Summer Secrets (34 page)

Obviously there’s no love in the lobsters, but I poured my heart and soul into the shrimp cakes, into the cilantro and garlic, lovingly minced by hand and a very sharp knife before being stirred into the mayonnaise. There was love in the tarte tatin, which has always been Jason’s most favorite dessert, served, as it will be tonight, with ice cream fragrant with dozens of tiny black vanilla pods.

I am in the shower when I hear Jason come home, and surprised when, a few moments later, there is a knock on the bathroom door.

“Hang on,” I yell, grabbing a towel and opening the door to find Jason there, embarrassed to be exposing quite so much skin, for the towel really doesn’t meet properly and I’m clutching it closed, even though it’s not like he hasn’t seen it all before.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I just see that you’ll be cooking dinner, and I’m about to go and pick up Annie from Trudy’s. I thought it might be nice to invite Trudy tonight. She and Annie are so close, I don’t know what they’re going to do without each other.”

“Of course. That’s a great idea. If Trudy is up to going out. Absolutely. Why not invite Ellie as well?” I am about to say Julia, but the memory of Jason and Julia laughing over their iced tea still feels uncomfortable to me, even though we are leaving, even though I am probably being ridiculous.

“Sure. What about Julia?”

I look at him sharply, but there is nothing in his voice, nothing in his face, that would indicate that he particularly wants Julia there.

How do I say no? How could I be childish enough to not invite my own half sibling because I think my ex-husband may find her attractive? How sixteen-year-old. How puerile. I am better than this. “Of course invite Julia. Great idea,” I say, turning so he doesn’t see the lie in my eyes. “Pick up another three lobsters, though, okay?”

He leans forward and kisses me on the cheek, and I stand there long after he’s gone back down the stairs, wondering why he suggested we have her here, and whether, despite his protestations the other day, despite denying he finds her attractive, how could he not? She looks exactly like me.

And what the hell could all this possibly mean?

Thirty-three

Ellie can’t come. She has a long-standing charity commitment that she cannot get out of, but Julia comes. She brings me flowers and a bottle of sparkling cider.

“I didn’t know what to get,” she says, walking through the door and giving me a stiff hug. “I was going to bring a bottle of wine but then I remembered, obviously, so I stood in the store for ages before deciding on this. I hope you like the flowers, I got some in town but cut a few from my neighbor’s garden to add to the bunch, and thank you so much for inviting us, Cat, this is incredibly kind.” She is chattering nineteen to the dozen, which makes me realize how nervous she must be, and that, in turn, seems to help me relax. I am the one in control.

I watch Jason carefully to see how he greets her, whether he hugs her, whether she hugs him, but they just say hello with polite smiles. I can’t detect anything at all between them. Perhaps I was imagining it after all.

Trudy gives me a hug, poor thing, still bandaged on one side of her face, and thanks me profusely for being at the hospital.

“Don’t be silly,” I say. “Any mother would have done the same thing.” And then I realize, of course, any mother apart from hers, and I wish I had just kept my mouth shut. “I didn’t mean your mo—”

“Don’t worry,” she interrupts me, laughing. “I know you and my mom have made up. It’s okay.”

“Come in, come in.” I usher the two of them inside. “Come sit down. What can I get you to drink. Iced tea?” I look at Julia. “Wine?”

“You have wine?” I hear the surprise in Julia’s voice as Sam walks in, going straight to the fridge.

“Of course we have wine,” says Sam. “You think I’d last two weeks on holiday staying in a house with no wine? Sweetie, are you completely mad? Red or white?”

“Actually, I’m fine without,” she says, and I am glad that she is making the effort, although she does look longingly at the bottle of chardonnay that Sam immediately opens.

“It smells great,” she says, walking over to the stove, “and the house is adorable! I had no idea it was so cute inside.”

“It’s not,” says Sam. “It was completely ghastly. I had to redecorate the entire thing.”

“It’s true,” I say. “He has single-handedly revived the economy of the island by purchasing every accessory that’s for sale within a five-mile radius. Come through to the sun porch. Let’s take our drinks out there.”

