скачать книгу бесплатно
This was part of our pact. We always made sure there were no flaws in our story.
Whatever happened, she knew I’d protect her.
She was my sister.
CHAPTER THREE
Jenna
Yearning: an intense or overpowering longing
NOT PREGNANT.
Were there two more depressing words in the English language?
In the small bathroom of their two-bedroom cottage on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Jenna dropped the remains of the pregnancy test onto the bathroom floor and resisted the temptation to grind it under her heel.
She wanted to swear, but she tried never to do that even in the privacy of her own bathroom in case one day it slipped out in front of her class of impressionable six-year-olds. Imagine that.
Mrs. Sullivan said fuck, Mommy. FUCK. It was her word of the day. First we had to spell it, and then we had to use it in a sentence.
No, swearing was out of the question and she refused to cry. She already had to contend with freckles. She didn’t want blotches, too.
“Jenna?” Greg’s voice came through the door. “Are you okay, honey?”
“I’m good. I’ll be out in a moment.”
She stared at herself in the mirror, daring her eyes to spill even a single drop of the tears that gathered there.
She was not okay.
Her body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. What it was supposed to do was get pregnant on the first attempt, or at least the second, nurture a baby carefully for nine months and then deliver it with no crisis or drama.
All those times she’d peed on the stick in the grip of panic, hoping and praying that it wouldn’t be positive. The first time she’d had sex with Greg, both of them fumbling and inept on the beach, she’d been more terrified than turned on. Please don’t let me get pregnant.
Now she badly wanted it to be positive and it wasn’t happening.
They’d been having sex all winter, although to be fair there wasn’t much else to do on the Vineyard once the temperature dropped. Sex was a reasonable alternative to burning fossil fuels. Maybe she should teach it in class. Hey, kids, there is solar energy, geothermal energy, wind energy and sex. Ask your parents about that one.
She was burning more calories in her bedroom than she ever had on a treadmill.
She was thirty-two.
By thirty-two, her mother already had Lauren.
Jenna’s sister, Lauren, had been pregnant at eighteen. She’d barely said “I do” to Ed before announcing she was expecting. It seemed to Jenna that her sister had gotten pregnant by simply brushing against him.
And yes, that made her envious. She loved her sister, but she’d discovered that love wasn’t enough to keep those uncomfortable feelings at bay.
She’d wanted to be a teacher since her sixth birthday when her mother had bought her a chalkboard, and she’d forced her sister to play school.
Everyone knew it was only a matter of time until she had her own family.
At first she’d been relaxed about it, but as each month passed she was growing more and more desperate.
She’d tried everything to maximize her chances, from taking her temperature every day to making Greg wear loose boxer shorts. They’d had sex in every conceivable position and a few inconceivable positions, which had caused one broken lamp and Greg to mutter that he felt like a circus performer. Nothing had worked.
The injustice made her heart hurt, but worse was the sense of total emptiness. It embarrassed her a little because she knew she was lucky. She had so much. She had Greg, for goodness’ sake. Greg Sullivan, who was loved by every single person on the island including Jenna. Greg, who had graduated top of his year and had excelled at everything he’d ever tried.
She’d loved him since she was five years old and he’d pulled her out of the ditch where she’d fallen in an ungainly heap. He was her hero. They’d sat next to each other in senior year and run the school newspaper together. People talked about them as if they were one person. They were Jenna-and-Greg.
Until recently, being with Greg was all she’d ever wanted.
Suddenly it didn’t seem like enough.
The worst thing was that she couldn’t talk about it with anyone, which had led to some almost awkward moments because she didn’t find keeping things to herself easy. Chatty, her school reports had said, much to her mother’s irritation. You’re there to learn, Jenna.
She might be chatty, but even Jenna drew the line at talking about her sex life while browsing the aisles at the local store.
Hi, Mary, good to see you. By the way, how many times did you and Pete have sex before you got pregnant?
Hi, Kelly, I’d love to stop and chat but I’m ovulating and I need to rush home and get naked with Greg. See you soon!
“Jenna?” He rattled the handle. “I know you’re not okay, so open the door and we can talk.”
What was there to talk about?
She was desperate for a baby and talking wasn’t going to fix that.
She opened the door. She was Jolly Jenna. The girl who always smiled. The girl who had always tried to accept things she couldn’t change. She had freckles on her nose, hair that curled no matter what she did to it and a body that refused to make babies.
Greg stood there, wearing what she thought of as his listening face. “Negative?”
She nodded and pressed her face against his chest. He smelled good. Like lemons and fresh air. “Don’t say anything.” Greg was a therapist. He’d always been good with people, but right now there was nothing he could say that would make her feel better and she was afraid sympathy might tip her over the edge.
She felt his arms come round her.
“How about ‘I love you.’”
