Page 43 of The Husband Hour
It’s not too late for you to change your mind,” Howard said, packing his suitcase.
Beth, reading in bed, ignored the comment. Then, to fill the silence: “I want to be here. In this house. With the girls. I told you the one thing I wanted this summer. Why can’t you give me that?”
Howard shook his head, as in Here we go again. Then he straightened up, holding a pair of swimming trunks, and looked at her. “You know what? If you’re not using the ticket, I’ll take Lauren.”
“What?”
“Yes. It will do her some good to get away. Change of scenery.”
“She’ll never agree.”
“Well, I’m going to ask her.”
“I’ll ask her. I don’t want you browbeating her over it.”
“You asking her is as good as not asking at all. She’ll say no, and you’ll say, Okay, fine, and that will be the end of it. At some point, Beth, she has to be pushed out of her comfort zone.”
Says you, Beth thought, closing her book and climbing out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Howard called after her.
“To talk to Lauren.”
Really, she just wanted to get out of the bedroom. It was suffocating, his arrogant certainty that he alone knew best for their daughters. He couldn’t fix the sinking store, so now he was going to fix Lauren. That wasn’t the reason she wanted them all at the shore together. Although she suspected that her own motive—her longing to recapture a time when they had been a happy family—was just as misguided.
When she didn’t find Lauren in her room or on the back deck, she climbed the stairs to the attic. Sure enough, she was sitting next to an open box, reading through a pile of old newspapers. Oh, how Lauren had loved writing for the school paper. And then, her junior year in high school, she’d entered one of her pieces in a writing competition and won a trip to Washington, DC. Lauren took the Amtrak there and met up with the other contest winners from schools around the country. For three days, she toured DC. She visited the offices of the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the National Journal. She showed Beth photos of a picnic lunch on the National Mall with the Lincoln Memorial behind her and the Washington Monument in the distance, the Reflecting Pool in between. Lauren was clearly in love with DC, and Beth suggested she apply to college there. But Lauren’s response to that was lukewarm, and Beth knew what she was thinking: Rory was already set to go to school in Boston the following year, and Lauren would no doubt apply to colleges based on their proximity to him. The thought of her limiting herself like that bothered Beth, and it infuriated Howard. In the end, that conflict, at least, had worked itself out. Back then, Beth believed that things usually did. Now? She wasn’t so sure.
She would not try to force Lauren to take the trip to Florida. But she would at least ask, and she felt that was enough of a compromise with Howard.
“Hon? How’s it going?” Beth asked, stepping over her own corner full of boxes. She was making very slow progress.
“Oh! I thought you guys went to sleep.”
Beth started to answer but then noticed the glint of silver around Lauren’s neck. Oh, good Lord.
She was wearing the heart necklace.
Beth swallowed hard. “No, we were just talking. Hon, you know Dad is going to Florida for a few days, and we thought it would be nice if you went with him. A change of scenery, keep Dad company. What do you say?”
As expected, Lauren looked at her like she was out of her mind. “Mom, I’m not going to Florida.”
Beth tried not to stare at the necklace. “Why not?”
“For one thing, I have a job. It’s the start of the busy season. I can’t just take off.”
“Have you ever taken a day off in the four years you’ve worked there? I’m sure Nora would understand.”
“Okay, I don’t want to take time off. I don’t want to go to Florida, Mom.”
Beth moved closer to her, biting her lip to keep from crying. “Lauren, hon, why are you wearing that necklace again?”
Lauren’s hand fluttered to her throat as if she had forgotten about the Tiffany heart necklace, though she could only have put it on in the past hour or so. She certainly hadn’t been wearing it at dinner.
“I just found it. In this box.”
Damn it, Beth knew she should have just taken it upon herself to get the boxes in storage.
“Let me take care of this stuff for you,” Beth said, reaching for one of the boxes.
