And Then I Found You (13 page)

He laughed and pulled her chair out for her as she sat. “I’ve lived here for fifteen
years. It’s not a big town. It has nothing to do with popularity, just familiarity.”

Finally settled at their table with fig appetizers between them, Kate lifted her fork
to hold across the table. “You have to have a bite of this. I’ve never tasted anything
this good anywhere.”

He took a bite. “Amazing, I know. It’s the chef’s favorite.”

“I want to tell you something,” she said.

“Anything.”

She laughed. “I doubt that, but I do want to tell you how much those yearly letters
meant to me. I always waited until the end of the day to read it.”

“I loved writing them,” Jack said. “Sometimes I felt guilty writing to you without
telling Maggie, but it somehow seemed so separate. And important.”

“It was important. I don’t think I would have gotten through some of her birthdays
without those letters,” she said.

“I’m glad,” he said. “I’d hoped that was true. And of course I loved getting yours
at the office. Thanks for … being thoughtful about that and not sending to the house.
I mean, I never asked, but—”

“I know,” she said. “New subject?”

“Your favorite vacation the past few years. Good one?”

“Absolutely.” She laughed and the cadence of their friendship resumed as if thirteen
years had never passed, as if the birth of their child and then his marriage and divorce
had never happened, as if Kate’s life had never been broken.

But it had.

*   *   *

In the spill of light from Jack’s table lamp, they sat in the living room facing one
another across the couch. Kate curled her legs beneath her bottom. With the comfort
that had arrived, Kate asked the question that had niggled below the surface of all
her other questions. “Were you and Maggie happy at all? I mean, I know you must have
been, but…”

He leaned into the cushions. “We were. The last time I really remember it, though,
was a trip to Mexico.”

“Tell me about it.”

“My stories are boring.” He waved his hand across the room. “Look at me. While you’ve
worked different jobs and opened a store, I’ve been right here.”

“I want to hear about all of it. I want to hear about Caleb and your job. And your
art studio. And your friends. And life. All of it.”

“Well, all that will take a lifetime to tell you.”

“We’ve got that—a lifetime.” It wasn’t until Kate spoke the words that she understood
how they sounded—as if
they
had a lifetime together. Just the two of them. “Oh,” she said. “I mean, I mean that
we have all our lives ahead of us. I didn’t mean…”

He laughed and reached forward to touch her knee. “I knew what you meant.”

“Tell me about your last happy time with her.”

He closed his eyes and then opened them with a smile. “Okay.”

“Good.”

“So there we were on vacation for the first time in two years. Caleb was a year old
and neither of us felt like we’d slept since the day he was born. The colic. The crying.
The diapers. My God, we were past exhausted. So, we decided that we needed a few days:
sleep, drink, eat. Repeat. We stayed in this tiny family-owned resort in Cozumel.
There was a private and tiny beach. A tiki bar. And the most amazing guacamole I’ve
ever tasted. I still think about that guacamole.

“We were well into our second day when we decided to go snorkeling. The hotel owners
told us that if we walked a half mile up the beach and then jumped in, the current
would carry us right back to our beach. We did this a few times and it was our third
time when we realized we’d floated too far down, way past our hotel. We ended up at
a hopping singles’ resort about a quarter mile down the beach. Now we’d heard the
parties at night and laughed at how old we must be that we didn’t even care that there
was a party in walking distance down the beach.

“We climbed out of the water and thought we’d walk back to our resort, but a mariachi
band was playing and the next thing we knew we were dancing and putting margaritas
on the tab of someone named “Burris.” It all seemed funny and fun until Mr. Burris
heard me put one last margarita on his bill.

“Now this Mr. Burris wasn’t just any guy. He was drunk. He was huge, and if he wasn’t
a professional bodybuilder, he should have been. When I tried to explain that we were
just having fun, that I would go back to my hotel around the corner and get him some
cash, that I had every intention of paying him back but I had nothing on me but a
bathing suit and a mask with a snorkel, he didn’t think I was funny.

“So that is how I ended up in the back of a police car.”

“My God,” Kate said through bubbled laughter. “Seriously?”

“A fight ensued. Then there was a bouncer. And a policeman. And yep, handcuffs and
a cop car.”

“Did Maggie freak out?”

“Absolutely. In the end the local police were a little too busy with some drug cartel
to give a shit about some half-drunk, fully sunburned tourist. They dropped me off
at the hotel, where Maggie and I swore that being up all night with Caleb was safer
than partying. We never left the country again.”

“Really?”

“Not on purpose, actually. I wanted to take her to Scotland. That was her dream. Her
husband is taking her next year.” Jack looked directly at Kate. “Is it okay if we
don’t talk about that?”

“Of course.”

He stood then and held out his hand. “Lights out for me. I’m used to sharing the house
with an eight-year-old who has an eight-thirty bedtime.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty wiped out too,” Kate said and stood. “I’ll leave in the morning
and head home. So don’t feel like you have to entertain me or anything.”

“I thought you came to see the boutique,” he said.

“I’ll go by in the morning on my way out.”

“I’d love to show you the studio,” he said.

She smiled. “I’d like that.”

