the way she wanted me to dress.
Talked to the people she thought I should meet.
Developed a routine for introducing myself and discussing my work.
Made sure I was present, by her side. But I never got it right. And someone else did.”
My mouth falls open, and I nearly drop my mug. Dylan doesn’t notice, clenching and unclenching his jaw while his gaze remains locked tight on his fidgeting hands.
“He was a close mutual friend,” he continues.
“A guy who owned and ran a successful high-end restaurant. A natural extrovert, like Vivian, who worked a room like he was born to do it. When she told me things had gotten serious between them, I think part of her hoped I’d come out swinging.
Tell her I’d do anything. Beg her to stay.
But another part of her wanted to go, so she pursued a relationship that would feel like a double betrayal, forcing my hand. ”
“Dylan—” I start, but he cuts me off with a brusque shake of his head.
“Let me finish first. I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do, I think. I owe it to both of us.” He meets my eyes for the first time since he came out here.
The light from inside the house paints tiny amber sparkles on his dark irises.
It’s beautiful and lively, but it’s not enough to offset the sadness in their depths, the sense of failure and regret, and the quiet plea for me to listen and understand.
“Okay,” I say. “No more interruptions.”
He nods before facing the sea again, making the sparkles vanish.
“The divorce didn’t take long. We didn’t have much to divide up.
I told her to keep everything. I didn’t want to fight about any of it.
” He picks at his cuticles again, letting out the least joyous breath of laughter I’ve ever heard.
“Pretty ironic, huh? That was all she ever wanted from me. To fight for something. Even a chair or a paperback we got signed at an author event. And I just . . . walked away. Sofa surfed with nothing more to my name than a dented laptop and a duffel bag of clothes. I stopped writing. I let friendships lapse. I only stayed in shape because it was the one thing I could control. The one thing with dependable cause and effect. No broken commitments. No surprise announcements. No rugs being swept out from under me.”
Another seagull cries beyond the shoreline.
This time, it’s only one bird, flying alone.
I want to ask—and say—so much, but I wait, again, as requested.
“At first, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it mattered,” Dylan says.
“You were only going to be here for a few weeks. All I had to do was stay out of your way as you attacked this house with a wild determination to rid it of its ghosts. Then you stayed, and avoiding you started to feel not only pointless but like the last thing I wanted to do. By then, I liked that you didn’t know this side of me, rushing to get married, chasing an illusion of the security I’d always wanted but never known, watching my marriage fail when my wife wanted to be with someone who wasn’t me.
” He offers me a smile, stiff and conflicted, before turning away, crossing the porch, and dropping into a wicker chair, one where I’ve spent countless hours curled up, book in hand, sea in view, seeking precisely the kind of quiet he just described seeking, too.
I give him a minute, in case he has more to say. Then I set aside my mug and perch on the side table next to him, close but not too close, unsure what he needs most right now.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say.
“It’s not my proudest story.”
“You think it’s your fault that your marriage ended?”
“I think we were young and naive when we got married. And I think we had a window early on in the marriage where we both could’ve made different choices.
Where the effort to understand our partner’s point of view and find workable compromises would’ve been so small, it barely would’ve seemed like effort.
But neither of us made those choices. We didn’t have the conversations while the stakes were low.
Maybe we were the wrong match to begin with, or maybe we became the wrong match. Either way, I think you were right.”
I wince, worried I’ve inadvertently doled out marital advice. “Right about what?”
“When something’s really important, we fight for it no matter what.
” His hands go still as he exhales, deflating into the chair, relieved, maybe, or exhausted, or both.
I’m pretty sure this is the most I’ve ever heard him say in one unbroken conversation, and that includes the night we opened the reserve rum.
The admission he snuck into that last statement is huge, and I still have questions, but everything I want to ask—or say—can wait.
I watch him for a moment. Then I slide my fingers through his, slowly, in case the contact isn’t welcome, though apparently it is welcome, because he completes the handhold, resting our linked hands on the arm of the chair.
We’re quite the pair, each following a direct path toward something we wanted—me with my teaching career and him with his marriage—only to have our expectations shattered, forcing us to start over, set new expectations, and redefine what we want.
Then decide if we want it badly enough to fight for it.
Dylan breaks the silence first. “I’ll buy new running shoes.”
I gust out a laugh so strong I almost slide off the table’s edge. “That’s your takeaway?”
This time, when he smiles, it’s a little less conflicted. “Gotta start somewhere.”
“I guess,” I concede, then think through my own goals.
The house and boat repairs are underway, and we’re writing Grams’s next book, which leaves the big looming question of my teaching career, the question I’ve been wrestling with since that damned sinkhole ate my bike.
It also leaves the question of Dylan and whether I shake up our friendship by crossing a line I might not be the only one dancing around, though he’s so hard to read sometimes.
I might only be seeing what I want to see, not what’s really there, neatly shelved under “landlady.”
“Any chance you could use a hug?” I ask, and even that feels like a risk.
He scratches his neck with his free hand, his surefire tell he’s battling anxiety.
“Or rum?” I offer as an alternative. “We could get wasted and blast the Goo Goo Dolls. Scare a few seagulls. Dance around in the rooms we never use. Primal scream at the sea.”
I almost catch sight of a dimple. Almost.
“Actually,” he says, “a hug would be great.”
He slides his hand free of mine and opens his arms. I scoot off the table and edge sideways onto his lap, tucking my face to the side while my arms loop around his shoulders and his arms wrap around my waist, pulling me against him.
The chair isn’t built for two, and it’s not the smoothest hug in the world, but with a little wriggling, and by swinging my legs over the arm of the chair so my feet dangle, we find a position we can settle into, with my head on his shoulder and his stubbled cheek resting against my forehead.
I want to ask if he still loves her. I want to ask if she’s still with the restaurant guy, if she found what she was willing to fight for.
I want to ask if she was the editor who read Dylan’s novel or if she shared his taste in music or knew he hated pickles.
I want to picture the woman who could let this man go, not only let him go but push him away.
I also want to hate her for doing it, but I suspect Dylan’s right.
They were either the wrong match to begin with, or they became the wrong match.
Anything else is beside the point. So I don’t ask any questions.
I let her be a ghost without a distinct shape. And I hold him. I hold him so tightly.
Though not, perhaps, as tightly as he holds me.