by Liz Fenton
“But you’ll be the one taking care of him most of the time. Are you sure?”
“We could use a little fluffiness in our lives. And a little more poop isn’t going to kill me. Get the dog.”
“What is this about? Because I know the girls will be excited, but they don’t need a pet.”
“I know. But this is about you. About what makes you happy.”
“What makes me happy is our family,” he replied simply.
“I know that, babe. But I can tell how much you want this. And I want to give you what you want,” she finished, her throat constricting as she realized she’d never uttered truer words. She’d start with the puppy and figure the rest out as she went.
“Hey,” Grant said as a tear slipped out of the corner of Jessie’s eye. “Where is this coming from? I like dogs, but owning one isn’t going to be like fulfilling some childhood dream.”
Jessie shrugged, brushing the tear away with the back of her hand and turning to face the golf course as she saw Peter and Cathy arrive. “Please. Just bid on our furry friend.” She realized the puppy was just a symbol of a life she didn’t want to relive, but giving him this would make her feel like she was righting a wrong she’d made in her other life.
Grant stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her chest. “If you insist,” he whispered into her ear. “But don’t get too attached—she’s going to be my dog! Even if you’re the one that cleans up most of her poop. And feeds her. And does basically everything,” he added, and Jessie could hear his sarcastic smile, the one where the right side of his mouth lingered upward a little longer than the left.
Jessie stared at the skyline, breathed deeply before silently asking for the answers she was searching for. Her eyes grew wide as a blaze of light lit up the sky. “Did you see that?” she craned her neck around to Grant. “The flash?”
He nodded his head. “I did. Do you think it’s a sign we should get the dog?” he teased.
“I think that’s exactly what it is.” Jessie smiled, hoping that all of the magic in the world was somehow connected.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight, but I’m not complaining,” he said as he pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome.” Jessie closed her eyes, trying not to think of Peter, who she instinctively knew was watching them from somewhere at this event. She needed to savor this moment with Grant.
“Come on,” Grant said, interrupting her thoughts. “Let’s head over and finalize our silent bids. Then I’m going to check on Goldie. That’s what I want to call her, by the way,” he said, leading Jessie to the tent where the silent auction was taking place and also where Peter and Cathy were standing.
Peter straightened his wide plaid tie as they approached, his facial expression giving nothing away. Jessie held her breath as she met Peter’s eyes, her heart pounding, waiting for his next move. But he simply smiled and extended his hand to Grant and shook it briskly. Cathy threw her arms around Jessie’s neck, causing Jessie to flinch involuntarily, quickly covering it with a lie about being cold and wanting to find a heat lamp after seeing Cathy’s startled expression. As Cathy began inquiring about who was watching Lucas that night, Jessie felt as if the walls of the tent were closing in around her. She couldn’t do this. Stand here and talk about her baby with the wife of the man who had fathered him. It was wrong.
Jessie looked at her watch. “Oh wow, the silent auction is closing in five minutes. I’m dying to get the parking space this year!” Jessie said, grabbing a Sharpie off the table and hoping her plastered smile didn’t look as fake as it felt as she tugged Grant’s arm. “And Grant needs to warm up his paddle—he’s bidding on the dog!” she said, and hoped Peter noticed that she and Grant were a united front. She felt herself breathe for the first time in minutes as she watched Cathy guide Peter toward the buffet.
“I’m going to pay Goldie a visit,” Grant said.
“Go. You’ve got thirty minutes until the live auction begins. Plenty of time to get to know each other.” Jessie smiled and pushed him toward where the dog was sitting in her crate, her tail wagging fiercely as he approached.
“We need to talk,” she heard a voice murmur beside her, and she jumped slightly.
“I thought you were off getting a plate of chicken wings,” Jessie said to Peter through gritted teeth without taking her eyes off Grant. “What are you thinking trying to talk to me here?”
“You won’t answer my calls. What do you want me to do?”
Jessie forced herself to look at him and sighed loudly. “Fine. What do you want from me?”
“You know what I want. To see my son.”
“Shhh,” Jessie said, pretending to read a description card attached to a basketful of sweets. “And is that all? Just to see him?”
“For now.”
“And if I don’t allow it?”
“Then I’m not sure this is a secret I can keep.”
Jessie shuddered. “You’d be willing to destroy your own life too? Because I’m not the only one with something to lose,” she reasoned.
“Cathy and I haven’t been happy in years.” Peter let his eyes fall across Jessie’s body. “Obviously,” Peter said in a hushed tone, shaking his empty drink glass, the sound of the ice echoing in Jessie’s ears as she wondered what happened to the guy who had charmed her so thoroughly.
“Well, we’re working hard to be happy,” Jessie said, seething. “I’m not ready to give up on my marriage. Even though you might be. So don’t take me down with you.”
Peter smiled like he thought she was bluffing. “Then give me what I want. And maybe I won’t have to.”
Jessie felt nauseous. “Fine. Thursday at two.”
“That’s a much better answer.” Peter’s voice grated on Jessie like the high squeal from a microphone when someone gets too close to it. “And by the way,” he said, gesturing his empty glass toward Grant, who was letting Goldie lick his face. “Letting him get a damn dog isn’t going to help him forgive you if he finds out.”
