The Husband Hour(3)
“No, Mom. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
Lauren lugged the heaviest suitcase up the stairs. Beth abandoned the kitchen and followed her, surprised to see her turn into her old childhood bedroom.
“Why not the master bedroom? It has the better view.”
“That still feels like Gran’s room.”
“Don’t be silly, Lauren. If you’re going to be here for a few weeks, you might as well—”
“Not a few weeks, Mom. I’m staying here indefinitely.”
The bedroom was white and sea-foam green with a queen-size bed framed in antique cast iron. A bone-colored French pot cupboard served as her nightstand. There was a pen on it, and a framed photo of Lauren and her older sister. Stephanie had one arm draped around Lauren’s shoulders as they stood at the edge of the ocean, both of them sunburned, sandy, with long wet hair.
Beth sighed heavily. “Lauren, I love you, hon, but I’m really thinking this isn’t the best idea. I understand you don’t want to stay in LA but at least come home to Philly so we can be there for you. You need a support system.”
Lauren turned her back to her, opened her suitcase. “I need to be alone.”
Beth walked to the window, looking out at the overcast sky. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. Just leave you here? Just turn around and get back on the highway?”
“Yeah. And Mom, remember, if anyone contacts you about me, you don’t know where I am.”
“Who’s going to contact me?”
“I don’t know, Mom. A reporter? Just don’t say anything. Promise?”
“Of course. No reporters—got it. But you’re doing the wrong thing, isolating yourself out here.”
No response. Beth was overwhelmed with one of the worst feelings a mother could experience in the face of her child’s pain: powerlessness.
Four Years Later
Chapter Three
Lauren’s feet pounded the boardwalk in the final stretch of her morning run. With the ocean to her right, the beachfront homes of Longport to her left, she looked straight ahead. She ran without headphones so she could hear the ocean and the seagulls. Most days, they were the only sounds along her solitary twelve-mile run from Longport to Atlantic City and back.
Today felt different. It wasn’t just the changing early-morning light, though that was part of it. In the winter, she did her entire run in darkness. Lately, halfway through, the sun was up. Today, by the time she passed Ventnor, at around the ten-mile mark, it was bright enough that the path was dotted with cyclists. Mothers were pushing strollers. There was no use denying it; winter had turned to spring, and summer was right around the corner. The invasion was coming.
Longport in the winter was a recluse’s paradise. Some people called it a ghost town; Lauren had become quite comfortable in the company of ghosts. While most of the year-round residents gritted their teeth through the winter, waiting for beach season, Lauren felt the complete opposite. The summer was her time to grin and bear it, to endure. The bright long days, the crowds, the string of patriotic holidays.
Don’t think about it, she told herself. You still have time.
Thwap-thwap—the beat of her sneakers against the wooden boards. The steady pounding of her heart. A familiar rush of energy, almost a giddiness, carried her down the wooden steps to the cul-de-sac in front of her house.
She jogged slowly in a circle, sweat cooling against her neck, then, dizzy, she bent over, hands on her knees, her head down. She looked up at the sound of tires on gravel, a car turning onto her block. Her stomach sank.
What were her parents doing here?
Her parents were devoted summer weekenders. Starting Memorial Day weekend and going through Labor Day, they showed up Thursday afternoon and left Sunday night. It was a shock to her system after months of solitude, but she adjusted to it by the middle of the summer and sometimes felt almost sad to see them drift back into their Philadelphia routine. She never visited them in Philadelphia at the old stone house where she’d grown up. She never left the island. This was a real issue only once a year, when her sister had a birthday party for her son, Ethan. Lauren felt guilty for being an absentee aunt.
“Honey! I thought you agreed to cut down on the running. You’re getting way too thin,” her mother said, slamming the car door and rushing over to her.
“I’ll get the bags,” her father said.
“I’m fine, Mom. What are you guys doing here?”
Her mother looked at her strangely. “It’s Memorial Day weekend, hon.”
Was it? Lauren could have sworn that was next weekend.
She glanced at her sports watch. She had to shower and get to work. The Thursday before Memorial Day, the breakfast crowd would be lining up at the restaurant door.
“We’re getting an early start,” her mother said, looking tense.
“Any particular reason why?”
“Oh, just lots to do. I want to get the house ready, clean out the guest bedrooms…”
Lauren looked at her sharply. “The guest bedrooms? Why?”
“Your sister is coming.”
Matt Brio climbed the three flights of stairs to the editing suite in Williamsburg, carrying doughnuts. He was unhappy to find himself out of breath by the second floor. That’s what you get for editing a film 24/7, he told himself. And he didn’t see that changing any time in the near future.