第 4 页

When she left, Paul remembered cutting back on his schedule, thinking he needed time to sort things out. But months later, instead of going back to his regular routine, he cut back even more. He still ran regularly but found he no longer had any interest in reading the financial pages in the morning. For as long as he could remember, he’d needed only six hours of sleep a night; but strangely, the more he cut back on the pace of his previous life, the more hours he seemed to need to feel rested.

There were other, physical changes as well. For the first time in years, Paul felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. The lines in his face, grown deep over the years, were still prominent, but the intensity he once saw in his reflection had been replaced with a sort of weary melancholy. And though it was probably his imagination, it seemed as if his graying hair had finally stopped receding.

At one time, he had thought he had it all. He’d run and run, he’d reached the pinnacle of success; yet now, he real-ized he’d never taken his father’s advice. All his life, he’d been running away from something, not toward something, and in his heart, he knew it had all been in vain.

He was fifty-four and alone in the world, and as he stared at the vacant stretch of asphalt unfolding before him, he couldn’t help but wonder why on earth he’d run so hard.

Knowing he was close now, Paul settled in for the final leg of his journey. He was staying at a small bed-and-breakfast just off the highway, and when he reached the outskirts of Rodanthe, he took in his surroundings. Down-town, if you could call it that, consisted of various busi-nesses that seemed to offer just about everything. The general store sold hardware and Fishing gear as well as gro-ceries; the gas station sold tires and auto parts as well as the services of a mechanic.

He had no reason to ask for directions, and a minute later, he pulled off the highway onto a short gravel drive, thinking the Inn at Rodanthe was more charming than he’d imagined it would be. It was an aging white Victorian with black shutters and a welcoming front porch. On the railings were pot-ted pansies in full bloom, and an American flag fluttered in the wind.

He grabbed his gear and slung the bags over his shoulder, then walked up the steps and went inside. The floor was heart pine, scuffed by years of sandy feet, and without the formality of his former Home. On his left, there was a cozy sitting room, brightly lit by two large windows framing the fireplace. He could smell fresh Coffee and saw that a small platter of cookies had been set out for his arrival. On the right, he assumed he’d find the proprietor, and he went that way.

Though he saw a small desk where he was supposed to check in, no one was behind it. In the corner, he saw the room keys; the key chains were small statues of lighthouses. When he reached the desk, he rang the bell, requesting service.

He waited, then rang again, and this time he heard what sounded like a muffled cry coming from somewhere in the rear of the house. Leaving his gear, he stepped around the desk and pushed through a set of swinging doors that led to the kitchen. On the counter were three unpacked grocery bags.

The back door was open, beckoning him that way, and the porch creaked as he stepped outside. On the left, he saw a couple of rocking chairs and a small table between them; on the right, he saw the source of the noise.

She was standing in the corner; overlooking the ocean. Like him, she was wearing faded jeans, but she was en-veloped by a thick turtleneck sweater. Her light brown hair was pinned back, a few loose tendrils whipping in the wind. He watched as she turned, startled at the sound of his boots on the porch. Behind her, a dozen terns rode the updrafts, and a Coffee cup was perched on the railing.

Paul glanced away, then found his eyes drawn to her again. Even though she was crying, he could tell she was pretty, but there was something in the sad way she shifted her weight that let him know she didn’t realize it. And that, he would always think when looking back on this mo-ment, had only served to make her even more appealing.

Four

Amanda looked across the table at her mother.

Adrienne had paused and was staring out the window again. The rain had stopped; beyond the glass, the sky was full of shadows. In the silence, Amanda could hear the re-frigerator humming steadily.

“Why are you telling me this, Mom?”

“Because I think you need to hear it.”

“But why? I mean, who was he?”

Instead of answering, Adrienne reached for the bottle of wine. With deliberate motions, she opened it. After pour-ing herself a glass, she did the same for her daughter.

“You might need this,” she said.

“Mom?”

Adrienne slid the glass across the table.

“Do you remember when I went to Rodanthe? When Jean asked if I could watch the Inn?”

