Gina and Terence welcomed me warmly. They lived in a condo apartment overlooking Head Lake, which was completely frozen over, and the view from their living room window was stunning. I tried to imagine what it would be like in the summer, with the sun reflecting off the water instead of the cold glare of the ice and snow.
“It’s nice to meet you, Zoe,” Terence said, shaking my hand enthusiastically.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” I replied.
“You can call me Terry. We’re not all that formal here.”
Parker ran off down the hall to the spare bedroom, where the three of us were going to be sharing a room. Gina had made him a bed of cushions on the floor.
“I hope that’s okay,” she said to Jason. “We don’t have any other extra space.”
“It’s perfect. Zoe and I plan to be very chaste.”
I looked at Jason, mortified. I was afraid to see his parents’ reaction, but they were both smiling. “Not that you’ll have much say in the matter,” Terry said to Jason, before turning away to pour us drinks.
THE FIRST TIME JASON AND I were alone in the apartment was when his parents took Parker to the library for a bird-house-building event. As soon as they left, Jason walked into the kitchen where I was at the sink finishing the lunch dishes. He wrapped his strong arms around me and began pulling me toward the bedroom. My hands were covered with soap bubbles, but I didn’t resist. We tripped over Parker’s cushions on the floor and collapsed on the bed together, laughing.
“They might only be gone an hour,” Jason said, climbing under the heavy blue and white striped duvet. “Get in here!”
Obediently, I followed him. Part of my mind was still on the dishes sitting in the sink — if they were still there when his parents returned with Parker, it would look suspicious. “I need to finish the dishes before they get back,” I said.
“Zoe! Are you seriously thinking about the dishes right now?”
Jason had taken off his shirt and under the cover of the duvet was undoing my belt. As his fingers fumbled with my buckle, I finally stopped thinking about the dishes. Perhaps because we were in his parents’ house, or because we knew we had only a short window of time — whatever the reason, that frantic tumble under the duvet was one of our better love-making sessions. Looking back, it probably paved the way for our other rushed couplings, watching the clock, waiting for the knock at the door that would signal Tammy’s return with Parker. The anticipation of a possible interruption gave us a sense of urgency and excitement. We used to do that a lot, at the beginning, squeeze the most out of short windows of time, sometimes making jokes about leaving enough time to finish the dishes.
WE WERE MORE SECURE AFTER that visit to Haliburton. It was as if now that we had both met each other’s families, our relationship became grounded in a way it wasn’t before. I know I felt better after obtaining Gina and Terry’s seal of approval. When we were driving back to Dunford, Jason turned to me in the car and said, “They liked you. A lot.”
“You think so?” I asked, keeping my eyes straight ahead, while my heart thumped joyfully.
“I know so. My mom must have mentioned it to me a dozen times. How you were so sweet with Parker, how you automatically helped out with things like cleaning up, and on and on. My dad liked you, too. I could tell.”
I felt a sweeping sense of contentment wash over me as we drove between the walls of towering rock that lined the road.
“So it’s settled,” Jason continued. “We all like you.” He reached over and put his hand on my leg, just above my knee. “Me especially.”
I couldn’t look at him. My eyes were filling with tears and I didn’t want Jason to know that I was on the verge of crying. I placed my hand over his, hoping that small gesture said what I couldn’t say out loud because the words were lodged somewhere behind a sharp lump in my throat that felt as much like pain as happiness.
THESE MEMORIES TWIST AROUND ME, like tangled sheets, as I try desperately to sleep on Wednesday night. I’ve spent too much of the day drifting in and out of consciousness and now my mind is fighting me. Thoughts of Amir dance around the solid reality of Jason, and although there is an aching weariness settling over my bones, my body can’t relax for the worry pounding and pounding against my skull.
Jason’s hesitation on the phone last night doesn’t mean a thing. I know that he loves me, but that thought does nothing to calm me. Because I am afraid that when he knows the truth about me, his love, like the storm-blown petals of a tulip, will droop and falter, before dropping off completely.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
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ALL OF THE FEARS THAT have been skirting around the edges of my consciousness morph into ugly monsters as I lie in the dark; they circle around my worn-out body and tear
