Page 48 of The Husband Hour
“I’m fine,” Rory assured her in his bedroom with the shades pulled down, not watching TV or anything, just sitting there. “But I’m happy you’re here.”
He didn’t seem fine. He was cranky, wouldn’t let her put on any lights, and asked her to check his phone when it buzzed with messages because the glare of the screen bothered him.
“Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?” she asked.
“Jesus, Lauren. Now you’re a doctor?” he snapped.
She wasn’t a doctor, but it didn’t take a doctor to know that something was seriously wrong. But the team clearly didn’t want to sideline him, and Rory didn’t want to be sidelined.
Now, she knew Rory wouldn’t want to be remembered as someone who had been weakened or diminished in any way.
“He was okay,” she insisted.
“You and Dean Wade see things differently.”
“I think I knew Rory better than Dean Wade,” she snapped.
“Of course you did. But Wade’s in the film and you’re not.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be in this film. I’m just telling you that you’re getting it wrong.” Her instinct to stay on the surface of everything that had happened, not to dig too deep, was as much for her own sanity as it was to protect Rory’s reputation.
“I don’t think I am,” he said calmly. Confidently. “But I’m offering you the chance to tell your view of events.”
Her view of events? As if the past were purely open to individual interpretation.
“It’s not my view of events. I know what happened.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that you do,” he said, locking eyes with her.
“I’m late for work,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beth wiped her hands on her apron. It was new, a gift to herself. A token to remind herself that she had been good at something once.
The kitchen counter was covered with packages and jars and containers: confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, milk, eggs, salt, vegetable oil, and shortening. The kitchen island held two other gifts to herself: a brand-new deep fryer and a stand mixer. For the first time in years—certainly since the girls had grown up and left the house—she was making doughnuts.
She didn’t know how to do leisure. After thirty years of spending nearly every day at the clothing store, the sudden stretch of endless free time was more than unwelcome. It felt hostile, as if the universe were telling her in no uncertain terms that she was obsolete. Even work for the Polaris Foundation quieted during the month of August.
The past week, with Howard in Florida, Stephanie and Ethan back in Philly, and Lauren at the café every day, she had no idea what to do with herself. She could spend only so many hours clearing out the attic before becoming overwhelmed with a crushing sense of failure. The end of Adelman’s, losing the house the girls had grown up in, and now facing the sale of her parents’ house.
And Howard was clearly running away from it all.
The doorbell rang. Beth had forgotten the sound of the Green Gable doorbell, the gentle melodic pinging of a chime that her mother had custom-ordered. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had used it.
“Damn it,” she muttered, the sugary glaze not budging from her hands as she rubbed them against the apron. She ran them under the faucet.
The doorbell pinged again.
Well, the yeast, milk, and flour paste had to rest for a half an hour anyway. She covered the bowl with plastic wrap, walked to the front door, and peeked out the window, fortifying herself to make excuses to get rid of the real estate agent. She found herself smiling instead.
“Neil! How are you? Come on in.”
He was a good-looking young man. Not devastatingly handsome like her son-in-law had been, but Rory’s type of charisma was always a double-edged sword. Neil Hanes was the kind of man she had imagined one of her daughters ending up with, ambitious but grounded, from a good family. And, well, yes, Jewish. Not that she minded that Rory had been Catholic. The truth was, she had adored Rory. They had all fallen in love with him.
“This really is a nice surprise,” Beth said, steering Neil into the living room. They sat on the couch and he eyed her mother’s vintage suitcases with obvious appreciation.
“I’m sorry to come by without calling but I was just a few doors away, at the Kleins. They built where the red-brick house used to be up the block?”
