I study his face, the tired look in his eyes. Carefully, I say, “And … well, are you sorry?”
“Am I sorry?” He lets out a laugh. “I’ve been sorry as hell, Annabelle! Where have you been? This whole past year has been about me being sorry! It was one thing when the kids were little, not to mind everything I was missing out on. I loved what we were doing, I loved raising the kids—but there were times when I’d wake up and see you sleeping and I’d wonder if you were dreaming of him. And days when I’d be at work and I’d wonder if you were home calling him up. Or you’d get that dreamy, tragic look on your face sometimes and I’d want to know if you still wished he’d picked you over his wife and kids. Because a person never gets over thinking that sort of thing, you know, whether it gets talked about or not.”
“You have been so pissed at me, Grant. And I’ve known it and I couldn’t do anything about it. Why couldn’t we talk about it? Why did you have to make that rule and then stick to it, like it was handed down by God or something?”
“I made that pact with you for a good reason. Because I figured he was a resourceful son of a bitch, and if he came around again, I didn’t want to see him break your heart one more time.” He runs his hand through his hair and exhales loudly. “But now … well, now I can’t be the guardian of you. I never should’ve taken that on.”
“It was a stupid pact.”
“Yeah, well, it was my misguided idea of protecting you.”
“Quite misguided.”
“Okay, that’s enough about how bad it was. Okay? Let’s just say that mistakes were made. Twenty-eight years and plenty of mistakes were made. But here we still are, which is more than we can say for some people.”
“Like the Winstanleys.”
“That poor bastard. That woman—what’s her name? Pigeon?”
I laugh. “Padgett.”
“She’s leading him around by the ear. It’s pathetic. And she was telling the secretary of the department that when they get back from their trip, she’s going to get pregnant.”
“Are you … gossiping, Grant?”
“Well, I notice things,” he says. “I notice a lot more than I say.”
“When I come back home,” I say, “you may need to talk to me about the things you notice. Is that a deal you could make?”
“You mean, talk?” He grabs his chest, pretending a heart attack.
“I mean talk. And—what else? There ought to be some more things I’d like to get written in, as long as we’re reviewing the rules.”
“We’re reviewing the rules enough to know that there are no rules,” he says. “That’s just it. I have some things I’d like to get written in, too, if we were doing that sort of thing anymore. But we’re not.”
“What sort of things would you want?”
“Oh, that I get to coach the high school basketball team even though we don’t have a kid on it, and that you come to watch the games. And that if we’re not going to have sex on Wednesday mornings, that you help me make sure it happens, no matter how busy I get. And maybe that we don’t have to talk about every single thing the kids do. Or the neighbors, either, for that matter.”
“Okay. I could do that. But we have to talk, though.”
“I said we’d talk, didn’t I?”
“You have to think up topics. And you have to pay attention, as if you find me interesting.”
“I do find you interesting,” he says. “In fact, interesting is way too dull a word for how I find you. You fascinate me.”
“Well,” I say.
“I love you so much, Annabelle.” He looks at me for a long moment. “Let’s go to Sophie’s apartment,” he says, “and make love with every drop of energy we have left. Could we do that?”
“We do have the place to ourselves,” I say.
“Since we misbehaved and got kicked out of the hospital room. That was a stroke of genius on our part. Why didn’t we think of that technique years ago? Annoy the kids and then when they get sick of us, we run off and have sex.”
I laugh. “I think I’ve really missed you.”
“You think?”
“Well, I’ve been mad.”
“That could cloud your judgment, I suppose,” he says. He pushes his plate away. “How far away is it, do you think?”
“Sophie’s apartment? I think four blocks.”
“Okay, maybe I can just about make it. Five blocks, I’m not so sure. But four I can do.”
He calls for the check, and the waiter tries to engage us in a conversation about why we didn’t finish all our food, and what the weather’s been like, and how business is tough—but we don’t take the bait on any of it. Instead we stand at the front door, hanging on to each other, smiling and rolling our eyes, until we can manage to break free. And then, once we’re outside in the night, Manhattan puts on its best face: tall, lit-up buildings, cars moving steadily through the streets, people laughing and talking as they pass us on the sidewalk. The rain has stopped, and it’s beautiful outside—everything clean and wet.
“I’m so happy,” I tell Grant.
“Me, too. Can you believe we’re grandparents? You’re the most beautiful grandma ever.”
I kiss him, and we walk through the fragrant spring night, leaning against each other. I tell him again about the wild ride in the ambulance and the wild long talks in the middle of the night, and then I am talking too much, and I just want to close my eyes and take in this moment.
“Oh, God,” he says when we turn onto Sophie’s street. “Is that—?”
And it is. A man is coming toward us, loping along on the sidewalk, all arms and legs and bouncing steps.
“Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!” he says. “I didn’t think you’d ever get here! My phone’s out of battery, so I couldn’t call you, but I got a ride down with a guy from the college. He’s in a band. How’s the baby? How’s Sophie? Dad, listen. I know you’re pissed at me, and I’m so sorry. I’m really so sorry about school this semester, but I just couldn’t—there were a bunch of factors …”
Grant shakes his head and laughs, pulling the two of us toward him in a huge three-person hug. We stand on the sidewalk, all of us swaying for a moment. Nicky is still talking, and I peek and see that Grant has his eyes closed, and that he looks like a man who is going to have to wait just a bit longer for sex, but who can probably live with that. He squeezes my hand, and I squeeze his back in reply.
And then Nicky breaks the spell. “So this is great and all, but God, I’m starving.” He looks from one of us to the other. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Acknowledgments
FIRST, I want to offer my sincere gratitude (and apologies) to the people I trapped in my car and forced into listening to plot points and character attributes while I drove them around: Diane Cyr, Leslie Connor, Deb Hare, and Kim Steffen, as well as my kids, Benjamin, Allison, and Stephanie. Then there are those who patiently read drafts and offered valuable suggestions and encouragement that kept me going: Alice Mattison, Nancy Hall, Lily Hamrick, Nancy Antle, and Helen Myers. Lynn Thompson and Dr. Josh Copel told me what I needed to know about obstetrical problems.
The Starbucks Corporation provided soft armchairs, heat, and wonderful music while I wrote, as well as plenty of people to distract me with clever conversations when the going got rough. And when I needed a respite from all the clever conversations so I could, you know, really get some work done, the public library in my town reopened with their own armchairs, coffee and tea machines, and lots and lots of books to look at. I want to thank Judy Haggarty and Sandy Ruoff in particular for making the library such a restful, creative place to be.
Shaye Areheart and all her staff have been unfailingly helpful, but particularly Sarah Knight, my wonderful editor. Sarah Breivogel, Kira Walton, and Christine Kopprasch have all been splendid helpers, steering me through the ups and downs of publishing. Nancy Yost, my agent, watches out for me and holds my hand.
Mostly, I need to thank my husband, Jim—who cheers me on and let
s me act out and doesn’t seem to mind too much that some days I’m living in the world of my novel instead of the real world.
About the Author
MADDIE DAWSON lives in Connecticut. She is happily married.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Maddie Dawson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Shaye Areheart Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com
Shaye Areheart Books with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dawson, Maddie.
The stuff that never happened: a novel / Maddie Dawson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Married people—Fiction. 2. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 3. Cuckolds—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.A9795S78 2010
813′.6—dc22 2009035945
eISBN: 978-0-307-59235-4
v3.0
The Stuff That Never Happened Page 34
