by Maisey Yates
“Hi, Rachel,” he said, his manner a little bit overly bright. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
She braced herself for sympathy.
“Hi,” she said. “And, yeah, I haven’t had anything break in a while. So I’m not all that sorry I haven’t been in a while.”
He laughed. A little too loudly. “For sure. This it for you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Plumbing problem?”
She chuckled. “Yes.”
“Look, I...”
Rachel’s amusement died as she braced herself for a litany of apologies.
“I understand that it’s a little bit quick. But the thing is, if I don’t say anything now, someone else will get there before me. And you don’t need to feel any pressure to say yes. But I just wanted to let you know... I’d like to go on a date with you sometime, if you are interested. When you’re interested. If you ever are.”
Rachel was completely stunned. Of all the things that she had expected... Well, she hadn’t expected that.
“A date,” she repeated.
“No pressure,” he said. “And it doesn’t have to be now. Or soon. But I wanted to give you my phone number. And you can call me. If you’re ever ready.”
Dating.
A date.
She was a little bit thrown by the fact that he wasn’t here to offer sympathy, but actually had seen a woman, and not an object of pity. That he had seen her, and not a widow.
“I—I don’t know,” she said.
“Like I said. Don’t feel you need to answer now. Or ever. But... I like you, Rachel. You’re an interesting woman. I’ve always thought so. But, you know. Anyway, I have a feeling a lot of men feel the same way that I do. And it’s only a matter of time... Probably a more appropriate amount of time before they ask you. But maybe when that happens, or maybe when you think...it might be nice to have dinner with someone, and just have a conversation, you’ll think of me.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I... Sure. I’ll take your phone number.”
He wrote his personal number down on the back of a business card, and put it in the bag with the U joint.
“I could help with whatever plumbing problem you’re having,” he said.
“No,” she said, a little too quickly. “I... I’m good at that. I’ve got that covered.”
“All right. It was good to see you, anyway.”
“Good to see you, too,” she said.
She walked out of the store clutching the paper bag to her chest, her heart beating wildly against it.
A date.
That kept playing in her head over and over again as she got into her car and started it.
You were supposed to wait to go on a date for at least a year, she was sure of that.
Of course, she didn’t know where she’d heard that.
Three and a half months wasn’t a year. She wasn’t really ready to...date someone. But it didn’t horrify her. No, horror wasn’t what she felt.
It was something of a revelation to have a man look at her and see a woman.
She’d been with Jacob since they were teenagers. Since before she’d had a child. Since before she had lines in her forehead that didn’t go away even when her expression was relaxed. Since before she had a stomach that wasn’t flat, and back when she’d had boobs that held themselves up even when she didn’t have a bra on.
And she’d imagined that as beautiful as Jacob found her, he found her beautiful because he knew the whole her. That they had that history together that stretched back.
She’d seen all the Jacobs she’d known when she’d looked at him. The young, vibrant boy, the athletic teenager, the handsome man, the sick man. They’d all been there, all part of the person she loved.
So she’d believed him when he’d called her beautiful. But when he’d called her beautiful he’d seen all the Rachels she’d ever been.
Having a man who didn’t look at her and see years of history, having a man who had no real emotional attachment to her at all look at her and think it would be good to go out with her... It did something to her that she didn’t expect. And she liked it in a way that she didn’t expect.
It had woken up something inside of her. Invigorated something.
But she could not go out with him now. The interest was sure nice, though.
She hadn’t realized she had wanted it. Not when the thought of intimacy with another man scared her so much. But a dinner date...
She pondered that, on the drive to the house, through the tunnel that cut through the side of the mountain, and carried her over the bridge, to the winding private drive that led to the Lighthouse Inn. And all the way through her mundane plumbing project.
She made sure to push aside the thoughts, shook them away when she went into the kitchen.
It wasn’t that it was a state secret that she’d been asked out, but she wanted to hold it close to herself for a while. She wasn’t going to do anything with it, anyway.
But her grief belonged to everyone. And this was just hers. Like her conversations with Adam in J’s. It was nice to have something that just belonged to her.
She breezed into the kitchen and greeted her mother and sister, then paused when she noticed that Emma wasn’t there.
“Where’s Emma?”
As if her daughter had sensed her concern floating over the airwaves, her phone buzzed. She took it out of her pocket and looked at the message she’d received.
Can I have dinner with Catherine?
She sent the return quickly. We have our dinner tonight.
I know. But Catherine’s mom is making lasagna, and she invited me. And I haven’t been over there since...
Okay, Rachel texted back, because she certainly didn’t have the energy to argue with Emma about that. Emma deserved a break.
A chance to be happy.
Rachel did, too. A chance to move forward. Take a new step.
Maybe with Mark, maybe not.
But she held on to his number.
