I slid the breakfast sandwich away from me. “Will she be staying at your place tonight?”
“Yes,” he said flatly.
I tried not to view this unexpected development as a total catastrophe. It was only one night, and Chris had assured me there was nothing to worry about.
“She couldn’t get a flight back right away?” I asked nevertheless.
Chris seemed embarrassed to explain. “It’s more of an issue around a knee problem she has. It’s hard for her to sit for that many hours in one day.”
A likely story, I thought grudgingly, and wasn’t proud of myself for my cattiness. At least I had the discipline to keep it to myself.
Reaching for a coffee, I peeled back the plastic lid and took a sip. “When you spoke to her last night,” I said, “did you talk anymore about your relationship and what she wanted?”
“Not a whole lot,” he replied. “But by now she should realize that I’m not open to the idea of us getting back together. If I was, I would have invited her to stay the whole week.”
“Did you tell her about me?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
I nodded and took another sip of coffee.
Chris strode forward and dragged a stool across the floor to sit beside me. “You’re not happy.”
“I’m fine,” I assured him, casually waving a hand through the air.
“No, you’re not. Your guard has gone up. I can feel it.”
Turning to face him more directly, I set the coffee cup down. “Okay, so it has, but I can’t help it. I’m wary about pinning my hopes on this—especially when you have an ex-wife and a son back home, and they’re both coming to stay with you tonight. Is she going to sleep in your bed?”
“No. I’ll put her in the guest room, and there’s no going back to what we had, not after everything she did. I don’t have those feelings for her anymore.”
“Still…” I rose from the stool and moved around the island to reheat my coffee in the microwave.
“Just hang in there,” he said. “Please. Katelyn will be gone tomorrow morning and I still want you to spend the week with Logan and me. I really want you to meet him, and I want to spend as much time as possible with you before I head home.”
I faced Chris from the opposite side of the kitchen island. “That’s the worst part about this. Eventually, you’re going to leave and I’m going to miss you like crazy.”
Chris stood up and circled the island to pull me into his arms. I breathed in the clean, intoxicating scent of his skin, closed my eyes and fisted a clump of his denim shirt in my hand. I wanted to hold on to him forever and never let go. I wanted to keep him from going to the airport to pick up Katelyn.
“I’ll miss you, too,” he whispered in my ear, “and I don’t want to lose you. Don’t throw in the towel, okay? Give this a chance. Katelyn will be gone tomorrow and it’ll just be you, me, and Logan. We’ll have a good time, I promise.”
He stepped back and cupped my cheek in his hand. All I could do was nod my head and brace myself for whatever the next twenty-four hours would bring, because I had a feeling Katelyn wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I had hoped Chris would call or text me on my cell phone that night, just to put my mind at ease, but I didn’t hear a single word from him.
I worked the late shift at the pub and it was past midnight by the time I arrived home. There were no messages on my home phone either.
Curling up on the sofa with a cup of chamomile tea—and trying not to feel jilted and angry—I turned on the television and clicked back and forth between two late night talk shows. When the commercials came on, I picked up my phone to see if any texts had come in. There were none.
It was hard not to go crazy wondering what was happening between Chris and Katelyn in those moments. Had he put Logan in his pajamas and taken them both out in the rowboat? Were they lying on their backs, gazing up at the stars, reminiscing about old times?
Should I text him?
No, Sylvie. No!
Slamming my phone down onto the sofa cushion, I told myself to get a grip. Whatever was meant to be, would be. If tonight, Chris realized he was still in love with his ex-wife and he wanted to put their family back together, then that would be that. It was better to know now rather than a year from now, or even a week from now.
Or maybe Katelyn would fly home in the morning, Chris would sweep me off my feet, twirl me around, and he and I would live happily ever after.
I couldn’t help but scoff at that idea, which proved my theory: When it came to romance, I was an incurable pessimist. How could I not be, after losing the two people I loved most, then spending the next eight years living alone in the house we’d shared, surrounded by grim reminders of them?
Picking up my phone and trudging upstairs to bed—I paused on the landing outside Tyler’s room. Slowly I moved to the open door, peered briefly at his bed where the teddy bear sat on the pillow. I stared blankly at everything else. Then I decided I had to stop torturing myself by going in there every time I felt lonely. I backed out and pulled the door closed.
Continuing down the hall, I told myself there was no point speculating about Chris and his ex-wife. All I could do was get in bed, try to have pleasant dreams and wait for tomorrow to come.
* * *
It was the startling vibration of my cell phone that woke me, and just like the day before, I knocked over the water glass in a clumsy, bleary-eyed effort to pick up the phone. This time, the glass wasn’t empty. I had filled it up just before bed and it spilled onto the floor.
“Hello?” I sat up in daze, laboring to get my bearings.
“Good morning,” Chris said.
I blinked a few times before checking the clock. “It’s 6:30.”
“That is absolutely correct.” He sounded far too cheerful for this time of day. “Are you in the mood for pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipped cream?”
