“Yes, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, well aware why she couldn’t reveal Evan as her boyfriend a mere three months after her husband’s death. But seriously, who did she think she was fooling? He was sitting at her kitchen table at nine o’clock at night! Maybe he hadn’t moved in yet, but he clearly had bought that house, and the Louis Vuitton bag slung over her shoulder to go with it. “I’ll send you some possible dates for a proper getting-to-know-one-another dinner,” I said, then suggested, “Shall we exchange numbers?”
I took out my phone. But as I readied my fingers to type in her number, she said the unthinkable.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she started, “but we’re just not ready to make new friends. I’m not ready,” she said. Then punctuated her snub with the slam of her trunk.
My mouth dropped open so wide a bird could have flown into it. Maybe one did, because for several seconds I couldn’t speak or swallow. I finally managed a “Right, of course.” She thanked me for understanding and then drove off, leaving me standing in that parking lot like a discarded piece of trash.
Never in my life had I met someone as rude and condescending as my new neighbor Holly Kendrick. What kind of person rejects an offer of friendship? A person who is hiding something, that’s who.
And I was determined to find out what it was.
JACK
Three months ago
My wife was in a playful mood that night.
When I walked into the bedroom, she put music on—“Sailing” by Christopher Cross, an ’80s soft rock classic—grabbed my hand, and swirled into me like yarn to a spool. I was not in the mood to dance, but I couldn’t refuse her, never could.
I met Kate when I spilled coffee on her at an airport Starbucks. I was so charmed by her laugh—and that her reaction to being doused with hot coffee was to laugh—that I moved my seat twenty rows back to sit next to her. Twelve months later we were married. In his speech at our wedding, my new father-in-law referred to the incident as “the definition of a happy accident.” Everybody laughed.
Of course, most accidents aren’t happy. I’ve been lucky not to have too many of the unhappy kind. I fell and broke my hand skiing, I hit a golf ball through a window, I gave a kid who’s allergic to nuts a cookie that could have killed him. At the time, these accidents were devastating. Breaking my hand ruined my vacation, fixing that window cost a full two weeks’ pay, and there is nothing more horrifying than watching a child go into anaphylactic shock because you forgot to ask, Are you OK with nuts? But my hand healed, my bank account rebounded, and that kid lived to eat another cookie. Those were the worst accidents of my life. Until this one.
“Sailing . . . la-la-la-la . . . ,” Kate sang, her head tilted up toward the sky. She was a terrible singer, and any other day I would have laughed. But that day her unabashed joy broke my heart. Because I knew that if she found out what had happened, and what I’d done to cover it up, she would never feel this happy again.
I love it when baseball announcers say, I betcha Joe Batter wishes he could have that pitch back! Even if you never played baseball, you know what they mean. We’ve all had those if only moments. If only I’d swung at that pitch. If only I hadn’t. I could have been the hero. I could have saved the day.
As my wife pressed her face to my chest and rocked me slowly left and right, I had a thousand if onlys churning through my mind—if only the sun wasn’t so blinding, if only that truck had moved out of the way, if only that couple had exited the car sooner, or later, or not at all. I could have played that game for days.
The tragic thing about if onlys, if you’re wishing for them, it’s too late. Once a pitch is thrown, you can’t get it back.
I would have traded all my life’s if onlys to get that day back, but of course, just like that missed perfect pitch, it was too late.
So I danced with my wife, knowing full well it might be the last time, and because my heart didn’t have room for any more regrets.
CHAPTER 12
I literally lived in the house of my dreams. When I looked around, I could hardly believe it was really all mine.
I did not grow up wealthy—far from it—but I still dared to dream what my perfect house would be like. I dreamed of a long driveway that wound up a gentle hill. I dreamed of that driveway ending at a majestic gate hugged by flowering, vibrant-pink bougainvillea. I dreamed of that gate opening to a gently bubbling fountain that lured colorful birds and the occasional deer.