Chapter 14
March 13
By the following day, Bee was doing better.
She was sleeping less, eating more, and laughing a little. And when
I suggested that we play a game of Scrabble, she didn’t just say
yes; she said, “And you think you can beat me?”
I was glad to see the spark in her eyes again, even
if she did beat me with the word tinware. I said it was a
made-up word, and she swore it wasn’t.
I countered. “Cookware, glassware, silverware—real
words. But tinware?”
She pulled out a dictionary, and sure enough, she
expanded my vocabulary.
“Want to play another round?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’d just beat you again.”
“I’m glad to see you smiling.”
She nodded. “Evelyn wouldn’t have wanted me to
carry on like I was. I can hear her now: ‘For the love of God, get
yourself out of bed, get yourself dressed, and stop feeling sorry
for yourself.’ ”
“Yep,” I said. “That sounds like her.”
She slipped off her reading glasses and reached
into the drawer of the coffee table. “Before I forget,” she said,
“I have something for you—from Evelyn.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “She gave you something
to give to me?”
Bee shook her head. “I was over at her house this
morning,” she said. “Her family is cleaning out her belongings.
They found this.”
She handed me a 5 x 7 manila envelope with my name
on it. It was sealed with a piece of masking tape.
I looked at Bee, puzzled. “What is it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, dear. Why don’t you
open it?” Then she started walking down the hallway to her bedroom
and closed the door.
Inside was a familiar photo. The black-and-white
scene was almost identical to the one that hung in the hallway of
my childhood home—Bee on a beach blanket, surrounded by friends.
Yet the photo had clearly been snapped after the one I’d come to
know so well. This image had been captured seconds later, because
the woman next to Bee, the one who had been whispering in her ear
moments before, faced the camera now. You could see her face, her
smile, those beautiful, piercing eyes. I knew in an instant that
she was the same woman in the portraits at Henry’s and Evelyn’s.
Attached by paper clip was a note, which I carefully
unfolded:
Dear Emily, I thought you’d like to have a photo
of Esther. Lots of love, Evelyn.
I took a deep breath and blinked hard, walking back
to my bedroom. I knew it was her. I set the envelope down,
but realized there was something else inside. I reached my hand in
and pulled out a delicate gold chain punctuated by a simple gold
starfish. Esther’s necklace. My heart ached as I held it in
my hands.
We didn’t talk about the fortune-teller visit
after that day—not I, not Rose, and certainly not Frances. But I
took her advice to heart and wrote my story, every word of
it.
For a while, things started to feel normal again.
Bobby’s health improved, my guilt subsided, and if I couldn’t force
myself to stop loving Elliot, I could force myself to stop thinking
about him, and that’s what I did. And maybe Frances did too. She
offered me a room in her house, if I wanted to leave Bobby and
start over. But I said I’d manage. I thought I had it figured
out—that is, until the night that everything changed.
Bobby hadn’t told me that Father O’Reilly was
coming. And when I answered the door, I felt my palms moisten. The
last time we’d talked, I’d told him about my infidelity, and he’d
told me to tell Bobby, which I hadn’t done.
“Hello, Mrs. Littleton,” he said in a clipped tone.
“I’m here to see your husband.”
I wanted to tell him to go home, back to the
parish, but I let him in instead, fearful of what he might say once
he was inside.
“Father O’Reilly,” Bobby said from the sofa. “I’m
so glad you could come.” Bobby explained to me that the priest had
promised to pray for him, offering a blessing upon him in his
recovery.
“Yes, it’s so good of you to come,” I said, forcing
a smile.
“Esther,” said the priest, “if you wouldn’t mind,
I’d like some private time with Bobby.”
I nodded and walked reluctantly down the hall to
the bedroom.
After a few minutes, I heard the front door close
and the engine of a car. I took a deep breath and ventured back out
into the living room, ready to face my husband, my infidelity.
“Bobby?”
He looked up from the couch and smiled at me.
“Hello, love,” he said, motioning me to come sit by him. “Father
O’Reilly just left. What a kind man to come over and pray with
me.”
“Yes,” I said, relieved.
Then there was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get that,” I said.
