“You’re leaving me, aren’t you?” His words had hung there in the dark for long seconds. “You’re taking the boys and not coming back.”
The words dropped and crushed her. She was speechless. Not that it hadn’t occurred to her that this was where their marriage might be heading. A separation. But she’d worried it would be Oliver leaving her.
“Your silence answers my question.”
She had rolled to face him but he stubbornly remained on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Angie’s wedding quilt covered his chest.
“I’m not leaving you. Unless you want me to leave.”
“That’s why your parents were here last month. To talk you into leaving me. Is that what you had to give up to get your trust fund back? Me?”
“What? I don’t even know yet whether my father is going to do that. My mother said she’d talk to him, that’s all.”
She had ached to roll closer to him, to wrap her arms around his body the way she had done hundreds—maybe thousands—of times before. So many times, even a person without a head injury wouldn’t remember them all. But her body remembered. Oliver’s body was one that pulled people from fires, rescued cats from trees, taught kids how to stop-drop-and-roll. But it was a body that seemed unable to save their relationship now.
“The only reason I’m taking the boys to New York is because they have the rest of the week off from school.” She rolled onto her back again. “I wish I knew what I need to say to convince you that I didn’t have an affair.”
“And I wish I could get past the fact that your first memory after four months of being in a coma was of another man.”
“That’s it? That’s why you think I cheated on you?”
“That, combined with the other things. You meeting him for coffee. Shadowing him at the high school. Him arranging for you to receive mail after he was gone. That’s not normal, Serena.”
Tears stung her eyes, and she closed them for a moment. She was determined not to cry. She was not going to bring tears into the equation. When she felt sufficiently under control, she spoke again.
“I’m sorry, Ollie. I don’t know why I remembered Ben Wardman first. I don’t have an answer for that.” She pushed herself up onto her elbow. She wanted to look at him when she said this. She reached her fingers toward him.
“Don’t touch me.”
She pulled her hand back, as if she’d been burned. Maybe going to New York wasn’t just for the boys. She needed a break from this, from Oliver’s mood swings. Some days, everything seemed fine. Then the next, he acted like he couldn’t stand to be around her. She’d thought the wedding was a turning point, that he was just stressed over the prospect of an important family event happening without his mother there to witness it. They had slow danced together, made love that night after the boys finally came down from their excitement and fell asleep.
She thought wrong, though. If anything, Ollie was even moodier since Jack and Becca’s wedding. She inched closer to him. She wouldn’t touch him if he didn’t want to be touched, but he was going to hear her out.
“But you want to know why you weren’t my first memory?” She paused, and waited. After a moment, his eyes darted over to her. She locked her gaze hard onto his. “Because I never forgot you, Ollie. I forgot Ben. I forgot Ashley. Hell, I even forgot my own kids.” She took a deep breath, even more determined not to cry in front of him. “But I never forgot you. You were the first thing I thought of when I woke up.”
“Wish I could believe that.”
She sat bolt upright. “I wish you could believe it, too! I wish you’d believe me for once—your wife—instead of everyone else!”
She stood and yanked the wedding quilt off the bed. Oliver yanked back for a second, then let go. She dragged it down the stairs and spent the night on the basement sofa.
Oliver had sullenly waved them off that morning. In retrospect, it wasn’t even much of an argument. Oliver had his position and he wasn’t budging. Last night was the first time that the idea of anyone leaving had been broached, and it stung. She loved Oliver. She could remember that love. There was plenty she still couldn’t recall, but she could remember how much she loved Oliver Wolfe. Her husband. Father of her sons. Lover. It was like muscle memory. She didn’t have to think about that love. It was just there.
But she wasn’t sure Oliver’s muscles were still feeling it.
She leaned her forehead against the coolness of the window. Maybe he was right. Oliver usually was. He was a smart guy. Quiet, but he noticed everything. He picked up on things other people would never notice. Maybe she did have an affair. All these years, she had worried about becoming her mother. But maybe she had become her father, instead. She had to be honest—she wasn’t happy with the way her life was right now. That’s why she wanted to go back to school and get a teaching certification.
“And what if there are no openings in St. Caroline? What then?” Oliver had pointed out last week.
“Eventually there will be some openings.”
“And what if they fill those openings with someone else?”
What then? That was a valid question. What if she invested the time and spent the money—which was no small amount—and then couldn’t get a job?
If only Angie were still here. She could talk this out with her. She was headed to her hometown, but her own mother would be of no use on something like this.
She shook her head. And Ollie thought his mother was talking to him. At least I got an actual letter from beyond the grave. That wasn’t my imagination.
What would Angie say in this situation? Probably that there was no knowing the future. Or something like that. It struck Serena as so obviously, sadly, true. She had no idea whether she’d land a teaching job someday. She just had to trust in herself and put herself in a position where it was possible.
She looked across at Mason and Cam, their hands pressed up against the window, intent on not missing a single thing flying by at sixty miles an hour. The pain in her heart was sharp and severe. Would their parents still be married a year from now? She wanted to trust in love, trust the vows they had made to each other. But it was getting harder and harder to muster. She trusted herself that she did not cheat on her husband—she just didn’t have any way of knowing whether or not that was true.
