A Week at the Shore

by Barbara Delinsky

  I could just call him as I drive. Why don’t I call? I didn’t have to turn around to do that. I can even pull over at the next rest stop and do it.

  But no. We have to be face-to-face. He has to know that I’m not running away this time—has to know that I will not abandon him, even if it means driving back to New York tomorrow at dawn. He needs to know that he is part of my life, that he will always be part of my life.

  Realizing this myself, I feel a burning need—and not between my legs. It’s in my chest. The heart sitting there now is too big for just Joy and me. It needs Jack in it, too.

  The miles creep, one after another after another. Finally reaching Exit 91, I take the ramp at warp speed, or my modest equivalent thereof, and head for Westerly. It’s nine-thirty, meaning dark enough to steal through yellow lights and roll past stop signs with minimal fear of detection by the town’s finest. Breezing by Pawcatuck, under the railroad bridge, and into downtown Westerly is smooth enough, and the emotional landmarks that come after? Since my heart is already fully involved, they’ve lost their particular punch.

  The square is deserted. Accelerating past, I angle up the bluff road. Of the two houses that loom at its crest, only the Aldiss one is lit.

  Jack’s is dark and its driveway empty, but that’s the one I turn down. Refusing to be discouraged, I park and, hurrying to the front door, ring the bell. When he doesn’t answer, I ring it again and put my ear to the wood. No footsteps. No whine of a dog. Running around to the back, I rap on the wood, then bang. When neither raises an alarm inside, I try the knob, but the door is locked tight. Gone? Refusing to believe it, I turn to scan the beach, but the only movement there is the shimmer of a light surf, pearlized by the same moon that shows no man and his dog planted in the sand, looking broodingly at the sea.

  There are perfectly good explanations, I tell myself. He may be dealing with an emergency at the clinic, or running with Guy on the long beach near the square—or, since I didn’t see his truck when I passed there, at another beach entirely. Maybe he’s at the bowling alley with the police chief again, drowning his disappointment in beer. He’ll be back, I tell myself and, returning to the front of the house, take up position on the steps to wait. Two minutes into that, I try his phone. It goes straight to voicemail.

  Naturally, my eye is drawn to the Aldiss lights. When a figure moves past the living room window and stops, I hold my breath. I don’t want Joy running out. Call me a coward. Call me irresponsible. But what I’m doing here isn’t about motherhood. It isn’t about correcting a memory, though so many were proved false this week. Nor do I need the Nikon to save this moment. I’m living it in real time, alone, waiting for a man who has a life of his own and may or may not have been serious about changing it.

  Cell in hand, I allow another thirty seconds for imagining the questionable places he may be, the women he may be with, and the reasons I was an idiot to turn around on the highway and race back. Then I try his phone again. Nada.

  Where are you? I text and wait. And wait. And wait, with no ellipses on his end.

  After what feels like forever, I pocket the phone and, devastated, hug my knees. I tell myself that he’s a grown man with his own life, that his silence doesn’t mean anything bad. But how can it not, with his supposedly loving me enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me, with my having rejected him again, this time after he begged—begged—me to stay?

  My eye keeps drifting back to the house with the lights, the one in which my family is living, breathing, waiting. Sitting here alone, I wonder if that’s where I belong, if the past will always be a barrier between us, if I’ll always be too much of an Aldiss for Jack.

  Anne appears at the front door. Even in silhouette, she is defined by the same careless topknot of hair that had set her apart from Margo and Joy earlier this evening. Slipping out onto the porch, she closes the door carefully behind, though the effort at stealth is wasted. Or maybe it’s just that Margo is as attuned to her now as they both are to me. Before I can move, they’re side by side at the edge of the porch, staring at Jack’s house.

  I’m up in a flash. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Jack is somewhere completely innocent, somewhere without phone reception. Maybe he’s so heartsick that he turned the damned thing off. But I don’t know, just don’t know, and the thought of a life without him is bleak.

  The dim light that escapes from the house is soft, but it must have captured my chill, because Margo takes those last few steps with open arms. Not to be out done, Anne joins the hug, and there’s nothing weak about her arms. Warm as Margo’s, they support me well.

  Finally, Margo draws back. “What happened?”

  “I blew it,” I say, not quite crying but close. “I left, and now he’s gone. He won’t forgive me this time.”

  “Are you kidding?” Anne asks in disbelief.

  Margo shares her doubt. “Did he say that?”

  “No. But I can’t reach him. Doesn’t that say something?”

  “You’ve been trying him all this time?” Anne asks, curious now.

  We’re standing so close that our voices are low. Still, with a quick look behind, Margo guides us farther from the house and into the shadows. As always, she’s right. I’m not sure what the others are doing and don’t want Joy out here yet. For now, my sisters are enough.

  I don’t mention talking with Chrissie, just tell of my time on the highway, passing exit after exit, feeling worse and worse. “It wasn’t until East Lyme that I realized I was being stupid. I should have called him then, but I honestly pictured him right here waiting for me. I mean, after everything he said, you’d think it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not with Jack Sabathian—” Anne says. She catches herself, but only after sarcasm has leaked out, history rearing its ugly head.