I looked at the clock. “Who would be calling after
eight?” I said to Bobby as I unlatched the door and opened it
slowly to find Janice, our neighbor, standing on the porch. Her
eyes were red. She’d been crying.
She shook her head. “He didn’t tell him, did he?”
Her voice sounded desperate, unpredictable.
My heart started beating faster. I remembered
seeing Janice at the church. Could she have overheard my confession
somehow? No. Impossible. “I don’t know what you mean,
Janice.”
“Of course you do,” she said. Her eyes were wild
now, and her voice louder. “Don’t just stand there with that pretty
face and play dumb. You were unfaithful to your husband. I know
because I saw you that night on the beach at Elliot Hartley’s
house. He had his hands all over you. It was unchristian.”
I turned around to look at Bobby, who was listening
to the entire exchange from the sofa, a few feet away. He was
standing now. “Esther, what is Janice is saying? Tell me this isn’t
true.”
I looked at my feet. “Bobby,” I said. “I . .
.”
“How could you?” he demanded. He looked visibly
shaken.
I ran over to Bobby. “I wanted to tell you, but
then you were sick, and I . . . Bobby, I never meant to hurt you. I
didn’t want to hurt you.”
“After I loved you, after I gave you everything you
could ever want, you go and give yourself away like a cheap whore?”
The words stung, but his tone, angry and desperate, hurt
more.
I approached the couch and reached my hand out to
him, but he pushed it away. “All I ever wanted was for you to love
me the way I loved you. How could you betray me like this, Esther?
How could you?”
Bobby sat down and buried his head in my lap. I
began to stroke his neck, but he stiffened at my touch. “No,” he
said, suddenly sounding angry. “I won’t take your pity. I won’t
take it. If you want to be with that son of a bitch, go, get the
hell out of here. I don’t want to be married to a whore! A lying
whore.”
My hands were trembling, and I realized that Janice
was still there, watching the scene unfold, in all of its ugliness,
from the doorway.
Bobby stood up and started pacing the floor. For
the first time ever, I was afraid of him, afraid of what he might
do. He grabbed my elbow and pulled me back toward our bedroom. I
clenched my fists tightly as he pushed me onto the bed. I watched
as he threw a suitcase on the floor, before opening up my closet
and piling some of my dresses inside. “You’ll need these,” he said,
“to look extra special for him.”
Then he went to the dresser and pulled out my
nightgowns. “And these,” he said, “for romantic nights.” He closed
the suitcase and walked it toward me, dropping it on the floor,
where it nearly landed on my feet. “Here,” he said. “Go.”
“But Bobby,” I said, starting to cry, “I never said
I was leaving. I never said I wanted to leave you.”
“You did when you slept with Elliot Hartley,” he
said. “But the baby!” I said. “Our baby? I won’t leave her.”
“I’ll raise her myself,” he said, “and when she’s
old enough to understand, I’ll tell her that her mother was a
whore, a whore who left her husband and child for another
man.”
There was that word again—that horrible word.
“No, Bobby!” I cried, but he grabbed my arm and
dragged me, and the suitcase, to the front door. I reached for my
purse, with my diary safe inside, and was able to grab it before
Bobby forced me out onto the porch.
“Good-bye, Esther,” he said. And then he slammed
the door and locked it.
I could see Janice watching from inside my house as
I walked out to the driveway, but even though I was trembling, I
didn’t give her the satisfaction of crying in front of her. I would
save that for later. All I could think about was my next move:
Where was I supposed to go? What was I supposed to do? I looked out
at the lonely road. Should I go back to the door and plead with
Bobby to take me back? Beg him for a second chance? When I saw his
face buried in Janice’s shoulder, I knew the answer was no. So I
opened the door to the Buick, tossed my suitcase in the backseat,
and started the engine. My heart ached as I pulled out of the
driveway; for my daughter, for Bobby, for a life I had failed. The
only thing I could do was to drive. And as I revved up the engine
and pulled onto the road, I glanced in my rearview mirror one final
time, knowing it would be my last look at that little blue house,
where a baby was fast asleep and a husband who once loved me
grieved by a warm fire. I felt ashamed and lost.
There was only one place left for me to go. I just
hoped Elliot would be waiting when I arrived.
