Lauren climbed into the front seat of Matt’s car. The night had cooled and she zipped her hoodie.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Just drive. Anywhere.”
Atlantic Avenue was busy. At another time in her life, she would have appreciated the promise in the air, a beautiful night just waiting to unfold.
Stopped at a light, Matt said, “I’m sorry you got upset.”
“It’s not your fault. I wanted to find some things you could use for the film to counter all the negative stuff we talked about. I don’t want him to be remembered as a tragic figure. I want people to understand why I loved him, to see what a happy life we had together, if just for a moment.” She started to cry again. He pulled the car to the side of the street and found her a tissue from his glove compartment.
“Thanks.” She sniffed. They were right in front of Lucy. “I used to love this elephant.”
“What’s that restaurant right next door? Want to get a drink?”
They waited a half an hour at Ventura’s Greenhouse to get a table at the rooftop bar with a view of Lucy. The music was loud and commanding, courtesy of a live DJ.
“We’re the oldest people here,” she shouted.
“I know. I think we got reverse-carded—to see if we’re under thirty, not over twenty-one.”
She smiled. The waitress, sunburned and with a sheet of straight, white-blond hair, took their orders—a beer and an Italian hoagie for Matt, and for Lauren, a drink called a strawberry shortcake: ice cream, strawberry mix, and amaretto.
“Do you come here a lot?” he asked.
“I haven’t been here in, like, ten years.”
“Were you old enough to come here ten years ago?”
“No! That was the point.”
“I didn’t imagine you as a fake-ID type of teenager.”
“Stephanie was a bad influence. She lured me here with promises of a bird’s-eye view of Lucy.”
“Such a crazy idea for a building,” Matt said, looking at the six-story elephant. “Have you ever been inside?”
“My grandparents took me to the top every summer when I was little. We spent weekends at my grandparents’ house—the house I live in now. The car ride from Philly seemed endless, but as soon as I saw Lucy, I knew we were here. I would get so excited. It’s amazing how easy it is to be happy when you’re a kid.”
“This is a great town for kids. You’re lucky.”
“I know. I’m glad my sister is here this summer so my nephew can get to experience it.”
“You’re getting along with her?”
“I am.” She smiled. “I feel like we’re reconnecting a little.”
A strange expression crossed Matt’s face, a mix of surprise and puzzlement.
“What?” she said.
He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Well, you originally weren’t happy about me interviewing her so I figured you two had some issues.”
“Don’t all siblings?”
He contemplated her question. “Not necessarily. I had more issues with my parents. I got along really well with my older brother.”
“I’m sorry that you lost him. Do you mind if I ask what happened?” She had met only a few people over the years who had lost loved ones in the military. Each time, she felt a compulsive urge for details, to know when and where and how the person had died, as if somehow it would help her make sense of what had happened to Rory. This, maybe, was the appeal of war-widow support groups. But she was no more inclined to join a group now than she had been when she was an army wife.
“It was a blast. An IED near his convoy.”
Her heart began to beat fast. “Like what happened to Rory?” she whispered.
“No,” Matt said. “There is a parallel to what happened to Rory, but that’s not it.”
Their waitress arrived with Matt’s beer and hoagie and Lauren’s frothy pink drink. Lauren pushed it aside.
“What, then?”
“Do you know what the signature wound of Iraq and Afghanistan is?” he said.
“Traumatic brain injury.”
He nodded. “My brother wasn’t killed by the blast. He suffered what they call a primary blast injury and got a medical discharge. He had seizures. He was depressed, had memory loss. It was my junior year of college. I took some time off to be with him, but I barely recognized him. And then my senior year, I came home for winter break. We went to my aunt’s on Christmas Eve, but Ben stayed behind. He got bad headaches. My mother left the party early when he didn’t answer his phone. She was the one who found him. He’d shot himself in the head.”
Lauren covered her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“So I became really obsessed with traumatic brain injury. And the more I researched, the more I found how often athletes suffered the same thing.”
“Okay, but it’s different. I mean, you can’t compare athletes and soldiers.”
“In this context, you can. And Rory happened to be both.”
“We don’t know for a fact that he suffered from traumatic brain injury.”
“I think it’s textbook. You know it too.”
She sipped her pink cocktail.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he said.
“When have you asked me anything but personal questions?”
He made a waving gesture. “That was for work. I mean as a friend.”
Were they friends? “Sure. Ask away.”
“Why haven’t you dated since Rory’s death?”
The question felt like a slap. Her drink was suddenly too sweet, all sugar and no anesthetic effect.
“Because…because that part of my life is behind me.”
He shook his head. “Lauren, you know that’s not rational, right?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Lauren, your husband died. It’s a tragedy. But it shouldn’t define the rest of your life.”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“Should I let Ben’s death define me?”
“Aren’t you? Isn’t that what this whole thing is about? And besides, where’s your wife? Or girlfriend?”
“Okay, I’ll admit I’ve been a little consumed with work the past few years. My personal life has suffered. But I’m trying to do something positive.”
“Well, maybe I am too.”
“Or maybe you’re afraid.”
She pushed away her drink. “Maybe I don’t want to be in love again. I had a chance, I tried, and I failed.”
