Every Vow You Break

by Peter Swanson

  “You were such a fighter. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “Did it do any good? You think I sold a single ticket?”

  “I know you did. Pam Hutchinson from across the street told us she bought a ticket because of you. Unfortunately, it was for Lips Together, Teeth Apart and she never looked at us the same way again.”

  “And I sold a ticket—two tickets, I think—to The Winter’s Tale.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  They both sat silent for a moment, Abigail wondering if she did have a good memory, or if it was just the repeated telling of the story that had lodged it in her mind. Her dad said, “We didn’t know where you’d come from. I mean, your mother and I were ambitious to a certain degree, but neither of us was a salesperson. You were a firecracker. We always used to say, ‘At least we don’t have to worry about her. Abby’ll be fine.’ And you are.”

  “Dad, are you a little drunk?”

  “A little bit. Just sentimental now that I’m in the winter of my years.”

  Lying in her old bedroom that night, staring up at the stick-on stars that she’d put up on her ceiling years ago, Abigail kept thinking about what her father had said about her being a firecracker. The proof was right on her ceiling, where she’d spelled out her own name in the midst of the galaxy. Had she been that self-centered, or was it just confidence about her place in the world? She had had confidence for most of middle school and some of high school. She remembered being fearless, always up for a fight. That was how she and Zoe had become such good friends, despite how different they were in so many ways. Max Rafferty had spread a rumor about Zoe giving him a hand job after the seventh-grade dance, and the next day Abigail had snuck up behind Max while he was in line at the cafeteria, tugging down his pants, snagging his underwear along for the ride. She’d been friends with Zoe then, but not best friends. After that, they were inseparable.

  And that wasn’t the only time she’d gotten revenge.

  Freshman year of high school Abigail heard that a former friend, Kaitlyn Austin, had been going around saying that Abigail’s parents were the town perverts and that they loved to put on disgusting plays. This was after a production of Spring Awakening that had caused a brief ripple through the more conservative elements of the Boxgrove community. Kaitlyn Austin told everyone that she’d heard that the Baskins only put on the musical so that they could cast young actors to have sex with. She said that every year there were orgies at the Boxgrove Theatre, an idea so ludicrous that Abigail was initially more amused than pissed off. But the rumors spread through their small regional high school.

  It was around this time, too, that Abigail had discovered thrift store shopping, dressing one day in a poodle skirt from the 1950s, and the next in a fringed leather jacket. Kaitlyn began calling Abigail “the freak,” and it was a nickname that stuck around for at least a year. Part of her didn’t even care that much about being called a name, but it was the fact that the name had originated with Kaitlyn that stung. Abigail became consumed with the idea of getting revenge. She did, eventually, but not until senior year. Knowing that Kaitlyn and her family were away for the Columbus Day weekend, she’d walked across town just before midnight and broken into their house through a window they’d left open. She’d gone straight to Kaitlyn’s room and searched it, stealing a stack of her diaries. On the way out, she’d slashed all the tires on Kaitlyn’s Subaru. She could still remember the feel of the knife puncturing the rubber, the hiss of air as the tires slumped.

  That night, she’d felt sickened with herself but a little elated. And she’d never told anyone, not even Zoe.

  Abigail, remembering the type of person she’d been in adolescence, wondered if she’d changed, if somewhere along the line she’d become more passive. She wasn’t sure. She knew that she could have moved back to Boxgrove after college, but instead she’d gone to New York and gotten a job in publishing. That was more than any of her high school friends could say. But, despite the fact that she was still in the city, she did feel as though something in her had altered. Maybe it was her upcoming marriage to Bruce. Because he was so rich, because he had been the one to initiate the relationship, and because he was so single-minded in his pursuits, he made her feel like she was second fiddle to his ambitions. No, that wasn’t true, necessarily. He made her feel as though he’d invited her onto his boat, and now that boat was careening down a river, and she was just a passenger. But what was wrong with that? And one thing that she’d be gaining from the marriage was financial security, which meant free time, which meant she could finish her novel. And writing a novel would be her own thing, nothing to do with Bruce.

  She was beginning to get tired and shifted onto her side. Somehow the image of a boat stayed in her mind as she slipped into sleep, gliding effortlessly along a churning river, the rush of water in her ears.

