Chapter Twenty-Two #2
She heard water running in the kitchen sink, the clank of silverware.
She closed her eyes, felt the room vibrate.
Her lips tingled as her mouth dried up. She stared at the stone fireplace, the couch by the window.
She remembered her grandfather dying right there, remembered the day that she and Sam moved in with Dylan, Opal on the way.
She had a life. And it was this one. It wasn’t too late.
He hadn’t walked in on them, hadn’t seen something he couldn’t unsee.
She could talk her way out of this bind. She could quit this thing with Wendy.
She breathed in, took a single step. “Babe?” She could see the suspicion in his eyes. Hurt. It was the last thing she wanted. There had to be a way. She could do this. “I was thinking. I’m ready to try for another baby.”
“Really.” It was not excitement in his voice.
It was disbelief. He set his plate on the counter, pulled Maeve to him.
Her body, still tingling from Wendy’s touch, felt foreign in his arms. She willed herself not to recoil.
She loved her husband. That wasn’t the problem.
He kissed her the way only he ever had, his palm cradling the back of her head.
She didn’t know who taught him to kiss like that.
It was the most unexpected thing about him, the way that palm in that spot had always turned her on.
She gripped his waist, tried to will herself into a different way of loving, the one that should feel natural to her.
He was the father of her children. He was her husband.
You keep telling yourself that. Wendy’s voice.
He pulled away gently. “I know you’re not in love with me anymore. I know something’s going on between you and Wendy.”
Her ears rang, the facade cascading like shattered glass around her. “That’s crazy. What are you talking about? She stopped by to help with the paint colors, that’s all.”
“Don’t insult me. That candle. You never light it, but it burns down anyway. It burns when I’m not here. I figured something was up, then it dawned on me when it was happening.”
Maeve looked at her husband’s injured finger. “Did you do that on purpose? To have an excuse to come home?”
“Not really. No. But maybe subconsciously. I wanted to be wrong. But then her car was here. I was kind of hoping it was some man. That would have made more sense to me, I guess. I didn’t take you for—but then again, this thing with Wendy.
Anyway, I sat outside awhile, thinking maybe she’d come out.
Then I came in and sat down. I didn’t hear anything. But I could smell that candle.”
That look on his face. Bitterness and pain.
She could deny it, make promises and vows.
Her mind raced. He could take the kids away.
Take her to court. Sue for custody. Would cheating with another woman make it even worse?
He would run to her parents, tell them what she’d done, out her.
She had no defense. She was what he said she was.
She’d done what he feared, and these were the consequences.
Maeve held her hand over her mouth, ran to the bathroom, and threw up.
Maeve splashed her face, swished and spat and drank.
She looked at her own reflection as if it was a stranger there.
She was a wife. She was a mother. A daughter and a sister.
She was her father’s ray of sunshine. She was a stranger to all of them.
A stranger to herself. She had done everything that was expected of her.
She remembered that awful night, the way her mother had looked at her when she’d asked about Wendy.
Maeve swore when the ambulance drove off with Conor O’Kane’s body that she’d never put her family in this kind of jeopardy again.
She’d drawn him to their house. That’s what got him killed.
But they’d survived it, hadn’t they? As long as Maeve toed the line, nothing bad would happen again.
She stared herself down. Strands of wet hair clung to her pale cheeks.
But you crossed the line, didn’t you? And now what?
Sam sat stiffly on the couch next to the fireplace, his right hand resting in his left. Maeve sat next to him. “Let me look at that.”
He held his hand out to her.
“Can you move it?”
His finger flicked back and forth.
“It’s not broken. Damaged but not broken.”
He took his hand back. “This isn’t a metaphor.”
Maeve mirrored his posture, his demeanor, the placement of his hands, the tightness of his face, the direction of his gaze, as if it might help her figure out what to do next.
Ten years together. Around them, furniture they’d chosen, pictures of their kids on the mantel, books they’d added to the shelves along with the ones left behind by her grandparents, a bin of toys in the corner.
She could not imagine what might come next. She waited.
When Sam finally moved, he went up the stairs in a steady stride. Maeve assumed he was packing a bag. She waited.
He returned with the candle in his hand, walked through the kitchen and out the back door.
Maeve watched from the kitchen window as he stood on the big rocks by the cove and hurled the candle underhand like a bowling ball.
It arced high then disappeared from sight.
When Sam turned to the house, Maeve went to the same spot in the living room.
The screen door slammed, and Sam sat back down.
“Fucking thing,” he said. “I hoped it would sink, but it bobbed right to the surface again.” He paused, then added, “And yeah, that probably is a metaphor.”
They sat together silently, into the darkness, until her mother called to let Maeve know she would be dropping off Dylan and Opal soon. “We’re all bushed,” she told Maeve with a happy laughter in her voice that broke Maeve’s heart that much more.
So much would change now.
That June, Maeve and her father drove up to Rockland for an estate sale, early enough in the morning that Maeve hoped her quiet wouldn’t be perceived as something wrong.
She’d offered to go with him, using the excuse that she was lonely with Sam and the kids gone to Virginia to see his parents, who had retired there after he took over the store.
It had been a hard two months, and Maeve welcomed summer, a break from the school schedule, the reprieve of Sam taking the kids.
Pretending was exhausting. Maeve sipped coffee from her thermos.
The tire wheels hummed as they took the exit ramp.
“A couple of miles down this road,” Maeve said.
The FM station played soft rock. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” William said.
Sam slept on the couch that first night, told the kids he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to get Maeve sick.
Ten years of marriage, and the thing the two of them couldn’t do anymore or ever again was lie down next to each other and fall asleep.
The intimacy of that, trusting the person next to you, feeling safe in the quiet of slowed breathing.
That was lost. Maeve had searched herself for regret, for remorse, but found only sadness.
She wanted to sleep for days. She wanted to sleep forever.
“Have you and Mom ever had a fight so bad you didn’t sleep together because of it?”
William switched the radio off. “Oh, no, honey! What happened?”
“No, I was just thinking about . . . seriously. Have you ever grabbed the blanket and pillow and slept on the couch? I can’t remember that happening when I was little. I know you must fight sometimes, but it always seems like everything is perfect between you two.”
Her father scrunched up his face. “I can’t think of a time I was angry enough that I didn’t want to put it to rest before I fell asleep. You know the saying, never go to bed angry. I’ve been mad with her a few times over the years, I suppose, but nothing I couldn’t get over.”
“She’s never done anything—or maybe you did something, and she told you to sleep on the couch?”
William shook his head, kept his eyes on the road.
“No, though, truth be told, I’m a bit of a pushover, as you may have noticed.
You didn’t know your grandma all that well, but she was a hard woman.
Nothing like your grandpa. I think your mom had a pretty lonely childhood.
You know she’s not great with conflict, bottles stuff up.
And I tend to let things slide. I was raised in a noisy house with opinionated women—like you and Molly,” he added with a laugh.
“My dad always told me, ‘Go along to get along.’ Guess that’s how I keep from sleeping on the couch. ”
Maeve unfolded the map again, checked the road signs for the turn. She pointed. “There. Baxter Lane.”
“So, what’s going on?”
Maeve promised Sam she would tell her parents while he was gone.
When he returned, they’d tell the kids together.
The plan was to make summer the best it could be under the circumstances.
Then, in the fall, unless something changed, which neither of them believed it would, they would separate.
Sam had made her promise she wouldn’t see Wendy during that time, wouldn’t risk embarrassing him that way again, or worse, having one of the kids catch them together.