The Life You Longed For (10 page)

“But I would have thought it about you; a part of me would have
wanted
it to be true, I think.”

“I know.”

“And that doesn't hurt you?”

He shrugged. “A little, but it's also one of the reasons I
didn't
doubt you. I know that you would give anything, including your own life—or mine—for our kids.”

 

“Okay, now look,” Erin said, and Grace held up the pink plastic hand mirror to see her eyelids covered with lavender glitter. “Wow, lovey,” she said. “That looks nice.”

Max glanced at her. “Yeah, if you're going for the
Addams Family
look.” He plunked in another puzzle piece next to where Jack was maneuvering his into place.

“Don't, Max!” Jack swatted his brother's arm, then immediately began coughing with the effort.

“Hey,” Grace said, patting his back. “No hitting, mister.”

“But he can't help me!”

“I wasn't, you little snot.”

Grace looked at Max. “And no name-calling either.”

Jack plucked out the piece Max had just set down, then put it back. “Ha ha!” he wheezed. “Look what
I
did.” He crossed his arms over his chest defiantly.

Erin giggled. “He's so stubborn, isn't he, Mama?”

“Are you stubborn?” Grace asked him.

“Yeah, I am!” Jack laughed. He didn't have a clue what stubborn was, of course, and so they couldn't help but laugh with him.

Later, in the kitchen, Grace set the steaming pan of pumpkin bread on the cutting board, and stood for a minute, giving it a chance to set. Rivulets of water from the melting snow streaked the window in front of the sink. She was hungry, but trying hold off for the snacks she'd set out shortly: nachos, steamed shrimp, mini Greek pizzas with spinach and feta, Christmas cookies—
of course—
and the pumpkin bread for Max. She pulled in a long breath, then let it out slowly as if to dissolve the knot of sadness lodged in her chest. She both loved and hated New Year's Eve, with its promises and regrets, its hellos and good-byes, all tangled into one. And this year, especially this year—with Noah in her life again, with Jack getting sicker every day—
the best thing we can do is make sure he's comfortable—
Grace loved and hated New Year's more than ever. She wanted to simply stand still, hold onto things just as they were—as they had been only a week ago. One week.
“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I just needed to see you. Is that okay?”

“Okay? Are you kidding me? Okay?”

She stared towards the emptied lake, the landscape blurring into a wash of gray, as hidden as a secret. Like the history of the Pine Barrens itself: an entire history of secrets. Tories had hidden in these woods during the Revolutionary War. Later, smugglers stored sugar and molasses here; during Prohibition, it was the bootleggers. Even the landscape conspired toward silence, the largest freshwater aquifer in the country—seventeen trillion gallons—lying beneath the forest and swamps. Her own secret, her love of Noah, felt like this—liquid and huge, uncontainable under the surface of her life.

 

“She still fills my Christmas stocking with socks and deodorant and a roll of stamps.” Noah grinned. “As if I were in college still.”

“I always liked your mom. Does she still make those cinnamon rolls?”

“You remember those?” In his eyes she saw the sudden sadness she'd come to expect whenever they talked of that one summer twenty years ago. “She usually sends me home with a half a dozen or so.”

Grace lifted her head from his chest. “And you
will
save me one.”

“As many as you want.” He squeezed her tight. “Besides, after a week at home, I'll be back to a liquid diet.”

She lay her head back down, fingers tracing the bones of his ribs. “I still can't believe you were fat.” His chest was hairless, like a boy's.

“
Fat
? Whoa, I don't recall
ever
saying
fat
, thank you very much.” His voice was back to normal. “Ample, perhaps. Pleasantly plump. Renoiresque,
maybe
.”

“Renoiresque?”
She lifted herself up again to look at him. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

He shook his head. And then, “God, I love you,” he blurted.

She smiled. “You do? Really?” She still couldn't believe it some days. That she'd found him, that he loved her after all these years, that she loved him. She snuggled against him, burying her nose into his neck as if to breathe him in through his smells—salt and cinnamon and something briny that made her think of the beach in the rain.

“So, at some point, my mom will ask
the
question,” he was saying.

“Let me guess…Have you met someone? Are you
ever
going to get married?”

“Close, but the actual words are ‘Have you met the right
girl
yet?
Girl
.” He chuckled. “How old am I?”

She kissed his shoulder. “Not a day over twenty-two.” Then his neck. “So what will you tell her?”

“Oh, same thing I always say: I met the right
girl
twenty years ago, but she dumped me.”

“You do
not
tell her that.”

“Oh, I absolutely do.”

“Those words?”

“Those words.”

She wanted to tell him that she had met the right “boy” twenty years ago too. But had she? And if so, where did that leave Stephen? Her children?

