Lady in Waiting: A Novel

by Susan Meissner

When I hesitated she laughed. “Really, Jane. What kind of person do you think I am? It’s yours, love. I am not going to fetch my solicitor to get it back from you. Besides I’ve already cashed your check. How old?”

  “Maybe the mid–fifteen hundreds.”

  Emma pulled the phone away from her mouth, and I heard a few choice words. She came back to me, almost breathless with astonishment. “You cheeky little girl! Inside the binding of a book! Do you always go looking for four-hundred-year-old rings in the bindings of books?”

  “Very funny. And it’s not official. I just had a friend of mine look at it. He says I need to take it to an expert to know for sure.”

  “I can’t believe you found a four-hundred-year-old ring in a box of dirt and junk! Can’t believe it!”

  “Maybe four hundred years old. And, Emma, it has my name etched inside.”

  “No …,” she whispered. “Truly?”

  “There’s a few Latin words, and then my name. Jane.”

  “You’re giving me the willies, Janie.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it?”

  “So you’re wonderin’ how much it’s worth?”

  “Yes. Well, sort of.”

  “What do you mean, sort of?”

  “I just …” But I didn’t finish the thought. I didn’t think Emma would understand the growing notion I had that the ring came to me in some quirky bend of Providence. Now. At this point in my life, when the wheels of my routine existence were grinding to a halt, leaving me to wonder what the heck I was supposed to do and if there really were choices that were mine to make.

  “I’d like to know as much as possible about it,” I finished. “My jeweler friend says it was likely given as a betrothal gift. I’d like to know who gave to whom.”

  Emma clucked her tongue. “That’s not the kind of answer you’re likely to find at a jumble sale, love. They call it a jumble for a reason.”

  “I know. But I have to start somewhere. Will you be heading back to Cardiff any time soon?”

  “I could maybe sneak in a trip. There’s a clothing consignment shop in Bristol I’ve been wanting to get to. Could maybe swing by Cardiff and see if I can find the man who sold it to me. He was just a scraggly old man, Jane. Maybe one tooth left in his mouth. He wasn’t a dealer, I can tell you that much.”

  “But you’ll try to find out who he is?”

  “I’ll go back to the empty lot. There’s a jumble sale there every Saturday in the spring and summer, I hear. Maybe he’s a regular. What do you want me to ask him if I find him?”

  “Ask him if I can call him. Tell him I just have a couple questions about where the boxes of books came from.”

  “All right, love. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Like as not, you’ll probably have to be content with just wondering.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So. Anything new on Brad?”

  “No. Nothing new.”

  “He’s still in New Hampshire?”

  I kept a sigh from escaping. “Yes.”

  “She probably lives up there, you know.”

  “What?”

  “The other woman. She probably lives up there.”

  Heat spread across my face. “There is no other woman.”

  “Oh, Jane, don’t be daft. Of course there is.”

  “He promised me there isn’t.”

  She paused. “Right. Have it your way, then. Hey. You should come see me, Jane. I’ll take you to my favorite singles’ pub.”

  “I’m not single.”

  “Right.”

  “Good-bye, Emma.”

  We hung up, and for the fourth time that day, I checked to see if Brad actually had tried to call me back and I missed it. But there was no missed call.

  I hadn’t missed anything.

  I rounded the corner to my street and headed up the cement steps to my apartment building, my thoughts in a tumble over Brad’s having been at Molly and Jeff’s this morning, and Brad asking them to get me to the airport to catch a flight he intended to pay for. Brad making sure I could get to New Hampshire next weekend. It almost seemed like Brad was orchestrating a meeting.

  I turned the key in the front door to my apartment and stepped inside, tossing my overnight bag onto the floor as I pushed the door closed behind me.

  Movement ahead of me on the couch startled me, and the back of my head bumped against the front door.

  Brad was standing there, waiting for me.

  Twenty-Two

  Hi, Jane.” Brad wore a soft pair of chinos and a creamy yellow polo shirt. In one hand he held a half-empty bottle of water. The other was tucked in his pants pocket. His face was tanned—from canoeing and track meets most likely—and his hair was longer than he’d ever worn it before.

  “Brad.” My voice sounded almost childlike. “Molly said you were heading back to New Hampshire.”

  “Oh. So you’ve been to Molly and Jeff’s already?”

  “I stopped off at their place on my way home from Long Island. She said you’d been by earlier today. That you were going to leave at two.”

  He hesitated, just for a moment. “I changed my mind. I decided to wait until after you got back, but I was beginning to think you’d decided to stay in Long Island another day.” He set the bottle down on the coffee table.

  “Sorry you had to wait,” I muttered, not knowing what else to say.

  “No, it’s okay. Did Molly tell you I’d like to help you get to Connor’s track meet next weekend? There’s a flight that gets into Manchester at ten thirty in the morning. I can … I can pick you up, if you want. We’ll be able to catch the first event if your plane’s on time. I know Connor would love to have you there.”

  “Yes. I mean, I’ve missed being there.”

  “So it’s okay with you if I make those arrangements?”

  “I guess so.”

