Sophie pulled her minivan into the well-plowed lane that led to the Inn at Willow Lake. In the backseat, Max was holding Opal in front of his face, rubbing noses with her and talking baby talk with a complete lack of self-consciousness. It was Sunday evening, the loneliest hour of the week for a certain type of person—the noncustodial single parent. All across the nation, every Sunday, people like her surrendered their kids to the other parent and drove away with only memories to keep them company until the next visit. Or, in Sophie’s case, memories and a new puppy.
“How am I gonna make it through the week?” Max asked. “I wish Opal could live with me.”
Welcome to my world, thought Sophie. Max would have to make do with after-school and weekend visits. Compromise was a bitch sometimes, she reflected. “I’ll take good care of her.”
“I know you will,” Max said, “but it won’t be the same.”
“You’ll have to have a little faith in me.”
“I do, Mom. Jeez.”
The inn was like the set of Dr. Zhivago, with its lawns and tennis courts blanketed in white, the gazebo and belvedere tower hung with glittering icicles. The historic main building looked warm and inviting, with lights glowing in the windows. The owners’ residence was a tall, boxy house and, like everything else in her ex-husband’s life, it looked nothing like the home they’d once shared in Manhattan.
Which, of course, was as it should be. They’d both set out, after the divorce, to lead different lives because the one they’d been living had stopped working.
“The place looks wonderful,” Sophie observed. She made the comment to be supportive, but also because it was true.
“Dad and Nina are getting the inn ready for Winter Carnival. It’s a big deal,” Max said. “I think they’re sold out, too.” He kissed the puppy on the head, and Opal regarded him with an expression of comical adoration. “Come inside for a minute.”
She bit back an automatic reply: No, I need to get going. For Max’s sake, she would endure it. “I’ll come in, just for a minute, so you can show your dad the puppy,” she said, trudging up the walkway to the pretty, brightly lit house.
She was supremely uncomfortable in Greg’s world, even for a few minutes. It didn’t physically hurt to be near him anymore, not the way it once had. Now it was bizarrely possible to regard him with a kind of benign respect. Here was someone she’d once loved. Someone she’d made a life with for a lot of years. But they had both moved on.
That determination—on her part and on Greg’s—to make the transition from married to single had saved her. Maybe it had saved them all, after putting the whole family through an emotional wringer. Ultimately, Sophie had stopped regarding her marriage as a failure. Rather than being a survivor of a failed marriage, she was focused on being successful in a new phase of her life. That meant surviving anything, from international terrorists to the momzillas at the hockey rink.
She followed Max up the porch steps. Sophie didn’t really want these glimpses of the life he had made with Nina Romano. For Max’s sake, though, Sophie drew on her training as a diplomat, putting on a pleasant expression as she walked through the door and waited in the vestibule, which was warm and inviting, fragrant with orange oil polish.
“Dad,” called Max. “Hey, Nina and Dad! We’re here. Come and check out my dog.”
They arrived together, welcoming Sophie but clearly focused on the new arrival. Max was talking a mile a minute, full of stories about Opal as though she had been a part of his life forever. He carefully outlined her every habit and preference, from her affinity for the tattered fleece blanket in her crate to her playful habit of biting the snow as she ran.
“Now you’ve got a project,” Greg said to Sophie.
She couldn’t detect any sarcasm in his voice. “So it appears.”
“No way am I waiting for next weekend,” Max said. “I can take the bus after school to your place, right, Mom?”
Sophie glanced at Greg, who gave a barely perceptible nod.
Thank you. “That would be all right with me.” She didn’t pretend Max’s comment had anything to do with her. Not even June Cleaver, in her high heels and apron, could compete with a puppy.
Then, to her surprise, Max said, “Mom played in a rock band. It was awesome.”
Greg looked blank. “A rock band.”
“Yeah, with the guy across the road, and guess who the bass player was? Bo Crutcher.”
“I’ve heard them play,” said Nina. “They call themselves Inner Child and they’re pretty good. They’ll be performing at Winter Carnival this year.”
Sophie smiled, felt her cheeks start to glow. Then she remembered she still hadn’t dealt with Noah about the dog. “Max can tell you everything. I’d better go.” She took the puppy’s leash.
Max gave the dog a final pat and then a kiss on the head. Then he offered Sophie a brief, spontaneous hug. “See you, Mom.”
“I’ll take good care of Opal,” she said. “Promise.”