  She spent the next day with her mother. They had lunch in town at the Boxgrove Inn, then drove to a boutique clothing store in the next town over to look for a dress for her mom to wear to the wedding.

  It was only when they got back home, each collapsing with a cup of tea in the living room, that Abigail asked her mother about the separation.

  “Ugh,” Amelia said. “I don’t hate your father. Obviously, you know that. How could I? It’s just that … it’s just that we spent so long trying to get the theater to work, and that was where all our energy went. I just don’t have anything left to give him, and he knows that, too.”

  “But you still care for him?”

  “I do. Of course I do. Here’s the thing, Abby. When I think about my life—the rest of my life, I mean—if I stay with your father then I know exactly what it’s going to be like. But if we split up, if we each get another chance, then something else might happen. Something exciting.”

  “You mean you might meet someone new?”

  “It’s not just that, although I have thought about that. It’s just that I need space to be me, to change a little, to allow something to happen. It’s your father who’ll meet someone new, probably.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Let’s just say he falls in love too easily.”

  Abigail sat up. “Has dad had affairs?”

  “I don’t know,” Amelia said, lowering her voice even though they were alone in the house. “I wouldn’t call them affairs, but most summers when we were putting on shows, he’d fall in love with one of the actresses who came up. He was not good at hiding it. From me or from them. You remember Audra Johnson?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t think they actually had a sexual affair, but they definitely had an emotional one. It was a hard summer.”

  “I’m learning so much,” Abigail said. Then she added, “You never …?”

  “Me? No. I think, for me, being married, and being in business together, I was all in, all the time. That’s why I want a break now. Those twenty years, it was so much work, and now it just feels like … I wonder if it was worth it.”

  “Mom,” Abigail said. “It was totally worth it. Think about what you accomplished, all the plays you put on, all the actors you employed, all the people who were entertained, who were intellectually stimulated. You made art.” Abigail was aware, even as she was saying the words, that she was parroting what the man from the bachelorette weekend had said to her. She felt a flush of feeling for that man whose name she never even knew.

  “No, I know,” Amelia said, and put her mug down on the side table. “I keep thinking the same thing. Just because something ends doesn’t mean it didn’t have value. Your father and I …”

  After a pause, Abigail realized her mother wasn’t going to finish the sentence and said, “I guess marriage is hard.”

  “Maybe not for everyone, honey. Maybe not for you. We really like Bruce, you know that?”

  “I know you do.”

  “And we can’t wait for the wedding.”

  “You won’t cry, will you?”

  “I’ll try not to cry too mu
ch. Can’t vouch for your father. What do you want for dinner tonight? If I were here alone, I’d probably eat cereal.” She’d moved to the edge of the sofa, her hands on her knees, suddenly practical.

  “Cereal sounds great.”

  Abigail waited for her mother to rise and go to the kitchen, but she stayed seated for a moment, then said, “You know, Abby, we’ll always be a family, the three of us. That will never change.”

  “I know, Mom,” Abigail said.

  That night Abigail woke just before dawn, struggling up from a bad dream that slipped away as soon as she tried to recollect it. Her chest hurt, and there was perspiration in her hairline. She lay still for a little while, wondering if she’d be able to fall back to sleep, but her body tingled, as if she’d had too much coffee. She watched the bedroom window fill with gray light and thought about her parents. They’d never seemed so vulnerable to her as they did this weekend. Even so, it was clear to her that Bruce’s plan to fund the Boxgrove Theatre again was a nonstarter. Or seemed to be. Her mother wasn’t interested in going down that road again, and she wasn’t sure that her dad would have the energy, either.

  Her train was leaving Northampton at ten that morning, and for a few minutes Abigail wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to New York. She didn’t necessarily want to spend any more nights in her childhood home consoling her parents. But she suddenly imagined life if she lived here in Boxgrove, maybe in a cute studio apartment near the town center, the rent cheap enough that she wouldn’t have to work full-time, and she would have time to write. She’d get coffee at the Rockwell Diner and go to the tavern at the inn on Friday nights, where she’d probably know everyone in the place. She thought of Bruce, and for a surreal ten seconds couldn’t picture his face. Then it came to her, and with it, her fantasy about returning home disappeared.

