Chapter 12
March 10
I didn’t want to get out of bed the next
day, but I couldn’t sleep, either, so I turned my attention to the
diary.
Bobby was asleep when I got home from Elliot’s. I
knew when I walked in the front door, because I could hear him
snoring, just as I had left him. I undressed and pulled back the
bedspread inch by inch, praying I wouldn’t wake him. I stared at
the ceiling for a long time, thinking about what I’d done, thinking
about where I’d go from here, but no answers came. And then Bobby
rolled over and flung his arm over me, pulling me close. I knew
what he had in mind when he started nuzzling my neck, but I rolled
over and pretended to be asleep.
The next morning, when Bobby had left for work, I
wanted to call Frances and tell her everything. I longed to hear
her voice, and her approval. Instead, I called Rose in
Seattle.
“I saw him last night,” I said.
“Oh, Esther,” she said. Her tone was neither
judgmental nor encouraging. It reflected the worry and excitement
and terror I felt about the decisions that lay ahead. “What are you
going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
She paused for a minute. “What does your heart tell
you?”
“My heart is with Elliot. It will always be with
Elliot.”
“Then you know what you need to do,” she said
simply.
Bobby came home that night, and I made him his
favorite meal: meat loaf, boiled potatoes, and string beans with
butter and thyme. On the surface, it was as if nothing had changed.
We were a happily married couple having a nice anniversary dinner.
But I carried a heavy weight on my shoulders, the weight of great
guilt.
With every glance from Bobby, every question, every
touch, my heart came closer to bursting. “What’s different about
you?” he asked at dinner.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, worried that he could
see right through me.
“It’s just that, well, you seem different,” he
continued. “More beautiful than ever. March becomes you.”
I felt as though I could no longer carry on and
decided that I needed to go to the priest and air my secrets in a
confessional booth.
So, I dressed the baby in her Sunday clothes and we
drove to Saint Mary’s. My heels clicked on the wood floors as I
walked through the church to the row of confessionals along the
right-hand wall. I walked into the first one and sat down, bouncing
the baby on my lap.
“Father,” I said. “I have sinned.”
“What is it, child?”
I suppose he expected me to say something like “I
have gossiped” or “I have coveted my neighbor,” or something
generally benign. Instead I opened my mouth and said the
unthinkable.
“I’ve slept with a man who isn’t my husband.”
There was silence on the other side of the booth,
an uncomfortable silence, so I spoke up again.
“Father, I love Elliot Hartley, not my husband,
Bobby. I am a horrible woman for it.”
I listened for a sign that the priest was there,
that he was listening. I wanted him to tell me I was forgiven. I
wanted him to tell me to do a thousand Hail Marys. I wanted him to
lift the weight off my shoulders, because it was getting too heavy
for me to carry.
Instead he cleared his throat and said, “You’ve
committed adultery, and the Church does not condone such behavior.
I suggest you go home and repent to your husband and pray that he
forgives you, and if he does then God will forgive you.”
Aren’t all sins the same in God’s eyes? Isn’t that
the message I’d heard in Sunday school since childhood? Instead, I
felt like a heathen, unable to work my way back to heaven.
I nodded and stood up, holding the baby over my
shoulder, and walked out feeling great shame, with an even heavier
burden to carry. The big brass doors closed loudly behind me.
“Hello, Esther.” It was a woman’s voice behind me
in the parking lot. I turned around and saw that Janice was walking
toward me, with a strange smirk on her face, but I just kept
walking.
Another day went by. Bobby came home from work and
I thought about telling him, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the
vulgar words I’d need to say to explain myself. No matter how I
spit it out, there was the fact that I’d given myself to someone
else. Bobby was always so sunny, always so cheerful, even when I
wasn’t. He was too good a man. I couldn’t bring myself to shatter
him. I wouldn’t do it.
And then the next morning, after Bobby had gone to
work, I got the call—the call that made me question every choice
I’d made to this point, every emotion I’d felt.
“Mrs. Littleton?” the female voice said on the
other end of the line.
“Yes,” I said.
“This is Susan from Harrison Memorial Hospital; I’m
calling about your husband. He’s in the hospital.”
She told me that Bobby had collapsed just before
walking onto the ferry that morning, and an ambulance had rushed
him to the hospital in Bremerton. When I heard her say the words
“heart attack,” my own heart cracked a little—cracked with regret,
the way it does when you have been cruel to someone whom you should
have loved. Bobby didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of
this, and I decided to make it up to him.
