The Good Enough Husband (9 page)

It wasn’t until she saw Mrs. Cooper carefully pressing keys on her laptop, that she realized it had been awful quiet when she was in the kitchen. His mom was looking at the photographs of Ben
she’d taken on the beach, and in the upstairs guest room. Shit. What had happened between her and Ben was the kind of thing that happened between consenting adults,
in private
. The pictures were PG rated, but she was sure they revealed more than she’d want to disclose to any stranger.

“Wow. These are…something,” Mrs. Cooper said, accepting the salad and dressing. Hannah went back to the kitchen to get l
inens and cutlery. “Do you love him?” Ben’s mother did remind her of home. She had another annoying trait of New Yorkers, bluntness. Hannah and Elaine had grown up in a city where people asked questions that would be considered inappropriate anywhere else, and they expected an answer. New Yorkers also shared their opinions, tact be damned.

“I just met him, Mrs. Cooper.”

“From these pictures, it looks like you and Ben know each other well,” she said. “Why don’t you call me Elaine? I think you and I are going to be seeing quite a bit of each other.”

“Elaine then,” she said, the name uncomfortable in her mouth. “Would you like something to drink? I have water, seltzer, maybe some lemonade…” She walked back into the kitchen, hoping the mini-cross examination was over.

“I’ll have water, hon. Maybe a couple of cubes of ice.”

Hannah brought back two tall glasses of ice water to the table, careful to keep each on a coaster. She didn’t want Elaine to think she had no regard for her highly polished wood. She rolled one of the padded dining room chairs to the table. When Elaine picked up her fork, she pulled over the computer, and pushed the lid down.

“I’m a photographer. I’m thinking of updating my portfolio and Ben was kind enough to pose for me.”

Elaine bit down on a small piece of grilled chicken breast and nodded. She didn’t look like she believed a word Hannah blurted out.

“Where do you live, Hannah?”

“I have a house in Newport Beach—in Orange County.” She didn’t know why she added that. The woman lived in California. She knew where Newport was.

“What do you do down there that you can take time off to come up here for weeks?”

Hannah gave her the whole spiel about quitting life as a real e
state agent and considering something different. Part of which was the truth.

“When did you get divorced?”

Hannah started. She didn’t think Ben had talked to his mother about this. That would be weird for a forty-year-old man.

“How did you…”

Elaine gestured to the engagement ring and wedding band, Hannah had so carelessly tossed on the table. Shit. She’d thought the dining room a safer location than the car’s glove box.

“Michael and I…” she trailed off. What in the heck had she told Ben? Lying wasn’t as easy as it had seemed at first blush. She couldn’t keep her ‘facts’ straight. “I’m not rich by any means, and I was thinking of…wondering if I could sell these. I don’t need to keep them around for sentimental value or anything.”

Elaine chewed a leaf thoughtfully. “You sound like you’re from New York.”

“I grew up in Brooklyn Heights.” Hannah had worked to make her accent less obvious than Elaine’s.

“Ben went to vet school in New York, but I’m sure you already knew that.”

She didn’t know that. This woman was piercing through her carefully constructed belief that she knew Ben.

She didn’t want to talk about Michael or Ben. She knew too much about the former, and too little about the latter. “So what brings you up here? Ben said that you’d decided against using this as a second home.”

“Walter and I are only here for the night. I wanted to check out the house and make sure you were doing okay. We’d closed the house for the winter, and I didn’t know if Ben had turned on ever
ything. But, it looks like you’re doing fine.”

“It’s a lovely house. You guys have done a great job decora
ting—and that view is spectacular.” No mother ever shrank from a little ‘Eddie Haskell’ treatment. Elaine was no different. She beamed with pride.

“I tried to do my best to incorporate a nautical theme with some of our best antiques. Came off well, I think.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Elaine cleared her throat, expectantly. “So you said you grew up in Brooklyn Heights?” Hannah nodded. “That’s not a very diverse neighborhood, is it?”

