“What’s your secret for a long marriage?” Of the many, many weird questions I’ve asked, this is the riskiest. I banned myself from asking Marijke anything about Tor, ever, after that first awful time. Trying my hardest to erase that mistake hasn’t improved our relationship, though. I’ve been afraid to enter the no-fly zone I’ve created around Tor, but maybe that empty, poisoned space is what’s standing between me and Marijke.
“Still thinking of leaving my son, then?” The look she gives me slices and dices my hopes for conversation. It’s freaky seeing Tobin’s eyes looking out of Marijke’s face, her expression light-years from her son’s soft love.
When I thought about my marriage ending, I didn’t picture how Tobin’s eyes would look if he stopped loving me, like the stars had gone out. Like this.
“We’re working things out.” Given that Marijke’s forgiven Tor’swalkouts eleventy-five times, I guess irony isn’t a country she visits very often.
“I see.” She shoves the rosette into place with a movement as clipped as her words. Glossy grape tomatoes and spotless mushrooms go flying; the radish bounces to the floor and rolls cheerfully under the fridge.
Marijke slams her hands against the counter, fatally traumatizing a stray tomato. Its innards spray the front of my jade-green top, chunky and red like a Christmas murder scene.
“I will not accept criticism from someone whose own marriage has lasted less than a tenth as long as mine,” she growls, head down, back hunched.
I seriously think she wants to fight me. I’m younger, and I likely outweigh her, so I’ve got a chance if I can pin her early. But she’s taller and faster and I hurt her only child, so I don’t want to be unrealistic about my chances of winning.
“Marij—uh, Mrs. Renner, I honestly wasn’t criticizing—”
“I am quite aware of how my relationship with Tor appears. From theoutside. I have no illusions about what certain people say behind my back. But my marriage is no one’s business but my own,” she says, straightening up to look down at me from ten thousand feet. “It’s not so easy to set aside thirty years, no matter what has happened. All the love and memories will leave you if you don’t care for them, and then what’s left?”
She sweeps out of the kitchen, leaving it dimmer and shabbier, like my conscience.
I think of Stellar, how we’ve had each other to take the memories down from their shelves, cherish them, and keep them shining. And Amber, our worst moments winking blackly at me from my Wall of Shame.
Tobin and I have been together almost a third of our lives. What would I forget, if he and I split?
Bad things, yes.
Good things, also yes.
But I don’t have to think about what the last eight years of my life would mean if Tobin and I decided not to love each other anymore. We’re going to be okay. Him breaking our rules doesn’t have to be an international emergency, even if a little alarm bell has been going off inside me for the last half hour.
I’ll get through this dinner, like I promised. I’ll laugh off Tor’s infuriating comments, right along with his hints that he needs to borrow a few bucks. If that bastard goes after his son, I’ll tell him I have cramps and heavy flow right to his sexist face, and take my husband home for our anniversary.
I slink outside with the biggest tray, Marijke on my heels with a double handful of cut-crystal champagne flutes.
The backyard is full-on twinkle overkill, fairy lights overhead, merry flames in the firepit, upbeat music playing on Tobin’s portable speaker.
Dread, dread, and more dread.
“What happened to your shirt? It’s stained.” Tobin’s on me immediately, picking at a tomato seed I missed.
“Let’s not call it a stain. How aboutgarnish.”
Marijke pours plastic tumblers of sparkling water—no crystal till Tor gets here. Tobin’s gaze cuts to the copper tub filled with ice, eyes jumping from bottle to bottle, lips silently countingseven, eight, nine, shit.
Under the bug covers, Marijke’s food goes limp and loses its shine as Tobin’s dad doesn’t show up, and doesn’t show up, and doesn’t show up.
The small talk is dragging along, mostly dead, when Tor’s cheery Norwegian “Hi-hi” floats down the driveway.
Tor Renner is an old-world marauder, with a big broad chest and a big booming laugh and a fondness for overdone Viking-stylegestures—nonnegotiable crushing hugs, bone-breaking back slaps.
In twenty-five years, Tobin will have Tor’s ageless Kurt Russell look—full head of hair, worn longish to let the ladies know how thick it is. Solid body, a little blurred with time, still respectable in a set of surf trunks. Eyes like a dark crystal, fanned with sunny smile lines.
But where Tobin’s eyes are gentle, Tor’s are harsh. They constantly compute a person’s value, his silver tongue ready to deploy any of a dozen quick-release platitudes to get himself out of an underperforming conversation. His smile is a command:You like me.
The worst thing about Tor is how much of him I see in Tobin. His wide grin. His easy chatter. The greetings designed to make you feel special and welcome.
Especially now that I know what it costs Tobin to act like his dad.
