The Year We Turned Forty (3 page)

Jessie remembered that night. He'd rubbed her thigh under the table while she'd stroked his leg. In the cab on the way home, Grant had slyly reached his hand up her skirt and she'd pushed herself into him, wanting to savor the moment. Yes, it had been amazing. But he hadn't so much as patted her ass since. “Grant. That
was
three months ago.”

Jessie watched as he did the math in his head. “Really? I've been so busy at work, the time has passed in a blur.”

“Because of Sadie?” Jessie asked, thinking of her gorgeous long red hair, her young fresh face. “Does she make the day fly by for you?” Jessie wasn't proud of it, but she'd recently Google-stalked her. It had been yet another night when she'd sat alone in their living room, the clock ticking past 8 p.m., her imagination running wild with reasons why Grant wasn't home. And when she'd discovered several images of Sadie modeling lingerie, her stomach dropped. Had he seen those? Of course he had.

“What does she have to do with this?”

“Well, you clearly don't want to have sex with me. So I'm wondering if it's because you're getting it somewhere else—if that's why you hired a model to get your coffee and make copies?”

“Do you really think I'm cheating on you? Because I'm not!”

“Well, you're hardly ever here. And when you are, you act like I'm invisible!” Jessie choked on the last part.

Grant reached for her. “I'd never do that to you or the girls. Do you really feel invisible?”

“Yes.” Jessie wiped a tear away. “I do.”

“I'm sorry, Jess. I feel so much pressure at work. And when I am home, it feels like survival, you know? Like in between sports and homework and baths and dinner, there isn't much room left for us.”

Jessie nodded.

“I'll try harder. Okay?”

“Okay.” Jessie brought her lips to his and hoped they'd stumbled back onto the right path.

But another three months went by without Grant reaching for her and she felt her insecurity turn to anger all over again. When he didn't even kiss her when he walked in, she would pick a fight about a crack on the countertop or the gas bill, all while shattering inside. He must find her lumpy and unsexy and boring. Otherwise, he would want to have sex with her. The constant rejection was like her shadow, following her everywhere, eventually leading her to look for that validation outside her marriage. And ultimately to Lucas. But never back to Grant.

Her life changed on the last Thursday of August 2004, Jessie's night to meet with her book club. They'd all had way too much wine as usual, and after they'd managed a short and boring conversation about the novel most of them hadn't read, a few of the women had walked to a bar close by for another round. That's when she'd seen him: Lucas' future father. But at the time, he was just Peter, a dad whose son was in the same fifth grade class as Madison and Morgan. She'd first met him when they'd both volunteered at a Halloween party at the school, Jessie reluctantly dressed as Cinderella after her daughters had given her a guilt trip about attending in costume. She'd had a laugh with Peter, who was dressed as Batman, and whose son had given him a similar spiel. A former semipro soccer player, Peter stood just a few inches
above Jessie's own five-foot, six-inch frame. But she couldn't help but notice the way his broad chest was stretching the fabric of his costume and that his deep olive-green eyes sparkled through the small openings in his mask. She'd heard from the other moms that he stayed home with his son, but worked on the side coaching the local club soccer team and running a summer sports camp. As they crafted cobwebs out of cotton balls, he told Jessie that his wife, Cathy, was an investment banker who spent more time traveling to Tokyo, London, and New York than she did at home.

After the class party, Jessie bumped into Peter regularly, laughing as they'd slammed their car doors shut and clenched their dry cleaning bags or stood in line together at Starbucks. They'd often chat in the school parking lot long after drop-off had ended, Jessie leaning against her van as she spun her hair around her finger, wanting to prolong the moment. There was something about the way Peter remembered small details from their conversations, how he lobbed compliments effortlessly her way. The effects of seeing him would buoy her for hours after, making her step bouncier, her mood lighter. He made Jessie feel like she was interesting and sexy, that she could take on the world.

