It will get better once we’re married and settled, I reassured myself.It’s all the uncertainty that’s making him like this.
I was good at convincing myself of the things I wished were true. I always had been. But even I had to wonder if that was as misguided as the people who have babies to fix their broken marriages. As I made my way up the front steps, I had to consider that maybe Mark wasn’t the problem. Maybe everything else in my life that had gone wrong was clouding my feelings about our relationship, the one thing that I had always known to be right.
TWENTY-THREE
ansley:thethought
Iguess I expected Jack to come after me. I wanted him to, I realized. I wanted him to come find me and tell me that I was the one and that girl meant nothing to him. But I was fifty-eight years old. And I knew that life was more complicated than all that. He loved her. Of course he did. He was married to the woman, for heaven’s sake. If you could even call a “Lauren” a woman, that is.
I had had innumerable friends go through divorces that had dragged on for years, way past their love’s expiration date. I had never had any reason to feel anything less than adored by Jack, and I knew he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on me. But we had planned a future together down to the nth degree. It seemed like something he should have at least mentioned.
I was standing in the kitchen, staring like a crazy person, trying to decide what to do now. Should I make a cup of coffee? Go to work? Cry? I felt paralyzed. So I decided to make some pancakes. Pancakes helped everything.
As I was measuring and stirring, Sloane and Caroline walked into the kitchen. I felt my blood pressure rise. I knew they were angry with me, but quite frankly, I felt angry with them—or maybe I was more defensive. I didn’t lie to them. They knew their entire lives that Carter wasn’t their biological father. That Jack happened to be wasn’t really pertinent. I should have told them, but I didn’t. And damn, I wasn’t perfect all the time. Weren’t they old enough to know that?
I looked at them, licking batter off the back of my hand, and turned back to the griddle to ladle out several pancakes. For myself, I guess. I was hoping Vivi would come traipsing in and I could feed her, too.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re mad at us?” Sloane asked.
I didn’t respond. If they could ice me out, I could ice them out, too. Let them see how it felt.
“I think she’s giving us the silent treatment,” Caroline said, “which is ridiculous, because if anyone has a right to be angry, it’s us.”
That did it. “But Caroline,” I said sarcastically, “how can you be angry?”
“What do you mean,howcan I be angry?” She crossed her arms, so indignant and self-righteous I honestly wanted to smack her. I mean, I would never actually hit her, of course. But I thought it would have felt good right about then.
“Well, if it weren’t for Jack, you wouldn’t be here,” I said calmly and slowly. Then I added, “And then who would the world revolve around?”
Sloane burst out laughing, while Caroline’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped.
I had taken her crap for thirty-five years. All the cards were on the table now. No more secrets, no more surprises. This was it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and if she couldn’t handle it, then she could take her moody self and her bad temper somewhere else. I didn’t mean that, of course. One day without her had nearly killed me. But I was so worked up over the whole Lauren and Jack situation that I was feeling brazen. It was wildly uncharacteristic.
Even Caroline couldn’t help but smile. “The world does revolve around me, doesn’t it?” she said lightly.
There was a tap on the back door, and I realized that whoever it was had probably been standing there watching this all play out. I assumed it was Jack. But I caught a flash of blond hair out of the corner of my eye. And I wondered how it was remotely possible that this day could get any worse.
“Who isthat?” Sloane asked.
“Oh,” I said as I opened the door. “This is Lauren. This is Jack’s wife.”
Lauren raised her eyebrows. I had shocked her. I liked that.
“Ex-wife,” Caroline corrected.
“Nope,” I said, slamming the door behind Lauren. “Do you like pancakes?” I asked, realizing that my daughters had fled like cockroaches in a spotlight.
Lauren walked by me and into the living room, where she sat down on the couch without my offering. How rude. Well, she might be a model-esque teenager who had the man I wanted, but at least I had manners.
“I guess we’re sitting down,” I said under my breath. I sat in a chair opposite her, where I had the water view. Another small victory for Ansley.
I wanted to be mad, but I noticed she had tears in her eyes. And this was her life falling apart here. She was so young I felt sort of maternal toward her, unfortunately. I hated my good nature.
“Do you know that Jack talks in his sleep?”
Before I could stop myself and be a little gentler, I spat out, “I was hearing Jack talk in his sleep before you were even born.”
She sucked in her cheeks and closed her eyes, and I knew that had stung.
