“Among other things,” he said and shrugged.
She must blame him, at least a little, for Mitch’s death. How could she not? Her husband was dead while Jesse was alive. In his head the math was simple.
“Jesse?” She looked at him warily. The pressure in his chest grew unbearable. “That morning in Germany when you—”
“Don’t.” He groaned and shook his head. The honesty in her eyes and the ache in his chest defeated him so, like a coward, he looked away. “Don’t say anything. I’m sorry. I’m… sorry.”
“Sorry?”
He refused to look at her, willing her to get off his porch. He had been stupid to let her stay. Drugs or no drugs.
The silence built like a wall between them. Brick by brick, until he wasn’t even sure he could see her.
Finally she stood, swiped her hands over her butt and took a step toward the shadows of the lawn.
“Good night, Jesse.” She took another step, all but disappearing in the dark. “I’m so glad you’re here. I never expected a friend—”
“We’re not friends, Julia,” he said, from his side of the wall of silence and lies. “Don’t come back.”
JULIA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. She was plagued by Jesse’s ravaged face and the sharp-fanged nightmares Mitch’s old room seemed to spark.
She had to put Mitch’s prom picture facedown in the hopes that she’d stop seeing it when she shut her eyes. But it was useless, Mitch’s ghost lived in this room, lived in these quiet moments of doubt that came at night. He mocked her and reminded her of how much she’d fallen out of love with him. Of how badly she’d wished he’d been more like Jesse.
In fact, that night in Germany with Jesse and Mitch, she’d wished he was Jesse.
And to make it all worse, there was nothing she could do to shake loose Jesse’s words. They ran on a loop whether her eyes were closed or not.
I’m sorry.
She’d carried the memory of that morning in Germany with Jesse in her heart for months. She’d lived on it when food tasted like dirt. She’d breathed it through Mitch’s funeral and through all the long nights.
And he was sorry. Sorry it ever happened.
We’re not friends. Don’t come back.
She flopped over on her back and stared up at the ceiling where the shadows of the maple branches danced and that morning rushed back to her in painful detail….
“All done,” Julia whispered to Ben. She held out her hands as if to prove she wasn’t holding anymore puréed peaches. “All gone.”
Ben mimicked her, shouting her words back to her in his gibberish.
“Sh,” she whispered. “We have to be quiet. Daddy and Jesse are sleeping.”
Jesse Filmore—the much-boasted-about friend of Mitch’s youth—slept in the living room, draped over the too-small couch. And Mitch slept on in the bedroom, smelling slightly of the wine he’d drank last night and the uncomfortable, lousy sex he’d attempted before dawn. He’d come to bed late, full of drunken apologies and tears. There’d been another girl. A reporter or a contractor or something. She’d meant nothing, he swore.
None of them meant anything.
Julia wiped Ben’s face, holding his head still so she could get the cereal from under his chin, and pulled him out of the makeshift high chair she’d rigged on the kitchen counter.
She filled his sippy cup with juice and water and walked behind him as he toddled over to the table she’d set up next to the only window in the apartment that let in the morning light.
She sat in her chair and Ben tried to pull himself up into her lap.
“Up you go,” she whispered, giving him a boost.
He repeated the tone of her voice, if not her exact words.
She had a few toys on the table and he played while she rested her chin on his head and looked out the window to the street of duplicate houses, covered in Christmas lights and snow that made up the family housing on the barracks.
Houses filled with women just like her. Alone. Lonely. Worried half the time. Scared the other half. They filled their time with book groups and sewing circles, coffee klatches and grief-counseling sessions.
She went, dragging Ben and bad pasta salad, wearing the mask of a woman still in love with her husband. She wore that mask until she thought she’d scream.
She rested her head against the window.
“Jesse,” Ben whispered and her heart squeezed tight at the mention of the handsome stranger her husband had brought home last night. It had been a surprise, not just Jesse, but Mitch’s appearance as well. She’d had no notice of their leave. No chance to prepare herself.
Not that she could have.
Not for Jesse Filmore.
He’d walked into her home, he’d shaken her hand, he’d smiled at her, played with her son. He’d even gone so far as to compliment her spaghetti and she knew she’d found the very limit to her foolish heart.
She’d watched him all night from the corner of her eye, from beneath her lashes like some lovesick teenager.
Maybe that’s what I am.
Maybe that’s what this feeling is.
He was a good man—it was the clearest thing she’d ever seen. As real as the sun behind the window. He’d walked into the room and she’d known him. Known him as though she’d been beside him his whole life. Jesse was the kind of man she’d imagined Mitch to be. The kind of man she wanted Mitch to be and it burned her like acid to have him in her house.
“Jesse,” Ben said louder and Julia turned finally to shush him, only to find Jesse standing in the doorway to the kitchen. A bright and dark angel brought into her life to remind her of the mistakes she’d made, of the things she’d never have.
His black eyes were a hot touch on her face.
She opened her mouth, but there was nothing to say. No empty chatter in her head to fill up this moment. She wanted to stay this way with this man’s eyes on her—intense and dark and so knowing she felt naked.
Ben scrambled off her lap and ran past Jesse into the TV room.
“There’s…” Her mouth was sticky, dry. But before she could try to finish her sentence Jesse crossed the kitchen in three steps, stopping only when he was right in front of her. Less than a foot away. She could have reached out to touch the hem of his gray T-shirt.
You’re married, she told herself—a stupid reminder of the vows she’d taken, binding herself to a man who had never meant them.
Jesse crouched in front of her, until his face was level with hers.
She grasped her hands in her lap until her knuckles went white.
“You deserve better,” Jesse whispered, and her lips parted on a broken breath. He reached