phone conversations with Steve during that same period were very different from those I had with Jamie. Steve called nearly every day from Monterey. He told me about the other guys in his classes and how hard the work was, but he was always talking about nuts and bolts. Never about his feelings.
“Will that baby be gone by the time I get back?” he asked one time when he heard Maggie crying in the background.
“Would it bother you, having her here?” Maybe having a baby around would remind him of Sam, even though I was quite sure Steve had put Sam completely out of his mind. I imagined the sort of father he would have made. He wouldn’t be like Jamie, that was certain. Where Jamie was open, expansive and uninhibited with his daughter, Steve would have been wooden and mechanical. Jamie cuddled Maggie, cooing to her, telling her flat-out that he loved her, while Steve had never even spoken those words to me.
“It’s just…weird,” Steve said. “It’s like he’s turned that kid over to you to raise. I don’t like it.”
“Well, it’s just while Jamie’s father’s in the hospital,” I said.
“What’s with that whole situation?” Steve asked. “What’s with his wife?”
“They…the baby put a lot of strain on their marriage,” I said. “Especially on Laurel. She’s depressed and not managing things well.”
“Hey!” Steve said abruptly. “If they split up, one of them could rent our spare room. For some extra money, they could even bring the baby. She’s practically living with us for free as it is.” He was always talking about renting out the extra room to one of the guys in his unit. We could use the cash. But Jamie and Laurel split up? I couldn’t imagine it.
The day after that conversation with Steve, Jamie showed up at my house while Maggie was napping. His eyes were red, and I knew before he said a word that his father had died. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around him while he wept. He clung to me, and I felt the comfortable bulk of him against my body. I wanted to take the hurt away, even though I knew it was one of those hurts that would never disappear completely. I was glad he’d come to me. Laurel didn’t have the capacity to comfort him the way he needed comforting.
After a few minutes, I drew away. “Can you eat?” I asked. “I made beef stew yesterday. I can heat some up.”
He reached for my hand as he sat down at the kitchen table. “Just sit with me awhile,” he said. “Okay?”
I sat across the corner of the table from him while he told me about his father. How smart he was. Tolerant and good-hearted. People called him Daddy L, even those outside the family. Jamie wished I could have met him. He’d been so shrewd, buying up the Topsail Island property when it was cheap, making money that would keep the Lockwoods wealthy for generations.
We sat that way for a long time, Jamie holding my hand while he talked. I focused on the sensation of his skin against mine, so I could remember later exactly how it felt. That’s when my double life truly began to take hold. I pretended to care about Laurel, wanting her to get better for the sake of her husband and daughter, yet at the same time hoping she didn’t, so I could hang on to the part of Jamie and Maggie that I had. Without them, my life would have been too empty to bear.
I was shocked when I realized I was fantasizing about both Steve and Laurel dying. It was easy enough to picture with Laurel. She’d starve herself to death. Maybe even kill herself. Then there was that whole big Iran and Iraq mess heating up in the Middle East and maybe Steve would be deployed there and maybe he would be killed. Then Jamie and I would gradually get closer and closer, comforting each other in our grief until we finally realized we belonged together. We’d get married, and I would adopt Maggie. Maybe we’d go on to have kids of our own.
The fantasy came with a terrible, gut-wrenching guilt, but it was hard to control. I could be sitting in the living room with Steve while he studied for an exam, and I’d be knitting a scarf and killing him off in my mind at the same time.
And then, everything changed.
One day, while Maggie was with Jamie at the chapel, I took some groceries to the Sea Tender. I knocked on the door and when I didn’t get an answer, I went inside to find Laurel sitting on the kitchen floor. It was so unusual to see her off the sofa that I dropped the groceries on the counter and rushed to her side.
“Laurel!” I said. “Are you okay?”
She looked up at me. There was an electric drill in her hand.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Screwing up,” Laurel said with a small laugh. She looked at the drill. “In a couple of months, Maggie’ll be crawling and then walking, and I got worried she could get into the things under the sink here and in the bathroom.”
I saw the small plastic clip in Laurel’s left hand and realized she was trying to childproof the cabinets. Trying to protect her daughter. The brittle part of my heart that I’d reserved for Laurel cracked into slivers like a broken window.
I sank down next to her. “Can I help?”
Laurel stared at the drill. “I think I did it wrong,” she said. “I don’t think the part on the door is exactly in the right place to match up with this piece.”
“Let me see.” I checked the plastic piece she’d screwed into place on the door. It was off just slightly. In the plastic latch and the small crooked screw and the cumbersome drill, I saw the love of a mother for her child. The love that Laurel’s stubborn depression—her stubborn mental illness—could not extinguish.
My eyes suddenly filled with tears. “It’ll be okay,” I said. “We can just put this one a little to the right.” I considered taking the drill from Laurel’s hand and making the hole in the door myself, but it would be better if she did it. With a pencil, I marked the spot for her to drill. I held the door steady and Laurel, biting her lip in concentration, drilled the hole. When she screwed the plastic hook in place, she sighed with exhaustion, as if she’d swum a few laps in a pool.
“Beautiful, Laurel!” I said.
Laurel closed the cabinet door and saw that it hooked. She unhooked it. Hooked it again.
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