“Because you love him?”
“Yes, but isn’t it possible to love someone and not be able to make the logistics work?”
“Love isn’t about logistics.”
“It can be,” I argue, but my best friend sees it differently.
“What if he is who you are?”
“Excuse me?” I ask, not because I haven’t heard, but because the question is huge.
“You went down there looking for answers. What if he’s one?”
“Oh, Chrissie, I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head in a way of slow doubt. I’m not sure whether I don’t believe it, or whether I simply don’t want to.
Suddenly, though, the doubt lifts like fog at the shore, because it makes sense. I do believe it. I want to. I don’t want Jack and me to be done. He is so far and above any other man I’ve ever met, and no, I don’t need a man. But here I am, looking at the clock every two minutes, feelings more lonely with each exit I pass.
Jack Sabathianispart of who I am.
The certainty of it sinks in as I drive south on a darkening highway, back toward a life that I’ve successfully shaped and fully control, but that still won’t be whole. And suddenly, half-whole isn’t enough.
“Uh, Chrissie,” I say with abrupt urgency, “I think I need to go back, have to turn around at the next exit—where the hellisthe next exit?” I’ve barely said it when it appears. Blinkering right, I take the off-ramp, drive under the highway to the opposite on-ramp, and head back to Bay Bluff.
What took me fifty minutes southbound seems to be taking forever on the round trip. The northbound exits are more spread out, I swear they are. I don’t listen to music or take deep breaths, because trying to relax is futile. Same with going the speed limit, though I do stay within ten over.
I’m gripping the wheel as hard as I can in an effort to keep my mind off what I’m doing. Futile effort there, too. Because it’s crazy.I’mcrazy, heading in the wrong direction when I have to work tomorrow morning. But little images keep slipping through my mind—dream thoughts, like our driving back to New York together, his watching me at work, our walking around the city, eating at places where I’ve always wanted to eat, sleeping in my bed, waking up together. I have no idea where Joy is through all this or, for that matter, Guy. Still, the dream wisps come.
I could just call him as I drive. Why don’t I call? I didn’t have to turn around to do that. I can even pull over at the next rest stop and do it.
But no. We have to be face-to-face. He has to know that I’m not running away this time—has to know that I will not abandon him, even if it means driving back to New York tomorrow at dawn. He needs to know that he is part of my life, that he willalwaysbe part of my life.
Realizing this myself, I feel a burning need—and not between my legs. It’s in my chest. The heart sitting there now is too big for just Joy and me. It needs Jack in it, too.
The miles creep, one after another after another. Finally reaching Exit 91, I take the ramp at warp speed, or my modest equivalent thereof, and head for Westerly. It’s nine-thirty, meaning dark enough to steal through yellow lights and roll past stop signs with minimal fear of detection by the town’s finest. Breezing by Pawcatuck, under the railroad bridge, and into downtown Westerly is smooth enough, and the emotional landmarks that come after? Since my heart is already fully involved, they’ve lost their particular punch.
The square is deserted. Accelerating past, I angle up the bluff road. Of the two houses that loom at its crest, only the Aldiss one is lit.
Jack’s is dark and its driveway empty, but that’s the one I turn down. Refusing to be discouraged, I park and, hurrying to the front door, ring the bell. When he doesn’t answer, I ring it again and put my ear to the wood. No footsteps. No whine of a dog. Runningaround to the back, I rap on the wood, then bang. When neither raises an alarm inside, I try the knob, but the door is locked tight. Gone? Refusing to believe it, I turn to scan the beach, but the only movement there is the shimmer of a light surf, pearlized by the same moon that shows no man and his dog planted in the sand, looking broodingly at the sea.
There are perfectly good explanations, I tell myself. He may be dealing with an emergency at the clinic, or running with Guy on the long beach near the square—or, since I didn’t see his truck when I passed there, at another beach entirely. Maybe he’s at the bowling alley with the police chief again, drowning his disappointment in beer. He’ll be back, I tell myself and, returning to the front of the house, take up position on the steps to wait. Two minutes into that, I try his phone. It goes straight to voicemail.
Naturally, my eye is drawn to the Aldiss lights. When a figure moves past the living room window and stops, I hold my breath. I don’t want Joy running out. Call me a coward. Call meirresponsible.But what I’m doing here isn’t about motherhood. It isn’t about correcting a memory, though so many were proved false this week. Nor do I need the Nikon to save this moment. I’m living it in real time, alone, waiting for a man who has a life of his own and may or may not have been serious about changing it.
Cell in hand, I allow another thirty seconds for imagining the questionable places he may be, the women he may be with, and the reasons I was an idiot to turn around on the highway and race back. Then I try his phone again. Nada.
Where are you?I text and wait. And wait. Andwait,with no ellipses on his end.
After what feels like forever, I pocket the phone and, devastated, hug my knees. I tell myself that he’s a grown man with his own life, that his silence doesn’t mean anything bad. But how can it not, with his supposedly loving me enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me, with my having rejected him again, this time after he begged—begged—me to stay?
My eye keeps drifting back to the house with the lights, the one in which my family is living, breathing, waiting. Sitting here alone, I wonder if that’s where I belong, if the past will always be a barrier between us, if I’ll always be too much of an Aldiss for Jack.
Anne appears at the front door. Even in silhouette, she is defined by the same careless topknot of hair that had set her apart from Margo and Joy earlier this evening. Slipping out onto the porch, she closes the door carefully behind, though the effort at stealth is wasted. Or maybe it’s just that Margo is as attuned to her now as they both are to me. Before I can move, they’re side by side at the edge of the porch, staring at Jack’s house.
I’m up in a flash. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Jack is somewhere completely innocent, somewhere without phone reception. Maybe he’s so heartsick that he turned the damned thing off. But I don’t know, just don’t know, and the thought of a life without him is bleak.
The dim light that escapes from the house is soft, but it must have captured my chill, because Margo takes those last few steps with open arms. Not to be out done, Anne joins the hug, and there’s nothing weak about her arms. Warm as Margo’s, they support me well.
Finally, Margo draws back. “What happened?”
