214 Palmer Street(17)
After all the guests had arrived I waited awhile, my car windows down to catch a breeze. When I heard the sounds of a string quartet floating through the air I realized that the ceremony had started. She’d gone ahead and done it.
God help her, because I sure couldn’t.
ELEVEN
THEN
After Sarah came home from the hospital, everything became hazy. Everything she’d taken for granted had changed. She had to move cautiously, for fear of a sudden bout of vertigo. Headaches plagued her, and the pain pills made her thinking fuzzy. Besides that, the house itself was disorienting, the rooms not quite right. The first day she went to get a drinking glass for water and opened the cabinet to find dishes and bowls on the shelf instead. She stood there puzzled, then tried the cabinet where she remembered the dishware had been stored, finding the glasses instead, but lined up in their usual familiar way.
The two cabinets had swapped their contents. Or at least that’s how it seemed.
Calling out to her husband, who was sitting at the kitchen table, she asked, “Did you rearrange the cupboards?”
Kirk stopped shuffling through the stack of mail to look up and meet her gaze. “No. Why would I do that?”
“No reason. I just wondered.”
“Do you want them rearranged? I can do that if you want. It wouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, everything’s fine.”
“If you need anything done, just say the word. I want you to be happy.”
“I know.” Sarah knew she was a people pleaser. She’d once taken an online test which told her as much. In her marriage, this was a skill that came in handy. Kirk was a sensitive soul who seized the most innocuous comment and assigned value to it. She’d learned to downplay her own concerns or he would knock himself out to make her happy. She held back from admiring things because he’d insist on buying them for her. At restaurants if she made an offhand comment about the food being too spicy, he’d have the server bring her another plate despite her objections. He surprised her with expensive clothing and jewelry for no reason at all. It was not uncommon for him to whisk her away for romantic weekends, where he’d already made reservations for dinner and a couples massage.
Her friends at work were envious of Kirk’s devotion. “If only Sam did half of what Kirk does, I’d be overjoyed,” her friend, Lauren had said, shaking her head sadly. “But it would take a miracle.”
Every time flowers were delivered to the office, at least one other co-worker would tell her she was a lucky woman. She always agreed, but something about his excessive generosity nagged at her, making her wonder if his motivation wasn’t her happiness, but something else entirely. Some insecurity that made him want to prove his love to others? Or maybe a public display of his wealth? She never dwelled on these doubts, though, because it seemed disloyal. Kirk had always been good to her. His arrival in her life had been a godsend. Her parents’ death while she was in college left a vast emptiness in her life. Her sister, Maren, was eight years older and consumed with her own life. She had a high-powered job that took her on international business trips. In her free time Maren enjoyed scuba diving, running marathons, and rock climbing. Sarah was more of a homebody, whose interests lay in gardening, cooking, and reading. Hard to believe two sisters could be so different.
Sarah had been lonely before Kirk. Now she was part of a family once again. Kirk’s parents adored her and had made her feel at home from the moment she’d met them. They were down to earth, considering their wealth. But, of course, they hadn’t always been rich. When Kirk was growing up they lived a regular suburban life. It was only after Kirk’s father sold his business for an astronomical amount, and they made some good investments, that they were able to scale up so dramatically. From what Kirk said, she got the impression they were sitting on about twenty million dollars, some of which came in handy when Kirk had the opportunity to buy the car dealership.
By the time Sarah met them, the older Adens lived in a house larger than Sarah’s apartment building. Kirk had been their only child, and the fact that they approved of her meant a lot to him. Theirs had been a whirlwind romance. It started with an accidental meeting in a doctors’ waiting area, which led to a dinner date. After that it was Saturday morning hikes, and outings to art galleries and museums. Within a month of meeting him, she was his date to a wedding, where he introduced her as his girlfriend. Six months later they were engaged and six months after that, they married in a private ceremony in a gazebo on his parents’ property. After that, life had been a dream. She didn’t have to work, but she enjoyed it and liked having her own money. Kirk himself put her needs above all else. She really had nothing to complain about. He’d never raised his voice to her. If anything, the opposite. He watched her facial expressions for any sign of displeasure and apologized for things he hadn’t done.
Really, he was perfect.
Lately they’d been talking about having a baby. “I would love it if we had a little girl who looked just like you,” Kirk had said once during a conversation right before falling asleep. They were snug under the covers and had finished talking about their days, when he broached the subject out of the blue. He’d mentioned it before, but she’d never felt ready.
More recently, it was starting to feel like the right time. “Maybe it will be a boy,” she’d answered. “With blue-gray eyes and uncooperative hair.”