Page 3 of The Husband Hour
“Of course. No reporters—got it. But you’re doing the wrong thing, isolating yourself out here.”
No response. Beth was overwhelmed with one of the worst feelings a mother could experience in the face of her child’s pain: powerlessness.
Four Years Later
Chapter Three
Lauren’s feet pounded the boardwalk in the final stretch of her morning run. With the ocean to her right, the beachfront homes of Longport to her left, she looked straight ahead. She ran without headphones so she could hear the ocean and the seagulls. Most days, they were the only sounds along her solitary twelve-mile run from Longport to Atlantic City and back.
Today felt different. It wasn’t just the changing early-morning light, though that was part of it. In the winter, she did her entire run in darkness. Lately, halfway through, the sun was up. Today, by the time she passed Ventnor, at around the ten-mile mark, it was bright enough that the path was dotted with cyclists. Mothers were pushing strollers. There was no use denying it; winter had turned to spring, and summer was right around the corner. The invasion was coming.
Longport in the winter was a recluse’s paradise. Some people called it a ghost town; Lauren had become quite comfortable in the company of ghosts. While most of the year-round residents gritted their teeth through the winter, waiting for beach season, Lauren felt the complete opposite. The summer was her time to grin and bear it, to endure. The bright long days, the crowds, the string of patriotic holidays.
Don’t think about it, she told herself. You still have time.
Thwap-thwap—the beat of her sneakers against the wooden boards. The steady pounding of her heart. A familiar rush of energy, almost a giddiness, carried her down the wooden steps to the cul-de-sac in front of her house.
She jogged slowly in a circle, sweat cooling against her neck, then, dizzy, she bent over, hands on her knees, her head down. She looked up at the sound of tires on gravel, a car turning onto her block. Her stomach sank.
What were her parents doing here?
Her parents were devoted summer weekenders. Starting Memorial Day weekend and going through Labor Day, they showed up Thursday afternoon and left Sunday night. It was a shock to her system after months of solitude, but she adjusted to it by the middle of the summer and sometimes felt almost sad to see them drift back into their Philadelphia routine. She never visited them in Philadelphia at the old stone house where she’d grown up. She never left the island. This was a real issue only once a year, when her sister had a birthday party for her son, Ethan. Lauren felt guilty for being an absentee aunt.
“Honey! I thought you agreed to cut down on the running. You’re getting way too thin,” her mother said, slamming the car door and rushing over to her.
“I’ll get the bags,” her father said.
“I’m fine, Mom. What are you guys doing here?”
Her mother looked at her strangely. “It’s Memorial Day weekend, hon.”
Was it? Lauren could have sworn that was next weekend.
She glanced at her sports watch. She had to shower and get to work. The Thursday before Memorial Day, the breakfast crowd would be lining up at the restaurant door.
“We’re getting an early start,” her mother said, looking tense.
“Any particular reason why?”
“Oh, just lots to do. I want to get the house ready, clean out the guest bedrooms…”
Lauren looked at her sharply. “The guest bedrooms? Why?”
“Your sister is coming.”
Matt Brio climbed the three flights of stairs to the editing suite in Williamsburg, carrying doughnuts. He was unhappy to find himself out of breath by the second floor. That’s what you get for editing a film 24/7, he told himself. And he didn’t see that changing any time in the near future.
On a Thursday at noon, his suite mates were all plugged into their headsets and staring at their computer screens. Matt made a cup of coffee at the community Keurig machine and booted up his machine. Fuck coffee—he needed a drink.
He set the box of doughnuts next to his computer. He figured if he was asking someone for a six-figure check, the least he could do was provide refreshments.
“I’m going to be in Brooklyn anyway, so it’s a good time to stop by,” Craig Mason had said, just like that. As if Matt hadn’t been asking him to look at his reel for six months.
The Rory Kincaid project had been a rough road. Matt sometimes wondered if he had bad karma due to how he’d handled things at the beginning. When it became his passion project, he dropped out of a film he had committed to directing. As a result, he ruined his relationship with Andrew Dobson, the producer who had backed his first two films. Matt’s reputation took a hit, and he suspected that was why he had failed to get a solid financial investment for the Rory Kincaid story; it had nothing to do with the merit of the project. So Matt put his own money into making the movie. Four years later, the money was gone, and he needed a financial lifeline.
But it wasn’t enough just to finance a movie and get it made; you had to be able to market it. Next winter would be the five-year anniversary of Rory Kincaid’s death. It felt crucial to secure distribution by that milestone.
He put on his headphones and clicked open a video of seventeen-year-old Rory Kincaid scoring a hat-trick goal for his high-school team. As the puck slid into the net, Rory reacted with his signature gesture, lifting both hands into the air, then pulling his left arm sharply in, bent at the elbow, his fist tight: score. Next, footage of commentators on CNN: “We have breaking news that former NHL star Rory Kincaid, who walked away from a reported seven-figure contract with the LA Kings to enlist in the military, has been killed in the line of duty.” Matt clicked through to footage of the memorial service. He moved forward through the frames, pausing on the widow standing against a backdrop of American flags next to a blown-up portrait of Rory in his U.S. Rangers uniform. The guy was so ruggedly handsome, he was like the person central casting sent over when you asked for “hero.”
