“Don’t be. You were all excited to see where I grew up, and I thought there was a chance … I thought maybe something could be different, this time. But it never is. He’s always a little bit worse. Sometimes I feel…” Jake’s voice trailed.
“Like what?”
“Never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
Jake sighed, dropping his head. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how to be a good man. No one ever showed me, you know? And that scares me.”
“Oh, Jake.” Molly pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “You are a good man.”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop. We just need to get out of here. We’ll leave tomorrow, crack of dawn. Yeah?”
Jake nodded. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in close. “Can you promise me something, Moll?”
“Anything.” She studied his face. In the moonlight, she could see the tiny spray of freckles by his right cheekbone.
“Promise we’ll never end up miserable like that, okay? Like my folks, I mean. Promise me.”
Molly inhaled the smell of salt and brine. Summer was ending, the Amagansett share house was over, and she realized this could be their last time at the ocean for months.
“I promise,” she told Jake, leaning in to seal the moment with a kiss. Then they stood and brushed the sand off the backs of their legs, leaving the Narrows the way they had come.
Chapter Twenty
Molly
July 2022
The day after the dinner at the Danners’—Jesus, the Danners’—Molly calls Sabrina to thank her. She could text, but she wants to hear her voice. She’s hoping Sabrina won’t sound as strange as Molly feels in the wake of the news that Jake—her Jake—is Sabrina’s husband. How is it possible, she thinks for the umpteenth time. How is the world that small?
It’s not yet five, but Molly takes another sip of the wine she’s poured, lets it dull the edges as she waits for Sabrina to answer the phone. She tries not to imagine her ex-boyfriend’s hands running along the length of her friend’s toned body.
“Hi!” Sabrina sounds cheerful, per usual. They exchange pleasantries, catch up on the events of the day. Stella got first place in a sailing race at camp; Sabrina was crushed with work.
“Anyway,” Molly starts, after she’s thanked her for hosting on Friday. “I have to admit, I sort of freaked when I realized Jake was your husband. I just … I hadn’t seen him in a really long time, and I couldn’t believe it. And on the Yoga Tree sign-up, it always says Sabrina Randolph—”
“Does it?” Sabrina gives a soft laugh. “Maybe it’s connected to the name on my credit card or something, because I did take Jake’s name. I’m Sabrina Danner now.”
“Oh.” Molly is caught off guard. “Well, anyway, I was upset because I thought it might make things awkward or weird between you and me. But the more I think about it, I realize it doesn’t need to be awkward. It isn’t awkward, is what I’m trying to say.” Molly isn’t fully sure that she means this, but she wants to.
“I completely agree,” Sabrina says. “It’s a crazy coincidence, that’s for sure, but isn’t life full of them? Besides, you and Jake dated when you were what, twenty-three? It’s not like it was super serious, from what I gather.”
There’s a pang in Molly’s gut as she grasps Sabrina’s words. Is that what Jake had told her? That he and Molly hadn’t been serious? Was he kidding? They’d dated for years, most of which they’d lived together. They’d talked about marriage, they’d declared their eternal love for each other more times than Molly could remember. Jake had called Molly his muse—there were interviews in Rolling Stone and Variety that quoted this. The most successful song of his career was named after her, for crying out loud.
Frustration seizes Molly; it expands in her chest. But it’s not Sabrina’s fault, she thinks. And why the hell should she care if Jake downplays their relationship to his wife? He’s only doing it out of kindness, no doubt; he doesn’t want Sabrina to feel threatened. And Sabrina isn’t threatened. Molly is happily married to Hunter—very happily married and has been for years. Until she came face-to-face with him last week, Molly hardly thinks of Jake anymore. Except for long car rides and dull mornings cleaning the kitchen and when that stupid song comes on the radio, he’s barely popped into her head at all. His golden skin and cerulean eyes and warm, piney smell have been nothing but faded memories, so irrelevant to Molly’s present-day life they may as well not be real at all.