What would I do with the baby? I couldn’t bring her
to the hospital, not today, not under these circumstances. So I
knocked on Janice’s door, as a last resort, and handed the baby
over, wrapped in pink blankets. I didn’t like the way Janice looked
at her, with the disquieting sense that she’d take my child, take
my home, take my place in Bobby’s bed if she had the chance.
“Where are you going?” she asked, with that
familiar look of disapproval in her eyes.
“Something very important has come up,” I said.
“It’s an emergency.” I didn’t dare tell her it was Bobby. She’d be
at his bedside before I could blink an eye.
“Of course,” she said. “And Bobby, when will he be
home?”
“Not for a while,” I said, running to the car.
“Thanks for watching the baby. I really appreciate it.”
I drove to the hospital and when I arrived, I
backed into another car in the parking lot, but I didn’t stop to
check the damage. None of that mattered. Bobby needed me.
“I’m looking for Bobby Littleton,” I practically
barked to the receptionist. She directed me to the sixth floor,
where Bobby was getting ready for surgery, and I made it to the
room just in time.
“Oh, Bobby!” I cried. “When they called me I was
beside myself.”
“They say I’m going to make it,” he said, winking
at me.
I leaned over his bed and wrapped my arms around
him. I lay like that until the nurses tapped my shoulder and said,
“It’s time.” I didn’t want to let go, and as I watched them wheel
him away, I was haunted by the fear that I had caused all of
this.
Waiting for him to come through surgery was agony.
I paced the floors relentlessly; I was sure I’d walked at least
three miles. Occasionally I’d look out the window, to the theater
below to see what was playing. On the marquee was BLUE SKIES, WITH
BING CROSBY. I watched couples, mostly teenagers, walking arm in
arm, and I wished I were one of them. I wanted to turn back time
and get it right, without any of the regret, without the
pain.
I gazed out the window a little longer, watching
couples file in for the show.
And that’s when I saw Elliot.
His tall frame stood out in the crowd, in any
crowd. And he wasn’t alone. There beside him was Frances.
“Mrs. Littleton,” the nurse said from the
doorway.
“Yes?” I said, forcing myself to turn away from the
window. I felt trapped between two worlds. “Is he OK? Tell me he’s
OK.”
She smiled. “That husband of yours is a fighter. He
came through surgery just fine. But his recovery will be tough.
He’ll need your around-the-clock care.”
I nodded.
“Speaking of which,” she said, “I’ll just need to
see your ID, for the discharge paperwork.”
I reached down to the place where my purse always
hung on my arm, but it wasn’t there. Then I remembered that I’d
never retrieved it from the restaurant the night I’d gone to see
Elliot. All of it seemed so unfathomable now.
“I’m sorry, I must have left my purse at home,” I
lied.
“That’s OK, dear,” she said, smiling. “We can do
without.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Can I see him now?”
“Yes,” she said. “But he’s quite groggy. Just keep
that in mind.”
I followed her back to the post-op area and there
he was, eyes closed.
“Hi, Bobby,” I said, caressing his hand.
He opened his eyes and smiled at me. “Told you I’d
be all right,” he said.
Unlike me, Bobby never broke a promise.
It was at least ten before Bee and I made our way
to the breakfast table. The air was thick with sorrow.
“Good morning,” she said in a weak voice. She was
still in her nightgown and robe. I’d never seen her in pajamas, and
the garb made her look much older.
“I’ll get the paper for you,” I said, walking out
to the front porch and finding the Seattle Times embedded in
the mud below a rosebush next to the house. Thank goodness for the
plastic bag that covered it.
“The funeral is the day after tomorrow,” Bee said.
She didn’t look at me when she spoke, and it occurred to me that
she might have been just saying the words aloud to try them on for
size, perhaps to see if Evelyn’s passing wasn’t just a bad
dream.
“Can I help with anything?” I asked.
Bee shook her head. “No. Her husband’s family is
taking care of everything.”
I made scrambled eggs as Bee sat there staring out
at the water. I thought of Joel when I did, and of the morning he’d
told me about Stephanie. I had dropped a plate, a detail that I had
forgotten until now. It was a piece of our wedding china—Waterford,
white, with a big silver rim, so expensive that the salesgirl at
Macy’s squealed a little as we added twelve place settings to our
registry. What once was a treasure lay shattered on the floor in
jagged pieces.
“It’s funny,” I said to Bee, turning the eggs in
the pan with a spatula.
“What, dear?” she replied quietly.
“I broke a plate.”
“You broke a plate?”
“Yeah, at home, when Joel told me that he was
leaving.”
Bee just stared ahead, motionless.
“And I didn’t care. Now, as I think back on that
morning, I seem to be more disturbed about the plate than I am
about Joel.”
