Chapter 5 #2
Back at the cottage, he put the eggs in the fridge and the coffee by the machine and the apples in a bowl on the counter. He looked at his work. It looked like the saddest kitchen in California.
* * *
The next morning, he saw his wife.
She came out onto the deck of their beach house in a T-shirt and shorts, carrying her coffee, and she stopped. She was looking at the cottage. At the car in the driveway. At the screened porch where Jake was sitting with his own mug, trying to look casual and failing completely.
Even from twenty feet away, he could see her jaw tighten.
Violet set her coffee down and walked across the strip of sea grass that separated the two properties. He stood up and met her at the edge of the porch.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded. He studied her. The dark brown windswept hair, those hazel eyes that danced near the color of gold. Violet had always been so beautiful. When had he stopped noticing? He was a fool.
"Good morning."
"Jake. What are you doing here?"
"I rented the cottage."
"You rented the—" She stopped and closed her eyes for a second. "You rented the house next door to me."
"I rented a house in Belmar Cove. It happens to be next door."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend this is a coincidence."
He took a breath. "It's not a coincidence. But it's not what you think, either. I'm not here to pressure you. I'm not going to show up at your door every morning. I'm not going to send flowers or make reservations or do any of the things that you've already told me don't work."
She crossed her arms. Waiting.
"I just want to be here for the summer," he said. "That's it. I've never actually spent time here. You've been telling me for years that this place matters to you, and I never listened, and I'm listening now. I want to be here."
"This is manipulation."
"It's a rental agreement."
"You bought out someone else's vacation to install yourself twenty feet from the wife who asked you for a divorce."
He winced. Hearing it described that way was not ideal.
"Yes," he said. "I did."
"And you don't see how that's a problem?"
"I see how it looks. And I know I can't undo it by explaining it differently." He set his mug down on the porch railing. "Vi, if you want me to leave, I'll leave. Right now. Say the word and I'll cancel the rental, drive back to LA and you won't see me until the lawyers sort everything out."
She stared at him.
"But if there's any part of you — any part at all — that's willing to let me stay, I'll stay. And I won't knock on your door. I won't ambush you on the beach. I'll be here, in this house. Minding my own business.” That part was a white lie, but she didn’t need to know that.
Her arms stayed crossed. Her expression didn't soften. But she didn't say leave.
"I'm not doing this for you," she said.
"I know."
"If you're here because you think proximity is going to fix our marriage?—"
"I'm here because I love you, Vi. I know I haven’t shown it. I… I read the letters."
Violet went still.
"The ones in the shoebox," he said. "In the closet. I found them yesterday."
"Those were private," she said. Quietly.
"I know. I'm sorry. But I read them. The one about the chicken dinner. The one about our anniversary. The one about—" His voice caught. He stopped and swallowed. "The one about holding my hand."
She looked away, toward the ocean. He watched her profile and saw the effort it took to keep her expression neutral.
"I'm not here to win you back," he said.
"I don't think I can. I think you've made up your mind and I think you're probably right to.
But I read those letters and I realized I don't even know who you've become.
I don't know what you write about or what you think about or why you drink your coffee black now or who your friends are in this town.
I spent six years married to you and I couldn't answer a single one of those questions.
And I'd like to. Even if it's too late. Even if all it does is help me understand what I lost."
Silence. The ocean behind them. A gull calling somewhere down the beach.
"You can stay," she said. Each word measured. "In the cottage. But if you try to turn this into a reconciliation project, or do anything that makes me feel like I'm being managed, I will call a lawyer the same day and we'll do this through attorneys. Are we clear?"
"We're clear."
"I mean it, Jake."
"I know you do."
She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn't read her expression. It might have been exhaustion. It might have been resignation. It might have been something else, something she was working hard to keep hidden, and he was too new at paying attention to know which.
Violet turned and walked back across the sea grass to her own deck. She picked up her coffee and went inside. The French doors closed behind her.
Jake stood on the porch of the rented cottage, twenty feet from his wife, and his heart was hammering.
She'd not told him to go. There were conditions and warnings and a look on her face that said she expected him to fail.
But she'd said yes.
He went inside and stood in the tiny kitchen, looking at the sad bowl of apples and the coffee maker from 2011. He had no assistant here. No driver. No housekeeper. No wife making his life seamless while he looked the other way.
Just a cottage, a grocery bag of basics, and a window that looked out at the woman he'd spent eight years taking for granted.
Jake picked up an egg from the carton in the fridge and stared at it.
He'd start with breakfast.