The Days Between

CHAPTER ONE

Friday, March 24

Andrew

The only thing Andrew had found to love about his new house sat outside the front door: the deserted stretch of beach that was his to run alone each morning before the world woke. That day, as a sorbet glow parted the sea and the sky, Andrew’s footfalls found their rhythm beside the breaking waves while his heart hammered in his rib cage, and he licked the sea spray from his lips. He fought the urge to glance at his watch; the distraction would cost him precious seconds, and he could feel it in the blood pumping through his body; today was the day he’d finally clock an eight-minute mile.

Only four hours before he was slated to give Larry a final answer regarding the promotion.

When his boss had announced his retirement, Andrew had been certain his decade-and-a-half of busting his ass for his firm meant he was due to step into Larry’s shoes. The interview had been a mere formality, and the subsequent job offer and breathtaking compensation package commended his years of sacrifice, but Andrew had avoided his acceptance—or his rejection—for as long as he could.

He had awakened at the witching hour, countless versions of the conversation spiraling in his mind until his alarm had crowed and he went through the motions of beginning a new day, rolling from bed, lacing his sneakers, then swallowing two tablets from the orange bottles beside the sink.

The day had come.

His sneakers ground into the sand with newfound ferocity, his collar clinging to his sweaty skin. When he reached his finish line—four wooden posts that jutted from the waves, remnants of an old dock, carpeted with jade moss—his feet sank to a stop in the sand, and he drew ragged breaths, blinking the sting of sweat and salt from his eyes. The screen of his watch rewarded him with a spiral of neon-green sparks. Three miles in twenty-three minutes and fifty-eight seconds, his best time yet. Andrew set his hands on his hips, relishing his two-second triumph, and appraised the restless sea.

On his return, he fell into a slow jog in the damp sand, and an odd sense of gloom overtook him with every step. In the three weeks since they’d moved in, each time his house came into view at the end of his morning run, Andrew swore the windowpanes were glaring at him, like the house knew he was running away from everything it held inside. And everything it lacked.

He took his time climbing the steps. Inside, Amy’s keys dangled from their hook. He’d been hoping Amy’s shift would have run long and they’d have missed each other, but she came home earlier since they’d moved; they were only minutes from the hospital, so now Andrew shouldered a thirty-minute commute. Amy’s existence outside their home was something Andrew knew only in theory; he didn’t know how many lives she touched, how many people walked the earth because his wife held the delicate thread of life at the end of a scalpel. A stab of guilt; when Amy worked late, it often meant someone was living their worst day.

He stepped into the kitchen, the first hint of a headache drilling at his temples. Amy was at the island, dressed in her seafoam scrubs, sleek black hair pulled into a short ponytail, unpacking her lunch bag.

“Morning,” Andrew said. “Want me to make you a coffee?”

Amy shook her head as she lined her stackable lunch containers on the top rack of the dishwasher. “I want sleep.”

He fished in the silverware drawer for a spoon.

Amy glanced over her shoulder. “Before you leave work today, don’t forget to remind your coworkers about the barbecue.” She pressed the On button and closed the dishwasher. “Sunday. Two o’clock.”

Andrew shut his eyes. The barbecue. The fucking housewarming barbecue. “We’re still doing that?”

She turned to face him. “Of course. We already invited everyone.”

The previous Friday, when Andrew had come home with news of the job offer, he and Amy had exchanged careful, practiced this makes me feel s that had been nothing but sparks on the kindling of an argument. They’d gone to bed, left it to smolder, and in the week that followed they’d tiptoed past one another in the vast, unfamiliar hallways of their house, electricity between them, like the first crackle of a thundercloud.

Now Andrew closed the silverware drawer harder than he’d intended and faced his wife. “Amy, if I turn this offer down, it’s going to be mortifying. Why would I want to have everyone here to celebrate?”

“It’s a housewarming, Andrew. We planned it before the offer. We can’t cancel now.”

Nothing but the hiss of the dishwasher.

“I thought we were on the same page,” Amy said. “I just started this new position, and I have to work several graveyard shifts every week.” Her palms were flat on the counter, like she was in her operating room, in control, where her decisions would never be contradicted. “If I get pregnant ... it just isn’t the right time for you to take on more work.”

