Nina always reasons that Liz simply couldn’t handle Molly getting engaged first, especially not after Zander dumped her. When Hunter proposed, Liz effectively disappeared. She didn’t come wedding dress shopping or show up at the congratulatory drinks Nina had planned at the Spaniard, and in the end, she hadn’t even come to the wedding.
Liz never called to say she was sorry or explain why. She didn’t pick up the phone when Molly broke the news of her pregnancy, or visit her in the hospital with Nina and Everly after Stella was born. Every now and then, she’d ask for updates over text, but that was it. There was never an apology or a come-to-Jesus moment, the way Molly always expected there would be. With the exception of a perfunctory conversation at Everly and Sage’s wedding last October, it had been years since they’d spoken.
It used to infuriate Molly, the way Liz had just disappeared from her life. But as time went on, losing Liz only made Molly more grateful for Nina and Everly. They are her forever sisters, the years have proven, as different as the past six have been for each of them. And even though they can’t directly relate to what she’s going through with IVF, Molly knows how much they care.
Besides, now she has Sabrina for that. Sabrina, the first close friend she’s made in years, whose empathy restored her faith in the possibility of making true friends in your thirties. Sabrina, who she sees at least twice a week for yoga, who she strolls through the farmers’ market with on Saturday mornings, or meets for early cocktails at Dune, the American bistro in town.
Sabrina, who is married to Jake.
Molly sinks back into the Adirondack chair. The late July sun is strong overhead, baking her skin. Suddenly her phone is vibrating on the arm of the chair. The 252 number appears on the screen again, this time a text message. Her heart picks up speed.
Moll. Can we meet? Please. I really want to see you.
Molly studies the message. She thinks of the power of letters, of words, of the meaning that—strung together—they form. The consequences they yield. A physical response that can’t be controlled, like the electrifying prickle that dusts the back of her neck.
It’s arrogant, of course, for Jake to assume she knows the 252 number is him, after all this time. But that’s Jake. He can’t help who he is.
Maybe Molly should see him, the defenseless part of her reasons. She can’t avoid him, not when they live in the same town, not if she’s going to continue a friendship with his wife. They’ll have to clear the air at some point. If he needs closure, Molly can give him that. She can make it evident that there is nothing left between them—at least where she’s concerned.
She taps out a text, hits Send before she can change her mind.
Why don’t we go for a walk at Skipping Beach on Sunday? Hunter has tennis. I’ll bring Stella.
Molly feels a twinge of guilt. She’s essentially using her daughter for armor against the overwhelming chemistry she feels in the presence of a man she used to love.
Molly walks back inside, the cool of the AC a welcome relief, and sticks her phone in to charge on the counter. The kitchen is clean, but the wood floors that extend into the rest of the downstairs look grubby, littered with a week’s accumulation of dust and dirt. Molly takes the vacuum from the front hall closet. Perhaps her life is a mess, but that doesn’t mean her house needs to be.
She vacuums the entire downstairs, relishing the satisfying crunch of the Dyson sucking up crumbs and hair and filth, a spotless path in its wake.
She’s already at it, in a groove, so she runs the vacuum up the stairs and into Stella’s room, a haven of pale pink and Frozen memorabilia. Then into the master bedroom and both upstairs bathrooms, her thoughts suspended by the loud, churning sound of the machine. She doesn’t even need her music. Perhaps vacuuming is a form of meditation, Molly considers as she does a final sweep through the hallway.
Molly powers off the Dyson when she reaches a closed door—the only door in the house that’s almost always closed. Without really thinking, she pushes it open.
Inside is mostly empty except for a few plastic storage bins filled with winter clothes and Christmas decorations. The room is small but cozy, and well lit with north-and west-facing windows that fill two adjacent walls. When they first moved in, Hunter had gotten excited and painted it “Pale Powder,” a gentle aqua from Farrow & Ball. The ideal color for a gender-neutral nursery. They’d been trying for only a couple of months then, and easy hope was something they’d taken for granted.
Then months flew away from them, and nothing happened. Then years.