The Guest Cottage (19 page)

“Your mother is coming to visit,” Sophie said. “I need to know whether or not you’ve discussed our situation with her. In fact, I’d like to know a lot of things. Why haven’t you called? You could at least have phoned the children. This complete lack of communication makes me assume you’re going to be with Lila. Are you still leaning toward a divorce? What shall I tell the children? What shall I tell your mother?” She knew she sounded manic, but she was bracing herself, trying to be strong, invulnerable.

“Whoa,” said Zack. “If we’re going to have this conversation, I need
reinforcements.”
He put his hand over the phone and yelled, “Lila, would you please fix me a vodka tonic? Strong. Just
say
tonic.” His voice returned full strength. “Why are you calling like this right now? I thought we were going to have the entire summer before we announced the decision.”

“I thought so, too. But I’ve got to know the situation and what you’ve told your mother since she’s coming to stay with us.”

“Okay, but why such urgency?”

Sophie could hear the tinkling of ice and a high soprano voice murmuring in the background. She hesitated, then said, “Jeanette might come as early as tomorrow. What should I tell her? I have to tell her something. Does she know you’ve moved in with Lila?”

“Not exactly.” His voice was cool.

Sophie sat on the bed, arranging all the pillows to support her back. “Zack, I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, really I am. But I don’t understand why you’re being so secretive and remote.”

“Ha!
I’m
being remote? That’s a good one. Well, I have to say it’s nice to be the remote one for once.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, all right, if you want to get into this now, we’ll get into it now, although it seems kind of unofficial to agree on divorce over the telephone. But then again, that’s probably the way you prefer it. Remote, as you said.”

Sophie had been expecting this outcome eventually, but to hear the words said so bluntly took her breath away. “You absolutely want a divorce?”

“I absolutely want a divorce.” Her husband’s voice was firm.

There it was. As cold and definite as a slam of a bat to the solar plexus. Sophie gripped a pillow and pushed it into her stomach as if it could absorb the blow. “Who will tell the children?”

To her shock, Zack laughed, sounding a bit demented. He called out, “Lila, babe, could you please fix me another drink?” To Sophie, he said, “And there we are. I say I want to divorce and the first thing you think of is the children.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. I’ll explain it to you. Most women, when told their husband wants a divorce, burst into tears and cry,
I love you! How can you leave me? I’ll be lost without you!
But not you, Sophie—you move immediately, unswervingly, to the children.”

Sophie was speechless as her thoughts collided in her brain. She started to protest by saying that she loved Zack, but deep in her heart she wasn’t sure that was true and she
was
sure that she didn’t want to lie. “But a divorce affects the children,” she insisted weakly. She wished Lila would bring her a vodka tonic, too.

“There are four people in this family, Sophie,” Zack said, and his voice was sad. “But you really only loved the children. It’s not enough for me. It hasn’t been enough for a long time.”

Guilt twisted Sophie’s heart. “Zack, I have always been a good wife to you.”

“Oh, Sophie, since you want to do this now, let’s be absolutely clear, okay? Sure, you’ve cooked wonderful food and taken good care of the house and given me two great kids. But love, passionate love? That left a long time ago.”

Sophie bit her lip. After a moment, she said, “Doesn’t that happen in all marriages?”

“Not like it has in ours, and if it has, it’s replaced by something else—warmth, intimacy, devotion.”

“I—” Sophie began to argue.

Zack cut in. “Anyone can see how warm you are with the children. But with me it’s become an act. Wait—I don’t mean an act, exactly. An
attempt,
which is worse. You’ve tried. I know you always tried your best. But come on, honey, that’s just sad for both of us.”

After a beat of silence, Sophie choked out, “This is kind of a heavy discussion for the telephone.”

“Well, Sophie,
you
called
me.
”

“That’s true. Still—give me a minute, okay?” Sophie put the phone down on the bed and took a moment to rub her forehead with her fingertips, as if she could calm her thoughts. When she picked up the phone, she said, “Zack, I’m sorry. I’m all confused.”

Zack was impatient. “You phoned me to discuss what we should tell my mother about our situation. My mother has always liked you. I think you can tell her the truth.”

“You mean tell her about you and Lila? Tell her that we’re getting a divorce? I haven’t even told the children yet.”

“My mother. The children. Your mother. Hey, Angie and Bess! Let’s think about them before we think about ourselves. You go right for the peripheral damage, Sophie, because if you’re honest, this divorce business is not going to break your own heart.” Zack’s voice had taken on a hardness.

“You’re angry with me,” said Sophie in amazement as the truth dawned on her. “You’re having an affair and you’re blaming me. You get to be good and I have to be bad. You always were a spin doctor, Zack.”

Zack’s voice became even harder. “Are we going to start calling names? Because I’ve got some ready and waiting.”

