CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MILLY
On Sunday Milly and Lloyd sat on deck chairs and watched as Debbie and Jack built sandcastles down by the water’s edge.
“They want me in New York in a week,” Lloyd said. “It’s not enough time to pack up and go, I know that, but maybe you could find out the name of Walter and Sylvia’s real estate agent?”
“Sure,” Milly said, staring out at the sailboats, the Pavilion across the bay, and the Ferris wheel at a standstill to its right. To think that Adele used to work there. What a waste of her talent. She wondered what Adele would do now that the club was closing.
“Milly? Are you listening to me?” Lloyd asked. “This is important.”
She knew it was important, but she’d been trying to block it out and pretend that it wasn’t happening. She’d put all of her energy into helping coordinate the big match. She’d made the club a decent amount of money by gathering for sale many special, local trinkets and gifts from the boutiques in town. The visitors had gone crazy for her selection, vendors selling out of everything by the end of the day, but that was all over now. The club was closing, her tennis lessons with Adele were over, Sylvia was leaving, and Lloyd was asking her impossible questions. Adele’s loss, which had somehow felt like a triumph just one day earlier, nowfelt like Milly’s loss too, and she was forced to look at the bleak future immediately ahead of her.
“What do you think?” Lloyd went on. “Should we let the kids finish school and the three of you join me in New York in the summer? Or should we all go together now and let them sell the house without us? Maybe it’s better to show it if we’re not here. It would be less cluttered without us.”
She looked over at Lloyd, really stared at his profile for a long moment. She tried to imagine not seeing his handsome face, not seeing his soft hands, the thumb with the nail that grew in slightly bumpy after a childhood incident with his father’s hammer, the small details that she had thought only she knew about. He was watching their children, and she saw his face change. She followed his concerned gaze out to the kids, where Jack’s latest sandcastle attempt collapsed and knocked down the one he’d built next to it. Lloyd laughed tenderly as Jack continued to stomp all the sand down flat again and start over.
“He’s resilient, that one,” Lloyd said. “He must get that from you.” He looked over at her and smiled, then turned serious when he saw Milly’s face. “What is it, Milly?”
She took his hand in hers and swallowed. “I can’t go to New York with you, Lloyd.”
“Milly,” he whispered.
“I’m going to stay here with the children.”
“Milly, no, please.”
“I can’t do it, Lloyd. I just can’t. I thought I was willing to stay and somehow put up with it here, on Balboa, where I have true friends, friends who feel like family and could hold me up, but I can’t uproot all of us and move to the other side of the country. I can’t start over again.”
He looked down at his hand in hers and was about to speak, but he stopped.
“Who’s to say it wouldn’t happen again, Lloyd, with someone else?”
He shook his head but didn’t deny it.
“I don’t understand it, and I feel so ignorant for believing that you loved me for all those years.…”
“I do love you, Milly. I have always loved you.”
“Not in the way a husband should love his wife.” She paused. “I trusted you with my best years. I’m angry about that.”
“You’re right. I don’t think I did it intentionally, but I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can ever make that up to you.”
“You can’t,” she said. “But you gave me two beautiful children, and for that I will be forever grateful.” They both looked out to Debbie and Jack. Debbie was now burying Jack in sand, and they were both laughing. “I’ve been thinking about everything,” Milly went on. “And I do recognize what a terrible situation you’re in, that you’ve been in for many, many years. Maybe even your whole life. I understand now that you didn’t choose this. You wouldn’t choose this difficult path, and you shouldn’t have to spend your whole life living a lie. You deserve to be happy.” She blinked away her tears. “We both do.”
She thought of Wes and wondered if the man Lloyd had fallen in love with had given him the sense of hope and possibility that Wes had given her. Lloyd deserved that as much as she did, but she wasn’t going to stick around and be a part of it.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Lloyd.” She took a deep breath and waited for the courage to speak again. “I had an indiscretion too.” She looked at him and expected to see shock and horror on his face, but he just looked out to the bay. “I’m not proud of it, but I knew you were done with me. I was sure you were having an affair with Beverly Douglas.…”
“Beverly Douglas!” he said, laughing now. “Good lord, she’s a pill, a sweetheart, but an absolute pain in the behind!”
Milly somehow laughed too. All those imagined scenes she’d painted in her head, all those candlelit dinners she’d envisioned, their romping at some hotel on the studio’s account. She shook her head.
“I don’t blame you, Milly,” Lloyd said eventually. “I haven’t treatedyou the way you deserve to be treated, and I’m sorry for everything. But I love my children.” He wiped a tear from under his sunglasses.
“I know you do,” she said. “And they love you. We’ll come out and visit as much as we possibly can. I’ve always wanted to go to New York.” She tried to smile. “And you’ll come back and visit us every chance you get. The cottage will always be yours, anytime you want. And when all this dies down, hopefully you can move back to Los Angeles, or somewhere around here, and we’ll be parents to Jack and Debbie separately but together.”
He nodded, wiping another tear, and she hated to see him this way, but she didn’t see another path forward. He got up and walked down to the water’s edge, picked up some rocks, and skimmed them out on the bay. After a while he returned to his deck chair and sat upright.
“They’ve given me a very generous signing-on bonus,” he said. “It’s yours. I’ll write you a check this afternoon when we get back to the house. And I’ll always do my part for you and the kids financially.”
“That’s kind,” she said softly. “I’m going to take a job too—I don’t know what yet, maybe something in town when the children are at school—so I’ll contribute also.”
“Thank you for understanding, Milly,” he said, pulling her toward him and kissing her forehead.
“Thank you,” she said. “For letting me go.”
