Page 91 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Should I take you there anyway?”

“You’re more than welcome to try.”

I could feel her gaze on me as she started the car and began slowly backing out. The drive was a long, circular path to nowhere, so she had ample time to examine me for signs of distress. Since there weren’t any—I wasfine—she eventually gave up and moved the car at a normal pace.

We continued on this way for much longer than felt comfortable, which was odd considering it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. Sloane and I often sat in silence for hours at a time—usually when I was reading or pretending to nap while she endlessly sorted my books—but there had never been anything odd about it. It was one of my favorite things about her, how she didn’t always feel a need to fill the silence, how soothing a companion to a man who’d long grown accustomed to living without one.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked when I could not take the interminable weight of that silence a second longer.

She showed me the neat line of her profile. “About what?”

The answer to that was as clear as if he were sitting in the back seat. “You don’t love that man.”

She jerked with surprise, the wheel turning quickly under her hands. I had to reach over to steady our path, and even then it was a close-run thing with an eager squirrel darting across the street.

I expected her to defend herself—or at the very least to ignore me and continue driving without saying a word—but she heaved a sigh and spoke three words that chilled me to the bone.

“Does it matter?”

My foot pressed hard against the floor of the car, as if I were hitting an imaginary brake to bring everything to a halt. But I had no brake and even less power.

“What the devil do you mean? Of course it matters! It’s the only thing in this world that does.”

She looked at me then, a turn of her head that seemed to take every ounce of strength she had. “The job offer he got is a really good one. It’s right outside Boston. I’ve always wanted to visit the sights around there. The House of Seven Gables, Orchard House…you can’t tell me that doesn’t sound like something I’d love.”

“So go visit them,” I said. “Stay for a few weeks. Stay for a month.”

“Stay for a lifetime?” she suggested, and so gently that the last of my fight ebbed away. I’d been fighting for too long—three decades too long, in fact—and I felt each of those years like they were a century.

“When?” I croaked, the single hoarse syllable all I could manage in the sudden clenching of my throat.

“Soon. Right after the wedding. Brett doesn’t want to lose any time.”

“But you said it wasn’t decided. You said you were still discussing it.”

She laughed at that, a sound that felt as brittle as my heart. “Brett doesn’t discuss things. He decrees. At first, I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted, but…” Her voice grew thick. I felt my own responding in kind, choking me from the inside. “What’s the point of fighting him? I don’t have my job at the library anymore. My parents have no interest in whether I stay or go. And you heard Brett back at the house, Arthur. He cares about me. He takes careofme. How many people get to spend their lives in the keeping of someone who wants to shield them from every strong wind? How can I refuse something that most women would kill to have?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. Everything about this situation felt so familiar—so painfully, unalterably recognizable—that I was starting to lose track of time. My own Genie had posed this same question so many years ago that I sometimes wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing—our love and our life, thedaughter she’d adored and the daughter I’d failed.

“I think I’d like to go home now,” I said.

“Arthur…”

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, squeezed so tightly that no crack of light shone through. “I’m tired,” I said—and I was. Tired of going through the motions, tired of pretending that something terrible hadn’t been happening to my heart ever since my stay at the hospital. Physically, that heart was the same as it had always been—consistent and strong, a sturdy organ that I could rely on for years to come.

Emotionally, however, I was broken. I’d been broken for a long time, and I’d done my best to make sure that everyone around me was broken, too.

“I’ve done so many terrible things,” I said. “I’vesaidso much even worse.”

I don’t think Sloane heard me, but that was okay. For once in my life, words weren’t going to cut it.

31

“I thought you called me here for an emergency book club meeting.”

I threw open my front door and ushered Nigel inside with unseemly haste. I’d told the narcissistic weasel that he needed to sneak in through the back in case Maisey had her spyglass out, but he obviously hadn’t listened to me. He’dneverlistened to me, even though I’d been the one to win our collegiate knowledge bowl every year while we were in graduate school.

“Have you no common sense?” I asked. “If that infernal woman sees us, she’ll come over with cupcakes and a determined plan to reconcile our differences.”