“I told my boss not to expect me back until next week sometime,” he said. “So you can have me for as long or as little as you like.” His brown eyes were gauging her reaction.
“Oh, good!” she said, sidling up to kiss him on the cheek. “That means I can put you to work.” But the truth was there really wasn’t that much more work to be done on the house. Her ruthless efficiency over the past two weeks and Everett’s completion of the basement had ticked the majority of the boxes on her to-do list. And though Ben was a hard worker, he was also the kind of person who tended to inadvertently create a lot of work. Melanie envisioned bath towels left on the floor, dishes piled next to the sink, and gardening tools abandoned in the dirt. Ben and Kelsey were two peas in a pod when it came to their tidying-up habits.
“Please do,” he said, letting out a lion-sized yawn. “But first thing tomorrow. My body is still on East Coast time. Where are we sleeping?”
“I don’t know,” Melanie whispered as they mounted the stairs. “Kelsey’s got the only room with a queen-size bed. The others have twins, and they’re both super narrow.” She showed him her room then the small room that Kelsey should have been sleeping in. “We could try to squish into one just for the night, or we could attempt to move the beds and push them together.”
“Nah. I’ll be fine in here for the night.” Ben stooped down to plug his cell phone charger into an outlet.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have a lot of panicked texts and voicemails from me.”
“I wondered about that. Sorry for freaking you out.” He sat down on the bed and slid off his khaki shorts, revealing a pair of blue plaid boxers. “It’s warm in here. I was going to ask you to tuck me in, but now I’m thinking I might sleep on top of the covers.”
Melanie glanced over her shoulder to make sure the door was shut. She wished it had a lock. “Are you sure you don’t want me to tuck you in?” She lifted her camisole over her head and let it drop to the floor.
“Well, when you put it that way,” Ben said. “Come over here, you.”
She straddled his lap to kiss him, and he lightly massaged her shoulders and breasts. Her neurons were firing with his every touch—happy little fireworks exploding just beneath her skin. She pulled his T-shirt off and was taken aback by how wiry and thin he looked, as though all the running he’d been doing had pared him down to something gravely fundamental. He had no soft flesh around his belly anymore. Instead his chest and abdomen seemed almost hollowed out. Oh, Ben, she thought and pressed herself against him, wanting to absorb all the unspoken sadness and pain in his body. We’re both trying to run from our grief, aren’t we?
That was the click she had been trying and failing to explain to Kelsey—not just the physical intimacy, which was awfully nice, of course, but the fact that Ben had shown up uninvited, on the spur of the moment, because he knew her better than she knew herself. He had asked her over and over if she wanted him to come visit, and each time, she had said, “No, I’m fine, thanks,” when what she should have been saying was, Yes, yes, yes, I need you. She needed his strong hands and his boyish sense of humor and his hopeful, panoramic worldview to break her out of her horse-in-blinders approach.
Nibbling on his earlobe, she tugged at the waistband of his boxer shorts. He seemed a little slow to oblige her, though. Instead of raising his hips to immediately remove them, he held her tighter, his lips against the hollow of her throat.
“Are you done bleeding?” he asked so quietly, she hoped that she had misheard him.
She stiffened involuntarily as her thoughts returned to the bloody water and the tight clench of her abdomen. “Yes, of course,” she said. “It’s been a month.”
“And have you... did you have a period since then?” His words were still so quiet, as if by speaking them softly, their impact would land more gently.
She pulled away so she could look him in the eye. “Ben. I’m not bleeding. What’s going on?”
He was gauging her again. It was annoying to be watched like that, like she was a tiger he suspected might pounce on him. Then she understood. It wasn’t just the recovery of her body after the miscarriage he was asking about. He was trying to find out where she was in her cycle to determine if there was even a miniscule chance of their conceiving—so he could avoid it.
“Melanie.” He touched her cheek, but she barely felt it. “I told you I wanted to take a short break.”
