“How could you do that, Lovey? How could you lie like that forever? I mean, does Mom even know?”
“Calm down, love. Your mother is a perfectly happy, grown woman, content in the knowledge that two parents love her unconditionally. And there is no reason for her to ever have to question that.”
She shook her head. “I thought you were better. I have always had you up on such a pedestal, that you were there for D-daddy no matter what, that you had the kind of love story that would go down in the history books. I had you pictured as this steel magnolia who stood by his side faithfully no matter what. But you were no better than anyone else, after all.”
Before the lying and deceitful part, I would say she hit the nail right on the head about what kind of wife I’d been. And then she shocked me again, spinning around toward the door and saying, “You’re no better than Ben.”
And, with that puzzling and horrifying sentence, my girl was gone.
Annabelle
Feet over Head
Lovey always says that North Carolina is the best state because its inhabitants really live by its motto: “To be, rather than to seem.” Back in the car, my hands frozen on the steering wheel, I could see that motto, protected by one of those binder sheets and snapped in between its three rings, gracing the pages of my fourth-grade North Carolina project. That was going to be my motto too. I wasn’t going to sit in the front row at church holding the hand of a man who was thinking of someone else. I wasn’t going to brush the hair and tie the shoes of the children of a man who was with someone else when I was away. I put my hand over my stomach protectively and felt my heart sink. But, then again, I had this baby now, this little person to think about and worry about. This precious angel that deserved to have a mother and a father, no matter the cost to me. And, whoever this baby’s father, I was going tobeits mother.
I don’t know why I had chosen that day to confront Lovey. Maybeit was that it had been a few weeks since her hip break, and I thought she was stronger. Maybe it was that I couldn’t stand to bottle up all these secrets for one more second. One was going to come pouring out, and, for now, that seemed like the safer one to let loose.
And now I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t go to my childhood home; I hadn’t even told my mom I was coming to Raleigh, lest I cause suspicion. And now, knowing what I knew, what Lovey had admitted, I certainly couldn’t go back to Ben. I abhorred the thought of being like the woman I had always loved so much, of living the rest of my life in a lie, acting like my marriage was one thing when it was really something else. No matter what I chose, my entire life was going to be a lie anyway. And, quite frankly, hiding the real father of your child was a substantially larger deception than having an affair.
I realized in the midst of my inner monologue that I was driving in the direction of Holden’s house. And who cared, really? My entire life was a sham, and I deserved better. And then I had a troubling thought:She never actually admitted it.
But Lovey had said she would never be sorry for anything that led to the creation of her daughter and granddaughter. And there really was no other explanation.
I could feel the tears coming down my cheeks again as I pulled into Holden’s driveway. I hadn’t even turned the engine off before he was out the door, chewing the sandwich that he, completely predictably, had come home for lunch to eat. Already a multimillionaire in his late twenties, but God forbid he spend eight bucks on lunch.
He swallowed and hugged me. “What’s the matter with my girl?” He peered over my shoulder into the backseat. “I’m less excited because I don’t see any possessions back there to indicate that you’re moving in here with me.” Then he asked again, “What’s with the tears?”
I knew I would never tell him about Lovey and D-daddy and Mom. It was too big a secret to ever share, knowledge that needed to be held under lock and key with twenty-four-hour security. I knew how distraught I was that D-daddy wasn’t really my grandfather, so I couldn’t begin to think how Mom would feel to know that she wasn’t truly his daughter. I could picture her entire childhood a thin stream of water from a green garden hose, evaporating as quickly as it hit the pavement on a sweltering August day.
So I said, instead, “I’ve decided to finally tell Ben I’m leaving him.”
His face lit up. “And...”
I leaned my head on his chest again. His safe, familiar, boring, uncomplicated, chest. I could hear myself saying to Lovey less than two years earlier,He’s my Ernest Wake.
But he wasn’t my Ernest Wake. He smelled great and dressed well and, though not gorgeous like Ben, was perfectly genetically suitable for producing another generation without the worry of getting teased at school. I had no doubt that he would weather what was going to be a pretty terrible storm with me, and that he would raise Ben’s child like his own and give it every opportunity and every bit of love that he could.
And, in a different way from how I had loved Ben, I did love him. It was a familiar kind of love, not the kind that makes your heart race but the kind that makes you feel safe under the covers when you’re saying your prayers at night. The kind that, when he calls on the phone and says, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I have to work late,” you don’t drive to his office and spy through the window to make sure he’s telling the truth. Because honesty is as important to him as never wearing seersucker after Labor Day.
“And, if you’ll still have me, I’d like to give it another go.”
He hollered, “Woo-hoo!” throwing the crust of his sandwich into the yard, picking me up and spinning me around in the concrete and brick driveway.
He leaned forward to kiss me, but I put my hand up. “I’m not going to be that girl,” I said. “I may be leaving him, but I don’t want to be a cheater too.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Annabelle, I’ll be here waiting with your favorite flowers all around the house and a chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot—or two.” He winked at me. Then he paused. “Wait. I guess that won’t really work. Maybe sparkling cider?”
And I knew he would. I was positive that he would have the florist deliver fresh vases of hydrangeas, peonies and white roses every single day until I arrived on his doorstep.
“I’ll figure out where we’re going to live so you don’t have that on your plate on top of everything else. Colorado?”
I scrunched my nose. “Isn’t it kind of cold in Colorado?”
“I just thought because you loved to ski so much.” He shrugged. “Well, whatever. I’ll find the perfect place and get back to you. And I’ll start interviewing nannies.”
“Nannies?”
He looked at me like I was dense. “Yeah. For the baby. So we can travel and stuff?”
