Gravity: A Novel (12 page)

My ovulation kit had confirmed that I was ovulating
, and I had told Ryan as much. We had fallen into our usual roles, undressing ourselves, pulling back the bedding and laying down next to each other. My hands had roamed, finding what I needed and making sure that he was ready. It was hard to think about the emotional connection and sexual chemistry that had seemed to evaporate from our relationship.

The sex was only a method, a procedure
, that was hopefully going to result in a pregnancy, a means to an end. We had held each other out of habit, shared only a few brief kisses as Ryan had spilled into me. I hadn’t even had an orgasm. My thoughts had only centered around what was happening inside my body, actually visualizing his sperm fertilizing my egg—a technique suggested by my yoga instructor. Once we were done, Ryan had waited a few minutes before breaking our connection and then had kissed me on the forehead—a gesture that only confirmed my fears—and retreated to the bathroom to take a shower. I had placed two pillows under my hips and settled in for the hour that I would lie still with my hips elevated as I breathed deeply, continuing my visualization.

It was only
a week later that I found Ryan in bed—the same bed that we had shared—with that woman. I felt an ache in my heart, thinking of how distant Ryan and I had become, unable to ignore the festering guilt from the sheer fact that it was somehow my fault.

“I’m sorry, Gemma.
That must be so hard on you.” Drew’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Have you considered adoption?”

“Ryan’s open to adoption
, but I have my heart set on carrying my own child. I haven’t been able to think about anything else.” I was trying hard not to break down in front of him. “I want it so bad,” I said, barely a whisper.

Drew reached over and rested his hand on mine, comforting me.

Our eyes met for a brief moment before I freed my hand from his, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “And you? Kids in your future? Wife?” I asked, redirecting the conversation to him.

“Probably not,” he said, swirling his wine in his glass before taking a drink.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, now curious how he seemed so sure of this.

“I don’t know.
I just don’t see either in my future.” He shrugged. “That was delicious, Gem. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal for once,” he added, letting me know that the subject was closed for discussion.

“You’re welcome.”
We cleared the table, taking our dishes into the kitchen. I washed while Drew dried, and we continued talking, this time about our childhood.

“I’ll never forget the look on your face,” Drew said while he shook his head back and forth, smiling at the memory.
He was recalling a day when we had been catching frogs in the creek; I remembered it like it was yesterday.

“I still have nightmares about that
. I can see it all clear as day. Reaching for that frog through the ferns only to realize that it was inside the mouth of a snake. Gross.” I shuddered as the image flashed in my mind. The snake’s head had been suspended in the air as it turned to look at me.

“You screamed so loud, my ears were ringing for hours.
But the best part . . . the best part was watching you try to backpedal in the rushing current, falling right on your ass,” Drew stammered, his words riddled with laughter. “You would have thought it was a cobra rather than a harmless garter snake.”

I was trying to contain my own laughter as I imagined the scene through Drew’s eyes; the image of me scrambling to get away from that snake, with a look of what could only be sheer horror on my face.
“You know my fear of snakes, venom or no venom,” I said as I rinsed a plate with clean water and handed it to Drew.

“I know.
That look, though, classic,” he said, shaking his head as he wiped the plate dry and set it aside.

Drew looked at me
then, his features pulled into a dramatic fearful expression, mocking me. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I laughed at the memory and Drew’s ridiculous face. I was unable to wipe them away while my hands were submerged in a sinkful of soapy water, so Drew leaned in and wiped the tears from my face with the dish towel.

“That was
no
t
funny. I was terrified.” But I laughed as I defended my reaction. “I still hate snakes,” I said as I shuddered at the thought.

“No, I’m pretty sure it was funny,” Drew said, beaming from where he stood beside me.
He was standing so close to me that our sides were touching, and I was more aware of this than I should’ve been.

When the dishes were done, we both stood in the kitchen
, unsure of what was next.

“Well.”

“So do you . . .” I said at the same time. We both laughed.

“After you,” Drew said, nodding toward me.

“I was going to ask if you wanted more wine. We could sit on the porch and catch the sunset?”

“That sounds great.”
He smiled, and I returned a grin, happy to have my friend back in my life.

We retreated to the front porch, swaying on the porch swing while sipping our wine.
I had opened my favorite bottle of Merlot and had offered Drew my box of coveted mystic mint cookies. We sat in silence, taking in the canvas of colored clouds that were painted across the sky as the sun dropped slowly in the horizon. The lake was glasslike, offering a clear reflection of the sky above. The view never got old. Silence had fallen over us, Drew and I each lost in our own thoughts.

I could hear Drew chew quietly as he bit into a cookie.
“I can’t believe you still eat these. I haven’t seen a box in years,” he said with his mouth full.

“Me either.
I found them at the General Store, on the same shelf where they always were. It was as if they were just waiting for me.” I laughed. “I bought every box they had and asked the clerk to order more.”

“Nice
.” Drew smirked and tossed another one in his mouth, not bothering to bite into it this time.

“Yeah, well, don’t eat them all.
I have a limited supply,” I said, grabbing the box from his hands and biting into one myself.

“Remember when you used to hide a box of these in your
Barbie case, knowing that Jacob would never find them there?”

I smiled at the memory.
“Yes, I remember. And then we started hiding our beer there when we got older. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still a few cans of Budweiser in that old Barbie case.” We both laughed, remembering the good times, the simple days of our youth.

