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Chapter 22
Natalie
I couldn’t explain it.
I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The house with its opulence and elegance was all too much. The gleaming kitchen with the shiny surfaces and clean tiles too clean and pristine. Everything was so perfect. Too perfect. Me in that house, trying to live up to those standards, to fit into this ideal of what the perfect life had to be. I was tired of pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. I didn’t want to put on a show anymore, smiling and not complaining as if I was living the life I had dreamed of.
Because I wasn’t.
I did love Sam, but he had lied to me about Dana and as soon as I heard that something had happened between them, I had known that it was true. It did not surprise me. The two of them had always been too close somehow, and I had felt Dana’s resentment towards me never understanding why she’d been becoming increasingly nasty towards me. It wasn’t that I expected Sam to tell me everything. After all, I hadn’t told him about meeting Marcus.
Shortly after seeing him again in Sandwich, he’d asked me to coffee in Boston. We went for lunch and had a very nice time. He told me about his new office and trying to get used to working every day. He told me of some of his patients and we laughed about his office manager who got furious if he didn’t put back his files in the right order. A short while later, he’d asked me to go to the movies with him. I’d told Sam I was meeting a friend.
After the movie, we’d gone for drink and Marcus asked me about Sam and how serious our relationship was. I knew he wanted to know if he had a chance. I had to be honest with him and told him that it was serious.
“But you don’t seem very happy,” he said. I didn’t know what to say to that.
“It’s complicated,” was all I could come up with.
That reminded me of something my therapist had said once when we’d spoken about my relationship with Sam back in college. She’d asked me why I thought we were happy. I told her that we never used to fight.
“That doesn’t mean you were happy,” she said. “It only means you didn’t talk about things that bothered you.”
“But nothing bothered me,” I said. But that wasn’t true. Even then, I worried about my weight and appearance. I thought if I became fat, Sam wouldn’t want me anymore. I was sure that he would dump me if I told him that I wanted to spend more time with him. My therapist suggested that I had abandonment issues. She thought that I had become overly dependent on Sam’s approval and affection, to the extent that I completely suppressed my own wishes and desires. When Sam and I got together again now, I’d tried not to allow this to happen. But as my job was essentially working for him, keeping him satisfied was part of my job description. We certainly did talk more, and I did have the feeling that he was paying more attention to me as a person. When we’d planned our holiday, for instance, he’d asked me where I wanted to go. California had been our choice because I’d never been there and wanted to see it.
But I still didn’t have enough of my own life. Living in his house, looking after his son and being his girlfriend was too much about him.
Too little about me.
Yesterday, when I thought I’d lost my job and Sam too, I had felt so much like that girl I’d been in college. I had set out for things to be different, but they were very similar.
As I drove into Vermont, I remembered holidays we had spent here as a child. There was a lake with wooden cabins, and we would spend every single moment of the day outside, cycling or paddling or swimming and hiking. It was paradise. My parents would relax on the porch and watch us over drinks. I remember Helen being beautiful in her cropped tops and tiny shorts while Derek was tall and superior. Dinners were usually barbeques with kids from neighboring chalets running in and out of the house.
I must’ve been to Newport before but with the fall colors being evident now, I was reminded how scenic it could be. I typed the address that Tucker had given me into the GPS and let it direct me. When he’d called me earlier, his voice had sounded so small, so weary.
“Hey, sis,” he’d said, trying to be light-hearted.
“Tucker! Where are you?”
“Newport.”
“What are you doing there?”
He didn’t answer for a while. Then he’d said, “Can you come get me?” He sounded subdued and flat.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes, no,” he gave a harsh laugh. “Can you come?” his voice sounded urgent.
“Of course.”
He had given me an address in town, it was for a budget motel. I pulled up in a parking lot and looked for number 14. I knocked on the door, but nobody answered.
“Tucker? It’s me, Natalie.”
The door opened and I saw Tucker, smiling wanly.
“Hey.”
