Page 6

I stood in the kitchen with my hand flat against the marble island and listened as his footsteps crossed the bedroom above me. A drawer opened, then shut. Pipes shuddered inside the walls when the shower started.

The refrigerator made ice in four shapes because Paul had spent six weeks researching ice makers before our recent remodel.

Everything around me had been carefully chosen. Stainless steel appliances. Marble counters. Matching stools. The good knives in their wooden block. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d chosen anything without first asking whether it made sense.

Upstairs, I opened the bottom drawer of my dresser looking for my old blue chenille sweater. Paul kept the house cold no matter the season, so I always ended up throwing on a sweater or sweatshirt.

I moved a stack of pajamas, two folded T-shirts, and a scarf I hadn’t worn since Claire’s college graduation.

A black plastic corner peeked out from beneath the shirts as my heart knocked once, hard enough to hurt.

I pulled it free.

Purple Rain. Prince and the Revolution. The original cassette. The label had yellowed at the edges. Handwriting still curled across it in purple ink, the L too large and the tail of the e swinging upward.

Lorrie Hale.

Not Lorrie Ellsworth or Mrs. Paul Ellsworth or Mom.

Lorrie Hale. My maiden name.

Dean had written my name on the cassette one slow afternoon at Side A Records after I complained that customers borrowed cassettes and forgot to return them.

He’d taken the purple felt-tip pen from my hand and labeled every cassette in the borrow stack while I sat on the counter, swinging one bare foot.

I held the tape in both hands. We didn’t own a cassette player anymore. The one in the kitchen had been replaced by a CD player, then an iPod dock, then a small speaker that played music from phones.

Music had once been something you could hold. You could break the tape, pull it loose, wind it back with a pencil, and hope the song survived.

The cassette should have been in the attic beside old photo albums, Claire’s school projects, Ben’s Batman cape, and the Christmas wreath I kept meaning to throw away, but kept because the bow was still good.

It shouldn’t have been in a drawer beneath my T-shirts. The plastic was warm in my hands.

From the bathroom, Paul began humming. He never hummed recognizable songs, only wandering little stretches of sound that went nowhere and started again.

I carried the cassette downstairs. The living room was dark except for the streetlight casting a pale square across the ceiling. I stretched out on the blue couch, pulled the throw over my legs, and set the cassette against my chest, my hands covering it.

“Ridiculous,” I whispered.

The refrigerator clicked on in the kitchen. Upstairs, water moved through the pipes. A car passed by outside, headlights sliding across the wall before disappearing.

I closed my eyes, seeing Dean behind the counter at Side A, looking up when the bell over the door rang, a smile on his face.

Dean holding out a cassette and saying, “Don’t listen to side B unless you’re ready.”

And Dean at the country club in his only good jacket, dark hair falling into his eyes while Paul stood beside me with a ring in his pocket and both our families waiting.

I’d known what everyone had expected. I’d known what Dean wanted too, although he hadn’t said it plainly enough to change things.

My mother’s hand had rested at the center of my back, tapping out the words.

Be sensible, Lorrie. Choose security.

Paul’s fingers had closed around mine as I’d said yes.

Afterward, I became good at sensible things. I learned to host dinners, chair committees, pack lunches, compare mortgage rates, and remember that Ben hated mustard while Claire wouldn’t eat sandwiches cut diagonally.

I loved my children and my husband. But somewhere along the way, I’d stopped asking myself what I wanted as I catered to everyone else’s wishes.