15
Things feel calmer now, and though we are watchful, high above the water like this, with the great blue waves below and the mountains behind us, it is easy to simply take joy in the splendor.
—FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY STAFF SERGEANT RICHARD JOHNSON, OCTOBER 15, 1943
ANNA
Preparing dinner had gone off without a hitch, and even though Anna missed the ally she’d found in her niece, things were all right with Rachel and her mother.
Things with Rachel had actually been smoother than they’d been for years. Their talk while they were making croissants had shifted something between them. When Rachel said it was up to them how close they were going to be, she hadn’t been lying.
She also hadn’t been promising a miracle.
It was slow going sometimes, learning to confide in and trust someone you hadn’t for so long. But over pastry dough, ladybugs and dusting, they were slowly starting to build a bridge between them.
Anna hadn’t confided in or trusted anyone all that much in a long time.
Michael had been a notable exception. She had trusted him.
With deep, dark secrets, with her body, with her soul.
A horrifying reality now that he had quit speaking to her so completely.
Ghosting. That’s what Emma said it was. Him completely vanishing.
Slowly, but surely, she was beginning to feel heartbroken by the loss of him.
Like part of her heart that had been numb was beginning to thaw out.
She didn’t know how she would talk to Rachel about that. It had been one thing to announce her affair and talk about the issues in her marriage.
It was another to admit how much she felt for him. That she missed him, even while she was angry at him.
But she let the smell of din
ner rolls wash away her angst. The cleansing scent of yeast, white flour and butter combined with the satisfaction of a perfect bake helped to dull some of the pain.
“Wonderful,” Wendy said. “I’ll take these out now.”
Her mother swept the bread out of the room with a wide smile on her face, and Anna’s insides glowed.
Here, now, everything was moving smoothly. Yes, there were a lot of issues left unresolved. But she was happy to slide into the ease she felt when they cooked together.
“Everything looks great,” Rachel said, testing the temperature of the roast. “I think it’s going to be a big hit. And bring more business in.”
“We’re good at that,” Anna said. “We’re good at making people feel like they’re home.”
And maybe they didn’t have it all perfect between them, but these were the things that helped. A home-cooked meal, sitting around a table with friends. Or, in the case of Anna, Rachel and Wendy, cooking together.
Because it took her back to a simpler time, because it meant home to her, even if she couldn’t quite grasp the feeling of it now.
She took her potatoes au gratin out of the oven, followed by honey-glazed carrots. Then, as her mother swept back in, she handed her the bowl of tossed green salad. Her mother came back into the kitchen and they all quietly began to eat some of the misshapen rolls that had not gone out to the dinner table. They all liked them with copious amounts of butter. And as they stood there, all three leaning against the island at the center of the crowded kitchen, their eyes caught while they were chewing, and they smiled.
It made her feel hope for the first time. Like there might, in fact, be a path back to something. Something better than what she had now.
“I’ll take out the next one,” she said.
She grabbed two of the sides, and Rachel followed behind her with the meat. Her steps faltered as soon as she went out into the dining room and saw Laura and two other women that she knew from afternoon bible studies at the church. Her mom wouldn’t have known to give her a heads-up, because she probably didn’t know any of them.
Sunset Church was large enough that it was impossible to know everyone unless you were part of smaller groups they were in, and since Anna had been a part of most of the small groups, she was more familiar with more of them than her mother would be.
Laura smiled, and the woman next to her—whom Anna was reasonably certain was named Hannah—shot her a chilling glare. Laura, for her part, kept her expression resolutely friendly, and not focused on Hannah at all.
Anna set down the dishes on the table, and the explanation for them faltered on her tongue, so Rachel took over, brilliantly explaining each element of food before the two of them began to head back toward the kitchen.
But Anna paused, taking a sharp turn toward the sitting room, then made her way over to the front door and tugged it open, letting the cool ocean air wash over her.
It was like every time she thought she had a minute to start over, she was reminded that she couldn’t. Not here.
But what would happen if she left here.
She might be able to start over, but she wouldn’t have...
Rachel and her mother. Emma.
This house.
It would be like splitting herself in two again, and she had already done that. She didn’t want to do it again. She didn’t want to believe that she could only have a new life if she left pieces of herself behind.
The door cracked open, and she turned, expecting to see her sister. Instead, it was Hannah.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” Hannah said, the crystalline words brittle, sharp and deadly. “I would’ve thought that your mother would’ve had the good sense to distance herself from you.”
Anna felt like she had died and was floating up outside of her body, because she couldn’t actually believe this was happening. It was like watching it happen to another person. Like one of her fevered arguments with herself had manifested and was playing out in front of her, with Hannah acting as her self-loathing essence while her actual self scrabbled to make justifications for everything she was. Everything she’d done.
