As we sat quietly in the back of the cab after having dropped the rest of the family off at Caroline’s, I said, unable to let it go, “I still think it would be the perfect time.”
I looked out the window, admiring the Fifth Avenue view. This had been my world. This had been my life. My life with Carter. It was impossible to come to Manhattan and not feel an ache for my husband. Because while, yes, things had been complicated, we had had years of unadulterated joy together.
I looked at Jack. Maybe now, sixteen years later, I was getting a second chance at life. I was ruining it with this fight.
“I’ve always wanted to stay at the Viceroy,” I said, changing the subject.
“I’m not ready to tell them,” Jack said. “I’m sorry. I know this is your decision, and this was why you didn’t want to be with me, but I want a little bit of time for them to get to know me, so maybe they won’t cut me out of their lives when they do find out.”
I took his hand, softening. “I don’t think they’ll cut you out of their lives, Jack.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And they might already know,” I added.
“That is vastly different fromknowingknowing,” he said.
The thought made my blood run cold.
The cab turned down Fifty-Eighth.
“Sir,” I said, “you’re going the wrong way.”
“No, no,” he replied in broken English. “Plaza is on corner.”
“But we’re not—”
“She’s confused,” Jack said.
I looked at him, and he winked at me, finally acquiescing. “I’ve wanted to stay with you at the Plaza ever since that night.”
I smiled, remembering. “That was an amazing night.”
“What if you hadn’t gotten married that day?”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t have happened. I’ve thought about it a lot, but there is nothing you could have said that night that would have made me change my mind about Carter. When I saw you, I knew I still loved you, sure. But I also knew we wanted different things, and as much as I had always loved you, I wouldn’t sacrifice the life I had dreamed of for so long.”
“What if I had told you I wanted to have children?”
“I would have known you were lying.”
I looked to my left, and there it was, the Manhattan icon, the home of Eloise, the place where I’d spent the night before my wedding, where I had taken my girls for birthday slumber parties when they were small. I had never felt like a New Yorker. Not really. So it surprised me when I got the slightest pang for my old life. We had had so many good times in this city; I had grown and changed so much here, had all of my children here. It was good to be back.
As Jack paid for the cab and got out our suitcases, I walked over and kissed him gently.
“You’re right. This isn’t the right time to tell them,” I said, closing the wound from earlier. “But do you understand now why I never told them before?”
He nodded. He dropped the suitcases, and there we were, like we had been all those years ago, locked in an embrace in front of one of the world’s most famous hotels. As we crowded into our bay of that revolving door with the doublePs and entered the gilded lobby of the Plaza with its palm trees and beautiful sofas, I paused and kissed him again.
“This was a wonderful surprise,” I said.
He rested his forehead on mine and said, “I know you have a lot of memories in this city, some good, some bad. I was hoping that maybe we could make a new one this weekend, a really good one.”
All I could hope was that Jack’s best attempts at a happy memory weren’t thwarted by the results of Emerson’s doctor appointment. There was no fancy hotel, no kiss, no memory, that could be strong enough, better enough, to heal the utter agony of my child being sick.
FOURTEEN
emerson: any excuse to eat a cheeseburger