It took a moment before it clicked.

“Back when I was in high school, you mean?”

“Yes.”

When Adrienne began again, Amanda found herself reaching for her wine, wondering what this was all about.

Five

Standing near the railing on the back porch of the Inn on a gloomy Thursday afternoon, Adrienne let the Coffee cup warm her hands as she stared at the ocean, noting that it was rougher than it had been an hour earlier. The water had taken on the color of iron, like the hull of an old battleship, and she could see tiny whitecaps stretching to the horizon.

Part of her wished she hadn’t come. She was watching the Inn for a friend, and she’d hoped it would he a respite of sorts, but now it seemed like a mistake. First, the weather wasn’t going to cooperate—all day, the radio had been warning of the big nor’easter heading this way—and she wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of losing power or having to hole up inside for a couple of days. But more than that, despite the angry skies, the beach brought back memories of too many family vacations, blissful days when she’d been content with the world.

For a long time, she’d considered herself lucky. She’d met Jack as a student; he was in his first year of law school. They were considered a perfect couple back then—he was tall and thin, with curly black hair; she was a blue-eyed brunette a few sizes smaller than she was now. Their wed-ding photo had been prominently displayed in the living room of their Home, right above the fireplace. They had their first child when she was twenty-eight and had two more in the next three years. She, like so many other women, had trouble losing all the weight she’d gained, but she worked at it, and though she never approached what she had once been, compared to most of the women her age with children, she thought she was doing okay. And she was happy. She loved to cook, she kept the house clean, they went to church as a family, and she did her best to maintain an active social life for her and Jack. When the kids started going to school, she volunteered to help in their classes, attended PTA meetings, worked in their Sunday school, and was the first to volunteer when rides were needed for field trips. She sat through hours of piano recitals, school plays, baseball and football games, she taught each of the children to swim, and she laughed aloud at the expressions on their faces the first time they walked through the gates of Disney World, On her fortieth birthday, Jack had thrown a surprise party for her at the country club, and nearly two hundred people showed up. It was an evening filled with laughter and high spirits, but later, after they got Home, she noticed that Jack didn’t watch her as she undressed before getting into bed.

In-stead, he turned out the lights, and though she knew he couldn’t fall asleep that quickly, he pretended he had.

Looking back, she knew it should have tipped her off that all was not as it seemed, but with three children and a husband who left the child rearing up to her, she was too busy to ponder it. Besides, she neither expected nor be-lieved that the passion between them would never go through down periods. She’d been married long enough to know better. She assumed it would return as it always had, and she wasn’t worried about it. But it didn’t. By forty-one, she’d become concerned about their relationship and had started perusing the self-help section of the bookstore, looking for titles that might advise her on how to improve their marriage, and she sometimes found herself looking forward to the future when things might slow down. She imagined what it would be like to be a grandmother or what she and Jack might do when they had the time to enjoy each other’s company as a couple again. Maybe then, she thought, things would go back to what they had once been.

It was around that time that she saw Jack having lunch with Linda Gaston. Linda, she knew, worked with Jack’s firm at their branch office in Greensboro. Though she spe-cialized in estate law while Jack worked in general litiga-tion, Adrienne knew their cases sometimes overlapped and required a collaboration, so it didn’t surprise her to see them dining with each other. Adrienne even smiled at them through the window. Though Linda wasn’t a close friend, she’d been a guest in their Home numerous times; they’d always gotten along well, despite the fact that Linda was ten years younger and single. It was only when she went inside the restaurant that she noticed the tender way they were looking at each other. And she knew with certainty they were holding hands under the table.

For a long moment, Adrienne stood frozen in place, but instead of confronting them, she turned around and headed out before they had a chance to see her.

In denial, she cooked Jack’s favorite meal that night and mentioned nothing about what she’d seen. She pretended it hadn’t happened, and in time, she was able to convince herself that she’d been mistaken about what was going on between them. Maybe Linda was going through a hard time and he was comforting her, Jack was like that. Or maybe, she thought, it was a fleeting fantasy that neither of them had acted on, a romance of the mind and nothing else.

