Two Truths and a Lie(17)

“Why not?”

“It’ll get out, someone will tell the girls. I’m not ready for a bunch of questions. I’m just—” She let out a little puff of air. “I’m still just trying to figure things out. You know?”

He took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. He smelled like Irish Spring and also like the ginger from the dessert. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and said, “We don’t tell anyone until you are one hundred percent ready. And that’s assuming that there’s something to tell—that you want to do this” (he imitated her hand gesture) “again.”

There were so many emotions swirling inside Rebecca that she couldn’t have given a name to each of them even if she’d wanted to. But a few were recognizable: relief, fear, sorrow, joy. Hope.

“I think I do,” she said. “Want to do this again. Yes, please, actually. I really think I do.”



Now, at the beach, with Sherri, Rebecca said, “It’s been really hard on Morgan. She and Peter were very close. She’s done some funny things since Peter died. She’s become really klutzy, tripping over everything. She wet her sleeping bag at a sleepover! She’s never wet the bed, ever, not even when she was toilet training. And everybody found out about it.” It had been Gina’s house where it happened, almost a year ago now. It had been Gina who had whisked the sleeping bag away to be washed. “So naturally she doesn’t go to big sleepovers anymore.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” said Sherri.

Morgan and Katie were at the edge of the water taking turns doing handstands, probably videoing for Instagram. Katie’s handstands were solid but Morgan kept toppling over.

Two skinny teenage boys, hairless as hippos, were throwing a Frisbee back and forth. Many of the empty spots in the beach had filled in. Colorful umbrellas and their fancier cousins, pop-up beach tents, now occupied nearly every available space. The sand was shimmering with the heat. “Anyway, I’m so happy to see Morgan like this, making a new friend. Playing. She’s still a kid, and I want her to act like a kid.” She paused. “It’s an entirely different story with my older daughter, Alexa. She has a different father.” She paused and reached for a bottle of sunblock and squirted some out, rubbing it on her arms. “So in this funny way her grief is more, I don’t know, complicated than Morgan’s. Less clear-cut. I feel like there’s a wall between her and Morgan that wasn’t there before. Maybe it got too high before I noticed it, I don’t know. I don’t know how to break it down.” She paused again and then realized she’d just spilled at least three-quarters of her life story to a virtual stranger. “I’m sorry! I haven’t talked about most of this with anyone. I guess I had a lot saved up. Am I getting too personal, for a first date?”

“No!” said Sherri. “Not at all. I’m happy to lend an ear. Two ears!”

“Thank you,” said Rebecca. “It’s good to acknowledge some of this stuff out loud.”

One of the skinny Frisbee boys missed a catch and the Frisbee sailed perilously close to Sherri, effectively ending the serious part of the conversation.

“Is there any chance Alexa babysits?” Sherri asked, after tossing the Frisbee back toward the boy.

“Are you looking for a sitter for Katie?” asked Rebecca. (Could an eleven-year-old not stay alone? Eleven-year-olds were permitted to take the babysitting class at the Y and babysit for other people’s children!)

“I know. She’s too old to need one,” said Sherri. “But it’s a new town . . . and our house is old, and sort of creaky, I can see where she gets nervous. It’s all new to us, not having my husband around.” She cleared her throat. “My ex, I mean. It might not hurt to have a name ready as I start looking for a job.”

“Well, let’s see. Alexa works at the ice cream place out on Plum Island. The Cottage? She has a boyfriend. She’s pretty busy. But if she’s not free or interested, she might know somebody who is. I’ll send her number to you. Don’t tell her I sent you, though. Just tell her it was someone from the Mom Squad. It’ll go over better that way.”

“Mom Squad,” repeated Sherri, as though she were testing out a foreign language. “Mom Squad. That sounds really nice and protective, like a group of superheroes.”

Rebecca snorted. “Sort of,” she said. She thought again of Gina and the sleeping bag. “But not really. Anyway. Sorry I talked so much about myself! I don’t know what got into me. I do that sometimes, you know, since Peter died. I used to talk to him, and now I burden other people. I probably drove him crazy when he was alive, with all of my talking, and he was too polite to say anything. I feel bad about it now.” Poor Peter, listening to her for hours on end, pretending to be interested. “Is there anything more depressing than an oversharing widow?”

“I can think of a few things,” said Sherri grimly, which gave Rebecca pause. Such a funny phrase, giving pause. What did pause look like, anyway, and how did one receive it once it was handed over?

“What about you?” Rebecca asked. “Was your divorce one of those friendly ones, or an awful one where you only speak to each other when you absolutely have to discuss custody? Are you looking for someone new, or content on your own for a while?”