Chapter 5 #2
Carrie thought about all the years she'd pretended.
Smiling at Diana across the table at company dinners, making small talk at holiday parties, thanking her for gift baskets she didn't want.
Telling herself she was imagining things, that Richard's late nights and weekend texts were just work, that their marriage was fine because she needed it to be fine.
The plants didn't lie. Maybe that was the appeal.
She was carrying a flat of marigolds toward the herb garden when she stopped.
Frank and Marge were by the hoop house, not doing anything remarkable—talking, Frank holding one end of a shade cloth while Marge secured the other.
But watching them made Carrie's chest ache.
The ease of it. Frank anticipating where Marge needed him without being asked.
She said something Carrie couldn't hear, and he laughed—low and warm, like they had all the time in the world.
Forty years. That was what this was. Not performance, not obligation. Partnership.
She and Richard had never looked like that.
Not even in the beginning, if she was honest. They'd been good at playing the part—the dinner parties, the vacations, the Christmas cards with everyone smiling.
But underneath it, she'd always been reaching for something he wasn't offering.
She'd thought that was marriage. She'd thought that was how it worked.
Frank steadied the ladder while Marge climbed down, his hand finding the small of her back as she stepped off—automatic, protective, like he'd done it a thousand times. Carrie realized she'd been settling for so much less than this. For two decades, she'd been settling.
Her phone buzzed in her back pocket.
She almost ignored it. But habit made her pull it out—habit, and the dread that had taken up permanent residence in her stomach.
Gayle Brown, the screen read. Her lawyer.
"Carrie, I'm glad I caught you." Gayle's voice was brisk, professional—the tone she used when delivering news Carrie wouldn't want to hear. "Richard's team sent over a revised settlement offer this morning."
"And?"
"They're claiming the business valuation we submitted is inflated. They've hired their own appraiser, and they're coming in at nearly forty percent lower than our numbers."
Carrie walked toward the far end of the farm, away from where Frank and Marge were still working. "That's not possible. I helped build that company. I know what it's worth."
"I know. And we'll fight it. But Carrie—they're also pushing to accelerate the house sale. Richard's attorney is arguing that maintaining two households is creating undue financial burden on his client." A pause. "They want to force a listing by the end of August."
The end of August. Two months.
The house where she'd raised her daughters.
The kitchen where Brittany had learned to bake, where Ava had done homework at the island every afternoon for years.
The backyard where they'd had birthday parties and barbecues and one disastrous attempt at a vegetable garden that had produced exactly three tomatoes.
"Can they do that?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt.
"They can try. I'm filing a motion to delay, but I want you to be prepared. If the judge sides with them—"
"I understand."
"We'll talk strategy when you're back. Try to enjoy your vacation."
The line went dead. Carrie stood there, phone in hand, staring at nothing. Five minutes ago the morning had felt like possibility. Now the weight was back, heavier than before.
Behind her, she could hear Marge laughing at something Frank had said. The chickens were making their soft, constant sounds. A breeze moved through the tomato plants, warm and earthy.
She had two months. Maybe less.
When she finally said goodbye—Marge pressing a paper bag of zucchini and early tomatoes into her hands, Frank raising one callused palm in farewell—Carrie's smile felt brittle.
They'd invited her back. Told her the job offer stood.
But all she could think about was the house, the settlement, the way her life kept narrowing no matter how hard she tried to hold it open.
She drove back toward Sea Isle with the windows down and the radio off, nothing but the sound of tires on pavement and the air rushing past. The gas stations and shopping plazas gave way to beach houses again, the mainland to the causeway, and then the shore rose up ahead of her—narrow and sandy, beautiful and temporary.
The bag of vegetables sat on the passenger seat. Dirt was embedded under her fingernails, ground into the creases of her palms. Evidence of a morning that had felt, briefly, like possibility.
Gayle said she'd fight it. For now, that would have to be enough.
Tom was making a charcuterie board.
Not just throwing some cheese on a plate, but actually arranging things—fanning out the salami, clustering the olives, finding the right spot for each cracker.