Drew reached over and held my hand, interlacing our fingers.
“I missed you, Gem,” he whispered.

Our
gazes were fixed on the sun as its apex dipped behind the mountains, signifying the finality of the day—casting a dull haze of fire across the sky.

“I missed you too,” I said
, as I rested my head against his shoulder, savoring the peace of the moment.

Twenty

I had another bad dream.
I knew that I should tell Drew the truth, but I was scared. We hadn’t talked about his brother at all. We had talked about my brother, Drew asking me a million questions about Jacob. Where he lived, what he did for a living, if we were close. I had told him how Jacob was a free spirit, so different from me. He had gone to the Seattle Art Institute and immediately started his own company designing surfboards, skateboards, snowboards . . . every kind of board really. He traveled the world to places like Bali, Switzerland, New Zealand. He enjoyed extreme sports, spending his ample spare time surfing, skydiving, snowboarding, or whatever fulfilled his “ultimate rush” quota.

I told
Drew that we were close but didn’t see each other very often, between Jacob’s traveling and my work schedule. Jacob always sent me a postcard when he reached a new destination, and I kept all of them, pinned up on a corkboard in my home office. We talked about my mother. Drew genuinely missed her, and that made me sad, to think that what had happened between us had kept him away from everyone in my family. We had even talked about his father and what a self-righteous ass he still was, but neither of us brought up William. I wondered where he was, what kind of man he had become, and what had happened between the two brothers.
Were they close or estranged or somewhere in between?

Drew and
William had once been inseparable. Only three years apart, they were thick as thieves. After Katherine had died, the light in William’s eyes had slowly faded, until no one could recognize the boy who he had been. His father was hard on him, always comparing him to Andrew, and William had grown to resent Drew and his father. The trouble began not long after he had started the ninth grade. He had been expelled from several boarding schools, until his father had no choice but to send William to public school. He had continued to find trouble and eventually got involved in drugs. Their father had practically given up. He wasn’t around much anyway; the boys were mostly raised by Matilda, who had been in their family since Katherine’s diagnosis.

I knew
, deep down, that the old William would never have hurt me the way he did. I knew, even back then, that William’s drug abuse had turned him into someone else, the monster that had shattered my world that night. I always wondered if he was even aware of what really happened or had he been so drunk and high that he had imagined it another way. It was easier to believe that theory over the alternative. But regardless of his mental state that night, he did rape me, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before the subject of that night was brought into question.

William
and that night were the only topics that Drew and I seemed to have skipped over, but I could feel the questions coming, the questions that were burning in Drew’s mind, practically hanging from his tongue. He also seemed to be avoiding any questions about his life and why he was at the lake. I knew that he was keeping something from me, but, unsure of what it was, I was almost too afraid to ask.

Drew and I had spent nearly every day together.
The weather was getting warmer now that summer was in full swing. We took long walks along the trail that led to the marina, where we would sit and eat ice cream sandwiches while we watched tourists launch their boats into the lake.
We had gone sailing twice in the small catamaran that Drew’s family owned, taking advantage of the gusty winds of early summer. We had spent a day hiking at Granite Falls. I had forgotten how beautiful it was, and we had searched for our shoes that we had nailed to the cedar shoe tree years ago. The shoe tree was famous, adorned with hundreds of different styles and colors of footwear that people had nailed to its trunk or hung from its branches. It was a silly tradition but had become a rite of passage, an offering of sorts. Drew tried to talk me into nailing up our shoes again, for old time’s sake, but I refused to part with my two-hundred-dollar running shoes.

It was the Fourth of July.
A sacred day of tradition at the lake. The weather was beautiful, uncharacteristically cooperating for a day of outdoor family fun and a night of fireworks. Traditionally it would rain on the Fourth of July, summer officially starting the following day. The neighbors were busy preparing dishes for the potluck dinner that we would share at dusk on the sandy beach. Drew and I never really discussed it, but it was assumed that we would spend it together on our beach, like we had countless times before while we were growing up.

I was baking a huckleberry pie
, with the huckleberries that Drew and I had picked the day before, and had whipped up a macaroni salad using my mother’s recipe. She was famous on the lane for this salad, and, in keeping with tradition, I thought that it was only right to bring it to the potluck. Logan was joining us and most likely bringing whatever flavor he was sampling this week. We couldn’t keep up with his shenanigans.

Drew came by the cabin to help me carry my things down to the beach.
We made our rounds, Drew introducing me to all the new families on the lane. The families who I did know introduced me to their spouses and children. Memories flooded my heart as I looked into familiar eyes and shared stories from our youth. Logan showed up just as we were all sitting down to eat. He had a young blonde woman on his arm. He introduced her as Shannon, and we invited them to sit with us.

There were at least a dozen children ranging in age from two to sixteen.
I choked back my jealousy and instead immersed myself in their world. Playing beach games and building sand castles. One little boy in particular seemed to warm up to me instantly. He was adorable with tight curly brown hair, olive skin, and huge brown eyes. He wore a red cape and a matching shirt with a big
K
embroidered on the front.

When
I asked him if he was a superhero, he stood up straight and proud, raising one hand in the air and proclaimed, “I’m the Kadenator!” He was the sweetest thing, his enthusiasm contagious, and I couldn’t help but laugh at his ardent imagination. I sat on the beach with him as together we built “a planet” out of damp sand, and then I watched as he pretended to rescue it from an evil nemesis who was trying to destroy the universe.