Time of My Life_ A Novel - Allison Winn Scotch [78]
“I’m just a misplaced country boy,” he said to me sheepishly at one point.
“An off-tune one, be that as it may,” I said, smiling.
“Well, you found my first flaw.” He winked, and then turned back toward the road.
Eventually, as our ardor eroded, I grew weary of his country music, and he listened to it only when alone. Truth told, I have no idea if he still sang along, and if not, if he stopped because of me.
But certainly, as we careened down the highway toward his parents’ house on that Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Meg never called to announce pregnancy number two.
So now, on the train to Vivian and Bentley’s, this was certainly good news to behold. Since I’d come back from seven years forward I’ve too often suspected that I’d set off a destructive chain of events that would never have occurred, shouldn’t have occurred, were it not for my return. It’s easy to feel this way: I do, after all, have a map of the previous course of events, so any deviation from someone else’s designated path is, no dodging it, directly my fault. I wanted to come back to change my life, my history, but I never contemplated how that might tweak the outcome for so many others. Like Josie and Bart. Like Henry and Celeste.
But now, there was Megan and Tyler, and as she confides that she’s only five weeks along, so let’s not get our hopes up, but she’s feeling positive and no morning sickness yet, but she’s certain she’ll be barfing any day now, I can’t help but feel like things are exactly as they should be.
Outside, the world rushes by me. I stare out of the train window, and pine trees blur into other pine trees, and deadened fields, crusty from the winter, flow into other browned and deserted grasses. I watch it all whiz by and think that my coming back has changed things, sure, but sometimes, change is exactly what you need. As Henry might have once sung, some change is going to do you good.
THIS IS MY FIRST Thanksgiving with the Turnhill clan. The year before, I’d joined my father, Linda, and Andy in Florida, and the year prior to that, Jack and I hadn’t been serious enough to merit a discussion on where to spend the holidays. So, while I’ve burrowed myself into his family tree, thanks to that sparkler on my finger, and Vivian has certainly extended her (formerly clamped-shut, never-to-be-pried-open) arms, still, I feel off balance.
I have tried, however, to come prepared. While my preference would be to slum it in jeans and a T-shirt, I am demurely dressed like a Connecticut prep-school graduate, complete with a honey-colored cashmere crew, a tweed pencil skirt and peep-toe lizard-skin shoes. Peep-toe shoes! I think as I slide them on. Who wears heels to dinner in their own home?
Vivian did, is the answer, and thus, so did I—though I’m alarmed to remember how often I wore heels to dinner in my old life: how Henry would burst through the door, and an apron-clad, exquisite wife, complete with a piping hot dinner, would be waiting.
I descend from the stairs into the living room, and Leigh catches a glimpse of me.
“Oh my God.” She laughs. “You look like one of them!” She gestures her elbow toward the library, where her two sisters and mother huddle in front of the fireplace. Leigh, I notice, is in pressed black pants, a matching turtleneck, and flats with a shiny silver emblem on the toe. The balls of my feet practically cry out in envy.
“Just trying to do my part.” I shrug.
“More like ‘just trying to play your part,’ ” Leigh says, and though the words could be piercing, they actually burst with sympathy. She smiles at me kindly. “Come on, let’s get a drink. This can be a long evening.”
Two bourbons later, I am helping Vivian reheat the (catered, preordered) stuffing (that she doesn’t cook), when she blindsides me from