  We stood there, in our living room, staring at each other as a couple of awkward seconds hung between us. Then he moved toward me and stretched out his hand. “Can I talk to you?”

  I tentatively reached out my own hand, and he wrapped his hand around it. His hand was warm. Brad folded his fingers around mine and pulled me toward the couch. He set me down, released my hand, and then took the armchair next to me, leaning forward on it like doctors do when they must deliver troubling news.

  I wanted to get up and run.

  He looked down at his shoes and then raised his head to look at me. “I’m really sorry I didn’t call you back last night.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t too.” I barely whispered it, but I knew he heard me.

  “I honestly didn’t know how to respond, Jane. I didn’t want to get into it on the phone, especially since you were at your parents’.”

  Something snapped—or maybe bent—inside me. He sounded so calm and confident, and I had felt so anxious and insecure. It made me angry. And afraid.

  “Get into what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The frustration, fueled by fear, mounted. “The fact that I miss you? That I don’t know how I am supposed to be working out the problems you think we have in our marriage when you aren’t even here? You didn’t want to get into that?”

  “Jane.”

  “I mean, really, Brad. I spend my days waiting to hear from you, waiting to see what it is you want, waiting to see if you still want to be married to me. Is that what you didn’t want to get into on the phone?”

  He looked away, toward the hallway and our bedroom. “I didn’t know what you wanted me to say.”

  “You didn’t call me back last night because you didn’t know what I wanted you to say?”

  “You said you felt lonely. What was I supposed to say to that, Jane? ‘Sorry for making you feel lonely’? Is that what you wanted me to say?”

  The mix of disappointment and fear swirled inside me, gaining density like egg whites becoming meringue. A tiny part of me wanted to hurt him. “I wanted you to say you miss me too. Don’t you? Don’t you miss me at all?”r />
  Brad turned back to me. “Sometimes. Yes.”

  I flinched as if he’d poked me with a stick. “Sometimes?”

  “I don’t miss the way things were between us, Jane. I don’t miss that.”

  I could feel my eyes growing warm and moist. Brad’s brutal honesty after weeks of polite silence stung. “Why didn’t you say anything? If you were unhappy, why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve gone in for counseling.”

  “I didn’t … I didn’t know I was unhappy. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to go in for counseling.”

  His answer stunned me. “Why?”

  “Because I just didn’t know if I wanted to fix it.”

  He said it like he saw shattered bones in an x-ray and had absolutely no desire to see them mended. None.

  “How can you just give up?” It was out of my mouth before I realized this is exactly what my mother said to me the morning before, when Leslie and I left to go shopping and I told her she had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I never said I was giving up. I said we needed some space. When I left, I didn’t have the energy or motivation to try to fix anything. I’m not saying I never will.”

  Hurt welled up within me. I lowered my head into my hands. “What makes you think I have the energy to live alone here, to come home every night to an empty apartment? What makes you think I have the motivation to keep hoping and praying and waiting to see if you will come back to me?”

  Brad said nothing.

  “What about what I want? What about how I feel about all this?” I lifted my head to face him. “I gave you your space. I’ve let you alone. I’ve not been on your case. I did everything you asked of me!”

  My chest was heaving, and the tears were falling freely.

  “I know this isn’t just about me.” His voice was a whisper.

  Brad looked away again, toward the gauzy curtains quivering at our open patio doors. He didn’t answer.

  I came to him and dropped to my knees. “Do you still love me?”

  He took his time answering me. “I love the idea of us. I love the idea of marriage, of growing old with someone who completes me, of sharing my life with someone who is my soul mate. I love the idea of that.”

  “But you don’t love me?”

  He turned back from gazing at the curtains. “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “I know you think you do, Jane. But what if maybe you also just love the idea of marriage, just like I do? You love the idea of growing old with someone who completes you. You love the idea.”

  “I love you, Brad.”

  He looked into my eyes as if waiting to catch me in a lie.

  I told him again that I loved him.

  He inhaled deeply, looked away for a second, and then turned back. “I heard you, Jane. I heard you and Leslie talking at your parents’ anniversary party last year. I heard what you said.”

  “What?”

  “I heard you. In the kitchen. When you thought you two were alone. I heard you.”

  The air around us seemed to stiffen and pucker. Color rose to my cheeks as mentally I placed myself back at my parents’ fiftieth anniversary party. Leslie and I were making punch in the kitchen. She was teasing me for wishing I had married Kyle instead of Brad, reminding me that at my bridal shower I confessed I thought I might be marrying the wrong man.

  Oh, God.

  Perhaps I said God’s name out loud. It was as much a prayer for divine assistance as I have ever prayed.

  “I heard you.”

  “It was nothing!” I whispered. “Just silly talk!”

  “Was it? Was it really? After all our years together, don’t we deserve to be honest with each other?”

  “I didn’t mean it,” I whimpered.

  “Think about it, Jane. We married each other because it made sense. Your parents, my mother, they were the ones who pushed us to get engaged. I let them because I didn’t like dating, and you let them because you didn’t like being alone. And we wanted the same things. A loyal spouse, a good home, children, security, friendship, companionship, physical intimacy. We got what we wanted. We got what other people wanted for us.”

