“I know it’s hard,” he says softly. “You deserve to have someone you can lean on, especially right now.”
“I’m starting to think maybe I don’t know Aiden at all. Now I’m not sure about us, either.”
“Are we ever sure of anything?” He’s looking at my lips, or maybe it’s just a trick of the light.
“Maybe he’s right,” I say. “Maybe we should have thought it all out.”
“Nothing should ever be rushed,” Jacob says, looking into my eyes. “I’m never hasty, when I’m focused, when I’m certain. I do everything in my power to get what I want. And I always get it.”
I didn’t understand then what he meant. I thought he was telling me that I needed to focus on my marriage. But it wasn’t about that at all. Jacob did not rush his plan to be with me, but he stuck to a definite goal. He was telling me that he was the grown-up, that he could be the one who was steadfast. He must have pushed Aiden away from me. I can see it now, Jacob plying Aiden with alcohol, suggesting that our marriage was shaky. The truth, with a flourish, an embellishment or two.
In the morning, when Aiden staggered home with a hangover, we argued, and over the next several days, he often worked late. We spoke less and less. We avoided the nursery. Sometimes we avoided each other. We made love infrequently, and when we did we were tentative. I could get pregnant again, and we might have to grieve yet a third miscarriage. The anxiety darkened our lives. But Jacob was always there for us, providing his loft couch for Aiden, taking me out for tea.
Gradually, inexorably, Aiden and I drifted apart, until I could no longer stand to watch the bedside clock on a Friday night, wondering if he would even come home. One evening, while he was still at the office, Jacob came to the house. He sat on the porch with me, watching the stars. I pictured my husband hunched over his desk, oblivious to my pain. Leaving me to suffer and grieve alone.
But I wasn’t alone. Jacob’s presence had become a familiar comfort. He did not make a move, did not expect anything from me. He simply offered his ear, his presence, his soothing support. “I understand how you feel. The loneliness, the frustration, the dashed hopes and dreams. I have felt the same way before. But time passed and I came to realize I needed a new plan for my life.”
I was the one who suggested a trial separation. The qualities that had drawn me to Aiden—his spontaneity and exuberance—now seemed like impulsiveness. But still, when he reluctantly agreed to move out, I cried all night. He stayed in a nearby hotel. Soon after that, he took leave to visit his ailing father in New York. How had our marriage come to this?
“You have every reason to resent him,” Jacob said. “How could he walk away during your hour of deepest suffering?”
“He didn’t walk away,” I said. But the more Jacob suggested that Aiden had abandoned me, the more I believed it.
“He can’t come back and expect everything to be okay,” Jacob said. “He can’t expect you to forgive him.”
Jacob sensed my anger and grief, and he swooped in. He had been waiting. He changed lightbulbs for me, made me dinner. He took care of me, listened to my woes. I was vulnerable.
“I know a great place,” he said. “My family’s vacation home from a long time ago. Mystic Island will heal you.”
I agreed to come here.
Even as we boarded the ferry to our summer getaway, my stomach churned with guilt. I had removed my wedding ring and put it away. With the wind in my face, I felt that I would pay for betraying Aiden, but we were separated, and I couldn’t forget the way he had reacted in my moment of need, could I? Somehow, Jacob’s words altered my memory. I forgot Aiden’s concern. What did Jacob tell him about me? How had this psychopath poisoned my husband’s mind?
I didn’t know what would come next. I didn’t know if I would sleep with Jacob. All I knew was that he nurtured me when I needed someone, held me when I cried, wiped my tears. He was my escape.
“Don’t worry about the real world,” Jacob said on the ferry. “Anything is possible on Mystic Island.”
Was it worth destroying my marriage to run away with him? I had to admit, the sexual tension had simmered between us for a long time.
On the ferry with Jacob, I’m exhausted, full of mixed emotions.
“So, we’re really going to do this?” I say, as Mystic Island comes into view.
Jacob grins down at me. To anyone looking through the ferry’s glass windows, we are a couple. When he slides the wedding ring onto my finger, I laugh, shaking my head. “You’re bold.”
“It’s a small island. Provincial. People talk if you come as an unmarried couple.”
“Let them talk. We’re grown-ups.”
“But you can be anyone you want to be. We could play pretend.”
“Pretend,” I echo.
“Let’s pretend it’s just you and me in the world. Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop.”
I look up at him and smile. “Okay. For a little while, I’ll play the game.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
The force of his charisma eclipsed my judgment. I was empty inside, depleted, and at that moment, my husband seemed very far away.