“It was pretty white when I grew up, but everyone was very nice to my parents.”

“How did they come to live there? What did your parents do?”

There? Why not Bed Stuy, Brownsville, or East New York i
nstead of Brooklyn Heights? Hannah debated between putting the woman out of her misery, or stringing out the torture. After all these years, she was very used to people’s curiosity about her background. If she was in a good mood, she put them out of their misery. If they were unreasonably rude, she drew them out until they said something offensive and walked away. As she only seemed to be asking out of curiosity, Hannah let Ben’s mom off the hook.

“My dad is a jazz musician. You may have heard of him—Shay Morrison? He met my mom in Copenhagen. She’s Danish.”

Understanding dawned on her face. When people found out her father was famous or her mother was European, they suddenly felt more comfortable being able to put her into a box. Her dad being a minor celebrity also disabused them of the notion that she somehow didn’t belong in the tony Brooklyn neighborhood.

Elaine looked at her with a critical eye. “So you’re…”

“My dad is black and my mother is white—like the president.”

“Ah, okay,” Elaine said. “I was born in Bensonhurst, myself. But I grew up mainly on the Upper East Side.”

With one sentence, Elaine had communicated that she was descended from European immigrants who had struck it rich and moved to one of the toniest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Hannah was downtown, no Brooklyn eclectic, but it would do.

“What do you know about the ex-wife?” Elaine asked.

“Samara?” Trap set and sprung. “Ben gave me the highlights. They were married, lived in Marin. She found someone else. They got divorced,” Hannah answered mechanically.

“Is that what Benji told you?” Elaine asked rhetorically, cleared her throat, and pushed her empty plate and napkin forward. “I
don’t want you to underestimate the devastation that woman caused.”

“How so?” Hannah asked, trying to hide her morbid curiosity about Ben’s past.

“Ben has always been very loyal. He only had one girlfriend in high school, one during college, and so on—then Samara,” Elaine said. “I always knew he’d be the kind of man who met someone, settled down, and stayed married forever. He’s not one of those guys I see so much of in Davis who have to bed every girl that passes them by.”

“Oh,” Hannah interjected into the monologue—for lack som
ething more to say.

“So when Samara started dating her Pilates instructor—of all the clichéd things—we were so sorry for Ben. Two years it went on before Ben left her.”

“I thought he didn’t know.”

“Ben can turn a blind eye to the most obvious things, if he has half a mind. We didn’t know if maybe they were in counseling or something. I’ve been around long enough to know you can never really know what goes on in anyone else’s marriage.”

Hannah shrugged at a loss for words.

“I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone to hurt him like that again. I don’t know anything about you, really, or your past—but if you’re still mooning over your wedding jewelry—maybe you’re not ready. I don’t think he could take another heartbreak.”

“Mrs. Cooper,” Hanna started, stacking the dishes on the dining room table. “I would never do anything to intentionally hurt him. And I’m not going to poison this with the crap from my past.” At least she didn’t intend to. But who knew where things were going? Moving from the past to the future may be messy, but she was going to do her best to make a life for herself that she wanted. Hannah finished gathering up the empty dishes and started to retreat to the sink, when Elaine spoke to her back. “So, Walter and I are planning on taking Ben out for dinner at the Cove and would love for you to join us.”

Seven hours later, Hannah strode into the little restaurant trying to exude a confidence she didn’t feel. She’d put on black pants, a black sweater, and sequined ballet flats. The jewelry that she’d abandoned for much of the trip was back in full force. Brushing by the hostess, she walked to the four top that held Ben’s family. Wa
lter stood up at her approach. Ben looked up from his menu, surprise written all over his handsome face.

“I didn’t know you were invited,” he said, pointedly looking at his mother. He rose slowly, matching his father’s manners.

She wanted to tell him if he’d had a goddamn cell phone, she would have texted him like a civilized person. But that wasn’t an option. By the time his mom had left, he’d already left work, and she had no way to warn him.