Matt shook his head. “Lauren, you didn’t fail.”
“Haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve said these past few weeks?”
“I’ve listened to every word you’ve said. And I’ve watched the footage. I know what you’ve said better than you do.”
“So then you know I left him when he needed me most.”
“How do you figure?”
She bit her lip. “He wouldn’t have been in Iraq that day if I had moved back to his post with him. He would never have asked to redeploy so soon.”
“Lauren,” he said slowly, “if anything, he failed you. Again and again. When did he ever put you first? You bought into this notion that he was special—hell, so did I. But guess what—he wasn’t. He was just a man, a man who made mistakes, who hurt people, and who ultimately lost his life. He was gifted, but he was flawed. And the system is flawed, and for Rory—and for others, no doubt—the combination was lethal. But nowhere in this whole story do I see your culpability.”
She covered her eyes with her hands, tears wetting her palms. “I could have made a difference in how things turned out if I hadn’t been so damn passive. I let the NHL make the calls about his health, I let Emerson influence him, and I let him decide to join the military when really it should have been our decision as a couple. I let every external factor set the course. Because I wasn’t strong enough to set it myself.”
“I disagree. I don’t think it had anything to do with lack of strength. I think it took a lot of strength to keep putting your own needs, your gut instincts, aside. Because you didn’t want to get in the way of the great Rory Kincaid, because all you heard from his family was that you were a distraction, all you heard from coaches was that he was special and he was destined for greatness, and all you heard from him was that he needed to excel and dominate or he couldn’t be happy. You two were living by different codes. They were impossible to reconcile. But your code was unconditional love, and you were true to that until it became dangerous. If you’d been with another type of person, you would have gotten back what you were giving. You would have been happy.” He took her by the shoulders, turned her toward him. His face was emotional, the neutral listener gone. “And Lauren, I’m sorry to say, but you’re fucking crazy for not giving yourself a chance to experience that.”
“Experience what?” she said bitterly. “What, exactly, am I supposed to experience now?”
He stared at her for a beat, his hands moving from her shoulders to her face.
And he kissed her.
Beth tucked Ethan into bed, telling him that Aunt Lauren would read to him tomorrow night, for sure.
“Is she out with Mommy?” he asked.
No, Beth highly doubted that. “Maybe,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll be home soon. But it’s bedtime for you. You’ll see them in the morning.”
She kissed him on the forehead and slipped out of the room. What an exhausting day. The last mile of driving on Black Horse Pike, she could barely keep her eyes open. But Ethan, overstimulated from a day running around Center City, Philadelphia, with her, had been a nonstop chatterbox. She probably should have stuck with her plan to stay overnight, but she felt compelled to drive back to the shore at the last minute.
A breeze blew into the kitchen through a window she’d left open. It was a beautiful night. She opened a bottle of white wine and poured a glass. She leaned against the counter and sipped slowly.
The day after Nora had mentioned selling everything, even the four walls, she realized she and Howard were looking at the business problem completely wrong. Their options weren’t only to keep it going or sell it; they could sublease the space. With just one day in Philly exploring this option, she’d put out some feelers and had leads on potential tenants. Nothing concrete, but it was a start.
Howard had completely missed it. It wasn’t like him. Howard thought he was being practical and strategic during the store crisis, but the truth was, the loss of the family business was more than just a financial blow. It was an emotional one, and that’s why he made big mistakes in the end. Why he was still making a big mistake.
“Mom? Why are you standing here in the dark?”
Beth looked up, startled. Had Lauren been home after all?
“Did you just get home?”
“Yeah. I was…out. I thought you were staying in Philly overnight.”
Beth explained it wasn’t worth it; she wanted to wake up in her own bed. She didn’t bother telling her about the store and the sublease. It was clear from the distracted look on Lauren’s face that there were more important things to discuss.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked gently. There had been a time when Lauren was as transparent as a glass of water. But she had closed herself off after her marriage, and even more after Rory’s death.
“I’m just confused,” Lauren said, but in a way that was surprisingly light. In that moment, Beth noticed that there was a brightness about her, an energy that she hadn’t seen in her in a long time.
“About what?”
Lauren opened the fridge, then closed it. She leaned against the counter facing Beth.
“My life. What it’s supposed to be now. Who I’m supposed to be now.”
Beth nodded. She’d been waiting for years for her daughter to come to her. She wondered if her sense of being pulled back to the shore that night had less to do with the need to sleep under her own roof and more with the universe making sure she was in the right place for this conversation.
She put down her wineglass. “Your relationship with Rory was a major part of your life. But your life is going to continue past that point. It already has, whether you realize it or not. You need to stop fighting so hard against it.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t? Lauren, I know you’re trying to do the right thing, to be strong. But it’s like that fable, the oak and the reed? Remember from when you were little?”
“I don’t know. Vaguely.”
“Okay, I might not be getting this exactly right. But the oak tree always seemed so strong because it never bent in the breeze, while the reeds swayed with the wind. But when the huge storm came and the oak tree couldn’t bend, it broke.”
“The reeds were fine, I take it?”
“Come on. I’m serious.”
“So what are you saying? I’m being weak?”
“No,” Beth said. “But I do think the storm has come. And I don’t want you to break.”