Now
Saturday, August 14
Woodstock, New York
George reached for my elbow, but I pulled it back and away, close to my body, as Alex used to do when he was so very little. As if he—or I—could curl up in a fetal little ball, seek protection from the ills of the world.
“What’s going on? What are you doing here? How did you even get inside?”
“Don’t act so surprised,” George said. “You sent me all the information. The email had the lockbox code in it. It can’t be completely out of the blue that I took it and went with it.”
I reared back, horrified. “I sent you that because I thought you and your parents should know where I was when I wasn’t with Alex,” I said. “Not so you—so you could—” It clicked for me, so powerfully obvious, so . . . creepy. “So you did send Henry, then. To set up the flowers? To . . . what . . . scope it out? I saw him, walking down this street, right after I got in.”
George’s smile faltered only for a second. “Henry was up for a contractor meeting this morning anyway. I thought you’d like the freesia. The rest I brought when I got in.”
“I still don’t understand how you got in,” I said. “I have the only key.”
“Henry left the back door unlocked so I could slip in. If he hadn’t, I guess you’d have found me waiting on the porch with the champagne, but I thought this was better. And don’t worry. I’m not forcing myself upon you entirely. I can stay at Henry’s if you really insist.”
He turned away then, grabbing the bottle of Krug, twisting the wire off in two economical turns. He thumbed at the cork, letting it out with a satisfying pop, grabbed a pair of flutes and poured us each a glass.
“You always loved a grand gesture,” George said, matter-of-factly, as he pressed the drink into my hand. I found myself curling my fingers around the stem, knowing, somehow, that he would let it fall if I didn’t. “To us,” George said, clinking his glass against mine.
That was when I saw it, streaked against his hand. Red.
“Jesus, George, what happened to your hand?”
It took him a moment to clock my surprise, and then his eyes found the side of his thumb. “Oh,” he laughed. “It’s not blood. It’s Farrow and Ball Lake Red.”
“What?”
“The paint,” he said. “From the front door. The brownstone. The paint you campaigned so hard for.” He examined his hand. “I guess it does look a little like blood when it dries on skin.”
My eyebrows knitted up, trying to make sense of it. “But what is—”
“I told Henry it was a good color. Showed him that Wall Street Journal story and everything. He’s doing a full revamp, too, and he wanted his contractor to redo the door. You had half-a-gallon left in the basement. I brought it up so Henry could see it.”
“You painted a door?”
“Not all the way, no. But a little test area, to see what Henry thought. And it looks good, too.” He raised his glass, waiting for me, eyebrows raised.
“George,” I said again.
“Come on, Mary, you have to say our phrase, or else it’s bad luck. To us,” he said again, leaving it all hanging in the air. And then, more firmly. Almost like a threat. “To us.”
After a moment, I found my voice, to get past this point, if nothing else. “To us and the many adventures we’ll have together.”
He’d said it on one of our early dates, and we had said it together countless times since, for luck. Or maybe because George always insisted.
George took a drink, then eyed me.
The champagne was good, fizzy and cool and warming, somehow, too, like a hug from within. George reached his hand out, linking it into mine. “This is all my fault, you know.” He squeezed, rubbing the skin between my thumb and forefinger like I always loved so much. “I helped you get the apartment. I sent Genevieve over to help you out. Yes, I was saying I wanted you back, I was arguing with you about custody of Alex, but I wasn’t showing it, was I?”
“George, I—”
“Please,” he said. “Let me finish. I know I haven’t talked about getting back together as much, not in these last couple months, but that doesn’t mean my feelings went away. We belong together, Mary. You have to see it like I do. Do you really want to go through with all this?” He gestured around the rental. “Live up in Woodstock? When we could keep on building a life together, a life we always loved?”
I pulled my hand away, back toward my body, but George stepped closer, so I could almost taste the champagne on his breath. I closed my eyes, fingers still cradling my own glass, and imagined, for a moment, stepping back into our old life. So easy, so simple. No lawyers. No move. No researching schools up here. No finding new friends. No agonizing that I didn’t have the geographical closeness of my mom or my sister or the safety net of George and all the people the Haywoods employed. Alex would have two parents living with him, always. And I wouldn’t ever have to worry about money. It was so tempting, for a moment. Like stepping off the spin bike before your workout is through. You know it’s not good for you. You know it won’t make you happier in the end. But wouldn’t it be nice to just stop spinning, to unclip and catch your breath and suddenly feel the ground beneath you?
“Mare,” George said, his voice close now, right in my ear. I opened my eyes. Slowly, he pulled the glass from my hand, set it on the table, put his own down, too. “Mare, we could have another child, you know. Just like we always wanted.”
I looked up at him, and his eyes showed he meant it. We had always intended to have two, maybe even three, because when you have the sort of money that George does, those dreams are open to you, your life like a candy store where you can simply take, take, take. I’d known, with every step I was taking away from George, that I was also taking a step away from that dream. And there had been grief in that knowledge, grief that was impossible to feel fully with my life all but imploding. Because I had always wanted children, plural. And I longed for the experience, not only for myself, but for Alex, too. To see him gently touching the downy hairs of a baby’s head. To give him the chance to grow into the fiercely loving big brother I knew he would be. George, with all his flaws, was the only way I’d ever get that. I was nearly thirty-nine, and the thought of dating again, of throwing myself toward all that and with a biological timeline, too, was impossible.
Leaving George was leaving that life behind. I knew that, and I’d been okay with it, because how could I live with myself if I chose to stay with someone who controlled every move I made, who punished me if I went against him, just for the hope of another child?
How could I let Alex turn into his father—“ee-nuh may-ree”—just for the chance of a sibling?
George lifted a hand to my cheek then, and for a moment, it felt so good, because I hadn’t been touched in months now. Alex’s hugs, his kisses, his cuddles during “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and his gentle pats that weren’t so gentle at all: they’d been the beginning and end of all my physical affection, and it wasn’t enough. I missed having someone in my bed, having someone to kiss hello and goodbye. I missed George, or what I’d thought he once was.
Maybe everything I’d felt for Willa, all the intensity of our friendship, the hurt at being left behind by her, maybe it all stemmed from that. Maybe I was simply rebounding—after George, after Cassandra—and like anyone who rebounds, I’d made a terrible choice. I’d fallen for the affections of a liar, of someone who wasn’t who she said she was.
“I want this,” George said. “And I know, somewhere inside, you do, too. You want to grow our family. You want to put all of this behind us.”
I felt moisture in my eyes, because I did want that, I really did. The problem was, I didn’t think I could have it with him.
“Come on, Mare,” George said, letting his thumb trail down the side of my cheek, resting beneath my chin, lifting my face to his. I had no choice but to look in his eyes. Gray, colorless eyes. Ones I’d loved so dearly, once. “You’re still my wife, you know. Don’t let all this petty stuff—this truly meaningless drama—destroy us.”
He kissed me then, and I didn’t stop him. I didn’t fight, even though I knew I should. Knew that after all George had done to me, I should have the self-respect to say no. I let it happen, like a drink you shouldn’t have being pushed into your hand. Like closing your eyes when you were so very tired, letting sleep snatch you at last.
I let him kiss me, and I let George dictate our next move.
Like I always did.