“Just so I understand: you’re terrified that he’s cheating, and you also want him dead?”
Sarah considered the contradiction. Then she said, “Yes.”
“Got it,” Marni said, nodding as if that made perfect sense. “Maybe it’s proximity,” she said. “Look, all of our routines have been disrupted. Everything’s upside-down. And you’re planning a wedding on top of it all, so he’s probably freaking out about his little girl getting married and the inevitability of his own death.” She paused to inhale. “Give it time. Next September, God willing, the boys will be back in school full-time, the wedding will be in the rearview mirror, and Eli will be back at the office. Things will be better.”
It made sense. Except Sarah didn’t know how much longer she could hold on. The pandemic had left her spacious house feeling punishingly small. Ruby and Gabe had claimed the fourth floor, Dexter and Miles had taken over the third; Eli’s office was on the second story, but he’d roam up and down, from the first floor to his office and back down again, flip-flopping all the way. From her desk or her bed, Sarah could hear everything that happened in the house, the creak of the floorboards as Eli paced, Miles’s voice during his classes, the crashes and exclamations as Dexter dropped things, and even, God help her, the thump of the headboard against the wall and the occasional moan from Ruby and Gabe’s aerie.
Sarah loved her family. She loved her boys, especially because their existence had never been a given. Her life could have gone in a different direction. If she’d devoted herself to her music, the way her teachers had wanted; if she’d gone to a conservatory for college instead of getting a liberal-arts degree, if she’d pushed herself to the very limits of her talent, forsaken all her other interests and hobbies and practiced five or six hours a day, she could have made it; could have been performing with symphonies or doing residencies in Vienna or making records for Deutsche Grammophon.
Maybe she’d chosen the safer path; the easier, more familiar road, where she played for herself and occasionally dazzled one of the kids who came into her office at the music school. Sarah would play one of her old recital pieces, Grieg’s Concerto in A Minor or Chopin’s “Fantaisie-Impromptu” and watch their eyes get wide and their mouths drop open. “Miss Sarah, you’re good!” they’d say, or they’d put their hands at the sides of their heads, then draw them outward, making exploding noises to suggest that their minds had been blown.
I was good, Sarah would think. And I might have been great, if I’d worked for it.
But she’d made her choice, and she’d tried not to look back or think about the road not taken. For the most part, she’d been happy. When the babies came, au pairs and babysitters and, eventually, Ruby’s help meant she could go back to work and know that her babies were safe and well cared for. She’d had her solitude: the hour in the morning after Eli had left for work and the kids had left for school, when she could sit with her second cup of coffee and do the crossword puzzle, or fold a load of laundry, or straighten up the kitchen, or read a chapter of a book, or just enjoy the quiet. She’d loved the weekend afternoons when the kids would be at sports practices or playdates and Eli would be out with his buddies, riding his bike or playing pickup basketball with the other dads. She would sit in the living room by herself and listen to music or half-watch some show about tiny houses on TLC while she made her weekly shopping list. At night, she’d savor a quiet hour alone in the kitchen, after everyone had gone to sleep, prepping the next night’s dinner or paging through cookbooks while she sipped a cup of tea.
Eli knew how much her alone time meant to her, and all through their marriage, he’d done what he could to preserve it. When Ruby was little, Sarah and Eli had allowed her to spend time in the summer with Sarah’s parents on the Cape, a respite that gave Sarah and Eli time together, and Sarah time by herself. When the boys came along, twice a year Eli would take them camping for a weekend. They’d load up a rented SUV with tents and backpacks, sleeping bags and coolers, more food than they could ever eat and more gear than they’d ever use, fishing poles and firewood, mountain bikes and flashlights and tarps and special bags to keep the food away from bears. Sarah would help them pack. She’d carry bags to the car. She’d stand on the steps, cheerfully waving goodbye, and then, once they were gone, she’d do an exultant jump in the air, thrilled at the thought of three entire nights where she would have the house all to herself.