“I didn’t know you meant six months of abstinence!” She twisted off his lap and stood up. He didn’t try to stop her.
“You know that’s not what I mean. But you remember how Dr. Maroney said it might be a good idea to wait for a cycle or two for emotional reasons? Since it’s still so early, I just wondered if we should maybe use something.”
“Use something? Like a condom? You’ve got to be kidding me.” She snatched her pajama top off the floor. “I’m not taking the drugs right now, and we both know there’s no hope of me getting pregnant without them. When you advocated taking this break, I thought you meant you didn’t want to actively try, with the Letrozole and the ovulation calendar and the scheduled sex and all of the pressure. I didn’t know you meant you wanted to actively try to prevent us from getting pregnant.”
“Of course I don’t. I’m sorry I said anything. Can you just come back here and sit by me?” He smoothed the rumpled pink-and-purple quilt. “You’re right. I was breaking my own rules by bringing all this stuff back up. I should’ve just let it happen naturally for once. But I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”
She sat down beside him. “I think we’re in totally different books.”
“Maybe so.” He reached across the empty space between them and held her hand. “But we won’t always be. Now about that tucking in. Are you going to take your top off for me again?”
“I think that ship has sailed.” She was pretty sure he wasn’t being serious, anyway, and was only trying to help her save face.
She kissed him good night and headed back to her room, thinking how strange and utterly symbolic it was for her husband to be there with her at last but sleeping in another bed. She tried to regain the feeling she had had as their bare skin touched and their lips met, that he was her better half, her truer half, that he intuitively understood things deep down inside of her that even she couldn’t fully fathom. But mostly she just felt rejected.
Stop being so sensitive, she scolded herself. He drove nine hours to be here with you. He brought a truck so he could haul the table that you mentioned you really wanted to keep.
She slid her hands under the pillow into the cool spot. The problem wasn’t with him. He was the same unfailingly thoughtful man she had married. Even if his efforts were misguided, a part of her realized that he was doing his best to support her and try to keep their marriage afloat. She was the one who had changed, or more accurately, she was the one who was broken.
She kicked off the sheets and stood up. Inside the closet, the books, the lighter, the cigarettes, and the cardigan were all still positioned just as she had left them. But a plain white envelope was lying there, too, and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. She plucked it off the bench and saw it was sealed. Pressing it to her chest, she carried it back out to the bedroom.
Why are there no names on it? Is it not intended for us, and is this some kind of test to see how trustworthy we are? Or did Mom simply assume we would know it was for us because, really, who else is she corresponding with inside the time portal? Melanie wondered if she should wait to read it until Kelsey was awake. She lay back down, set the envelope against her pillow, and tapped it a few times against her cheek.
She slipped her nail under the envelope’s flap and tore along the edge.
Dear Girls,
I would be lying if I said I had hoped you would one day discover the room behind the tapestry. I have been sincerely praying you never would. I just want so much to protect you, and I can’t help being worried about what consequences your visits might have on your lives. Also, t
ruth be told, I am unnerved by the thought of what you might witness and how it might alter your opinion of me. But I understand how strong the temptation to dabble in the past is because, as you can see, I have succumbed to it too.
Just remember, the past is unchangeable, and the future is always just out of your reach. Only the present is truly worth giving your full time and attention to. Take it from someone who knows. Right now, in my present, Melanie, you are eight and love helping me weed and water the flower beds, and Kelsey, you are six and keep begging us to let you wear Dad’s headlamp to bed so you can stay up reading Berenstain Bears books.
Love,
Mom
P.S. You don’t have to answer this, but I can’t help wondering why you wrote me a letter instead of talking to me about this in the present. Exactly how far in the future are you two?
She refolded the yellow paper and stuffed it back into the envelope. Her mom had finally asked the question Melanie had been most dreading. To locate themselves in time and age would be to acknowledge that Christine was no longer alive and well. Does she already suspect her fate? Something about her careful wording and the way she’d cautioned them that they didn’t have to answer made Melanie wonder. The slim envelope sat like a stone on her chest.
