“Can you move it?”
His finger flicked back and forth.
“It’s not broken. Damaged but not broken.”
He took his hand back. “This isn’t a metaphor.”
Maeve mirrored his posture, his demeanor, the placement of his hands, the tightness of his face, the direction of his gaze, as if it might help her figure out what to do next. Ten years together. Around them, furniture they’d chosen, pictures of their kids on the mantel, books they’d added to the shelves along with the ones left behind by her grandparents, a bin of toys in the corner.
She could not imagine what might come next. She waited.
When Sam finally moved, he went up the stairs in a steady stride. Maeve assumed he was packing a bag. She waited.
He returned with the candle in his hand, walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Maeve watched from the kitchen window as he stood on the big rocks by the cove and hurled the candle underhand like a bowling ball. It arced high then disappeared from sight. When Sam turned to the house, Maeve went to the same spot in the living room. The screen door slammed, and Sam sat back down.
“Fucking thing,” he said. “I hoped it would sink, but it bobbed right to the surface again.” He paused, then added, “And yeah, that probablyisa metaphor.”
They sat together silently, into the darkness, until her mother called to let Maeve know she would be dropping off Dylan and Opal soon. “We’re all bushed,” she told Maeve with a happy laughter in her voice that broke Maeve’s heart that much more.
So much would change now.
That June, Maeve and her father drove up to Rockland for an estate sale, early enough in the morning that Maeve hoped her quiet wouldn’t be perceived as something wrong. She’d offered to go with him, usingthe excuse that she was lonely with Sam and the kids gone to Virginia to see his parents, who had retired there after he took over the store. It had been a hard two months, and Maeve welcomed summer, a break from the school schedule, the reprieve of Sam taking the kids. Pretending was exhausting. Maeve sipped coffee from her thermos. The tire wheels hummed as they took the exit ramp. “A couple of miles down this road,” Maeve said. The FM station played soft rock. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” William said.
Sam slept on the couch that first night, told the kids he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to get Maeve sick. Ten years of marriage, and the thing the two of them couldn’t do anymore or ever again was lie down next to each other and fall asleep. The intimacy of that, trusting the person next to you, feeling safe in the quiet of slowed breathing. That was lost. Maeve had searched herself for regret, for remorse, but found only sadness. She wanted to sleep for days. She wanted to sleep forever.
“Have you and Mom ever had a fight so bad you didn’t sleep together because of it?”
William switched the radio off. “Oh, no, honey! What happened?”
“No, I was just thinking about ... seriously. Have you ever grabbed the blanket and pillow and slept on the couch? I can’t remember that happening when I was little. I know you must fight sometimes, but it always seems like everything is perfect between you two.”
Her father scrunched up his face. “I can’t think of a time I was angry enough that I didn’t want to put it to rest before I fell asleep. You know the saying, never go to bed angry. I’ve been mad with her a few times over the years, I suppose, but nothing I couldn’t get over.”
“She’s never done anything—or maybe you did something, and she told you to sleep on the couch?”
William shook his head, kept his eyes on the road. “No, though, truth be told, I’m a bit of a pushover, as you may have noticed. You didn’t know your grandma all that well, but she was a hard woman.Nothing like your grandpa. I think your mom had a pretty lonely childhood. You know she’s not great with conflict, bottles stuff up. And I tend to let things slide. I was raised in a noisy house with opinionated women—like you and Molly,” he added with a laugh. “My dad always told me, ‘Go along to get along.’ Guess that’s how I keep from sleeping on the couch.”
Maeve unfolded the map again, checked the road signs for the turn. She pointed. “There. Baxter Lane.”
“So, what’s going on?”
Maeve promised Sam she would tell her parents while he was gone. When he returned, they’d tell the kids together. The plan was to make summer the best it could be under the circumstances. Then, in the fall, unless something changed, which neither of them believed it would, they would separate. Sam had made her promise she wouldn’t see Wendy during that time, wouldn’t risk embarrassing him that way again, or worse, having one of the kids catch them together.
They had tried to lie in bed together, and it had been too much for both of them. When Maeve heard Sam’s muffled sobs, she’d rolled over onto her side, tried to comfort him. He’d flinched, out of what she read as disgust. That was when he grabbed his pillow a second time and slept on the couch again. Dylan was eleven and old enough to know something was up—Maeve had noticed him averting his eyes, ducking out when conversations went ice cold—but savvy enough to keep his head down and not ask questions. Sam spent more nights out, used bowling for an excuse, though Maeve suspected he was sitting in his office at work until the last possible moment, slipping in late with murmurs of “accounting” and “inventory.” The solution was to make a demarcation line down the middle of the bed with pillows. They slept with their backs to each other. A temporary solution to a permanent problem.
Maeve’s other problem was Wendy.
It was one thing that the marriage had failed. The reason it failed was an entirely different problem. She missed Wendy desperately, butthere was something exciting buried underneath all this uncertainty and confrontation and disclosure. When Maeve called Wendy after that first confrontation with Sam, she’d been sympathetic but encouraging too. Maeve heard relief in her voice. She’d felt it too. They talked about really being together, out in public, out with their friends and family. Out, finally. But there were hurdles to clear first.
“Must be up there,” she said. “Looks like a crowd.”
William parked behind a white utility truck. “Okay, kid. Out with it.”
Maeve took a deep breath, shifted to face him. She had planned to deal with it on the way home, not now, not when they’d have time to talk and talk and talk. She tightened. “Sam’s leaving at the end of summer. It’s over.”
William wrinkled his nose. “Maeve! No! What happened?”