I sped along the road, ignoring stoplights and
street signs, past Fay Park, past the winery, and down the road
that led to Elliot’s house. I parked, and walked down the driveway,
and when I arrived at his doorstep, I knocked. Even though I’d
refused him before, surely he still loved me, I told myself. Surely
he would welcome me with open arms when I told him I was carrying
his child?
But there was no answer. I waited there for a
while, just in case he’d been on the phone, or asleep. But there
was no Elliot, just the sound of the wind blowing the screen door
open and then slamming it again with such force it frightened
me.
I thought about sleeping in the car, right here in
his driveway, waiting for him to come home, but it was cold, and I
didn’t have a blanket. I remembered Frances’s offer to stay with
her, so I started the engine again.
She lived just down the beach. I could have walked,
but not with a suitcase. And the wind was too cold. I drove down
the long driveway and was relieved to see that the lights were on,
and when I stepped out of the car, I could hear music playing
inside.
I left the suitcase in the car and walked to the
front door. I peered in the window, and could see Frances talking
to someone in the living room. She looked excited, animated, more
so than she usually was. And then I could see why: Elliot was with
her.
Frances was fiddling with the record player when
Elliot walked toward her, reaching for her hand. I stood in the
cold, watching through the window, as the two of them danced and
laughed, and sipped their martinis. I rubbed my eyes, hoping that
what I was seeing was just a figment. Of course, deep down I’d
suspected something, but seeing it there, right before my face, I
blinked hard. This couldn’t be happening.
Part of me wanted to open the door, storm into the
house, and make them feel the shame and desperation I felt. I ran
my fingers along the copper doorknob, and opened the door slowly,
before closing it again, a little louder than I had intended. No.
This was all too much for me. It was time to go—far away from here.
I ran back to the car, driving away so quickly that the tires
skidded and squealed. I took one last look behind me and could see
Frances and Elliot outside in front of the house, waving at me to
stop, to come back. But it was too late. It was all too late.
I drove to Fay Park, where I parked the car and
sobbed like I’d never sobbed before. In one night, I’d lost a
husband, a child, a lover, and a friend. And all I had to show for
it was a suitcase stuffed with mismatched clothes, and a baby
growing inside of me.
I thought about my diary, this book I was working
on at the suggestion of a fortune-teller. But for whom? And for
what? And after reading through the pages, what have I learned?
That I’ve failed at love and at life? I had an urge to set a match
to it. But I stopped myself. Maybe it did have some value, as the
fortune-teller had explained.
I knew I had serious decisions to make that night.
One involved Bobby and the baby. There would be no final good-bye
to Bobby—he’d made that much clear—but I longed to hold my sweet
daughter once more, to tell her I loved her and to promise her that
there was no other way.
And this is where my story ends. I loved and lost.
But at least I loved. And on this dark, lonely night, when it’s all
come crashing down, that small fact gives me comfort.
What is next for me? In my heart, I know what needs
to be done.
I turned the page, but it was blank, and so was the
next page.
What? Why does it end so suddenly? This isn’t
how it’s supposed to end. Actually, it wasn’t an ending at all.
It was a nonending. I opened up the drawer to the nightstand,
hoping a loose page might have detached from the spine, but there
was nothing but a layer of dust.
I felt a sense of loss as I closed the diary,
stroking its worn velvet cover once more before carefully setting
it back into the drawer where I’d first found it. Life already felt
lonelier without Esther in it.
March 14
“I miss you,” Jack said over the phone the next
morning.
“I miss you too,” I replied, wrapping the curly
phone cord between my fingers, wishing it was his hand interlaced
with mine. “I’ve been so tied up here with Bee and the aftermath of
Evelyn.”
“It’s OK,” he said. “I was wondering if you wanted
to join me today, for a picnic. There’s a place I’d like to show
you.”
A picnic. It was cute. In all my life, no man had
ever asked me to go on a picnic. I looked outside at the gray
clouds rolling in, and the choppy water, which actually appeared to
be quite angry as it churned and splashed against the bulkhead. It
certainly wasn’t picnic weather, but I didn’t care.
“What can I bring?” I said.
“Just you.”