She followed Jack down the hall where the bedrooms hid behind closed doors. He had
already showed her to the guest bedroom where her suitcase sat on the end of the bed.
She stopped in the doorway and Jack turned before he entered his bedroom next to hers.
“Sleep well,” he said.

“You also,” she said.

They both shut their doors, and yet Kate stood with her forehead against the doorframe
until she heard the sink run, and then the soft sound of his feet moving across the
room. Then she lay in bed, the sheets pulled tightly around her body, which hummed
with the utterly true, but perfectly impossible fact that Jack Adams was on the other
side of the wall.

twelve

BIRMINGHAM, AL

2010

Morning came with a sudden gasp. Kate sat upright, briefly disoriented. Sunlight streamed
onto her face, into her eyes. She shouldn’t have spent the night at Jack’s house.
Everything that needed to be said had been said and now she would have to go make
small talk over cereal or eggs. It would have been best to have a nice good-bye the
night before and move on with their lives.

The clock read 5:30
A.M.
—it was still early and she didn’t want to wake Jack. How awful would it be to sneak
out?

They’d talked. They’d summarized the past. What was left? The truth of course. She’d
only told him the best parts, leaving out the pain and disorientation of those years.
Like how that first year after the adoption, she’d folded into herself like a flower
that was too fragile and too complicated to ever open. How she’d dipped into a deep
darkness, a place where she’d wondered what there was about her aimless life that
was so important that she couldn’t have raised her little girl. How only one vow had
helped her get through that year—to never love again. All that romance, fairy tale,
love forever and ever was crap. Loss: it was the period at the end of every sentence.

She hadn’t told him how, during that year, she’d taken a job at the marina in Hilton
Head, cleaning yachts, babysitting kids, and serving at cocktail parties. It was a
job, pay and busywork. She’d tried not to think about Jack living his life in Birmingham
and loving his wife as if nothing had ever happened. She’d hated him. She’d loved
him. She’d missed him. She’d then hated him. All in a never-ending cycle.

She didn’t tell Jack how much—how deeply—she’d hurt her parents. Luna was the first-born
grandchild, one they held and then let go. Kate had known it was their fervent prayer
that Luna would be restored to their lives. In her worst moments Kate was annoyed
with their hopes for “one day.” She felt that her parents yearned and pushed into
the future, into the day they would see Luna again as if this day wasn’t good enough,
because this day didn’t have Luna.

She’d understood, of course. Didn’t she feel the same? And yet she’d been frustrated
again and again when her parents brought Luna into the conversation. “Oh, we planted
a tree for her, darling.” “We found those pictures last night and looked at them again.
She is so beautiful.” “Did you fill out that paperwork that will allow her to find
us when she’s twenty-one?” And the worst of all the comments was from her dad. “I
hope I live long enough to see her again.”

And why would Jack want to know how Molly and Tara had had opposite reactions, as
if they’d sat down and Tara said to Molly, “Okay, you talk about it almost every time
you can and I’ll never ever bring it up. Okay? Good. Now we’re balanced.” It wasn’t
because Tara cared less and Molly cared more. No, it was because of who they were.
The sisters shared the same hurt. They just showed it in very different ways.

She skipped the part where on Luna’s first birthday, she’d sat alone at the large
restaurant table, staring out over the water, wondering what her one-year-old daughter
was doing at that very moment. Sitting in a highchair with a little piece of pink
cake? Ripping wrapping paper off a doll?

Was she really supposed to tell Jack all of that? Kate groaned, cuddling up further
into the pillows, wishing for sleep. She’d told him the best parts, erasing the harder
truths. He’d probably done the same. What good was there in reliving it all?

They both wanted to know that Luna was well and happy. They both wondered and lived
with the what-ifs and the could-have and the should-haves. It didn’t matter what they
said or did.

Somewhere down the hallway, a door clicked open. Kate rose from bed and slipped on
her jeans and white tank top. She entered the living room; it was awash in morning
light that simultaneously softened the edges and exposed every flaw in the glass and
furnishings. She walked to the windows.

“Spring is such a show-off.” Jack’s voice came from behind.

Kate turned and smiled. There he was—in his jeans and black T-shirt, the same Hornets
baseball cap on his head. And the smile, the impossible smile.

“Good morning,” Kate said.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Great. So much that I had no idea where I was when I woke up.”

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Of course.”

And then the nervousness disappeared as they walked into the kitchen. A calm cadence
of conversation reappeared and Kate sat on the barstool waiting on her coffee and
watching Jack move around his kitchen.

“So,” he said with his back to her. “Which first, studio or boutique?”

“Studio,” she said. “Because I’ll drive back to Bluffton after the boutique. I left
a message with the owner that I’d be there late morning.”

He turned and handed her a mug of coffee. “I’ve wondered about Norah. So, she works
with you?”

“Yep. When the boutique really took off, I needed a partner. We expanded and now we
co-own. She came after she quit her yacht stewardess job and married this great guy,
Charlie.” Kate shook her head. “It’s weird how fast time can go.”

“I know.” Jack sat across the bar. “There are things I say I’m going to do every year
and then the year is over. Just done.”

She nodded. “The only times a year seemed like more than a year and not less than
one was the couple of years after Luna. Maybe time moves slow when you feel awful
and time moves fast when you feel good.”