The Husband Hour(91)

“She’s got the beach signs going up right now. I have to head out, hon. Nora,” she called. “I’m leaving the extras here if you have space for them. If not, I’ll pick them up tomorrow.” She gave Lauren a quick hug before breezing happily out the door.

Lauren made her way into the dining room just as Nora was climbing down the ladder. On the wall, a fresh new sign: THE BEACH FIXES EVERYTHING.

Well, not quite.

“I’m sorry I was a no-show today,” she said. Nora unloaded her hammer and nails on a table and sat down.

“What’s going on?”

Lauren sat in the chair opposite her and tried to speak but found she couldn’t bring herself to admit what she’d learned. “I can’t talk about it. Would it be okay if I stay at your place for a night or two?”

Nora glanced at her in concern. “Whatever you need, hon. I won’t be home for a while tonight. Doing a little redecorating around here.”

“What happened with the photographs?”

“It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have worried about making an extra buck or two at the expense of Henny’s feelings. You know, I was trying to avoid dealing with what I knew deep down I should be doing but was afraid to, and that’s start dinner service. I’m so excited, by the way, that your mother is baking for the party.”

Her mother. Lauren didn’t want to think about the look on her mother’s face when she’d told her what was going on. She couldn’t imagine the conversation her mother and sister had after she left, and wondered how her mother would break the news to her father. But most of all, she wondered how they would explain to Ethan that Aunt Lauren never wanted to see him again.

She bent over the table and rested her head on her arms.

Nora put her hand on her shoulder.

“Remember when you first started working here? You told me how much it helped to be busy every day.”

“It did,” Lauren murmured.

“It’s our instinct when things go bad to just stop, to curl up into a ball. But it’s a bad impulse. I’ve found the answer to most things is motion.”

Lauren looked up. “Motion.”

Nora slid the hammer across the table. “I could use some help with these signs.”



Beth sat across the kitchen table from her older daughter, barely able to look at her. Behind them, Howard paced in front of the counter. She’d never realized how loudly the kitchen wall clock ticked, but in the quiet of that moment, it was deafening.

“I’m just not sure what to do now,” Stephanie said.

Maybe you should have thought of that before you slept with your sister’s boyfriend, Beth thought. “I’m in a difficult position here,” Beth said. “I have Lauren to think about, you to think about, and also Ethan to think about.”

It was painful even to say Ethan’s name, as if her adoration of her grandson made her complicit in Stephanie’s betrayal.

After the blowup by the pool, when Beth had shut herself in her bedroom waiting for Howard to arrive, someone had knocked gently on her door.

“Hi, Gran,” Ethan said, his cheeks still flushed with sleep, one side imprinted with crease marks from his sheets. His dark eyes, bright with rest, were so utterly his father’s. How could she not have noticed?

How could she have?

“I’ll leave,” Stephanie said. “Of course I will. I’m just not sure where to go. I don’t have the job thing figured out—”

“Because you haven’t been looking!”

The doorbell sounded.

“I’ll get that,” Howard said. She’d almost forgotten he was in the room.

Beth pushed back from the table and walked without purpose to the sink. She ran the water for a minute, taking deep breaths and splashing her face, willing herself to stay calm. We have to put our issues aside and be parents, Howard had said. And he was right. They had to lead during a time of crisis. She could fall apart later, on her own time.

“I’m really sorry, Mom,” Stephanie said. Beth turned around to look at her daughter who had committed a betrayal beyond Beth’s wildest imagination. Even when the evidence had been right in front of her all along.

She realized, gripped with a terrible rage, that she had never been truly angry with Stephanie before. Not when she had trashed the Green Gable as a teenager on prom weekend. Not when she became pregnant by accident without so much as a boyfriend or a job. Not even when she cruelly cut off her sister for no apparent reason.

But now? She was angry enough for all the bad behavior of Stephanie’s life, and then some.

“I don’t want your apology!” Beth screamed, feeling out of control in a way she’d never experienced. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do: You’re going to stay sober, get a job, and spend time with your son. You’re going to be a goddamn mother.” Stephanie looked as if Beth had slapped her in the face, then burst into tears just as Howard walked back into the kitchen.

“Who was at the door?” Beth asked.

“The real estate agent,” he said. “I asked her to come back tomorrow.”

Beth didn’t bother telling him to call off the agent. She didn’t have the energy to fight it any longer. She thought of a line she’d read somewhere: Only an idiot tries to fight a war on two fronts, and only a madman tries to fight on three. Maybe it was no longer worth fighting with Howard about the house. Her dream of unifying the family was over.