Chapter 5
Five
Present
“Jenna, is everything ready?”I asked.
Jenna was in the kitchen, doing sudoku while nursing a cup of tea. She set both aside as I walked in, and her shoulders straightened. When she saw it was me, she relaxed. “Yes, Mrs. Maxwell. The dining room table is already set, and I let Xander know that dinner is ready.”
“Good,” I said. “Thank you.”
I bustled around, trying to make myself feel useful as Jenna began setting out the dinner she had prepared earlier. Henry had arrived so late that the green beans almondine looked soggy and limp, and I could tell without tasting it that the filet mignon would be tough from reheating.
My husband often worked late. It was his go-to excuse whenever he vetoed date night. He didn’t want to go anywhere or deal with anything complicated. He just wanted to come home and relax.
I worked hard to make that happen for him; I wasn’t always successful.
Sometimes, my presence here felt ghastly as I wandered these joyless halls. I wanted the warmth of a family; instead, I found myself walled in on all sides by ice. As if I’d been crushed to death, bearing the burdens of this frozen household.
It was no wonder neither of Henry’s boys liked to visit. I didn’t know what the relationship had been like with Henry and his boys before I came along. It seemed fraught—as if any attempts to breach it would cause something to give way violently. They both had rooms here, but Jasper was the only one to stay in his. During high school, Jasper attended Northlake Academy, a private boarding school in upstate New York, and spent his summers with us.
Xander, on the other hand, I only saw on television. I always wondered if Henry felt awkward seeing his eldest son solely through a social media filter, but the only time I suggested we attend one of Xander’s games, he accused me of overstepping.
“Xander’s a grown man,” he’d reminded me so sharply that I winced. “He doesn’t need you there to cheer him on as if you’re his mother.”
“But I want to bethere for him. When I married you, I married your whole family,” I had pointed out cautiously. “I don’t want to be one of those women who ignore their stepchildren just because they had a different mother. And I don’t want him to think I’m that person, either.”
“Xander can think whatever he wants,” was Henry’s cold response. “He’s stubborn. Sometimes I think if that boy didn’t have hockey, he’d be in jail.”
I thought he was a man, I thought, mulling over my husband’s words.
I suspected Xander’s relationship with his mother was much better than with his father. His mother had been sick for a while when Henry and I started dating. I had never met her—let alone watch her interact with her sons—but I wasn’t surprised to find out Xander took over his mother’s well-being after graduation. He’d always been the responsible type.
Before his abrupt departure from our lives, I used to enjoy my time with Xander. He was less bristly than his father. Collected. Mature.
He’ll be such a good big brother when Henry and I have children, I remember thinking, only to be shocked when he walked out of my wedding. From that moment onward, it had been radio silence on his end.
Come to think of it, that was the moment everything fell apart. The once lighthearted conversations with Henry turned stilted, and my motivation to get us back on track diminished. Every effort suddenly required significantly more energy, while my dwindling spirit had little drive to persevere.
I told myself it was because Henry was quick to cast me aside after our wedding, though sometimes I let the thought seep in that Xander’s leaving played a larger role. He was the first person to accept me into this family, and I wished I knew what I had done to deserve his wrath.
Jenna set out a fresh bottle of the wine I ordered, which Henry ignored in favor of his scotch. I couldn’t imagine the peaty notes of it pairing well with the food, but it seemed Henry wasn’t all that intent on eating, focused as he was on needling his son, and I certainly wasn’t about to tell him he shouldn’t have his precious Glenfiddich.
I stirred my carrots around the gold-rimmed china plate and tried not to listen, leaving my wineglass untouched as Xander answered his father’s questions in clipped tones. It had the unsettling feel of a military commander grilling a recruit he wanted to put in his place.
Throughout dinner, Xander’s gaze found its way back to me, but I pretended not to notice. His erratic temperament was giving me whiplash. He had acted perfectly normal upon arrival, and for a moment, there was hope of restoring our previous relationship. I badly wanted acceptance from Henry’s family. Then, just like that, poof! He left the room like I had the plague, and he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
When he returned, he had showered and dressed in simple jeans and a heather gray T-shirt. Seeing him comfortable and at home stirred melancholic nostalgia for our old friendship.
My eyes suddenly burned with rampant emotions. I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I assumed the expression of blank interest I wore whenever I dealt with problematic clients, nodding whenever Henry glanced sharply my way because it was expected—not because I agreed with whatever he was saying.
So, when he said, “Right, Jordan?” with a bite as sharp as his scotch, I looked up, startled.
“I’m sorry, darling?” It was automatic. I was as conditioned as any purebred.
“You’ll be happy to take Xander on as a client, right? I know your clients are normally in the big leagues—” He glanced pointedly at Xander, his back upright, holding an air of aristocracy. “—but surely you could make an exception for a young athlete who’s a little, shall we say, lacking when it comes to his PR prowess.”
Xander’s eyes lost several degrees of warmth.
I sighed.
Image was everything to Henry. He only suggested I start handling Xander’s publicity again because of the rumors. Xander’s strained relationship with his father had been brought to the limelight due to our constant absence from his games and prolonged lapses of family photos with the star athlete. I had briefly managed Xander to improve public opinion of him after he turned down an NHL offer. Once more, Henry wanted to control the narrative through me and show the public we were a big, happy family.
He gestured with his scotch. “Sure, you’re on the rise now, but what’s going to happen when you’re older and can’t shoot a puck around the rink the way you used to? You’re going to have to rely on brand deals and endorsements. And nobody worth a dime is going to hire you without proper representation. People want brand loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” Xander repeated incredulously. “You handing out advice on loyalty is worse than a bald person selling hair-growing products.”
