Page 31 of The Husband Hour
He threw up his hands in irritation, and she realized the conversation over the boxes was similar to the one they were having about the girls. Whatever was inside the boxes hadn’t been worth her attention in years and therefore never would be. Likewise, whatever was broken between the girls—between all of them as a family—had been broken for years and would stay broken. But Beth didn’t agree on either count.
“Howard, it’s fine. It gives me something constructive to do.”
The argument between the girls at dinner was terribly upsetting. And where had Lauren run off to?
Howard sighed with disapproval and trekked back down the stairs.
She was so relieved to see him go, felt such a remarkable lifting of stress in his absence, that she realized it was a good thing he was taking a trip to Florida. He would go, and she would stay, and the time apart would do them both good. She could deal with the girls without his judgment, and he could figure out their next move without the weight of her resentment about losing the house. Both houses.
Reenergized, she turned back to the rows of bags and boxes, the front half of them loosely organized into three sections: boxes that were clearly hers, boxes and knickknacks that had belonged to her parents, and unmarked boxes or random things she couldn’t place. She stepped over a stack of full garment bags and made her way deeper into the room. In the space between boxes, she noticed a trail of tiny pellets. She groaned. Mice.
She moved on to another section, packing boxes labeled in Lauren’s handwriting. Oh, good Lord. She kept things from her LA house up there? When Beth told her to put them in storage, this wasn’t what she’d meant. She bent down, reading the Sharpie scrawl: Rory/LM and Rory/LA/Press Clips.
Beth would have to take care of these boxes. She didn’t even want to remind Lauren they were there. No need to reopen the wounds, although they already had been by that filmmaker hounding her. How dare he? What were people thinking? And Stephanie, going behind Lauren’s back to talk to him. Nothing Stephanie did should have surprised Beth at that point, but she still had hope that Stephanie would turn things around—for herself, and for the rest of the family.
“Mom? What are you doing up here?”
Lauren! Why did she feel like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar? “Oh, honey. I’m glad you’re home. Where did you go?”
Lauren, her face red and her hairline wet with perspiration, walked closer to her. Why hadn’t she just taken the car? This obsessive running everywhere had to stop.
“Why are you going through these boxes?” Lauren said.
“Because I have to clear out the house, hon.”
Lauren looked panicked. “There must be some other way—”
Beth hated to cause her any more distress. It had been difficult to let her hide out at the beach for the past four years. But it was what Lauren wanted, and if Beth couldn’t change what had been lost, at least she could give her the sanctuary of the Green Gable. And now she had to take that away too. She felt a fresh wave of fury toward Howard. Why hadn’t her husband talked to her? How could he have gambled with the house behind her back? It was a betrayal—almost as much a betrayal as a sexual infidelity.
“I’m sorry, hon. There’s nothing I can do.”
“I have personal things up here,” Lauren said, her face reddening even more with emotion. She wasn’t going to cry—Lauren rarely cried. But she was close.
Beth nodded. “I just saw the boxes. If you want, I can put them in—”
“No!” Lauren said. “Don’t touch them. I’ll deal with it.”
Beth sighed as her daughter retreated back down the stairs.
Chapter Fifteen
Matt unpacked his new running sneakers. At a quarter to five in the morning, it was still dark outside.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, he thought grimly. And then: This is going to hurt. He got winded walking up the stairs to the editing suite back in Brooklyn. He hadn’t slept last night. How was he going to jog miles on the boardwalk in hopes of “casually” bumping into Lauren?
It was a far cry from the days when he was running around tsunami-ravaged Southeast Asia, armed with only a camera. Back then, he didn’t need sleep, didn’t need food. Those weeks and months following his brother’s death, he was fueled by pure adrenaline and a youthful, reckless fury.
The tsunami hit the day after his brother’s death. Matt, reeling from his grief, felt the pull of something larger than his personal tragedy. He had to do something. So he got on a plane to Sri Lanka.
Thailand had been a landscape of utter devastation. His photos captured as much as the camera could capture, and ultimately that was never enough. Across the region, two hundred thousand people had been killed. So many dead—almost enough to make him forget his own loss. Almost.
Those photos started his career in journalism.
Surely he could run a few miles to convince a widow to talk to him. Her reticence was nothing compared to his resolve.
Sunrise caught Lauren by surprise; her precious darkness was slipping away faster day by day. She would have to start getting up earlier. Today, she dragged herself through the run, first sluggish, now fighting light-headedness.
Ride it like a wave, she told herself. If it got really bad, she had a protein bar in her pocket. But it always felt like a defeat to stop. No, she wouldn’t be sidelined by her body’s weakness. It was bad enough that she constantly had to fight her mind.
