Always the Last to Know(72)

I thought about my six siblings. Nancy had sent a card when I told her about John via e-mail, but otherwise, I hadn’t heard from anyone.

“Have you thought about putting John in Rose Hill?” Janet asked. “It’s fab. They have a saltwater pool, and the food is great.”

For a second, I imagined the freedom of having John in a facility. Those weeks when he was at Gaylord and I was alone in the house, and how . . . peaceful they had been. I was so tired these days.

Then I pictured myself in his situation, away from home, surrounded by strangers.

“I don’t know that he meets the criteria,” I said. Rose Hill was for the profoundly disabled, so far as I knew, and John could walk and do some of the tasks of daily living. “My girls and I can take care of him, anyway.”

“You’re good people, Barb.”

“Thank you. You too.”

“Okay if I visit with the old man?”

“Absolutely. He’s in the living room, sleeping in the recliner.”

She popped the last cookie in her mouth, waggled her impressive eyebrows and left the room.

It was strange, how many people had come to visit John. Caro’s Ted came fairly often, even though the men had never been particularly close outside of our couple nights. Noah brought his baby over at least once a week, and seeing John hold sweet little Marcus made me happy and brokenhearted and angry. If Sadie ever had a baby, would John know it was hers? Would it break Sadie’s heart, knowing her father could never be the type of grandfather who’d give piggyback rides and read stories? Not that he’d done that with Sloane or Brianna, mind you. Always with one foot out of the room, John.

Juliet and Oliver came, too, often bringing the girls. And Sadie was here every day. She was so devoted. Had it been me in that recliner, I wondered if she would’ve moved back.

Well. Apparently John had a way with people. Just not with me. Our window had closed long before his stroke, and maybe long before I decided to divorce him.

It takes two to make a good marriage, and only one to ruin it. But in the past several weeks, I’d been spending a lot of time awake at night, thinking about my role as a wife. I had stopped making John a priority a long time ago. When Juliet came into this world, she had outshone everything, and I resented his half attention to her, the way he didn’t seem to adore her as much as I did. He became superfluous to our life. If I hadn’t had Sadie, I wondered if we might have divorced years ago.

I had tried, yes. Those dance classes (ugh), the forced conversations, the date nights, all that. But maybe it had been too little, too late. Maybe John had been waiting for me all those years when I gave him my half attention, my irritation, the unpleasant but honest feeling that he was in the way. I wanted to love him, and I’d thought I might again . . . but the truth was, I’d cast him in the role of inept and irritating husband long ago.

Not that it excused his affair, not at all. I’d been ready to divorce him; he’d gone the cheap and easy way of cheating.

Sometimes, though, I’d remember the way his eyes lit up when I came into the room in our little red house in Cranston. I’d had that, and yet somewhere during the in-between spaces of our lives, I let it slip away. Infertility had eaten away at me, and I’d tried to drown my sorrow by becoming part of Stoningham, and then, when motherhood did come, we stopped being a real couple. Maybe we would’ve faded away no matter what, but I didn’t try real hard, either.

So maybe I owed John more than I wanted to admit. To love, honor and cherish . . . maybe I’d broken my vows, too.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE





Sadie


It was so, so good to spend the weekend with Alexander. He reminded me of who I was outside of my family, something more than the “other” daughter, the one who wasn’t as smart, accomplished or wealthy, or married and a mom.

With Alexander, I was fun, smart, hot, interesting—a person he wanted to be with. Same as my dad (minus the hot part, obviously). We drove up to the casino for dinner with Carter and Josh. Carter, ever on my side, made a few little hints about marriage—“Can’t wait to be your man of honor”—okay, pretty big hints. Alexander put his arm around me and kissed my temple. He picked up the tab with great flourish, and we all left fatter and happy and full of laughter and friendship. I felt loved again. I really did.

I felt better than I had since Dad’s stroke. The way he’d recognized Janet was astonishing, and I’d been over every day, trying to get him to say another word (my name, can you blame me?). The speech therapist and I talked for two hours, and I went to the house when she was there. He might’ve said dog when Pepper jumped on his lap. Duh . . . It was close to dog, right? He was getting there.

But today, I told Mom I had to spend some time on my house and had already painted the upstairs bedroom pale gray. If Dad improved enough, I could go back to the city in the fall, so this little hovel had to be on the market for summer. Hours on the Internet had taught me everything I needed to know. Ikea was my friend, and yes, I could wield the sledgehammer taken from my parents’ shed.

My plan was to knock down the wall separating the kitchen and living room, put in white cabinets and a couple of rough wooden shelves (so on trend), and make or buy a butcher block island for the middle. Small, yes, but also smart. Buff out those old floors, stain them dark walnut, spring for a new couch, and hang a Sadie Frost original abstract on the wall. Throw pillows. Rocking chair from my old room. A coffee table made from some cool wood. Bamboo and rice-paper blinds so the serial killers couldn’t see in. Sand the rust out of the bathtub, bleach the shit out of the tile floor, buy some bright blue towels, and voilà. A summertime jewel.