In the silence that followed, I could hear the distant hum of the fridge in the other room. My heart thudded in my chest as I watched the standoff.
Xander was no longer the same boy. The Xander I knew would’ve opted for diplomacy. But years had gone by, and he was now a man. Apparently, that meant he had no problem going toe to toe with his domineering father.
“Don’t be cocky,” Henry said, topping off his glass. The movement was unsteady, his hand was shaking with anger. “You’re not irreplaceable just because you’re a star now. Stars can fall, too, and when they do, they go down in flames. That’s what’ll happen with a third-rate company representing you.”
The comment grated on my nerves, and I didn’t want to give Henry the satisfaction of getting away with it.
“Actually,” I heard myself say, “he’s taking a new team to the playoffs and already appeared in numerous commercials. I think what he has accomplished is rather impressive.”
Xander glanced at me with intensity in his eyes and another one of his unreadable expressions. It appeared to be slight satisfaction; he may even be content with my response.
“Impressive?” Henry repeated, drawing deep on the word as if tasting it. “Do you think my son’s impressive, Jordan?”
Myson. I didn’t miss the emphasis, subtle as it was.
A clip of a previous conversation with Henry floated back to me—the muted tone in his voice when he inferred that my advanced age was the reason we couldn’t conceive. I sought out fertility clinics in case that was true. Henry postponed the appointments yet accused me of being unable to give him another son.
Henry was pushing me away, even now. And worse, he was doing it in front of his son. Dinner and a show. We were the show.
There was another pause, longer this time. Without looking any less angry, something else pulsed through Xander’s eyes. It was like watching lightning charge through Arctic seawater.
“Yes,” I said at last, feeling a bead of sweat roll down my back. “I think his career is quite impressive.”
Henry laughed, loud and ugly. It was how he laughed with his friends, smoking Cuban cigars in a noxious storm as they played poker with stakes high enough to make or topple dreams.
“I’ll have my assistant draw up a contract. Just make sure he isn’t mooching off me in his old age,” he said, just callously enough that I cringed. “God fucking knows I’ve heard you coddling countless other fools through their mistakes and straightening them out.”
My clients aren’t fools. I bit back the words, forced another smile, and said to Xander, “I’d be happy to help. Let me go see where we are on dessert.” I straightened the rumpled hem of my Monique Lhuillier dress as I stood.
The kitchen was empty, Jenna’s cup and puzzle book neatly cleared away as if they’d never existed. I didn’t want to look for her, and if I called her name, that would only attract Henry’s wrath to a different corner of the house, so I opened the fridge and got the peach cobbler myself, plating the slices with scoops of Tahitian vanilla ice cream and a tiny sprig of mint for garnish.
As I brought out the tray, heavy with the little china dessert plates and crystal snifters of the ice wine, I no longer felt any particular joy about tasting it.
Henry was speaking when I returned to the table. “I’ve been thinking about turning the room next to our bedroom into a home office.”
The meaning of his words slammed into me like a freight train. “The room next to the bedroom?” I repeated. “But that’s—” going to be a nursery. Just in time, I remembered Xander, who was watching us both with a studiousness that unnerved me. “I thought we were going to use that for… something else.”
Henry shrugged as he scooped up a piece of cobbler. “We aren’t using it right now. I fail to see the problem.”
I swallowed. Hard.
“Is there a problem?” Henry looked right at me, a challenge in his eyes.
“No.” The word pushed out of me with a harsh breath. “I’m tired. I think I’m going to call it a night.”
“Very well. I might go back to the office,” Henry said. “I have a meeting at four a.m. tomorrow for some kind of audit in Sweden. I thought about turning in early, but I’d rather stay up, burning the midnight oil.”
That made no sense, but I knew better than to argue. If Henry wanted to sleep in his office, he’d sleep there. If Henry wanted to turn the spare room intoan office, he’d do that, too.
It shouldn’t have hurt. I knew he was heavy-handed when I married him, but he had become an entirely different person since then.
“I’ll have someone draw up the contract and email it to you.” Henry turned to Xander, who was gazing sullenly at his father. “He could use the help.”
Xander ignored the jab, though a muscle in his jaw ticked.
“Jordan, send me some of those interior decorating contacts you use for staging. I’d like to look at swatches for wallpaper and carpets.”
Without halting, I said, “Whatever you want, Henry. Good night, Xander.” I only just remembered to add, “Welcome home.”
It was the furthest thing I could imagine from a welcome celebration, and rather than sounding conciliatory, my words only seemed to add to the sting.
Welcome home, yes. Welcome to your father criticizing you and me sitting here, letting him do it. Welcome to an empty room and disappointment.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I kept it together until I got to the master bedroom, carefully took off my expensive dress, and hung it on its designated hanger. I loved the floral skirt. When I bought it, I had envisioned wearing it in a garden in the middle of summer, holding the hand of a small young girl in a matching dress.
I looked down at my empty hand and slowly turned my palm over. No wrinkles, not yet. But I was fighting the race against time. No amount of rejuvenating serums and placental sheet masks could fight that fight.I’d thought Henry was running with me—but now, it looked like he was just running me out of time. At best, I had a few good years left to have children.
An office, for God’s sake.
It made me want to laugh, but the sound that left my lips sounded like anything but.
It was dark in the room. Light from the moon glinted silver off the crystal chandelier that hung over the sitting area in our bedroom. It flashed off the mirror of my vanity like sparks shooting off ice, but when the light blurred, I realized there were tears in my eyes.
And it was there, in the room that I shared with the husband who preferred his office to me, that I cried myself to sleep.