Chapter 16
In February, Shelby married the love of her life, Jared Kissinger, and moved into a two-bedroom apartment not far from Harvard campus, so that he could walk to classes every day.
During those first couple of weeks, Shelby fell into a happy rhythm.
Now that Jared was out of the hospital and walking normally, now that everything seemed easy and clear and happy, and now that Shelby was pregnant with their first child, Shelby realized there was nothing much to do but learn how to be a wife.
This meant, she guessed, cooking and cleaning, or getting a job somewhere, although when she suggested that to Jared, he looked at her as though she were crazy.
He didn’t have to say it, but she guessed that he didn’t want her to work now when they were newlyweds. Not when she was pregnant.
During February, March, and April, Shelby busied herself with doctor’s appointments, cooking, baking, and cleaning.
Her favorite thing to make was dessert—cakes and pies and tiramisu and ice cream—but Jared soon told her that he didn’t want either of them to gain any unwanted weight, so she stopped that pretty quickly.
Her sweet tooth continued to rage, though.
It reminded her of college at Columbia, how she’d always stayed up late writing papers and eating sweets.
She and Molly had had their favorite cookie place, not far from campus, and they’d often met there to eat and drink coffee and complain.
Shelby felt her first pang of loss, thinking about those cookies and her old, dear friend.
But getting married and starting a new life with Jared meant letting go of parts of her old life. Columbia was out. New York City was out.
In mid-April, Jared didn’t come home. Shelby had worked for hours on a beef Wellington, which she was quite proud of and eager to show off.
Standing in her apron at the kitchen counter, preparing the last of the salad, her ears craned for the first sounds of her husband, which usually involved the key in the lock and his boots on the welcome mat.
Usually on Thursdays, he was home at six thirty, maybe seven if he had a little more studying to do.
But seven crept to seven forty-five, which crept to eight fifteen, and still, Jared wasn’t back.
He hadn’t written or called, either. The beef Wellington had grown cold, so she put it back in the oven at a low temperature, terrified of burning it.
She didn’t want to make the place smell bad and enrage him even more when he got back from wherever he was.
It never occurred to Shelby how strange it was that she was scared to write and call Jared herself.
Since he’d woken up from his coma, his moods had been difficult to read, so much so that she’d taken to smoothing things out for him beforehand, trying to make his route through the world simple and easy.
If things were easy for Jared, then everyone had a good time.
If things were easy for Jared, Shelby was allowed to keep smiling and laughing. She could sleep at night.
But when it hit eleven that night, Shelby didn’t know what to do. She decided to call one of Jared’s friends, a guy he’d gone to high school, undergrad, and now grad school with. His name was Stephan, and he was stuffy and arrogant but seemed genuinely to care about Jared.
Stephan answered reluctantly. “Hello?”
“Hi, Stephan. It’s Shelby,” Shelby said, speaking faster than she wanted to. It made her sound uncertain. “I was wondering if you know where Jared is? He didn’t come home, and I’m getting worried.”
“Um, yeah. He’s all right,” Stephan said.
There was a shuffling, followed by footsteps. Shelby heard a roar that meant Stephan was out at some bar. Was Jared out at the bar with him? Why hadn’t Jared invited Shelby along? She was pregnant, sure, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like going out.
She hadn’t known that getting married to Jared would mean missing out on life experiences.
“And he’s okay?” Shelby asked Stephan, hating how stupid she sounded.
“He’s fine, Shelby. Just go to bed, all right? He’ll be late.”
There was a burst of laughter, which told Shelby they were all out, laughing about Jared’s nagging wife. Her gut turned sour, and she hung up the phone.
That night, Jared got back a little after one.
He was drunk and smelling of beer and greasy food, and he took off his shirt and crawled into bed.
Shelby was wide awake, panic lacing its way through her chest. She wondered if Jared had kissed another woman tonight.
She wondered if he was that kind of guy—not to tell his wife about his plans so that he could cheat.
What made her think that he was that kind of guy? She didn’t know.
“You’re awake,” Jared said sternly, as though she were in trouble.
Shelby turned to look at him in the darkness. His eyes glinted from the moon. She felt a strange swell in her chest, one that felt like love mixed with tremendous dislike.