The corners of Bee’s mouth turned up ever so
slightly, forming the haziest smile. “Progress.”
I smiled to myself, and presented Bee with a plate.
“Eggs and toast.”
“Thank you,” she said. But she didn’t eat that
morning. Not even a bite. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not your
cooking, it’s just . . .”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I know.”
“I’m going back to my room to lie down.”
I nodded and felt a lump in my throat as I watched
her walk down the hall, one foot in front of the other.
I decided to get dressed and tidy the house for
Bee. There’s nothing more depressing than unwashed dishes or a
living room piled high with newspapers. By eleven, the place was
shining. The phone rang as I polished the kitchen, and I stopped to
admire how it shone before I answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Emily, it’s Jack.”
“Hi,” I said, loving the sound of his voice.
“I just wanted to check and see how things were
going over there. How’s your aunt?”
“She’s holding it together,” I said.
“How about you?”
“I’m doing OK,” I replied.
“I’d love to see you again,” he said, “whenever you
feel you can break away.”
“Well, Bee’s asleep now. I guess you could come
over.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Jack arrived about a half hour later. He seemed in
awe of the house—cautiously in awe.
“It’s so beautiful,” he said, looking around. I’ve
never been inside. I’ve always wondered what it would be like in
here.”
“You probably imagined monsters and ghosts, right?”
I said.
“And gremlins,” he replied.
We walked into the lanai, and I closed the door, so
Bee wouldn’t be disturbed, but really so that if she came out of
her bedroom, she wouldn’t be startled to see Jack.
“Maybe we should just hide in the closet,” he said
with a mischievous grin.
“Maybe we should,” I said in a sly voice, as we sat
down on a small sofa facing the sound.
He reached for my hand, and I leaned my head on his
chest. We sat there together for a minute, in silence, watching a
robin with a fluffy brown chest pry a twig out of the grass and fly
up to the top of a nearby tree.
“It’s a perfect place to write, this island, isn’t
it?” Jack said.
I nodded. “It’s certainly a storied place.”
“I was just thinking,” he continued, “you said you
were looking for inspiration for your next book . . . have you
considered writing a story about this island? Setting it right here
on Bainbridge?”
I sat up and looked at his face, thoughtful,
contemplative. He loved the island as much as I did; his paintings
were proof. But there was something deeper, something unsaid, that
punctuated his words just then, and I studied his eyes for a
clue.
“There’s a story in my heart,” I said, watching the
old cherry tree taking the brunt of the north wind and putting up
an admirable fight. I used to climb its branches as a girl, sitting
up there for hours eating its equally sweet and tart Rainier
cherries and imagining stories about other little girls who had sat
in its branches years before me. I shook my head. “I guess I’m
afraid.”
Jack turned his gaze from the window to me. “Afraid
of what?”
“Afraid that I won’t be able to tell the story with
the kind of beauty and conviction that it deserves,” I continued.
“My first book . . . was different. It’s not that I wasn’t proud of
it, because I was. But . . .”
Jack looked at me as if he knew exactly what I was
trying to say. “It wasn’t from your heart, was it?”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Have you found what you’re looking for here?” Jack
asked, his eyes fixed on the birds out the window.
I thought of the diary in the drawer of the bedroom
and realized that I may not have found what I thought I was looking
for, but I had found something better, both in its pages and in
Jack’s arms.
I laced my fingers through his. “I think I have,” I
said softly.
“I don’t want you to ever leave,” he said. His
voice sounded strong and sure.
“I don’t want to either,” I said.
And we sat that way for a long time, watching out
the window as the waves hit the shore.
Jack invited me to join him for dinner at a café
in town. I wanted to, but I couldn’t leave Bee. Not on this night.
He understood.
“I’d offer to cook,” I said to Bee once she’d
emerged from her bedroom, “but I’m afraid I wasn’t blessed with the
culinary gene.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I didn’t learn to cook until
I was sixty. It comes later in life.”
I nodded, glad to hear that some things do get
better with age. “So how about takeout, then?” I suggested. “I can
go pick something up.”
“Well,” she said, “Evelyn and I used to like that
little bistro across from the market. Their roast chicken was her
favorite.”
“Done,” I said. I was happy to see that she was
getting her appetite back, even happier that I could do something
to help.
On the drive into town, I kept the window down so I
could take in the island: its green canopy and the damp, crisp air
that smelled of seawater and fir trees. I parked in front of the
bistro and walked inside.
