He seems to appreciate my honesty. “Alright,” he says, but he doesn’t lower himself back to the grass. He continues to stare at me, as if he wants to ask me something else. “Did you go to therapy?”
“Yes. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” I look back up at the sky, not wanting to see the expression on his face after my next sentence. “After watching the footage of myself on that railing, I was worried that deep down, it meant I wanted to die. For weeks I tried to fight my sleep. I was afraid I’d hurt myself intentionally. But my therapist helped me realize that sleepwalking is unrelated to intention. And after several years of being told that, I finally believed it.”
“Did your mother go to therapy with you?”
I laugh. “No. She didn’t even want to talk to me about my own therapy. Something happened that night, when I broke my wrist, and it changed her. Our relationship, anyway. We always felt disconnected after that. My mother actually reminds me a lot of—” I stop speaking because I realize I was about to say Verity.
“Reminds you of who?”
“The main character in Verity’s series.”
“Is that bad?” he asks.
I laugh. “You really haven’t read any of them?”
He lies back down on the grass, breaking eye contact with me. “Just the first one.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“Because…it was hard for me to fathom that it all came from her imagination.”
I want to tell him he’s right to be concerned, because his wife’s thoughts are eerily similar to her character’s thoughts. But I don’t want him to have that impression of her at this point. After all he’s been through, he deserves to at least be able to preserve a positive memory of his marriage.
“She used to get so angry with me because I didn’t read her manuscripts. She needed that validation from me, even though she got it from everywhere else. Her readers, her editor, her critics. For some reason, my validation seemed to be the only validation she wanted.”
Because she was obsessed with you.
“Where do you get your validation?” he asks.
I turn my head toward him again. “I don’t, really. My books aren’t popular. When I do receive a positive review or get an email from a fan, I never feel like they’re talking to me. Probably because I’m such a recluse and never do signings. I don’t put my image out there, so even though there are readers who love what I do, I still haven’t had the experience of being told to my face that what I do matters to someone.” I sigh. “That would feel good, I imagine. For someone to look me in the eye and say, ‘Your writing matters to me, Lowen.’”
As soon as I finish that sentence, a meteor shoots across the sky. We both follow it and watch as it streaks across the water, reflecting in the lake. I stare at the lake, framing Jeremy’s head.
“When are you going to start on the new dock?” I ask him. He finally finished tearing the old one down completely today.
“I’m not building a new dock,” he says, matter-of-fact. “I just got sick of looking at that one.”
I would make him expand more on that, but he doesn’t seem to want to.
He’s watching me. Even though Jeremy and I have been making eye contact a lot tonight, it feels different in this moment. Heavier. I notice his eyes flicker toward my lips. I want him to kiss me. If he tried, I wouldn’t stop him. I’m not even sure I would feel guilty.
He sighs heavily and lets his head roll back in the grass until he’s looking at the stars again.
“What are you thinking?” I whisper.
“I’m thinking it’s late. And I should probably lock you in your room now.”
I laugh at his choice of words. Or maybe I laugh because I’ve had two margaritas. Whatever the reason, my laugh makes him laugh. And what almost became a moment he’d probably end up regretting turns into a moment full of relief.
I go to the office to grab the laptop so I can work in the bedroom after he goes to sleep. When he’s turning out the lights in the kitchen, I open the desk drawer and grab a small handful of the manuscript to take to my room with me. I tuck the pages between the laptop and my chest.
There’s a new lock on the outside of the bedroom door that I haven’t seen. I don’t want to examine it or figure out if it could somehow be unlocked from the inside, because I’m sure my subconscious would remember that, and I would somehow get past it.
Jeremy is behind me as I walk into the room and set my things on the bed.
“You have everything you need?” he asks from the doorway.
“Yep.” I walk back to the door so I can lock it from the inside after I shut it.
“Alright, then. Goodnight.”
“Alright,” I repeat with a smile. “Goodnight.”
I go to shut the door, but he puts his hand up, stopping me from closing it all the way. I pull it open again, and in the split second since I almost closed it, his expression has changed.
“Low,” he says, his voice quiet. He leans his head against the doorframe and looks down at me. “I lied to you.”
try not to look too concerned, but I am. His words rush through me, and I think back to our conversation tonight, the conversations that came before it. “You lied about what?”
