A Life Beyond Us novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Roof
Maura overhears Darcy telling a rooftop of women about a motel night with Tom and Hugh, steps in to confront her, and Tom doesn't deny it as Hugh walks in.
The alumni get-together was on a hotel roof, and I was holding two glasses of white wine when I heard my husband's name.
Earlier, a woman from our year had hugged me by the elevator and told me I looked twenty-five.
She had fixed the clasp on my necklace without being asked.
She had pointed my husband out at the bar and said, "Go rescue him, he's being cornered by the lacrosse guys."
So when I came around the olive tree and saw her on the long sofa, I was smiling.
Six women from our year sat around her, and Darcy Hawthorne was on her third drink.
She had been the prettiest girl on campus in college, and she still knew it.
"Okay, Darcy," said the woman beside her. "Wildest thing you've ever done. And it has to be true."
"You want the real one?" Darcy said.
"Obviously."
I stopped behind the tree to let them finish.
I didn't mean to listen.
Darcy tipped her head back and laughed low in her throat.
"The weekend Tom Poynter's divorce went through, I took him to a motel off Route 9."
Somebody gasped.
"And his best friend came too. Hugh Clemence. Both of them, all night, room fourteen."
"Tom Poynter?" the woman beside her said. "As in Maura's Tom?"
"He wasn't Maura's that weekend."
Darcy swirled her wine and let them wait.
"He didn't just go along with it, either. He told me it was the only way he'd ever find out what he'd been missing. Maura would never ask him for anything like that."
She lowered her voice, and everyone leaned in.
"She's lovely. But she's the kind of woman who folds the towels, you know?"
They laughed.
I stood there with a glass in each hand, and the wine in the left one began to shake.
Tom and I had known each other since the second grade.
We had been married once for four years, divorced for three, and married again for the last three.
I had never been told about a motel.
Darcy's eyes drifted past the women and landed on me.
She did not look surprised.
She smiled, lifted her glass an inch, and said to the whole sofa, "And he still thinks about it. Poor Maura. She has no idea."
I could have turned around.
I could have put the glasses down on the first table, found the stairs and let this be a story I heard secondhand from someone kinder.
So I stepped into the circle and set both glasses on the low table in front of her.
"Say it again, Darcy," I said. "Slower. Room fourteen, Route 9."
The laughing stopped.
"Maura," said the woman beside her. "We were only..."
"I know. It's a good story."
I kept my eyes on Darcy.
"Tell it again to my husband. He's right over there."
Darcy shrugged one shoulder.
"He knows how it ends," she said.
I walked across the roof.
I walked past the lacrosse guys and past the string lights and the little tables with candles in glass jars.
Tom was at the bar with his back to me.
Tonight in the car he had checked his phone four times and told me twice that he was fine.
At the door he had held my hand and asked me not to leave before nine thirty, no matter what.
It was nine twenty-six.
"Tom."
He turned around smiling, and the smile went when he saw my face.
"Darcy's telling six women about a motel off Route 9," I said. "Room fourteen. You, her and Hugh."
I had expected him to say it was a lie.
I had expected him to look confused, or angry, or offended.
Tom set his glass down very carefully and said, "Maura."
That was all.
He did not say it was a lie.
Behind him, the elevator opened with a soft chime.
A tall man in a dark coat stepped out and stood at the edge of the roof, scanning the crowd.
He had a few gray hairs at the temples that were not there three years ago.
He found Tom first, and then he found me.
Hugh Clemence had left town the week of my second wedding and had not answered a single text from anyone since.
Across the roof, Darcy rose from the sofa with her glass up.
"There he is," she called out, loud enough for the whole party. "The other half."
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