Page 6 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane

Libby

Hawthorne Lane

Libby is in a rush. Again. She has less than an hour before she has to open her shop, and she still needs to make a stop at the grocery store.

It’s her assistant’s birthday, and Libby wants to bring her one of the fancy cakes they have at the bakery counter of Grocers’ Way.

Erica deserves it. She works nearly as hard as Libby to make Lily Lane a success, not to mention that Libby owes her one for being willing to open at a moment’s notice last month when she got caught up waiting on Bill.

But as with most things, Libby left it until the last minute and now she’s rushing.

She darts out of the house, the strap of her purse sliding down her shoulder as she pulls the front door closed, and trots down the brick steps of her porch.

It’s another scorchingly hot day. This summer has been a brutal one, the type of oppressive heat that brings the entire town to a boil.

Patience has been in short supply—customers being snippy with Libby’s staff, horns honking on Main Street.

She wonders if the weather could be partially to blame for Lucas’s recent attitude too (though she knows that’s a stretch).

They’d argued again that morning. If you could even call it arguing. Lately, it seems to Libby like she can’t say a single solitary thing to her son without setting him off. This morning it was as innocuous as her asking about his plans for the day.

“Where are you going?” Libby inquired when Lucas finally emerged from his bedroom and made an appearance in the kitchen.

“Out,” he replied. He swiped a bagel from the kitchen counter and headed toward the front door without so much as a look in his mother’s direction.

“And where would ‘out’ be located, exactly?”

Lucas stopped in the hallway, throwing his head back in exasperation. She could see the dramatic rise and fall of his shoulders as he sighed heavily. “What’s with the interrogation?” he asked, finally turning to face her.

Libby swallowed her annoyance at his tone. “It’s not exactly an interrogation to inquire about where my seventeen-year-old son is going. Pretty sure that’s just basic parenting.”

“Field at the high school.”

“See? That wasn’t so bad.”

Lucas shrugged and slid in a pair of earbuds, once again tuning her out.

“It’s been great talking to you,” Libby huffed sarcastically as her son walked away. She threw up her hands in a sign of defeat, even though Jasper was the only one who was there to see it.

The entire exchange had thrown Libby off this morning as she turned it over and over in her head, trying to determine where she’d gone wrong. And now she’s running late.

She slides into her car, jams her key into the ignition, and starts the engine.

Something is going on with Lucas. She’s certain of it.

She just wishes he’d talk to her. Like he used to.

Maybe it’s her fault. Maybe she’s been spending too much time at the shop, and it’s affecting her relationship with Lucas.

Ever since Bill left, Libby has practically buried herself in work.

She knows it’s a crutch and that there are probably healthier ways of dealing with the whirlwind of emotions she’s constantly holding back, but working is the only thing that seems to distract her these days.

In her store, she’s in control—she can trim, cut, arrange, and set things in order.

She can make something beautiful enough to hide the ugliness in her life.

But as much as Libby loves her shop, Lucas has always been her priority. He knows that. Doesn’t he?

Once again, Libby feels a stab of resentment toward Bill.

She doesn’t understand it, how he could put their family through this.

How it’s possible to just walk away from someone after eighteen years of building a life together.

Sure, things hadn’t been great those last few years, but life can’t always be sunshine and rainbows.

Libby thought Bill understood that. She thought they’d weather the storm.

And yet here she is, braving the elements alone.

Libby shifts her car into reverse, carefully checks her rearview mirror.

She can’t risk another incident like the one she had with their new neighbor, Hannah Wilson.

She’d practically run the poor girl over!

Hannah was, thankfully, quite gracious about the whole thing, but Libby was mortified, stammering about how she’d been distracted that morning and issuing assurances that she’s usually a much more cautious driver.

What a first impression she must have left on her lovely new neighbor.

But this time, there is no sign of Hannah.

Instead, Libby spots a woman pushing a stroller along the sidewalk at an efficient clip, occasionally checking the fitness watch strapped to her wrist. Libby remembers those days, when motherhood was all-consuming, when it felt like you were losing yourself in the sea of diaper changes and nap schedules.

When it seemed impossible that you’d ever have another moment to yourself, and those extra few pounds clinging to your hips were just another reminder of all the sacrifices motherhood demanded of you.

But she remembers the golden haze of all of it too, the languid mornings spent with a laughing toddler—witnessing wobbly first steps and clumsy attempts at forming words.

She’d wanted more children after Lucas, but it just wasn’t in the cards for her.

No matter how hard she and Bill tried for another child, Lucas seemed destined to be their only.

And so Libby put everything she had into raising her son—she gave all of herself over to being his mother.

And now he’s nearly grown up and wants practically nothing to do with her.

Libby wishes she could tell the woman with the stroller to slow down, not to rush these days away, but she knows she won’t understand, not until her kids are grown and she’s looking back on this time in her own rearview mirror.

—

The parking lot of Grocers’ Way is surprisingly crowded for a Thursday morning. Libby checks her watch. She has only twenty minutes before she needs to open Lily Lane, but it should be enough time if she hurries.

She runs into the store, where a gust of cool air-conditioning and the smell of fresh produce greet her. The baked-goods section is at the back of the shop, and Libby makes a beeline for it, but she is quickly diverted from her mission.

“Libby Corbin?”

I don’t have time for this, Libby thinks.

But of course, she doesn’t say that. Instead, she plasters a smile on her face, one that she prays looks more cordial than manic, and stops to chat with Beth Something or Other, the head of the PTA at the high school.

