Page 74 of Swan Song

He holds a hand out. “Dance with me.”

Sharon is immediately swept back four and a half months to the Day Her Marriage Fell Apart.

It’s a typical March day in Connecticut—dreary, raw, raining sideways—and Sharon is parked in front of Centrality Physical Therapy and Wellness, waiting for Walker to emerge from his final appointment. Sharon mindlessly scrolls through her phone, but she’s also recalling how reckless Walker had been on their Christmas vacation in Breckenridge—he’s nowhere close to the skier he thinks he is—and how he’d torn his ACL ten seconds into a run down George’s Thumb. Sharon doesn’t have anything planned for dinner, so after they pick up the twins from debate and Robert from basketball practice, the whole family can go to Tequila Mockingbird to celebrate Walker’s healed knee. This improves Sharon’s mood; she could use a margarita.

When Walker gets into the car, his expression is a tragedy mask. Has someone died?

“Are you okay?” Sharon asks. “Did they add another week? Two weeks?”

“I’m in love with Bailey,” he says. “My physical therapist.” He swallows. “I love her, Sharon, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m leaving you.”

In Sharon’s mind, the windshield wipers stop, the car’s engine cuts out, the rehabilitation center crumbles. She feels like a block of ice despite the seat heater toasting her bottom. She has heard all about Bailey: twenty-seven years old, a graduate of Fairfield University, hands of a healer, brought chocolate eclairs from the Silvermine Market every week so she could reward Walker for his hard work. Sharon had thought, Cute, he has a crush on Bailey. She supposed that was typical at their age, and their marriage was strong enough to withstand a crush; it made things a little spicy, even.

Sharon knows Walker is serious by how devastated he seems. He knocks his head against the car window, saying, “I just cannot believe this. I am such a douchebag!”

Sharon gets a text from Colby: Where u at? She starts to drive toward the high school, saying nothing. Walker brushes his tears away, takes a shuddering breath, and manages to collect himself before the twins pile into the car, both of them so deep into their phones that Sharon and Walker could be on fire—they are on fire, Sharon thinks—and they wouldn’t notice. She asks a desultory question about debate that receives no answer. She proceeds to the middle school and picks up Robert, and when he’s settled in the car, jockeying for space with his sisters, who won’t budge, Sharon makes the big announcement: They’re going to Tequila Mockingbird for dinner!

Sharon is shocked at how normal—even pleasant—their dinner is. She allows herself to believe that Walker was experiencing a moment of temporary insanity earlier, that all it will take to right the ship he seems so desperate to capsize are some sizzling fajita platters.

But when they get home, Walker packs a bag. He leaves that very night to stay at Bailey’s one-bedroom apartment in a sketchy section of Norwalk.

“Are you crazy?” Sharon says to Walker now. “I’m not going to dance with you.” The song has come to an end anyway; a few people cheer, and Mike launches into “Philadelphia Freedom.”

Romeo spins around on his stool and offers Walker his hand. “Hey there,” he says. “I’m Romeo, from the Steamship.”

Walker looks from Sharon to Romeo and back and belatedly grips Romeo’s hand. “Hey there, I’m Walker, Sharon’s husband.”

“Ex-husband,” Sharon says.

“The divorce isn’t final,” Walker says. “Legally, I’m still your husband.”

“What is this all about, Walker?” Sharon asks. She’s pleased to note that Walker looks awful. He’s pasty and bloated, and there are some long hairs sticking out of his nose that Bailey from PT must have been too timid to tell him about.

“I’d like to talk to you,” Walker says. “I made a big mistake, an epic mistake, and I want you back.”

Sharon blinks. How many times in the days and weeks following Walker’s departure had she envisioned this moment?

“She isn’t coming back to you,” Romeo says. He stands up so he can face Walker, and Sharon tenses.

Walker huffs. “This is none of your business.”

Sharon has to stop this. The last thing she wants is a scene in the middle of the Club Car; there isn’t room for a confrontation and she doesn’t want to go viral for being part of a Gen X love triangle. Walker is right that this is none of Romeo’s business, but Romeo is right about something too: Sharon has repeatedly told Romeo that she would never, ever, ever go back to Walker.

But now that she sees the two men together, she feels like she has known Romeo for only fifteen minutes. She has never used or even thought the word rebound, though she can understand how the term might apply. Sharon and Walker have thirty-plus years of history, routines, habits, inside jokes, memories; they have a community, neighbors, couple-friends; they have relationships with each other’s families; they have their ways; and, most important, they have their children.

Sharon puts a hand on Romeo’s right biceps. (If there’s a fistfight, Romeo will break Walker in half.) “Let me just go talk to him.”

Romeo’s expression is incredulous; his eyes are wounded. “Really?”

She nods, and Romeo retakes his stool, throws back what’s left of his drink, then throws back what’s left of Sharon’s.

Sharon grabs her purse and follows Walker out the door. There are so many people trying to get in that getting out takes longer than she expects. When she reaches the cool air at the entrance, she hears Mike saying, “This one is for Sharon!” And he launches into “Hooked on a Feeling.”

Coco sees Romeo from the Steamship standing in the crowd on the other side of the piano, and where Romeo is, Coco has learned, Blond Sharon is sure to be as well. Coco and Kacy sing along gamely to “Hooked on a Feeling,” but when it ends, Coco wants to go. Everywhere they’ve been tonight, they’ve seen the Richardsons’ friends.

As if Coco needs one more reason to leave, Mike the piano player starts singing “You and Tequila.” No, Coco thinks. No Kenny Chesney for me. She grabs Kacy’s hand and pulls her out the back door.

Every good night out on Nantucket ends at the Chicken Box. Kacy hasn’t set foot in the place since a Christmas break during nursing school, but it never changes—it still smells like beer and lust. The place is crammed with the beautiful people lucky enough to be on Nantucket tonight. There’s a cover band playing the Backstreet Boys and everyone on the dance floor is scream-singing the words: “I! Want! It! That! Way!”

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