“She’s my mother,” Anna said.
“And Pastor Thomas is her son-in-law.”
“He won’t be. Not after we get divorced. That’s kind of the law part. Legally, it can be dissolved.”
“Well, no one can blame him. Not after what you did. And I don’t think it’s fair that you’re still here in town. It’s not fair to him. He didn’t do anything.”
Anna was stunned by the truth of that. And Hannah would never know just how true what she’d said was. He hadn’t done anything. He just hadn’t done a damn thing.
He hadn’t done anything to fix their marriage. Hadn’t done anything to make her feel like he cared. Hadn’t done any of the things that a good husband was supposed to do.
He hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t held her. He hadn’t loved her.
Not by the end.
And it was amazing how people thought that made you innocent.
Doing nothing.
She was guilty, because she had done something.
Because she’d had an affair. And everyone knew about that. Didn’t know that for years she had been the one to do something. To talk about their problems, to try to fix them. To try to seduce him. To cook dinner, try to be pretty, try to be supportive.
She had done something.
Something. Something.
While he had done nothing.
“I don’t want to have this conversation with you,” Anna said.
“Because you’re convicted,” she said, her words laced with venom. “You know that what you did was wrong.”
“If I want to talk about my marriage, it isn’t going to be with you. I haven’t even had this in-depth of a conversation about it with Thomas. He went and announced it to the entire church without ever speaking to me about it. He’s said more to a room of a thousand people about our divorce than he has ever said to me. And you tell me whether or not you think that’s right?”
Her lip curled in disdain. “Why should he talk to the woman who let another man touch her like that.” Her cheeks went red, her whole body nearly shaking with indignation. “I would never do something like that.”
And the hardness, the intensity of her tone, told Anna another story altogether.
“Good for you,” Anna said. “I hope that doesn’t come back to bite you someday. I hope that your marriage never ends up in a place where you question everything you know, and everything you are. Where being somebody completely different, being someone that you would have thought was appalling a few years ago, doesn’t become preferable to being the person that you are.”
The door opened again, and Laura came out. Anna braced herself. She was outnumbered now.
“What are you doing, Hannah?”
“You smiled at her,” Hannah said. “But I’m not going to ignore what she is. I’m not going to forget what’s right and wrong. And I’m not going to fail to call things like they are.”
“Hannah...”
“No. You can have your lazy version of love. Letting people feel comfortable with what they are, but I don’t believe in making people comfortable. It’s not wrong to call out immorality.”
“Don’t you see yourself?” The ferocity in Laura’s voice surprised Anna, and even more so when she realized that it was directed at Hannah. “Throwing stones like you’re without sin. If Jesus couldn’t condone casting a stone at a woman caught in adultery I don’t know why you think you can. I don’t know why it’s your job to punish someone. It should be your job to forgive. And you should be embarrassed. Not Anna. She’s just up here having a life, having a job. You... You went out of your way to be nasty. To be unkind. And it so easy to hide behind platitudes like you do. If you don’t care about someone it’s easy to call them out,
isn’t it? Because you wrote her off, so you don’t care what she thinks about you. You’re embarrassed now, because I’m calling you out. Because you care what I think. Where’s all that conviction now, Hannah? Where is it?”
Laura was right, and Hannah was looking completely shamefaced. Laura’s eyes filled with angry tears. “You run around acting like you’re doing the Lord’s work. But as far as I can see the only God you have is yourself and your own opinions. You use false morality like a weapon to make yourself feel above it all because if you didn’t run around attacking other people you’d have to look at yourself.” Laura turned to Anna. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know this was a hit. No one told me. I wouldn’t have allowed her to come up here if I would’ve known...”
“It’s okay,” Anna said. Laura had no idea how okay it was. Considering that she had been so gloriously defended by someone she wasn’t related to.
Hannah sucked up her face like she was drinking lemon juice through a straw and turned, walking through the door at the same time Rachel appeared.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk. Fresh air.”
She didn’t know why her sister was holding on to her so tightly, or marching her quite so insistently down the porch stairs. Until she started to shake. And cry.
And she realized that Rachel had seen that the breakdown was coming before Anna had. She pushed open the gate on the white picket fence, and the two of them walked down the paved path that zigzagged down the hill and toward the beach. The clouds were low, the mist rolling in, and the sun had faded into nothing, never visible today as it had been hidden behind a thick blanket of gray.
The ocean churned angrily, all froth and rage, swelling up to the shore.
She related to the ocean today.
She hadn’t thought anything could shock her like this, not now. After the shock of her own behavior, after the shock of Thomas calling her out in a public venue, she’d thought she’d reached the limit.
But not here.
This place, this house, was her refuge. It always had been. And it had been especially in this last month. And Hannah had come up here and taken that from her.
