It’s not too late for you to change your mind,” Howard said, packing his suitcase.
Beth, reading in bed, ignored the comment. Then, to fill the silence: “I want to be here. In this house. With the girls. I told you the one thing I wanted this summer. Why can’t you give me that?”
Howard shook his head, as in Here we go again. Then he straightened up, holding a pair of swimming trunks, and looked at her. “You know what? If you’re not using the ticket, I’ll take Lauren.”
“What?”
“Yes. It will do her some good to get away. Change of scenery.”
“She’ll never agree.”
“Well, I’m going to ask her.”
“I’ll ask her. I don’t want you browbeating her over it.”
“You asking her is as good as not asking at all. She’ll say no, and you’ll say, Okay, fine, and that will be the end of it. At some point, Beth, she has to be pushed out of her comfort zone.”
Says you, Beth thought, closing her book and climbing out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Howard called after her.
“To talk to Lauren.”
Really, she just wanted to get out of the bedroom. It was suffocating, his arrogant certainty that he alone knew best for their daughters. He couldn’t fix the sinking store, so now he was going to fix Lauren. That wasn’t the reason she wanted them all at the shore together. Although she suspected that her own motive—her longing to recapture a time when they had been a happy family—was just as misguided.
When she didn’t find Lauren in her room or on the back deck, she climbed the stairs to the attic. Sure enough, she was sitting next to an open box, reading through a pile of old newspapers. Oh, how Lauren had loved writing for the school paper. And then, her junior year in high school, she’d entered one of her pieces in a writing competition and won a trip to Washington, DC. Lauren took the Amtrak there and met up with the other contest winners from schools around the country. For three days, she toured DC. She visited the offices of the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the National Journal. She showed Beth photos of a picnic lunch on the National Mall with the Lincoln Memorial behind her and the Washington Monument in the distance, the Reflecting Pool in between. Lauren was clearly in love with DC, and Beth suggested she apply to college there. But Lauren’s response to that was lukewarm, and Beth knew what she was thinking: Rory was already set to go to school in Boston the following year, and Lauren would no doubt apply to colleges based on their proximity to him. The thought of her limiting herself like that bothered Beth, and it infuriated Howard. In the end, that conflict, at least, had worked itself out. Back then, Beth believed that things usually did. Now? She wasn’t so sure.
She would not try to force Lauren to take the trip to Florida. But she would at least ask, and she felt that was enough of a compromise with Howard.
“Hon? How’s it going?” Beth asked, stepping over her own corner full of boxes. She was making very slow progress.
“Oh! I thought you guys went to sleep.”
Beth started to answer but then noticed the glint of silver around Lauren’s neck. Oh, good Lord.
She was wearing the heart necklace.
Beth swallowed hard. “No, we were just talking. Hon, you know Dad is going to Florida for a few days, and we thought it would be nice if you went with him. A change of scenery, keep Dad company. What do you say?”
As expected, Lauren looked at her like she was out of her mind. “Mom, I’m not going to Florida.”
Beth tried not to stare at the necklace. “Why not?”
“For one thing, I have a job. It’s the start of the busy season. I can’t just take off.”
“Have you ever taken a day off in the four years you’ve worked there? I’m sure Nora would understand.”
“Okay, I don’t want to take time off. I don’t want to go to Florida, Mom.”
Beth moved closer to her, biting her lip to keep from crying. “Lauren, hon, why are you wearing that necklace again?”
Lauren’s hand fluttered to her throat as if she had forgotten about the Tiffany heart necklace, though she could only have put it on in the past hour or so. She certainly hadn’t been wearing it at dinner.
“I just found it. In this box.”
Damn it, Beth knew she should have just taken it upon herself to get the boxes in storage.
“Let me take care of this stuff for you,” Beth said, reaching for one of the boxes.
“No!” Lauren said, jumping up and lunging at the unopened box. “I’ve got it.” She tried to pick up the box but struggled with the weight. Changing tactics, she stood behind the box and pushed it like a cart on wheels until she reached the stairs.
“Lauren, come back,” Beth said. But Lauren was already dragging the box down to her room.
“Unbelievable,” Lauren muttered, shoving the box into her closet. There was plenty of room on the floor considering that her only footwear was a pair of flip-flops and three pairs of running sneakers. Later, when everyone was asleep, she would go up to the attic and move the rest of the boxes into her bedroom.
What did her mother care if she wanted to wear an old necklace? And the whole Florida suggestion? Lunacy.
“Aunt Lauren?”
She turned to find Ethan standing in the doorway. He wore Batman footie pajamas, his dark hair wet from the bath. She smiled.
