Page 54 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane

Libby

Hawthorne Lane

Libby has finally reached the front of the line for mulled wine.

Maybe it’s her imagination, but it feels like the whole town has crowded onto Hawthorne Lane for the fall festival this year.

Georgina really has done a fabulous job of it, she can’t deny that.

The streetlights are wrapped with fall garlands, and a hand-painted banner stretches across the length of road leading into the rounded cul-de-sac.

Each house has taken care to decorate its porch with fat, round pumpkins and stalks of multicolored corn.

The smell of buttery popcorn and melting sugar wafts from the vendor stands, and families slowly walk through the closed-off street pulling red wagons full of costumed children with sticky hands and smiling faces.

“One cup, please,” Libby tells the woman working the wine stand as she fishes for her wallet in her purse.

“Make that two,” a familiar voice calls over her shoulder.

“Just the one,” Libby tells the woman, handing over the cash before turning to address her soon-to-be-ex-husband. “Hello, Bill.”

“Hey, Libs.” He loops his thumbs into his pockets, rocks back on his heels, and offers her a disarming smile. “How’ve you been?”

“Just peachy,” she deadpans. “What do you want, Bill?”

A few weeks ago, Libby would have been elated to see him standing here outside the house they once shared.

She would have taken this as a sign that there could still be something between them.

But now all she feels is mild curiosity about what brought him to her doorstep and a twinge of annoyance that he hadn’t bothered to tell her he was coming.

Typical, Libby thinks. Of course he’d assume that she’d be eager and available to see him whenever he felt like waltzing back into her life.

Not that she can really blame him for that.

Libby has always molded her life around Bill and his needs.

But he doesn’t see that something’s changed in her.

That she’s doing her best to move on from him, that she’s actually invited Peter here today.

Libby looks out over the crowd. He hasn’t arrived yet, but he should be along any minute now.

“Nothing,” Bill says.

“Then why the hell are you here?”

“Lucas asked me to come,” Bill replies. “He was supposed to spend the night at my place, but he insisted he wanted to stay for the festival. I suppose there’s a reason for that?” He raises one eyebrow, breaks into an off-kilter grin.

“Her name is Christina.” Libby assumed Bill already knew about Lucas’s new girlfriend.

She’s all he can talk about at home with Libby.

Libby can’t deny the small thrill of satisfaction she feels that their son has confided in her and not his father, but she quickly pushes it away.

She’d thought for sure that Lucas would have mentioned his new relationship to Bill, especially after the altercation between him and Sebastian.

God, Libby had been furious when Lucas came home with his face a bloody mess.

Maybe she should have called Bill then, told him what happened herself, but she assumed Lucas would tell him.

And besides, she’d handled the situation.

She immediately called Georgina, who assured her that she would straighten out her vicious thug of a son.

Libby could tell something was off about that boy even when the kids were small.

She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was always a coldness about him that made her wary.

“Ah, a girl.” Bill sighs theatrically. “I should have known. It’s always a girl.”

“Something the two of you have in common these days.”

“Funny,” Bill remarks.

“It wasn’t meant to be. Where is Heather today anyway?”

“She had a…doctor’s appointment. And I, uh, I thought maybe we should talk anyway. Just the two of us. About something kind of important.”

A sinking feeling opens in the pit of Libby’s stomach. It’s almost as if she knows what Bill is going to say before he utters the words that will change everything.

“Heather is…pregnant.”

“No, she—she can’t be.” Libby feels as though the ground has opened beneath her feet, leaving her in free fall. Heather. Pregnant. This explains why Bill moved her into the town house so quickly, but understanding does little to ease the pain of the wound to Libby’s heart.

Bill is going to have another baby. The second child they’d once both longed for.

In a flash Libby sees the pile of negative pregnancy tests accumulated in the trash can, the slow shake of the doctor’s head, the silent sonograms that would never show the flutter of a heartbeat.

