Page 13 of Against the Current

“We can pick them up together.” Ryan allowed his heart to fill with gladness. At least there was this.

Abandoning their beers, Ryan and Scott struck out through the streets of Chicago, wandering until they found a cheap sandwich place. It felt good to be out of that dank bar. It felt like only desolation and hopelessness lurked there.

At three thirty, Ryan and Scott were waiting for Willa and Scott’s daughter, Margaret, both with open arms.

“Can Margaret come over?” Willa asked.

“She sure can,” Ryan agreed.

He and Scott shared a soft smile.

That evening, Scott, Ryan, Trisha, and Alicia sat with light beers as their girls played dolls upstairs and their boys played video games in the basement. Snow continued to fall softly outside. Alicia and Trisha both looked shell-shocked at Ryan’s and Scott’s loss of jobs. But the sounds of their girls giggling upstairs brought gladness to their hearts. There was renewed optimism when they spoke of what they would do next.

“Maybe we should do something crazy,” Alicia suggested. “We could finally move to Hawaii. We could open a surf school.”

Scott snorted. “Do we have to learn how to surf first?”

“I thought you already knew how!” Alicia teased.

“I’ve gone once,” Scott said. “Don’t tell me you only married me because you thought I was some cool surfer guy.”

Alicia cackled. “My entire marriage is a lie!”

Love echoed between Scott and Alicia. Ryan sipped his beer and glanced at Trisha, wondering if the same love still existed somewhere between them. Could Scott and Alicia sense the distance between them? Could they tell that things were sour and cold? Probably.

Ryan tried not to feel too embarrassed by this fact.

He didn’t want to be like Grandma Dana—obsessed with what everyone else thought.

“Did we ever tell you what happened on our wedding day?” Trisha began suddenly. She wore a strange expression.

“No! Were you married out East?” Alicia asked.

“We were. We met in Nantucket and were married there,” Trisha said.

Ryan felt as though there were rocks in his stomach. He wanted Trisha to stop talking immediately. He wanted Scott and Alicia to leave.

“It was a very ritzy celebration,” Trisha said. “My family came from nothing, and they were really intimidated by the Suttons and everything they had. I knew what Ryan’s family thought of my family, but I tried to put it out of my head. You know, because I loved him so much.”

Was that sarcasm? Why was she using the past tense? Ryan’s heart ached.

“Anyway, at one point, my mother overheard Ryan’s mother suggesting that my family was stealing things from inside the house.” Trisha flared her nostrils.

“Oh my!” Alicia gaped at Ryan as though Ryan had been the one to say it, as though Ryan had gone out of his way to ask his family to act like pompous fools on his wedding day.

He’d been in love! He’d been blind to their idiocies! He’d been twenty-five years old!

“My mother was obviously really upset,” Trisha went on.

“I should say so,” Alicia said.

Over the table, Scott gave Ryan a look that seemed to meanUh-oh. Where is this going?

Scott was wise enough to know that the airing of dirty laundry after a difficult day never led to anything kind or good.

“But immediately after that, Ryan’s grandfather had a heart attack,” Trisha continued, her nostrils flaring. “We all waited at the reception, crying and panicking. My family was drunk and still really upset. But they didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t leave.”

Trisha suddenly looked reticent. With shaking hands, she folded a napkin several times.

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