  CHAPTER 8

  Bruce, after Abigail returned to the city, suggested that Abigail and he should spend the remaining nights before the wedding in their own apartments. At first Abigail thought it was an unnecessary restriction, but she soon grew to like the arrangement. There were only two weeks left before the wedding, and there was something old-fashioned and romantic that, after eating dinner together, Bruce would accompany her back to her apartment and they would kiss under the streetlamp as a way of saying good night. Bruce also suggested that they watch a film together—Abigail in her apartment, he in his, and they could talk about it later. They’d watched The Omen and Carrie (Abigail’s picks) that way, then watched The Descent and Kiss the Girls (Bruce’s picks). After a brief bout of hot September days, the weather had cooled, and the city was bearable again. Those post-dinner walks home, her arm casually looped through Bruce’s, discussing what film to watch that night, made Abigail feel as though she were falling in love with not just Bruce, but New York City all over again.

  The wedding was all planned. They were getting married in a refurbished barn in the Hudson Valley, home to a Michelin-starred restaurant and a boutique hotel. Just ninety guests, sixty of them coming from Abigail’s friends and family. In some ways, planning the wedding had been relatively easy, with Bruce accepting all of Abigail’s decisions. It didn’t hurt that money was not a consideration. Even so, Abigail made sure that, except for the rustic opulence of the actual location, the wedding itself would not be over-the-top. No caviar service at the reception, no specially made designer dress. Also, no DJ who might play Ed Sheeran. She found an interesting band that specialized in covers of 1960s French pop.

  Bruce had several friends coming to the wedding, but very little family, just his father, plus his father’s sister and her family. Bruce’s mother was alive, but they were estranged. “She knows I’m getting married, but, honestly, weddings are not her thing. Marriage was not her thing,” he said. Both of Abigail’s parents came from fairly large families and there was going to be a glut of cousins coming from near and far. Despite their circumstances, Lawrence and Amelia Baskin remained excited for the wedding, looking forward to seeing extended family, probably looking forward to a weekend that would take their minds off the failure of both their theater and their marriage.

  Abigail was keeping her job at Bonespar Press but cutting her hours in half, figuring that she and Bruce didn’t need the money, and that she could use the extra time to start real work on her novel. It was a psychological thriller about twin girls being raised in a rotting brownstone in the city, their parents both artists who refused to leave the house. Of the twins, one wants to stay in the house forever, and one wants to leave. That was all Abigail had so far, definitely not enough to mention it to any of her friends, including Bruce. But she’d written the first ninety or so pages, and didn’t hate it, and now she just wanted to see where the story would take her.

  She’d also negotiated with Bonespar Press for two months’ unpaid leave that began a week before the wedding. She had spent two days training the temp employee who would be covering for her while she was gone, and then she’d gone out for celebratory drinks with her coworkers on the last day before her leave. They’d gone to Abigail’s favorite East Village bar, and it was there that she ran into her ex Ben Perez, who came in at midnight by himself. For one brief moment Abigail thought that he had come there to confront her, but then she saw the surprise on his face and she realized that it was just coincidence. They said hello; he was drunk and kept telling her that he’d just been out with a bunch of writer friends and he was stopping in for one last drink before heading home. Abigail bought him a bourbon sour and told him she was getting married. “Yeah, I know all about it,” he said. “I run into your friends all the time.”

  “Who do you run into?”

  “Kyra, for one. She said you’re marrying a gazillionaire, and that she thinks you’re doing it just for the money.”

  “She said that?”

  “Something like that.”

  It had occurred to Abigail that when you marry someone so conspicuously wealthy people are going to talk, but, still, hearing that Kyra had said something so catty made her chest hurt.

  “I’m not marrying him because he’s rich,” she said, instantly annoyed that she was defending herself to Ben.

  “I didn’t say it. She did.”

  Her work friends were beginning to put on coats and settle up bills, and Abigail, who didn’t want to get stuck rehashing things with Ben at the bar, left with them. The next day she almost called Kyra to confront her, but called Bruce instead. She thought he might worry a little that she’d run into her ex-boyfriend of six years the night before, but he didn’t seem fazed.