But now Bill is going to have another chance… with someone else.

“I’m sorry, Lib. I know this can’t be easy.” He takes her hand, but Libby yanks it away as though she’s been scalded.

“Of course it’s not easy. ”

Her mind goes back to the early days of Lucas’s life, to the way he’d felt, warm and steady, in her arms as she’d rock him to sleep, the hazy golden sunlight that poured into his nursery as he’d taken his first steps.

She remembers the day Bill taught him to ride a bicycle, all gapped teeth and scraped knees; she remembers the first days of school, the birthdays where they’d all crowded around a frosted cake together, watching Lucas scrunch his eyes closed and make a wish before blowing out the candles.

An entire lifetime of memories. Moments that exist for Libby only in the past; fragile, fading things that she can pull out, look back on fondly, and reshelve like dusty photo albums. But Bill, he’s going to get to live it all again.

Only this time, he’ll be experiencing that joy with someone else.

“Obviously this is going to complicate things,” Bill continues, “and of course we’re going to have to finalize the divorce now, but—”

He’s still speaking, but all Libby can hear is the ringing in her ears.

She feels her sadness giving way to molten anger.

It roils and churns inside her, sloshing in her gut like lava.

Complicate things? Is that all she is to him now, a complication to be dealt with before he can start his new family?

Libby pictures the three of them nine months from now: Heather dewy and glowing in a hospital bed, a new baby bundled in Bill’s arms, tears of joy filling his eyes.

And then she imagines her own life: Lucas leaving for college, his bedroom boxed up, the posters pulled from the walls, leaving only a faint outline of the boy who used to live there, and Libby all alone in the big empty house that once held her family.

How much more is she meant to take? When Bill said he needed time away from their marriage, she lay down like a doormat and let him walk away; when she found out he was dating again, she was hurt but she did her best to move on too, and now, just as she was finally coming to terms with the end of their marriage, just as she was starting to find her own glimmer of happiness, there’s going to be a baby. It’s almost more than Libby can bear.

She clenches her fists at her sides, concentrating on the pain of her nails digging into the flesh of her palms, willing herself to contain the bubbling rage that threatens to boil over. “How can you be so—”

“Wait,” Bill interjects. “I think something is happening.” He points over her shoulder toward the center of the cul-de-sac.

Libby turns, sees the crowd that has gathered in the middle of the street, hears the din of raised, angry voices churning like a gathering storm.

Her first instinct is to look for Lucas.

She’s a mother. No matter how old her son gets, when she sees trouble, her first thought will always be to seek him out, keep him safe.

“I don’t see Lucas.” The words come out panicked and clipped.

“I’m sure he’s fine, but let’s go find him.” Bill starts toward the throng of people, and Libby hurries behind him. He pushes his way through the crowd, aiming for the center of the circle. “Excuse me. Sorry.”

Libby is jostled by the onlookers, who all seem to be focused on something going on in the center of the cul-de-sac, but she can’t see what it is through the mass of people.

She tries to stay close to Bill as he parts the crowd, but somehow they get separated.

Someone elbows her drink, sending the cup flying and mulled wine spilling down the front of her shirt.

She can’t be bothered to care right now.

Her only thought is of finding her son. She doesn’t know what it is, a mother’s intuition maybe, but the longer she goes without setting eyes on Lucas, the more certain she is that something has happened to him.

Finally, she reaches the middle of the crowd and time seems to stand still as Libby surveys the scene before her.

Colin towers over Lucas, who’s staring up at him with a look of terror frozen on his face.

Lucas’s shirt collar is stretched and twisted, and a vein on Colin’s forehead bulges as he bears down on Libby’s son, fists clenched.

Behind him, Georgina is pushing Sebastian and Christina through the crowd, away from the scene.

“Stop!” Libby shrieks, and in a flash, time is set in motion once again.

Libby rushes to her son and positions herself between him and Colin. “Leave him alone!”