Page 2 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
“Where’s my jersey?” Lucas shouts. Libby can picture him upstairs, his room a disaster of discarded clothes and dog-eared sports magazines. “Did you take it?”
Why on earth would she have taken his jersey? “No,” she repliescalmly as she blows a rogue lock of hair out of her eyes. The steam from the sink has turned her blond curls into a mess of frizz. “I’m sure it’s up there somewhere. Have you looked in the hamper?”
Libby dries her hands and checks the time again. She’s definitely going to be late. She opens her phone and sends a text to Erica, her assistant manager, asking if she’s available to open Lily Lane, the flower shop Libby owns.
Erica, always efficient, responds almost immediately:
Not a problem. I’ve got it covered.
Lucas bounds down the stairs just as Libby drops her phone into her purse. He’s wearing a soccer jersey with a distinct green grass stain slashed across the back.
“I don’t have a clean jersey,” he remarks as he walks into the kitchen and immediately begins rooting through the refrigerator. “Dad’s taking me down to the field to practice.”
“Guess your laundry should make it from your bedroom floor to the washing machine every once in a while, then.”
Lucas sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes at his mother.
Libby has always loved that he inherited her eyes, a smoky hazel green that is striking against his long lashes and his mop of dark hair, but every time she looks at him lately, she sees undeniable traces of his father. In the broadness of his shoulders, the crooked tilt to his smile. It’s a painful reminder of the status of her marriage.
I think we need some time apart.Bill’s voice floats through her head. As if a marriage is the type of thing you can simply press pause on, like a film that’s no longer holding your attention.
“What do you two have planned for the weekend?” Libby asks, but Lucas doesn’t seem to register the question. He’s already absorbed in his phone, his thumbs tapping away at the screen.
Libby doesn’t know when this happened, when her son stopped talking to her. They used to be so close, or at least she’d thought they were. There was a time when he’d tell her about school, his teachers, his friends. Now it feels as though, somewhere along the way, the door to his inner world has been slammed in her face, a dead bolt slid into place.
The doorbell chimes, saving Libby from having to have yet another talk with her son about prying himself away from his phone from time to time.
Jasper gets up from his favorite sunny spot by the back door with considerable effort, and Libby hears him doing his best to trot behind her while she goes to answer the door, his nails clacking in a lopsided pattern as he moves.
Libby yanks open the front door, and a wave of July heat pours into the house.
“Hi, Lib,” Bill says, leaning casually on the door frame, a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on the end of his nose. He gives her one of his tilted smiles, the one that made Libby fall in love with him all those years ago. She feels her knees weaken, but she steels herself quickly, standing up straight, her chin held high.
“Lucas!” she calls into the house. “Dad’s here to pick you up!”
“Uh, gimme a minute,” he yells back. “I’m not done packing.” She hears his feet clomping up the stairs toward his bedroom.
“You gonna let me in, then?” Bill asks, all rakish charm and breezy familiarity. He looks different somehow, Libby thinks. Younger. He’s wearing a black cotton T-shirt that tapers at his waist in a way that suggests it probably didn’t come in one of the plastic-bundled packs of five she always bought for him; his sandy-brown hair is a little longer than she’s accustomed to, curling at the nape of his neck, and there’s some new definition in his crossed arms that she definitely doesn’t recall being there before.
“Sure,” she replies. “But I only have a minute. I was supposed to leave for the shop ages ago.”
Bill looks down at his watch; his brows draw together in puzzlement, as if he’s only just realized the time.
“You didn’t have to wait on me,” he says as Libby turns and leads the way toward the kitchen. “I’m sure Lucas could have managed on his own.”
Libby listens to the heavy thud of Bill’s footfalls as he trails her down the hallway. A sound once so familiar now feels out of place in her house. There’s a sadness in that, she thinks, in how foreign Bill’s presence here is starting to feel.
“I know Lucas would have been fine,” Libby replies as they reach the kitchen. “But there’s something I wanted to talk to you about this morning. Didn’t you see my texts?”
Bill leans down and gives a scratch to an excited Jasper, whose tail thuds against the tiled floor in delight. “No. Sorry, Lib, must’ve missed it.”
Libby suppresses a sigh. Bill’s phone is practically glued to his hand. He would never forget to open a text from one of his clients at his real estate brokerage, but hers? Those he manages to overlook.
“Anyway,” she says, pressing on, “it’s about Lucas and the car.”
“He still driving you crazy over that?”
“Yes. He is. He’s been practically begging me to buy one for him, but I’ve been standing firm, telling him that he has to earn the money to pay for it. I think it’s an important life lesson, you know? That things aren’t just handed to you even if your parents might be able to afford them. I want him to understand the value of money and hard work.”