  “I’m sure Kyra’s not the only one who’s made a comment,” Bruce said. “People are strange about money. You’ll probably lose at least one friend after we get married, someone who just won’t be able to handle it. I did when I got rich. The way I figure it is that they weren’t great friends to begin with.”

  “Okay, thanks,” she said, feeling better.

  After the talk with Bruce she stopped worrying about Kyra, and about what her other friends might think about Bruce. She had other things to deal with, mostly the logistics of who was staying at the Blue Barn Inn, which had only twenty-five rooms, and who was staying at the bed-and-breakfast half a mile away, and whether they should offer some sort of shuttle service back and forth so that people wouldn’t have to worry about drinking. And she had her own apartment to worry about. She’d given notice, and now it was just a matter of boxing up her possessions, mainly books, and figuring out what to do with her few pieces of furniture, most of which were not coming with her to Bruce’s place. And she was worried about Zoe, who still lived in Boxgrove, because she’d just had another massive fight with her boyfriend of seven years, and now she didn’t want him at the wedding. Zoe was a rock—well, she was Abigail’s rock—but when things went bad with Dan, all bets were off.

  With the wedding looming, these were Abigail’s biggest worries, and she realized that she was in pretty good shape, considering. The memory of the stranger at the vineyard in Cal
ifornia now felt like a fuzzy, unreal dream, something that had happened to her either very long ago or maybe not at all. In some ways, it had even helped clarify for her how much she wanted to marry Bruce. The fact that the evening had been intriguing and romantic made her only crave the solidness, and coziness, of marriage more. Everything was going to be all right.

  And then she saw Scottie in the coffee shop.

  That whole day she felt like a chasm had opened up in front of her, a big black hole she was powerless to escape. He’d come for her—all the way across the country—and he was going to wreck her life. In a way, it helped that she later got the email; it gave her a chance to answer him, to try to end it before it got any worse. She did feel temporarily better after sending him her response, but that night she was anxious, her mind filling with images from California, a jittery sensation racing across her skin. Just to make it stop, to try to relax her body, she flipped onto her stomach and masturbated, feeling half aroused and half sickened by the thoughts that kept entering her mind. She made herself come, and afterward, exhausted, hollowed out, she at least felt that maybe she’d be able to get some sleep.

  But there was still that chasm, black and bottomless, that she couldn’t entirely shake out of her mind.

  CHAPTER 9

  Her few married friends had all told her that their weddings had been a blur, that you never got a chance to eat, let alone enjoy, any of the food, and you’d be lucky to get a moment alone with your spouse. Most of that turned out to be true for Abigail on her wedding day, but she still enjoyed herself.

  The ceremony, held in the upper loft of the barn, was fairy-tale-like, the entire place lit by white candles. She thought she’d be nervous—thinking back on her few high school experiences on the stage—but she was okay, more emotional than she thought she’d be, cognizant of the enormity of the moment, of what it meant to pledge yourself to one person for the rest of your life. She felt great in her wedding dress. She’d never been a girl who dreamed of wearing the perfect white dress for her wedding, and she’d considered wearing black just to be different, but then she’d found an online site that sold vintage wedding dresses and fallen in love with a butter-toned organza dress from the 1940s. It was simple—a sleeveless bodice and an A-line skirt—but was covered in beads and sequins. It was long enough that it covered her single tattoo, a barren tree that ran from her hip halfway down her left thigh. When she’d seen herself in the dress with her makeup and her hair done (she’d given the hairdresser pictures of Audrey Hepburn from Roman Holiday), she’d felt as though she was looking at a stranger, that she was a fictional character, an impostor. She told herself it was a natural feeling, something every bride must feel, but she wasn’t sure. The feeling of disassociation had something to do with what had happened in California—Scottie, thank God, had not replied to her email—but it also had something to do with Bruce. Who was this rich, attentive man? And who was she, that she was marrying him? It wasn’t just that he was a stranger, it was that she sometimes felt like a stranger to herself as well. Like everything she was now doing to prepare for this wedding was happening automatically. She was going through the steps, almost like clockwork, and not unhappily. It just felt strange. Was she still an arty girl who went to the city to be a writer? Or was she a small-town girl like Zoe? She was neither, it appeared. She was about to be the wife of a very rich man. And that felt as bizarre to her as anything.