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Grant agreed to a very brief business trip to Seattle and departed Bar Harbor with a heavy heart that Saturday. He spent all of Sunday in his Seattle hotel room, plotting out the presentation he planned to give the following morning and tried his darnedest not to consider the weight of what he’d done. Had leaving Bar Harbor put the final nail in the coffin of his marriage? Or had he done that himself when Heather had caught him on the phone with Quintin?
At his sales presentations throughout that Monday, he was his same-old vibrant self, shaking hands and remembering small details about previous clients, down to, “How is your grandson doing at soccer these days?” and, “Now tell me. How are you feeling now that you’ve taken gluten out of your diet?” All the while, it was as though he dragged a shadow along behind him. When one of his previous clients asked after his wife and children, his smile nearly cracked his face open. “They’re just fantastic, as ever. Melody’s career is off to the races, and Casey’s, well, she’s just a firecracker. The reason I fell in love with her in the first place.” He sounded like a madman, probably— a madman who would never fall out of love with that brilliant young woman he’d met in his brother’s dining room. He’d never planned to.
Monday evening, armed with the confidence that came with a number of sales, he sat down before his computer and researched “best restaurants in Bar Harbor area.” He then ordered a large bouquet of roses (yet again) to have them ready by Wednesday afternoon. He would be damned if he wouldn’t fight for this woman. He’d failed her in countless ways and, in the process, ultimately failed himself and their family. A pricey meal and a few roses wouldn’t cut it, but perhaps they would allow him a seat at the table with her. Perhaps they would allow him a few syllables to apologize.
With the expensive restaurant booked and the flowers paid for, Grant then prepared himself for the most difficult task of all.
When Melody and Donnie had purchased the smartphone for Grant’s forty-second birthday, Grant had initially declared that it was “useless.” Now, the number of apps he used for messaging alone was incomprehensible. All he wanted to do was reach out to his wife. All he wanted to do was hold her.
GRANT: Hi. I wanted to let you know. I’ll be back in Bar Harbor on Wednesday morning. I’d love to talk to you in person. There’s so much we haven’t told one another. Maybe we should give ourselves the chance to try.
GRANT: I’ll be at the hotel downtown. I hope to see you soon.
Tuesday, Grant continued to take more sales meetings and eyed his phone as though it was a bomb about to go off. His passion took on a state of mania by the afternoon, one that surprisingly brought even higher sales percentages than previously. His boss called him to lend a “Congratulations,” while several of his colleagues emailed him to ask for his top secrets in the field. Grant longed to write back, “Just be fully devoted to your work twenty-four-seven and not your wife, and I guess you’ll prosper at work.” That was the sort of email that would get people talking, not in a good way. In the end, he didn’t respond.
Wednesday at six in the morning, he took a flight from Seattle out to Maine, where he then grabbed his car and traced the unfamiliar route to Bar Harbor, the cozy colonial-looking New England village at the base of a mountain and the edge of a rocky coast. It seemed something straight from a calendar of paintings Quintin and Grant’s mother had had hanging in their kitchen forty years before. She’d kept several of the calendars years after, all filled with her handwriting: QUINTIN - FOOTBALL PRACTICE. GRANT - HORSEBACK RIDING. QUINTIN - DRIVING TEST. That kind of thing. They’d thrown the calendars out after her death, something Grant regretted now. They’d been perfect snapshots of another time.
He’d tried to create similar calendars for his children during their earlier years as a way to link himself with his mother, but he’d been utterly unorganized when it came to things like time.
Back inside the hotel, the receptionist batted her false eyelashes at him with surprise. It seemed that Tyler worked nights and allowed this more judgmental receptionist the day shift.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, sounding bored.
“Can I have the same room?” He set his suitcase down beside himself and riffled for his wallet. “This time, I’d like to book a week.”
“Really. A week? There’s another surprise,” the receptionist said as she clacked her nails over the keyboard of the computer and arranged his stay.
It was now Wednesday at three-thirty in the afternoon. Grant hadn’t yet heard from Casey but still hoped that she’d respond to his text or call. Or that she’d even appear at the hotel, hungry to rip him a new one. Grant was willing to fight, as long as it meant he could see her. He wouldn’t let her temper get the better of them both. It was a creature all its own. He’d heard her weep about it time and time again. “I just can’t control it when it takes over me. It’s like I become someone else.” “Casey, darling, you’re the most caring and loving creature I’ve ever known. It’s just that sometimes, you care and love too much. You can’t help it,” he’d told her in response.
Grant hung his suit on the outer hanger of the bathroom door in his upstairs bedroom, whistling an old Pink Floyd to himself. Outside, it seemed Bar Harbor residents had poured even more Christmas cheer over the streets. As though everything now was a fictional universe, a carriage whipped past, upon which a man dressed as Santa Claus directed the horses.
He couldn’t wait to describe this to Casey later. He couldn’t wait to tell her just how ridiculous yet glorious it was to live within the streets of Bar Harbor. “Maybe you’re right. We should live here,” he would tell her. On second thought, he would remove the “maybe” in that sentence. There wouldn’t be any more “maybes” within the story of Grant and Casey.
At four-thirty, Grant sat at the edge of his bed and clicked through the TV channels before turning the thing off and listening to a podcast about self-improvement. He then did a fifteen-minute yoga session on YouTube and thought about how he’d tell Casey that he did yoga sometimes now. “We used to make fun of those people, but now? I see the benefits in my back,” he muttered to himself now in preparation. He imagined that Casey would laugh with him and then say, “I’ve done a few YouTube videos myself... Getting older is something else, isn’t it?”
