She nodded. “Yeah. I may talk with him when I get back. He’s insistent about this play he wrote for me to star in. I’ve been thinking about what you guys said, and I want to make sure I broke up with him for the right reasons.”
Maybe that was her big change—allowing herself to be vulnerable. It wasn’t about losing her free-spirited ways, or knowing she’d never be like Dev, happy in a job that constricted her independence. Or like Pris, pursuing marriage and a family. It was about accepting deeper parts of herself she was suddenly able to see. Maybe that was enough.
Her sisters had helped with that. Now it was time to do her own work.
She stood up. “Okay, enough analysis. Let’s get on with the agenda. Dev?”
Dev grabbed her planner, opened up the page, and frowned. “Hmm, weird. I could have sworn I had the museum tours and cooking class but it just says beach.”
Pris jumped up. “Getting changed now! Beach day!”
Bailey did a little dance, jiggling her hips. “You’re a genius, Dev! How did you know we desperately needed another day to lounge around?”
Dev bit her lip. “I don’t remember doing it.” She scrunched up her face and studied her book. “Is that . . . Wite-Out? Did someone change my planner?”
But Dev was shouting to an empty room.
Bailey was already getting changed, trying not to giggle.
chapter forty
Olivia
I got the news after my third daughter, Bailey, was born. Aunt Silvia had died.
There was no funeral. She’d requested to be cremated with no ceremony, intent on allowing her spirit to fly free with no mourning. She’d never wanted unhappy, crying faces to follow her into the afterworld.
I received the deed to the Positano cottage in the mail with a note from her lawyer. It had been closed up for a while and winterized. A local checked in regularly and was automatically paid from the estate. She also sent me the sweater I’d loved so much. I immediately pulled it around me, the threads soft from age, the blinding golden colors of sunset a reminder of her bright spirit. The scent of sandalwood and exotic spice drifted to my nostrils, bringing me back to that special night when we were both getting ready to meet the men we loved.
I grieved in private, tucking the deed away with Rafe’s letters in my trunk. When my hand brushed the crinkled paper, the memories hit hard, making me double over with such a painful loss, I couldn’t breathe. But I kept my promise. I didn’t read the letters or think of Positano. I buried all of it under a hand-stitched quilt and hid it in the back of the dark closet.
I believe there are two paths in life, one playing out now, and the other in another timeline. Sometimes, the barriers blur and I can almost feel myself with Rafe, sailing on his boat, eating dinner as we watch the sun sink, raising tanned children who run free and speak English and Italian, uninhibited in ways my own children can never be. As I cart Pris to dance class and Dev to gymnastics and Bailey to preschool so they can learn how to socialize well with others, appreciate achievement, and be well-rounded, a slice of me wonders if it truly matters, if this is a matrix-like snow globe where we run as fast as we can but never get anyplace that will make us truly happy. I remember holding hands with Rafe while we lingered for endless hours waiting for a fish to bite. The slow crawl of time. The simplicity of our joy. The stripped-down version of myself and the life apart I chose with Adam. Eventually, the thoughts fade away and I snap out of it. I fall back into this current moment, go over all the things left to accomplish in my day, and push the image of the boy I loved away. Better to think of it as a misty girlish dream rather than a reality.
It was better that way.
Years passed, one after another. I lost my father first, and then my mother way too soon. I threw myself into raising my girls, and life was busy. Adam and I bloomed for many years, especially when Bailey was young—intent on both living up to our vows to rebuild a strong foundation. And we were happy for a long time, until time and neglect began to erode the good.
I found out he cheated on me when Bailey was thirteen years old and in her temperamental years. Somehow, he’d begun slipping back into allowing work to become his prime focus. Was it all his fault?
Taking another woman to bed? Yes.
Growing apart? No.
I found my own outlet—my daughters. I became embroiled in school activities, dating, shuffling car rides, and the other million tasks that ran a household. Pris was attending daily ballet classes and moving toward the goal of attending the NYC Ballet school, so my calendar was demanding. As Adam spent late nights at the office, I stopped nagging him to come home for dinner, finding it almost easier to do my own thing and be available for what the girls needed. I realized they adored their father as a distant figure who occasionally swept in with kisses, compliments, and the deep conversations that intrigued them. To them, he was a hero in the shadows, appearing when they needed him most.
Maybe there’s no such thing as villains or victims in a relationship. Maybe it’s just about two people doing their best, compromising, forgiving, until it becomes too much; until giving in to our own inner selfishness is easier. Do we ever make a conscious choice to hurt someone, or does it just happen in tiny increments—daily choices that erode a foundation until it becomes easy to fool ourselves, to believe this one tiny choice won’t matter.
And then it’s too late to fix.
This was my marriage. An intricate map of twists and turns, where I hurt him by shutting away the deepest part of myself and he tried to fill his own void, not knowing why he felt so empty. Husband and wife who sleep in the same bed, brush their teeth at the same sink, birth children, yet are strangers to each other.
I was the boring one, but I’d accepted my role without bitterness. Because as I watched my girls grow and bloom and come into themselves, I knew it was worth it. The sacrifice of Rafe from my life had a purpose. And even with the affair, as much as it hurt, I was able to accept Adam’s faults because he still gave the girls what they needed, even if it was on his terms and he got more kudos than he deserved.
Adam came back to me after I found out about the affair. He was apologetic and hoping to see if we could revitalize our marriage a second time.
So, we tried, but this time was different. Neither of us had the motivation or fierce focus we’d had the first round. Slowly, we began to let each other go, finding a balance within our relationship and being parents.
Sometimes, as I stared at the young women before me, whom I adored with a ferocity that could never be described, I wondered what their own choices would be one day. Pris was giving up everything for a life of dance, cutting away all the other parts to smooth the way to success. Dev used her logic to make all the hard decisions, preferring balance sheets rather than her heart. Bailey was my artist, a free-spirited adventurer who was in love with the idea of love but seemed unable to ever settle. I caught shades of myself in all my girls—in their passionate, mirrored gazes. The fierce focus and zeal for a satisfying career. The freedom of creative expression in quiet, solitary moments. The lure of passion and possibility around the next corner. They were taking the world by storm on their own terms, and nothing could stop them.