NINETEEN
Sasha
Sasha couldn’t sleep. Her father was home from the hospital, his breathing was improved, he was in good spirits, but still, she tossed and turned in her childhood bed, flipping her pillow over and over, searching for a cool side to calm her scurrying mind. She had been the Georgiana of her family the whole time, throwing elbows at Mullin because he didn’t belong. But there was one crucial difference: Her brothers had let her know she was wrong. Her brothers made it clear that if they had to choose sides, they chose Mullin’s. Had Cord done the same? No. He had somehow managed to play both sides, never calling out his sisters, never truly promising to pick Sasha and put his wife first. It hurt. Sasha knew that when she had fallen in love with Cord she had said she wanted someone who loved her but didn’t need her. But maybe she had been wrong. Maybe, when it came to marriage, she actually needed Cord to need her too.
She fell asleep sometime at dawn, and when she woke, she could hear the neighborhood sounds through the window she’d left cracked open. Birds in the trees, the cars driving to the wharf, the growl of a leaf blower down the street, but she heard voices in the kitchen as well, so she pulled on a pair of sweatpants, raked her hair out of her eyes, and stumbled downstairs, where she stopped and felt her face light up in a smile. Behind the spray of Peruvian lilies and magenta snapdragons Darley had sent, Cord was sitting at the table, drinking coffee with her parents, a spread of bagels and cream cheese on the cutting board before him.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” Cord jumped up and kissed her hello, then bent down to kiss the bump of her belly. “I brought breakfast from Hot Bagel on Montague.”
“Did you bring me a rainbow bagel?” Sasha pretended to inspect the bag.
“You know I did.” He held one out with a flourish, the strange red and green swirls looking more like plastic than bread.
“The food coloring just makes it taste better,” Sasha insisted happily, and set about cutting it in half and spreading the perfect amount of cream cheese on each side. Cord had already eaten three bagels and was eyeing a fourth, to everyone’s horror.
“After you two are done eating, can you please bail the boat?” Sasha’s mother asked. “It rained last night and your father is trying to go do it himself and he’s going to end up in an ambulance.”
“Dad, you’re ridiculous,” Sasha grumbled with her mouth full. “You just started breathing again, you’re not bailing the damn boat.”
“You’re pregnant. You can’t do it. I’ve felt worse from eating a bad taco, I’m fine,” her dad said belligerently, but Cord insisted he would do it, and so after they finished breakfast they bundled up in jackets, grabbed the oars and two empty milk jugs, and walked down to the river. Sasha still knew the combination for the lock on the dinghy, and she climbed aboard while Cord shoved them off the dock and jumped in after her. Together they rowed out to the boat, which did, indeed, have about three inches of water in the bottom.
Cord used the milk jugs to bail, and after he finished he sat back, stretching his arms and rolling his shoulders. It was a fall weekday and the landing was calm. The serious fishermen had gone out hours ago, the summer people were long departed, and the fussy weekend boats floated idly on their moorings.
“Hey, I missed you.” Sasha leaned over and kissed Cord on the cheek. “Why’d you come?”
“I was worried about you. And your dad. I’ve been feeling so stupid the past week. I should have gotten in the car with you as soon as I heard.”
“Well, I didn’t really give you the chance,” Sasha admitted.
“No—” Cord started.
“But I was also sort of mad at everyone,” she continued.
“I know you were. I’m sorry about Georgiana. And Darley.”
“I’m mad at you too, Cord.”
“Yeah, I know. But I wasn’t thrilled with the way you yelled at everyone. You were pretty out of bounds.”
“It was three against one! Your whole family was ganging up on me! You were taking their side—you always take their side,” Sasha cried.
“I don’t think that’s true.” He frowned.
“You know why your sisters didn’t like me, right?” Sasha pushed. “They didn’t like me because I’m not your class. Because I’m not old money.”
“No, that’s not it.” Cord shook his head, wrinkling his brow. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Cord, it is,” Sasha insisted. “It’s uncomfortable to talk about class, I know you get all awkward and WASPy whenever it comes up. And it’s most uncomfortable for the really rich and the really poor. But you and I are from two different classes. And that’s weird. When you marry outside your class it’s somehow too difficult to even discuss. We just ignored it.”
“We ignored it because neither of us cared about it,” Cord said.
“God, you know what sucks to think about?” Sasha stopped and pressed her lips together, unsure if she could keep going.
“What?”
“I probably did like it that you were rich. I feel like a terrible person saying that. Obviously, it’s not why I love you. I love you because you are funny and kind and sexy and you make everything exciting. I didn’t even know anything about you when we met. But probably on some level it was attractive. I feel disgusting saying that. I’m not a gold digger. I’m just being honest.”
Cord was watching Sasha carefully, and she kept going. “But I didn’t know what it would actually mean for our lives. I didn’t know that I’d always feel like an intruder.”
“You’re not an intruder. You’re my wife.”
“But I feel like one. And you aren’t doing enough to help say that I belong.”
“What can I do?”
Sasha leaned over and put her forehead against his. “You can choose me,” she whispered.
“I do choose you.”
“I want you to take my side. I want to be your family now. I want you to put me first.” She never thought she would ask for this. She never thought she would have to. But she needed Cord to say it.
“I can do that. I’ll put you first.”
She looked at him. He was so serious, wearing an expression she rarely saw, his eyebrows pinched and his eyes bright. She knew he meant it. The pregnancy was changing things between them. She felt her anger and frustration draining away. “You know, I think that flower arrangement Darley sent cost more than the flowers for our wedding.”
“I saw your mom taking a Claritin this morning.”
“But Darley also wrote me an apology note. About the whole ‘GD’ thing.”
“Can I see it?”
“Yeah, here.” Sasha pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened the text chain.
Sasha, I’ve been thinking of you so much, hoping your father is feeling better. But I have also been thinking about what I said and feeling like the biggest idiot. Do you remember that time Hatcher scooped a stranger’s hair off the floor of Choo Choo Cuts and put it in my purse and I was finding strands in my wallet for weeks? Or do you remember the time I picked up the wrong beer at Fornino’s on the pier and when I sipped it a cigarette butt went in my mouth? Or when the dry cleaner accidentally dropped off my neighbor’s Pucci dress at my apartment and I figured it was my mom’s so I wore it and the neighbor saw me in the lobby and yelled at me? This is so much worse than any of that. Please forgive me.