A Stranger on the Beach. Michele Campbell

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СКАЧАТЬ he was none too pleasant when he did it, either. And Theresa, my mother—straight gin, I’m not kidding. Is it any wonder that, when my life to fell to pieces, I reached for the bottle? I’m not making excuses. I saw what it did to them, and I should have known better. I had known better, when my little girl was home. We like to think our children behave for us, but it’s really the other way around. I controlled my drinking around Hannah, to set a better example than my parents set for me. But she wasn’t here now, and I swigged blood-colored wine until the empty bottle fell from my hands and I passed out.

      On Sunday afternoon, I woke up to the smell of the Russian woman’s cheap perfume. I thought I was dreaming, but then I opened my eyes and Jason was standing over me, looking as bad as I felt. Which was very, very bad. He knelt down by the bed, and I could see tears in his eyes. At that point, I would’ve accepted an apology. Hell, I was praying for one.

      “I can smell her on you,” I said, and my eyes filled with tears, too. “You can’t see her anymore, love. Please. I’m begging you.”

      “I wish it was as simple as that, Car,” he said quietly. “It’s worse.”

      I sat up. The room was spinning, and I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.

      “Worse, how? Please, don’t tell me she’s pregnant.”

      “I never meant to hurt you. Things got out of hand. It’s beyond my control now.”

      “What are you talking about? Stop being so mysterious.” I dug my fingers into my temples. My head felt like it would split apart.

      “I can’t tell you any more without—” He stopped.

      “Without what?”

      “I can’t say.”

      “Jesus, what am I supposed to make of that, Jason? What am I supposed to do?”

      “Honestly? I hate to say this. But you need to find a good divorce lawyer. It’s the only plan I have right now.”

      “Does she have some kind of hold on you?”

      From the look on his face, I’d hit the nail on the head.

      “Jason, answer me, is she pregnant?”

      He pressed his lips together, ignoring my question.

      “We have to get a divorce,” he said. “I won’t contest anything. You take everything. The apartment, the beach house, all the money. I want you to.”

      Divorce. Maybe at the party I was imagining getting a lawyer and taking him for everything he had. But that was not the outcome I wanted for my marriage. Even after everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours, I still loved him. We’d been together twenty years. We had Hannah. And the apartment, and the house, and a life we’d built up from nothing, together. We were happy. Strike that, we were content. Okay, maybe we were treading water, but it was possible that with counseling and effort, we could’ve been happy again. But he had to go and bring that woman home and completely blindside me.

      “Twenty years, and this is how you end it?” I was choking on my tears.

      Jason’s face was pale, and his eyes burned dark. He made a choking noise in his throat, like he couldn’t get the words out.

      “It’s the only plan I have.”

      “You don’t have to do this.”

      He grabbed my hands. “Yes, I do. But please know, I love you, and I’m truly sorry.”

      Then he leapt up and walked out of the room. I heard his car start outside, and he was gone.

      I staggered around the house, going from room to room, so dazed with shock that I could barely see what was in front of me. Maybe I cried, but I was too numb to notice. I had no clue how to get through the next hours, the next days—the rest of my life—without him. Or without the stability and continuity he represented. I walked out onto the lawn and listened to the waves crashing on the beach. And I thought, I could go down there and—And what? End it? No. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t a quitter. And screw him, that would make things too easy for him. I knew I had to get a grip on myself. I ran back inside and called Lynn’s cell.

      “Jason left me,” I blurted, the second Lynn picked up.

      Silence.

      “Lynn?”

      “I can’t believe he’s that big of an idiot.”

      “He is. He did. Not five minutes ago. He told me to find a divorce lawyer.”

      Lynn paused. “Stay there. I’m coming.”

      “You’re coming—?”

      “I’m coming out there. Pour yourself a drink, turn on the TV, zone out. I’ll be there in an hour, unless the cops get me.”

      “Thank you, sis. I love you so much.”

      “Love you, too, babe. You’re not going through this alone.”

      Lynn lived in the same house in Massapequa where we grew up, which was a solid hour and a half away, but she had a fast car and a lead foot. Fifty minutes later, she walked in the front door, carrying a bottle of bourbon and a big glass bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, which she shoved into the microwave. I grabbed the bottle and poured myself a good slug, but the thought of eating was beyond me.

      “I can’t eat that. I feel sick,” I said, as Lynn set a plate on the kitchen table.

      “Just the spaghetti. It’ll settle your stomach. We have work to do. I have calls in to friends of mine who know all the good attorneys. We’re gonna get you squared away.”

      Lynn stayed the night, slept in my bed with me, stroked my head when I cried. Before she left the next morning, she forced me to make an appointment with one of the divorce lawyers, who came highly recommended by a friend of hers who’d cleaned up in her divorce settlement. I wanted Lynn to come to the appointment with me. God, I wish she had, because then I would’ve kept it. But she had to leave. Lynn and Joe own a bunch of condos down in Florida that they rent out. The condos got hit with this big storm, and she had to go down to oversee repairs. I understand, it’s their livelihood. And I’m a big girl. But damn. I can’t help thinking about how different things would be if she’d stayed in the Hamptons with me for those few days. I never would have gone to that bar. I never would have met Aidan again.

      7

       Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

      Aidan thought of that line the second Caroline Stark walked into the bar where he worked. It was a rainy Monday night, with the smell of woodsmoke in the air. Every time the door opened, he got a cold blast, and looked up. He recognized her right away. How could he not? She was the one who threw the party the other night. The one who built that house on Gramps’s land. She tore down their old fishing shack to build it. That place meant everything to him when he was a kid. It was imprinted on his brain—the sound of the waves, the salt in the air, the way the light slanted at the end of a summer day. Her house was the total opposite of Gramps’s old place. It was СКАЧАТЬ