“No,” Sophie said hurriedly. “I don’t want to do that.” She rubbed her forehead again. “So I’ll tell the kids tonight. Can I tell them to call you if they want to?”

“Sure. I’ll be here. You know, Sophie, they won’t be as surprised as you are.”

“I know you’ve been too busy to spend much time with them recently. Actually, you’ve never spent much time with them. But I would think you would want to let them know you intend to be connected to them, that you care for them, that you will not disappear from their lives.”

Now Zack was the one to remain quiet for a few moments. “The truth is, to be painfully blunt, I don’t particularly miss the kids. They’re hard work. They don’t care about me, really. They don’t even know me. I’ve never been happier than I have during this summer with Lila. When I’m with her I am my true self. It’s like being in a kind of heaven, Sophie, and you know what? I’ll bet if you’re honest with yourself, you’re in a kind of heaven, too, on that island with your kids.”

Was he trying to hurt her? Sophie thought so. She wanted to hit back. If nothing else, she wanted to save face. “Yes, heaven, absolutely, and you might be surprised to find that my heaven is a bit more like yours than you think.” She hoped this would get some kind of rise from her husband, that he would be jealous or at the least curious.

“Good for you, Sophie,” Zack said, sounding genuinely glad for her. “I hope he finds the way to break into that vault you call a heart.”

Sophie gasped again. “You kind of hate me, don’t you, Zack? I’m so sorry that we spent so many years together when you thought I didn’t love you. Do you think a marriage counselor would have helped?”

“Honey, love is either there or it’s not. No kind of counseling can change that.” More gentle female murmurs wafted through the background air. “I need to get off the phone. Anyway, I think we’re pretty well done, don’t you?”

“Yes, Zack,” Sophie agreed, “we are pretty well done.”

After switching off the phone, Sophie waited a moment for the tears to come. Her reflection in the mirror surprised her. She looked younger, less strained.

Dutifully, she went down to the dining room to check on the kids. She found the whole group gathered around the dining room table, Leo on Trevor’s lap, all of them playing Monopoly. From the kitchen came the soothing shushing noise of the dishwasher.

Trevor glanced up. “Hey. I left some casserole for you to heat up in the microwave if you’re hungry.” His smile was warm and reassuring, clearly signaling:
Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered this time.

“I…I think I’d like to have another glass of wine,” Sophie told him. “To help me
process.
If you don’t mind…”

“Your move, Trevor,” Lacey said.

Trevor drew a card. “Not again!” he groaned. Glancing at Sophie, he said, “I’ve got to pass Go without getting any money. Dang.” Casually, he added, “Sure, Sophie. Take all the time you need. We’re just fine here.”

Sophie’s smile at Trevor was brilliant with gratitude. “Thanks, Trevor.”

Sophie slipped into the kitchen, poured more wine, then hurried back upstairs. How nice it was to have someone to lean on when things got tough. Two parents? Amazing. She had never really had that with Zack.

She shut the door to her bedroom and sat down a moment, sipping the wine, letting her thoughts settle. She waited for anxiety to sift in, for worry to crowd her brain. She was going to be divorced.

Instead, the Pharrell Williams song “Happy” began playing in her head. Humming, she slipped off her bed and began dancing quietly around her bedroom. No one could see her, she was all alone, and music filled her. She smiled at herself, then laughed softly. Anyone who saw her would think she’d gone mad. But she wasn’t mad; she was
herself.
She was Sophie, full of music.

T
revor moved the iron five spaces and paid Jonah three hundred Monopoly dollars. Sophie’s smile was still inside him, filling him with light. Tallulah had never thanked him for anything he did with Leo; she simply expected it. And all he was doing was having fun with some kids he genuinely enjoyed being around.
Awesome.

“How did you like the yacht?” he asked, glancing first at Jonah and then at Lacey.

Jonah didn’t speak, but his sister politely replied, “It was cool.”

“Did you leave the harbor?” Trevor asked.

“Yes, we went out to Great Point, and I went swimming there, without a life jacket!” For a moment, Lacey’s voice showed enthusiasm.

“Good for you, Lacey.” More silence. “Did you swim, Jonah?”

The teenage boy responded with a grunt that could have meant
yes, no,
or
stop hassling me.

“Leo and I had a lazy day,” Trevor offered. “We made this gourmet meal for everyone. And we took a long bike ride around the neighborhood. We saw some amazing houses.”

Dead silence. Lacey and Jonah did not seem to want to hear about those amazing houses. These were not Trevor’s kids but they were good kids; Trevor had come to know that much in the few weeks they had spent together. They were in a difficult spot right now and so was their mother.

After the Monopoly game, darkness fell, and Lacey, yawning, said she was really tired and went upstairs to bed. Jonah remained on the sofa, relentlessly clicking through channels with the remote control like someone standing in front of the refrigerator dully looking for something to eat that would satisfy him. Where was this boy’s father? Jonah seemed like such a good guy. How could his father keep away from him for so long?