The landscape outside the train disappeared suddenly as they entered another tunnel. The boys peeled off the window and looked across at her with slightly crazed eyes.
“Having fun yet?” she joked.
Before they could answer, a voice sounded overhead. “Penn Station. Now arriving at Penn Station.”
“We’re here.”
“In New York? Already?” Mason looked skeptical.
She laughed. “Already? We’ve been on the train for hours.”
Chapter 34
The cab ride from the train station to the Upper East Side illustrated the difference between her two sons perfectly. Mason had his nose practically pressed to the cab’s window, straining to look up at block after block of skyscrapers. Cam, on the other hand, was white-knuckling it as the cab swerved in and out of traffic, hitting the brakes, then accelerating between stoplights. Serena put her arm around her younger son’s shoulders, hoping her touch would relax his tense muscles.
It didn’t seem to help, but soon enough the cab pulled up to her parents’ building. She paid the fare and managed to get both boys and their suitcases onto the sidewalk without incident.
“Well, guys, this is where I grew up.” The three of them looked up at the stately limestone mansion, the brass trim on the double front doors gleaming in the mid-afternoon sun. Her parents’ home looked both utterly familiar and utterly strange at the same time. After not seeing it for years, the building looked over the top to her—the ornately carved stone above the door that echoed the brass trim, the huge patinaed lamps, the five stories of grey limestone stretching up toward the sky.
Five stories. What did we do with all that space? She knew the answer to that, sadly. We
did nothing with most of it. The formal rooms got used when her parents entertained. She and her brother rarely went into those rooms.
“Mom, this isn’t a house.” Cam said.
“Well ...” She searched her brain for the right way to explain things. I should have maybe prepared them more for this. “It’s not like a house you’d see in St. Caroline.”
“Where’s the yard?” Mason wrinkled his nose, and tried to peer through the narrow space separating her parents’ home from its neighbors.
“Well, it doesn’t have a yard, exactly. There’s a courtyard in the back.”
“With a playset?”
“I don’t think so, sweetie,” she answered Cam’s question. “But there are lots of other fun things to do in New York.” She texted her mother to let her know they were outside, then hoisted one of the suitcases up the four wide steps to the door. Just as she was about to go back to the sidewalk for the other suitcase, the doors opened.
“Miss Serena!”
She looked up to see Mr. Delacroix, the Irving family’s long-time butler, standing in the doorway.
“Let me,” he said.
He hurried past her and the open-mouthed boys to retrieve the second suitcase. Then he picked up the first one and carried them both inside.
“Mason! Cam!”
Her mother appeared in the doorway. She was impeccably dressed, as usual. Cream-colored slacks, brown suede boots in a low heel, and a silk blouse in a pale shade of tan or grey or blue. It was a completely impractical outfit for most people. But then, Georgia Irving was not “most people.”
“How was the train?” she asked the boys, taking their hands to lead them inside. Cam looked back at Serena, the expression on his face saying that he still wasn’t a hundred percent certain this was a real house.
Just wait until they see—
“Whoa.”
The boys stopped cold in the foyer, their brains unable to process everything they were seeing. Just as Serena expected. The intricately tiled floor. The giant fireplace along one wall, with its elaborate marble mantel. The wide, sweeping staircase, also marble, that gently curved up to the second floor. In the corner stood a round table topped with a giant arrangement of fresh flowers. Even in the dead of winter, there were always fresh flowers there.
Mason turned back to look at his mother, in curiosity and wonderment. “You grew up here?”
She nodded. Well, here and at boarding school. But that was a concept to explain another time. She had the feeling that Cam would be quite alarmed at the news that some kids go away to attend school. She and the boys followed her mother up the staircase to the large kitchen and casual dining room.
“Anyone hungry?” her mother asked.
Serena knew the boys were. They had wolfed down the snacks she packed for the train ride. She led them over to the table, set with platters of chicken fingers, french fries, and crudités. Bowls filled with dipping sauces were artfully arranged between the platters.
“Thank you,” she mouthed to her mother as the boys seated themselves. Serena was pretty certain that chicken fingers had never darkened the doorway of this house until today.The boys watched, befuddled, as the housekeeper brought out glasses of lemonade for everyone. Serena could almost see the gears turning in their heads. Who is that? She dipped a chicken finger into the bowl of barbeque sauce and popped it into her mouth. There was so much she would have to explain to the boys later.
“These are good, mom.” She dipped another one into honey mustard dipping sauce. She waved at the boys to follow suit.
“They’re delicious,” Mason added.
Serena smiled. The boys seemed to intuitively understand that a house like this required their best behavior. She scanned the kitchen.
“Are those new cabinets?”
Her mother’s face lit up. “Yes! They are. Aren’t they lovely?”
“Gorgeous.” Truth be told, they looked as lovely as the old cabinets. Her mother had traded in white cabinets for a soft grey, but otherwise the styling and hardware looked the same.
Georgia sat down across from the boys. “For dinner, we’re going to the Chinese restaurant that was your mom’s favorite restaurant when she was a little girl.”
