Ants Marching
Sin is rarely hardest on the sinner. I know now that Lovey’s right about that one. Because, while I was up all night, every night wondering, stressing, plotting and planning, Ben slept as soundly as a worriless child in that bed beside me.
How he and Laura Anne snuck around without worrying they’d get caught, I’ll never know. Because, as I pulled into Holden’s driveway that day, my butterflies had butterflies. I wish I could have said that the jitters I was feeling that day were out of love. But they weren’t. They were out of fear and anxiety. They were out of the worry that I would get caught, that someone would see. And I was only drinking coffee, for Lord’s sake—decaf, at that.
I had taken my parents’ extra car to Holden’s. They thought I was on my way to Salisbury, but I was going to make an unexpected pit stop. As Holden’s back door pushed against its springs and slammed shut, I instantly felt more comfortable. It was all the same—in the sunroom, at least. The sofa with the cashmere Ralph Lauren BlackLabel blanket thrown casually across the back. The bookcase filled with prizewinning, hand-carved decoys and antique guns leaned against the wall. The smell of Old Spice and pine and Labrador mixing together into a cologne of well-bred, moneyed masculinity.
And then there was Holden, in shorts and an oxford with rolled-up sleeves, Gucci loafers and, for a hint of something new, the monogrammed belt buckle had been replaced by Hermès’s signature “H” buckle with an alligator strip running around his taut waist. Holden stepped over the threshold from the kitchen to the sunroom to embrace me. He held me for a long time there and kissed my hair, somehow instinctively knowing that trying for more was too much too soon.
“My house instantly looks better when you walk through the door,” he said.
I smiled, feeling a familiarity about it all that was somewhat comforting.
“Can I get you a drink? Maybe a Veuve Clicquot?”
“What are you doing with Veuve Clicquot lying around?”
He turned, his hand on the refrigerator door and, looking wistfully past me into the space behind my head said, with a prophet’s voice, “I hoped that you would smell it and come back to me.”
We both broke down into a fit of laughter, and, even with my life gone so terribly wrong, it felt so good to laugh. I leaned over the marble island as Holden poured and handed me a wineglass. “No champagne flute?”
He shook his head. “I went to a wine tasting recently and they told me that champagne flutes are made for aerating bad champagne. Good champagne should be enjoyed from a wineglass.”
I thought of Ben, a brand-new guilt surging, a pain stabbing right through me like a shard of glass in a hurricane. I thought of the RV,of the laughter and the love and the simplicity of that life and how I wished that I could lasso that moment and pull it back to me.
But I can’t,I reminded myself, standing up a little straighter, my shoes tapping on the hardwood floor as I slipped them off and curled up in a chair in the adjoining den, directly across from the piano. Holden sat down at the keys and began to play, periodically looking over his shoulder at me. “So, you know how I feel about you, right?”
I walked over to him and set my glass on the piano, remembering that I couldn’t drink it. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that business-as-usual comment. “Yes, Holden, I know how you feel about me.”
“So is it forward of me to ask why you’ve come here today?”
I shrugged even though he was focusing on the concerto flying from the keys like a horse jumping over its hurdles. “I’m not really sure,” I said. “I guess I’ve gotten your texts, and I’ve read your e-mails, and I’m wondering what you’re really hoping to gain from all of this.”
His fingers stopped all at once, ten ants marching home to their queen suddenly stomped by a careless human shoe. He turned on the slick, black bench and said quietly, “You. I’m hoping to gain you.”
I sat down on the bench beside him, and he put his arm around me. I could feel the tears coming as I laid my head on his shoulder. His comfortable, predictable, even-keel shoulder. He rested his head on mine. “I want another chance, Annabelle,” he whispered. “No big to-do that you don’t want. No my mother pressuring you into wearing pink seersucker. None of that. I just want you for who you are, and I don’t ever want you to change. I want you to be the mother of my children.”
That simple sentence was all it took for my misting over to become a huge puddle on the floor.
I could see his eyes glazing over, as he whispered, “What’s wrong, Ann? What’s going on?”
I sniffed and composed myself. “I’m pregnant,” I said simply.
His head popped up, and I could see the shock pass over his face. He stood up so quickly I nearly fell over. He began pacing the length of the living room. I figured that being pregnant with another man’s baby was enough to scare him away and that, now, no Ben, no Holden, I was really, truly alone.
His shock turned to confusion, and he said, “So what are you doing here? I mean, does Ben not want a baby or something?”
I bit my lip. “Ben doesn’t know.”
True mystification was written all over his face, but then he steeled his jaw and, in that classic, Holden way, that decisive, confident manner that I needed most, he said, “Don’t tell him.”
“What do you mean, don’t tell him?”
“Don’t tell him. If he knows, there will be custody battles and the baby being shifted from place to place and all sorts of confusion.”
It made me realize how little I had actually considered this. I had to tell Ben, didn’t I? I couldn’t keep a secret this huge from Ben. Or could I? He hadn’t been terribly concerned about keeping a huge secret from me.
My thoughts shifted to Lovey. Had she been at this same crossroads? All of a sudden, I began to understand her a little bit better. Because, now, it wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t about Ben and it wasn’t about Holden. It was about this precious little baby and what would be best for it.