I had imagined chemistry. I had clearly imagined chemistry. Julia is lovely, as warm and personable as she always was, and I relax and remember how much I always liked her, how good it feels to have a family, to have a sister who is so very like me. I feel a wave of gratitude that Jason suggested this, that even if we don’t stay in touch in any meaningful way, the bad blood that I was so certain must have existed has definitely gone.

I would never have imagined Ellie and me hugging, but it happened. I could never have predicted the outcome of this trip, how wonderful it feels to have been forgiven, to have the weight of guilt and shame that has sat on my shoulders all these years now removed.

This is what they mean by making amends, I think. I apologized, and now I am letting go. And it seems, without any guidance at all, Julia had long ago reached a place where she was willing to do the same. She is a wonderful girl, I think to myself. And I am lucky to have her in my life.

“… which was just like our dad,” I tune in to hear her say. “He wasn’t exactly known for his sense of responsibility.”

Our
dad. She didn’t say “
my
dad.” She acknowledged that we are related, and it is this seemingly tiny thing that warms my heart more than anything else this evening.

“I barely knew him,” I say. “Although we stayed in touch. He always struck me as a very loving father.”

“When he wasn’t drunk, he was the best. Actually, even when he was, he was always fun.”

“I was so jealous of everything you had here,” I say. “I shouldn’t tell you that, but it’s true.”

“Are you kidding?” Her mouth falls open. “I was so jealous of you! This incredibly sophisticated woman shows up who has this crazy exciting life in London, of all places! You were a journalist! You interviewed celebrities and went to parties and had such a huge life! You were going on vacations all over Europe. The only place I had ever been was Cape Cod, and Boston. And I only went to Boston to get my boobs reduced. Sorry.” She shoots Jason and Sam an apologetic look. “We all had giant boobs back in the day. I have no idea why, but that was how we used to get in everywhere when we were underage.”

“Did the boob reduction stop you getting in?” Sam is loving the direction of this conversation.

“I didn’t have them done until I was twenty-one, so it didn’t matter. But I had basically never been out of Massachusetts. You were the most exciting and glamorous person I had ever seen, and you were my sister! I was so jealous, I could hardly stand it.”

“Wow.” I am speechless.

“Wow,” echoes Sam. “Put like that, it does seem Cat’s life is rather exciting.”

“I was this island girl. I still am. I hadn’t been anywhere, done anything. The most exciting thing I’d probably ever done was steal mopeds on Easy Street and take them to Thirty Acres, where we’d get wasted and go skinny-dipping. Excitement was baking up a batch of pot brownies, and stealing clothes from the store my friends’ parents owned, and waiting until the guy on the door at the bar was drinking so we could sneak in, one at a time. That was my life, and I never knew that there was anything different until I met you, and I wanted everything that you had. I took off because I met you. Not because of what happened, but because it opened my eyes to the fact that there could be a bigger life.”

“That’s quite an impact. Did you get to Europe?”

“No! I did go to St. Maarten for a few years. I worked on the boats, but after a while it felt exactly the same as here, just with better weather, and a bit more French.” She laughs, then shrugs. “So I came home. But I was the one who was jealous.”

“But you had all those years with … our father.”

“Yes. And when he was great, he was great. But nothing is ever how you think it is looking at it from the outside.”

“She’s right,” says Jason. “Life is where you look, right?”

Julia frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean look for the bad, you’ll find more of the bad, look for the good, you’ll find more of the good.”

A smile spreads on her face. “I like it. Life is where you look.”

“On that upbeat note”—I stand up—“let’s call the girls and go in for dinner.”

*   *   *

Dinner is wonderful, in every way. The food is delicious, everyone is relaxed, the girls don’t just sit at the end, having their own private conversation, but join in ours, as equals, and I think how perfect this evening is, how happy I am right now, how much I wish this could continue.

It feels like a perfect little slice of life, one that won’t last, that can’t last. We’ll go back to London in two days, back to our flat, and Jason will go back to his, and there will be no more family dinners, no more hanging out on sun porches talking about nothing in particular, and I will go back to being as desperately lonely as I have been since the moment we split up.

Jason being here has been the best and the worst thing imaginable. Every time I look at him I feel a mixture of love and pain. He’s here, but he’s not mine. He’s here, but he doesn’t want me.

