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Until she’d laid eyes on the unsmiling man in black, she hadn’t felt an urge to find out if she really did have a problem. She’d even wondered if she’d go through life without ever having sex.
But suddenly it was all she could think about.
She was still working out how to discreetly discover his identity when she saw him again.
She’d crept out of the house late at night and gone for a walk on the beach.
There was only one other person there, and she’d known even from a distance that it was him.
She’d had a choice to make. She could step forward, or she could step back.
* * *
“Thank you all for being here.” Her voice echoed around the cavernous space.
A week before she’d been planning Ed’s birthday party. Now she was speaking at his funeral.
She focused on the stained-glass window at the back of the church because that was easier than staring at the people seated in rows. It was bitterly cold. Lauren couldn’t stop shivering.
The night of the birthday party was a blur in her mind. She remembered the police stepping into the house, the sound of Gwen wailing, gawping guests slinking from the house muttering condolences instead of birthday greetings.
And now she was supposed to say something meaningful when none of it held any meaning.
“I first met Ed when I was eighteen and I knew right away that he was the perfect man for me.”
That was true, wasn’t it? The fact that there was one box he didn’t tick on the list of ideal attributes for a life partner didn’t mean he wasn’t perfect.
“We met by chance on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard where I grew up, and we immediately had a connection.”
I was crying. Ed was drunk.
We were both brokenhearted.
Both of us in love, but not with each other.
Choices, she’d discovered, had consequences.
She stared hard at the floor, terrified that her sleep-deprived brain might confuse her speech with her thoughts. What if she made a mistake and said the wrong thing aloud?
What if, for once in her life, she told the truth?
“Ed and I knew we were going to be together forever.” Except that Ed had broken that promise and died. Why? He watched his weight and exercised. People like him didn’t die slumped over their desks. She felt cheated. Angry. Devastated. It took a sob from someone in the front row to remind her she was supposed to be talking. “It was romantic.”
It hadn’t been romantic at all.
It had been practical. Sensible. A decision made by two people who favored planning over impulse.
She stared at the extravagant display of lilies at the back of the church and knew she’d never be able to have lilies in the house again.
“Ed proposed to me on the beach at sunset.”
There were murmurs of approval and sympathy from the mourners who were listening avidly. She wondered what they’d say if she told them the truth.
There had been no proposal. At least, not in the traditional sense of the word.
Ed had flung an arm round her.
You’re in trouble. I’m in trouble. We both chose badly, which is what happens when you let your emotions make decisions. Let’s get married. I like you. You like me. That’s a better basis for marriage than love. Love is for poets and artists. Getting married because of love is like building your house on quicksand. You never know when the whole thing is going to collapse.