After breakfast, I retreated to the lanai with my
laptop, closer to the start of something—a story, a spark—than I
had been in years. I stared at the screen for a long time, and let
my mind turn to Esther, which is where it wanted to go. Did she
drive off into the sunset and start a new life in Seattle, never to
return to Bainbridge Island? Did she turn the car around and go
back to face Frances and Elliot, and did she forgive them—did she
forgive him? And what about Frances? As much as I wanted
to believe that this story had a happy ending, something in me
feared it didn’t. There was darkness lurking that final night. I
could feel it through the pages.
I didn’t type a single word that morning, and that
was OK with me. There was a story brewing in my heart, one I knew
would take time to develop. I’d wait for it. I’d be patient.
Before noon, I dressed for my picnic date with
Jack. He didn’t say whether we were supposed to meet on the beach
or whether he’d be picking me up, but then I heard the doorbell
ring, followed by Bee knocking on my door. “Jack’s here,” she said
without making eye contact.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be right out.”
I put on a sweater, and grabbed my jacket, just in
case, then walked out to the living room, where he was waiting. He
didn’t look nervous at all standing there with Bee, and I was glad
for it.
“Hi,” I said, grabbing my bag from the coffee
table.
He reached for my hand. “Ready?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Oh,” he said, pulling out something he had tucked
under his arm. It was a package, wrapped in brown paper and tied
with twine, the way packages looked in old black-and-white movies.
Nobody uses twine anymore. “I almost forgot,” he said, looking at
Bee. “My grandfather wanted you to have this.”
Bee looked startled, embarrassed, even, as Jack
handed her the package. She held it in her hands as though there
was a fairly good chance that it contained explosives.
I desperately wanted to know what was inside, but
Bee deliberately set it down on the coffee table and said, “Well,
don’t let me keep you two.”
In the car, I asked Jack about the package. “Do you
have any idea what your grandfather gave Bee?”
“No,” he said. “He wanted to deliver it himself,
that day at the funeral, but he didn’t find a chance to talk to
her.”
“It was a hard day for her,” I said, remembering
how she’d retreated to her car at the cemetery. “I’m sorry I missed
the chance to meet your grandfather.”
“He wanted to meet you too,” he said, grinning. “It
was all he talked about on the way home. He thought you were quite
beautiful. I’d love to bring you out to see him.”
“That would be great,” I said, “but when?”
“I’ve got a meeting with a client tomorrow, but how
about the day after that? I’m supposed to go visit him that
afternoon. You could come with me.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling. “It’s a date.”
Jack drove to the far west side of the island,
where I’d never been before, even on all of my summer visits. He
pulled into what looked like a parking lot, but there were thorny
blackberry bushes on all sides, and just enough gravel to park two
or three cars. He grabbed a picnic basket out of the trunk. It was
one of those old-fashioned wicker ones, red and white gingham with
dark red trim. Perfect.
“Want to guess where I’m taking you?” he said,
grinning mischievously.
“Honestly,” I replied, “I have no idea.” Branches
tugged at my clothes as we pushed through the overgrown
brush.
“I should have brought my machete,” Jack joked. “I
guess nobody comes down here anymore.”
“Down where?”
“You’ll see.”
Darkness descended as we walked beneath a thick
canopy of trees. But then, just ahead, I could see a patch of
light.
“Almost here,” Jack said, turning to me and
smiling, as if to reassure me that our jungle walk would soon be
over. But I didn’t mind it, actually. It was a beautiful scene
worthy of a painting—untouched old-growth trees deeply rooted in a
carpet of light green moss.
He pushed aside some bushes and motioned with his
arm for me to go ahead of him. “You first.”
I burrowed through the small opening that Jack had
created for me and emerged before an inlet enclosed by rocky
hillside. The water was the color of emeralds, and I wondered how
this was possible, given that the sound was so decidedly gray. A
small plume of water—a waterfall, but not a loud, forceful one,
just a trickle—was winding down one side of the cliff, making its
descent into the pool below. Birds chirped in stereo.
There was a small patch of sand free of
barnacle-covered rocks, like the beach in front of Bee’s, and
that’s where Jack spread a blanket out. “What do you think?” he
asked proudly.
“It’s unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. “How
in the world does water get that color?”
“It’s the minerals in the rock,” he replied.
