If it wasn’t for the twins, I’d have clung to him forever, content with the scraps he was willing to give me. Because it’s always been him for me, since the moment I first saw him. Maybe I’ll meet a nice guy someday, someone who cares about my kids, someone it’s nice to come home to. But it won’t touch what he and I could have had if life had taken a different path. No matter who I’m with, a part of me will always wish it was him.
The meeting begins. Mark does a little housekeeping, and then Caleb admits that a merger is in the works. There was worry in the air before, and now it’s shifting closer to panic.
Someone asks if the merger will mean jobs are cut. My father would make some grand, sweeping promise assuring everyone their jobs are safe even if he was about to lay off half the workforce. But Caleb won’t do that, though I’m sure Mark—currently wincing—wishes he would. He tells the truth, no matter how hard it is. He told me the truth, too, I guess. I just didn’t want to hear it.
“I hope not,” Caleb replies. “I’ll do my best to make sure everyone has a position, but I can’t say anything for sure.”
He answers a few more questions, then sits while Mark tries to reassure everyone. My phone, resting on my thigh, vibrates with an incoming text.
CALEB
We need to talk.
I glance up at the stage to find him watching me again. It’s the text he might send before telling me we can’t keep working together. What it definitely is not is the text he’d send if he wanted to work things out.
My fingers hover over the screen, but instead of replying, I lock the phone and slip out of the room to go get the twins. Today is hard enough without hearing Caleb deliver the final blow.
I get home and pull up beside Molly’s BMW, my gaze on Caleb’s house instead of my own. There’s a car in the driveway. I can’t imagine Caleb having visitors, given the current state of his home and the fact that he’s about to leave for Maui.
We need to talk, he’d said. Was it about this? This mysterious visitor he was worried I might run into?
When I get inside, the twins are still not in their uniforms and Molly’s got way more makeup on her face than normal.
I send Henry and Sophie upstairs to change and turn to Molly. “Have you looked in the mirror, hon?”
Her eyes widen. “No. Is it that bad?”
I hitch a shoulder. “That depends on your taste. You’ve got a circle of lipstick on each cheek, however.”
She rubs at her cheek and stares in dismay at the lipstick on her fingertips. “Fucking kids,” she says. “Are you in a rush? I need to fix this.”
“No, we’ve got plenty of time. There’s makeup remover in my medicine cabinet.”
She heads upstairs, and I wander, as always, to the back window where I’ve spent my entire life hoping to find Caleb on the dock, though I know he won’t be there today.
Someone is there, however—a woman, stretched out and basking in the sun. She’s long and lean, her red hair fanned out around her.
Kate.
Kate is here.
I don’t realize I’m walking toward her until the door closes behind me.
The noise rouses her, and she pushes up on her forearms, watching me approach. Kate, in person, is a thousand times more beautiful than any picture of her led me to believe. Even the way she assesses me is cool, sultry—the way a girl in a rock video might, as if she’s never experienced a moment of self-doubt, as if she already knows she’s won.
I reach the dock and I still have no excuse for why I’m down here.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is a purr, slightly smoky. A bedroom voice. I do not have a bedroom voice—I sound like I’m six when I’m excited about something—and it’s a minor thing, but it speaks to the infinite differences between us. That I’m someone who’d rather stay in and bake cookies than go out to a bar, while this girl probably shoots straight whiskey, doesn’t blink twice at threesomes, and is game for things I don’t even know exist—things she probably did with Caleb.
Standing five feet away from her, it’s hard to imagine how he wouldn’t choose her over me. And it sort of seems as if that’s exactly what he’s already done.
“Hi.” I want to retreat without explaining myself. Say sorry, wrong dock, and make a run for it. “I’m Lucie. I, uh, live next door.”
There’s a hint of sympathy in her gaze. She’s clearly accustomed to women with a crush on her husband. “I’m Kate. Caleb’s wife.”