Stone Cold

With our purchases in tow, we trek down the cobblestone street once again, this time heading toward the infamous seaside Commercial Street for brunch. Every time I finish a book, I always look forward to grounding myself back into reality. It usually requires something to see, something to touch, something to taste, something to hear … and the Saturday flea market almost always ticks all of those boxes.

As much as I love mentally residing in some far-off land where people fall in love and no one gets hurts and they all live happily ever after in the end, it’s never a bad thing to step away from that from time to time.

“What’s Chauncy up to today?” I ask after we put our names on the wait list.

The hostess said it would be fifteen to thirty minutes, so we step outside and find a place to sit in the sunshine.

“Getting a quick eighteen holes in with his dad and brother at the club,” she says. “The usual.”

“Are things getting better between you two?”

Last I knew, they were two months into marital counseling.

“Yeah, actually,” she says. “He’s been making more of an effort to be present, and he’s been doing little things for me lately—making me coffee when I’m running late for work, surprisingly me with lunch dates or leaving roses on the kitchen table for me to come home to … he’s trying. And I am too. I’m learning to pick my battles. For instance, when he leaves his beard shavings in the sink instead of rinsing them out … I wipe the sink down myself instead of biting his head off. And when he leaves his gym shoes by the back door for me to trip over, I calmly move them out of the way instead of throwing them into the garage like a crazy person.”

“That’s good,” I say with a chuckle.

“Marriage is hard as hell, Jovie,” Monica sighs before bumping her shoulder against mine.

“If only you’d told me that a year ago.”

Monica rests her cheek against my shoulder. “You couldn’t have known Jason was going to be a royal douche. I honestly thought you two were perfect together. He made you laugh. You had fun. His family adored you and your family adored him …”

I’d met him via Tinder of all things, after a string of failed Hinge and Bumble dates. And I had zero hope or expectations that he was going to be different from any of the others. But when he suggested we hit up a karaoke dive bar and wasted no time taking center stage and commanding the audience with a cheesy Tom Jones number, I fell hard. Not because he was an amazing singer, but because he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about him. He was simply up there having a good time and putting a smile on people’s faces.

Our second date entailed morel mushroom hunting in the woods—a first for me but a unique and memorable experience nonetheless. We scoured some woods outside the city for four straight hours and came out with a small bag that we ended up giving to grandmother, who was so thrilled by our gift that she cried happy tears and promptly invited us in so she could show me how to fry them “the Whitlock way.”

For our third date, Jason arranged a picnic in a lighthouse—another first for me. And while I sipped sweet wine and nibbled on expensive cheeses, he read to me from a book of sailor stories.

To say I was quickly enchanted by him would be the understatement of the century.

Everything was wonderful until the ink was dry on our marriage certificate a few months later—that’s when the real Jason came out. Detached and moody, his kisses became fewer and further between and he began staying late at the office and spending his weekends with “friends.” After a month of living together, he told me he needed space; that he felt suffocated by my sheer presence.

I thought we were hitting a rough patch, that he was probably just stressed with work and adjusting to married life and we’d come out of it soon enough. I figured if I backed off and stayed patient and supportive, all would be fine.

But things only got worse.

We weren’t married but six months when he served me with divorce papers.

The hostess steps outside and calls my name, and it’s perfect timing because my stomach won’t stop rumbling, and I’d much rather be shoving my face with buttermilk pancakes than reminiscing about my failed marriage.

“Your server will be with you shortly,” she says after seating us at a small table in the middle of the restaurant.

I’m perusing the menu and trying to decide between fresh squeezed orange juice or a glass of iced tea when Monica gasps.

“What’s wrong?” I glance over my menu.