The Replacement Wife (27 page)

They made love that night on a bed of sand, under a blanket of stars.

“That was fun, today at the beach. The whole day, in fact. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know your family,” Elise remarked, interrupting his thoughts. “It’s a shame Camille had to miss out,” she hastened to add.

Edward, roused from his reverie, turned his attention to her. “She was more concerned about you, actually. She feels bad about not being able to fulfill her hostess duties. I told her you were a good sport about it, and that you even cooked us supper—which, may I add, was delicious, and also above and beyond. In fact, we’ll be sorry to see you go.” Her friend was picking her up tomorrow morning after breakfast. He realized, somewhat to his chagrin, that he really would miss having Elise around. In the short time she’d been with them, she’d integrated herself into his family nicely but not obtrusively. He wondered if she saw herself becoming a part of their lives. He had mixed feelings about it himself. Part of him continued to balk at the notion, while another part of him thought, more rationally,
No one is out to replace Camille. But if having Elise in our lives would make things easier for all concerned, why not, if she’s game?

Still, he was relieved when Elise only said lightly in response, “Hopefully, we can do this again sometime.”

“I’d like that,” he said as they crossed to the other side of the street on their way to the beach access path. He was careful to strike a casual tone. “Though I’ll have to bone up on my knock-knock jokes for next time, if I’m to keep up with you. Your repertoire is pretty impressive.”

She laughed. “I owe it to Glenn. Every lame joke I know, I learned from him.”

Glenn was the friend whose folks lived in Amagansett, Edward recalled, the one whom Zach had been referring to dismissively as “that guy.” As in,
I don’t know why she’d rather be with that guy than with us.
Zach was put out, and maybe a little jealous, that “that guy” would be spiriting Elise away tomorrow. “Have you two known each other long?” Edward asked.

“Gosh, yes—years and years. Glenn’s my dearest friend. I don’t know what I’d have done without him when I was going through my divorce.” She spoke with such affection, Edward wondered if they were perhaps more than just friends. Not that it was any of his business. “It left him with a permanent dent in his couch cushions from all the times I was over at his place, not to mention a total dislike of my ex-husband. He thinks Dennis should be strung up by his—” She broke off, giving a laugh that held no humor. “Well, you get the picture.”

“From what you’ve told me, that sounds about right. He did cheat on you.”

“True,” she said, sighing.

They reached the end of the path, where they paused to take off their shoes. “So, was it a one-time thing or was he a serial cheater, your ex-husband?” Edward asked as they stepped onto the sand, the deserted beach silvery in the moonlight, the ocean glistening in the distance as waves rolled into shore.

She was quiet a moment before answering, “As far as I know it was only the one time—an office romance. They’re married now, with a baby on the way, last I heard. So I guess it worked out for the best—for him anyway.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but he heard the underlying bitterness in her voice. “Not that I’m sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Not anymore. Once I got over that, I realized I’d rather be alone than stay with a man who didn’t love me enough to be faithful.”

“You never thought about giving him a second chance?”

“Maybe, for about two seconds. But I realized even if I could forgive him, I could never trust him again. I could barely stand being in our apartment after he left. Partly because I missed him—or, rather, I missed what I thought I’d had—but it was also because every time I sat on the sofa or climbed into bed, I wondered if he’d done it there with
her
. When we divided up our assets, I let him have every stick of furniture—I didn’t want any of it.”

“No regrets?”

“No,” she said softly. “I only wish he’d been the man I thought he was when I married him. It was good in the beginning—better than good, I really thought we had it all.” She sighed again. “Regardless of what Glenn might think, Dennis isn’t a bad person. He was just a bad husband.”

“‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,’” Edward quoted.

“When Tennyson wrote that, I doubt he was going through a divorce,” she said with a rueful chuckle.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married again?” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, gratified to see that her expression remained serene. Whatever agony she’d gone through in her divorce, she seemed to have put it behind her for the most part.

“Maybe. Someday,” she said. “But I’m in no hurry. And even if I were to fall in love again and this hypothetical man were to ask me to marry him, I don’t know that I could trust myself to make the right decision.”

