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“Really?”
She kept throwing that word at him like a dart. He felt like a man reaching for a lifeline that was just beyond his grasp. At last he gave up trying to lie and told the truth. “I don’t know. ”
Annie’s face softened at the admission. “You have to talk to her, Blake. But mostly you have to listen. ” She gave him a smile that was as sad as it was familiar. “And we both know you’re listening-impaired. ”
“Okay. I’ll go talk to her. ”
He said the words, softly and in exactly the right tone of voice, but they both knew the truth. They’d had this same discussion a hundred times before, with Annie begging him to spend time with Natalie.
They both knew he’d never quite get around to doing it.
On the last day of January, Terri showed up bright and early, holding a bottle of Moët & Chandon and a bag of croissants. “When a woman turns forty,” she said brightly, “she should begin drinking early in the day. And before you start whining about nursing and alcohol in the breast milk, let me reassure you that the champagne is for me and the croissants are for you. ”
They sat together on the big wooden deck. The hot tub bubbled gently beside them.
“So,” Terri said, sipping her champagne. “You look like shit, you know. ”
“Thanks a lot. I hope you’ll come by to celebrate my fiftieth birthday—when I really need cheering up. ”
“You’re not sleeping. ”
Annie winced. It was true. She hadn’t slept well in weeks. “Katie’s been fighting a cold. ”
“Ah,” Terri said knowingly, “so Katie’s the problem. ”
“No . . . not really, Dr. Freud. ” Annie glanced out at the glittering surface of the sea, watching the white-tipped waves lick gently at the sand. She didn’t have to close her eyes to see another place, a place where winters were real. There, nature would have reclaimed its rain forest. The tourists would be long gone, driven away by the swift and sudden darkness that came with winter. There would be alpine mountainsides where the snow was five feet deep, where tiny purple flowers would still bloom amid the whiteness, against all the laws of nature. Deep in the woods, where the land had never been damaged by human hands, the trees would seem to draw closer together, creating a curtain of black tinged only occasionally with the faintest hint of green. In the middle of the day, it would be dark, and not even the brightest winter sun would make it to the cold, frosted forest floor. Anyone crazy enough, or desperate enough, to venture into that gray and black wilderness this time of year would be lost forever.
Annie longed to see it now, to feel the crisp winter air on her cheeks. She wanted to bundle up in layers and layers of clothing and lie in the snow, to make angels with her arms and legs while she watched her breath puff into the silver air.
“Why do you stay with him?”
Annie sighed. She had known the question was coming; she’d expected it every day since the fiasco of Natalie’s birthday party. It was the same thing she asked herself at night, as she lay in her bed, beside her husband, unable to sleep.
She thought so often about Natalie, grown now and on her own, and Katie, with so many years before her. At those times, achingly lonely, she would stare into the darkness of her own life, searching for some dim reflection of herself. And when she looked back, she saw a skinny, brown-haired girl who’d done what was expected of her, always.
She missed the woman she’d become on the shores of Mystic Lake, the one who dared to dream of her own bookstore, and learned to wager her heart on a game as risky as love. She missed Nick and Izzy and the family they’d quilted together from the scraps of their separate lives.
It was the kind of family Annie had always dreamed of . . . the kind of family Katie deserved. . . .
Did you know I have no memories of Dad?
Terri touched her shoulder. “Annie? You’re crying. . . . ”
She’d been holding it in for too long, pretending that everything was okay, pretending that everyone mattered but her. She couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“I matter,” she said quietly.
“Well, praise God,” Terri whispered and pulled Annie into her arms. Annie let herself be held and rocked by her best friend.
“I can’t live this way anymore. ”
“Of course you can’t. ”
Annie eased back, shakily pushing the grown-out hair away from her eyes. “I don’t want some day to hear Katie tell me that she has no memories of her dad, either. ”
“And what about you, Annie?”
“I deserve more than this . . . Blake and I don’t share anything anymore. Not even the miracle of our two children. ”