“That’s still around?”
“It is. Same ownership, even. Your father made reservations this morning.”
Color me impressed. Her father made the reservations. Maybe her mother was right—a brush with mortality can change a person’s outlook on life.
“We haven’t had Chinese food in a long time,” Mason offered solemnly.
“Oh? Why not?” Georgia inquired.
“The Chinese restaurant at home closed.”
“It did?” Serena asked. She couldn’t recall there ever being a Chinese restaurant in St. Caroline. “When?”
“Last summ—” Cam started to answer, then—realizing that his mouth was full—stopped.
“Last summer?” Serena finished his statement.
“Right after your accident, mom,” Mason explained.
“Ahh. Well then, this will be a treat for all of us.” The idea of Chinese food hadn’t crossed her mind in—well, she couldn’t remember how long, obviously—but now a craving was starting to build.
“But before then,” Georgia said. “I have another treat for you.”
Uh oh. Serena was beginning to worry that the boys were going to get used to all-you-can-eat ice cream and other sweets. Oliver would not be happy about that. On the other hand … Oliver’s not here.
“We have a pool now.”
“You do? Since when? On the roof?”
Georgia shook her head. “In the basement. The doctor told your father he needed to get more exercise and at his age, swimming is easier on the joints.”
“Oh. That must have been quite the renovation project.”
Georgia smiled wryly. “It was a bit of a disruption for awhile there. But it’s all ready now. Do you boys like to swim?”
Serena watched with dismay as their faces lit up. “Um, I didn’t bring swimsuits.” It was early May—she wasn’t thinking about swimming yet.
“No problem. I had some sent over from Bloomies.”
“There’s a pool here in the house?” Mason’s voice was drenched in amazement.
“Is this a house?” Cam was evidently still not convinced.
Her mother’s laugh burst forth like she was … happy. Serena tried to remember how often she had ever seen her mother truly happy. Not often enough. Mason and Cam had the magic touch.
When the boys finished their chicken and fries, Serena took them up to her brother’s old bedroom to change into the swimsuits. In the elevator, the boys’ conversation ping-ponged between just the mere fact of an elevator in a house and the sheer awesomeness of a pool in the basement.
“How many people will be at the pool?” Cam asked, pulling his sweater over his head and tossing it onto the bed.
“Well, you and Mason. Me.”
“That’s it?” Cam looked dubiously at the swim trunks the personal shopper had chosen. They sported skinny orange and blue stripes. Mason’s were purple and green.
“The pool belongs to Grandma and Grandpa Irving,” Mason explained.
“Grandma will be there, if she decides to get in,” she added.
Personally, Serena couldn’t imagine her mother in a pool. But sure enough, when she pushed open the door to the steamy, chlorine-scented pool room, there was her mother in a black one-piece, bobbing in the water.
“You’re not getting in?” Her mother frowned at the jeans and sweater she was still wearing.
Serena shook her head. “The boys can swim. Don’t worry. They’re country kids.”
As the boys talked their grandmother into a rousing game of Marco Polo, she surveyed the pool room. Chaise longues were lined up precisely along one side of the pool, a thick navy blue towel folded and placed at the foot of each chair. There was a 99.9 percent chance that the towels were monogrammed. Halfway down the leng
th of the side wall stood a bottled water dispenser on spindly legs.
“Mom! Mom!”
Mason was waving at her.
“Can you toss us some pool noodles?”
She was about to reply that there probably weren’t any pool noodles here when she spotted a large teak box at the far end of the room. Of course, her parents would have had their interior designer fully outfit the pool. She pulled three spongy noodles from the box and dropped them into the water. Then she took a seat on one of the chaise longues and held up her phone, recording ten seconds of the boys and her mother playing in the pool.
She texted it to Oliver. Without waiting for an acknowledgement or a reply, she laid the phone on the folded towel and stood up. She waved to her mother and the boys.
“I changed my mind. I’m getting in, after all.”
Oliver’s phone vibrated with a text. He pushed his scribbled drawings of the new station aside and tapped his phone. Serena. Finally. He’d been waiting all day for confirmation that she and the boys made it to New York okay.
The text was a video. He tapped it, then frowned as he watched the clip of Mason and Cam in a swimming pool with Georgia Irving. He texted back: Where are you? YMCA?
It was another five minutes before he got a response. Lol. My parents have a pool in the basement now. The next text came through quicker. Boys are having fun. I’m about to jump in.
He leaned back in his chair. Great. He was worried about the wrong thing, apparently. Serena not wanting to come back? The boys might not want to come back. St. Caroline could hardly compete with Manhattan, especially when their grandparents were richer than sin. His mom used to say that all the time.
I never even met the Irvings. But they can’t be all bad, if they produced Serena.
Yeah well, if anyone was richer than sin it would be his in-laws, who were plotting to take his children away from him. He was certain of it. He spent the rest of the afternoon vacillating between anguish and an anger so fierce his legs were shaking beneath the cover of his desk.
“Hey.” Matt stuck his head into Oliver’s office. “Your shift’s over.”
This Reminds Me of Us Page 23
