The Last September: A Novel

OBEDIENTLY, WE WALKED DOWN Main Street in Chatham, huddled in our raincoats. Ladd and I stared through the rain-streaked windows, not buying anything, not even entering shops except for Cabbages and Kings, the bookstore. Finally we found ourselves walking past the slew of stores and restaurants, past the quaint, restored homes off Main Street, and on the beach—not the tamer bay side of Saturday Cove but the wide Atlantic ocean, roiling with waves nearly as large as we’d seen on Nantucket. Despite the fact that it was the Fourth of July weekend, and the streets of Chatham had been crowded, we had the beach nearly to ourselves if we didn’t count the many seals resting out on the sandbars or the one man who stood in the water with a young child of indeterminate gender on his shoulders. He had valiantly rolled up his jeans and waded into the waves, presumably to get a better look at the seals. Ladd and I watched as the child extended a chubby, raincoated arm, damp fingers pointing.

“That’ll be me and our kid one of these days,” Ladd said. He pushed off his hood and let the rainy mist gather in his hair. Ever unoriginal, I did the same. Ladd put his arm around my shoulders. I stared up at his face—strong-boned like his mother’s—and thought how I admired his willingness to commit, to look ahead, to be with me, minus any of the personal guardedness I had seen in other men.

“So,” he said, in a different tone. It sounded businesslike, and aware of an unpleasant task ahead. “I was talking to my mother this morning. About the wedding.”

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Ladd’s eyes flickered a tiny bit, ever so slightly unnatural. “Everything’s perfect. It’s just my family, it’s stupid, but, I can’t get married without a prenup.”

A small laugh burst from my throat and Ladd frowned a little. I realized it annoyed me that he was still looking out toward the water, instead of at me. Did he always do this? Look away in the most important moments? Is that why he’d missed the fact that I counted his money against rather than for him?

“A prenup,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “A prenuptial agreement.”

“I know what it is,” I said.

“It’s just a formality.” I could feel his arm tense behind my neck, the fingers slack over my shoulder. His words marched out in the manner of someone who’s planned a conversation ahead of time. “My mother signed one.”

I pictured a young Rebecca in some plush Boston office, leaning over a shining oak desk, her blonde hair pulled off her high forehead. Doing what needed to be done. Practical woman, dressed just right.

But that’s not me, I thought. I wasn’t practical, or well dressed. I wasn’t that kind of person. For the first time in years I did something I’d assiduously trained myself not to do: I thought of Charlie. Obviously his family wasn’t as wealthy as Ladd’s. But no matter how much money Charlie had, I knew he would never do this, ask me to sign a document, ask me to prepare for the end of something before it even began.

I could have told Ladd that his money didn’t interest me. I could have expressed surprise that he didn’t know this until now. I could have gotten angry, and refused. Instead I just said, “Okay.”

“What does that mean?” His voice sounded not so much tense but released from tension. He’d come here braced for battle and maybe now he could move forward with it.

“What does okay mean?” I said.

“Does it mean, okay, you’re listening? Or okay, you’ll sign it?”

“I’ll sign it.”

I could feel his arm relax, then stiffen, as if he didn’t quite believe it could be that easy. “It’s not me who wants it,” he said, too fast, not himself. Embarrassed at the premature outburst. “It’s them. It’s not even them. It’s just the machine. I know we don’t need it.”

It would have been nice if he’d said that first. My gaze remained outward, toward the seals. I could feel the tension rising again in Ladd, his arm twitching as if he wanted to remove it from me. He was sticking to his side of the script. But I didn’t know what my lines were. The words that felt most natural—any kind of argument—might ruin everything.

He said, “It’s very standard.”

I knelt down and picked up a small gray stone, then flung it, hard as I could, toward the water. It skittered, disappointing, just short of the breaking waves. Because I’d already peered down that rabbit hole, I went ahead and thought that Charlie would never say something like that, It’s very standard. Then I reminded myself, Charlie would never ask me to marry him in the first place. He’d never even asked for a second date.