The Husband Hour(28)

“Are you messing around or are you having a heart attack? You better tell me now before I call an ambulance.”

Lauren loomed over him, blocking the sun.

“I am not messing around, but…I’m not having a heart attack. Just an acute case of humiliation.”

“Are you dizzy?”

“I’m not sure. Is the sky full of dots, or is it just me?”

She knelt next to him. “You just overexerted yourself. You should be more careful. That’s how men your age drop dead.”

Men his age? How old did she think he was? “I’m thirty-four.”

“Exactly.”

Okay, this was more than his already bruised ego could take. He sat up—too fast. He sank back down. People walking by turned to look at him.

She crossed her arms. “I have things to do, but I feel like if I leave you and something happens, I’m being negligent or something.”

“True. I still could have a heart attack. That might be manslaughter.”

“You think this is funny?”

“Lauren, if you think I am amused by this, then you know absolutely nothing about male pride.”

That silenced her. He felt his heart rate begin to normalize and he sat up. She shifted impatiently.

“Can I go now?” she said.

“I just want to say one more thing.”

She sighed and looked around.

“Lauren, before I was a documentarian, I was a war photographer. I’m not a carpetbagger trying to make a buck off your tragedy. I’ve been over there, okay? I worked as an overseas correspondent. I know what those guys went through.”

“You’ve been where?”

“Iraq.”



“Can you eat the butterflies?” Ethan flipped back a page in the photo album, awed by a three-tiered wedding cake decorated with wafer-paper butterflies.

“Yes, the butterflies were edible,” Beth said. “I remember that cake. No one wanted to cut into it because it was so beautiful.”

“Did you really make that?”

“I did,” Beth said. “A long time ago.”

She glanced out the kitchen window at Stephanie, sunning herself on the deck. As much as she enjoyed showing her grandson the photos of her work, she thought that surely there were better things for a six-year-old boy to be doing on a beautiful day on the beach. What was her daughter thinking? Clearly, only about herself.

“Can you make one now?” he asked.

“What?” she asked, distracted.

“One of these cakes. Can you make it again?”

“Oh, honey, it’s a lot of work. And I’m out of practice. I can bake something fun, but probably not that elaborate. Let me think about it.” She patted him on the head. “I’m going to talk to your mother for a minute.”

She opened the sliding-glass door to a wave of humidity. Sunglasses covered Stephanie’s eyes, and Beth wondered if she was even awake. Standing at the foot of the chaise longue, Beth crossed her arms.

“Stephanie, I need to speak with you.”

“What’s up?” Stephanie barely stirred.

“Can you take off those sunglasses, please,” Beth said. Stephanie sighed, removed them for a second, squinted against the glare, then put them back on her face.

“It’s okay, Mom. I listen with my ears.”

“I want to know what your plan is for Ethan this summer. He can’t just sit around all day. The poor kid is so bored, he’s looking through my old catering photographs.”

“Oh, please. You’re the one who dragged him into the mess of boxes upstairs. If he’s looking at your old crap it’s because you’re forcing him to. Don’t blame me.”

Beth had the urge to grab those mirrored lenses off her face and toss them into the pool. You’ve always indulged them, and now…

She pushed Stephanie’s outstretched legs aside and perched on the edge of the chair. “I’m not kidding. This isn’t a vacation for you. You’re still a mother. I don’t care what turmoil you have going on in your personal life. You have responsibilities.”

“Mom, relax. Okay, he has two weeks left of school after this break. When I get back here in the middle of the month, I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, he doesn’t have to be entertained every second. Just chill.”

Shaking her head, Beth retreated to the kitchen.





Chapter Seventeen



Lauren locked the café door behind her and bent to lace up her sneakers. After a full day of work and the pent-up agitation from her morning encounter with Matt, she couldn’t wait to burn off her frustration.

He had some nerve. Okay, so he’d been to Iraq—as a journalist. Did that give him the right to get into her business? Rory’s business? And to hound her during her morning run! What was next—showing up in her bedroom?

With the wind at her back, she thought of a morning a decade and a half ago when another man had interrupted her run. Well, a boy.

It had been a Saturday, the morning after watching her first LM hockey game. She was running around the track at Narberth Park, close to her friend’s house, where she’d spent the night. Halfway through her second lap, just as she was starting to break a sweat, someone called out her name.