Can't Look Away(111)

Sabrina says nothing. She looks gutted, the color draining from her face. Jake goes over to the pantry and retrieves the dustpan. He sweeps up the broken glass and dumps the shards, then uses a dish towel to dry the water on the floor.

He disappears upstairs and packs his duffel bag. A few changes of clothes, toiletries, guitar, song notebook. He doesn’t need much, and when Jake looks around their bedroom, he realizes that most of the stuff in the house is Sabrina’s, anyway. He grabs his work briefcase, too, and goes back downstairs.

Sabrina is waiting for him, and he finally looks at her—really looks at her—for the first time since the party. Her eyes are red-rimmed and smeared with makeup, her dark hair flattened on one side from where she must’ve fallen asleep on the window seat. She appears hollow, afraid, a shell of herself.

“Jake, don’t do this.” Sabrina stands. She runs to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her face to his chest. “Please. We’re married—we’ve only been married seven months. We’re just building our life together. Our family.”

Jake pulls back, the pity he feels for her morphing into a fresh wave of anger. “Are you delusional? Our marriage is built on lies.” His eyes narrow. “Who is Lenore Smith? Tell me. Because I know you’re the one who sent that email to Molly.”

“Lenore was my—” She chokes on a sob as it emerges. “My great-aunt. I’m sorry, Jake—”

“How could you? You broke us apart. And you’ve been dishonest with me, all this time.”

“So has Molly!”

“Molly isn’t my wife!”

Sabrina screws her eyes shut, crumpling to Jake’s feet. Tears spill down her face, and she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. Neither of them speak. An eternity passes.

Finally, she lifts her head. “You know, when we were first together—before you left me for her—I got pregnant.” Her voice is raspy, sadder than he’s ever heard it.

“What?” Jake sets his bags on the ground. “Are you fucking with me?”

She shakes her head, sniffling. “It was wintertime, right before we broke up. I didn’t tell you because I knew you were going to break up with me, and then—” She pauses. “Then I lost the baby.”

“Jesus, Sisi.” Jake stares at her, his lips parted in shock. “You should’ve … I’m sorry.”

“It was awful. It still haunts me. I thought you wanted a family. And I thought when the time was right, we would try for one.” Her eyes fill again. “I want another chance for our baby, Jake. I want that more than anything.”

“Oh, Sisi.”

“Please, Jake.” Sabrina stands, her chest heaving, her gaze desperate. “We were supposed to be parents together. We were supposed to create the family neither of us ever had. Without you, I’m—” Her voice catches. “Please. Don’t walk away from this.”

He finds it in himself to open his arms to her, one last time. He holds the back of her head while she sobs into his chest. They stand like that for a minute or so, before he pulls away. He picks his duffel and briefcase up from the floor, then finally his guitar. “I have to go.” His blue eyes are desolate, but certain.

“Wait,” she pleads, sniffling. “There’s something I need to know.”

He’s halfway out the door. “What is it?”

“What does it mean that you never wrote a song about me?”

Jake sighs, his shoulders aching under the weight of his bags. “It means that we’re over.”

He trudges out to the driveway, feels her watching him from under the portico. There’s a nip in the August night that wasn’t around a week earlier, a dispiriting chill that says fall isn’t far off. From the walkway, Jake looks back over his shoulder to where Sabrina stands on the front stoop, her hands knotted together at her chest.

“If you want a family, Sisi, you should have one.” His gaze softens. “Don’t let me be the one to stop you.”

He tosses his bags in the back seat of the Jeep, then climbs into the front and turns on the ignition. Part of him wishes he could travel back in time and do it all over. But what would he have done differently? Forsaken Danner Lane? He might’ve, if he’d known Molly was pregnant. More likely, he would’ve chosen all three of them—the band and Molly and Stella—and then what? Would a different breaking point have come for Molly eventually? Would she have left him, anyway? He doesn’t know. There are a million ways their story could’ve played out, but this is the only way that it did. One thing Jake knows for sure is that he could have been a better partner back then, but he wasn’t. He was twenty-six years old.

All there is now, is now. It’s a dark evening, and he doesn’t have answers as he pulls the Jeep out of the driveway. With the headlights on, he can only see a few feet ahead, but maybe that’s the way it should be. Jake knows, at least, where he’s going tonight.





Chapter Thirty-nine

Molly




August 2022

Molly blinks her eyes open. She’s in bed in a dimly lit room, a single beam of sunlight slipping through the drapes and reaching across the tiled floor. She sees her mother’s familiar face—soft cheeks, wide hazel eyes—above her. Pain sears the whole left side of her head.