Edward reflected on this as they strolled along the tide line, the packed wet sand cold against the soles of his feet. He felt a heaviness inside him at the thought of what the future might hold for him and his children. “I always thought Camille and I would grow old together,” he said, adding with a mirthless laugh. “Now it looks as if I’ll be the only one of us with gray hair.”

He thought back to when he and Camille were first married, how happy they’d been despite how little they’d had in the way of money or material things. One night, they’d decided to pool their resources so they could go to the movies, only to discover they were a dollar short of the price of admission for two. They scoured their studio apartment for loose change, making a scavenger hunt of it and crowing in triumph with each coin unearthed from the back of a drawer or under the radiator or between the sofa cushions. He found two quarters in the pocket of his winter overcoat and she a cache of pennies in a jar in the kitchen cupboard. Before long, they had enough money. But by then, they’d worked up such an appetite, they decided to go out for pizza instead. He could see her in his mind’s eye now as she’d looked that night, sitting across from him at V & T, a tuft of hair sticking up in one spot and her purple and white NYU T-shirt smudged from having crawled under the bed in search of buried treasure. She said with a grin as she helped herself to another slice, “Now, isn’t this better than watching Bruce Willis kill bad guys?”

He roused from his thoughts to find himself standing at the water’s edge, gazing sightlessly out to sea. When he looked over at Elise, she was regarding him with compassion. She reached up to brush her fingertips over the silvering hair at his temple, a touch so light it might have been the wind blowing. “I think you’ll look very distinguished with gray hair,” she said.

“Even old age has its compensations, I guess.” He aimed for a laugh that fell short of the mark. They were both quiet after that, each wrapped in his or her own thoughts, mindless of the surf washing in to baptize their bare feet. After a minute or two had passed, he said, “We should head back.”

By the time they arrived back at the house, it was half-past ten and all was quiet. He switched off the lights downstairs and poked at the fire in the hearth to make sure it was out; then he and Elise went upstairs. At the top of the staircase, he paused and turned to her before they headed for their respective rooms. A band of moonlight from the clerestory window on the landing slanted across her face, accentuating the curve of a cheekbone and underlining the angle of her jaw.

“Good night.” He spoke softly so as not to wake the others.

“Sleep tight.” Elise leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING,
after Elise had gone off with her friend Glenn, who’d arrived to pick her up after breakfast, Edward was on his way to the hospital when his cell phone trilled. Angie’s voice greeted him. “How’d it go?” she asked as if picking up a conversation from five minutes ago.

“Don’t ask.” He groaned.

“That bad, huh? What, does she chew with her mouth open? Open beer cans with her teeth?”

It was a moment before he realized she had been referring to Elise. “No, she was the perfect houseguest, as it turns out. It’s my wife—she took a turn for the worse. She’s in the hospital.”

Angie instantly switched gears. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. Is . . . is it bad?”

“Not as bad as it might have been, but she gave us quite a scare,” he reported. “Good thing we got her to the hospital when we did. In fact, I’m on my way there now to pick her up.”

“So she’s okay?”

“She’s fine.”
For now.

“What a relief. Still, sounds like quite an ordeal,” she said, and he was warmed by her sympathy, knowing it wasn’t just for Camille. The trouble with being a “rock,” as Camille was fond of calling him, was that rocks weren’t supposed to crumble.

He let out the sigh that, it seemed, had been pent up for the past two days. “It wasn’t exactly the weekend we had planned.”

“No shit. How did your, um, houseguest deal with all the family drama?” she asked cautiously. During their last phone conversation, he’d told her about Camille’s having invited Elise for the weekend and had shared his apprehensions about the mystery woman’s upcoming visit.

“Surprisingly well.” Though maybe not so surprising, given how good-natured Elise was. “She was a good sport about it all.”

There was a brief pause at the other end. “What’s she like?”

“Elise? Let’s see. Late thirties. Brown hair, green eyes, medium height. She’s from the Midwest—Wisconsin, I think she said. Oh, and she’s a schoolteacher—she teaches fourth grade.”

“I didn’t ask for her résumé,” Angie said dryly. “What’s she like as a person?” She didn’t need to ask,
Is she someone you could see yourself with?
He could hear the question in her voice.