  “You have never loved me?” I could barely eke out the words. They fell off my tongue like splinters.

  He paused before answering. “That’s not what I said. And I care for you very much. You are a wonderful mother and a kind, compassionate person. But I’m just not sure about anything else. And I think you have the same doubts I do. You always have.”

  I slumped down onto the couch, dizzy. “How long have you had doubts?” I asked him.

  “How long have you?”

  He said it gently. He had said everything gently.

  “It started before your parents’ party, didn’t it?” he continued. “Long before then. Jane, I’ve been struggling with the same questions.”

  I was drained of energy, of reason. As much as I wanted him to stay, I wanted him to go.

  “Look, I didn’t come here to tell you all this,” he said. “Really, I didn’t. I waited for you to get back from your parents’ because I felt I owed you an apology for not calling you last night. And I wanted to make sure that you can come to Connor’s meet next weekend. You were right. Our separation has affected him. He needs to see us together. He needs to see that when it comes to him, we aren’t divided. You … you will still let me pick you up at the airport on Saturday morning, right?”

  I nodded, numb.

  Brad stood, hesitated, and then reached for his water bottle. “I need to head back.”

  Again, I nodded.

  He leaned over me and kissed my forehead. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hold him. I shut my eyes as his lips touched my skin. The sensation was tender. And brutal.

  He stepped back, and though my eyes were still closed, I could tell he was staring at me.

  “Will you be all right?”

  “A little late for compassion,” I whispered, but this time he did not hear me.

  “Jane?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Again, Brad paused. “You’ll think about what I said?”

  I opened my eyes. “Does it matter what I think?”

  “It has always mattered.” He turned then, walked to our front door, and opened it. Brad was gone with a quiet click.

  His water bottle had left a ring of condensation on the coffee table. I ran my fingers gently through the wetness, marring the perfect, glistening circle.

  Twenty-Three

  A light rain was falling Monday morning as I walked down Amsterdam. My raincoat flapped open every time a car drove past me, inviting a spattering shower to christen my ankles. I held my umbrella with my right hand, and in the curl of my fist, Jane’s ring glimmered in the falling wetness on my pinkie. Even in the drizzle of a late April shower, the ring begged to be noticed, sparkling, even though there was no sun. In my other hand, I carried an insulated mug of Kona coffee. I made it extra strong that morning.

  I stayed up late talking to Leslie, and then, of course, slept poorly.

  Leslie said there had to be some truth in what Brad said. About me. About me having doubts about the reasons Brad and I married in the first place.

  “If he really did hear the whole punch-bowl conversation, then he heard enough to know you can’t possibly be as surprised as you say you are that this is happening,” Leslie had said ten minutes into our phone conversation.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Jane. He heard you say you sometimes wonder why you two ever got married. He heard you say you wonder that if you had stood up to Mom and Dad, if you might’ve married Kyle instead.”

  “But you’re the one who brought it up! I was just scooping sherbet into the punch bowl! You brought it up.”

  “And you’re the one who didn’t deny it.”

  “For heaven’s sake. It was just one stupid comment in an unplanned conversation. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Brad th
inks you did. I actually think you did.”

  “Leslie!” I’d been incredulous. It wasn’t like I had been waiting to get Leslie alone at that party so I could tell her how mixed up I was feeling about my marriage. It was a comment made off the cuff.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Brad’s right.”

  “What do you mean, Brad’s right?”

  “You have doubts, but you pretend you don’t.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who walked out.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not talking about what he did, Jane. We’re talking about you.”

  “You think I have doubts that I married the right man?” I challenged her.

  “Noooo,” she said slowly, casually. “I think you love Brad, but maybe you just don’t know why. For the longest time, you haven’t had to know why, but now you do.”

  Her words somersaulted in my head long after we’d said good-bye. Yet I still went to bed as keenly aware of Brad’s absence as I had been since the first night he left. I woke up five or six times to the sensation of falling, of reaching for the safety of strong arms and finding an empty pillow.

  I sipped my coffee as I walked the last few yards to my shop. Wilson was waiting for me under the lavender and white awning, watching the rain fall.

  I wore the ring every day to work that week. Wilson and Stacy both asked me several times, as the week wore on, if I’d heard anything from Emma about the ring’s origin, their interest growing steadily after I’d shared David Longmont’s assessment of the ring’s age.

  Wilson had whistled when I told him. “Well, that would make it a fairly expensive ring, wouldn’t it?”

  I’d simply nodded.

  “So are you going to sell it?” Stacy asked.

  “Well, actually, I want to see if I can figure out where it came from and perhaps who it belonged to. Dumb idea, huh?”

  “Not at all,” Wilson had said. “It would be different perhaps if the name inside were Beatrice or Katherine. But it’s your name.”

  And then I shared David’s other assessment, that the ring showed no sign it had been worn. Neither Wilson nor Stacy jumped to venture a guess as to why not. We all seemed to speculate it could not have been for happy reasons.