“Benji, I taught you better than that. Walter and I wanted to get to know your girlfriend a little better. That’s all. Now be a love and pull out her chair, please.”

He did as he was told, and she sat. When they were all in their seats, she extended a hand to Walter. “It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Cooper.”

“Call me Walter. My son here is the Dr. Cooper in the family. I only have a Ph.D. in biomedical ethics. I’m one of the few non-doctors teaching at the medical school.”

Elaine, no shrinking violet, was quick to take over the conversation. “Ben, we’re going to Marty’s house next weekend. Can’t you make time and come see his little boy? He’s already two months old and you haven’t met him.”

Hannah struggled to pull names from her mind. Ben had me
ntioned a sister Abbe something, not Cooper. Had she had a baby?

“I’m so sorry for butting in. Did your daughter Abbe have a baby? I thought…” she trailed off. For someone who was supposed to be his girlfriend, she was feeling woefully ignorant.

“Oh, no dear. We’re talking about Marty’s baby. Marty is Ben’s brother.”

Hannah knew she hadn’t heard of any brother. She was one hundred percent sure he’d talked about having only one sister. Her confusion must have shown on her face.

The waiter chose that moment to get their drink orders. She ordered a glass of wine. Before the waiter left the table, she snagged him and asked for a bottle of seltzer as well. Dinner could go either way. When the drinks got there, she’d decide if she needed lubrication to help with the parents, or water to remain as sober as a judge.

Ben’s now cold eyes penetrated Elaine with a steely gaze Ha
nnah had never seen before. His eyes had always held warmth when looking at Hannah. Michael’s eyes, on the other hand could drop from warm sky blue to frozen tundra in a second. “Mom, you know I don’t talk about this. Drop it.”

“I’m not going to
drop it
Ben. You’re forty years old. Quit acting like a child. I expected this when you were seventeen, not now. If I could get over it, so can you.”

“Ma.” Ben shook his head, a not so subtle warning written all over his stone-like face.

“Little baby Logan hasn’t done a damn thing to you. He’s innocent in all this. So are Marty, and Hallie for that matter,” Elaine said in a voice best suited for a seven year old.

Ben started to rise from the table. “I’m leaving, Ma.”

“Benjamin Aaron Cooper. Sit down.” Her small hand smacked the table with force, the liquid sloshed in their glasses.

Walter finally spoke. “Listen to your mother.” Ben sat back in the chair, though he pushed himself a few inches away from the table like a petulant child.

The waiter came back to a tenser table than before, this time looking for orders. Walter and Ben ordered steak and creamed spinach without looking at the menu. Elaine ordered fish, and Hannah held up two fingers to the waiter, in a gesture indicating she’d have the same as his mom. Sensing the disquiet, their waiter didn’t linger.

“I didn’t think you’d act like this way around Hannah,” his mother said reproachfully.

“Is that why you invited her?” He turned to Hannah. Ben’s eyes had gone from chilly to downright arctic, causing a shiver to run down her body. “If you must know, Marty is my
half
-brother. My dear father, Dr. Cooper, had an affair with his secretary. That little indiscretion produced a child: Marty.”

Hannah lifted her butt halfway from the chair. Was she going to have to walk out of this restaurant for a second time? “I should go. I’m intruding on a family discussion here.”

Hannah felt like she’d been caught in a bear trap a second time today. All that song and dance from Elaine about
her
breaking Ben’s heart and his father had been walking the line of duplicity way further back than Samara. He’d grown up being lied to. Why would he want to think the worst of his ex-wife, when he’d already survived one emotional disaster? Ben grabbed her hand. She felt electricity run up and down her arm. Attraction to him felt so inappropriate in this setting. He looked her in the eye, his at once cool and pleading. Hannah lowered herself back into the chair. No matter how thorny this moment, she’d stay because he wanted her, no, needed her, to stay here.