Would it be better for Mom to know the truth, even if there’s no certain way to prevent her death? A pulmonary embolism was not an easy thing to fix—who knew when the errant blood clot had formed, and why? Knowing might lead her to live her life more fully, treating each day as a precious gift, or it might have the opposite effect on her and cast a pall over the rest of her time with her friends and family. Melanie wasn’t sure which would happen, and she desperately didn’t want to play God and be the one to make such a dicey call. There is no way we can tell Mom the truth, she thought adamantly. Absolutely no way.
Chapter Twenty
“I can’t believe he’s still going strong,” Kelsey said, pulling Sprocket’s leash taut as a car passed them. “This has got to be the longest jog I’ve ever taken him on.” She and Ben were almost halfway around the lake, approaching Harris Beach.
“It must be those turkey sausage links Melanie fed him,” Ben said.
“You know, she thinks she’s being so sneaky, but I see her every time she slips him something. I should probably tell her I don’t care if she gives him table scraps occasionally, but I think she gets a bigger kick out of it this way.”
Ben nodded, laughing. “To be fair, I can’t believe that you’re still going strong,” he teased. “I thought you were more of a swimmer than a runner.”
“I am,” she said. “But I’ve been working so much lately, I take my exercise where I can get it. Just don’t let me hold you back, okay? You won’t hurt my feelings if you want to run ahead. I know I’m slower than a three-legged turtle.”
“No, you’re not. And even if you were, I wouldn’t mind. I like the company. Melanie never wants to come on runs with me.” He mopped at the beads of sweat trickling down his face with his sleeve.
When Melanie had left for the grocery store that afternoon, insisting she’d be faster on her own, Kelsey and Ben had been at a loss for how to occupy themselves. Feeling like a third wheel since her brother-in-law had arrived, Kelsey had considered heading home early, but then Ben had asked if she’d be willing to show him around. So she’d given him the “official” tour of the house, the yard, and the dock, then he’d asked if she wanted to join him for a short run. Ben loved hearing stories about their childhood summers, especially the ones that involved Melanie doing something embarrassing, like the time she flipped out of her inner tube and got a thong-like wedgie for everyone to see while tubing with the Fletchers. Kelsey was all too happy to comply, although she was starting to get breathless from all the talking while running.
The houses along Lake Indigo were an eclectic jumble: Craftsman bungalows, Tudors, Cape Cods, a smattering of contemporary-style homes, and a few Victorians similar to theirs. Most had immaculately kept lawns and landscaping, but it looked like some of them hadn’t gotten the memo.
Every so often they caught glimpses of the lake between the houses, little slices of a wider vista, and it was like a breathtaking surprise each time. Yes, well, hello there, lovely lake. There you are again. It was as purple as the skin of an eggplant, as alive and shiny as the wings of a butterfly. I love it here so much, Kelsey thought. Her soul felt happier at the lake than it felt anywhere else. How did I not realize this for the last fifteen years? Or is this something entirely new?
As they rounded a corner, a particularly cheerful bungalow came into view. Yellow with blue porch steps and a red front door, the house was one Kelsey had never noticed before. Because of its high position nestled among the trees, she doubted it was visible from the lake. As they ran closer, she spotted a small sign posted on the front lawn—Namaste Yoga Studio.
“Hey, look at this,” she said, pointing.
“I’m not really that flexible,” Ben said. “I can’t even touch my toes. You and Melanie could check it out, though.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, swatting at his shoulder. “It’s a home studio. Do you think it’s legit? Like they applied for a business license and got permission from the city? Or do you think they’re operating under the radar?”
“I don’t know.” He lifted his sunglasses to better inspect the house then cocked his head to study her. “Why?”
“Just wondering how these houses are zoned, if they’re considered strictly residential or if they’re open to small businesses like, say, for example, a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Just wondering, huh?” Ben grinned. “Well, if I were you, I’d start doing some serious reconnaissance like yesterday. Especially since the open house is only a few days away and you guys already have one potential buyer. You’d need to totally change course. Have you talked to Mel about this?”
