of Water Street.
‘I’ve made a reservation,’ she says and gets out of the car. Together they step up the front stairs of the hotel, past the doormen, and proceed into the fine dining room on the first floor. As they’re escorted to their table, he follows her, his eyes watching her as she weaves among tables. They’re seated by the window. He glances around quickly to see if he recognizes anyone – Aylesford is not a big town. There’s no one here he knows, and he begins to relax. If someone should recognize him – perhaps one of his wife’s friends – he will introduce her as a potential client, a custom home build. She certainly looks the type.
She smiles at him and he orders wine.
‘So, Niall,’ she says, ‘tell me about yourself.’
The lunch goes as he expected. She’s interested in him, he’s interested in her. The only question is how to go from the dining room to the hotel room with a minimum of fuss and notice. And how to pay for it. He can’t let her pay, and he can’t have a hotel room in Aylesford showing up on his credit card bill. Nancy will check. She checks everything since she caught him in his first – and only – indiscretion. He’d made it through eight years of marriage – past the seven-year itch – but last autumn he’d had a brief, thrilling affair with a woman he’d met at the golf club. His wife had found out. There had been tears and recriminations; it had been awful and the fallout had gone on for weeks. She’d insisted they do marriage counselling. He’d gone because he didn’t want his marriage to end; he loved Nancy and their young son, Henry, and he couldn’t imagine life without them – and divorce would be both inconvenient and financially ruinous, it always was. So he’d broken off the affair and done everything Nancy had asked. He’d promised her he would never stray again. He’d been as good as his word, but now, there is a gorgeous woman flirting with him right across the table, and he is sorely tempted.
In the end, he doesn’t really struggle with the decision. He’s only concerned about not getting caught. He tells himself that what Nancy doesn’t know won’t hurt her. What possible harm can there be – as long as his wife doesn’t find out?
He glances towards the lobby and wonders if there’s an ATM out there. He needs to get some cash. Erica meets his eyes and they both know what’s going to happen next.
They smile at each other and he pays the lunch bill with his business credit card and then they leave the restaurant. He withdraws cash from the ATM and takes a room under an assumed name while she goes to the ladies’ room. He texts her the room number when he gets into the lift. On the ninth floor, he lets himself into the room with the key card and takes off his jacket and loosens his tie. He sends a quick text to Kerri that his lunch is running late and to reschedule his 3 p.m. meeting, then he hears a soft knock on the door.
He’s doing it again. Nancy must not find out. And then he opens the door and forgets all about his wife.
It’s a lovely summer day, perfect for an outing to the wading pool in the park beside the public library. Stephanie and Hanna had arranged to get together, and Stephanie had invited some of the women from her mom’s group to join them. Amy and Jen are there with their baby boys, and Barb with her little girl.
Stephanie wiggles her bare toes in the warm, shallow water, sitting on the concrete edge of the pool. Hanna is nearby, splashing with Teddy beside her. Jackie and Emma happily gurgle at each other in front of her. All the babies are in swim diapers and brimmed hats, and Stephanie has her girls in inflatable rings to help support them because she can’t really hold them both up at once. The women chat about the babies companionably. They’ve already been in the library and picked up some baby board books to take home – a caravan of buggies. They all had lunch in the park, Stephanie and Hanna sharing tuna sandwiches. By the time she gets the twins home, Stephanie thinks, she will be able to put them down for their afternoon nap and she can get