The Husband Hour(11)

He named him Polaris. What kind of name is that for a dog from a six-year-old boy? But he loved the stars.

Could it be a coincidence?

Matt slipped from the auditorium. The sunlight outside was blinding after the half hour he’d spent in darkness. Matt rushed into a coffee shop and pulled his laptop from his messenger bag while standing in line to buy the coffee that would rent him table space.

Squeezing into the corner of a long wooden communal table, Matt gave a cursory nod to the pretty blonde who smiled at him. Then he put on his headphones to discourage conversation and did a quick search for the Polaris Foundation. He wasn’t surprised to come up empty. A lot of public foundations didn’t have websites. Next, he tried the foundation-center database. He hadn’t used the site in a long time, not since the early days when he’d searched for any type of Rory Kincaid foundation. At the time, he’d had no doubt someone in Rory’s family would start a foundation in his name, and he’d been right: his brother Emerson had started the Rory Kincaid Scholarship Foundation for student athletes. But that had proved a dead end because Emerson wouldn’t speak to him and Lauren Kincaid wasn’t involved.

Matt’s login failed. His subscription had run out, and the credit card he originally used had been maxed out long ago. Without hesitating, he pulled out his debit card and used it for the subscription. This is how one slides into bankruptcy, he thought. But it was a fleeting concern, because within thirty seconds he had a name attached to the Polaris Foundation: Lauren Adelman.

Heart pounding, he dug deeper, searching for the Polaris Foundation’s IRS form 990-PF.

The address was in Longport, New Jersey.





Chapter Seven



The boardwalk had seemed to stretch to infinity when Lauren was a kid. It was her very own yellow brick road, with the ocean on one side and beachfront homes on the other. Her grandmother, dressed in a velour sweat suit with her hair and makeup perfectly done, took her for a walk every morning. She had seemed so old to Lauren, even though now, doing the math, Lauren realized she had probably been only in her early sixties.

Lauren looked down at Ethan and wondered if she seemed very old to him. She wondered, too, if he shared her joy at the boardwalk or if he was just going along because she’d invited him and he was a polite kid.

“Your mom and I came here every weekend in the summer when we were your age. And in August we’d stay for two weeks and my dad—your grandpa—would come on the weekends when he wasn’t working.”

“I don’t have a dad,” Ethan said.

Oh, good Lord. Quick—subject change!

“Um, your mom said you’re going to play soccer in the fall?”

“Yeah. I did it last fall too.”

“Is this with school?”

He shook his head. “Lower Merion Soccer Club.”

“What position do you play?”

He squinted up at her. “I don’t know. We change around a lot.”

“Okay, well, that makes sense. I guess it’s a little early to lock in on something. Do you watch sports on TV? Football? Hockey?”

“Sometimes. Brett watches a lot of hockey.” Oh, yes. Stepdad Brett.

“Yeah. I’m sorry Brett isn’t around this summer. Are you upset about that?”

Ethan shrugged. “Not really. He wasn’t around that much anyway.”

Lauren, at a loss for what else to say on the matter, suggested they turn around and head back.

“Aunt Lauren?”

“Yes?”

“Are you mad at my mom?”

“What? Oh, no. Why do you ask?”

“You yelled at her at dinner.”

True. She did.

“Well, sisters argue sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything, really.”

“Do you like my mom?” he asked. Lauren started to respond and found herself feeling choked up.

“Of course,” she said. “She’s my sister.”

Maybe it was time they both started acting like it.



There was a bar like Robert’s Place in every town. At least, in every town Matt could spend any amount of time in. In Longport, New Jersey, it took him about thirty seconds of asking passersby on the street for a “good place to drink” before he was steered to Atlantic Avenue and North Essex Street. He needed to be good and loaded to fall asleep in his car now, unlike the old days, when he could crash anywhere. That was the difference between a twenty-four-year-old news correspondent and a thirty-four-year-old filmmaker.

Inside, he was greeted by a Bruce Springsteen song playing on the jukebox, the smell of old beer, and a framed poster of the 1974 Flyers Stanley Cup championship team.

It was early enough to get a seat at the scarred wooden bar under a ceiling covered with Phillies 2008 World Series championship pennants and Budweiser posters. The walls were lined with awards and commemorative plaques. And there, propped against the back of the bar, next to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, was a framed photo of Rory Kincaid in his U.S. Rangers uniform.

It was a good omen. He was in the right place, the right town. He was going to get this film finished.

“What are you having, doll?” The bartender had heavily bleached blond hair and a raspy voice. She might have been thirty or sixty. It was tough to tell.

“A shot of Tito’s, thanks.”