Wednesday, August 18
Woodstock, New York
We talked about anything and everything, trying our best to avoid mentioning George or Willa.
Our kids, Jack Junior’s affinity for mac and cheese and chicken nuggets and Alex’s insistence on new words for classic songs. Jack’s work, a boutique investment firm and a recent set of fresh-out-of-college grads who demanded more from their bosses—remote work, overtime pay—than the prior generation had. My experiences with journalism, the handful of stories I’d actually truly cared about, ones written years ago, that felt part of a different professional world, one I knew wouldn’t be easy to get back to. The Forbes piece I was still hoping to write and the CEO I planned on interviewing, when things calmed down. The single life, bingeing TV shows, ordering too much takeout. How Jack had been too nervous to get back into the dating game, how he wanted a woman’s presence in Jack Junior’s life but knew he had to choose the right woman this time. Knew he had to be more careful. I laughed, mostly. Jack was funny, his wit dry and almost biting. I laughed and I smiled, and caught in our own world—in the fishbowl of gin and olives and trauma we were doing our best not to discuss—I felt almost absurdly happy, all things considered.
One round turned to two, and soon the place was about to close. Jack insisted on both picking up the bill and walking me home.
I didn’t protest, and we made our way down the street, rain still falling, our umbrellas bumping against each other.
“Well, here we are,” I said as we approached the rental.
Jack pulled open the gate to the picket fence, ushered me through, and followed behind and up onto the porch and in front of my door.
I turned to him then. It was almost entirely dark, the moon and stars our only light, and a calm breeze whispered through the trees and shrubs, making the foliage dance.
“Thanks for walking me,” I said. I tossed my umbrella onto the covered porch and shifted my weight back and forth as I pulled the key from my purse, my head light and bouncy from all the booze. “I would say you didn’t have to, but I’m glad you did. I’m still a bit freaked out.”
“No way I would have let you out of my sight,” Jack said. “Not after everything that’s happened.”
Jack let his umbrella fall to the ground, his head cocked to the side. His eyes didn’t leave mine, and I remembered, suddenly, the first time my college boyfriend and I kissed, standing in front of my dorm on one of those early fall nights that feels like summer. Air warm and balmy, skin sticky.
He was still looking at me. “I had a good time, you know. I’m glad I ran into you.”
I tried to still my breaths. “Me, too.”
He didn’t look away, and I didn’t either, and then it was too much, the tension too thick to bear, and I was about to look down when Jack leaned in and kissed me.
At first it was slow, and I felt a hint of stubble on his chin, tasted the salt of the olive juice still on his tongue, but then it was fast, urgent, and I found myself turning, pulling away to fumble drunkenly at the lock of my rental. Wanting to be inside, wanting to be with him. Jack’s breath, hot on my neck, sending shivers up my spine, as I scrambled to get the key inserted just right.
Then finally, it was open, and we were in, and I’d barely turned around before his lips were on mine again, hungry, urgent, his hands firm on my back, mine wrapped around his neck.
It felt so good. So incredibly good. Like a drink of water on an unbearably hot day. Like those moments when the kid is in bed and the dishes are done, and you have two full hours to yourself, giddy with overwhelming relief.
I kissed him back, hard, and as his tongue explored my mouth, as his hands tugged at the button of my jeans, I flashed back to that first day I’d seen him, that silver fox on the loop in Prospect Park, a hot dad if I’d ever seen one. The way he’d leaned down and kissed Willa enough seconds to have to count, the way my stomach had lurched with jealousy at their display.
I’d thought Willa had everything, but she had nothing, really. She had built it all on a foundation of sand.
She’d told me story after story—and she’d told Jack, too—she’d slept with my husband. She’d spent time with my son, without me even knowing it.
But for tonight, at least, Jack was mine.
I helped Jack with my jeans, tugged at his belt, my body practically pulsing at the feel of him, hard and solid beneath.
If Willa could see me now, about to screw the man she’d screwed over.
She never would have guessed it, and I never would have, either.
I hadn’t been with anyone since George, and it had been so many years, and it wasn’t right—it wasn’t respectable or smart or dutiful—to sleep with someone else only days after your husband had been murdered.
I should be going straight to bed, trying to get as much sleep as possible before my new life began tomorrow. But I didn’t want to.
Jack tugged at my top, pulling it over my head, and I felt the alcohol swimming, grabbed onto his arm to steady myself, pulled his mouth to mine and sucked on his bottom lip.
In the background, I heard ringing—my phone—
For a second, I thought about going to it, in case it was Ruth, in case it was Detective Morales.
It was too late for any of that.
Besides, Jack’s hands were already beneath my underwear now, searching. Finding.
Screw it, I thought, and leaned right in.