Him? How dare she! I didn’t even know why I was letting her sit at my table. “What are you saying, Pippa?”
“You could start dating again, darling. Start anew. Sam the contractor, for instance. He’s very cute, don’t you think?”
Her words were so shocking I was left speechless. I blinked away an unbidden tear then wiped the wet from my cheek with the mound of my hand. It was Pippa who had introduced me to this contractor. He had come to Cliffside on several occasions to discuss the extension. On too many occasions, for my liking. He had flirted and made me extremely uncomfortable. And then he wouldn’t stop calling. Pushing me for an answer, to sign his contract, to “get to know each other over a good Bordeaux.” I hated being a widow and living alone. Nobody had dared behave that way with me when Juan was around.
“Darling, you need to move on,” Pippa whispered, her hand slipping over mine again as I clutched my empty wine glass.
The young waiter arrived with my food, smiled and said something about enjoying my meal. Probably an out-of-work actor who had strayed north from Los Angeles during the summer and somehow got stuck here, disillusion snapping at his young heels.
Pippa picked at one of my French fries, so I pushed the whole plate over in her direction. I felt nauseous at the thought of getting into a heavy conversation with her. She would press my buttons. I didn’t trust her.
“You eat this, Pippa. I’m not hungry anymore.” I pulled out a crisp one hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and stuck it under my wine glass. “I’m going home. Sorry, I just don’t feel like baring my soul right now. Please give the waiter all the change for his tip.” I got up, and before Pippa had a chance to protest, I had walked away.
Three
It was that little baby all in baby-pink—in Carmel—that perfect couple’s baby, with its big, watery blue eyes—that really got me falling into a spiral of despair over the next couple of weeks that followed. I’d agonized about that a lot lately. What color eyes our baby would have had. I pictured Juan’s cerulean eyes edged with thick black lashes, which would sometimes make actual shadows on his cheeks. The sort of lashes only children have, although Juan’s face was decidedly masculine, with his strong jawline and straight, almost aquiline nose. But then again, perhaps our baby might have had nondescript eyes like mine.
With one more year of trying we could have done it, surely? That was all I had asked. But, no, that chance was snatched away from me. It wasn’t that I begrudged them—these lovely, perfect young couples with perfect babies dressed in blue or pink—but it was like having all your failures blown up on a giant neon billboard, lit up, on the corner of a building in Times Square, or Piccadilly Circus. In the olden days, I would have been labeled infertile or even “barren.” Nobody said those words anymore, but I bet they felt them. Thought them secretly. Even if it was, in fact, Juan’s fault we didn’t have children.
I needed to wipe all these what ifs out of my head. The baby that never happened. Juan. My secret. The sadness. The shell of what I’d become.
Most of all, my secret.
I kicked off my shoes and padded upstairs to the bedroom: my sanctuary, where the beautiful ocean view could distract my thoughts. Set back only twelve or so feet from the bluff, the house’s position made me feel like I was suspended in mid-air.
I sat cross-legged on my fluffy white rug—a gift Juan had brought me back from Mexico one time—and flipped open my laptop, bringing back to life old pages I’d bookmarked before his accident. Adoption agencies.
I stared at a little boy with melty blue eyes and dark hair—a dead ringer for a mini Juan, and I sighed in defeat. There was no way I’d ever go through with this, even if I hadn’t felt like danger lurked around every corner. I wasn’t the type to journey this alone. Being a single parent? A friend of mine was doing it back in England and was quietly miserable.
Deep down inside me, a little rage bubbled. I was alone, abandoned, just when I needed my husband most. And his lies and secrets sat like heartburn thick in my throat.
Juan had been trying to steer me away from the adoption idea. Said we had a chance