“That always works.” She loved the way he hugged. Tightly, holding her close, as if he meant it. As if nothing was ever going to come between them.
“We’re young and we haven’t been trying that long, Jenna.”
“Seventeen months, one week and two days. Don’t you think it’s time we talked to a doctor?”
“We don’t need to do that.” He eased away. “Think of all the great sex we can have while we’re making this baby.”
But it’s not working.
“I’d like to talk to someone.”
He sighed. “You’re very tense all the time.”
She couldn’t get pregnant. What did he expect?
“If you’re about to tell me to relax, I’ll injure you.”
He pulled her back into his arms. “You work so hard. You give everything you have to those kids in your class—”
“I love my job.”
“Maybe you could go to yoga or something.”
“I can’t sit still long enough to do yoga.”
“Something else then. I don’t know—”
This time she was the one who pulled away. “Don’t you dare buy me a book on mindfulness.”
“Damn, there goes my Christmas gift.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. “Hang in there, honey.” The look in his eyes made her want to cry.
“We’re going to be late for work.”
Twenty hyperactive six-year-olds were waiting for her. Other people’s six-year-olds. She adjudicated arguments, mopped tears, educated them and tried not to imagine how it would be if one of those kids was hers.
Every day at school she taught the children a new word. Definitions had a way of flashing through her head even when she didn’t want them to. Like now.
Disappointed: saddened by the failing of an expectation.
Frustrated: having feelings of dissatisfaction or lack of fulfilment.
“It would be easier if people didn’t keep asking when we’re going to have a baby.”
“They do that?”
“All the time.” She grabbed her makeup from the bathroom. “It must be a woman thing. Maybe I should stop being evasive. Next time someone asks me I should tell them we’re having nonstop sex.”
“They already know.”
“How?”
He grinned. “A couple of weeks ago you texted me at work.”
“Plenty of wives text their husbands at work.”
“But generally those texts don’t say Hey, hot stuff, I’m naked and ready for sex.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, except Pamela had my phone.”
“No!” She felt a rush of mortification. “Why?”
“She’s my receptionist. I was with a client. I left it with her in case someone had an emergency. I wasn’t to know you would be having a sex emergency.”
“I don’t know whether to laugh or hide.” Jenna covered her mouth with her hand. “Pamela was my babysitter. She still treats me as if I’m six years old.”
“We can rest assured she now knows you’re all grown up.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing. She handed me my phone back, but I have no doubt that our sex life will be the topic of discussion at the knitting group, the book group and the conservation commission meeting. If we’re lucky, it might not be on the agenda for the annual town meeting.”
“Do you think she’ll mention it to my mother?”
“Given that your mother is a member of both the book group and the conservation commission, not to mention numerous other committees on this island, I think the answer to that is yes. But so what?”
“It will be another transgression to add to a very long list.”
Jenna had once overheard her mother say Lauren never gave me any trouble, but Jenna—She’d paused at that point, as if to confirm that there were no words to describe Jenna’s wayward nature.
“Whenever I’m with my mother I still feel as if I should be sitting in the naughty corner.”
Greg gave a slow smile. “What happens in this naughty corner? Is there room for two?”
“She thinks you’re perfect. The only thing I’ve ever done that has won the approval of my mother is marry you! It drives me batshit crazy.”
“Batshit—” Greg arched an eyebrow. “Is that today’s word?”
“If you’re not careful I’ll tell her what a bad influence you are.”
“We’re married, Jenna. We are allowed to have sex wherever and whenever we like as long as we don’t get arrested for public indecency.”
“I know, but—you know my mother. She’ll sigh the way she does when she despairs of me. She’ll be wishing I was more like my sister.” Although Jenna adored Lauren, she had never wanted to be her. “My mother is the beating heart of this island. If anyone is in trouble she’s there with her flaky double-crusted pies and endless support. She’s closer to Betty at the store than she is to me.” And it was a never-ending source of frustration and hurt that she and her mother didn’t have a better relationship.
Jenna considered herself easygoing. She got along well with pretty much everyone.
Why did it feel so hard to talk to her mother?
“Parent-child relationships are complicated.”
Dysfunctional: relationships or behavior which are different from what is considered to be normal.
“I get that. What I don’t get is why it still bothers me so much. Why can’t I accept things the way they are? It’s exhausting.”
“Mmm.” Greg glanced at his watch. “Happy to deliver a lecture on the latest research into mother-daughter relationships, but I charge by the half hour and you can’t afford me.” He kissed her again. “Get dressed, or the next thing they’ll be discussing at the annual town meeting is the fact that their first-grade teacher was standing in front of the class wearing her dinosaur pajamas. Want me to cook tonight?”
“It’s my turn. And speaking of my mother, I’m visiting her later.”
