1
OLIVE
My husband told me about James casually, over coffee, as though the decision was still being made rather than simply being announced. James was coming for the afternoon. He hadn't seen him in a while. He thought it would be nice.
I said, “Of course,” and took my coffee to the garden.
This is not resentment. I want to be precise about that. After all of these years I understand the architecture of how my husband operates. He is not withholding. He’s existing. These are different things, though the difference has cost me something over the years that I have never quite been able to name.
I was deadheading the roses when my phone buzzed. It was Phoenix:Jade's plans fell through. She'll come after all. She'll be there around two.
I read it twice. Then I set down my shears and went inside.
Nicholas was at his desk in the study, jacket off, sleeves rolled to the elbow, the posture of a man who had claimed his Sunday and intended to keep it. He looked up when I appeared in the doorway.
"James and Jade are going to be in the backyard together in two hours," I said.
A pause. "She may not make the connection."
"Nicholas." I held his gaze. "Look at her. She has Sydney's eyes and her hands and whatever Sydney told her about James she has been sitting with it for years. She will make the connection within five minutes of meeting him.”
"Then she makes it." He set his pen down. "We, say nothing. We let the afternoon happen. We don't draw attention to anything."
"That's not good enough."
"It will have to be."
I stood in his doorway for a moment longer. Thirty years of marriage teaches you the difference between a fight that can be won and a fight that has already ended. Nicholas had decided.
"All right," I said.
I went back to the garden and picked up my shears.
The gardenin late spring is my favorite. The roses along the south wall had come in heavy this year, deep red and cream, and the jasmine Nicholas planted the year we moved in had finally reached the top of the pergola and started spilling over the other side. I've written four books in this garden. I know every corner of it by season and by light, and on an afternoon like this one, warm and clear with the marine layer staying offshore for once, it is genuinely beautiful in a way I no longer take for granted.
I was grateful for something to do with my hands.
James arrived early, as always, carrying a six-pack of craft beer and wearing a faded navy shirt I recognized from at least a decade ago. I heard Nicholas laugh across the yard before I heard the door. That loose unguarded sound he keeps for maybe four people in the world. I gave them ten minutes. Then I came in with herbs I didn't need and kissed James on the cheek and asked about his drive.
He looks well. The silver at his temples suits him. He's grown into his face in a way he hadn't quite managed at forty, the angles settling into something steadier. He asked about the garden and my writing, carefully, as though he were asking about a secret. I told him the current book was fighting me and he said they always did and I said yes, they always did.
Phoenix came out from the garage wiping his hands on a cloth, still in the clothes he'd worn to help Nicholas with whatever project had consumed the morning. The afternoon arranged itself. Chairs pulled out, the grill lit, Nicholas opening beers and handing them around. The easy overlap of people who have known each other long enough that conversation doesn't need tending.
Then the back door opened.
Jade camethrough the back door with a dish towel in her hands and I set down the lemonade pitcher.
I'd known for months. A photograph on Phoenix's phone, a last name, the particular way she held herself in a room. I'd told Nicholas in this same kitchen, a Sunday not unlike this one, and he'd done what Nicholas does — filed it, decided how to manage it, said nothing to anyone including her. I had agreed with his reasoning. I had also disagreed with it every day since.
Knowing didn't prepare me for the reality of her standing in my garden.
She'd stopped at the edge of the patio, reading the yard before she stepped into it. Dark hair, straight shoulders, that stillness. Sydney used to do that. Stand in every doorway long enough to know the room. I used to tell her she cased everyentrance like she was planning to rob it. She'd laugh and say someone had to.
Jade didn't know she was doing it. That was the part that got me.
Sydney had beenmy friend before she was Nicholas's complication, which was the part nobody ever seemed to remember.
I watchedher eyes move across the yard. Nicholas was at the grill. Phoenix was in his chair. James, sitting with his beer on the low wall beside the roses, his face turned toward something Nicholas had just said.