When she noticed Peter at the bar that night, shooting the eight ball into the corner pocket, and he'd looked up at her, she should have turned and gone home. They'd been teetering on a fine line between friendship and flirtation for months, Jessie forcing herself to push thoughts of Peter aside several times a day or to stop herself from emailing him with yet another wry observation on a topic they both found funny. But when he walked over with a vodka martini piled high with green olives, the drink she'd once told him she loved, and challenged her to a game, she agreed. She'd barely seen Grant lately. He'd been working
thirteen hours a day and was so tired when he arrived home—long after dinner was eaten and the leftovers stored in neatly stacked plastic containers in the refrigerator—that he barely had the energy to listen to the girls practice their reading, let alone have a conversation with Jessie. She would often discover him asleep in one of their beds, a chapter book on his chest and one of his daughters snoring softly beside him. And she was sure that if she'd gone home right then, that's where she'd find him.

“Loser buys a round,” she'd proclaimed as the other women she'd been with called it a night and started to leave.

“I'll give her a ride,” Peter had said, smiling innocently at the moms, whom he also knew from school. He'd come up in conversation more than once among the women, everyone agreeing he was smoking hot, but also that he seemed very happily married. But Jessie knew from her private conversations with Peter—the ones that had eventually transitioned from light bantering about their kids' never-ending homework and rigorous sports schedules to heavier topics like politics and the fragility of marriage—that it was mostly for show, which was very similar to the one she and Grant had been performing lately. Together but not connected—a very precarious place for any marriage to perch.

•  •  •

Jessie understood now that she'd been a big part of the problem. That she'd let herself, and ultimately her marriage, become a victim of her own insecurities. At some point, she had shifted the responsibility to fix their relationship onto Grant's shoulders, making it even easier to think Peter was the answer to the question she had been secretly asking. At the time, she thought her marital problems were overwhelming, that her dissatisfaction was unique. But what she wished she could tell
her thirty-nine-year-old self now was that even though their love wasn't as shiny as it used to be, it didn't mean that it didn't have merit. She realized too late that falling in love was the simple part—it was
staying
in love that seemed to elude most people.

After Jessie lost the third consecutive game of pool, Peter had whispered in her ear, “Want to get out of here?”

Jessie froze. It was one thing to flirt. To fantasize about this moment from the safety of her own bedroom. But to have it within her grasp? It felt surreal. She set her drink down and followed him before she could change her mind.

They drove in silence to a Quality Inn while his warm hand rested on her upper thigh. After securing a room, Peter had offered to buy her another drink in the sad little bar off the lobby, but Jessie shook her head and moved quickly toward the elevator, not wanting to lose her courage, the months of flirtation and lack of sex propelling her on.

Once in the room, she tried to ignore the worn carpet and peeling wallpaper as he did what she imagined him doing for months—ran his hands through her hair and touched his soft lips to hers. One kiss wasn't the end of the world, she told herself as she leaned into his full mouth. When he slipped his hand under her shirt, she reasoned that she wasn't going to let it go any further than that. And when he nudged her to the bed's edge, pulled off her jeans and underwear, and started to make his way inside her, she'd wanted to rip herself away. But she couldn't—not because of how he felt, but because of how he made her feel—beautiful. In that moment, she felt like the layers of her life had been peeled back, exposing the girl she used to be. She felt young and alive.

But that feeling vanished as quickly as it came. As she lay on
the bed in Peter's arms, her jeans still bunched around one of her ankles, Jessie wiped a tear from her eye.

“This was a mistake,” she'd whispered. Guilt was already fogging her perspective, and what had felt fantastic just moments ago now felt dirty and wrong. It was like a spotlight had just been switched on, a neon sign pointing out the obvious: she'd fucked up. “I need to go home,” Jessie said as she frantically put herself back together, Peter watching her silently.

On the drive back, Jessie started making promises to herself. She'd be a better wife to Grant, a better mom to the girls. She'd become an active participant in her life again. Maybe she'd even confess to Grant. She'd read somewhere that telling your spouse you'd been unfaithful only alleviates your guilt, but can hurt them irreparably. And she didn't want to cause Grant any pain. Jessie made a pact with herself. She'd turn her marriage around. Starting the second she left that filthy hotel.

