The Good Widow(42)

“She doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”

“Nope. At least I don’t think so.”

“Does she know about James and Dylan?”

I shake my head and chew the inside of my lower lip. She eventually got over the shock of my whirlwind romance, and as predicted, James eventually charmed her and grudgingly earned her acceptance. But she never let me forget that I hadn’t properly vetted him. She actually used that term. Like he was running for Congress, not becoming a member of her family.

“Are you serious, Mom?” I was holding a card he’d given me for our one-year wedding anniversary. A ridiculously sappy one that he’d bought me as a joke. The idea that someone else had to explain your deep romantic emotions had made us laugh. “You’re really going to use that word?”

“Your father could have run a background check!”

“Mom, he doesn’t have a criminal record, okay? And I’ve known him for two years—don’t you think he would’ve murdered me by now if that were his goal?”

My mom took a deep breath.

“People don’t always do things by the book, Mom. You need to get over your obsession with coloring inside the lines.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you always need everything and everyone so orderly. Sometimes life is unpredictable. Messy even. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut. If you spend your whole life scared to make the wrong choice, how is that really living?’

“You can be so naive, Jacks,” my mom said, like she felt sorry for me.

Back then, her skepticism made me angry. It even drove an invisible wedge between us that we never acknowledged. But when the police told me James had been in Maui, the first person I thought of was my mom. And how she was right. I had been naive. But not anymore. Now I finally know the man I married. Or I’m getting to know him, anyway.

“It’s complicated why I don’t want to talk to my mom,” I finally say to Nick. “Have you ever had a Blue Hawaiian drink?” I ask, and point to one on the table next to us, trying to change the subject.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” he says.

“The Blue Hawaiian?” I ask, and smile. Then I snort. Again. The floodgates have been opened.

“No, silly.” He laughs, and his eyes soften. “Tell me about your mom.”

I start to explain that I’d rather not, but there’s something about how he’s looking at me. Those eyes again. He wants to know. Not just to pass time. He wants to understand more about me. About what makes me tick. And he doesn’t mind if I snort while telling him. I blurt out everything—our quick engagement, my mom’s obsession with normalcy, my fear that she was right. That I’m not sure I can ever trust my gut again. How much that scares me. “I can’t believe I just told you all that,” I say when I finish.

“I’m glad you did.”

“Me too. I feel better.” I think about how easy it is to talk to Nick, how I never feel judged by him. James had an arrogance about him. It was subtle. But I picked up on it a lot. Like how he sounded so condescending when he’d say something like, Oh, is that what you decided to do, like he was thinking he would have made a better choice—the right choice. During one of our particularly bad fights, I told him he had a superiority complex. He laughed and told me I was delusional.

Nick and I listen to the band, eat our food, and sip our cocktails, a comfortable silence between us. “Let’s get a drink at the bar,” Nick suggests when we’ve finished our dinner.

“I’m going to buy their CD first.” I start for the stage.

“That’s those Blue Hawaiians talking,” he calls after me. “You’ll never listen to it.”

“Maybe not.” I think of the CD James and Dylan purchased for their road to Hana drive as I hand the singer a ten-dollar bill. Then again, maybe I will listen to it.

Nick orders two POGs, this time with vodka, and I think about our day. We drove to Lahaina and had giant cinnamon rolls at Longhi’s. We shopped for silly souvenirs, and we got ice cream cones while walking around Whalers Village. We mused at the number of pay phones we’d spotted around the island. We even took a selfie with one, laughing about how we were old enough to remember them. For several hours, I pretended to be a real tourist on vacation, forcing any thoughts of why I was actually here from my mind.

“Hello? You’re awfully quiet over there.”

“I think I’m drunk.”

“That means we’re doing our job right,” the bartender says as he sets our drinks down, the skin around his green eyes crinkling, his stubble-covered chin reminding me of James’s. I look away, and Nick clinks his glass against mine.

“To finding out more about Dylan and James.”

“Did you just say Dylan and James?”

“Yes,” we say in unison.

“That’s weird. Because I met a Dylan and James a couple months ago. I’m sure they aren’t the same people, but Dylan is just one of those names that stands out to me because I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan.”

“Was she in her twenties? Blonde? Big blue eyes?”

The bartender nods. “And he was a good-looking guy. Dark hair, in sales?”

We nod.

“How is she?” the bartender asks with what seems to be a genuine concern.