“Well, first, it’s plain bizarre. A Twilight Zone episode. So yeah, of course I’d love to know the truth. But secondly, I worry every day that this will end, the way everyone does when they’re in love. But I have the added worry of not knowing if your ex-but-not-ex-husband could come waltzing back into your life at any time. It’s hard to be a hundred percent comfortable when there may never be finality, you know?”
I nodded. I did know. It had crossed my mind before: what if Greg had run away and decided to come back? What would I do? I shook my head. Greg and Claire were over, regardless of his being alive or dead. It was hard to admit, and I had yet to say it out loud, but I had something with Drew that I had never had with Greg. I could never give that up. It was as though I had lived my whole life missing a sense, and Drew had given it back to me. My life seemed richer. Food tasted better; colors seemed brighter. I saw humor in situations that would have plain irritated me previously. It wasn’t that I’d had a bad life with Greg. I just never knew it could be so good. Instead of saying all of that, as I wasn’t ready to admit to the relative emptiness of my life before, I touched his hand and said, “There’s finality. That’s not something you need to worry about.”
Drew moved the desk and the filing cabinets out to the barn to be put up later on eBay. Standing in the almost empty study, I inhaled deeply. The room still had the same smell, like leather and man. Drew was going to use it as his office, a place to consolidate paperwork from his sales and possibly meet buyers.
“Mommy, where’s all Daddy’s stuff?” Hannah stood uncertainly in the doorway. Somehow, she’d become a small adult.
“Hannah, sit down.” I sat back down on the floor, tucking Greg’s journal under my leg. She plopped down next to me. I took a deep breath. “Hannah, Drew is going to live here now.”
“He already lives here,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“Yes, but he’s going to officially live here. He’s going to use Daddy’s old study for his office.” I gauged her reaction. There wasn’t one—textbook Hannah. “Does that bother you at all?”
She shook her head and looked around at the bare walls. In the world of a six-year-old, a year and a half was a lifetime. The memories of her father were fading. My serious daughter was so much like her father it occasionally made me cry. She even looked like him. She was sullen and withdrawn sometimes, other times thoughtful beyond belief. But she was always kind and incredibly clever with a whip-smart memory. So much like Greg.
“Hannah, what do you remember about Daddy?” I wanted her to remember Greg.
She looked thoughtful, picking at her fingernail, a brooding prophecy of her teenage self. “I remember… our camping trip.”
I searched my memory. Hannah had been three. We had gone camping in Massachusetts, near Boston. It rained all four days, ruining our plans to see a Red Sox game. We ended up seeing two movies in the closest town. I didn’t remember it being particularly fun. I vaguely recalled begging for a hotel room, and Greg being adamant about staying at the campsite. Why? I couldn’t remember.
“What do you remember most about it?” I asked.
“We played Memory every night and Candy Land. But you tried to make me play by the rules, and then Daddy said I didn’t have to.”
Ah, yes. We’d huddled in our large tent, sitting between two air mattresses and playing board games on the floor. I remembered being cold and frustrated at Leah, who kept tipping the board or picking up the memory cards with the curiosity of a one-year-old. Greg was jovial, as if we were having a great time. We took home mounds of mildewed laundry. I remembered laying down the gauntlet: we weren’t camping again until the kids were old enough to have their own tent.
Not everything has to be so tragic, Claire.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nothing here is tragic, it’s just irritating. Particularly because the whole trip was a disaster.
You can’t control the weather; it’s not worth getting mad over. Besides, I actually had a good time.
No, you didn’t. That’s not possible. We did absolutely nothing that was any fun at all. You’re just saying that to get under my skin, and it’s childish.
Suit yourself, but the only one acting like a child around here is you.
I had stomped around for days, seeming unable to get warm. All our clothes smelled musty even after several runs through the washer.
I couldn’t fathom why that memory stuck out in Hannah’s mind. “What did you like most about the camping trip?”
She shrugged. “Daddy was so happy,” she said with childlike simplicity. “That made it fun.”
Chapter 31
We expanded the gardens, because as it turned out, Drew had an unexpected gift for growing things. In the spring and summer, he grew peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries, and in the back, along the barn, thick, unruly black raspberry bushes. He showed Hannah and Leah how to pick them and waved off my protests of making sure they were washed before the girls ate them.
“They don’t taste as good unless you eat them right off the bush,” Leah parroted.
Drew popped one in my mouth before I could argue, and all I could do was agree. He kissed me, leaving the tart remnants of raspberry on my lips.