Page 45 of The Husband Hour
“So don’t. Forget about it. And forget about the film. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” She nodded her head in the direction of their parents’ bedroom.
Stephanie left and Lauren closed the door behind her. Would Emerson talk to Matt? No, there was no way. Emerson, the control freak, had already warned her off a film project years earlier. Could it be this same film?
But then, Emerson was never one to sit by and let things just happen. What if he talked to Matt specifically to control the direction of the film? If he had, he certainly wouldn’t be neutral on the subject of her marriage.
She’d never told Rory what his brother had said to her on their wedding day. She’d meant to, but there was so much going on that she never got around to it. She’d never told anyone, and it bothered her still.
Emerson had pulled her aside an hour before she walked down the aisle. Lauren was already in her dress, having just taken photos with the bridal party on the roof deck and in front of the famous twenty-foot statue of Benjamin Franklin in the rotunda of Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute.
“Lauren, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Lauren smiled and happily followed him to a quiet corner in the massive room, a domed space with an eighty-two-foot-high ceiling and so many pillars it was like the Roman Pantheon.
Emerson put a hand on her back and led her to the museum lobby. Lauren still felt nervous around Emerson. Rory revered his brother so much; Lauren was desperate for his approval. Now that they were about to become family, she thought she might finally get it.
“My parents were married for twenty-two years,” Emerson said. “Till death did they part, as promised in their vows.”
Lauren nodded, not sure where this was going.
“Now is the time to ask yourself if you are really prepared to make the same commitment,” he said.
“What? Of course.”
“Lauren, let’s be honest. You can barely handle being a hockey girlfriend. How will you be able to endure being a military wife?”
Lauren, floored, couldn’t think of a thing to say. At that point, Emerson was the only person other than Lauren and Rory who knew that Rory was planning to enlist. Lauren had made Rory promise not to tell anyone else until after their wedding. She didn’t want to worry her parents, didn’t want the specter of it hanging over the day. Lauren hated herself for her weakness, but a part of her wished Rory had also spared her the news until after the wedding. But that didn’t make her a bad person or a bad wife-to-be.
“I know you see yourself as some sort of surrogate father to Rory,” Lauren said, shaking. “But you’re not his father. And I’m going to be his wife. So don’t ever talk to me like that again.”
Emerson shook his head. “Fine. Have it your way. But next time there’s a problem—and we both know there will be—don’t come crying to me.”
Oh, how the damning judgment of Rory’s revered older brother had stung. Maybe on some level, she had taken it to heart. Maybe she hadn’t told Rory about the conversation because she’d been afraid Emerson was right.
Lauren shoved the box deeper in her closet and closed the door. He wasn’t right. Was he? It was so jumbled in her mind, what had happened versus her feelings about what had happened. All these years later, she still couldn’t make sense of it.
Matt Brio wanted the truth about Rory’s life and death. If Lauren was being honest with herself, so did she.
Had he spoken to Emerson? If so, what had her former brother-in-law said?
She paced back and forth, then finally reached for her phone and left Nora a message that she’d be late to work tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-One
Matt woke to a loud mechanical grinding sound.
He groaned, regretting the last two—make it three—shots at Robert’s. And he hadn’t even managed to see Stephanie. All of the hangover, none of the payoff.
What the hell was that racket? He stumbled out of bed and looked outside. Henny was on the back deck, cutting wood planks with an electric saw. Not an ideal wake-up call, but he was overdue to talk to her anyway. She probably thought he was packing to leave or already gone.
Sure enough, when he unlatched the gate and walked out onto the deck, she was surprised.
“Oh! I thought you’d checked out. I didn’t see your car…”
“A hazard of a night out at Robert’s Place,” he said. “I probably have a hell of a ticket on my car over on Atlantic Avenue.”
“Oh, honey,” she said. “You’d best be getting yourself over there. Do you need a ride?”
“Thanks but I’ll walk over. I could use the exercise.” As his disastrous run yesterday morning had made more than clear. “Oh—I wanted to ask if I could extend my stay if I need to.”