It was a lovely little spot, with emerald green
walls and dark mahogany trim. Each table looked inviting, as if
this was the kind of place where you’d order a bottle of wine and
savor it slowly until closing time. I wondered if Esther had dined
here.
“I’d like to make a to-go order,” I said to the
hostess. She handed me a menu, and I quickly made our
selections.
“It’ll be about thirty minutes,” she said.
“That’s fine,” I replied.
I walked outside, crossed the street, and sat down
on a bench that faced the water. You could see ferries coming in
from this perch, and in the far distance you could also see the
Seattle skyline.
I was struck with a sense of familiarity when I sat
down, and it took only seconds to piece it together: I’d sat here
before—with Greg. He’d taken me out to dinner at a Mexican
restaurant that last summer, when I was sixteen, and then we walked
across the street and sat right here. It was dark by then, and
private, and we kissed for what felt like forever before he drove
me back to Bee’s. My mother scolded me for being ten minutes late,
but Bee just smiled and asked if I’d had fun. I had.
When thirty minutes had come and gone, I walked
back to the bistro to pick up my order. “Here you are,” the hostess
said, handing me a large paper bag. She had an engagement ring on
her finger—a solitaire, all shiny and new. It made me remember my
wedding ring, Joel’s grandmother’s ring. I threw it at him a week
after he told me about the affair, when he’d come home to collect
some of his things. And at that moment it occurred to me that the
ring may still be there, lying on the hardwood floor under the
bedroom dresser. I didn’t know if it was, and I didn’t care.
“Thanks,” I said, tucking my left hand in my
pocket.
“Jack called while you were out,” Bee said. There
was neither approval nor disapproval in her voice.
I smiled and dished up dinner for us both. We ate
in silence, listening to the crackling of the fire.
“I’m heading to bed,” Bee said a few minutes before
nine.
“OK,” I replied.
She walked back to her bedroom and closed the door,
and I picked up the phone.
“Hi,” I said to Jack.
“Want to come over?”
“Yes,” I said.
I grabbed a piece of notebook paper and scrawled
out a quick note to Bee:
Going to visit Jack. Will be back
late.
Love,
Em
Em
I could see him from the beach, leaning in the
doorway on the front porch in a white T-shirt and jeans.
“Thanks for coming,” he said, smiling, as I made my
way up the steps.
I felt shy, and I think he did too.
We walked inside and he helped me unbutton my coat.
As he fumbled with the buttons, I felt my breathing pick up its
pace. There was electricity in his touch.
He pointed to the living room, where two glasses of
wine were waiting on the coffee table.
I sank into the sofa and he eased in right next to
me.
“Emily,” he said, running his fingers through my
hair, softly, hypnotically. “I want to tell you something.”
I sat up straighter. “What?”
Jack looked around the room, as if he needed a
moment to collect himself. “Four years ago,” he began, “I was
married. Her name was Allison.”
I searched his face.
“She died three days before Christmas. A car
accident. She was passing the market when she called me from the
road on her cell phone. She asked me if I needed anything. I said
no. For a long time I was tormented by the thought that if I’d just
asked her to buy some apples, bread, a bottle of wine—anything—it
would have bought her a few more seconds. That it would have saved
her life.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry.”
He put his hands to my lips. “You don’t need to say
anything. I’ve come to terms with it. I just thought you should
know. It’s a part of who I am.”
I glanced up to the mantel, where the photo of the
woman was. “Is that her?” My heart clenched. Is he really ready
to love again?
He nodded. “That day at Henry’s,” he said, “I felt
something—something I haven’t felt since . . .”
I squeezed his hand in mine. “Me too.”
March 11
I woke up the next morning with the unmistakable
feeling that someone’s eyes were on me. I looked up and saw that
they were Jack’s.
“Morning,” he said.
I looked around and realized I was at his place. I
must have fallen asleep on his shoulder.
“I could watch you sleep forever,” he said,
nuzzling my neck.
I rubbed my eyes, kissed him gently, and
frantically looked for a clock. “What time is it?”
“Seven thirty,” he said.
I thought of Bee, and knew I couldn’t stay any
longer. She’d be wondering and worrying.
Jack reached for his coat, and I found mine. “Let
me walk you home,” he said, reaching for my hand.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, pulling him back
toward me.
He grinned. “Then stay.”
For the first time in a long time, I felt like my
heart could burst. In a wonderful way.
An hour later, I quietly slipped through Bee’s
front door. The door to her bedroom was still closed, and the note
I’d left for her was still on the table, so I tucked it into my
pocket. I hammered out a few more paragraphs on my laptop, which
were mediocre at best. So when I lost the will to write, I
read.
