The Husband Hour(35)

“Mr. Reilly, come in,” said Mrs. Kincaid. “My older son just went to find you to tell you the good news—it’s not a break. We’ll have him back on the ice in no time.”

That’s when she spotted Lauren, and her face crinkled with confusion. Lauren, anxious to see Rory, didn’t feel the polite hesitation that might have held her back in other circumstances. Instead, she edged past Mr. Reilly into the room.

Rory was sitting in a chair, a bandage around his head and wrapped under his chin. His mouth didn’t move when he saw her, but his eyes smiled.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” She moved to hug him and felt a clawlike grip on her arm.

“Young lady, excuse me. Who are you?” Kay Kincaid said.

Rory reached for Lauren’s hand. Clearly, he couldn’t speak. Lauren didn’t know what to do—she didn’t want to leave him, but she wasn’t a big fan of pissing off adults. Especially not adults who were related to Rory.

The energy in the room shifted as Emerson walked in; he was as big as Rory, and his presence took up a lot of space. He immediately began talking with Mr. Reilly. Rory squeezed her hand.

“Rory, this isn’t the time or place,” Emerson said. “Your friend is going to have to leave.” Rory grabbed the pen attached to the clipboard by his bed, then reached for a paper napkin. He scribbled something, then passed it to Emerson, who frowned and then passed it to his mother. And that was the end of anyone telling her to go.

Later, Lauren saw the napkin crumpled up on the edge of the bed. While everyone was getting ready to leave, she managed to slip it into her bag unnoticed.

Alone in her car in the dark parking lot, she turned on the overhead light and read it: She’s my girlfriend. She stays.

Any thought of breaking up with him to appease Stephanie was gone.





Chapter Twenty



It’s not too late for you to change your mind,” Howard said, packing his suitcase.

Beth, reading in bed, ignored the comment. Then, to fill the silence: “I want to be here. In this house. With the girls. I told you the one thing I wanted this summer. Why can’t you give me that?”

Howard shook his head, as in Here we go again. Then he straightened up, holding a pair of swimming trunks, and looked at her. “You know what? If you’re not using the ticket, I’ll take Lauren.”

“What?”

“Yes. It will do her some good to get away. Change of scenery.”

“She’ll never agree.”

“Well, I’m going to ask her.”

“I’ll ask her. I don’t want you browbeating her over it.”

“You asking her is as good as not asking at all. She’ll say no, and you’ll say, Okay, fine, and that will be the end of it. At some point, Beth, she has to be pushed out of her comfort zone.”

Says you, Beth thought, closing her book and climbing out of bed.

“Where are you going?” Howard called after her.

“To talk to Lauren.”

Really, she just wanted to get out of the bedroom. It was suffocating, his arrogant certainty that he alone knew best for their daughters. He couldn’t fix the sinking store, so now he was going to fix Lauren. That wasn’t the reason she wanted them all at the shore together. Although she suspected that her own motive—her longing to recapture a time when they had been a happy family—was just as misguided.

When she didn’t find Lauren in her room or on the back deck, she climbed the stairs to the attic. Sure enough, she was sitting next to an open box, reading through a pile of old newspapers. Oh, how Lauren had loved writing for the school paper. And then, her junior year in high school, she’d entered one of her pieces in a writing competition and won a trip to Washington, DC. Lauren took the Amtrak there and met up with the other contest winners from schools around the country. For three days, she toured DC. She visited the offices of the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the National Journal. She showed Beth photos of a picnic lunch on the National Mall with the Lincoln Memorial behind her and the Washington Monument in the distance, the Reflecting Pool in between. Lauren was clearly in love with DC, and Beth suggested she apply to college there. But Lauren’s response to that was lukewarm, and Beth knew what she was thinking: Rory was already set to go to school in Boston the following year, and Lauren would no doubt apply to colleges based on their proximity to him. The thought of her limiting herself like that bothered Beth, and it infuriated Howard. In the end, that conflict, at least, had worked itself out. Back then, Beth believed that things usually did. Now? She wasn’t so sure.

She would not try to force Lauren to take the trip to Florida. But she would at least ask, and she felt that was enough of a compromise with Howard.

“Hon? How’s it going?” Beth asked, stepping over her own corner full of boxes. She was making very slow progress.

“Oh! I thought you guys went to sleep.”

Beth started to answer but then noticed the glint of silver around Lauren’s neck. Oh, good Lord.

She was wearing the heart necklace.

Beth swallowed hard. “No, we were just talking. Hon, you know Dad is going to Florida for a few days, and we thought it would be nice if you went with him. A change of scenery, keep Dad company. What do you say?”

As expected, Lauren looked at her like she was out of her mind. “Mom, I’m not going to Florida.”