Thought I Knew You(73)

“Mommy, where’s all Daddy’s stuff?” Hannah stood uncertainly in the doorway. Somehow, she’d become a small adult.

“Hannah, sit down.” I sat back down on the floor, tucking Greg’s journal under my leg. She plopped down next to me. I took a deep breath. “Hannah, Drew is going to live here now.”

“He already lives here,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but he’s going to officially live here. He’s going to use Daddy’s old study for his office.” I gauged her reaction. There wasn’t one—textbook Hannah. “Does that bother you at all?”

She shook her head and looked around at the bare walls. In the world of a six-year-old, a year and a half was a lifetime. The memories of her father were fading. My serious daughter was so much like her father it occasionally made me cry. She even looked like him. She was sullen and withdrawn sometimes, other times thoughtful beyond belief. But she was always kind and incredibly clever with a whip-smart memory. So much like Greg.

“Hannah, what do you remember about Daddy?” I wanted her to remember Greg.

She looked thoughtful, picking at her fingernail, a brooding prophecy of her teenage self. “I remember… our camping trip.”

I searched my memory. Hannah had been three. We had gone camping in Massachusetts, near Boston. It rained all four days, ruining our plans to see a Red Sox game. We ended up seeing two movies in the closest town. I didn’t remember it being particularly fun. I vaguely recalled begging for a hotel room, and Greg being adamant about staying at the campsite. Why? I couldn’t remember.



“What do you remember most about it?” I asked.

“We played Memory every night and Candy Land. But you tried to make me play by the rules, and then Daddy said I didn’t have to.”

Ah, yes. We’d huddled in our large tent, sitting between two air mattresses and playing board games on the floor. I remembered being cold and frustrated at Leah, who kept tipping the board or picking up the memory cards with the curiosity of a one-year-old. Greg was jovial, as if we were having a great time. We took home mounds of mildewed laundry. I remembered laying down the gauntlet: we weren’t camping again until the kids were old enough to have their own tent.

Not everything has to be so tragic, Claire.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nothing here is tragic, it’s just irritating. Particularly because the whole trip was a disaster.

You can’t control the weather; it’s not worth getting mad over. Besides, I actually had a good time.

No, you didn’t. That’s not possible. We did absolutely nothing that was any fun at all. You’re just saying that to get under my skin, and it’s childish.

Suit yourself, but the only one acting like a child around here is you.

I had stomped around for days, seeming unable to get warm. All our clothes smelled musty even after several runs through the washer.

I couldn’t fathom why that memory stuck out in Hannah’s mind. “What did you like most about the camping trip?”

She shrugged. “Daddy was so happy,” she said with childlike simplicity. “That made it fun.”





Chapter 31



We expanded the gardens, because as it turned out, Drew had an unexpected gift for growing things. In the spring and summer, he grew peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries, and in the back, along the barn, thick, unruly black raspberry bushes. He showed Hannah and Leah how to pick them and waved off my protests of making sure they were washed before the girls ate them.

“They don’t taste as good unless you eat them right off the bush,” Leah parroted.

Drew popped one in my mouth before I could argue, and all I could do was agree. He kissed me, leaving the tart remnants of raspberry on my lips.

In mid-July, Sarah visited for a week.

“Good god,” she complained. “I forgot about the humidity!”

The five of us rattled around in the house, bumping into each other, hot and bored, until I loaded everyone into the van and drove the two hours out to Brigantine. Borrowing the Arnolds’ beach house while they were in Mexico, we lazily spent our days at the beach or the pool, and the evenings on the patio, drinking and talking. The girls stayed up later than I would have liked, watching fireworks or running up and down in the surf. We cooked dinners of seafood and salads, rich, buttery lobster we ate with our hands outside while wearing bathing suits. The time was idyllic.

Drew tried his hand at cooking, and while the first two meals were only so-so, his patience and good humor won out. On the third night, he made a shrimp and crab ravioli with sherry cream sauce. We ate until our clothes were stretched tight across our bellies, and I worried that the girls would get sick. At twilight, we trekked lawn chairs and blankets down the block to the beach and lay like beached whales, watching fireworks until late in the evening.