Or does he? Because there have been moments these last few days when I’ve really wondered, moments when I am convinced there is chemistry between us, that all is not lost, that we may be able to find our way back to each other after all.

The more time we spend together, the easier it is, the more fun we seem to be having. I can’t believe it’s all about to be over, and I wonder if there’s any chance, if something may happen before we leave.

Oh God! Listen to me! I sound like a teenager. I feel like a teenager. Giddy with happiness at my crush finally paying attention to me. The fact that my crush happens to be my ex-husband feels irrelevant, other than that he belongs with me, we belong with each other, with Annie.

At 9:30 Julia says she has to go. She thanks me for a wonderful evening, hugs us all, and leaves. Trudy decides to stay for a final sleepover with Annie, and I pull out a box of DVDs I found in a cabinet in the living room, so they can curl up on the sofa and watch movies. What a terrible thing, I think, to be grateful for the accident, grateful that it has forced the two of them to be home, quiet, to do something safe where I can keep an eye on them.

I tuck a blanket around them and go into the kitchen to make popcorn. Sam leaves to go meet Eddie somewhere for a late-night drink, and Jason comes in, walks up behind me as I’m shaking the pan, waiting to hear the kernels start to explode, and I am completely still, remembering how he used to do this, used to come up behind me while I was cooking and slip his arms around my waist, rest his head on my shoulder to see what I was doing, nuzzle into my neck to make me laugh.

I am holding my breath, frozen with anticipation, waiting for those arms to slip around my waist as I am so sure they will. I can feel him, right behind me, feel his body heat, as he leans his head forward, until it is almost on my shoulder, but not touching, and I know he feels it too, and I don’t know whether to turn, whether this is the moment he might kiss me. I am completely frozen, I am sure he is too, and then, suddenly, he backs off.

“It smells delicious,” he says, and the only thing I can think is
fuck.
How did that moment just disappear? How could we have got so close, and yet nothing happened? I know it wasn’t just in my imagination; I
know
he was feeling it too.

How do I get it back?

“I think I’m going to go for a walk. I might go to town,” he says, stepping out of the kitchen. I wait for him to ask me to come too, but he doesn’t, and I realize this moment was probably overwhelming for him. It was overwhelming for me. When Jason is overwhelmed, he needs space, needs time on his own, and the absolute worst thing I could do right now is invite myself along.

Which I wouldn’t do anyway.

Not unless I was completely desperate.

Which I’m not.

“Have fun,” I say, pretending I am not standing here with my entire body on fire, pretending that lust and anticipation and disappointment aren’t fighting a huge battle inside my body, that the disappointment is winning, is so great that I feel a lump in my throat and I am worried I may burst into tears.

Don’t be silly, I tell myself, after I give the girls the popcorn and finish the cleaning up in the kitchen. That moment was real. Jason needs to figure it out. You didn’t imagine it. It’s all good.

And then: If it’s supposed to be, it will be. I have to let go. I can’t force anything to happen, nor can I be upset that it didn’t. If we are supposed to be together, we will be, and if I have learned anything from my time in program, it is that I have to let go and let God; that if it is God’s will, it will happen.

I say a prayer, fold the dish towel and hang it on the hook, then kiss Annie good night and go upstairs to bed.

*   *   *

I don’t sleep.

I can’t sleep.

An hour goes by, then two. Where is Jason? A walk isn’t two hours. I go downstairs, pretending I need water, then that I am checking on the girls, and still there is no sign of Jason. I open his bedroom door and leave it ajar so I can walk past and check.

No Jason.

Where is he?

I start to worry.

I never used to be a worrier, until I had Annie. That first year I spent all my time terrified something terrible would happen to her. If I left her with a babysitter and the babysitter didn’t pick up her phone, I would have to go back home, to reassure myself that the babysitter wasn’t lying unconscious on the floor of the nursery with no one to look after Annie.

If Jason was later than expected, if a meeting ran on, or he told me he’d be home by seven and it was 8:30, I would phone his cell over and over; each time it went to the machine I would literally be picturing his car smashed up on Baker Street, police and ambulance racing to the scene, where they would find my poor, mangled husband.