Page 18 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
This is bullshit
This isn’t a game,she thinks.This is my marriage, my life he’s messing with.He’s showing absolutely no respect for what’s on the line for Audrey. And sure, okay, she hasn’t exactly been the picture of marital morality lately, but he’s overstepping the bounds.
She wonders if it’s because she and Seth don’t have kids. If this man thinks her marriage is somehow less valid because she’s chosen not to procreate. Audrey sometimes gets the impression that people feel that way. As if she and Seth are just playing house, that their lives, their family of two, couldn’t possibly be real, meaningful without children in it. She hears the comments all the time:Don’t you want to experience motherhood? Won’t you get bored? Are you sure you aren’t going to regret it someday?I couldn’t imagine my life without my kids!As if this were a decision either of them had made lightly. It wasn’t. Audrey and Seth agreed very early on that family life wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted to be able to travel on a whim; they wanted big careers that they knew would dominate their time and attention. They’d understood that it was just as possible to have a fulfilling marriage without kids as it was to have an empty one with them.
Audrey feels Seth’s eyes boring into her as she glares down at thephone in her palm. “It’s the office. I’m going to tell them I’m unavailable and that I’ll deal with any issues tomorrow.” Audrey’s thumbs fly over the screen.
Her marriage might not be in the best place right now, but she can’t help but feel enraged by those texts, by the utter lack of consideration. She told him she was dealing with a situation at home, and yet he continued to text her. The more she thinks about it, the more it feels like hewantsher to get caught.
You know what’s bullshit? You not listening to me when I tell you it’s not a good time. You need to stop texting me.
Feeling slightly better now that she’s taken back the reins, she follows up with another message:
In fact, I don’t think this arrangement is working for me anymore.
Audrey is surprised by how much she means it. When the affair first began, it felt so good to feel wanted again, to feel seen and appreciated. But this isn’t feeling very good at all anymore.
Three little dots appear on her phone screen. Audrey knows he’s not going to be happy, but she switches her phone off before he can respond. She can’t waste her time thinking about his feelings anymore. Not when Seth needs her. When was the last time he needed her?
She looks over at her husband, sipping slowly from his glass. He looks smaller, somehow, folded in on himself, as if he’s already given up hope.
Audrey doesn’t know what she was thinking. How could she have been so selfish? She made a mistake getting involved with someone else, but it’s over now; Seth needs her and she’s going to be right here by his side.
13
Libby
Hawthorne Lane
Libby tips some kibble into Jasper’s metal bowl, where it lands with a clatter. He slowly makes his way over and sniffs at it uninterestedly before looking up at her with round, baleful eyes.
“I know, Jasp,” she says. “Blame the vet. He’s the one who said you need to be on a diet.”
Jasper sits with aharrumphas though accepting his fate and slowly begins chewing his new weight-control dog food with little enthusiasm.
She pulls out her phone, checks the time.Maybe I should go into the shop…It’s her day off, but with Lucas at Bill’s, it’s just too quiet here in her big, empty house. Libby often finds that she doesn’t know what to do with herself when she’s alone. Free time makes her anxious.Isn’t there something productive I should be doing?
For so long, there was always something she needed to do, someone she needed to take care of—school lunches to be packed, dry cleaning to be dropped off, shopping to be done, dinners to plan, shifts at Lily Lane to be covered. But now, her family, or what’s left of it, doesn’t need her quite so much, and she has Erica to share the responsibilities at the store. Libby, for maybe the first time in her adult life, is often alone with herself, and she doesn’t have the first clue what to do with that.
She sends a quick text to Erica.
All okay there? I can come in if you need me.
Erica types back:
Don’t you dare.
Libby smiles to herself. Erica is only five foot one but she is still one of the most intimidating people Libby has ever met. She’s curvaceous and loud, the sound of her Colombian accent always filling the store. It was a great decision, hiring her. The customers love her, Libby loves her, and, most important, Erica loves Lily Lane almost as much as Libby does, treating it as if it were her own. She’s often shooing Libby off, encouraging her to take some time for herself. “I’ve got this,” she’ll say. “Now leave me alone.”
Libby knows Erica means well, but she doesn’t understand that Libby doesn’twanttime off. She wants to feel needed, useful. Besides, working helps distract her from how verynotalone Bill is these days.
Libby’s fingers stray toward the Instagram icon on her phone screen. It’s become an addiction for Libby, checking Heather’s account, peering into the Pandora’s box she opened when she went searching for Bill’s new girlfriend. She navigates to her page now, and Libby finds herself staring at her face again.Heather.She clicks on a random photo, a cheerful Heather crossing the finish line of a race, and studies it—the sinew of her strong legs, her taut stomach—as if she hasn’t already spent hours memorizing every detail of the curated, smiling grid over the past two weeks, her mind expanding the photos into motion, filling in the gaps between the frames. She’s already imagined Bill’s mouth on Heather’s full, pillowy lips. She’s imagined the sound of her laugh: throaty, sexy, unencumbered. She’s imagined Bill’s fingers tangled in her long, dark hair. She’s imagined Heather’s body beneath Bill’s in the throes of passion, the way Heather, looking up at him, would see the tendons in his shoulders flex, his mouth forming a soft O as he thrusts against her.
Honk.
The sound abruptly halts her spiraling thoughts, yanks her unceremoniously back to reality. It sounds as though it came from just outside her house.
Honk, honk.
