The Last September: A Novel

“What is there to go back to?” he said when I pulled away and started to get up. He tightened his grip in protest but then—remembering—let me go.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. I was standing now. One motion to smooth my skirt down, another few to comb my hair back into its ponytail, as if these simple movements could erase what just happened.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t think yet.”

“Is that what you said to him?” Ladd asked. The hardness in his voice told me we’d traveled back in time, a full seven years.

“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “It wasn’t like this.” I sank into one of the small wooden chairs at his table. Our mugs of tea sat there, gone cold.

“What was it like, then,” Ladd said, with that same angry edge.

“His mother was dying. His brother was nuts. It was hectic. And complicated.”

“Right.”

“We didn’t have sex. I swear we didn’t.”

The bizarreness wasn’t lost on either of us, but I didn’t know what else to say. The best defense I had for myself—that I had always loved Charlie—would have been the most damning. Ladd held his arms out to me. I stayed where I was, already separating, worrying, giving my brain back to my husband.

“I’m sorry,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time, though I hadn’t said it—for that particular wrongdoing—in years.

“Well,” Ladd pressed, “what now?”

My mind tangled up with everything I still had to deal with, Sarah at Maxine’s, Charlie back at home, Eli on his way. I remembered the way Ladd had grabbed my wrist years before. Would he repeat that assault, holding me there with him? Would Charlie recognize the injury when I finally showed up?

And what if I didn’t end things with Ladd, right then and there. If I let the summer unfold, carving out moments like this for the two of us. Would it be any different from what Charlie had done with Deirdre? And another thing: I could leave Charlie for Ladd. I thought that. I admit it, I did. Worries about Eli, money, fidelity—all gone.

“Look,” I said to Ladd. “I don’t know. I just don’t know anything right now. But I’ll call you. I promise.”

When I drove away, leaving the house behind me, my life stretched ahead. And the emotion that took over was fear: somehow Charlie would find out, and I would lose him forever.

JUST OVER A WEEK later, on a sunny morning, Maxine hugged me good-bye and apologized again. I drove away from the lake, across Route 6A and over to Eldredge Lane. The Moss house was a little more than a mile down the road. I turned, down a longer and more private driveway, the wheels of my ancient car rumbling over dirt and roots.

I parked in front of the garage. The ocean stood below the lawn, a wide patch of grass to traverse, a steep drop of beach steps, so I could let Sarah walk, her lurching steps with Lightfoot trotting beside her, up toward the house. Even older than the Moss house—built in 1720—a mixture of white clapboard and gray cedar shingles, the original front door now standing open. Sarah reached it first, slamming her little body into the rattly metal of the screen door, so Daniel got there before I did and was holding it open when I reached the short brick steps. Something about his face, the way he held it as he watched our approach—too calm or maybe concealing—made me feel he’d been expecting us.

“You said if there was anything you could do,” I told him.

Sarah and Lightfoot had already disappeared around his legs into the house. Daniel held the door open wider and moved aside so that I could come in.





12


Daniel’s bedroom must have been downstairs; the upstairs was nothing but guest rooms. He led me to the largest room, past the crawl space, at the end of the long hallway. There was a crib in the corner with a fat teddy bear that looked brand new. It had a lemon-yellow bow around its neck. Sarah marched over and reached through the bars, trying to pull it out toward her. She’d never slept in a crib in her life. Curtains swayed in the open window, a perfect view of Cape Cod Bay. I turned toward Daniel.