Chapter 35

Long after therest of the house is quiet and everyone else is sleeping, Amy lies awake. Although the window by her bed is open a crack and the night air is cool, she’s hot. She flips her pillow over and presses her cheek against the cool fabric of the pillowcase, then closes her eyes. But sleep eludes her.

She pulls up a guided sleep mediation on her phone and wills herself to relax. But when the meditation ends, Amy’s still wide awake. After a moment, she flips on her bedside lamp. There’s nobody here to complain that the light is keeping him awake, so she might as well take advantage of the solitude to read. When she reads the same page of her book three times, she closes the cover and tosses it back on her nightstand. She flops onto her back, shifts from her side of the bed to the dead center, and spreads her arms and legs wide like a starfish, reveling in the spaciousness of a king bed for one. But the novelty wears off quickly.

She feels out of balance and emotional. Of course, she’s unmoored, she tells herself. It’s to be expected. She found her sister and may have lost her husband all in the same day. Her whispered argument with Rich runs through her mind on a loop. His expression when she told him she couldn’t trust him, wouldn’t feel safe with him in the house, was so wounded, so outraged. He slept with your sister and never mentioned it. He stole her diary. He convinced everyone to lie to the police.Screw Rich and his outrage, she tells herself.

She’s never going to fall asleep in this state. Conceding defeat, she sighs and kicks off the light blanket, then grabs her glasses and tiptoes downstairs. She’s halfway to the wine cabinet when she sees a figure standing at the back window.

“Chloe?”

Her sister turns, startled. “Oh, Amy. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

She shakes her head and joins Chloe at the window. “No, I couldn’t sleep.”

They stand shoulder to shoulder and stare out into the yard. The exterior lights are on. Rich has insisted on leaving them on all night ever since someone stole his hedge trimmer last summer. The kids grumble, telling him he’s contributing to the destruction of the environment they’re going to inherit, but Amy secretly likes the way the flood lights illuminate the gardens.

Chloe must too, because she says, “Your gardens are beautiful.”

“You should see them in the daylight,” Amy tells her.

“I’d love to.”

Amy tilts her head to the side. “You’re a gardener?”

“Yes. Our growing season is short as far north as we are. But there’s something about soil under my fingernails and the sun on my back that just feels … right.”

Amy laughs.

“What?”

“You hated gardening,” she tells Chloe.

“I did?”

“You did. Mom had an enormous garden, and she made us all work in it. Diana did it without complaint because that’s Diana. I liked it, so I didn’t mind. And Kristy was so much younger that we gave her all the easy jobs. But you haaaaaated it. In fact, the first day you were missing I thought you were staying away from the house so you wouldn’t have to help with the weeding.” Amy laughs at the memory.

“I hated it that much? I’m surprised. I love it now. It’s one of my most cherished hobbies.”

“Because it’s in your blood,” Amy guesses.

“Maybe that’s it.”

They fall silent and look out into the dark yard. After a moment, Amy says, “I was going to have a glass of wine. Care to join me?”

“Please. Maybe that’ll quiet my mind so I can actually sleep.”

Amy pours them each a precise five-ounce glass of a red table wine and they sit at the pair of armchairs in the rarely used formal living room. It’s the furthest room from the stairs, so they’re unlikely to wake anyone else.

“à ta santé.” Chloe clinks her glass gently against Amy’s.

“Cheers,” she replies. “What does that mean, what you said?” She sips her wine.

“à ta santé means to your health.”

“When did you learn French?”

Chloe lowers her glass. “I didn’t know French?”

“No. I took Spanish. You took Russian.”

“Russian? Why?”

“You thought the teacher was cute.”

Chloe looks scandalized. Amy laughs.

“He was, though. I mean, he was as gay as the day was long. But he was easy on the eyes.”

Chloe isn’t laughing. “I don’t know Russian. I do know French. I spoke it fluently when I arrived in Montreal.”

“How is that possible?”

“How is any of it possible?” Chloe counters.

She has a point. Amy nods. “That’s fair.”

“I know why I can’t sleep,” Chloe says. “What’s your excuse?”