When the phone rang at exactly that moment, Trevor jumped. He had the oddest notion that this was Jonah’s father calling, that somehow Trevor’s thoughts had prompted the call.

But it was Connor down at the apartment. “I know it’s pretty late for you guys,” he said, “but tonight the moon is dark and all the constellations are out in dazzling form. Back in Iowa, my wife and I used to lie on a blanket and look up at the stars for hours. I’m going to do that now and I thought the kids might enjoy it, too. It’s the best show on earth.” He chuckled. “Let me revise that. Best show in the universe.”

“Sounds like a great idea. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Trevor explained Connor’s invitation to Leo and Jonah. Leo was
excited—probably
because this meant he got to stay up past his normal bedtime—but Jonah only shrugged. Still, he trudged along after Trevor and his son out the back door, over the patio, and down the lawn to the far end where Connor had spread a soft old cotton quilt.

“Welcome, welcome,” Connor said. “Lie down and make yourselves at home. Once you’re settled, I’m going to turn off all the lights in my apartment and on the patio so we don’t have any ambient light getting in the way. This island is an unusual place, so far away from cities, far away from interfering human lights.”

The guys lay down, Trevor with Leo next to him in the middle and Jonah at the far edge of the quilt, as if he were certain the other two had cooties. Connor turned off the lights and with a few muttered reactions to his old joints, folded himself down next to Trevor and stretched out.

“Just take a moment to let your eyes get accustomed to the night,” he advised.

Trevor took hold of Leo’s hand in case the darkness was scaring the little boy. This was a new experience for city dwellers. Beneath the quilt, the ground was slightly uneven, with small bumps and hollows. As they lay there, Connor’s apartment and the hedges around the property blurred into looming gray masses. The evening air was warm and humid, without a breeze, yet mysteriously drifting with the perfume of an invisible flower. Occasionally from the trees a bird cried or something rustled in the bushes. The foursome didn’t speak but lay concentrating on the heavens above them. Suddenly, Trevor felt as if something enormous had shifted, as if the earth they were lying on was sinking down while the skies above were expanding.

“Whoa, dude.” Jonah must have been experiencing the same sensation.

“Okay, now,” said Connor quietly. “First of all, easiest of all, see those four stars that make a box, and these stars making a handle?”

“I see it!” Leo cried with excitement.

“Good. That’s the Big Dipper.”

“What’s a dipper?” asked Leo.

At his end of the blanket, Connor chuckled. “People don’t use dippers much anymore. It’s a kind of cup with a handle you can dip into a barrel of water or apple cider and drink from.” He pointed out the parts of the dipper.

“Now see that group of stars over there, beneath the Big Dipper? That’s Virgo—the, um, it means ‘I serve’—my wife taught me that it’s my astrological sign. That ties in with when I was born, and it means earth is my element, five is my lucky number, and I’m sympathetic and faithful. It means I’ve got a weakness, too, at least one of them. I can be moody.”

“What’s my lucky number?” Leo was so excited he sat up to ask Connor the question.

“When’s your birthday?”

“December twelfth!” Leo shouted.

“Ah, you’ve got a good sign. Sagittarius. That was my wife’s sign. Your lucky number is six. You’re a fire sign. You’re brave and smart and cheerful.”

“And I’m almost six,” Leo exclaimed. “I’m four and a half, and then I’ll be five and then I’ll be six.”

“Lots of important people have been Sagittarians,” Connor told him. “Mark Twain. Beethoven. Can’t remember the others.”

Leo lay back down, snuggling close to his father. “My lucky number is six.”

“Good to know,” Trevor said, wrapping an arm around his son.

For a while the four males gazed at the sky in silence. Then, sounding slightly grudging and embarrassed, Jonah admitted, “My birthday is October twenty-sixth.”

“You might be a Scorpio,” Connor said. “The scorpion. They say Scorpios are mysterious.”

“A scorpion.” Jonah’s tone expressed satisfaction and even a kind of respect. After a moment, he added, “Of course it doesn’t mean anything. It’s all made up.”

“Everything is all made up in one way or the other,” Connor said. “People like to make sense out of stuff. Now what we are looking at, the
constellations,
are formed by connecting the brightest stars with imaginary lines. But you know some people in different countries imagine figures and creatures and symbols out of the
dark
mass
between
stars.”

“Awesome,” Jonah said.

Again, they lay in silence, and this time Trevor tried to formulate some kind of image out of the darkness surrounded by a group of stars. Next to him, Leo relaxed into sleep, his breathing like a soft purr, his warm breath barely fluttering Trevor’s shirt.

“I’ve heard that some people can tell the future from looking at the stars,” Jonah said hesitantly.

