The Husband Hour(18)

“You again?”

“It’s me. Matt from the Stone Age. I have a table in the back and I ordered too much food.”

She hesitated, and in her silence he felt himself starting to fall off the tightrope. And then she said, “Perfect timing. I’m starving.”

The basket of wings was waiting for them at the table. She slid into the seat against the wall.

“If there’s anything else you want to order…”

She held up her half-empty cocktail, and he flagged the waitress for more drinks.

“So, you bailed on me last night and now you want to have dinner?” she said.

“I didn’t bail. I just didn’t leave with you. And it’s because I didn’t tell you the truth.”

She glanced at his ring finger.

“No, I’m not married,” he said.

“What, then?”

“I’m a filmmaker. I’m making a documentary about Rory Kincaid,” he said.

Stephanie slumped back in her seat. “I don’t get it. Did you follow me here?”

He shook his head. “No. Seeing you here was a coincidence. But I did recognize you from my research.”

“Why didn’t you say something last night?”

“I hadn’t spoken to your sister yet, and I didn’t want her to hear about this first from you.”

Her eyes widened. “You talked to Lauren?”

“Barely. She doesn’t want to participate in the film.”

“What a shock,” Stephanie said sarcastically. “I could have told you that last night and saved you the time.”

“Well, I learned my lesson. And clearly, you’re the one I should be talking to.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” she said.

“Well, you knew him too. You were classmates. Then he was your brother-in-law. You have insight, and your perspective is probably more objective than Lauren’s. Less emotional.” He watched her closely to gauge if she was buying the ego stroking.

“Of course I knew him,” she said. “Lauren acted like she owned him—owned what happened. But it affected all of us.”

“I understand. It was a loss for the entire family. Would you be willing to speak on camera?”

She smiled. “Sure. Sounds like fun. What do you want to know—how Rory was such a great hero?”

“I don’t want to get into specifics now. Let’s save that for the shoot.”

Stephanie downed her drink, leaned closer to him, and said, “I’ll do your interview. But you might not like what I have to say.”





Chapter Twelve



It had been a long time since Lauren had dreamed about Rory. In the beginning, it was every night. She’d wake up with a start in darkness and realize with crushing fresh awareness that he was gone. Now, thanks to that damn filmmaker, it had happened last night.

She’d been running in her dream. Running, the way she’d been when she first saw Rory. Now, in the near dawn, jogging in the salty air of reality, she couldn’t remember the dream itself. But she could remember, like it was yesterday, how she’d felt that day.

It had been her sophomore year of high school, early-fall track-team practice on Arnold Field. She was losing interest in the sport. Her true passion at that point was writing—specifically, journalism. Lower Merion’s student newspaper, the Merionite, was an elective you could take starting in tenth grade. It was a unique class, overseen by an English teacher but run day to day by seniors who had been writing for the newspaper for the past two years and were now the editors. She wanted to be one of those editors one day so badly!

She ran her warm-up mile around the track, trying not to worry about whether she’d chosen the right article to send in with her application to the Merionite. She’d submitted a piece that had been published in the middle-school paper about the problem of the school running late into June because of snow days. She’d also included an essay about how her interest in journalism had started after reading Katharine Graham’s Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir Personal History.

During her second lap, she noticed the boys’ ice hockey team running drills nearby. One player stood out. He was over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and dark hair.

Each turn around the track, just past the bleachers, she looked for him, scanning the group. In the final stretch, the hockey team’s drill brought him to the edge of the track. He bent down to lace his sneaker just as she was rounding the bend. She looked at him, and he happened to glance up at that moment, and it was instant eye-lock. Beneath dark brows, his eyes were so brown they were nearly black and they shone with an intensity that made her lose what little breath she had.

It might never have been more than that—a shared glance, Lauren thinking about him for a few days after. Hoping to see him in the halls, feeling like the Molly Ringwald character in a John Hughes movie.

And then she got accepted to the Merionite.



Beth surveyed the attic, overwhelmed by five decades’ worth of junk. She’d failed to sort through it after her mother died eight years earlier, and now her avoidance had boomeranged back. The idea of clearing out the space completely by the end of the summer seemed impossible.

“What is all this stuff?” Ethan asked, sitting on a box.