•  •  •

“Bye, Mom!” Lucas said, the front door slamming behind him.

“Bye, honey!” she called after him as he dribbled the soccer ball in the front yard.

“So what's up?” Jessie asked after the door closed, watching Grant shift his weight from the balls of his feet to his heels. Grant's face had always revealed his emotions, as if they were being painted on with brushstrokes. He knitted his brows and looked at his feet. “Janet and I are getting married.”

Six words.

In just six words, Jessie felt her world collapse all over again.

Gabriela pushed her large sunglasses on top of her head as she approached the TSA agent, holding her driver's license in one hand and her carry-on in the other. She averted her eyes from the adorable little girl pulling a bright pink Disney princess suitcase in front of her, focusing on the date on her boarding pass instead.

Almost ten years ago to the day, Gabriela had rushed home from the hospital, her mind sharp and her body energized even though she'd been up twenty-four hours, Lucas' birth injecting new life into her. Something had happened when she'd nestled a swaddled Lucas against her chest for the first time and touched his nose lightly with her fingertip. She'd been hit hard by a thought, one that hadn't occurred to her when Jessie had the girls or when Claire gave birth to Emily twelve years ago. She realized that having a baby wouldn't be her biological choice for much longer. Soon, her body would be making that call.

As Gabriela rocked Lucas, twenty-one inches and seven and a half pounds, with a shock of dark brown hair sticking up
from the top of his head, she smiled at an exhausted but radiant Jessie. Jessie had given birth when she was almost forty, so that meant Gabriela could too. But she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to carry a child inside of her. Her body could stop releasing eggs at any time and she could enter menopause. There was something about motherhood no longer being up to her that made her realize that in the back of her mind she'd held on to the small chance of it still happening. And it's what caused her to race home and burst through her front door where she found Colin resting comfortably on the white leather couch she'd already decided they'd have to replace with something sensible, like chenille or micro-suede or whatever stain-proof fabric parents were buying these days. He was holding the most recent issue of
People
, the one that had given her latest novel,
Back to You
, four stars. “Quite a birthday present,” Colin said, pointing at the feature and smiling.

“Yes. But I have even bigger news,” Gabriela said breathlessly as she threw herself down on the couch beside Colin, placing her head on his lap and looking up at him, noticing that his thick red hair was freshly cut. She hoped their daughter or son would inherit the deep color, along with his math prowess. Gabriela could barely balance the checkbook.

“Okay, I'm listening,” Colin said with a laugh, the rich sound that had drawn her to him when they'd first met, immediately calming her. She remembered the first time she'd heard it, she'd been squinting at a map of the London Underground and he'd stopped to help, making a joke that she could navigate the tube a whole lot easier if she wasn't looking at it upside down. She'd glanced up at him, his lanky figure towering over her, his hair falling into his light blue eyes, and she'd giggled, mortified. She never told him, but sometimes, when she heard him offer his
laugh to someone else, a small part of her felt betrayed, like he was granting access to a part of himself to which she wanted exclusive rights. “Let me guess. Jessie had another girl, didn't she?” Colin said before she could tell him what she knew he'd been waiting so long to hear.

“Nope, a son, Lucas. I love that name, don't you?”

Colin's face lit up. “It's a great name. Solid. I can't wait to get him out on the soccer field. We needed some testosterone in this group!”

“Maybe we could make one of our own?” Gabriela offered, wrapping her arms around his neck, then continuing before he could react. “I want a baby. I'm ready.” The words spilled out faster than she could control them.

“Oh, honey,” Colin sputtered after an excruciatingly long silence. Gabriela, with her ear now pressed against his chest, listened to the rapid thumping of her husband's heart and would later tell Jessie and Claire that his quickened heartbeat had answered her question long before he had. When he finally spoke, his slight British accent was almost a whisper, as he explained why he no longer wanted children. That he had waited years for her to change her mind and when she never did, he'd privately mourned the future he wouldn't have as a father and had slowly grown to accept his life without kids. And now he'd be almost sixty when his child graduated from college. Wasn't it too late?