Two Truths and a Lie(60)
“What?” Rebecca said. “You look like you just found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
“I was thinking about the houseboat,” he said, pointing. Sure enough, there was a little floating house out there that Rebecca had never noticed. On the upper deck she could see two people sitting in Adirondack chairs.
“It’s adorable,” she said. “Is that someone’s actual house?”
He had his phone out. “It could be ours,” he said. “I mean, for a night.” He tapped on the screen. “It’s a rental. Newburyport Houseboats. A buddy of mine manages them. Look, they have availability for the day after tomorrow. Should I book it? Here, look at this.” He held the phone out to her. “See how great it is? There’s a little kitchen with a two-burner stove, and a bathroom. There’s a hair dryer! And a bed, of course.” He winked. “There’s a really nice bed. Let’s book it!”
“Daniel!” She tried to keep the note of exasperation out of her voice. “I can’t do that. I can’t just—stay on a houseboat with you. I have children. And they don’t know about you. What would I tell the girls?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That you’re seeing somebody? That you’re a tiny bit happy?”
“No,” she said. “Nope. I can’t do it. They’re not ready. I’m not ready.”
He put the phone in his pocket and sighed. She fixed her gaze on a family looking up at the tall ship. Their heads were all pointed at the exact same angle. She didn’t want to fight with Daniel. She really, really didn’t want to, but she could sense the fight coming the way an animal could sense a thunderstorm from a change in the air. “Rebecca, we’ve been together for almost six months now. You know I’m going to be as respectful of your grief as anyone else, but I don’t think I can live in the shadows forever. You don’t even have me as a contact on your phone!”
“I know your number by heart.”
“That’s not the point.”
“You don’t know what it’s like for me, Daniel. You don’t have kids. That part of it is really complicated.”
Daniel’s face had taken on an expression Rebecca had never seen on him before: a cross between a teacher who’d stayed up too late grading exams and a Boston-bound commuter who’d just encountered construction on the Tobin Bridge. When he spoke, it was with someone else’s voice, a sharper, harsher voice. “With all due respect, Rebecca, you don’t know what it’s like for me. I feel I’m grieving your loss and my loss, while you’re only grieving yours. I’ve got to be honest with you. It feels unbalanced.”
The family moved on. A curly-haired dog put its front paws on the adjoining bench, looking at its owner’s ice cream cone.
“I can’t do something before I’m ready, Daniel. I know that might not make sense to you, but it makes sense to me. This is the only way for me to handle things right now, by keeping parts of my life in different boxes.” Daniel in one box, Morgan and Alexa in another box, Gina in a third (smaller) box.
“If it is,” he said sadly, “I don’t think I can be a part of it right now. I’m sorry, Rebecca. I think I’m falling in love with you. I really do. But I don’t want to be in a box. I don’t think I can keep being your secret.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. Their first fight! It was a quiet, civilized fight; they hadn’t even raised their voices, but something had cooled, the atmosphere had reordered itself around them, and everything felt different. A first fight was always momentous.
Daniel rose from the bench.
“Are we still walking tomorrow?” Rebecca asked, a little bit desperately. “In Maudslay?” Three days a week they met early, at six, before anyone was out, and walked Bernice.
Daniel fixed her with a sorrowful, troubled gaze, and her heart plummeted. “I don’t think I can do it tomorrow,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it once, then let it drop. “I’ll talk to you soon, Rebecca.”
The next day, instead of going to Maudslay on her own, she waited until midmorning and walked Bernice down to Cashman Park. She’d show Daniel. How dare he! Insisting that they do things the way he wanted. Claiming to be falling in love with her. How dare he.
She sat on one of the benches that faced the water. How dare he.
Bernice settled herself under the bench and Rebecca poured a little bit of the water she always brought with her into Bernice’s collapsible bowl and put the bowl where Bernice could reach it. She contemplated the river and the scrubby grass that grew between the water and her bench. There was a line of inflatable Zodiacs waiting to take boat owners out to their boats. Far to the right she could see the Route 1 bridge, which sometimes shifted into drawbridge mode to allow tall-masted sailboats through.
She leaned back and looked at the clear blue summer sky. She felt something against her back and twisted around to get a better look. It was a plate indicating that the bench had been dedicated in memory of Gilbert Lane, “The Chief.” The chief of what? she wondered. Should she dedicate a bench to Peter? That seemed like it might be a nice concrete way to solidify his memory. Maybe when she got home she’d talk to the girls and see what they thought. They could come sit on the bench when they were particularly missing him.