She still felt warm from Max’s hug. She now had a dog, for better or worse. She had to admit, having the puppy on the seat beside her made leaving Max just a shade less wrenching. Still, Noah had pulled a fast one on her, and she didn’t intend to let the matter drop.
The next day, she got up and fed Opal, took her for a romp in the yard and then put her in the crate for a nap. A puppy, she realized, was a good deal less complicated than a baby. Still, that didn’t make what Noah had done right. When her phone rang, she squinted at the caller ID, then stretched out her arm, but the name was still indistinct. In the past few months, she’d begun to suspect a growing need for reading glasses, but kept resisting. Reading glasses were for old people, weren’t they?
“Sophie Bellamy,” she said, still in the habit of using her crisp, professional voice.
“Sophie, it’s your father.”
“And your mother.”
She was on speakerphone, which her parents used when they wanted to team up and convince her that she was making some huge mistake. “Hello,” Sophie said, putting a smile into her voice. She summarized her weekend for them, noticing as she spoke that she felt tense with the pressure to perform, or to make her life seem important. This was always the case with her parents.
“It sounds as though you and Max had a marvelous weekend,” her mother said.
Sophie immediately grew suspicious. “You didn’t call to hear about our weekend.”
“We were just saying this sabbatical is a good idea,” her father added. “When you go back, you’ll be even better equipped for the challenges of international law.”
Sophie tightened her grip on the phone. “Dad, I meant what I said before. I’m not going back.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” her mother said, “you just need time. It won’t be long before you’re dying to be back in court, doing what you do best.”
“Dying, Mom?”
“Sorry,” her mother said. “Poor choice of words. Sophie, we can’t imagine what you went through, but we know how strong you are.”
“Mom, Dad. This is my life now, living in Avalon so I can be with Max and Daisy. I’m a hockey car-pool mom in a velour sweatsuit.”
“Honestly, Sophie.” Her mother gave a nervous laugh.
Sophie couldn’t resist adding fuel to the fire. “And I’ve…met someone. His name’s Noah and he lives across the way, on his family’s former dairy farm.” She paused, trying to hear past the vacuum of silence that ensued. “Hello? I need you both to respond, so I know no one’s having heart failure.”
“Sophie, you’re not yourself. You shouldn’t be making life decisions at a time like this.”
“My decision’s already made. I’m not going back.”
“But your work is so important, Sophie,” her mother said. “Our friends have all been asking about you—”
“I’m sorry, but I’m through being your trophy daughter,” she said. “I’m through being the thing you get to talk about at cocktail parties. Find something else. Or go ahead and tell people the truth about me—that I’m putting my family first. I’m happy. Can you even comprehend that? In The Hague there were a hundred talented lawyers lining up for my job. I’m the only one who can do this one.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother’s sigh traveled across the miles. “You don’t sound like the Sophie I know. We wanted so much for you.”
“Well, then. Congratulations. Mission accomplished. I have everything I need, right here.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be fine. Be happy for me, please.”
“We are,” her father said. “We want to make sure you’re happy.” Despite his sincerity, his voice sounded strained, and after a few more minutes of small talk, Sophie hung up, feeling guilty.
A little later, she had an unexpected visitor. She let Noah in, refusing to acknowledge her very physical reaction to his presence, because she was still upset with him, her mood exacerbated by the conversation with her parents, though he couldn’t know that.
“What, no pony?” she asked archly, pretending to search his jacket for one. “Or did you decide to build a bowling alley for me next?”
“You’re mad?” He looked genuinely surprised. Uninvited, he peeled off his gloves and hat.
“Gosh, no,” she said. “This is all just peachy. Damn it, Noah, you gave my son a puppy.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Listen, I appreciate you wanting to do something nice, but a puppy. It’s too much.”
“Too much what?”
“It’s just one more complication in an already-complicated situation.” She paced back and forth. “A dog, Noah? You give my kid a dog, and you don’t know why I have a problem with that? You didn’t even ask me first.”
“You would have said no.”
“He doesn’t know the first thing about raising a dog.”
“It’s no big deal. You help him raise the puppy and the whole family has a friend for life. It’s just something else to love.” He opened a beer for himself. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“God, Noah. Everything’s so simple with you.” Sophie realized what she’d said and gave a dry little laugh.
“That’s me. Simple.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant. Look, the dog needed a home, and Max needed a dog.”
“How do you know what Max needs?”