Beth is standing with another mother whom Libby doesn’t recognize, a pigtailed toddler happily licking a lollipop in the front seat of the woman’s cart.

“Hi, Beth!” Libby trills.

“I thought that was you!” Beth gushes dramatically. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you up at the school! I hardly recognized you!”

Subtle, Beth. Very subtle. “Oh, you know how it is, busy-busy!” She resists the urge to check her watch again. She can almost feel the seconds ticking away as she stands here.

“I heard you have new neighbors up on Hawthorne Lane.”

Libby sighs inwardly. She sometimes forgets what a small town Sterling Valley is.

Too small, if you ask her. Of course word of the moving trucks coming and going from her block already hit the rumor mill.

Something about the big houses, the secluded location, makes Hawthorne Lane and its residents a favorite topic of discussion.

“I do, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about them yet,” Libby says with a tight smile, and Beth’s look sours. As the town’s reigning gossip, she was probably hoping for some exclusive insight into the newcomers.

“I saw that Bill’s brokerage was the listing agent for the property. I considered buying it myself, but the timing didn’t work out.”

Libby nods, distracted with thoughts about how to politely extricate herself from this conversation.

“Anyway,” Beth plows on, “that must have been quite a sale for Bill. Good for him. How is that husband of yours anyway?”

Libby flounders over how to answer the question for a moment.

She hadn’t realized that Beth even knew Bill outside of a few times they’d met at school functions.

But she shouldn’t be surprised. Libby supposes that many people in Sterling Valley have a faux familiarity with her husband.

After all, it’s his face grinning out from Sold signs all over town, his rakish smile on a park bench on Main Street, one rogue curl flopping disarmingly over his forehead.

And isn’t that the whole point? He’s a familiar face, a friend, a neighbor, someone you can trust. Everyone except for Libby, that is.

But even as she thinks it, she knows it’s not true.

That’s the problem with Bill. It’s hard to hate him.

He’s not a bad person. Not really. He’s the guy who runs over with jumper cables if he sees that you’re having car trouble; he’s the neighbor who is happy to hold the ladder while you clean out your gutters and even happier to crack open some cold beers, glass bottles clinking, when the work is through.

The thing is, Libby’s husband is a genuinely nice guy.

A fact that infuriates Libby to no end as of late.

The only fault he has, as far as she can tell, is that he’s stopped wanting her.

“Good,” Libby manages, “he’s good. Busy as ever.” Beth is the last person Libby wants to discuss the details of her tumultuous marriage with. And anyway, soon this absurd separation will end, and no one will have to be the wiser.

“I’m sure,” Beth replies, her tone betraying her boredom with Libby’s surface-level response.

“Anyway, I really should be going, I—”

“Since I have you,” Beth interrupts, “I know the new school year hasn’t started yet, but I was hoping to get a few volunteers lined up for the goodwill auction—”

“Actually, would you mind shooting me an email with the details? I hate to cut this short, but I have to open the shop in a few minutes.”

Beth’s friend smiles wryly.

“Of course, of course,” Beth replies with a shooing flick of her wrist. “You get going. I know how busy you must be, running your own business and whatnot! I simply don’t know how you do it all!”

Libby flashes her a quick smile. She’s almost out of time. “Thanks, Beth! Talk soon!”

Libby race-walks to the bakery counter and places her cake order, drumming her fingers on the countertop while she waits.

I should be able to make it to the shop on time if I don’t run into any more delays.

She watches as the young woman attempts to write Erica’s name in pink frosting with an unsteady hand; she has to scrape it off and restart the process twice.

“Sorry. I’m still training,” the girl says sheepishly.

Libby realizes that she’s probably making the poor kid nervous.

“It’s no problem, take your time,” she replies through a forced smile, stilling her anxious fingers.

She decides to leave the girl to it and distract herself by perusing the rows of rolls and French breads.

Maybe she should pick up something to bring to the barbecue Georgina is hosting over the weekend to welcome Hannah and Mark Wilson to the neighborhood.

Libby considers some of the packaged pastries, imagines them sitting in their plastic clamshells on Georgina’s artfully arranged dessert table beside her own homemade confections and decides against it.

“It’s really a shame,” Libby hears, the words floating over the display and pulling her from her thoughts. She recognizes Beth’s voice but can’t see her. She must be in the next aisle. “I heard her husband just left her. Walked out on her and her kid.”

“I can’t imagine why.” Her friend giggles. “She seems so pleasant.”

“Oh, stop,” Beth chides, laughter bubbling beneath her words.

“You’re so bad. Anyway, he’s with some other woman now.

At least that’s what I’ve heard. Melissa Welton—do you know her?

She said she saw Bill Corbin out with some woman, and it looked pretty hot and heavy from how she described it.

I wonder if Libby knows about that. If she did, she’d probably be a little less smug, always bringing up her shop, how busy she is, and rubbing it in people’s faces like we’re supposed to be impressed. ”

The conversation continues—“By the way, have you seen the new principal at the high school yet? He’s not hard to look at, I’ll tell you that much!

”—but the words are nearly drowned out by the ringing in Libby’s ears.

She slides to the floor, her purse landing with a thud next to her.

She hardly even notices when the contents spill out onto the ground, her lipstick rolling away.

She barely registers the salesgirl who’s run around the counter to check on her.

“Are you okay, ma’am? Are you okay?”

All she can hear is Beth’s voice, her nasty little words echoing in her consciousness: He’s with some other woman now.