“Verity never read your book.”
I want to take a step back, to mask my disappointment in the darkness. But I stay put, squeezing the doorknob with my left hand. “Why would you say that if it wasn’t true?”
He closes his eyes for a brief moment while inhaling. When he opens them, he stands up straight through his exhale. He raises his arms and grips the top of the doorframe. “I’m the one who read your book. And it was good. Phenomenal. Which is why I suggested your name to her editor.” He lowers his head a little, looking me firmly in the eye. “Your writing matters to me, Lowen.”
He lowers his arms, grips the doorknob, and closes the door. I hear him latch the lock before his footsteps disappear upstairs.
I fall against the door, pressing my forehead against the wood.
And I smile, because for the first time in my career, someone outside of my agent has given me validation.
I cozy up in the bed with the chapter I brought with me. Jeremy made me feel so good just now, I don’t even mind being a little disturbed by his wife before I fall asleep.
So Be It
Chicken and dumplings.
It was the fifth meal I cooked after living in our new house for two weeks.
It’s the only meal Jeremy ever threw against the dining room wall.
I’d known for several days that he was upset with me. I just didn’t know why. We were still having sex almost every day, but even the sex felt different. Like he was disconnected. Fucking me because it was our routine and not because he craved me.
That’s the reason I decided to cook the goddamn dumplings in the first place. I was trying to be nice by making one of his favorite meals. He was having a hard time adjusting to his new job. To make matters worse, he was upset with me for putting the girls in daycare without consulting him first.
Back in New York, we hired a nanny as soon as my books started selling. She would show up every morning when Jeremy left for work so that I could retreat to my office and write every day. Then she’d leave when Jeremy came home, and I’d come out of my office and we’d cook dinner together.
It was a great setup, I’ll admit. I never had to care for them when Jeremy wasn’t around because we had the nanny. But out here, in the middle of nowhere, nannies are hard to come by. I tried watching them myself the first two days, but that was beyond exhausting, and I wasn’t getting any writing done. So, one morning last week, I was so fed up, I drove them into town and enrolled them into the first daycare I came across.
I knew Jeremy didn’t like it, but he realized we had to do something if we both wanted to continue to work. I was more successful than he was, so if anyone was going to stay home and care for them during the day, it certainly wasn’t going to be me.
But the girls being in daycare wasn’t what was bothering him. He seemed to like the interaction they were getting with other children, because he couldn’t shut up about it. But we had discovered a few months earlier that Chastin had a severe allergy to peanuts, so Jeremy was cautious. He didn’t want anyone caring for her but us. He was afraid the daycare would be careless, even though Chastin was the kid I actually liked. I wasn’t stupid. I made sure they knew all about her allergy.
Whatever it was that had him irritated with me, I was positive it was something a bowl of dumplings and a good fuck would help him forget.
I intentionally started dinner late that night so the girls would be in bed when we ate. They were only three, so luckily, they were tucked in by seven. It was almost eight when I set the table and called Jeremy to come and eat.
I tried to make it as romantic as possible, but it’s hard to make chicken and dumplings sexy. I lit candles on the table and set up my playlist through the wireless speakers. I had on clothes, but underneath them, I was wearing lingerie. Something I didn’t do often.
I tried to make small talk with him as we ate.
“I think Chastin is fully potty trained now,” I said to him. “They’ve been working with her at daycare.”
“That’s good,” Jeremy said, scrolling through his phone with one hand and eating with the other.
I waited a moment, hoping whatever it was on his phone would take a back seat to us. When it didn’t, I adjusted myself in my seat and attempted to grab his attention again. I knew conversation about the girls was his favorite subject.
“When I picked them up today, the teacher said she’s learned seven colors this week.”
“Who?” he said, finally making eye contact with me.
“Chastin.”
He stared at me, dropped his phone flat on the table, and took another bite.
What the fuck is his problem?
I could see the anger he was trying to stifle, and it made me nervous. Jeremy never got upset, and when he did, I almost always knew why he was. But this was different. It was coming out of left field.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat back in my chair and dropped my napkin on the table. “Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad.” He said it too fast.
I laughed. “You’re pathetic.”
He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Excuse me?”
I leaned forward. “Just tell me, Jeremy. Enough of this bullshit silent treatment. Be a man and tell me what your problem is.”