“She seems nice, but I don’t know her well enough to form an opinion.” He purposely downplayed it.

“Bullshit.” In the background, he heard what sounded like the droning of an electric mixer. “I never met a guy who didn’t know within two seconds flat whether or not a woman was his type.”

“Well, I wasn’t looking to make a lasting connection, but I suppose most men would say she was attractive.” He kept his voice light. The whirring noise grew louder. “What are you making?”

“A cake.” She raised her voice to be heard above the droning.

“What kind?”

“Vanilla, with chocolate frosting.”

“Mmm. My favorite. What’s the occasion?”

“My nephew’s birthday—he just turned nine. That would be Susanne’s eldest, Danny. My sister’s throwing him a party and we’re all invited.”

At the note of weariness in her voice, he asked, “Is there a problem?”

“Kind of, yeah.” The whirring noise stopped. “Considering that in my family it’s somebody’s birthday practically every other week. All that forced togetherness wears on you after a while. Not to mention, I’m the one making all those birthday cakes.”

“Do you have to go to every party ?”

“It’s either that or face the wrath of Loretta D’Amato.”

“I’m sure if you explained to her . . .”

“Not a chance,” she said. “We’re talking about a woman who once stormed the principal’s office at Immaculate Conception and threatened to take it to the Vatican if Father Mulroney didn’t apologize for having forced my sister Julia to kneel on the chapel floor for all of first period, as punishment for wearing her skirt too short.”

He chuckled. “She sounds like a pistol.”

“One you don’t want get on the wrong end of,” she said. “And my sisters aren’t much better, except for Francine. They’re constantly telling me what to do, even though I keep reminding them the term limit on my being the baby sister they can boss around ran out a long time ago.”

“When I was growing up, I used to envy the kids in my neighborhood who had brothers and sisters, which was pretty much everyone except me.”

“You should have been counting your blessings instead. Big families are like amoebas—they tend to clump together. They’re also noisy and fractious and generally a pain in the ass, especially when they’re all in the same room together. Mine is . . . Boisterous is the polite word for it. No bloodshed—yet—but it’s come to blows on more than one occasion.” Despite her words, he heard the affection in her voice and knew she wouldn’t be baking all those cakes, or bowing to her mom’s wishes, if it was purely out of a sense of obligation. “Oh, by the way, speaking of get-togethers, I’m meeting up with some of the old gang from Emilio’s on Wednesday night, to shoot some pool. If you don’t have anything planned, why don’t you join us? Bring Camille, if she’s feeling up to it.”

“I haven’t played pool since college,” he said, to buy time before giving her an answer. There was nothing he’d enjoy more than a relaxed evening hanging out with Angie and her friends, but he hesitated to accept the invitation. Camille didn’t know he’d become friendly with Angie. Worse, it had gone beyond his simply choosing not to inform her of the fact. The other night, he’d told his wife he had a seminar when he was actually at Angie’s cooking class. He’d been shocked by how easily the lie had sprung to his lips. Also, it made no sense. Why did he even feel the need to lie? He had nothing to hide. It wasn’t as if he was having an affair or was planning to. He wondered if the reason was because he needed something that didn’t have Camille’s handprints all over it; something that wasn’t complicated or weighted with responsibility and, most importantly, that didn’t come with a set of expectations.
As long as it’s innocent, what’s the harm?
he told himself.

“Were you any good?” Angie wanted to know.

“I was no hustler, but I won my share of beer bets.”

“In that case, the beer’s on you if you lose.”

“You’re on.” He pushed aside his misgivings. Didn’t he deserve an occasional night out? Why did he always have to be the sober, responsible one—life’s designated driver? “As long as you’re not scared that I’ll show you up in front of your friends.”

“In your dreams, pal,” she growled.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“T
here’s a new cancer drug . . .” Regina poured tea into the cups on the low glass table in front of her. They were in her office, on the furniture by the windows, where they always sat, post-exam, to discuss treatment options or go over test results. Usually, the news wasn’t good, but this time Camille and Edward perked up as the hematologist-oncologist went on, “Early results have been promising—in mice, it shrank eighty-five percent of the tumors—though we won’t know how effective it is with humans until after the trial phase.”