“That’s true, some people say they can.” Connor shifted around, finding a more comfortable position. “Astrologers say they can look at your birth chart and tell you all sorts of things. Personally, I don’t think they know any more about the future than doctors do. No one can predict the future.” Roughness edged his voice.

“But astrologers can tell if some people are meant to be together, right?” Jonah persisted.

“You mean like love signs. Like whether or not a Taurus and a Capricorn are a good match.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jonah said. “Or like a Leo and a Scorpio.”

“Have you got a crush on a Leo?” Connor asked, and Trevor could hear him smiling.

Jonah remained quiet for a minute. “No, that’s my dad and mom’s signs.”

“Oh, well, son, I wouldn’t want to weigh in on anything as specific as that.”

Jonah didn’t respond. Again they lay in silence, gazing up into the heavens. Trevor was not completely surprised when he heard rumbling snores coming from Connor.

Turning his head toward Jonah, Trevor whispered, “Connor’s asleep.”

Jonah was quiet. Then he blurted, all in a rush, “I shouldn’t have called Grandma. Now Mom’s mad at me. But somebody had to do something.”

Trevor’s mind spun like a GPS recalculating. “You mean because your mother kissed Hristo?”

“I guess so.” Jonah was obviously struggling with his own thoughts.

“It’s not such a terrible thing,” Trevor said slowly, feeling his way along. “Nantucket is a romantic place. I’m sure it’s fun for your mother to have such an unusual man paying attention to her.” He’d gotten himself into a snarl. “I mean, I’m sure lots of men would pay attention to your mother if she weren’t married—”

Jonah interrupted. “Dad’s having an affair.”

“Whoa. What makes you say that?”

“I saw them a few months ago. I decided to drop in on Dad at the office and ride home with him—it was the end of the day—and Dad and Lila were alone in the front office making out. They didn’t see me. I got out of there fast.”

“That doesn’t mean—” Trevor began, wondering why he was trying to plead the case of a man he didn’t know and wouldn’t like.

Again Jonah interrupted, the words spilling out. “So I followed them. Not that night, but every chance I could after school and on weekends. When Dad said on Saturdays he had to go inspect the site he was working on, I’d bike there and he was never there. So I found Lila’s address and checked out her car—a red
convertible—and
went to her apartment. Dad’s car would always be parked behind hers and sometimes I saw him go into her apartment, and twice I even saw them kissing through the window. I’m not
dense.
Besides, Dad’s been so happy in the past year. I don’t want Mom to be hurt, but I’ve thought a lot about this and I think they would both be happier if they got divorced.”

“Jonah, I hardly know what to say. This is a lot of heavy-duty stuff for a fifteen-year-old to deal with. I mean, you should be thinking about baseball and girls.”

“I think about girls. I think about one special girl. But thinking about her gets me all flustered. I stopped going to practice because sometimes she’s there and when she is there, my hands sweat and I can’t ever hit the ball.”

Trevor wanted to take the boy in his arms and hug him or at least, in the way of men, slug him gently on the shoulder. He didn’t so much as move his head but lay still, gazing upward, not wanting to spook the kid. “Man, ain’t it the devil? I remember feeling that way about a girl when I was in high school. If I saw her when we were walking down the hall in school, I’d become a complete spaz and drop my papers all over the floor.”

Jonah made a sound like laughter. “I’ve done that, too.”

“Do you think she likes you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. She smiles at me. I was going to try to be her partner on a field trip, but I got sick and couldn’t go.” Jonah shifted on the blanket. “That’s a lie. I didn’t get sick; I used that day when I didn’t have to be in school to shadow my dad.” Another laugh, this one like a moan. “Listen to me,
shadow my dad,
like I think I’m a private dick. I’m the dick.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve got a lot on your plate. Have you tried to talk to your dad about this?”

“Dad doesn’t talk much to us kids. He never has. He’s always been so busy, and I get it—he’s working his ass off to keep us in our nice house, going to a nice school, and having vacations like this one. He’s not what you would call a hands-on dad. He never has been. He’s an important architect with a reputation to maintain, and that puts a lot of stress on him. Lacey and I aren’t supposed to bother him with our kid stuff.”

Trevor was overcome with sadness for this boy. Yet he understood the delicacy of the situation and he knew better than to say anything insulting about Jonah’s father. “You could talk to your mom about stuff, couldn’t you?”

“I used to be able to. But I’m fifteen now. I’ve got to grow up. Plus, what am I going to say? ‘Hi, Mom, I got a C on my algebra test and Dad’s having an affair.’ ” Jonah tried to sound sophisticated but his voice cracked.

“Still, why don’t you try talking to your mom?” Trevor suggested. “She’s a pretty cool lady.”

“She’s cool, all right.” Jonah’s voice was bitter. “She’s so
cool
she never played piano for us. We never knew she could play like that. I mean what the fuck, man? Why would she hide something like that from us? I mean that’s demented.”