Unless the fault was her own. The headaches were still coming and going, and ever since Wags had kicked her, she’d been highly attuned to her own mental calibration, watching herself for gaps in memory and errors in logic. Finding more than she cared to admit. Wondering whether nothing had changed and she was just scrutinizing herself more—or whether everything had changed. She still didn’t want the MRI. Didn’t want to know.
It was late afternoon when Jack saved her the trouble.
I’m going to miss it. Tell Paige I am SO sorry.
What happened? she texted back.
Cracked windshield, if you can believe it. On the plane. We were all on board waiting to go. We sat there for an hour and then we all had to get off.
In SFO or LAX?
The next two flights are completely booked so I won’t be home until tomorrow. I’ll see the show tomorrow night.
Impulsively, she typed: Give me your flight number when you have it and I’ll come get you.
Thinking she’d at least know where it was coming from.
Thanks, but no need. My car’s at O’Hare.
OK.
Sorry it worked out like this. Love to the kids.
She didn’t have time to brood on it. Her parents, who in retirement divided their time between Lake Geneva in Wisconsin and Longboat Key in Florida, arrived early, just as Paige texted that the tech crew was having some problems and everyone had to stay at school until the performance—but could she please bring dinner for the cast and crew? Deputizing Grandpa Walt and Nana Charlotte to collect Logan from soccer, Holly phoned in a rush order for thirty sandwiches and headed to the restaurant to pick them up while Galenia prepared dinner for the rest of them at home.
While she was waiting, she texted Ava, Don’t forget Paige’s show.
Oh boy, answered her adoring eldest daughter.
Be there, commanded Holly, not anticipating or receiving a reply.
As she marched down the auditorium aisle, weighed down by two huge bags of food, Holly noted the frenzied activity around her. The kids’ moods oscillated between panic and euphoria, while the drama coach, his assistant, and several parent volunteers tried to keep everyone on task.
“Thanks Mom bye!” yelled Paige, barely pausing as she ran lines with a scene partner.
Duty done, Holly headed home for a rushed meal with her mom, dad, and a sweaty Logan, who had to be browbeaten into taking a shower. Which, naturally, took an eternity.
They were waiting for him in the entry hall, taking turns calling his name with rising humor and exasperation, when her dad asked, “I presume Jack is meeting us there?”
“Oh shit, I completely forgot to tell you: his plane had a cracked windshield.”
“That sounds serious,” said her mom, looking alarmed.
“It was before takeoff,” she reassured them. “But he couldn’t rebook until tomorrow.”
“Where is he?” asked her dad.
“San Francisco,” said Holly, utterly without conviction.
“That man sure goes a long way to bring home the bacon,” her dad said brightly. “I wish I had his business smarts, not to mention his stamina.”
“Thank god you didn’t marry that painter,” chuckled her mom, a tired joke referencing a guy she’d dated in college with zero intention of marriage, but who had committed the crime of inviting her to a group show for his painting class. To be fair to him, he’d had zero intention of becoming a full-time artist. Told and retold in the telephone game of family lore, the episode eventually became a sliding-doors moment in which she was saved from a life of bohemian squalor by the arrival of Jack. The part they didn’t like to joke about was how Jack’s Cancura success had rescued her old-money-without-the-money family’s finances.
Her dad pulled back his cuff and checked his watch, a gesture she’d seen a thousand times but that, standing in the entry hall waiting to go, made her flash back nineteen years to when he’d done it as they waited in the vestibule of Fourth Presbyterian Church while organ music swelled in the sanctuary.
Jack was in place by the altar, she knew, her dad having peeked inside and given her a thumbs-up. That was reassuring to know after Jack’s performance the previous day, when he’d been incommunicado until his late and somewhat unsteady arrival at the rehearsal dinner. Jack’s best man had reassured Holly’s maid of honor, who passed it along, that Jack had gotten epically drunk at the bachelor party and simply needed all day to sleep it off. Jack convincingly echoed that story once he finally arrived, though he’d refused to answer any questions about the party itself, claiming he had been “sworn to secrecy.” Throughout the evening, he was engaged and loving, nothing but a model—if slightly hungover—groom.
But she had never forgotten the first time she laid eyes on him at the rehearsal dinner. How, when he saw her looking at him, his eyes flickered away for a moment and his face was utterly blank. For a single second he had looked like a different person, one who was beyond annoyed to see her. And then suddenly he was his usual charming self again. It was over so quickly she was sure she’d imagined it.
It was the first time she’d ever had that undefinable sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. His aura of unpredictability had drawn her to him, but she had assumed it wouldn’t last forever, thinking of marriage as a process of discovering each other and knowing each other completely. If only she’d known he was always going to feel unknowable and just barely out of reach.
“If you don’t come down right now, Logan, we are going to be late!” thundered Grandpa Walt.
After a few thumps and bumps and a door slam, Logan came running down the stairs, hair wet but otherwise presentable in a polo and khakis. They hurried out the door, argued about who was driving, and then piled into her dad’s Lincoln Navigator for the two-mile drive to school.
I’m here, texted Ava. Where are you?
On our way. Your
