Every now and then, someone would come in who was interested in her. Years ago, those men had usually been older than she was; now they tended to be younger, but either way, the process was the same. Whoever he was, he would start spending time in special reference, would ask a lot of questions, first about books, then about general topics, and finally about her. She didn’t mind answering them, and though she never led them on, most of them eventually asked her out. She was always a bit flattered when that happened, but at her core she knew that no matter how wonderful this suitor might be, no matter how much she enjoyed his company, she wouldn’t be able to open her heart to him in the way she once had done.
Her time in Rodanthe had changed her in other ways as well. Being with Paul had healed her feelings of loss and betrayal over the divorce and replaced them with something stronger and more graceful. Knowing that she was worthy of being loved made it easier to hold her head high, and as her confidence grew, she was able to speak to Jack without hidden meanings or insinuations, without the blame and regret that she’d been unable to hide in her tone in the past. It happened gradually; he’d call to talk to the kids, and they’d visit for a few minutes before she handed off the phone. Later, she’d begun asking about Linda or his job, or she’d fill him in on what she’d been doing recently. Little by little, Jack seemed to realize that she was no longer the person she used to be. Those visits became more friendly with the passing months and years, and sometimes they called each other just to chat. When his marriage to Linda started to unravel, they’d spent hours on the phone, sometimes until late in the night. When Jack and Linda divorced, Adrienne had been there to help him through his grief, and she’d even allowed him to stay in the guest bedroom when he came to see the kids. Ironically, Linda had left him for another man, and Adrienne could remember sitting with Jack in the living room as he swirled a glass of Scotch. It was past midnight, and he’d been rambling for a few hours about what he was going through, when he finally seemed to realize who it was that was listening to him.
“Did it hurt this bad for you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Adrienne said.
“How long did it take to get over it?”
“Three years,” she said, “but I was lucky.”
Jack nodded. Pressing his lips together, he stared into his drink.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “The dumbest thing I ever did was to walk out that door.”
Adrienne smiled and patted his knee. “I know. But thank you anyway.”
It was about a year after that when Jack called to ask her to dinner. And as she had with all the others, Adrienne politely said no.
Adrienne rose and went to the counter to retrieve the box she’d carried from her bedroom earlier, then came back to the table. By then, Amanda was watching her with almost wary fascination. Adrienne smiled as she reached for her daughter’s hand.
As she did, Adrienne could see that sometime during the past couple of hours, Amanda had realized that she didn’t know as much about her mother as she thought she did. It was, Adrienne thought, a role reversal of sorts. Amanda had the same look in her eyes that Adrienne sometimes had in the past, when the kids would get together over the holidays and joke about some of the things they’d done when they were younger. It was only a couple of years ago that she’d learned that Matt used to sneak out of his room to go out with friends late at night, or that Amanda had both started and quit smoking as a junior, or that Dan had been the one who’d started the small fire in the garage that had been blamed on a faulty electrical outlet. She’d laughed along with them, feeling naive at the same time, and she wondered if that was the way Amanda was feeling now.
On the wall, the clock was ticking, the sound regular and even. The heat pump clicked on with a thump. In time, Amanda sighed.
“That was quite a story,” she said.
As she spoke, Amanda fingered her wineglass with her free hand, rotating the glass in circles. The wine caught the light, making it shimmer.
“Do Matt and Dan know? I mean, have you told them about it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure they need to know.” Adrienne smiled. “And besides, I don’t know if they would understand, no matter what I told them. They’re men, for one thing, and a little on the protective side—I don’t want them to think that Paul was simply preying on a lonely woman. Men are like that sometimes—if they meet someone and fall in love, it’s real, no matter how fast it happened. But if someone falls for a woman they happen to care about, all they do is question the man’s intentions. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever tell them.”
Amanda nodded before asking, “Why me, then?”
“Because I thought you needed to hear it.”
Absently, Amanda began to twirl a strand of hair. Adrienne wondered if that habit was genetic or learned by watching her mother.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell us about him? I mean, you never mentioned anything about it.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Adrienne leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. “In the beginning, I guess I was afraid it wasn’t real. I know we loved each other, but distance can do strange things to people, and before I was willing to tell you about it, I wanted to be certain that it would last. Then later, when I started getting letters from him and knew it would… I don’t know… it just seemed such a long time until you could meet him that I didn’t see the point in it….”