But it wasn’t. Their marriage began spiraling downward, and within a few months, Jack asked for a divorce. He was in love with Linda, he said. He hadn’t meant for it to hap-pen, and he hoped she would understand. She didn’t and said so, but when she was forty-two, Jack moved out.

Now, over three years later, Jack had moved on, but Adrienne found it impossible to do. Though they had joint custody, it was joint in name only. Jack lived in Greensboro, and the three-hour drive was just long enough to keep the kids with her most of the time. Mostly she was thankful for that, but the pressures of raising them on her own tested her limits daily. At night, she often col-lapsed in bed but found it impossible to sleep because she couldn’t stop the questions that rolled through her mind.

And though she never told anyone, she sometimes imag-ined what she would say if Jack showed up at the door and asked her to take him back, knowing that deep down, she would probably say yes.

She hated herself for that, but what could she do?

She didn’t want this life; she’d neither asked for it nor expected it. Nor, she thought, did she deserve it. She’d played by the hook, she’d followed the rules. For eighteen years, she’d been faithful. She’d overlooked those times when he drank too much, she brought him Coffee when he had to work late, and she never said a word when he went golfing on the weekends instead of spending time with the kids.

Was it just the sex he was after? Sure, Linda was both younger and prettier, but was it really that important to him that he’d throw away everything else in his life? Didn’t the kids mean anything? Didn’t she? Didn’t the eighteen years together? And anyway, wasn’t as if she’d lost interest—in the last couple of years whenever they’d made love, she’d been the one to initiate it. If the urge was so strong, why hadn’t he done something about it? Or was it, she wondered, that he found her boring? Granted, because they’d been married so long, there weren’t a lot of new stories to tell. Over the years, most had been recycled in slightly different versions, and both had reached the point where they knew the endings in ad-vance, after only a few words. Instead, they did what she thought most couples did: She’d ask how work had gone, he’d ask about the kids, and they’d talk about the latest antics of one family member or another or what was hap-pening around town. There were times that even she wished there were something more interesting to talk about, but didn’t he understand that in a few years the same thing was going to happen with Linda?

It wasn’t fair. Even her friends had said as much, and she assumed that meant they were on her side. And maybe they were, but they had a funny way of showing it, she thought. A month ago, she’d gone to a Christmas party hosted by a couple she’d known for years, and who should happen to be there but Jack and Linda. It was life in a small southern town—people forgave things like that— but Adrienne couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

Beyond the hurt and betrayal, she was lonely. She hadn’t been on a date since the day Jack had moved out. Rocky Mount wasn’t exactly a hotbed of unmarried men in their forties, and those who were single weren’t neces-sarily the kind of man she wanted anyway. Most of them had baggage, and she didn’t think she could tote around any more than she was already carrying. In the beginning, she told herself to be selective, and when she thought she was ready to enter the world of dating again, she mentally outlined a set of traits she was looking for. She wanted someone intelligent and kind and attractive, but more than that, she wanted someone who accepted the fact that she was raising three teenagers. It might be a problem, she suspected, but since her kids were pretty self-sufficient, she didn’t think it was the type of hurdle that would discour-age most men.

Boy, was she ever wrong.

In the last three years, she hadn’t been asked out at all, and lately she’d come to believe that she never would. Good old Jack could have his fun, good old Jack could read the morning paper with someone new, but for her, it just wasn’t in the cards.

And then, of course, there were the financial worries.

Jack had given her the house and paid the court-ordered support on time, but it was just enough to make ends meet. Despite the fact that Jack earned a good living while they were married, they hadn’t saved as they should have. Like so many couples, they’d spent years caught up in the end-less cycle of spending most of what they’d earned, They had new cars and took nice vacations; when big-screen televisions first hit the market, they were the first family in the neighborhood to have one in their Home. She’d al-ways believed that Jack was taking care of the future since he was the one who handled the bills. It turned out that he wasn’t, and she’d had to take a part-time job at the local library. Though she wasn’t so worried about her or the children, she was scared for her father.