The Good Widow(72)
After we order our ice cream cones and settle on a bench outside Baskin-Robbins, I recount my conversation with Isabella to Nick. He said he wanted to know how it went, and I decide that if we’re going to have a real relationship, I need to share. But still, it feels weird, talking about my ex-mother-in-law with my new boyfriend. In between licks of my mint chip, I tell him how she fired question after question, some curious, some accusatory, and how I’d tried my best to hold my voice steady as I revealed the ugly truth about James. About me. About our marriage.
At first it seemed that she held me somewhat accountable for James’s indiscretion. And I didn’t argue the point—I had accepted that I wasn’t an innocent party in our union. I hadn’t cheated, but I’d betrayed him in my own way. But as I told her about my journey to Hana, how Nick had helped me find a bit of closure to fill the gaping hole James’s death had created inside me, she began to soften.
She left two hours later. Her tears had finally dried up and were replaced by forced acceptance. “I’m sorry he did this to you,” she said as she stood and grabbed her things. “I always prided myself on my close relationship with my son—I wish he had trusted me enough to come to me. Obviously I didn’t know him as well as I should have.”
“We all have secrets,” I said as we walked to the door. “Some are just bigger than others.”
“True,” she pondered. “I have one more question.”
“Anything.”
“How do I move on from this? Because it’s not like I can call and yell at him for being so irresponsible—for being so selfish! I feel like I have nowhere to place all this anger I’m feeling.” She gave me a sad smile. “If I’m being totally honest, I had really wanted to direct it your way, but it’s not as simple as that, is it?”
“No, it’s not.”
“So then, what?”
I thought for a moment before speaking. “I think you let yourself love him just the same. He was your son. And he loved you. That will never change.”
“And you? Do you still love him? After all this?”
I thought back to standing on the cliff in Hana—the closest to James that I’d ever be again. In that moment I’d felt no anger, no resentment. Only love tinged with regret. I nodded. The next part I don’t tell Nick, knowing it would bother him.
“I will always love him, Isabella. But I’m also ready to move on. I hope you can understand that.”
“I can,” she said softly. “You know, I was wrong about you, Jacks. You’re much stronger than I ever gave you credit for.”
I laughed lightly. “I think we may have both been wrong about each other.”
Isabella hugged me one last time. “Take care of yourself,” she said, grabbing the box of James’s things I’d put aside for her, the wedding album sticking out of the top, and walked out my front door without looking back.
Nick kisses my forehead lightly after I finish telling him the story. “I know that conversation wasn’t easy. But for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you—I think you did the right thing by telling her the real story. She deserves to know.”
“The truth will set us free, right?” I whisper as I rest my head on his chest, his steady heartbeat comforting me.
The next morning, the pressure of Nick’s lips on my mouth prods me awake.
He moves in for a deep kiss that sends a shiver through my entire body. “See you later, sleepyhead.”
“Can you stay a bit longer?” I pat the bed next to me. “Maybe do what we never got around to because I passed out. Sorry about that.”
“I wish I could.” He tugs at the bottom of the T-shirt he loaned me last night and raises his eyebrow. “But I’ve got to get to the station. The guys texted that it was a rough night, so I want to get there a bit early and relieve them.”
I smile as I watch concern fill his eyes. “I love how much you love your job,” I say, thinking about my classroom that I’d just returned to last week. How good it felt to take in each and every one of my new fourth graders’ faces, to sit in the chair behind my desk and watch them as they read their textbooks, to let myself get excited about a field trip we were taking to the discovery museum. The school had offered to extend my leave of absence, but I needed to get back to teaching. It was what reminded me I was still me.
Nick kisses me again. “Stay as long as you want, okay? It’s Sunday! Enjoy yourself. I set the espresso maker out for you. I know what a beast you are without your caffeine.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“Says you.” He laughs when I swipe at him, and I watch him walk out of the room.
A few hours later as I’m leaving, I see the woman from the night before hovering in the hallway outside of Nick’s front door. She flashes me a surprised look, then rushes away, but she abruptly stops and turns her body halfway around, as if she doesn’t know which way she’s going.
“Did you need something?” I ask. “Nick’s not here . . .”
“I know. I saw him leave earlier.” She stares down at her cherry-red wedge sandals, then looks back up. “I was coming to see you actually,” she says as she takes a few tentative steps in my direction.
“Me?”