Always the Last to Know(43)

Well. She was a rock sitting in a conference room who had better get to work while she still had a job. Her phone chimed, reminding her the girls had a half day. Oliver had taken off three days on Christmas break, so this was definitely her turn.

Leaving the office early had never felt like a liability before.

Snap out of it, she told herself. You have a lovely marriage. (Which reminded her, she should have sex with Oliver tonight, because it had been almost a week and he got grumpy if he went too long. He’d been so wonderful about Dad and deserved some attention.) You have two healthy children. (Who haven’t had a full week of school since mid-September; honest to God, who sets these school calendars?) You love your job. (Even if your star is sinking, you feel helpless and you’re having panic attacks in your closet.) You were raised by parents who love you. (Take the girls to see Dad, and try to get Brianna not to sob when she sees him, and also check in with Mom and see how she is, because there’s something she’s not telling you.)

That smoke-jumping job looked awfully great right about now. The mountains. A cabin. A good dog. Lots of books and a woodstove, and no one around who needed anything.

Juliet felt like crying. Like crying and eating an entire box full of Dunkin’ Donuts Boston Kremes.

If she’d known how hard it was to have it all, she would’ve asked for less.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN





Barb


John had come home, and I wasn’t feeling real thrilled.

Oh, go on, now. He’d been cheating on me for God knows how long with some floozy, and now he needed a full-time caregiver, and guess who won that prize?

The six weeks without him had been hard, of course—I visited him almost every day while still handling the myriad duties of first selectman, from going to the Winter Concert at the elementary school to commissioning a summer traffic study to getting more money for the library budget, because what was a town without a decent library?

But on those nights when I got home from Gaylord, which took a solid hour and fifteen minutes, or on those even better nights when I just couldn’t find the energy to go, I’d pour myself a glass of wine and make a sandwich. Watch Broadchurch on Netflix—gosh, what a show!—or see if Caro wanted to come over and visit. In the mornings, I got up at seven; John liked to get up at five so he could go to the gym (and now I knew why), so the extra sleep was bliss. I’d make my coffee (I liked it stronger than John did, and always had to dump out his weak brew and wash the pot out, because God forbid he did that himself). I made oatmeal, one of the rare dishes from my childhood I had loved. John hated oatmeal. Said it gave him the dry heaves just looking at it.

I hadn’t realized how much room he took up. How much space he demanded.

There was less laundry. Less noise, because John loved those punishing Russian composers. He often walked around in those silly clip shoes he wore to ride his bike. The house was immaculate again without his workout gear littering the place—the pants with the padded behind, his aerodynamic helmet, gloves, Day-Glo shirts, water bottles, running shoes. (I’d called them sneakers and been schooled in what may have been our last conversation.)

I had never lived alone. I’d gone from my parents’ house to an apartment with roommates to marriage.

Living alone, I was finding, was rather wonderful. I just didn’t want it this way, a husband trapped in a brain that no longer worked the way it used to. Almost every night, I’d wake up and think about him, not being able to speak, confused, needing help with everything from going to the bathroom to getting out of bed. Was he scared? Was he in pain? What was he thinking? Did he miss home? Did he miss WORK and all her texts and wonder why she hadn’t visited him? Did he even know his children? Did he remember me?

Then the tears would slip out of my eyes, down my temples and into my hair. He was a liar and a cheater and hadn’t been a good husband even without that. But no one deserved what he was going through. And I was going to have to suck up my hurt and stay with him and do my best to take care of him. And I would, because I’d meant those marriage vows, even if he’d forgotten his.

Sometimes, being an honorable person was quite the dang burden. Here I was, trapped in the in-between space of being a devoted wife and a wronged woman, a wife who’d wanted to leave my husband and was stuck with him forever now. And not even him. A husk of his former self.

He came home, requiring my dining room to be turned into his bedroom, the beautiful walnut table put in storage along with the chairs and the highboy that had been John’s grandfather’s. I packed it all up with Caro and Sadie one Sunday; Juliet had been in Chicago on a business trip. We made room for a hospital bed and a bureau, made sure he had ample space so he wouldn’t trip and a cleared path to the downstairs bathroom, which luckily had a shower. He was brought home, and the next phase started, and I was so tired already.

Yes, I had help—LeVon Murphy was just wonderful, a cheerful, strong and handsome man who came at eight and left at four. He handled John’s physical and occupational therapy, took him for walks, tried to engage him with puzzles and problem solving. Sometimes he stayed for dinner, and it was so nice, having a man who complimented me on my cooking and helped wash up. In addition to LeVon, a speech and language therapist came three times a week.

And Sadie was here, sleeping in her old room. I had to give her credit. She stepped up. She did the grocery shopping, the housework, took John to his doctors’ appointments and kept a log of who said what and when. Filled his prescriptions and sat with him, talking, bringing her paints over, sometimes even bringing Brianna and Sloane to do art therapy, saying it was good for John to have the kids around. She wiped her father’s face at dinner with a tenderness that made me almost jealous. Would she have done that for me? I doubted it.