Always the Last to Know(39)
“Didn’t I?” was his response, and I felt the venom well up in my throat, like one of those dinosaurs that could spit acid. Still, I held my tongue.
I continued to be a contributing member of Stoningham, working on committees and serving on boards. I watched my granddaughters when asked—unlike me, Juliet and Oliver liked to go out, and it was a joy to be the one to care for the girls. I’d read to them, or bake cookies with them, or do crafts and let them take an extra-long bath, and when they were asleep, I’d fold some laundry or pick flowers. Juliet’s house was beautiful, and she had a cleaning lady, but I still liked to fuss and tidy.
It was so nice to be wanted.
I thought about divorcing John. It had been so long since we’d done anything meaningful together, connected in any way. But there was that affordability thing. The thought of losing my house.
Then Bill Pritchard said he wouldn’t run again for first selectman.
“You should run, Mom,” Juliet said over dinner at her house when John was on a golfing weekend. The girls were in bed, and we were enjoying a glass of wine on the deck on the top of their house, which overlooked the Sound.
“Oh, absolutely,” Oliver concurred. “Can you imagine how shipshape this town would be if you were in charge, Mum?”
“That community center project would be in the bag, that’s for sure,” Juliet said. She put her hand over mine. “You should do it. You’d be amazing.”
“Honey, I’m almost seventy.”
“And? You have more energy than I do. And organizational skills. And smarts. And everyone adores you.”
The idea took root. I was good at organizing. I’d been on every committee there was. Being Juliet’s mother still carried cachet in this town; everyone loved her (and Sadie, too, just not as much . . . she’d left Stoningham years before, after all, impatient to shake the small-town dust from her shoes).
I won in a landslide. John had the nerve to be surprised on election night. “Well, holy crap, Barb. Who could’ve called that?” he said right there in the school gym, loud enough to be overheard. I saw a few people give him a strange look. An angry flush crept up my chest. Where had he been all these years we’d lived in Stoningham? Didn’t he know how hard I worked, how many people respected me, how much I’d given to this community? How dare he be surprised by my success?
Then he took to calling me Queen Bee at home. “Please stop,” I said. “It’s really not funny, and it’s sexist besides.”
“Oh, it’s a little funny,” he said. “And it’s not sexist in the least. The queen bee is the most important—”
I stopped listening. He loved those nature documentaries that never ended, some British man extolling the virtues of ant colonies or monkey dexterity.
Divorce. I’d give it a year, and then we’d move on. Shouldn’t your husband be the one who truly believed in you? We’d be fine financially, now that I was working, and I’d save every penny of my salary this year. I could probably get the house, and even if I didn’t, well. I’d cross that bridge.
A year. I threw myself into the town. Applied for grants. Talked to almost every single year-round resident about their concerns. I did get the old school approved for a community center, and I didn’t even have to raise taxes to do it, thanks to a hefty state grant and what Juliet called my velvet glove approach with the summer people, asking them to donate in a way they couldn’t refuse.
Not only that, we bought Sheerwater, that magnificent old house on Bleak Point, after Genevieve London died, got it listed on the National Register of Historic Places and got the land approved as a park, the house available for weddings and reunions and other functions. I was on a roll. I worked with the chamber of commerce to increase our tourism outreach, catching some of the casino crowd on their way to the casinos, rather than on the way back, when they were broke. We got rid of the stoplight that wasn’t needed and drove everyone crazy and wooed a salmon fishery to open on the old paper mill site. Clean energy, ecologically responsible and employing seventeen full-time people.
It was a brilliant year. Juliet was so proud of me, and I knew this because she told me. Often. When that first year was up, I decided to wait till after the holidays to tell John I wanted a divorce. Why punish the grandkids over Christmas? Because of course they’d be upset. Our fiftieth anniversary was January 10; I’d do it then, since the fact that we barely acknowledged the date would provide a perfect lead-in. I was tired of dragging the corpse of our marriage behind me. It was over.
On January 9, he had the stroke.
Four hours after I got the call from the paramedics, I found out my husband had a mistress.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Juliet
We’re just so sorry to hear about your father,” said Dave Kingston, one of the partners at DJK Architects, the K in the DJK. “If there’s anything you need—extra time off, more flexibility to work from home—you just let us know.”
“Thank you, Dave. I really appreciate it. And the flowers were beautiful. My mom really appreciated them.” The fact that part of Juliet would rather see her father die than deal with his adultery . . . well, best not to go there right now. A wave of love for that same father washed over her, and she had to swallow the tears in her throat. Not now. Not now. It was becoming her mantra.