Mare

1985

Mare would tell herself for the next thirty years that what happened that summer in Seattle happened by accident. Accidents were, by their very definition, out of one’s control. Unable to be stopped. Unexpected. Unintentional.

Two cars run into each other, and then there’s a collision no one intended. All the broken bones and crushed metal in the aftermath can’t be helped.

Two people run into each other in a bar and there’s too much beer. And then, can anyone really be responsible for what happens next?

In an accident, injuries are sustained. If you’re lucky everyone gets out alive. But not everyone is lucky.

Was it fair to say they ran into each other that night, that summer in Seattle?

It wasn’t like they’d made a date. But. Bess had told her where Max was bartending to get through law school. She knew the name of the bar and the exact distance (.6 miles) from the weeklong writers’ workshop before she’d even applied or been accepted. So what if she was the one to suggest to the others that bar for drinks every night? She never meant what happened to happen. It wasn’t like she’d really planned it.


“Mare?” Max’s voice from behind her was unmistakable. It shocked her. Excited her. Then she decided she was imagining it. It was loud inside the bar, crowded. All the writers crushed into two booths in the corner, and Mare sat in a chair at the end of one, listening to her new friend, Emily. Emily liked hair bows. A lot. She had a collection—and that was what she was telling Mare about over beer. She owned seventy-seven in all, but had brought only six with her for the weeklong writers’ retreat. Tonight, she wore an electric-pink one that matched her similarly colored fuzzy sweatshirt.

Mare was sipping her beer, and had for the moment, for the first time in months, forgotten about Will. She was untethered. Not a mother. Not a toddler-chaser. She was a woman again. A girl, really. A writer. And the freedom of that sizzled through her, allowing her to smile, even over chatter about hair bows for heaven’s sakes!

And that’s when she heard it. Her name. His voice.

“Mare? Is that really you?”

She turned, and there he was. Exactly the same Max. Exactly the same blue, blue eyes. Even in the dim yellow light from the Tiffany lamp on the table, his eyes were the color of summer sky.

She stood up, and he enveloped her in a hug. The earthy scent of him, the warmth of his wool sweater against her cheek. What if she just never let go? What then?

He let go first. “Mare! What are you doing here?”

She laughed, his surprise, his joy, delighting her now. “I came for a writers’ retreat.”

“In Seattle? And you didn’t tell me?”

She knew Bess had gone home for the summer, back to California to spend some time with her mom, and she had been uncertain as to what Max was doing from Bess’s letter about it. She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t definitely known he was here still. (She hadn’t definitely known he wasn’t either.) “I thought you were with Bess in LA,” she lied now.

“No, Bess and I—”

Emily cut him off. “Hello, I’m Mare’s new friend, Emily.” She stood to shake Max’s hand.

“Sorry,” Mare said, though she was not sorry at all. Emily was fine to have a beer with. But Max was Max. “I should’ve introduced you.”

“Why don’t you pull up a chair, have a drink with us?” Emily said before Mare could stop her.

“I don’t want to intrude on...your writer’s stuff,” Max said softly. But his eyes traced the contours of her face and said something very different. They didn’t want to let her go. In fact, they wanted to intrude very, very much.

“The more the merrier!” Emily said, and she slid over, making room for Mare on the bench so Max could take the chair.

Max sat, and his eyes stayed on her face, and maybe she already knew what they were asking, what they wanted. Maybe she already knew that here, away from her son and her husband, feeling young and free again, she wouldn’t be able to stop it.


A few beers and hours later, she stumbled out onto the street, holding on to Max. Emily had gone back to their hotel in a cab with some of the other writers a little while ago. But Mare had lingered behind for one last beer with Max, telling everyone she would catch up later.

As they had sat at the table, just the two of them, Max had asked her a question, one simple question, that in her daily life George never thought to. When she and George talked at dinner, it was usually all about him, the pressures of his job, his day, his life. “How are you doing?” Max asked her. “Really?”

He didn’t ask about Will, or even about how her writing was going. He just asked about her.

“Good.” She answered him quickly with a lie that wasn’t entirely a lie. In that moment, away from her real life, back to writing again, she realized she actually did feel good.

“Good,” he repeated. “Last time I saw you, you seemed so...sad.” He took a slow sip of beer. “I was worried.”

Outside on the street now it was chilly, damp, misting, and his words still lingered over her. Max had been worried about her. She shivered, from the cold, from the thought of it, and then he put his arm around her. She didn’t pull away. Warmth was necessary to human life, there was nothing wrong with that.

But Max tugged her closer, and they walked slowly, toward her hotel. They didn’t say anything, but he still clung to her, until they got to the last red light, and she waited to cross the street.

Max pulled her into a hug, pulled her against him. Held on to her so tightly she imagined what life would be like if she could crawl inside his sweater, his skin, live inside his body and be with him all the time.

The light changed; she was free to cross the street. And yet neither of them moved.

“I don’t want to let you go yet,” he said into her hair. She didn’t want to let go either. But then she thought about Bess. Tiny, cheerful Bess. It was fair to say that she loved Bess, more than George. More than Max. Bess was her mother and sister, her best friend and her cheerleader—all the things she’d never had growing up. Margery was years older, and had been out of the house by the time Mare was ten. Her mother died when she was too young to remember, and then it was just her and her father. And well. She wasn’t going to think about him again.

“I can’t.” She forced herself to pull away, abruptly.

“I know,” Max said, running his hand through his hair. “You’re married.”

She shook her head. Because it wasn’t that; it wasn’t George that made her pull away. “You’re with Bess,” she said.

“No,” he said emphatically. “Didn’t Bess tell you? We decided a few months ago we were better off being friends.”

She shook her head. Bess hadn’t told her, and now she considered whether Max was telling her the truth. But then she tried to remember the last time Bess had mentioned Max in her letters. Mare was always waiting for it, wanting it. Tiny tidbits about him from afar. And now, she realized, the last thing Bess had told her had been about his job at this bar, months ago. But if they had decided they were better off as friends, why hadn’t Bess mentioned that to her?

Max put his arms back around her, pulled her back to him. The light changed to red again, and then she couldn’t go across the street, walk away from him, even if she wanted to. Here she was, feeling more like herself than she had in years, and maybe it would be okay to hold on to that a little longer. To take him at his word about Bess too.

“Just this once,” she finally whispered into his chest, and maybe that was a promise. Or maybe it was a dare. And either way, she was pretty sure it was swallowed up in the sounds of the road noise. “Just this one night,” she repeated.