• • •
Grant glanced over at Jessie, and she was scowling. And Jessie wasn’t a scowler. She smiled even when she was sad, that reflex like a button that couldn’t be switched off. Her lips curved upward into a grin when she was nervous too. In fact, she smiled so hard when he’d asked her to marry him that they’d joked he’d almost broken her face by asking. But she was frowning now. And as Grant watched her, he realized she seemed to be frowning at Peter, a man they barely knew. He was a stay-at-home dad from Madison and Morgan’s class he’d remembered meeting at back-to-school nights and seeing at the soccer fields from time to time. He’d seemed like a nice enough guy. Maybe he was filling Jessie in on the latest drama with the class mom—Jessie had just been telling him on the way over here that this woman had been terrorizing all the parents who hadn’t volunteered at the auction. Just then, the puppy let out a sharp bark, demanding Grant’s attention once more. “Sorry, girl,” he said quietly, and gently stroked her fur. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
Jessie used to accuse Grant of ignoring her often. When they didn’t fight about it, he could still feel it, could see it in the way her body stiffened when he entered the room. Like she was waiting to see what he’d do. Would he sweep her off her feet? Or would he prop his feet up on the couch? He hated to admit it, but he usually chose the latter. Not because he didn’t love Jessie. Of course he did. But he felt so much pressure. Like if he did scoop her up in his arms, she’d think it was only because they’d argued about it for an hour the night before. If he pulled her in for a kiss and asked her about her day, he would feel like an actor performing the lines from a script she’d written. He wanted it to be organic, the way it used to be. And he’d been so tired. Not just physically tired. But tired of the guilt she threw at him like daggers each night. It weighed on him like a dumbbell he couldn’t lift, no matter how hard he tried.
And then she got pregnant. Unexpectedly. L
azy ovary be damned. And he’d found himself conflicted. He’d finally earned enough that they’d had a nice cushion in the bank and the beginning of a college fund for the girls. He was thrilled by the idea of another baby—maybe it would be the son he’d always wanted. But he was also panicked. Could they afford another child? He knew they could, of course, but it would mean working even harder than he already had been. He didn’t want to ask Jessie to get a job. He liked that she was home to pick up the girls after school and take them to their activities. He didn’t want a babysitter to do that. Not when they could have their mom.
So he braced himself for what he knew would be coming when he started working Saturdays again and even later hours. More daggers, more arguments, more resentment. But when Lucas arrived, everything changed in a way he could have never predicted. Yes, Jessie still wanted his attention, but she didn’t seem so accusatory. She understood why he was working harder, that they had another mouth to feed. Grant didn’t know why she’d had a change of heart. All he knew is that the weight had fallen off his shoulders. His wife actually seemed to like him again. She wanted to know why he was tired, rather than just being angry that he was. She initiated sex with him again, instead of huffing in the corner of the bed, thinking he was clueless to it all. Yes, he had known she wasn’t happy. He just hadn’t had the energy to fix it. But Lucas’ birth had changed everything. Now Grant had it all—the son he’d always secretly wanted but didn’t think he’d get. A happy wife who curled up on his shoulder each night. Two daughters who still thought he was a hero, who ran into his arms each night when he walked through the door.
He fed the puppy a treat and glanced over at Jessie again, who now stood by herself, her scowl replaced by a smile. Grant recognized it immediately—it was her sad one, where her bottom lip jutted out so slightly you almost wouldn’t notice. But Grant always did. The question was, what, or who, had put it there?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
* * *
“Can you speak up? I can barely hear you,” Claire said to Jessie as she handed sixteen dollars to the parking attendant at LAX, having just returned from New York. Claire thought she’d misheard the amount then remembered it was ten years ago, when things like airport parking were much more affordable.
“I’m freaking out!” Jessie whispered louder.
“Where are you?” Claire asked as a jet flew overhead, making it even harder to hear Jessie.
“In the bathroom stall, at the school auction.”
“What happened?” Claire pictured Jessie crouched down by a toilet, cupping her cell phone with her hand.
“It’s you know who. He’s threatening me about you know what. Here!”
Claire released a drawn-out breath. She was conflicted about Peter wanting to be a part of Lucas’ life. As his biological father, he had a right to be involved, and Lucas was lucky he wanted to be. But Claire hated that he was threatening Jessie. Claire thought about Emily’s father, wondering if one of the reasons she’d been brought back was to handle that situation differently. If she should give him another chance and invite him back into Emily’s life. He’d been unreliable when Emily was a baby, failing to show up to see her on most of the two Saturdays a month they’d agreed upon, then stopping entirely for months at a time. Claire dishing out ultimatums she never followed through on, him making promises to change he’d never followed through on. And it only got worse when Emily was a toddler and began noticing his absences, when he forgot to pick her up from preschool, and forgot about her second and third birthday parties, and basically forgot to be a father. Finally, when he forgot dads’ night at her school, five-year-old Emily holding the card she’d made for him with tears streaming down her face, Claire called David. She warned him to never show his face in their lives again, not that it would be a huge difference. She scolded him and said Emily couldn’t handle any more letdowns. He barely put up a fight. She imagined him yawning and shrugging on the other end of the line, as if she’d just told him they were out of eggs. After he coolly said good-bye, Claire had crept down the hall to Emily’s room and peered in at her. Emily’s tangle of butter-colored curls were wrapped around her ivory cheeks, her thumb wedged in her mouth. She’d sobbed silently: Emily was officially fatherless.