So she expected to keep her job, but he had to sacrifice his career to stay home and pace the empty halls of this massive house with a fussy infant? “If I accept this position, I’ll try to work my travel around your schedule,” he pushed. “And it’s not like we can’t hire help.”

Amy’s jaw clenched. “I’m not letting a stranger stay with my baby overnight.”

“And what if there is no baby?” The words hadn’t left his mouth before he regretted them. Amy’s reaction was subtle. He caught the way her eyes narrowed, darkened. He’d touched her deepest fear: that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—manifest the resolute snapshot of the life she’d planned. But that was what he’d been aiming for, hadn’t he? And then that tick of fear, this time his own. He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s something we have to consider. We need to face the reality of our situation—”

Amy straightened. “The reality of our situation is that my husband seems to have given up on this before we’ve even met with the specialist. Dr. Cassidy is the best fertility doctor in the state. She made an exception to get me—to get us—moved to the top of her very long waiting list.” Her voice was as hard as the granite countertops. “My OB and your urologist both agreed there’s no medical reason we can’t conceive.”

Like he needed another reminder of the creased ten-year-old titty magazines he’d been offered alongside the little plastic cup at his appointment. “This wasn’t the plan, Amy.”

Amy leaned forward, wispy flyaways framing her face, smudges of purple beneath her eyes. “If you don’t want children, you need to be honest with me. The time to tell me is now.”

The time to tell his wife the truth had long passed. Before they’d moved out of his condo in downtown West Palm, before they’d committed to thirty years of staggering mortgage payments for this sprawling house in the suburbs. If he came clean, she wouldn’t want this life they’d built together.

The first tremors crept into his hands.

No. No no no.

Andrew balled his fists, pushed on. “Why are you putting yourself through all this?”

Her tone dropped an octave. “You know why.” Almost pleading.

“We agreed to adoption—”

Amy recoiled. “We’re both over forty—it could take years to get through all the red tape just to sit on a waiting list. Then one day we could have a kid dropped in our lap. A kid, Andrew, because we’ll be pushing fifty and they’ll never give us a baby.” Her voice ratcheted up, a version of his wife Andrew had never met. She’d never before raised her voice to him; he’d never seen her controlled facade crack. He stepped back like he feared getting burned. “People get pregnant left and right without even trying, and you and I are in a position to give a child everything they could ever want,” she yelled, red-faced.

That electric tingle surged up his limbs as his lungs constricted. He recognized the signs that he was past the breaking point, all control slipping away.

But Amy was oblivious, and she stepped closer, in his face. “We have it all. We’re ready. And now you’re getting cold feet?” She sucked in a desperate breath. “That’s not fair to me. You know this is what I want and why I— I need this .” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you not want children, Andrew, or is it that you don’t want them with me?”

Amy’s face melted from his vision, and the kitchen faded into a sea of crimson.

After making a sharp turn off Worth Avenue, Andrew maneuvered his car into the parking garage and into his assigned spot. The engine ticked and he settled into his seat.

After his fight with Amy, he’d forgotten about his coffee. He’d showered in a rush, reversed out of the driveway with his hair still damp, his headache now viselike, and he was left with that depleted feeling, the way he always did when it happened. When he lost control. In his four years with Amy he’d never faltered, never given her a glimpse of the vein of weakness inside him. But that morning he saw fear in her eyes.

He swallowed. He couldn’t have another slipup like that. He had to be more careful.

The floors above him were home to Andrew’s firm, Goldman Investments, where an imported espresso machine sat perched atop the kitchen counter. Andrew pictured his colleagues at that very moment, standing in a semicircle, swapping their usual Friday-morning one-upmanship while tearing through a box of greasy Breaker’s Market doughnuts. They would pepper him with questions about the promotion.

He ran a palm down his face and glanced at his phone. Over the snapshot on his screen from his wedding day—he and Amy looked like tiny cake-toppers in front of a watercolor sunset—the time read 9:00. One hour before his meeting with Larry.