  A week ago, I might have agreed with her or, at least, let it go. But my loyalties have shifted.

  Actually, not. I’m still loyal to my sisters. My loyalties have simply broadened to include not only Jack, but a more cogent reality than one I’ve embraced in the past.

  “Do you honestly think that, Annie?” I ask softly. “After everything he’s done this week? He’s been supportive and thoughtful. He’s been respectful of Dad—not a single snide comment—and he might have gloated. Another man would have. Another man might have said Dad got what he deserved and justice was finally served. But Jack didn’t. He’s been with us through this whole thing, despite all the answers about his mother that he’ll now never get. He’s been good with Joy—great with Joy.”

  “And with you?” Margo asks.

  Glancing at her, I shrug. “The best.”

  “Then you were right to come back.”

  “But you have to work tomorrow,” Anne protests, playing the devil’s advocate as Tom’s longtime caretaker would inevitably do.

  “If I’m on the road by four, I can make it.”

  “Without any sleep?” she asks, but the answer is on my face. I could talk with Jack long enough to miss sleep entirely, and it would be worth it. “Would you marry him?” Clearly, marriage is on her mind.

  “If he asks.”

  “Elizabeth’s son?”

  “Elizabeth’s son.”

  “After everything she did to our family?” Anne asks but more feebly, like she’s running out of options.

  I might remind her that whatever had happened, we’d done to ourselves. But it is done. Done.

  So, simply, I say, “Yes.”

  “What about Joy?”

  “Joy can handle him.”

  “But … but your career, her school, the condo?”

  “I don’t know, Annie. I don’t know how any of it will work out. All I know right now is that I want to be with him. I love him. I always have.”

  Margo gives me a crooked smile of concession. “He was always yours.”

  Anne says nothing. But really, what more is there to say? A complicated situation is as simple as that.

  So we stand in the shadows of the hous
e, all three of similar height, hair, face shape, and eyes, a hand or arm touching in the comfortable way of shared blood, and we’ll always have that, my sisters and I, even if not with the purity we were taught. Our silence is broken by a voice from the house, though I can’t tell whose. I hear the ocean and want to hear it more, want to hear it forever.

  Then I hear something else. So do my sisters. Our eyes turn to the road, where the crunch of gravel and growl of an engine grow louder, nearer. I barely breathe as the lip of the road comes into gauzy focus with its tiny rocks, bits of stray grass, and wrinkles of blown sand. Seconds later, twin orbs rise as the Tahoe crests the bluff and turns onto the Sabathian drive.

  When its headlight hit my car, its taillights abruptly blare red. Leaving the truck running, Jack is out and sprinting forward. He tugs open my door, looks inside, slams it shut again, and makes for the house. Scanning the front porch in passing, he lopes on to the back. For several aching moments, I lose him.

  Then he reappears in the truck’s headlights. Putting a hand on the top of his head, he looks around. He seems confused, bewildered, desperate. His eyes land on our house and hold, before somehow, impossibly, finding us in the dark. After staring for a minute, he starts forward, then stops. I left him. He isn’t sure why I’m back, isn’t even sure I am back. I’m with my sisters. For all he knows, I’ve cast my lot with them. For all he knows, I’m only back for Joy.

  Giving me a not-so-gentle nudge, Margo says in an exasperated whisper, “What’re you waiting for?”

  I barely hear. In this watershed moment, words are as faint as the moon. Same with the ocean, the salt air, and the shadows that surround us, because Jack Sabathian has my full attention. My sisters will always be my past and present. He is my future.

  What am I waiting for? Nothing. Nothing at all. In the next breath, I’m off.

  ALSO BY BARBARA DELINSKY

  Before and Again

  Blueprints

  Sweet Salt Air

  Love Songs

  Warm Hearts

  Escape

  Not My Daughter

  While My Sister Sleeps

  The Secret Between Us

  Family Tree

  Flirting with Pete

  The Woman Next Door

  The Vineyard

  Lake News

  Coast Road

  Three Wishes

  About the Author

  BARBARA DELINSKY is the author of more than twenty New York Times bestselling books. She has been published in twenty-eight languages worldwide. A lifelong New Englander, Delinsky earned a B.A. in psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in sociology at Boston College. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, more books than she’ll ever be able to read, two tennis racquets, and enough electronic devices to keep in close touch with her children and their families. You can find her online at www.barbaradelinsky.com and on Facebook (@bdelinsky), Twitter (@BarbaraDelinsky), and Instagram (@BarbaraDelinsky), or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Also by Barbara Delinsky

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group

  A WEEK AT THE SHORE. Copyright © 2020 by Barbara Delinsky. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design by Michael Storrings

  Cover photographs: land and sky in distance by Barbara Delinsky; beach © Jaimie Tuchman/Getty Images; fence © Jesus Sierra © Getty Images; rock © danlogan/Getty Images

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-11951-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-11950-6 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250119506

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: May 2020