He'd stopped at the gourmet shop in town that afternoon and come back with three kinds of cheese, two salamis, and a jar of honey that cost more than it should have.
Meredith leaned against the counter, watching him work. He'd driven four hours to surprise her, rearranged his whole schedule because he missed her. Because he wanted to be here.
So why did she feel like something was closing in?
"Fig spread or no fig spread?" He held up a small jar.
"Fig spread. Always fig spread."
"That's my girl."
The house had emptied out over the course of the afternoon. The kids were at the pool or the beach or wherever teenagers went when they didn't want to be around adults. The other women had scattered to do their own things.
Just Meredith and Tom in the kitchen, the way it would be in a few months when Sophie was gone and the house was empty and every evening looked like this one.
"I talked to Peterson yesterday," Tom said, arranging crackers in a semicircle. "The numbers work. If he accepts my offer this fall, I could be out by January."
"That fast?"
"Why wait?" He set the board on the island and sat down across from her.
"Twenty-two years I've been running that company.
Peterson's ready to take over. I'm ready to let him.
" He spread some brie on a cracker, then added, casually, like it was already decided: "I ran the numbers on your practice too.
If you sold, we'd never have to work again.
Travel, relax, actually enjoy life for once. "
Meredith reached for an olive. Chewed it slowly. Buying time.
"You don't seem excited," he said.
"I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
About the fact that she wasn't ready for this.
Tom had already included her in his retirement fantasy—run the numbers, made the plans, assumed she wanted the same exit he did.
But she hadn't agreed to anything. She was forty-five.
Her mother had worked until sixty-eight.
Retirement was for people who were done, and Meredith wasn't done.
She loved her job. She was good at it. She'd spent fifteen years building her own practice, her own client list, her own reputation.
It was the one thing that was purely hers—separate from Tom, separate from Sophie, separate from this house and these friends and all the roles she played for everyone else.
And what came after? Tom talked about travel and relaxation, vague ideas that sounded nice but didn't add up to a life. What would they actually do all day? Sit across from each other at every meal with nowhere to be?
"It's a lot to process," she said instead. "Big decision."
Tom nodded, accepting this. He didn't push—he never did—and somehow that made it worse. If he'd argued, she could have pushed back. Defined what she was feeling against his resistance. Instead he loved her and trusted her and assumed they wanted the same things.
Did they want the same things?
Twenty-three years. They'd raised a daughter together, built a life together, survived the hard seasons that every marriage faced. They'd argued about money and parenting and whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher, and they'd made up every time because that's what you did when you chose someone.
But she'd also been Meredith-and-Tom for so long she'd forgotten what just-Meredith felt like. And now, right as Sophie was leaving and she might finally have space to figure that out, Tom wanted to retire and be together all the time.
"I was thinking," Tom said, "we could walk over to Sophie's restaurant for dinner. See her in action. Embarrass her a little."
"She'd love that."
"I know. That's why we should do it."
He grinned, and the tension in Meredith's shoulders loosened. This was what she didn't want to lose—this version of them, easy and laughing, before the logistics of retirement turned into another thing to manage.
"Okay," she said. "Let's do it."
They left the house around six-thirty, walking hand in hand down 59th Street toward the restaurant.
The evening was still bright, long summer light that stretched the shadows and made everything feel slow and golden.
Tom wore a linen shirt he'd packed specifically for dinners out.
Meredith wore a sundress she'd bought for this trip, something flowy and floral that she never would have worn at home.
The streets had that early-evening energy—families heading back from the beach, sunburned and tired, a dad pulling a wagon loaded with chairs and umbrellas. A couple walked past with a chocolate lab, and Tom stopped to pet it without asking, the way he always did.
"Remember when Sophie begged us for a dog every summer?" he said, catching up to her.
"She made a PowerPoint presentation. With graphs."
"The responsibility chart. I still think about that chart."
"She would have walked it twice and then it would have been our dog."
"Worth it, though." He fell back into step beside her. "I would have walked that dog every day."