On Second Thought
Page 55

Esther sighed. Kiara drank some wine.
“This time we’re serious. Phil, tell them.”
“Kids, we’re getting a divorce.”
“Kate, I thought I’d come live with you,” Mom said.
I flinched. “No.”
“Why? I could take care of you!”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Grandma,” Esther said, “this is probably the fifth time you’ve told us this.”
“Well, sweetheart, this time we mean it.”
“So you were just playing with us all those other times?” I asked.
“Kate,” Mom said in a low voice, “you know your father’s a serial cheater.”
“Grandma!” Esther dropped her fork with a clatter. “Gross. Grandpa, you’re not, right?” He smiled and winked at her and didn’t answer.
“He always did like the ladies,” Gram-Gram said. There was a piece of spinach on her chest. “That’s how Ainsley came into this world, after all.”
“Can I be excused?” Matthias said.
“Actually, we’ll all go,” Sean said. Kiara didn’t need to be nudged twice and leaped to her feet. “I have a surgery in the morning.”
“Me, too,” Kiara said. “Lives to save and all that.”
“You pull that card out way too often, you two,” I said.
“Sorry,” said my brother. “You’re on your own. Your widow card is no good here.”
“Sean!” Kiara gave me an apologetic glance. “But we do both have surgeries tomorrow, and the kids have homework.” She scooped up Sadie, who was smashing salmon into paste, and ten seconds later, they were all out, the lucky bastards.
“We feel it’s time,” Mom said. “A conscious uncoupling at long last.” My father jerked as she no doubt kicked him under the table.”
“We do. It’s been a long time coming,” he said, like a doll whose string had been pulled.
Gram-Gram took out her phone and started clicking. Ainsley had told me she was on Tinder.
I rubbed my forehead. “Well, get a divorce or don’t. I’m leaving, too. Mom, just to be clear, you’re not coming to live with me.”
“I think it’s exactly what you need.”
“Nope. It’s not.”
“Phil,” Mom snapped, “don’t just sit there like a concrete block! You said we’d discuss this together.”
“Right, right,” Dad said, looking up from his phone, on which he was no doubt checking baseball scores. “Your mother and I haven’t been intimate for months now.”
“Did I ask? I did not.” I could feel my neck muscles tightening. “Do you guys remember when I was a freshman in college, and you called to tell me you were getting a divorce? I came home expecting you to be packing and instead walked in on your sexy time!”
“I don’t remember that,” Mom said, frowning.
“Well, I do, and believe me, I wish I didn’t. When Ainsley graduated from college, you did it again. That time, Mom, you were going to live with Aunt Patty in Michigan. But you stayed. And then again after Sadie was born, you were all set to buy an apartment in the city, yet here you are. Why do you bother?”
“We mean it this time.” My mother raised a thin eyebrow, insulted that I’d questioned her sincerity.
“Good. Do it. I dare you. I want you to get divorced. I want you both to remarry so I can have stepparents. I’m leaving now, by the way. Bye, Gram-Gram.”
“Bye, sweetheart! I love you.”
My mother rolled her eyes. “Kate, you barely ate anything. Don’t be such a drama queen.”
I sputtered. I was not a drama queen! But you know what? I could turn into one, and fast.
“Has it occurred to you that I’m a widow?” I barked. “That I have real problems and issues going on? That I can’t sleep and I can’t stay awake, and I’m living this half-life like some kind of zombie? Maybe you can use your degree and help me out here, Mom! And, Dad...jeez! You were a widower, too. Don’t you have anything for me?”
“Everything you’re feeling is normal,” Mom said.
My father shrugged helplessly. “It gets better? Not really, but sort of? For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a zombie, honeybun.”
“I love that show about zombies,” Gram-Gram said. “Such handsome men! I like Glenn the best.”
I patted her shoulder. “Well, I’m one of them, the walking dead, and the last thing I want to hear from you two is that, once again, you find each other lacking and you’re pretending to get a divorce for the seventeenth time.”
“It’s hardly been seventeen times,” Mom said.
“Whatever. Bye.”
I slammed out of the house, got into my car and just headed south. I’d go to the diner and get a slab of cheesecake, or drive down to Tarrytown to look at the bridge, or...or...
Why was I so mad? This wasn’t anything new.
Because being alone wasn’t a choice for me. Because I didn’t have the luxury of thinking about divorce. Because I’d thought that everyone was worried about me, and that dinner was for me, not stupid Sean, and I was oddly irked that everyone had bought my feeble declaration of doing fine.
I wanted someone to help me. To fix me. To tell me what to do.
Abruptly, I pulled into Bixby Park at the southern edge of Cambry-on-Hudson and got out of the car. It was a beautiful place, paths winding throughout, a view of the Hudson, a playground. The trees had leafed out fully this past week, and the sound of the breeze swishing through them was fresh and full.
I strode westward, my face hot, joints zinging painfully with the adrenaline rush.
There were benches placed along the path with plaques on them—In celebration of the life of Howard Betelman. In loving memory of James Wellbright.
Maybe I’d get one for Nathan. He’d like that. We’d come to this park last fall and made out on one of these benches. I wondered which one. It was under a tree, I remembered that.
In honor of Marnie and Joel Koenig from their lucky children. Nice. This might’ve been the bench we sat on that beautiful day. The tree’s leaves had glowed with gold so intense the air seemed to shimmer, and it had been so incredibly romantic, like the stock photos I occasionally sold to Getty Images. Type in the search words, and you’d see just such a picture—adults, love, romance, autumn.
Maybe it wasn’t this bench. Maybe it was the next one.
Did he bring Madeleine here, too?
The thought punched me in the stomach. It was too hard to think about. Better to be pissed off about Mom making salmon for Sean and not me.
I came upon the next bench and lurched to a stop.
In honor of Nathan Vance Coburn III, a wonderful son, brother, uncle and friend.
What? What?
He had a bench already? Who did this? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I was his widow, for God’s sake! I was going to buy him a bench, did I not just have that exact thought two minutes ago?
And hold on one second, my brain said. There’s a word missing, isn’t there?
Why yes, there is. Husband. The missing word is husband.
The Coburns had bought a bench for Nathan and not told me about it. Why? Eloise and I had had another lunch at the club last week, and she’d said nothing!
I yanked out my phone to call them and demand an answer, then shoved it right back in. I was too mad. Furious, in fact. I turned around, not wanting to see his name, not wanting to see that bench with its stupid bronze plaque, and stomped back to the bench for the couple with the lucky kids.