Can't Look Away(74)
“Sees.” He walks around the kitchen island and shuts off the faucet. He encircles my waist with his arms, clasping his fingers at my low back and pulling me in close. Heat zips up the length of my spine. As angry as I am with him, I will never take this for granted—this proximity to the man that I fought for so fiercely for so many years. “You look nice this morning.”
He leans down and kisses me, his two-day stubble scratchy on my face. I pull away, blinking up at him. He tilts his head as if to say, What’s the matter?
I wriggle out of his grasp, turning back to the sink. “Maybe you should brush your teeth,” I say, willing the contempt out of my voice. He can’t suspect that I know anything.
He leaves half an hour later, claiming there are errands to run. He pecks my cheek, and I notice his breath is minty. The overpowering scent of Listerine lingers in his wake.
Why Jake won’t just man up and tell me the truth about his plans, I do not know. He’s the love of my life, but he’s a coward. You both are.
At quarter of eleven, my car pulls to a stop in the parking lot of the public tennis courts, a ten-minute walk from Skipping Beach. Despite the humid heat, I wear leggings and a rain slicker—an old gray one from the back of the mudroom closet that I doubt Jake has ever laid eyes on—and my most oversize sunglasses. The sky is overcast, and I grab my bag and an umbrella from the back seat, just in case. I pull the hood up over my head. I can’t be seen.
The beach isn’t crowded; I can’t decide if this is good or bad. On the one hand, I have a slimmer chance of running into someone I know; on the other, there’s not much of a crowd to blend in to. I take a seat at one of the empty picnic tables behind the gazebo and stare at my phone, pretending to be engrossed with something on the screen.
I don’t have to wait long. I spot you almost right away, Molly, in your frayed denim shorts and white top, little Stella skipping at your side. Your hair is pulled back, and there’s a beach towel slung over your shoulder. You head toward the water. I follow your path, and there, at the end of it, is Jake. My husband. The man who just told me in our kitchen that he had errands to run all morning.
Still, I don’t hate him. It’s you I despise. You are the one who damaged him, who left him with questions that rot inside his heart, that cause him to doubt his place in the world without you. You were the lost look in his eyes on our wedding day. You are the pain that contours the edges of his face when he’s asked what happened with Danner Lane, when someone wants to know why he gave up music when the band fell apart. You are the darkness that festers inside of him, and it isn’t fair to either of us, Molly. Jake doesn’t know any better, but I do. We need you gone. We deserve a life without you infiltrating the understructure of our marriage. We deserve happiness. We deserve peace.
I watch the three of you walk down the beach, using my binoculars as discreetly as I can. The ones my father sent us for “bird-watching” out in the suburbs. They were a wedding gift and had never been removed from the box until this morning.
I guess I’m lucky there’s no one around the picnic tables to notice me—Sabrina the spy. I watch Jake and Stella go for a swim. I see the girl laugh with delight each time she springs herself off his shoulders and into the ocean. How dear.
It’s eighty-five degrees and I’m getting sticky in my rain jacket, but the clouds are growing thick and dark, and a downpour seems inevitable—my choice of attire was smart. I watch Jake and Stella clamber out of the ocean, dodging the mellow waves as they make their way back onto the beach. I don’t know what is said—too bad binoculars don’t work for hearing—but it must be something emotional, because you and Jake have a moment. I see the way he takes hold of your hand, his gaze fixed to yours, grave and unmoving, like a glass-eyed doll. Really, Molly? In front of Stella? Bold.
And then the two of you pull apart, and you’re walking back down the beach with Stella at a brisker pace than before. There’s something helpless in Jake’s body language as he watches you go, arms hanging limply at his sides, palms open. It’s unclear if there was any kind of formal goodbye.
You’re getting closer now; I put down the binoculars and turn back to my phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I see you load Stella into your Audi—buckling her into her car seat like the responsible parent you pride yourself on being—and drive away.
Jake—poor, pathetic Jake—stares after your car like a sad child. He doesn’t move for several minutes. When he finally does, he spins around and looks toward the picnic tables, so quickly and directly I almost fall off the bench. But my body relaxes when I see that he’s heading for the gazebo, that he hasn’t noticed me sitting here at all.
Thunder rumbles through the sky. The rain starts slowly, one droplet at a time. The few families that are still gathered on the beach start to pack up their belongings. Whining children covered in sand are dragged toward SUVs. I watch Jake typing on his phone, and I know—I just know, Molly—that he’s texting you.
I’m not going anywhere until Jake leaves the beach, but I have to change my post. I’m too close to the gazebo. Dangerously close.
The umbrella was a good idea. I open it, using the canopy to shield my face as I walk to the right of the gazebo and head down the beach. I need to be careful, so I don’t stop until I’ve gone at least a quarter mile, well out of Jake’s sight. Then I sit down on the sand and take the binoculars back out of my bag. It isn’t easy to use them and keep the umbrella propped over my head at the same time—it’s started raining more steadily now—but I make it work. I study Jake. He leans against the railing of the gazebo, staring pensively out over the water. I don’t know if he just needs a moment alone to collect his thoughts, or if he’s waiting for you. I am praying, begging, pleading with the universe that it isn’t the latter.