“You shouldn’t be awake,” Jared said.
“I was worried about you,” Shelby shot back.
Jared sat upright in bed and glared down at her. “You’re the one who came into my life,” he said. “You can’t expect me to play happy husband every night. It’s too much.” With that, he snapped around and slept with his back facing her, leaving Shelby to stew.
Something that had never been far from Shelby’s mind was what Monica and Jim had said in the hospital: that the doctors had been worried about a personality change in the wake of Jared’s injury.
Sometimes she wondered if he was crueler, now, because he’d hit his head.
But other times, she remembered that she hadn’t known him very well before the accident.
They’d had a summer romance. She’d fallen in love with the Nantucket version of him.
Now, maybe, she was just getting to know the Cambridge version.
She told herself she loved the Cambridge version, too.
Well, she had to. She’d married him. She was pregnant with his child.
As the weeks wore on, she communicated with her sister and mother less and less. She told herself that this was because they weren’t supportive of her marriage. They’d wanted to tear her out of the courthouse and take her back to Nantucket. They’d wanted to “fix her mistakes.”
But Jared wasn’t a mistake! She loved him.
The morning after Jared’s night out, Jared turned to Shelby before he left for class and said, “That was pretty pathetic last night.” Without letting her answer first, he stormed out.
Shelby opened the oven door to find the beef Wellington, forgotten and going bad. She put it in a trash bag and put it in the dumpster outside, her eyes stinging with tears. When she returned to the kitchen, she reached for the phone and dialed her sister.
“Shelby?” Lily sounded panicked. “Shelby, is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine! I’m just calling to say hi,” Shelby said. There was a slight hiccup in her voice, but she thought she sounded mostly normal. Sort of normal.
“I’ve been thinking about you all week,” Lily said. “I wanted to call, but I don’t know. I didn’t think you wanted me to?”
Shelby closed her eyes. “I want us to have a good relationship. We always have!”
“We always did,” Lily offered. “How are things going? How’s Cambridge?”
“It’s beautiful. Spring has sprung. You should see some of these old trees,” Shelby said. “I love going for long walks around campus and reading wherever I end up.”
Shelby had done that exactly one time, but she hadn’t been able to focus on the book she’d brought along with her, as she’d been too frightened of her approaching dinner preparations and worried she would forget something at the grocery store.
“And the pregnancy? How are you feeling?” Lily asked.
“I feel great!” Shelby said, although her morning sickness had carried on throughout the first trimester, so much so that Shelby had nearly lost more weight than she’d gained.
“We really want to come see you,” Lily said. “Can you find a good weekend for us to come? I’m sure Jared has a lot of studying to do, and we could, I don’t know, go shopping, or even go to New York and visit some friends? Molly really misses you. I don’t think she likes her new roommate.”
Shelby thought of that apartment in Manhattan, about Molly on the sofa, watching television and pulling Shelby into her cozy orbit. “You can study later,” she’d always said.
“We’ll find a weekend!” Shelby said to her sister now.
“Look at your calendar now,” Lily ordered her. “I have mine pulled up. When works? Maybe the first weekend in May? Actually, the third weekend would work, too. We’ll have to decide whether we want Mom to come, but I think we should invite her. She misses you so much.”
Shelby felt a pang of dread. She imagined bringing her mother and Lily into this house. She imagined showing off her recipes. She imagined telling them, “Jared doesn’t think we should eat sugar anymore.” She imagined her mother’s panicked face.
“Yeah, maybe in May? Or maybe in June?” Shelby said.
“Let’s set down a day. Now,” Lily said, exasperation in her voice.
“It’s just I can’t right now. I have to check with Jared,” Shelby said. “I’ll call you back later, all right? We’ll find a day. Love you.” Shelby hung up, gasping and self-hating.
But she knew that Jared wouldn’t like it if she went away with her sister and mother.
She knew he’d say something snide about Shelby’s commitments to him.
And he knew, of course, that Lily and Rebecca hadn’t wanted Shelby to marry him.
Shelby shouldn’t have admitted it, but it had felt so true on the day of their wedding.
Rebecca’s face had been shadowed and angry.