“I don’t need the whole pie,” he said. “One slice’ll do.”
“Don’t be silly, you love key lime pie.”
“Honestly”—he sounded peeved—“I don’t want the whole pie. Leave it for the kids.”
“Take the pie. Share with your clients who need cheering up.” She pressed it into his hands.
“Anna, no.” His tone was a dagger, and his eyes flashed a warning.
She pulled back. “What is it?”
“You’re anxious over this Amelia thing. I get it. But ease up, okay?”
“I baked this pie just for you,” she said, alarmed to hear herself whimper. “I stayed up past midnight.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“The diet is hard for you to stick to, so I thought why not give you something to smile about with your favorite pie.” Anna tried to slip around his arm to open the tote with the Buddha bowls and snacks to slip the pie inside.
“Stop!”
She halted. Wow. He’d actually raised his voice over it.
“Look, here’s the deal. I don’t really like key lime pie.”
“Sure you do. I made it for you when we were dating, and you said it was your favorite.”
“Cards on the table? I lied. You were cute and sweet, and I wanted to sleep with you.”
Stunned, Anna settled the pie onto the counter. “I’ve been making you this pie for eighteen years.”
“Yeah, well, now you can stop.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead, felt sick to her stomach. “I can’t believe you’ve kept this from me for eighteen years.”
“Don’t overexaggerate. It’s just pie.”
No, no, it was not. The pie lie was a crack in the foundation of their marriage.
“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” she asked. “Anything more you need to get off your chest?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah. You’ve been pulling away from me for years and it hurts.”
His words hit her like a punch. Had she?
“I haven’t.”
“You’re up at four o’clock in the morning. You volunteer for too many clubs and organizations. There’s Winnie. The band. Our mothers are raising our kids half the time because you’re off doing community services. At night, you’re too tired for sex more often than not.”
Sex.
So that’s what this was all about. It always came down to sex with men, didn’t it? Dumbfounded, she stared at him. She had no idea her husband felt this way.
“And now you suddenly have this sister, who’s come looking for another slice of your time.”
“I iron your own freaking shirts, Kevin.” She tightened her arms over her chest, barely keeping herself from saying the other “f” word that she really wanted to shout.
“You could just send them to the dry cleaner.” He grunted. “Do you know what it feels like when you’d rather iron my shirts than take me up on a quickie?”
There were nine hundred responses flipping through her mind, but, honestly, she was too flabbergasted to say any of them.
“It makes me feel as if you are avoiding me. As if you’d rather iron than go to bed with me. It makes me feel inadequate and neglected.”
“Kevin, I’m a busy mom. I have stuff to do.”
“And now, with Amelia strolling into our lives, you’ll add even more stuff on your to-do list. How come I’m never at the top of that list, Anna?”
“You’re sounding like a big baby.”
“I sound like someone who wants his wife back.”
“And you told me to grow up?” Anger burned her skin. “Take your own advice.”
Kevin looked like a man who’d made a decision he’d been weighing for some time. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I think we need a time-out from each other.”
Her angry heart jumped into her throat. “What do you mean by that? You’re going on the road. We won’t see each other again until Saturday.”
“Let’s fully take a break. No texting or FaceTime or emails for the next three days unless it’s an emergency. It’ll give you space to think about what’s most important.” Tossing that over his shoulder, Kevin stalked out.
Stunned, Anna stared after him, mouth agape.
As the door clicked shut behind her husband, a big neon warning sign flashed in Anna’s head and she thought, Oh no, my husband is terrified I’m embarking on a new journey without him. How can he be so insecure?
Furious, she turned to the pie, grabbed fistfuls of crust and sticky filling, and started jamming the entire mess down the garbage disposal.
Chapter Six
Robin
Curiosity Killed the Cat
If there was anything Robin Straus had learned in her seventy years on planet Earth it was this: love was not a straightforward affair.
Romantic novels and movies, time-honored fairy tales and diamond engagement ring commercials led you to believe that when you met your soul mate, alchemy happened. You fell in love, got married, had babies, and lived happily ever after. It was a naïve fantasy so far removed from the truth that it’d be laughable if it wasn’t so painful.
Life was so much more complicated, beautiful, and frankly poignant for such a simple reduction.
Love wasn’t a direct line from meeting to forever melding. It had twists and turns, peaks and valleys, meandering paths and abrupt crescendos. No greeting card sentiment could ever capture the complex emotional quagmire that was real human relationships.
The hallmark of lasting love was not red roses tied up with raffia in a crystal vase. It wasn’t expensive chocolates and bubbly champagne. It wasn’t a lavish wedding ceremony or a honker of a diamond ring. It wasn’t out-of-this-world sex—although that could be part of the equation—sex was sex and love was love. People could have great sex without love being involved and have great love with no sex.
Loving someone meant making sacrifices and putting their interests ahead of your own. But it also meant having strong boundaries and not letting your love for someone sway you from honoring your own needs and preferences. It couldn’t be unrequited or one-sided, either, where one person did all the giving and the other all the taking.
That wasn’t love. That was exploitation.
Love was a balancing act.
A delicate back-and-forth.
A gentle dance and sway.
And love meant that when your actions hurt someone you loved, you sure as hell better say you are sorry. True apology and real forgiveness were the essential ingredients in a long, lasting, layered love story.
Whether between partners, friends, parent and child, or siblings.
Since losing Heathcliff Robin often found herself thinking about the intricacies of love, her relationships and what they meant to her.
Especially today, as she sat among the piles of Heathcliff’s things in the climate-controlled storage unit, pondering what was going on with her daughter.
Anna had canceled their hair appointment at the last minute, which wasn’t like her reliable child. While Anna did have an impulsive streak, she was a people person, and when she disappointed others, she carried her guilt like a weight.