Annabelle

Exactly What He Wants

Lovey and D-daddy had a secret that kept them happily married for a lifetime: They made a deal that whoever left the other had to take the five daughters with them. It’s hard to imagine it now, looking at my little Lovey. It’s hard to think that, within her frail body, she would have had the strength and stamina for five children, cooking three meals a day, mounds of laundry, ironing a fresh shirt for her husband every minute and touching up five little church dresses every Sunday morning. Even with a parade of help, Lovey’s life, while privileged, seemed like an awful lot of drudgery.

D-daddy might have been the one that went to work every day, rose through the ranks of the financial ladder. But Lovey was the one that held the family together. She was his walking stick, the extra hundred-dollar bill in his back pocket for emergencies. Her love for D-daddy was the thing that gave him the confidence to take the big risks that mostly paid off in their life together.

“It was two dollars,” Lovey said, staring over the water, her coffee steaming in response to the unseasonably chilly September morning.

“What was, Lovey?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her thin shoulder and taking in the harbor. It was perhaps the thing I loved most about Martha’s Vineyard. You knew that the money was all around you, but you couldn’t quite spot where. Billionaire chiefs of industry captained twenty-five-year-old Boston Whalers, and hundred-millionaire heiresses walked amongst the crowd in fisherman sweaters and plain gold wedding bands. It was like Lovey always said: “When you have it, you don’t need to flaunt it.”

“Our marriage license,” she said, smiling.

It was such a rare treat to hear Lovey talk about the past. She was so determined that her life would be over once she sank back and let the tide of her memories wash over her. I could almost picture them drowning her, stealing her last breath. I knew, without her having to say it, that she was terrified that D-daddy would outlive her. And, on this trip, I was almost as convinced as she was that maybe he could emerge from that semi-catatonic state in which he had been living the last three years, his brain revived and refreshed like a flower after the rain.

“Did you know that I paid for our marriage license?” she asked.

I shook my head and smiled. “I didn’t have a clue.”

“Dan only had a hundred-dollar bill and they couldn’t break it. So I paid for the first thing we bought as a couple.”

As she looked out over the water, I could tell that she was back in that day, seeing D-daddy, flustered, I’m sure, an ounce of that temper flaring, her soothing it instantly and him responding with that jovial laugh that had been my favorite thing about him.

Lovey looked back at me. “It was the best investment I ever made. For two dollars, I got a husband, five daughters and someone to take care of me for the rest of my life.”

We both laughed. My phone rang. I looked at the screen, held it up and said, “Speaking of.”

“Hi, honey.”

“Hi, TL.”

I could tell instantly by his tone that something was off. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s fine,” he said briskly. “Just missing you. Y’all having fun?”

I held Lovey’s hand and smiled. “Oh, we’re having a blast. It’s chilly here but so, so beautiful. I’m sorry you couldn’t come.”

And I meant it. After being together nonstop for more than a year, getting into bed alone, no one snuggling me, no one’s breath on my back, felt isolating and terribly lonely. I looked over at Lovey, thinking for the first time how she must have felt getting back into bed those first few nights with no one beside her, and I squeezed her hand again.

“Well, duty calls,” Ben said.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I could tell that something was amiss. He obviously wasn’t in a rush to tell me, and I wasn’t in a rush to pull it out of him while Lovey and I were having such a good morning. I spotted Kelly the nurse out of the corner of my eye, pushing D-daddy down the waterfront toward us, that semi-aware look like the world was a mystery that he was trying to solve.

“D-daddy is up and ready, so we’re going to go get some breakfast,” I said. “But call me later.” I paused. “And, hey. Cheer up. If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

I thought of Lovey again, of the way she always supported D-daddy and made it easy to reach for those far-off dreams. A little pinprick of guilt, a bee sting after the initial shock, ran through me as I thought of how easily I let Ben give up that life on the road he loved, singing and traveling. It had been his decision to go back home, but, in that moment, I got the feeling that I should have fought him on it, encouraged him to do what he truly loved.

“I’m missing you like I didn’t know I could,” Ben said. “I just needed to hear your voice. I’m feeling much better. I love you all of it.”

I smiled. “I love you all of it.”

I put my phone back in my pocket, resisted the urge to check it again when it beeped, and gave D-daddy a kiss on the cheek, tightening the scarf around his neck, afraid that the wind would blow right through the body that age and infirmity had made so frail and bony.

“We were actually thinking of walking back to the Harbor View for breakfast, if that suits,” Lovey said to D-daddy.

I watched her face, studying the tight lines of perseverance around her lips, the stony yet hopeful look in her eye that said she would never quit fighting, she would never give up hope. And, when D-daddy, as was the norm, didn’t respond, that slight purse in her lips, that nearly unidentifiable shift in her eyelid, was the only thing that gave away her disappointment. As quickly as D-daddy had been there last night, he was gone today.

“I just don’t understand it,” Lovey said. “I can’t figure out what brings him back like that and why he fades away again so quickly.”

I shook my head trying to think of something to cheer Lovey up. I reached into my jacket pocket, my eyes widening at what I saw.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said out loud.

“What?”

“Guess who just texted me.”

“Ben?”

“Holden.”

“Holden?”

I shook my head, and, as irritated as I was by the contents of his message, I was happy to see that conspiratorial gleam in Lovey’s eye.

“What on earth could he possibly have to say to you?”

I read: “I love you, Ann, and I meant it when I said I was going to do everything I could to get you back. I’m working every day on becoming the man you deserve.”

Lovey stopped in her tracks. “Annabelle, what are you going to do?”

I laughed. “Do? I’m not going to do a thing. I’m married to the absolute love of my life. I’ve never, ever been happier. I’m going to ignore him and hope that eventually he’ll go away.”

Lovey and I sat beside each other on the front porch of the Harbor View, in matching rocking chairs, admiring the view of the harbor and the lighthouse. I grinned to see the dozens of men, all in matching navy blue Vineyard Vines fleeces, the item from the conference goody bag that became crucial in that last-minute change of weather from warm to chilly. They were chattering loudly, importantly on their cell phones, opening cases and closing deals, in a way that you knew they wanted you to hear them and be impressed.

There was a long silence while we both looked ahead again, all those matching sweatshirts peppering the lawn like sprinkles on a cupcake.

I broke the silence, saying, “If Ben were here, he’d be sitting right beside us, holding my hand, playing his guitar, telling us something funny.” I pointed down toward the lawn. “But this. This would be life with Holden. I would be up here, trying to enjoy a cup of coffee, and he would be down there, talking a client down from a financial crisis.”

Lovey smiled. “You may be right, darling, but here’s the thing to watch out for: It’s amazing how a man like Holden always seems, in the end, to get exactly what he wants.”