Kelsey swallowed. Oh no. For a minute there, she’d forgotten she was talking to the husband of the enemy. But he was right. Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags’ showing had been rescheduled for later that week. Why am I even still toying with this idea? It’s a lost cause.
“No, huh? I can see why. She can be such a steamroller when she gets her mind set on something, can’t she?”
They turned onto the county road, which was busier with a speed limit of fifty-five, and Ben maneuvered to the outside so she and Sprocket could jog on the shoulder.
“A bed-and-breakfast, you say? So what would you call it?”
“The Montclare Inn,” Kelsey replied without hesitation. She had been up brainstorming in bed a few nights ago—the Tapestry House, the Victorian Bed-and-Breakfast, the Inn at Lake Indigo—but when the Montclare Inn popped into her brain, she knew it was the one. “After my mom’s family.”
“Oh, I like that. I would totally stay at the Montclare Inn.”
A car beeped at them, and they scooted over farther onto the side of the road. Sprocket gave a put-upon bark.
“Hey, guys!” Melanie called out the passenger-side window. She slowed to a crawl and waved. “Fancy seeing you here! Want a lift?”
Speak of the devil. It was like she had a sixth sense for rooting out topics Kelsey really didn’t want to broach with her.
Sprocket barked again, that time in recognition. His tail thumped back and forth excitedly. He still seemed to have energy, so Kelsey thought he was okay to finish their run, but she didn’t want to speak for Ben. Model husband that he was, he probably wanted to help unload the groceries. Kelsey was hopeful he would turn Melanie down, though, because she had planned to extract a promise of secrecy from him first.
“We’ve run nearly around the entire lake, so I’d feel like a cheat if we quit now,” Ben said. “What do you think, Kelsey?”
“I think we should keep going too,” she said. “Thanks, though. We’ll be home soon.”
Melanie’s face fell, but she recovered quickly with a bright smile. “Sure thing. See you guys soon!” She signaled and pulled away.
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They were on the stretch of road that Kelsey was most familiar with. The trees arced over the road, forming a dense canopy and cool, lovely shade, and the houses were set back far, close to the lake, down long, winding drives. As a child, she had imagined the road was a magical tunnel leading to a secret world of fairies. If they just kept going and reached the opening at the very end, she knew they would meet the fairies, but they never did, because her parents always turned the station wagon into their driveway before that. Now she knew the tunnel of trees was indeed magical, but it led to something better than fairies.
“Please don’t tell Melanie about the B and B,” Kelsey said. “Just forget I even said anything. It’s a stupid idea, and I’m sure I could never make it work, anyway. I don’t want to get her all riled up for no reason.”
“I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to. But I think you should. This is just as much your house as hers. If you have other ideas for what to do with it, you need to speak up. Mel might not like it at first, because she’s so focused on selling as the only way to go, but she would at least want to hear it. And personally, I think it’s a kickass plan. A bed-and-breakfast here would really clean up.”
They were almost home.
“Ben...” Kelsey said as they started up the long gravel driveway. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about the loss of your baby.” She wanted to convey oceans more to him, but she didn’t know how to express it. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re going to make a great dad one day.”
“Thanks, Kelsey,” he said with a ghost of a smile. His eyes were inscrutable behind his reflective sunglasses, but his posture suddenly looked defeated, his arms dangling at his sides, his back stooped—exhausted. “I hope you’re right.”
RAINY DAYS AT GREEN Valley were the worst. Both the pets and the humans were restless from being cooped up, and everything smelled like wet dog. The forecast called for a forty percent chance of thunderstorms, which Kelsey hoped would miss their area because she didn’t want to think of poor Sprocket whimpering and cowering alone at home. She wished she were home with him instead, drafting a reply to her mom’s newest letter. It would likely be the last one she would ever have the opportunity to write.
Versions of Her Page 24
