She didn’t know what to say to that. Their first fight! It was a quiet, civilized fight; they hadn’t even raised their voices, but something had cooled, the atmosphere had reordered itself around them, and everything felt different. A first fight was always momentous.
Daniel rose from the bench.
“Are we still walking tomorrow?” Rebecca asked, a little bitdesperately. “In Maudslay?” Three days a week they met early, at six, before anyone was out, and walked Bernice.
Daniel fixed her with a sorrowful, troubled gaze, and her heart plummeted. “I don’t think I can do it tomorrow,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it once, then let it drop. “I’ll talk to you soon, Rebecca.”
The next day, instead of going to Maudslay on her own, she waited until midmorning and walked Bernice down to Cashman Park. She’d show Daniel. How dare he! Insisting that they do things the way he wanted. Claiming to befalling in love with her.How dare he.
She sat on one of the benches that faced the water. How dare he.
Bernice settled herself under the bench and Rebecca poured a little bit of the water she always brought with her into Bernice’s collapsible bowl and put the bowl where Bernice could reach it. She contemplated the river and the scrubby grass that grew between the water and her bench. There was a line of inflatable Zodiacs waiting to take boat owners out to their boats. Far to the right she could see the Route 1 bridge, which sometimes shifted into drawbridge mode to allow tall-masted sailboats through.
She leaned back and looked at the clear blue summer sky. She felt something against her back and twisted around to get a better look. It was a plate indicating that the bench had been dedicated in memory of Gilbert Lane, “The Chief.” The chief of what? she wondered. Should she dedicate a bench to Peter? That seemed like it might be a nice concrete way to solidify his memory. Maybe when she got home she’d talk to the girls and see what they thought. They could come sit on the bench when they were particularly missing him.
Daniel. Peter. Her ex-husband. How was it possible that she’d lost all three of these relationships?
I think I’m falling in love with you, Daniel had said. And also: I don’t think I can keep being your secret.
The longer she sat on the bench and watched the river slide by the more she realized the crux of the problem. The problem was that what Daniel wanted and needed from her wasn’t the same thing as what she was able to give him. That was it. Did that mean doom?
She was dancing with these thoughts, doing a little tango, maybe some samba, when she saw the familiar figure of Patricia Stone come along the trail, heading toward her. Patricia was walking with purpose, moving her arms with every step. Power walking. Patricia was head of the committee for the Holiday House Tours. Rebecca thought about getting up and quickly walking in the other direction, avoiding Patricia, basically abdicating her committee spot for all time. As far as Rebecca was concerned, Gina could have it permanently.
“Rebecca!” Patricia said. “Long time, no see. Mind if I sit down?”
“Of course not. Just don’t be frightened of the attack dog under the bench.” Bernice panted agreeably and then laid her head between her paws and promptly fell asleep.
“I’m thinking about walking the entire rail trail today!” said Patricia. Down the way, the trail hooked up across Water Street and meandered through the South End neighborhoods before emerging triumphantly by March’s Hill on High Street, and if you were bold enough, you could cross Route 1 and pick up the other section by the train station, circling back to where they now reposed. “But I’m just going to gather myself first.” She sat. “We’d love to have you back on the holiday tour committee this year, you know, Rebecca. We missed you last year.”
“I’m not ready yet, I don’t think, Patricia,” said Rebecca. They watched a boat trailer back up toward the water and deposit a Boston Whaler into the river.
Patricia looked at Rebecca shrewdly and said, “I understand.” She seemed like she had more to say, but that maybe she wasn’t going to say it.
“Thank you,” said Rebecca. “Well, it was nice to see you,Patricia. I hope you make it all the way around the rail trail in one piece!” She stood up and started unwinding Bernice’s leash from where she’d somehow gotten it caught around the bench.
Patricia said, “Did you know, Rebecca, that when I was forty-nine years old my husband died?”
“Nooo!” said Rebecca. She sat back down. “I didn’t know that!”
“Yes. He was in a horrific car accident on 95 in Topsfield. It was a bright-white winter’s day. No snow on the ground. The other driver was at fault—he was a teenager, still on his provisional license. This was before texting, of course, but he was distracted by something in the car, I don’t know if he was fiddling with the radio or what, they never knew for certain, and anyway in the end it didn’t matter. He was going too fast to begin with, and he took his eyes off the road, and he forced my Jerry right into the guardrail, at sixty-five miles an hour. Jerry never had a chance to react.”
“That’sterrible,” said Rebecca. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I thought you’d been married to Bob forever. Your kids—”
“Jerry is the father of my children. Bob and I just celebrated fifteen years,” said Patricia. She lifted her sunglasses and winked at Rebecca. “We’re practically newlyweds.” She paused and reached down to pat Bernice’s head. “Anyway. I remember like it was yesterday, being in the stage that you’re in now. You’re grieving, but you’re living, and some days you’re doing more grieving than living and some days you’re doing more living than grieving. And you never know which kind of day it’s going to be until you open your eyes in the morning.”
“That’s exactly right,” breathed Rebecca. “Exactlyright.”
“And I remember how it was after I met Bob too. He would do something, I don’t know, something silly that would rub me the wrong way, and I’d think, ‘Jerry would never do that.’ But that wasn’t fair to Bob, you see. Maybe Jerrywouldhave done the thing that rubbed me the wrong way! But I was holding Bob up to someimpossible standard. The standard of a dead man. So. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the topic, but I have been through what you’re going through now. And it’s terrible, and it’s painful, and it’s exhausting. But if I could go back in time to my forty-nine-year-old self, I’d tell her not to discount the value of getting back into the world.” Patricia rapped on the bench three times, as if to signal that she’d dispensed all of the advice she’d come to give, and rose. “It was lovely to run into you, Rebecca. Your spot is always available, should you decide to return to the committee. Even if someone else has ostensibly claimed it. We’ll always have room for you.”
“Thank you,” said Rebecca.
Rebecca watched Patricia resume her purposeful stride toward the rail trail, and she thought long and hard about what the older woman had told her.
Of course it hadn’t all been perfect with Peter, no matter what Rebecca had told Sherri that night by the pool. Sometimes he left his socks on the floor, and when his seasonal allergies kicked in, he snored so badly she had to sleep with headphones, and sometimes he was too strict about keeping the garage tidy. And by the wayshewas no picnic to live with when it was almost time for winter break and all of the kids at school were sick and she couldn’t keep their germs at bay; she was always snappish in the winter. At least twice a week they quarreled about whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher. Rebeccaabsolutely hateddragging out the recycling in the winter when Peter traveled and she complained about that more than she should have because, come on, it was just a couple of bins. She watched Patricia walk on, and she thought about the sorrows, small and large, that people carried around with them. Patricia walked past the spot where they often sat to watch the Yankee Homecoming fireworks, and past the playground where the girls used to play when they were little. Patricia got smaller and smaller until finally she disappeared altogether from Rebecca’s line of vision.
45.
The Squad