I felt my body start to come alive, ever so sluggishly. “Do these pancakes you speak of come with really strong coffee?”
“Anything you want,” he replied in a smooth, seductive voice that made me lie back on the pillow and smile.
“How exactly does a girl get in on this?”
“She drags herself out of bed,” he replied, “grabs a quick shower and is waiting at the door in twenty minutes.”
I grinned from ear to ear. “Right then. I’ll see you soon.”
* * *
I was standing on the veranda in jean shorts and a blue T-shirt when Chris pulled up in front of the house. Padding down the steps in my flip flops, I saw a young, dark-haired boy in the front seat, watching me with curiosity.
Chris kept the car running but lowered the passenger side window to lean over Logan and greet me. “Morning! Mind hopping in the back seat?”
“Sure thing.” I opened the back door, slid in and slammed it shut.
Chris turned and lowered his mirrored sunglasses to peer at me over the tops of the rims. “Sylvie, this is my son, Logan. Logan, this is Sylvie.”
“Hi,” Logan said, pivoting to shake my hand. He was a handsome nine-year-old with striking blue eyes. A future heartbreaker, to be sure.
“It’s nice to meet you, Logan,” I said.
Chris and Logan faced forward again, but Chris was watching me in the rearview mirror. “Buckled in?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, clicking the seatbelt into place just before he hit the gas.
* * *
After breakfast on the back deck at Jared’s house, Logan asked if we could take Buffy to the fenced-in baseball field and let her run around off leash.
“As long as there are no games or practices going on,” Chris replied. “Which isn’t likely at 8:00 a.m. Go brush your teeth and grab a hat and some sunscreen.”
We had just spent an hour eating pancakes smothered in red strawberries and whipped cream, while making friendly conversation about movies and video games and all the things
Logan had been enjoying during his summer vacation so far. Secretly, however, I was chomping at the bit to ask Chris about his night with Katelyn.
As soon as Logan was gone from the table, I leaned forward on my arms. “He’s a great kid. You should be proud.”
Chris nodded. “I am. And I’m glad you could come over this morning. He likes you. I can tell.”
“I like him, too. Being here with the two of you reminds me of…” I stopped myself, because I didn’t want to put a damper on the morning.
“I know,” Chris said gently, covering my hand with his.
I let out a sigh. “Tyler would have been twelve this summer. He’d probably be into all the same things Logan is. Maybe they would have been friends.”
Chris nodded sympathetically.
“But enough of that.” I straightened my shoulders and sat up in the chair. I spoke carefully, in a half-whisper. “Can I ask how it went last night?”
Chris sat back and rolled his eyes a little. “I definitely need to talk to you about that.”
His reply caused a stirring of unease in me. “Now I’m curious. How long are you going to keep me in suspense?”
Logan returned just then with Buffy on the leash. “I’m ready,” he said.
Chris gave me an apologetic look. “Let’s clean up the dishes. The park awaits.”
I rose to carry the plates inside.
* * *
While Logan ran ahead with Buffy, Chris buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Thanks for being so patient.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me last night,” I replied. “I was picking up my phone every three minutes, cursing you when there were no texts. Not a single one.”
He gave me a sheepish look. “Sorry about that. It was a rough night. I wouldn’t have known what to say.”
We strolled to the dugout and sat down to watch Logan unhook Buffy’s leash and throw a ball for her.
I laid my hand on Chris’s knee. “What happened?”
“Well…” he said, obviously stalling, “as soon as Logan went to bed, Katelyn opened a bottle of wine for us and told me all about why things didn’t work out with Joe—why it was never quite right with him because he could never love Logan the same way I did. She shared all sorts of stories about situations where Joe had disappointed her, and she asked what I thought about it.
“After a while, she started reaching for my hand, twining her fingers through mine. She talked about all the reasons why we were such good parents—because we shared the same beliefs about raising a son, and how we had the same parenting styles and that was such a rare, special thing.”
Chris looked down at his hands and didn’t say anything for a long while. I began to wonder if he’d brought me there to break the news that he was going back to her. Maybe the pancakes were a peace offering, so I’d feel we were still friends.
“What do you think about that?” I finally asked when he didn’t continue.
He squinted across the baseball diamond where Logan was throwing the ball. Buffy ran to the outfield to fetch it. “She’s right,” he said. “We’re on the same page as far as Logan is concerned. We reminisced about the early days of our marriage when Logan was a baby, and she cried over some of the more difficult memories about when we found out he was sick.” Chris paused.
“Before I knew it, my ex-wife was sitting with her head on my shoulder and I had my arm around her. I was fiddling with a lock of her hair.”
Please stop… I can’t bear this.
Biting my lower lip, I swiveled on the wooden bench to face forward. “Do you want to give it another try with her? It’s hard to ignore the fact that you have a child together—a child that needs you both in a big way.”
I didn’t want to sound desperate or heartbroken, even if I was. But I wanted the truth. No beating around the bush.