Andrew climbed from the driver’s seat and made his way out to the street. The day was blazing hot, the sun a hazy white ball. He weaved through the throngs of shoppers, pulled the Starbucks door open and ducked inside, AC washing over him. Bodies were packed together, the air alive with chatter, rising steam, and the heady smell of espresso. He took his place in line while around him groups of people in discount designer suits hunched over their phones, taking small steps side to side, the crowd an entity all its own, inching closer to the counter. Andrew pushed his hands into his pockets. The harried baristas, their brows dewy with sweat, scribbled names onto paper cups in permanent marker.

The woman in front of Andrew surveyed the crowd on either side of her, tapping a toe on the tile. Maybe she was meeting someone. Maybe she was late. She scratched one calf with the toe of her shoe. Red bottoms. Sapphire-blue dress. Sunglasses perched atop her head, glossy chestnut hair spilling down her back in waves. After pulling her phone from her handbag, she scrolled through emails with a manicured thumb, not bothering to pause on any message long enough to read. Andrew’s own inbox and voicemail were likely bursting with clients demanding his attention, but he shrugged away the thought. Sandwiched between his meeting with Larry and his fight with Amy, thoughts of email seemed trite, pointless.

He and Amy had always been civil to the extreme; Amy spearheaded their household with logic and order. The show that morning wasn’t in their nature, and Andrew couldn’t shake the way it had rattled him, and the creeping sensation that it was the prequel to something much larger, something catastrophic. He tried to wrangle his thoughts.

The woman slung her hair over her shoulder, and a hint of her perfume—warm ... vanilla?—brushed his nose, stirring something that clenched his stomach with a tickle of excitement.

The line shuffled closer to the counter, the woman stepped forward, and Andrew followed. Her phone chimed in her hand, and she held it up. A video call. Max, the name on the screen read.

She answered with a clipped “Yes?”

Andrew yanked his eyes away to afford the woman some privacy and scanned the menu board behind the baristas. From her phone, a male voice cut through the clatter of the coffee shop. “I had a missed call from you.” The voice was flat, impatient. White noise whipped in the background, like the caller was outside.

“You didn’t text me last night.” The woman’s voice was familiar somehow, though he couldn’t place it, and something rippled down his spine, like the first fingers of fight-or-flight.

“Chill, Mom. Javi got his hands on the new PlayStation.” The boy’s voice held its touch of indignation. “We played it all night, then got up early to surf.”

Oh, to be a teenager again, careless, a late night with a friend—and likely a six-pack the boy hadn’t mentioned—washed away by the cool water the next morning. At that age Andrew had dreamed of the life he now had. The good job. The massive house. The sleek car. He’d imagined the feeling when he’d made it. The security. He’d never pictured this ... whatever it was. This ache.

“Listen. All I ask is that you check in.” She sighed. “I was worried.”

“I’m nineteen. You don’t need to worry about me.” The way the boy spoke the seven words sent a message. A message the woman received, Andrew noted in the straightening of her spine.

“That was our agreement, Max.” Her voice was hard. Andrew’s neck prickled.

Silence. Andrew wondered if one of them had hung up. Behind him, the door opened, and Andrew was nudged closer to the woman, nearly touching her. She shifted, her elbow grazing his shirt, and before Andrew could stop himself, his gaze dragged across her glossy phone screen.

A white-hot jolt of recognition sparked. Those narrowed brows, the shade of the boy’s blue eyes, the texture of his sandy-blond hair. And that scowl. It was like Andrew was staring at himself twenty years in the past.

Andrew drew a sharp breath close to the woman’s ear. She spun around, and he lifted his gaze from her phone to meet her eyes. Her lips parted with a soft gasp.

Everything that had happened since the last time Andrew had seen Kathryn Moretti flashed before him. He would know her anywhere. Across time and space, he’d know her.

Andrew shuffled backward, colliding with a man behind him. His heart fluttered like a bird in a too-small cage, and a moment flooded his mind of his lips meeting Kathryn’s forehead, pressing the tender spot where her hairline began, waking her. He watched the blanket fall from her bare shoulders before the image slipped away, just as Kathryn had slipped away all those years ago, first from his bed, then from his life, leaving nothing of herself but her fading scent on his bedsheets.

Kathryn jerked away, her phone slipping from her grasp before it clattered onto the floor.