“He’s a boy. Every boy needs a dog. He’ll learn more about responsibility and compassion from that dog than you can ever imagine.”
“And when Max isn’t with me, then I’m going to be the one looking after the dog,” she pointed out.
“So maybe you’ll learn responsibility and compassion, too.” He caught her glare and backed away with a grin, palms out. “Kidding.”
“You don’t do this to a person,” she said. “You don’t just hand over a commitment that lasts for years without thinking—”
“Oh, I thought about it,” he said. “You said he wasn’t happy spending time here.”
“Yes, but—”
“Now he’s got a reason to stay.”
“That just makes me pathetic, having to bribe my own son with a puppy to get him to stay with me.”
“You’re overanalyzing this.”
“Ha. I haven’t even gotten started. A puppy,” she repeated. “Noah, how could you? This is a live creature, notatoy.”
“Yeah, the live ones are my favorite kind.”
“Smart aleck. As a vet, you know better than anyone how horrible it is when the pet dies.”
“Hell, yes, I know that. I also know what the other ten to fifteen years are like. It’s terrible to lose a pet, yeah. But it’s worse never to have owned it in the first place.”
“It doesn’t work that way for everybody.”
“How about you give your boy a shot at it? A dog can teach him things about life. And about caring and tolerance and letting go, when it comes down to it.”
She wanted to argue the point but found that she couldn’t. Noah had given her the dog, which was a huge commitment. It was a mixed blessing. She hated that Max needed a reason to be with her, but she was coming to realize that a twelve-year-old boy tended to need things even the most perfect mother couldn’t provide.
“You made the offer in front of Max. I was trapped.” A cold feeling came over her. “I don’t like being trapped.”
“Are you mad about your son getting a dog or about the fact that I thought of it first?”
Opposing counsel makes an interesting point, she thought, but decided not to go there. “I just don’t like what it implies—that I’m not enough for my son. That spending the weekend with me is so boring he needs a puppy and a damned rock concert to make him want to stay.”
“So did he have a good weekend?” Noah asked.
“He got a puppy, hung out with a live band, met a baseball star and oh, I nearly forgot. He went skating with Tina Calloway, the daughter of an Olympic gold medalist. He had a great weekend.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Now you’re being disingenuous.”
“I’m not. I don’t get it, Sophie.”
“The problem is that I want to be his great weekend.”
“Would you settle for being my great weekend?” Noah suggested. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the hall tree.
“Now you’re trying to change the subject.”
“Hell, yeah, I’m trying to change the subject. You think this is fun for me, getting yelled at for doing you a favor?” He lowered his voice, stepping close to her, so close she could smell the outdoors on him. “Sophie. Are you really going to yell at me for giving your boy a dog?”
“Yes,” she whispered, forgetting to yell.
He grazed her jawline with his knuckles. “It’ll be fine,” he told her, taking her hand and heading to the living room. He took a seat on the couch and pulled her down next to him. “I swear, it will.”
“It’s a real blow to the ego to know I’m not enough for him.”
“He’s in middle school. If you were his whole world, I’d worry about the boy.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “The time when I got to be his whole world is long past.”
“Be the mom he needs,” Noah suggested. “Not the mom you think you need to be.”
“God, Noah. Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“It’s common sense, is all.”
“I suppose it is. In my family—” She stopped herself, regarded him skeptically. “You can’t be interested in this.”
“I’m interested in everything about you.”
For some reason, she found that statement incredibly sexy. She hugged a sofa pillow in her lap, keeping some distance between them. “Trust me, I’m not that interesting.”
“Tell me about your family—your parents. Brothers and sisters?”
“I am an only child. My parents are good people. And I learned a lot from them, like how important it is to have a career you love. I only wish they’d taught me that something like a job is peripheral to what matters most.” She was still discomfited by their phone call. Her parents believed they’d raised a perfect, high-achieving daughter. What they’d ended up with was an incomplete woman, someone who lived every day with regrets.
She regarded Noah thoughtfully. She was astonished to find herself talking this over with him. In such a short time, she had learned to count on him in a way she’d never counted on anyone before. She considered the conversation she’d had on the phone with her parents. The old Sophie would have kept it to herself, worrying the issue like a dog with a bone. But when it came to Noah, she wanted to let him into places she’d long kept private. Looking into his kind, caring eyes, she felt a kind of trust she’d never experienced before. She wanted him to know, absolutely, the true reason she was here in this town, having left a career fifteen years in the making. She wanted him to know she’d been searching for something else to hold on to, so much so that she had moved here to this strange town, a place where her ex-husband was a pillar of the community and where she was regarded as the cold, neglectful ex-wife.
