Page 9 of The Husband Hour
Now Adelman’s was closed, left half filled with merchandise Howard had failed to unload while he pumped money into the store, trying to hold on long enough to find a buyer. He was stuck with five more years on a twenty-year commercial lease.
Still, regardless of the circumstances, Beth could not stomach the idea of selling the Green Gable. Looking around the kitchen, she could envision her mother at the counter, unwrapping fresh cinnamon buns, still warm from Casel’s grocery. Beth closed her eyes.
“My parents intended for the girls to have this house someday.”
Howard sighed.
“You’ve indulged the girls too much the past few years. Now you and I need to dig ourselves out of this hole, and Lauren and Stephanie need to move on with their lives.”
Was he right? Beth had known it would take time for Lauren to recover from the loss of her husband. It had taken all of them time to get over losing Rory. But it was becoming increasingly clear that her daughter was frozen.
And she was scared nothing would ever change that.
Chapter Six
Ethan asked to sit next to Lauren at dinner. She hadn’t seen the kid since last summer, and yet he loved her. She wished she could still see the world through the forgiving eyes of a six-year-old.
“I saved you this seat,” she said, smiling at him.
Ethan was quiet but achingly cute, with big brown eyes and the same high forehead and good cheekbones Lauren had inherited from her father. He looked more like Lauren than Stephanie, and Lauren wondered if her sister realized this, if he reminded her of when they had been young and best friends.
“I like this long chair,” Ethan said, looking up at Lauren.
“Me too. It’s kind of kooky. Like your great-grandmother,” she said. The wall banquette was upholstered in an outrageously bold chinoiserie pattern her grandmother once had identified as Chiang Mai Dragon. The walls were cerulean blue, the modern table white marble. Her grandmother had tried as hard as she could to do a simple beach house, but with some rooms she’d caved to her truest design impulses. The living room was all distressed wood and white linen, framed starfish, and several vintage suitcases stacked next to a towering bookshelf. But if you turned a corner, you’d find a velvet-upholstered modern wingback chair under a large-scale abstract painting. Lauren’s grandmother had a fondness for monogrammed trays and chinoiserie vases, and her collections of zebras—Lalique zebras, porcelain zebras, hand-carved wood zebras—were scattered everywhere.
“I don’t think that’s a nice thing to say,” said her mother. “And Ethan, hon, it’s called a banquette.”
The salt and pepper shakers were little bluebirds. Ethan reached for one.
Her mother’s marinated flank steak was set out on an American flag–pattern serving tray, a nod to the holiday weekend. Lauren appreciated the attempt to make things festive, but since her husband’s death, she’d found the sight of the flag funereal.
“This room is pretty crazy,” Stephanie declared, opening a bottle of wine. She seemed overdressed for dinner at home in her skintight jeans perfectly flared around her ankles and her strappy, high-heeled sandals. Lauren hadn’t changed out of her running clothes.
“I don’t think you need to drink tonight,” Beth said. Stephanie poured a glass anyway.
“Listen to your mother,” Howard said.
She ignored him too.
Ethan played with one of the bluebirds, tilting it so it spilled salt onto the table.
Stephanie went to the kitchen and returned with a plate of Bagel Bites. They actually looked pretty appealing. As if reading his aunt’s mind, Ethan smiled at Lauren, his big brown eyes wide and adoring, and handed her one of the crusty little circles.
“Aw, thanks, hon. Looks so good, but that’s yours.” She tousled his hair.
“Lauren, a friend of your father’s—you remember Simon Hanes—is opening a restaurant in the Borgata this summer. Seafood. Very fancy,” said her mother.
So that was why Neil Hanes was in town.
“Oh, well, that’s nice,” Lauren said, reaching for a piece of corn on the cob.
“Tell her, Beth,” her father prompted.
Her mother cleared her throat. “We were thinking, maybe once things got off the ground, you’d like to work there instead of that little place you’re at now?”
Lauren shook her head. She knew her parents meant well, but their pushing and prodding was getting more invasive. They just didn’t get it. Four years into her life on the island, at least her old friends had taken the hint and left her alone. At first, after Rory died, they offered to come to town for weekends or just to meet her for dinner. They sent invitations to weddings and birthday parties. For a while, she felt obligated to concoct some reasonable excuse to decline. And then, she did not.
“Why would I want to work at the Borgata?” Lauren said.