What a privilege it was to watch someone you love get older.
Just past five-fifteen, Grant checked his phone again and reasoned that he still had many hours before dinnertime. Probably, he wouldn’t give up hope till nine or ten, as he could envision Casey stewing in anger and fear in the Keating House, humming and hawing about what to do next. “Choose us. Choose love,” he urged the window, as though it was a direct portal to Casey’s room.
Just then, a knock rang out through Grant’s hotel room. He jumped toward the door, suddenly fuzzy with expectation. But when he opened it, he found only the receptionist, who passed him a large manila envelope with a bored gesture.
“This was delivered here for you,” she said, showing him her grey piece of gum between her teeth.
“Huh.” Grant took the envelope and nodded firmly. “Who dropped it off?”
The receptionist shrugged. “Never seen her before.” She then sauntered toward the staircase and left Grant alone in the doorway.
Grant stepped back into his hotel room as his heart thudded. He placed the manila envelope on the antique desk and tried to imagine what was inside. It suddenly felt like a ticking time bomb. Could he just toss it out the window and make it disappear? Could he leave the envelope untouched and take off for Hawaii, Geneva, or Melbourne?
With shaking hands, he opened it and slid out the very papers he’d dreaded.
He’d been served divorce papers.
How marvelous.
At that moment, his phone dinged with news from the local florist. The bouquet he’d selected for Casey was ready for pick-up. As he’d already paid, he decided not to answer it. The flowers would wilt on without either of them, as dead as their marriage.
“I’m going to take it,” he’d told Casey about the job in sales. “The kids don’t need me anymore. You’re about to take this big job in Sacramento. I need something to get me through the day.”
It had been only two years before Casey quit the architecture firm. Grant had planted himself firmly in the sales world throughout that time— and found himself admittedly, telling himself just how much he deserved his success. “Marriage is about a partnership, and you’ve given your all. It’s time for you to take something for yourself,” he’d told himself. Was that selfish? He hadn’t thought so at the time.
“I won’t be gone that long,” he’d told Casey over and over again. “It’s just so important to my career that I make this meeting. Nobody’s ever needed my expertise in this way. I finally feel I’ve come into my own.”
He felt like a clown and a reckless fool.
Casey had never been gone for work as long Grant had been, not once in all her world-renowned architectural ventures. She’d always called home. She’d always texted goodnight. Grant hadn’t. And why was that? He wracked his brain for some kind of answer, but came up dry.
A single purple sticky note was attached to the last page of the divorce papers. Casey’s handwriting told him, “Get a lawyer, Grant. I’m serious.”
Love you too, sweetheart.
Ten minutes later, Grant rapped his knuckles against the hotel bar. Frank raised his chin in greeting. His smile was the most genuine thing Grant had seen all day.
“Grant! Good to see you. The receptionist said that you’re back with us for a week this time.”
“We’ll see about that.” Grant’s tone terrified him. “Can I get a whiskey? Double.”
Frank whipped into action. Behind him, the television blared the sports station, which recounted the fascinating events of an NBA basketball game from the night before. Grant’s eyes glazed over with the news. With his drink before him, he dipped his head back and sipped the first of what would be many sips. He was a soon-to-be-divorcée. He needed to wear the label. He needed to see how it fit.
“I’ll have one with you if you don’t mind,” Frank said as he poured himself a glass.
“More the merrier,” Grant replied.
Before long, Frank turned off the television and turned on the stereo. His favorite songs vibrated over Grant— taking him from T. Rex to Queen to Joy Division and beyond. Grant dropped his head back as a lull took over him. He imagined himself as a teenager, listening to these very tunes with Quintin, long before Quintin had become the once-iconic ranch owner, Quintin Griffin. When Quintin’s fame had skyrocketed, Grant had done what any little brother might have done. He’d teased him about it. “Oh, look at the big famous rancher. Isn’t he so big, rich, and strong?”
It wasn’t so difficult to pinpoint when everything had shifted entirely in Quintin’s life.
The day Quintin’s daughter had fallen off the horse and died, the narrative had shifted.
What had been wild nights of partying and frenetic dancing and the pursuit of beauty and electricity and life had fallen away to nights of drunken weeping, overly reckless purchasing, and a loss of sanity.
Grant had watched it all with a mix of fear and sorrow. He’d always revered his older brother. He’d never envisioned such a downfall.
Around his fourth drink, Grant placed his left cheek on the cool wood of the bar and watched as the snow whirled outside. Frank said something about not usually allowing clients to drink as much as Grant did, but, “Heck. It’s Christmas, isn’t it? It can be the loneliest time of the year. And if there’s anything I can guess about a guy like you staying around this little hotel as much as you have, it’s that you’re lonely.”
Grant couldn’t lift his head to answer. Frank clucked his tongue, as though he’d learned all he needed to know. Deep in his pocket, Grant’s phone buzzed and buzzed, over and over again, until Grant finally forced himself upright and dragged it out of his pocket.
The name he read wasn’t Casey’s name.
It was Quintin’s.
And for a long time, Grant wasn’t sure he wanted to answer.
But when he did, he learned something that sobered him up almost instantly.
The voice on the other end was something to live for.
When he jumped up from the barstool, it collapsed behind him with a horrible clank. He tossed a fifty on the countertop and thanked Frank for all he’d done.
“I thought you were sticking around another week?” Frank hollered as Grant raced toward the staircase.
Grant didn’t have space in his mind to answer. He had to leave Bar Harbor. Maybe he’d never return.