She wished she could tell him the deepest things inside her—about that night, about the things that had happened to her, the way she had been taken apart by sheer terror and then put back together by an unexpected drive for survival. She wished she could tell him that, when everything was taken from her, when she believed her next breath would be her last, there was nothing inside her except thoughts of her family—all the ways she had failed them, the missed opportunities, the squandered chances.
“Do you think it’s terrible?” she asked him. “What I just said about my folks?”
“Nah. At some point, everybody sees their parents as actual people.”
“They still think my being here is only temporary. It’s a kind of denial, I suppose. They always do this to me, make me have second thoughts about the choices I make. No matter how old I get, I still feel the need to please them.” She took a deep breath, offering him a chance to interrupt, change the subject, run screaming into the hills. He did none of those things, just waited, listening.
There was something irresistible about the way Noah listened. She braided her fingers together and said, “When I found out I was pregnant with Daisy, I intended to raise her on my own. My parents questioned this decision until I started questioning it myself. They were very persuasive. They loved that Greg was a Bellamy. They loved that he would go far in his career. Ultimately, I was convinced that the right thing to do was tell Greg and marry him for the sake of the baby. So that’s what we did. Through sheer force of will we made it work, but it was never right.” She crushed the throw pillow more tightly against her.
“I had these two beautiful children who only wanted me to be there for them, and I wasn’t. Even when I worked at the UN in Manhattan, I was always somewhere else—mentally if not physically. I keep wondering now how things would have worked out if I had been more present in their lives.”
“You know,” said Noah, “when I was a kid, I used to fantasize about my dad being an astronaut instead of a dairy farmer. I still think about how totally different my life would have been if my parents had worked in outer space.”
She hurled the pillow at him. “Very funny.”
“Just trying to make a point. With your family—with your whole life, really—you don’t get to have a control group. You don’t have any way of knowing how things would have turned out if you’d done something differently, made another choice, followed a different path. My advice? Not that you asked for it, but you ought to try dealing with the things that are. Quit trying to rewrite the way they were.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud.”
“I’ll send you a bill in the morning.”
Strangely, talking to him did have a liberating effect on her. His way of looking at the situation was straightforward. Her own thought processes were more like a Venn diagram, with each decision leading to a perilous array of possibilities.
“Seriously,” he said, “try not to second-guess yourself so much—not about the past, or the dog. Or me.” He grinned.
She looked away, trying to figure out what it was about him. They were having a deeply personal conversation, and she kept thinking about what his kisses tasted like and how he looked without a shirt.
“Too much thinking,” he said. “It can’t be good for you.”
“I could blame my training. In my job at the ICC, every single step I took, every decision had to be debated, every possible outcome projected. It’s become second nature to me. Do you know, I once actually made a diagram to figure out a seating arrangement for a court dinner.”
“It’s not the only way to navigate through life,” he said.
“Oh? And what’s your way?”
“Just pick a horse and get on it.”
“Again, so simple.”
“It is simple if you let it be.”
“Noah Shepherd—veterinary genius by day, Zen philosopher by night. All right. I’ll try to take your advice.”
He nodded gravely. “There is no try,” he said in a soft Yoda voice. “There is only do, or not do.”
“You’re crazy,” she said.
“I know.” He moved closer to her on the sofa and kissed her softly on the mouth. Between kisses, he told her, “I missed you this weekend.”
I missed you, too. She didn’t let herself say it. Instead, she said, “We need to stop this.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s foolish to be so impulsive. We need to slow down, figure out where we’re going. I thought we weren’t going to do this anymore.”
“Wrong,” he said, unbuttoning her sweater with slow deliberation. “We’re going to do this every chance we get.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“You’re not supposed to be thinking at all. If you are, I’m falling down on the job.”
“Oh,” she said, her insides melting, “you’re doing a fine job. Believe me, this is absolutely…fine.”
He laughed with his mouth against hers. “Good. I like your family, Sophie. But now all I can think about is this. I am crazy. I can’t keep my hands off you.”
“I moved here for my family,” she reminded him. “Being with you, like this—”
“Is not stealing anything from them,” he said, sliding the sweater down over her shoulders, unfastening her bra. “You get to take off the hair shirt every once in a while.”