“Well, Kit was sure risk averse.”
“Until she met Jude. And now she’s risk happy.”
Sarah snorted, amused. “Does that mean you wish you’d tried to make it work with Chad?”
“It doesn’t really matter now. He’s dating someone else,” Meg said. “It’s serious. Craig thinks they’ll be engaged before the end of the year.”
“You talked to Craig recently?”
“He called and offered me my job back.”
“Did you take it?”
Meg shook her head. “Couldn’t go back, couldn’t work there. Too much water under the bridge.”
“You did love Chad, then.”
“I loved the idea of being loved.”
“You risked your marriage for the idea of being loved?”
“I risked—” Meg broke off, brow creasing as she thought. “Yes. I risked my marriage because I wanted more. I needed more. It didn’t work out. Now I’m focused on helping the kids through their loss, helping them adjust to life without their father. It’s probably a good thing Chad is involved elsewhere. If we got together now, it would be for the wrong reasons.”
“Wrong reasons?”
“I can’t make him a crutch. Can’t lean on him because I’m scared or lonely.”
Sarah saw herself kicking Boone to the curb and then kicking him while he was down. She saw her just go at him in her mind, kicking, kicking, kicking . . .
Sarah was fighting with Boone for the wrong reasons.
“I’m punishing him,” she said. “I’m punishing Boone because he hurt me.”
“I found out just recently that Jack had . . . someone . . . on the East Coast. I don’t know all the details. I don’t want to know the details. It’s enough to know he was leaving me for someone else. They must have been together for at least a couple of months. He’d bought a house right before Christmas. He put her name on the deed. She’s living in the house now in D.C., mourning my husband. Who she thought would be her future husband.”
“So Jack was having an affair?”
“From what I gather, it started last summer, while I was here in Capitola. Jack thought we were over, and he was back in Virginia and fell in love with this Nancy. But who knows. And does it matter? Does keeping score help anything?”
Sarah had to think about it. “Only if you want to know who won.”
“But marriage isn’t about winners and losers. It can’t be. The moment you start keeping score, you will lose. It’ll be over.”
“It’s hard to remember that when you’re hurt.”
“Damn hard to remember anything when you’re licking your wounds.” Meg paused. “Jack and I never had an easy marriage. I loved him. He was brilliant. Interesting. I loved his mind. But he was never really there for me the way I’d hoped he’d be. But I made it work. I wanted us to work. I changed my expectations. Managed my needs. Mom helped me a lot with that. She made me realize that there is no right way to love. No right way to do anything. There’s just the way that works for you.”
Meg looked at Sarah, smiled faintly. “So I stopped wanting the perfect marriage and settled for a good marriage. I stopped thinking I had to be the perfect wife and accepted that I was doing my best, and being a good wife.”
* * *
Meg returned to the house to finish her card game with Cass, and Sarah walked down to the water and watched the waves crest and break before one crashed higher than the others, the white surf rushing up, surging across her feet.
The water felt cold. The air smelled tangy, salty, and the sun had almost sunk all the way into the ocean. Just a little bit of orangy-red glowed on the horizon, an arc of persimmon against the purple sea.
So many colors, she thought, color everywhere, not black and white.
And yet she’d always viewed life as black and white. Good and bad. Right and wrong.
It’s how sports were played. It’s why there were umpires and referees in sports. They were there to enforce the rules. Make sure everyone played fair.
She’d liked having umps and refs. It was convenient. They made life easy.
But life wasn’t easy. It was messy. Messy color. Layer upon layer of color like Ella’s globby finger paintings.
And Sarah framed those finger paintings. And Brennan’s art projects. She framed them not because they were perfect, but because her children had made them. And her children mattered.
Boone mattered.
Just as she mattered.
They were all important, not because they were perfect and right and orderly, but because they were.
They existed.
They were part of creation.
Of course creation needed order. She’d been attracted to law for a reason. But couldn’t she find order and meaning at home? Couldn’t she find herself without leaving the people—the person—who mattered so very much to her?