Bobby didn’t mean to be a burden, but he was. Day
after day, I spoon-fed him, gave him sponge baths, even helped him
use the toilet. And one morning, he couldn’t wake me in time to
take him to the bathroom. It all happened so fast.
“I’m so sorry,” he nearly cried in
humiliation.
“It’s OK,” I said. “Let’s get you to the bathroom
to clean you up, then I’ll change the sheets.”
This was my punishment, I told myself, the price I
would pay for the choices I’d made. I knew I deserved every second
of it, every grueling second.
I still hadn’t told Bobby, and I decided that I’d
take it with me to my grave. As much as my heart belonged to
Elliot, our love would be for another time, another life.
I’d heard the Vera Lynn song “We’ll Meet Again” on
the radio that morning, and the words haunted me. I was sure we
would meet again, that we would love again—but when? Months later?
Years later?
And when I heard a knock at the door one afternoon,
several days after Bobby had come home from the hospital, Elliot
was the last person I expected. There he was, standing on my
doorstep—the doorstep of the home I shared with Bobby. As much as
I’d dreamed of seeing him, as much as I’d relished that moment,
seeing him there felt strange and wrong. I shuddered at the sight
of him, out of place and context: unshaven, pale, eyes darting
around nervously.
“I heard about Bobby,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“How can you say that?” I said, looking around to
determine if any neighbors were watching. “After what you did?” I
lowered my voice to a whisper. “After what we did?” I
suddenly felt overcome with emotion. Anger. Sadness. Regret. It
made no sense that I would blame Elliot for Bobby’s accident, but I
did.
Elliot just looked at his feet.
“Why did you come?” I whispered, regretting what I
had said and wishing, for a moment, that I could take him into my
arms.
“I had to see you,” he said. “It’s been a long
time.”
“Elliot, you can’t just show up here like this.” He
looked thin—thinner than I’d ever remembered him looking—and tired.
There were little wrinkles extending from the corners of his eyes
to the top of his cheeks.
“Esther, do you really think this is easy for
me?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me. I always felt
that he was the free one, while I was trapped. I looked up when I
heard Bobby’s voice calling from inside. “Emily, is that the
postman?” he said. “Will you give him the letters I have here by my
bed?”
“It’s just a . . . a neighbor. I’ll be right
there.” I turned back toward the doorway. “Elliot, I have to go,” I
said quickly.
He looked desperate. “But when will I see you
again?”
“I don’t know if we should see each other again,” I
said. It was the hardest thing I would ever have to say, but it was
even harder watching the effect of those words on him. They were
like knives jabbed deep into his heart.
“You can’t mean that, Esther,” he said. “Run away
with me. We can start a new life together. You can take the baby.
I’ll love her like my own. Tell me you’ll come with me. You just
have to come with me.”
I could hear Janice next door, opening her door,
and when I glanced toward her front porch, I could see that she had
poked her head out to watch the scene unfold between Elliot and
me.
I shook my head. “No,” I said, wiping a tear from
my eye. “Elliot, I just can’t.”
He took a step back and looked at me with a sudden
intensity, as if trying to memorize my face for the final time,
before turning toward the road. I didn’t care that Janice was
staring. I watched Elliot until he was out of sight. I couldn’t
bear to take my eyes off of him.
Days passed, and then weeks. Bobby was still laid
up, and I continued to care for him. But one morning, I woke up
feeling very ill. I had the chills and nausea, and ran to the
bathroom to be sick. I spent the next few days in bed, and on the
third day, Bobby encouraged me to go see the doctor.
After an examination and some tests, Dr. Larimere
returned with a grin on his face. “Mrs. Littleton,” he said, “looks
like you’ve got a case of the influenza that’s been going around
this town.”
I nodded. “Good, so it’s nothing serious,
then?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “But there is something
else.” He reached for a typed page inside my medical chart. “These
results just came back from the lab. I’m pleased to tell you that
you’re expecting a child.”
“What?” I said. It had never occurred to me that I
could be pregnant. “This can’t be,” I said, in shock.
“It can,” he said.
I shook my head. “How far along am I?”
“Still very early,” he said, still grinning. “But,
nevertheless, with child. Now, you better get home to that husband
of yours and tell him your good news. That is bound to cheer up a
man in his condition.”
All I could do was stare straight ahead.
“Mrs. Littleton,” the doctor finally said. “Is
something wrong?”
“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile and walking
toward the door. But I wasn’t fine. Nothing would be fine from this
point forward because of one simple fact: This baby wasn’t Bobby’s;
it couldn’t have been. It was Elliot’s.