Page 122 of When We Had Forever
Still, the magazine drags at my hand like a hundred-pound-weight. I glance at the cover, from which imploring eyes plead with me in silence. Then at my husband. His brow smooths. He’s already locked himself back up, thrown away the key.
I inspect the magazine again. Then my husband.
The primordial mess of emotion within me burbles, and a half-formed suspicion heaves free of the muck. It’s so misshapen and horrific I can scarcely find the words to acknowledge it, and yet...
“You would tell me, right?” For once, I achieve the same deliberate calmness he wields so adeptly. Not that I’m calm inside. There, I’m anything but. “If there was a...mix-up with you two, right? If things had gotten crossed somehow?”
He frowns. “Angel? What’re you asking me?”
My molars lock together. What the hellamI asking? Am I so tragically desperate to unlock the secret of that week in Hawaii that I’m conjuring up conspiracies out of thin air?
Michael watches me with concern. When I say nothing, he abandons his desk and crosses the room, coming close enough to tip my face up.
“Are you feeling all right?” He presses a palm to my forehead. “You’re not getting sick, are you? Isthatwhat this is all about?”
“I...” I lift my gaze and stare into the same eyes I looked into on our wedding day. My husband gazes back with all the flat, unruffled calm of a windless sea.
All at once, my internal turmoil collapses into a low red pulse of shame. What the hell is wrong with me? He’s never lied. Never betrayed me, never once come home smelling like perfume or with lipstick on his collar. No, he’s built me this palace and would build me another if I asked. He’s wined and dined me and kept me from wanting for anything. In Hawaii, he made my dreams come true, and someday, he’ll do it again.
I shove my inchoate accusations into a strongbox, padlock the lid, and shove the whole thing down, down, down where it belongs.
“Sorry,” I stammer out. “I—I don’t know what got into me. I shouldn’t have freaked out like that.”
“It’s okay.” He drops a kiss on my forehead, then wraps me in a hug. “Seeing someone who looked like me but wasn’t shocked you. It would’ve shocked anyone. Why don’t we take your mind off it by going to dinner? Valenti’s, maybe? It’ll give you an excuse to wear that little red thing I got you last week, and we can order the lobster bisque you love so much.”
I hesitate. “You hate the lobster bisque.”
“Yes. But I love you.”
The last remnants of my inner fire fizzle out. I burrow against his shoulder, already picturing us at our usual linen-draped table in the corner, gazing out at the sea as the sunset tints the water pink.
“We’ll leave around seven?” Michael says. “That’ll give you time for a run.”
“Okay.” I clear my throat and disentangle myself, leaving him to finish his work.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, I brave a glance at the magazine still clutched in my hand. Michael is right—what his brother looks like has nothing to do with us.
Yet as I stare, an ache as wide as the ocean opens inside my chest. Those eyes. And that expression. It’s like Grayson’s on the verge of saying something. Like he’s the kind of person whowantsto talk.
The internal strongbox rattles and thumps. I shove it deeper. There goes my overactive imagination, assigning meaning where there is none, connecting dots in such a grotesque manner that I’m ashamed I could evenconsidersomething like that.
With a sound of disgust, I pop the trash can lid and stuff the magazine to the bottom, then go to the front hall to pull on my running shoes. I sprint out into the rain.
This will all be okay. Ten miles from now, I will have forgotten all about this.
And not a moment too soon.
AFTER
After my return to Seagrove, a day passes. Then another. None of them blunts the chaos of emotion bubbling inside me. Or the way I miss Grayson so badly I can barely breathe.
But on the third day, in the midst of brushing my teeth, when I glance up and catch my reflection, a tiny, awed sound slips from my throat. I barely recognize the person in the mirror. That’s no defeated widow staring back, but a woman with a fighting spark in her blue eyes.
Shaken, I steal down the stairs, make coffee, and pull on my running shoes.
September has dawned cool and mist laden, and I jog my usual route. But instead of trying to outpace the memories, I lean into them today. I trail my fingers across Michael’s years of silence, then the fluorescent moments with Grayson—Grayson, who I met at a fair one day, who drove me to Canada and showed me how to open my eyes. Grayson, who once convinced me nothing could trump the power of now.
I let myselfremember. And through it all, I keep going.