“Hey there. What’s going on?”
“I’m saying good night.”
“Oh, good night.”
He walked over to her and she put her arms around him. He smelled like baby shampoo, though he was far from a baby. She’d missed so much of his young life, and she felt a pang. She’d try to make up for it this summer.
“So, you’re going back to Philly tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Are you excited for the end of school?” she asked.
“I want to stay here,” he said. He looked so forlorn, she gave him another hug.
“Oh—well, we’ll be here waiting for you to come back. The house isn’t going anywhere.” Not yet, anyway.
She heard Stephanie calling for him from the hallway.
“In here, Steph,” Lauren yelled.
Stephanie poked her head in. “Hey. Bedtime, mister.”
Ethan gave Lauren a little wave, then dutifully marched off to his room.
“See you later,” Stephanie said to her.
“Wait—come in for a second,” Lauren said.
Stephanie walked into the room. “What’s up?”
“Look, I don’t know who you still hang out with back home,” Lauren said. “But if you hear about anyone talking to Matt, will you let me know?”
“Are you still worried about the stupid film? Just forget about it.”
“I can’t, okay? Not as long as he’s still here trying to dig into my life.”
She instinctively touched her necklace.
“Fine, I’ll keep an ear out. But aside from old coaches or a few guys from high school, who would he talk to? Although, you know Emerson is back in town.”
“What?” She froze.
“Yeah. He’s teaching at Villanova. One of my friends takes his wife’s yoga class.”
Lauren pressed her fingers to her temples. “Ugh. I don’t want to think about Emerson.”
“So don’t. Forget about it. And forget about the film. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.” She nodded her head in the direction of their parents’ bedroom.
Stephanie left and Lauren closed the door behind her. Would Emerson talk to Matt? No, there was no way. Emerson, the control freak, had already warned her off a film project years earlier. Could it be this same film?
But then, Emerson was never one to sit by and let things just happen. What if he talked to Matt specifically to control the direction of the film? If he had, he certainly wouldn’t be neutral on the subject of her marriage.
She’d never told Rory what his brother had said to her on their wedding day. She’d meant to, but there was so much going on that she never got around to it. She’d never told anyone, and it bothered her still.
Emerson had pulled her aside an hour before she walked down the aisle. Lauren was already in her dress, having just taken photos with the bridal party on the roof deck and in front of the famous twenty-foot statue of Benjamin Franklin in the rotunda of Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute.
“Lauren, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Lauren smiled and happily followed him to a quiet corner in the massive room, a domed space with an eighty-two-foot-high ceiling and so many pillars it was like the Roman Pantheon.
Emerson put a hand on her back and led her to the museum lobby. Lauren still felt nervous around Emerson. Rory revered his brother so much; Lauren was desperate for his approval. Now that they were about to become family, she thought she might finally get it.
“My parents were married for twenty-two years,” Emerson said. “Till death did they part, as promised in their vows.”
Lauren nodded, not sure where this was going.
“Now is the time to ask yourself if you are really prepared to make the same commitment,” he said.
“What? Of course.”
“Lauren, let’s be honest. You can barely handle being a hockey girlfriend. How will you be able to endure being a military wife?”
Lauren, floored, couldn’t think of a thing to say. At that point, Emerson was the only person other than Lauren and Rory who knew that Rory was planning to enlist. Lauren had made Rory promise not to tell anyone else until after their wedding. She didn’t want to worry her parents, didn’t want the specter of it hanging over the day. Lauren hated herself for her weakness, but a part of her wished Rory had also spared her the news until after the wedding. But that didn’t make her a bad person or a bad wife-to-be.
“I know you see yourself as some sort of surrogate father to Rory,” Lauren said, shaking. “But you’re not his father. And I’m going to be his wife. So don’t ever talk to me like that again.”
Emerson shook his head. “Fine. Have it your way. But next time there’s a problem—and we both know there will be—don’t come crying to me.”
Oh, how the damning judgment of Rory’s revered older brother had stung. Maybe on some level, she had taken it to heart. Maybe she hadn’t told Rory about the conversation because she’d been afraid Emerson was right.
Lauren shoved the box deeper in her closet and closed the door. He wasn’t right. Was he? It was so jumbled in her mind, what had happened versus her feelings about what had happened. All these years later, she still couldn’t make sense of it.
Matt Brio wanted the truth about Rory’s life and death. If Lauren was being honest with herself, so did she.
Had he spoken to Emerson? If so, what had her former brother-in-law said?
She paced back and forth, then finally reached for her phone and left Nora a message that she’d be late to work tomorrow.