The Husband Hour(26)

“Mom? What are you doing up here?”

Lauren! Why did she feel like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar? “Oh, honey. I’m glad you’re home. Where did you go?”

Lauren, her face red and her hairline wet with perspiration, walked closer to her. Why hadn’t she just taken the car? This obsessive running everywhere had to stop.

“Why are you going through these boxes?” Lauren said.

“Because I have to clear out the house, hon.”

Lauren looked panicked. “There must be some other way—”

Beth hated to cause her any more distress. It had been difficult to let her hide out at the beach for the past four years. But it was what Lauren wanted, and if Beth couldn’t change what had been lost, at least she could give her the sanctuary of the Green Gable. And now she had to take that away too. She felt a fresh wave of fury toward Howard. Why hadn’t her husband talked to her? How could he have gambled with the house behind her back? It was a betrayal—almost as much a betrayal as a sexual infidelity.

“I’m sorry, hon. There’s nothing I can do.”

“I have personal things up here,” Lauren said, her face reddening even more with emotion. She wasn’t going to cry—Lauren rarely cried. But she was close.

Beth nodded. “I just saw the boxes. If you want, I can put them in—”

“No!” Lauren said. “Don’t touch them. I’ll deal with it.”

Beth sighed as her daughter retreated back down the stairs.





Chapter Fifteen



Matt unpacked his new running sneakers. At a quarter to five in the morning, it was still dark outside.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, he thought grimly. And then: This is going to hurt. He got winded walking up the stairs to the editing suite back in Brooklyn. He hadn’t slept last night. How was he going to jog miles on the boardwalk in hopes of “casually” bumping into Lauren?

It was a far cry from the days when he was running around tsunami-ravaged Southeast Asia, armed with only a camera. Back then, he didn’t need sleep, didn’t need food. Those weeks and months following his brother’s death, he was fueled by pure adrenaline and a youthful, reckless fury.

The tsunami hit the day after his brother’s death. Matt, reeling from his grief, felt the pull of something larger than his personal tragedy. He had to do something. So he got on a plane to Sri Lanka.

Thailand had been a landscape of utter devastation. His photos captured as much as the camera could capture, and ultimately that was never enough. Across the region, two hundred thousand people had been killed. So many dead—almost enough to make him forget his own loss. Almost.

Those photos started his career in journalism.

Surely he could run a few miles to convince a widow to talk to him. Her reticence was nothing compared to his resolve.



Sunrise caught Lauren by surprise; her precious darkness was slipping away faster day by day. She would have to start getting up earlier. Today, she dragged herself through the run, first sluggish, now fighting light-headedness.

Ride it like a wave, she told herself. If it got really bad, she had a protein bar in her pocket. But it always felt like a defeat to stop. No, she wouldn’t be sidelined by her body’s weakness. It was bad enough that she constantly had to fight her mind.

In her dreams last night, it was that sophomore-year party all over again. Except instead of looking upstairs for Stephanie, she was searching room to room for Rory, her panic mounting with each closed door. She woke up, heart pounding, at three in the morning and never fell back asleep.

Push through! She moved faster, her chest heavy with each intake of oxygen. A low-flying seagull swooshed past her. She loved the birds, envied the birds. Her legs were slow, but her thoughts raced with the questions from Matt’s interview with Stephanie.

Lauren remembered the days when she had been the one asking questions. God, she hadn’t thought about that Merionite article in so long. She’d spent so much time trying to forget the ending that she never let herself remember the beginning.

She’d enlisted Stephanie’s help.

“I don’t get it. You’re writing an article about him?” Stephanie, sitting cross-legged on her bed, barely glanced up from her phone. Just a few months earlier, Lauren had met Rory in the dark hallway outside that very bedroom. She shook the thought away.

“No! Not about him. It’s about the hockey team. But he’s the highest scorer. I have to get a quote from him.”

Stephanie sighed dramatically and tapped her phone before handing it over.

“That’s his number. But don’t expect too much. He’s kind of an arrogant asshole.”

Maybe so. But as she sat in the school library waiting for him to show up for the interview, her body hummed with anticipation. She had typed up her questions and printed them out, and now she unfolded the paper on the library table. She reread the list for the umpteenth time.

“Preparation. I like that,” a voice said behind her. She jumped and covered the questions with her hand, feeling kind of busted, though in what sense, she wasn’t exactly sure.

“Hi. I’m Lauren,” she said, standing and almost knocking over the chair.

“I know,” he said.

He pulled out a chair, sat next to her. She felt dwarfed by his size. She pulled the questions onto her lap.