A Nantucket Wedding(79)
As a lover, Scott was unhurried and gentle, responsive to Jane’s body, tender and sweet. They were very good together, and as they spent the next day talking and walking and reading, it seemed as if they’d always been together. Were meant to be together. They spent every possible moment with each other after that first meeting, and Jane knew they were going to marry, even though Scott, deliberate and responsible as always, waited a full year to propose. And then Jane did follow him everywhere—to Death Valley for their honeymoon. She was the only person she knew who had ever been to Death Valley.
Scott thought Jane was beautiful. She had never told him how jealous she was of her younger sister, Felicity, who was always surrounded by guys. She’d even been anxious about Scott meeting Felicity—he’d see that he’d chosen the least lovely sister. But Scott had been unaffected by Felicity’s charms. He thought she was good-looking, but maybe—he didn’t want to make Jane mad, he’d said—maybe she wore too much makeup, maybe she was just a bit silly, and obviously Felicity was jealous of Jane’s good looks. Jane had laughed until she had a stitch in her side, and Scott had been puzzled by her reaction.
They were both ambitious, both hard workers who felt most in the zone when they were struggling with some legal document. Jane was hired by Mercer and Klein, and Scott was quickly snapped up by an equally prestigious firm, in the tax code law department. Their titles and salaries were commensurate, and they could schedule their vacation days together. Most years they didn’t go to Boston to share Christmas with Alison and Felicity and Noah and their children. They did go the year Alice was a newborn, because Jane knew her sister would take offense if Jane didn’t come to adore the baby and wait hand and foot on Felicity. That year Alison had put on the full Christmas extravaganza, with a tree so high it bent over at the ceiling, and so many presents they spilled out into the hallway. Carols on the CD player, gingerbread cookies and eggnog, pumpkin and apple pies. Roast goose—geese, three of them—because Alison knew how little meat was on a goose. Alice and Scott had gone to the Christmas Eve midnight church service with Alison and Mark, mostly, as they agreed later in the privacy of the bedroom, to get away from the baby, whose cries were ear-piercing. After that year, they’d felt free of family obligations, for a while.
Scott and Jane’s stepfather, Mark, had gotten along famously. Of course, Mark got along famously with everyone. Scott and Noah were more like oil and water. Noah’s hair fell to his shoulders, and for a few years he had a beard. Noah was very tall and thin; he looked and sometimes sounded like the leader of a cult. The first time they met, Scott had extended his hand for a conventional male handshake. Noah had instead clasped both hands around Scott’s and intoned, “Hello, Brother.” Jane, standing behind Noah, had put her finger in her mouth, simulating gagging.
As the years passed and Noah’s ideas gelled into an actual business with wealthy investors, he became less self-righteous and smug. He got his hair cut—because his children kept pulling and tugging it, he said—and he bought one good suit. He asked for Mark’s advice. He asked for Scott’s advice.
Still, always, after a holiday or a quick dinner when Jane and Scott were in New York, they returned to their own small household with relief. The pattern of their days was repetitive and soothing and sensual, too. It was luxurious to read the Sunday papers together, propped on pillows, on their iPads or e-readers, drinking coffee Scott made and brought back to the bed. At some point, they’d make love. Afterward, they’d go out for a long, leisurely Sunday brunch, and if it was raining, they’d visit a museum. If not, they took a stroll through Central Park. They met friends for dinner. They saw first-run plays. Sometimes, for a while, they went to their home office and worked. On vacations, they chose places that would take them away from the rush of the city. They hiked in Colorado and Utah. In Mexico, they ate caldo tlalpeno and drank tequila. In Death Valley, they ate rattlesnake and drank more tequila. They didn’t want to go to China and the Far East until Scott had polished up his Mandarin. Jane tried to learn a little of the language. She remembered sitting on the sofa with Scott, trying to say hello, and laughing until she almost fell onto the floor.
Scott was such a good man. Honest, reliable. He would never try to have sex with a married woman. Jane wanted to shake herself. She’d been so foolish, like a resentful child!
And then, her cellphone, lying in a blank rectangle on the table, vibrated. The caller ID number was odd—it was Welsh! Jane snatched up the phone.
“Mrs. Hudson? This is Derfel Aberfa. I am happy to report that your husband has been found and rescued.”
“Oh! Thank you!” Jane burst into tears.
“He was not far from the Crib Goch path. He slipped on the damp rocks and fell into a gap between boulders. He has broken his arm and sustained some hypothermia, but otherwise he is doing well.”
“Oh, I’m so glad, oh, thank you so much. May I speak to him?”
“He’s being treated at the Ysbyty Gwynedd. The hospital in Bangor. Are you in Wales yet?”
“Yes, I think so. I’m on a train from Manchester. We’re rocketing along tracks on the very edge of a mountain.”
“Yes, you are in Wales. So when you arrive in Bangor, take a cab to the hospital. Your husband is there, now.”
“How can I thank you? Is there a charge for your services?”