“How did you find this place?”
“This is the lagoon that my grandfather used to
take girls to,” he said, grinning. “He took me down here when I was
sixteen—a family rite of passage. He told me to swear never to tell
a soul about it, unless that soul happened to be female.”
“Why all the secrecy?” I asked.
He shrugged. “He and a friend discovered it when
they were boys, and they never told anyone about it. I guess they
wanted to keep it to themselves.”
I nodded and looked back out at the striking water.
“I can see why.”
Jack peered into the picnic basket and I sat down
next to him. “I love your family stories,” I said. “I wish mine
weren’t so secretive about theirs.”
“Oh, mine have secrets too,” Jack said quickly.
“There’s something I’m trying to figure out, actually.”
“What?” I asked, perplexed.
“Well, I found some old newspaper clippings in a
box in the attic shortly before my grandmother died,” he
said.
“What newspaper clippings?” I remembered the file
I’d seen Jack’s dog get into earlier in the month.
“Hey, look,” Jack said, pointing to the sky, very
obviously changing the subject. I didn’t protest. Whatever it was
about his family’s history, I had a feeling he’d tell me in
time.
Dark clouds hung all around us, but right overhead,
there was a ray of sunshine beaming down, as if it had appeared
just because we were having a picnic.
“Hungry?” he said, turning to the basket.
I surveyed the spread. “Yes!”
He set out two plates, forks and knives, and
napkins, and then pulled out several plastic containers. “OK, we
have potato salad, and fried chicken, coleslaw, and fruit salad
with mint—it grows like a weed in my garden—oh, and corn
bread.”
It was a feast, and I ate unabashedly, filling my
plate and then filling it again, until I settled into the blanket
and sighed.
Jack poured wine, rosé, for both of us, and I
wedged my back against his stomach, so that I could lean back fully
into him, as if he were my personal armchair.
“Jack?” I said, after we sat like that for several
minutes.
He pulled my hair back a little and kissed my neck.
“Yes?”
I turned around to face him. “The other day,” I
said, “I was in town, and I saw you with a woman.”
His smile vanished.
I cleared my throat. “At the bistro. The night you
said you were going to call me.”
Jack said nothing, and I looked down at my hands.
“I’m sorry, this is all coming out wrong. I’m sounding like a
jealous wife.”
He reached for my hands. “Listen,” he said, “You
don’t sound jealous at all. And let me reassure you, there is no
one else.”
I nodded, but my face told him the explanation
wasn’t exactly satisfying.
“Listen,” he said. “She’s a client. She’s
commissioning a painting for her mother. That’s all there is to
it.”
I remembered the woman who’d left a message on his
answering machine, and how he’d acted afterward. Jack had secrets,
indeed. But I decided to trust him anyway. When he opened his mouth
again, I reached my hand up to his lips, then I pushed him to the
ground, climbed over his chest, and kissed him like I’d wanted to
kiss him for a long time.
His hands reached up and unbuttoned my shirt, and
as it slid down my arms, I felt his warm hands on my torso,
fumbling with the zipper of my jeans until he got it.
“Let’s go swimming,” he whispered in my ear.
“Now?” I said, feeling cold just thinking about
it.
“C’mon,” he said, “I’ll keep you warm.”
I grinned and watched him strip down to his boxers
as I slipped off my jeans. He grabbed my hand and led me down to
the water’s edge, where I cautiously put one toe in.
“Brrr,” I muttered. “It’s way too cold. You can’t
be serious.”
But Jack just wrapped his arms around me, his front
glued to my back, and we slowly walked in together. With each step,
it became less cold and more inviting, and when the water reached
my chest, and Jack’s waist, he turned me around and pressed me
against his body, so that I could feel every part of him, and he
could feel every part of me.
“Are you cold?” he said softly.
“I’m perfect.”
It was dark by the time Jack drove me home, and my
hair was still damp and caked with salt water when I walked in the
door. Bee looked up from her book.
“He took you to the lagoon, didn’t he?” Her tone
wasn’t angry or upset, just matter-of-factly, the way one might
say, “It was cold today, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”
Bee just smiled and set her book down. “You look
like you need a hot bath. Come, I’ll get one ready for you.”