After that, David faded away and Claire had assumed that was because he was a deadbeat who really didn’t want the responsibility. But when Emily turned nine, he began to send letters. One every three months or so, addressed to Emily in his steady hand. Asking for another chance. Saying he’d changed. Claire had read each one hundreds of times, looking for a sign in them that proved he really was different, that he would show up this time, but there was nothing that guaranteed he wouldn’t let her daughter down again. She hid the letters in the back of her sock drawer, telling herself that he’d only fail Emily again if Claire allowed him back into her life. But now, watching Jessie deny Peter his son so she could protect herself, Claire wondered if she hadn’t done the same thing. Denied someone who was ready to make the right choices for his child. “What did Peter say exactly?”
“He threatened to tell Cathy and Grant.”
“So he’s going to go public unless you let him see Lucas?”
“Yes. And I don’t think he just wants to play in the sandbox with him. I worry he wants more.”
“Where’s Grant?” Claire asked.
“Signing the papers for our new puppy.”
“Wait, what? Because I thought I just heard you say puppy, and you already have your hands full.”
Claire heard Jessie exhale. “It’s a long story, I’ll tell you later. But I’m scared, Claire. Really scared. Please make me feel better. Tell me it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Claire echoed assuredly, but wondered if it would be. She remembered the last time Grant left. It was before Mona was diagnosed and she was able to be there for Jessie when she fell apart. But now Claire had her mother to take care of and she worried whether Jessie was strong enough to go through the pain of losing Grant—again. And then there was Gabriela, the two of them never fully reconciling after they’d argued at the hotel yesterday. They’d ridden silently, shoulder to shoulder in the cab to LaGuardia, listening to the driver chattering away on his cell phone in a language neither of them understood, Claire wanting to make a joke about the experience, but fearful that Gabriela would shut her down. The plane ride had been more of the same with nothing beyond polite exchanges. They’d gone their separate ways after they’d deplaned, Gabriela saying she hoped things worked out with Emily, Claire telling her she was sorry about the baby. But there were a thousand unspoken words floating in the space between them and Claire worried they might never be said.
“I don’t want to lose my family, Claire,” Jessie whispered, her voice sounding fragile, as if she would break if any more words came out of her mouth.
“That will not happen—again,” Claire said, feeling her protective instincts take over, praying a solution presented itself, like maybe Peter would get hit by a bus. Then she immediately regretted the thought. He was still Lucas’ father. And in this version of their life, the worst thing he’d done was freak out when he’d first heard the news. But once he’d seen his son, he’d come around. Even Claire had to acknowledge that. He was trying to do the right thing, even if he was going about it the wrong way.
“How can you be so sure?”
Because I can’t even begin to consider the alternative. I can’t imagine you without Grant again. You were a shell of yourself for so many years.
“Claire?”
“We’re going to figure this out, Jess. I promise.”
“So what should I do now?”
“Get the hell out of there and go home. Let’s meet first thing tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Jessie said, and then Claire heard muffled voices in the background. “I have to go,” Jessie said, hanging up quickly.
• • •
More than anything, Claire wanted to fall into bed the moment she go
t to her parents’ house, but she knew she couldn’t. She would need to resume her caretaker role and give her father a break. She’d spoken to her dad several times during the short window she was in New York, and he’d sounded exhausted as he’d updated her about Mona. She was depressed her hair had started falling out and she still had no appetite. And then there was Emily, Claire’s dad assuring her that she had been very helpful, taking over for him several times so he could get some rest, even walking to the grocery store to pick up a list of items Mona needed. But when she’d gotten on the phone with Emily, she seemed even more distant than before, and Claire was only able to pull a word or two out of her. When they hung up, Claire questioned her decision to leave for the millionth time, and resented Gabriela—and herself—for talking her into it. Some girls’ trip that had been.
Tomorrow was Emily’s first day back to school since the suspension, and they were scheduled to meet with the vice principal about Emily’s plan to apologize to her classmate. Emily had been tasked with writing a letter to the girl while Claire was away, but she suspected she hadn’t. She worried they’d be up half the night bickering about how to craft the apology note, her shoulders tensing at the mere thought of it. As hard as mothering Emily had been last time, she didn’t remember it being this difficult so early. Emily had begun to spiral once she hit high school, not while still in middle school.
“I’m home,” Claire called out as she pushed the front door open. “Hello?” she said again after being met with silence. Not even the TV was on, and it was always on, blaring Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy! “Dad? Emily?”
“Grandpa’s asleep,” Emily said as she rounded the corner, somehow looking much older than thirteen in just two days, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, a pink hue to her cheeks.
