The Night Before(20)

“I know, Rosie. You think I don’t know? We’ve stayed in touch—but it hasn’t been easy having her back. Seeing the pain that’s always there—and Melissa, she doesn’t want me anywhere near your sister, because even she knows, just from the stories she’s heard, the things that can happen around her.”

Gabe was angry and it was unsettling. Rosie could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him lose his composure.

He calmed himself before continuing. “I can almost see her last night—that look in her eyes as she falls in love with him. And I can see the rage as she finds out that he’s a con artist. I know them all—every one of her faces—and I know where they lead her.”

“Then you know…” Rosie said, pleading. “If this guy was a player, a liar, and if Laura found out, it wouldn’t matter how harmless he was.…”

But Gabe wasn’t listening. “She always said that word—‘love’—as though it were an object. Something that could be held and touched. She spoke of it as though it wasn’t all around her, from you and Joe and Mason—from all of us, and from all of those men who tried to love her. It isn’t like that. I’ve tried to tell her. When I met Melissa … it just grew, and it took work. I tried to tell her.”

Rosie wanted to scream.“So did I—a million times. How it’s sometimes work. Just getting up every day and deciding that you are going to love this person even though it’s not sweeping you off your feet. It’s like she’s been on a desperate search her whole life—it’s on her face in that picture, the one on the computer. Even back then…”

Gabe shook off the frustration and closed his eyes tight. And for that brief moment, Rosie knew exactly what he was feeling.

“Look at what followed—what happened to her first real boyfriend,” Rosie said. “What if it happened again? With this man, Jonathan Fields?”

She paused briefly before saying the rest, all of her thoughts fusing together. Becoming simple. Becoming clear.

“The thing is, Gabe, I’m not worried about what he might have done to her. I’m worried about what she might have done to him.”

Gabe nodded, growing solemn again.

“Let’s get back to the house,” he said. “I know how to find this guy. That’s all we can do now.”

They got in their cars. Pulled away from the curb. And drove away from the harbor.





TEN


Laura. Session Number Seven. Three Months Ago. New York City.

Laura:… maybe I’ve just been unlucky in love. Isn’t that a song? Or in a song? There’s another expression.… What is it? “The heart wants what it wants.”

Dr. Brody: But if that heart is broken, it will want the wrong things.

Laura: Cheery … but … are you saying that’s me? My heart is broken?

Dr. Brody: It’s just a euphemism, Laura. Hearts don’t break.

Laura: Obviously. But people do, don’t they?

Dr. Brody: In a manner of speaking. When do you want to talk about it?

Laura: Talk about what? I tell you everything.

Dr. Brody: About what really happened that night in the woods …





ELEVEN


Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 9 p.m. Branston, CT.

We walk on the path along the water. The air is perfect, neither hot nor cold against the skin. It smells of salt and seaweed. The smell of the ocean. It is blissful.

And it fills me with despair.

I tried to explain this to the shrink, how a perfect night provokes the longing so hard and fast that it feels as though it will explode right out of me. Perfect nights were made for lovers.

We stroll together, me and Jonathan Fields, taking in this perfect night with its air and its smells. And the desire to be past this moment, and the ones that have to follow so that maybe we will stroll as lovers and not strangers—the desire to be in love on this perfect night that is screaming out for lovers—rises all the way to my throat.

I hold my breath to keep it inside.

My cheeks flush and he notices. But we continue to stroll. I make myself exhale and take a new breath and it begins to pass.

Jonathan Fields. I like the way he strolls, his hands in his jean pockets. The button-down shirt tucked in. He’s rolled up his sleeves and I can see the hair on his forearms, light brown. He’s not like a bear or anything. It’s that masculine thing again. I don’t know why I like it so much. Rosie likes it too. That’s why she fell for Joe. He was a guy from the day he was born. A dude. I’ve wondered if Dick was like that and maybe that’s why we are drawn to the same men. I can’t remember, not even a little bit, about whether our father had hair on his arms or his chest, and whether he strolled the way Jonathan Fields strolls now, with a little swagger and a little nonchalance. Confidence, maybe. Or, maybe, arrogance.

We walk for a while, looking at people, laughing when we see others who seem to be on a first date, as though we are better than they are because at least we recognize the absurdity of it, the awkwardness. We smell the air and take in the anticipation of where we will go next. And what we will do there. I can tell he’s thinking about it. His face changes with the thoughts, though I don’t think he is aware of it.

But I am. I am aware of everything.