Amy hesitates. It’s so strange. This woman is both her sister and a total stranger.

Chloe hurries to give her an out. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

Amy wants to answer it. She’s been missing her truest friend. Although she loves Diana and Kristy with her whole heart, she and Heather had always been tight. They’d shared a room for years until Diana had moved out. Heather is apparently still gone, even though she’s sitting in Amy’s house, in her pajamas, drinking wine. Amy will settle for Chloe.

“Rich and I are having problems,” she admits.

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Chloe looks as if she’s about to say something more, but then she takes a drink of wine instead.

“What do you want to say?” Amy demands. “Spit it out.”

“Was he … unfaithful?”

Amy freezes. Does she remember being with Rich? But he didn’t cheat on her with Heather, he was cheating on Julia.

“What makes you ask that?”

Chloe blushes faintly. Heather always did turn pink at the slightest hint of embarrassment, Amy remembers.

“Bastian overhead you two arguing at the airport. He thought perhaps Rich had strayed. Please understand, he didn’t mean to eavesdrop—he would never.”

Amy waves a hand. “It’s okay. We were in a public place. I wouldn’t have chosen it for that conversation, but I needed to make it clear to him that he wasn’t coming home with us.” She takes a long drink, nearly draining her glass. “And he didn’t cheat on me. Not exactly. Not the way you’re thinking.”

Chloe furrows her brow. “So, it was an emotional affair?”

Amy gives her a look. “A what?”

“I read about it in a magazine,” she confesses.

They both giggle. Chloe tips her head back and finishes her wine. Then she holds out her hand. “I’ll get the refills.”

Amy hesitates. “I really shouldn’t.”

“Are you driving somewhere?”

“Well, no.”

“Performing surgery later?”

Amy laughs. “Not on my schedule,” she admits.

“Then hand over the glass.”

Chloe grins at her, and she’s Heather at twelve, convincing Diana’s boyfriend to let her drive his car in the Bargain Foods parking lot. Heather at fifteen, wheedling a beer from an older cousin. Heather at sixteen, shaking her rump to Rump Shaker. Dazed by her sister’s familiar impishness, Amy gives her the glass.

Chloe returns with two pours that clearly exceed the Sharpie mark. Amy shrugs and extends her glass.

“To your health,” she says.

“à ta santé,” Chloe replies. “So ….”

“So, Rich didn’t have an affair, emotional or otherwise, during our marriage. He did something before we were married that he’s lied about and withheld from me all this time.”

Chloe frowns as if she’s trying to decide if Rich’s sin warrants being kicked out of his home. Then she shakes her head. “I’m not good at relationship stuff,” she confesses.

“What? You and Bastian are obviously head over heels. Even though you’ve been together at least long enough to have parented Ava’s new BFF.”

Chloe laughs. “Oh, that doesn’t count. He’s my soulmate. And we’ve been together much longer than Emilie’s been with us. We were together for nearly thirteen years before she was born.”

Amy gapes. “Really?”

“I met Bastian when I was eighteen.” She stops. “Wait. Maisy said I’m a year older than I think I am. So I guess I was nineteen. We started dating in 1997. We got married in 2009.”

“Why bother at that point?”

“That was our thinking. Marriage isn’t as much of a thing there. We were in a committed relationship. We were in love. But we tried to have a baby for five years and, no luck. Bastian’s grand-mère told us to get married. It seemed silly, a formality. But, sure enough, we had a civil ceremony and, poof, I was pregnant.”

Amy smiles. “That’s sweet.”

“The paper didn’t change anything. Bastian and I were meant to be together. He was my first boyfriend.”

Amy chokes. The only thing that stops her from doing a spit take is the knowledge that she’ll be the one scrubbing red wine out of her white carpet if she spews it.

“What?”

“Bastian was not your first boyfriend,” Amy informs her sister.

“He wasn’t?” Chloe is wide-eyed.

Amy reconsiders. “Well, he might be your first boyfriend. But he definitely wasn’t your first.”

It’s Chloe’s turn to choke.