“
Hey
.” Noah shifted beneath her, nudging her chin up with his thumb. “What's up?”

She shook her head. “It's sad. And I guess I feel guilty, like you blame me, like I ruined your life.” She sighed. “I was
seventeen
, Noah.”

“I know that, Grace. Come on. I was a kid too.” He pushed himself away from her. “I do tell my mom that you were
the
One. And yeah, my brothers, and now their wives, all tease me about how I never got over you, but it's all in fun. I mean, if anything, it's kind of flattering, isn't it?” He sounded angry now. “Christ, the last thing I'm trying to do is make you feel guilty.”

He stared at her another minute, then leaned back into the pillows, arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “It's not like I was a monk for the last twenty years,” he said finally. “I didn't shun society and don sackcloth and spend my evenings reading your old letters by candlelight—”

She smiled. “
Only
because I never wrote you any letters.”

“You didn't?” He grinned. “Must have been another woman I was remembering.”

“It must be difficult keeping track of us all.” She traced her index finger along the cords of his neck.

“I love your touch,” he said sadly, as if already anticipating the time when it would be gone.

“I love touching you,” she said. And then quietly, “I do hate that I hurt you, Noah. Even if it was twenty years ago.”

“I know.” He nodded. “But you said it, Grace; you were seventeen.”

“But you weren't that much older, so why—”

“Why didn't I move on?” He shrugged. “I don't know, and after a while, it didn't really matter. Maybe I didn't want to get over you. Maybe it was a way of protecting myself from getting too close to anyone else. Maybe I only want what I can't have. There's a thousand reasons, but the bottom line is that you've always been right here.” He placed her hand on his chest, and she felt his heart thudding in her palm. “And I
like
that. I
like
that you're a part of me that way. I like having conversations with you, even if half the time they're only in my mind. Who knows? Maybe it's that you were the first person I really loved. Maybe it's that you were the first person to really hurt me.”

“Those are two pretty different maybes, though, Noah. How can it not matter which one it is?”

“Because knowing doesn't change the outcome, Grace. It doesn't alter the fact that I've thought of you every day, every goddamn day, for the last twenty years. I
like
that. I
like
that a lot. I
like
that I can imagine a future with you. Do you have any idea what that means? I've never, Grace,
never
been able to do that with anyone else.”

 

She edged the bread knife along the contours of the pan she had just pulled from the oven.
Future
. She'd read somewhere that its Indo-European root had once meant “grow,” which was why, she imagined now, when she thought of that word at all—
future
—it seemed ocean-like and terrifying, as if to venture too far into it was to fall off the edge of the world. In the future, Jack would be gone.

She set the bread knife on the counter, then flipped the loaf of pumpkin bread onto the wooden cutting board, releasing it from the pan. A cloud of steam wafted up, smelling of cloves and ginger. She set the emptied bread pan in the sink and turned on the warm water, then stood for a moment, letting the liquid heat pulse over her hands.
It's over with Noah
. The thought darted in front of her like a frightened animal, and she felt something in her wrench away from it.
Why?
another part of her cried. Nothing had changed. Stephen hadn't found out. And he wouldn't. She would be careful. More careful. And assuming the accusation was a mistake, a misunderstanding—

But no.

It was over
.

It had to be. There was no future with Noah; there never had been. He was the past—who she might have been, the life she
might
have had, if she'd made another choice. Something so simple, returning a phone call twenty years ago, and everything could have been different.

But it wasn't.

Abruptly, she lowered her head to her hands, grief unstoppered inside of her. How was she going to leave him? Really leave him?
Again
. And what was she going to do without all that joy in her life, that laughter?

Outside, the sky had darkened. Her reflection in the lighted window shone back to her. She thought of birds crashing into glass, confused by their own reflection, and felt herself slam up against the pane of truth that Jack's illness had long ago forced her to confront: Love
isn't
enough sometimes, love
isn't
all you need, love
doesn't
make the world go around, because if any of those clichés were true—
any of them
—children would not die.

She closed her eyes, promising herself,
you're doing the right thing,
but she felt flayed open by the thought of losing Noah all over again. She had only just found him.

Two more days and he'd be home.
Home
. Her word, not his. For him, Michigan was still home, and at one time, it was for her too, despite living in New Jersey ever since she was a teenager. She had been born in the Midwest, her aunts and uncles and grandparents lived there. But the day Max was born,
home
forever shifted—no longer did it mean the place where she had grown up, but the place where her children would.

 

“So what made you end up in Cape May?” she asked once as they were walking along the beach.

“What do you think?”

“
Please
.” She swatted his arm. “You did
not
end up here because of me.”