The dim light of the living room lent her features a mysterious cast, and Dawson cleared his throat. “Do you think you’ll ever come back here again?” he asked. “After this weekend, I mean?”
“I don’t know. If I knew it would stay like this, then yes. But I know it won’t, because nothing lasts forever. And part of me wants to remember it just like it was today, with the flowers in full bloom.”
“Not to mention a clean house.”
“That, too,” she agreed. She reached for her wine, swirling it in the glass. “Earlier, when the ashes were floating away, do you know what I was thinking about? I was thinking about the night we were on the dock watching the meteor shower. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden it was like I was there again. I could see us lying on the blanket, whispering to each other and listening to the crickets, that perfect, musical echo. And above us, the sky was just so… alive.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Dawson’s voice was gentle.
Her expression was melancholy. “Because that was the night I knew I loved you. That I’d really and truly fallen in love. And I think my mom knew exactly what had happened.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the next morning, she asked me about you, and when I told her how I felt, we ended up in a screaming match—a big one, one of the worst we ever had. She even slapped me. I was so shocked, I didn’t know how to respond. And all the while she kept telling me how ridiculous my behavior was, and that I didn’t know what I was doing. She made it sound like she was angry because it was you, but when I think back on it now, I know she would have been upset no matter who it was. Because it wasn’t about you, or us, or even your last name. It was about her. She knew I was growing up, and she was afraid of losing control. She didn’t know how to handle that—not then, and not now.” She took a sip and lowered the glass, spinning the stem with her fingers. “She told me I was self-centered this morning.”
“She’s wrong.”
“I thought so, too,” she said. “At first anyway. But now I’m not so sure.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’m not exactly acting like a married woman, am I?”
Watching her, he held his silence, giving her time to consider what she was saying. “Do you want me to bring you back?” he finally asked.
She hesitated before shaking her head. “No,” she said. “That’s the thing. I want to be here, with you. Even though I know it’s wrong.” Her eyes were downcast, lashes dark against her cheekbones. “Does that make any sense?”
He traced a finger along the back of her hand. “Do you really want me to answer?”
“No,” she answered. “Not really. But it’s… complicated. Marriage, I mean.” She could feel him weave delicate patterns across her skin.
“Do you like being married?” Dawson asked, his voice tentative.
Instead of answering right away, Amanda took a sip of her wine, collecting herself. “Frank is a good man. Most of the time, anyway. But marriage isn’t what people think it is. People want to believe that every marriage is this perfect balance, but it isn’t. One person always loves more deeply than the other. I know Frank loves me, and I love him, too… just not as much. And I never have.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you know?” She looked at him. “It’s because of you. Even when we were standing in the church and I was getting ready to take my vows, I can remember wishing that you were standing there, instead of him. Because I not only still loved you, but loved you beyond measure, and I suspected even then that I would never feel the same way about Frank.”
Dawson’s mouth felt dry. “Then why did you marry him?”
“Because I thought it was good enough. And I hoped I could change. That over time, maybe I would come to feel the same way about him as I did about you. But I didn’t, and as the years went on, I think he came to see that, too. And it hurt him, and I knew it hurt him, but the harder he tried to show me how important I was to him, the more suffocated I felt. And I resented that. I resented him.” She winced at her own words. “I know that makes me sound like an awful person.”
“You’re not awful,” Dawson said. “You’re being honest.”
“Let me finish, okay?” she said. “I need you to understand this. You need to know that I do love him, and I cherish the family we’ve created. Frank adores our children. They’re the center of his life, and I think that’s why losing Bea was so hard on us. You have no idea how terrible it is to watch your child get sicker and sicker and know that there’s nothing you can do to help her. You end up riding this roller-coaster of emotions, feeling everything from anger at God to betrayal to a sense of utter failure and devastation. In the end, though, I was able to survive the pain. Frank never really recovered. Because underlying all those other things is this bottomless despair and it just… hollows you out. There’s a gaping hole where all this joy used to be. Because that’s what Bea was. She was joy in living form. We used to joke that she came out of the womb smiling. Even as a baby, she hardly ever cried. And that never changed. She laughed all the time; to her, everything new was a thrilling discovery. Jared and Lynn used to compete for her attention. Can you imagine that?”