Chris’s chest rose and fell on a heavy sigh. “I’ll be honest with you, Sylvie. I did think about it. Very seriously. Last night, she was the woman she used to be before we got married—the woman I fell in love with. She was charming, flirtatious, and she made me feel like I was the only guy in the world… And God knows, I want Logan to be happy and to feel secure in his home. But something just didn’t sit right about all of it. A little voice inside my head kept telling me that all she wanted was to feel desired. When Joe walked out on her, it must have left a pretty big dent in her ego. I think she always thought I would be there as a backup, waiting devotedly for her to invite me home at last, whenever she was ready. If she was ready.”
“So what happened?” I asked, sitting forward to face him.
He shook his head with regret. “I knew that if I moved back in with her and we settled into a new relationship—or heaven forbid, another marriage—it might be romantic for a few months, but in a year or two our relationship would become routine and she’d become enamored by some other guy who would make her feel beautiful and desirable. She told me years ago that I didn’t give her that. I wasn’t romantic enough or passionate enough. She called our life dull. Maybe it was, I don’t know. But the thing about Katelyn is…she wants to be pursued. When the initial excitement wears off, she starts to feel unimportant, even slighted.”
We both gazed out at the sundrenched baseball field where Logan was following Buffy around the inside of the chain link fence. Buffy stopped to sniff every post.
“That’s the thing about marriage,” I said. “You can never hold on to that initial spark and excitement. The drudgery of everyday life eventually dumps a bucket of cold water on that fire, and nothing’s as romantic as it was when you barely knew each other and couldn’t keep your hands off each other. It was like that for Ethan and me. There was no way to hang onto that teenage lust forever. But we respected each other and I always knew he was a good man. I knew it in my head. He was intelligent, decent and loyal, and I loved those things about him. Over time, the love went from that surface spark to something really deep and meaningful. We trusted each other. No one knew me like he did. I knew all his flaws and he knew mine, and we loved each other anyway. I think we both treasured that. It’s the way it should be.”
Chris reached for my hand and squeezed it. “I always envied Ethan for meeting you first. He was the lucky one that summer.”
I exhaled a long sigh of contentment. “Now that’s romantic. If your son wasn’t fifty yards away, I’d kiss you right now.”
Chris grinned at me and snuck a quick kiss on the lips.
“You know what else I hate?” he asked. “I hate that she started seeing Joe while we were still married and I didn’t know a thing about it. I didn’t even sense anything was wrong—not until my suitcase was packed and waiting in front of the door. She hid it so well.”
He then told me that he’d spent the night sleeping with Logan, because after he’d rejected Katelyn’s overtures and refused to get back together with her, she slammed the bedroom door in his face. The noise had woken Logan, who couldn’t go back to sleep.
“I think I might need a nap today,” Chris said with a yawn.
“You probably will—because you’re a wonderful father and you took good care of your son last night.” I watched Logan run and play with Buffy in the outfield.
Chris reached for my hand and kissed it.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The next seven days couldn’t have been more idyllic. Whenever I wasn’t working, Chris invited me to spend time with him and Logan. We went sailing and camping, played softball in the park, and when it rained, we drove into Portland to go to the mall or the movies.
We also spent time with Cassie, her husband and their two children. I invited them over one night for barbequed hot dogs and hamburgers, and we raised a ruckus, playing crazy eights with the kids at the dining room table until well after midnight.
Chris and Logan stayed over at my house that night. They collapsed onto the king-sized guest room bed—in the room that had belonged to Ethan when he was young.
Chris and I didn’
t talk much about Katelyn after that first day. We simply enjoyed ourselves with no thought for the future or the fact that we would have to say good-bye in less than a week. I believe we both understood how precious our brief time together with Logan was, and we didn’t want to squander a single minute bemoaning the fact that our days were numbered. Because there was nothing that could be done about it.
On Logan’s last day in Cape Elizabeth, Chris’s cousin Jared returned from his European vacation with his wife and three children, which reunited Logan with his cousins. All the boys planned a night of videogames in the basement, which left Chris and me free to spend the evening together. Alone.
When he walked through my front door, the table was set and candles were lit, and I had salmon steaks broiling in the oven. I invited him into the kitchen and poured him a glass of chilled white wine to go with the cheese and crackers I’d set out.
“This looks nice.” He leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“I’m just glad we’ll get to spend some time together tonight,” I replied, “because tomorrow’s going to be rough. It’ll be hard to say good-bye to you.”
“It’ll be hard for me, too,” he replied, accepting the wine. “It’s been an incredible few weeks. Honestly, Sylvie… I never expected this when I agreed to house-sit for Jared. I didn’t think it was possible to ever feel this way again.”
His words caused a disturbance in me, a sense that everything had shifted and nothing would ever be the same.
I raised my glass. “To old friends and no regrets.”
He raised his glass and we clinked, then enjoyed the first sip.
Not wanting to dwell on the difficult good-bye that awaited us at the end of the night—for Chris and Logan flew out at 6:00 a.m. and I wouldn’t see him in the morning—we chatted about other things during dinner, then retired to the living room to sit on the sofa, finish the wine and listen to music.
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