Page 38 of The Affair
Or possibly a curse, depending on how you looked at it.
For years, I’d known that Sawyer lived less than a mile away from my childhood home on a little acreage he’d bought himself in his mid-twenties.
For years, I’d driven past it on my way to my parents’ home every week for Sunday supper.
And for the last year, I’d done my best to avoid it, thinking Sawyer was somehow a link to Reed and my former life.
How little I’d known then.
How little I still knew …
The house had been a wreck when he bought it, but slowly, he’d managed to fix it up, and now, it was quite the place—or so it appeared to be from the road. I’d watched as he’d changed the paint from a dated beige to a vibrant blue. I’d appreciated the care he’d taken every step of the way.
But Candace’s house, however, was a little closer to town and a bit shorter on charm. The termfixer-uppercame to mind when I drove up, and I wondered if her and her husband had known what they were taking on when they bought it as young newlyweds a few years earlier.
Parking on the gravel driveway, I realized I had no idea what Candace’s schedule was.Would I be walking in on the middle of feeding time? Nap time? Playtime?
Did six-month-old babies have designated playtime?
I had no idea.
But before I could change my mind and talk myself out of this, I saw Candace waving from the dilapidated porch, baby in hand.
“Hey, stranger! What a happy surprise! What are you doing, lurking in your car like that? Come on inside!”
Doing as I had been told, I pulled my key from the ignition and grabbed my purse. Stepping out of the car, I headed toward the front door, feeling her megawatt smile on me like sunbeams from the heavens.
“Eight hundred and fifty-four,” she said as I met her on the porch.
“What?”
“Eight hundred and fifty-four. That’s how many times it took me telling you to come by and visit and for you to finally listen.”
I gave her a little shake of my head. “Oh, stop. You did not ask me that many times.”
She put her free hand on her bare hip, her tiny daughter looking up while happily sitting on the other side. “Did so,” she argued. “But anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’re here now. Come on in and have a glass of iced tea. Or maybe coffee. It is a bit chilly.”
“Now you’re talking.” I could never say no to coffee.
I took a minute to look around as we headed inside. Everything was in a state of half-done, which was interesting, considering their baby, Penny, was right around the crawling age.
Or did babies not do that at six months? Maybe it was more like nine?
See, I told you, I knew nothing about kids.
“Are you remodeling?” I asked, noticing a paint can in the hallway and a two-by-four up against the door that led to the powder room.
She let out a sigh as we walked into the kitchen, and she closed a shiny metal baby gate behind us. “You would think that, wouldn’t you?”
I watched as she began to move about the kitchen one-handed, pulling things out with ease, as if household tasks were always meant to be done with a child attached to your body. It was quite the sight to behold.
She was Wonder Woman.
“My husband is quite amazing at most things. Actually, until we bought this house, I thought he was perfect, and it was getting pretty damn annoying.” She laughed as she measured out the coffee, placing a little kiss on Penny’s forehead. “Then he started this to-do list. It was an ambitious list, but that’s always been Dan—never one to back down from a challenge—so I figured he’d tackle it like everything else: with gusto and that pesky perfection of his.”
She turned, the coffee brewing, to join me at the table. “But it didn’t take much time to realize that he’s actually terrible at handiwork. And it’s not just the hard stuff, like remodeling. The man can’t even paint.”
She couldn’t say it with a straight face. Admitting it made her grin like a lunatic.
