Secrets in Summer(15)

By their second anniversary, Darcy had second thoughts about the family she’d married into and about the person she was trying to become to please them. That fall, she returned to Simmons and finished her master’s degree in library science. After that, she wanted to take a full-time job at a library.

“No,” Boyz said when she told him her idea. “If you’re bored, if you want to be part of something like you’re always going on about, come work for the company. You’re smart, you could get your real estate license—”

“Boyz, I don’t want a real estate license. I’m a librarian. I want to work in a library.”

“Fine.” Boyz’s jaw tightened as it always did when he was angry. “Be a librarian then, but when you get pregnant, you have to stop working.”

“That’s a deal,” Darcy said.

When she was offered the full-time position as children’s librarian at the Arlington public library, she took it, even though it meant a long and often frustrating drive in heavy traffic every morning and night. It also meant she had to be at the library three nights a week until nine o’clock.

It also meant that one Thursday night, when a water pipe burst in the first-floor bathroom, they had to shut down the building immediately, so Darcy was free to go home early, and when she did—well, it was a cliché, really.

She unlocked the door of their apartment on Commonwealth Avenue.

She called out, “Hello! I’m home early! Have you eaten yet?”

Boyz wasn’t in the living room. Or their bedroom. But Darcy heard rustling noises, so she opened the door to their tiny guest bedroom and found Boyz there, in bed with a stunningly endowed redhead.

Darcy, well mannered to a fault, said, “Oh, excuse me.” She shut the door and went into the living room and looked out the window at the blazing lights of the city. She was aware of her emotions burning while her fingertips went numb. She felt so alone. She wished Penny were there to put her arms around Darcy and console her. Who could she talk to? Maybe Lena, but maybe not. Boyz was, after all, Lena’s brother, and Lena adored him. Darcy realized that for the almost three years of their marriage, her closest friends had been Boyz and his sisters. And she had been guarded around even them, always wanting to please, never saying anything that would get back to Boyz and his parents.

She wrapped her own arms around herself and held on tight, letting the shock waves hit her. Astonishment. Pain. Rage. Sorrow. The knowledge that she wasn’t enough for Boyz, she had never been enough, she’d never been right for him.

And he’d never been right for her.

Boyz came into the room, wearing a shirt held closed by one button. She heard him enter. She saw their reflections wavering in the window. He was tall and handsome and he had become for her a kind of jailer.

Now she was free.

She turned to face her husband, whose hands were held out to the side, ready for his explanation, which would be, she knew, that she left him alone too often.

“Boyz,” she said bravely, “I want a divorce.”

Boyz said, “So do I.”

His words struck her like a slap across the face.

“Wow,” Darcy said. “I didn’t know you were so unhappy with our marriage.”

Boyz sighed heavily. “Darcy, look. Do me a favor. Go into the kitchen and shut the door so I can allow Autumn to leave without running into you.”

Darcy was stunned. “Autumn?”

“That’s her name. Go on. Then you and I can talk.”

Numbly, Darcy walked into the kitchen and shut the door.

Of course, she didn’t shut it all the way. She kept it open just enough to be able to catch a glimpse of Autumn.

The other woman was older than Darcy, with wavy auburn hair and a fabulous figure displayed to advantage in a tight emerald-green dress. Exactly what an Autumn should look like.

Boyz whispered to Autumn before she went out the door. In response, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him long and lovingly.

Darcy did an about-face in the kitchen, took out a water glass, and poured it full of wine.

Boyz called, “Come out now, Darcy. Sit down.” He’d pulled on a pair of jeans and buttoned his shirt and left the door to the bedroom open. Darcy sat on the sofa. Boyz took a chair across from her.

“You know I care for you, Darcy,” Boyz began. “I loved you when we married. I thought you were amazing—of course, you still are, but, let’s face it, we haven’t grown together in the past three years, we’ve grown apart.”

She didn’t respond. The protective detachment that had coated her only a few minutes ago was disappearing now, leaving her shaken and, oddly, ashamed, as if she had failed her husband; she hadn’t met his standards. Her legs began to tremble.