The Husband Hour(98)
No, she wasn’t proud of this. But at least she recognized it.
She did, however, have one impulse that was pure, that came from a good place in her heart. She opened her nightstand drawer and pulled out Rory’s dog tags.
“I was thinking that when the time is right, you might want Ethan to have these,” she said, handing them to Stephanie.
Stephanie looked down at them in disbelief.
“Lauren,” she said. “I can’t take this from you.”
“I don’t feel like he’s my husband anymore. But he will always be Ethan’s father.”
Stephanie burst into tears. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said. “But you’ll always be my sister.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
The Williamsburg bar, with its wall-mounted bicycle, exposed brick, and painted tin ceilings, was too cute for Matt’s tastes. The craft-beer list was so rarefied Matt didn’t recognize a single brand. Basically, it was as far from Robert’s Place as you could get. He missed the shore. No, he missed Lauren.
It was still early—day-drinking early—so he and Craig got a seat at the bar. Craig ordered the beer for them both, something from the Netherlands. Matt checked his phone, a chronic and worsening compulsion as his texts to Lauren continued to go unanswered. He knew the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, but he was too far gone. It was impossible to forget about someone when you saw her face on the screen every day, when you listened to audio of her voice dozens and dozens of times, until you heard her words in your dreams. Until her words and your own thoughts were intertwined.
“You ready for the meeting tomorrow?” Craig asked.
They were having breakfast with their sales agent. A major step toward distribution.
“I’m ready,” Matt said.
“To American Son,” Craig said. “Sure to be the most-talked-about doc of next year.”
Matt halfheartedly raised his bottle.
“Aren’t you happy with the cut?”
Matt nodded. “Of course I am.”
“So, then, relax. All the years you put into this are going to pay off.”
“Let me ask you something,” Matt said, sipping the beer and finding it bitter. “Would you feel this way about the film if it was just the footage I showed you a few weeks ago?”
“The CTE angle is strong—important. But the reveal about the kid takes this thing to another level. It makes it more dramatic and personal. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“No,” Matt said. “I don’t.”
“So what are you worried about? Sundance?”
“No. We’ll get into Sundance.”
“Distribution?”
Matt shook his head. How could he admit that in getting the one thing he’d always dreamed of, he would lose something he now wanted more?
For the first time in four years, Lauren walked into Nora’s Café as a guest. She’d offered to work the night of the opening party, but Nora insisted that the regular waitstaff experience and enjoy the new menu along with the other guests—the restaurant regulars, local press, and a posse of shoobies Lauren didn’t recognize but who somehow had the connections to wrangle invites.
Nighttime had a way of transforming a space, and the restaurant felt larger but at the same time more intimate. Nora had rearranged the tables to create more room for people to mingle and for the hors d’oeuvres to be passed. She’d hired waiters from a local catering company to serve samples of the appetizer menu, and the dinner menu would be set out as a buffet. Her mother was in the kitchen prepping fresh doughnuts for dessert. The one speed bump was Nora’s lack of a liquor license; guests had been invited to bring their own wine.
Nora had a ’70s satellite-radio station playing over the sound system, and it filled the room with an eclectic mix of singers ranging from Carly Simon to Donna Summer. Lauren made sure her father and Ethan got pieces of the white pizza before it disappeared and then poured herself a glass of wine from Henny’s bottle of Oyster Bay sauvignon blanc.
“She shouldn’t even bother applying for the liquor license,” Henny said. “I’d rather bring my own than get fleeced for twelve dollars a glass.”
“I agree,” Lauren said, accepting a goat-cheese slider from a server. She hummed along to “You’re So Vain.” And then she saw Emerson walk in.
She had invited him during her phone call to tell him that he had a nephew. It wasn’t something she’d planned.
“I need to see him,” Emerson had said, the break in his voice moving her.
“Of course. At some point,” she said. “My sister hasn’t told him yet about his father. This is going to take some time.”
“Lauren, I know I don’t have a right to ask you for anything. But I can’t wait. He’s all I have left of my brother. I need to come now.”
She couldn’t invite him to the house. It would be too much for all of them: herself, Stephanie, and Ethan. But she couldn’t refuse him outright. As tempting as it was to hold on to her anger and resentment toward him, now they shared a nephew. And so she thought of a compromise.
“We’re all going to a party next Saturday night at the restaurant where I work,” she told him. “It will be crowded and maybe not your ideal place to meet Rory’s son, but it’s best for him that way. He’ll be around so many new people that night, you won’t raise any red flags.”