At first, when Chris got off the boat, he didn’t see Addison. He was carrying equipment and chatting with a very beautiful and leggy blonde. There was a swagger to his shoulders, an eagerness in how he spoke to her, as though he wanted to consume her every story. Ben was directly behind him, chatting with the blonde’s friend. Together, the four of them looked as though they were on a double date. The difference was that Ben wasn’t married. He’d recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend, a friend of Addison’s who was still brokenhearted about it.
Something cold and hard dropped into the pit of Addison’s stomach. Was it possible that Chris had become jealous of Ben’s single lifestyle, his so-called freedom? Was it possible that he’d begun slipping off his wedding ring during scuba diving sessions, if only to flirt with the young women? Addison felt as though she was going to faint.
It was then that Chris noticed her. His smile flinched, if only for a second. And then he made a beeline toward her. “There she is! My beautiful wife.” He kissed Addison right there in front of everyone. Addison wondered if it was a performance. But the fact was, her heart melted when he touched her, and she was so eager to tell herself that this was all right, that Chris was trustworthy and the wedding band thing was just a fluke.
But the thing was, Addison couldn’t get the wedding ring situation out of her head. She began dropping in at Chris’s work often, every other week or so, if only to see if the wedding band was or wasn’t hidden away. Sometimes it wasn’t. But Addison noticed that on those days, Chris was scuba diving with people he wouldn’t have been interested in. When his wedding ring was abandoned, always, always, a beautiful woman or two walked off the boat with Chris and Ben. It was a pattern she couldn’t ignore.
That spring and early summer, Addison’s health deteriorated. She lost a great deal of weight, so much so that her mother insisted she see a doctor. Addison was too embarrassed to tell anyone what was going on or what she suspected. And she certainly didn’t want to bring it up with Chris. She was terrified that he’d ask for a divorce, that he’d see her neediness as more than enough reason to go. It was true that she had no idea what went on between Chris and these women. Often, she had to work late at the hotel, which gave Chris plenty of time to do whatever he wanted. It made her sick.
Midsummer, Chris and Addison joined Beth and Hugh for a beach barbecue. The hotel was staffed with other employees, and the Stapleton family had decided that a night off was due. Addison watched from the other side of their little circle as her father and Chris laughed and joked, talking about sports they loved and memories they had on the island.
“Tell me, honey,” Beth said gently, her voice low. “Why have you been so distant this summer?”
Addison denied being distant. It was a lie, one she knew her mother wouldn’t let her get away with.
Beth dipped her head closer to her and breathed, “Are you having trouble getting pregnant, honey? Because there are things that can be done. Doctors to speak to. We have connections. We’ve been on this island forever.”
At that, Addison couldn’t take it anymore. She burst into tears, hyperventilating right there in front of her parents and Chris.
“What’s all this?” her father asked, flabbergasted.
But Addison shot to her feet and hurried to the hotel to clean herself up in the bathroom. Chris was hot on her heels, calling back to her parents that he’d take care of it. Addison ran faster, feeling as though a murderer was chasing her. When they reached the lobby, she sped past the hotel guests and into the nearest bathroom. Just before she could slam the door in his face, Chris grabbed her wrist and blocked the slam with his body. His eyes searched hers.
“What’s gotten into you, baby?” he asked.
Addison felt unstable, like a woman on the brink of mental collapse. All she wanted was to throw herself into Chris’s arms and ask that he be hers and hers alone. All she wanted was for him to honor the vows they’d said to one another a few years ago.
“Don’t do this, Chris,” she whispered. “Don’t pretend you love me when you don’t.”
Addison expected Chris to fake it. She expected him to tell her that she was crazy, that he wasn’t up to anything at all. She expected him to say he had a thousand things on his mind, all of them about building a future with her and their future kids.
But instead, Chris bent his head and let her wrist go. He fumbled over his words, then said, “I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up without you noticing.”
Addison’s eyes grew enormous. She gaped at him, wondering if he was taking any pleasure in breaking her heart. But the fact was, her heart had already shattered that first day she’d seenthe wedding ring on the front desk. She’d been waiting for this moment since then.
She didn’t want to talk about this in front of her parents’ hotel guests. Her shoulders slumped, and she left the bathroom, walked through the foyer, and went to tell her parents that Chris was taking her home. “I’m not feeling well,” she said.
“Chris will take care of you,” her father declared. “He’s a good man.”
Addison closed her eyes tightly, so tightly. She knew she had to prepare her heart to tell her parents the truth. She knew, too, that her father would think it was her failure, that she’d caused the rift between them that forced Chris out. This was the nature of so many older men. They loved to blame the women for what went wrong.
Back at the little home they shared, Chris broke down into sobs and told her that he hadn’t been happy in years, that he needed to regroup and consider what he wanted, where he wanted his life to go, and what kind of man he wanted to be.
“Maybe I want to go to the mainland,” he said. “Maybe I want to go to college! All this tourism stuff leaves me feeling so empty inside.”
Addison sat on the sofa, cupping her knees, falling through memories of her life with Chris. She could see it all as though it were happening just now before her eyes. She could see Chris asking her nervously if she wanted to go out for a milkshake with him after school. She could see him coming toward her for their first kiss. She could see him, standing at the far end of the church aisle, waiting for her to come toward him and say “I do.”
“Let me get this straight,” she whispered, forcing her eyes to his. “You don’t want to be married to me anymore. You don’t want the life we’ve built.”
Chris was quiet for a long time, long enough to tell Addison that she’d guessed the truth. She immediately got up, went to the closet, and began to pack her things. It was over. It was done.
Chapter Four
Late Summer 2010 - Oahu, Hawaii
No young woman got married with the idea that she’d get divorced. No one went into a life decision that enormous with the idea that the foundation would crumble. But the day that Addison signed the divorce papers and returned to the name Addison Stapleton, a friend of a friend she met out at a beach bar insinuated that this was the kind of thing young people did all the time. “We’re all jumping in and out of relationships, trying to make sense of things,” the woman named Gigi said, flapping her hands over her cocktail. “It’ll be a miracle if any of us actually end up with anyone. It’ll be a miracle if any of us find ‘the love of our life.’ I don’t even know if I believe in something like that.”
Addison stuttered, feeling foolish. She sipped her bright blue cocktail and tried to catch her friend Mandy’s eye. Mandy was the link between her and Gigi, the friend who’d suggested they celebrate Addison’s singlehood with a few drinks.