[COMPLETE]
When Hanna Haddad embarks on what's supposed to be another uneventful summer as a lifeguard on Cape Cod, a trip to the past comes as an unnerving surprise. The discovery of her estranged mother's journal opens up the world of tragedy and...
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October 5, 2002
7:22 a.m.
Nicolas and I barely see each other anymore.
We use work as a crutch, an ever-applicable excuse to live in our own two different worlds, each on either side of the same city. If not for Hanna, I'd hide in my office as late into the day as he does, so I can use the excuse of sleep when I come home well past nine p.m. after my usual insufferable commute.
Hanna has asked me a few times when I pick her up why she never sees Dad anymore, save for those few precious mornings before school. I don't have an answer for her...because I don't have an answer for myself. Our lack of communication has been more of a slow march to its demise than a surprise I woke up to one morning.
"You guys need to do something," Benjamin suggested over the phone yesterday. "Plan a vacation somewhere exotic. Somewhere where you only see each other's faces the whole time, and then tell me if you're actually drifting apart."
"Nice try," I muttered, rolling my eyes from the other side of the phone. "But money doesn't grow on trees, Ben. Maybe a weekend trip to the mountains of New Hampshire or something. It's pretty up there in the fall."
I could almost see him rolling his own eyes. "And freezing. Do you even want to try, Annie?" He stunned me to silence, as his questions weren't usually this bold. "That's what you should be asking yourself."
I busied myself with the stack of exams I had yet to grade, over one-hundred packets of wasted trees. I didn't want to answer that question, let alone any of his questions.
"Annie. Answer me."
My heartbeat grew stronger as I heard him breathe heavier on the other side of the line. "What will my response do for you, Ben? My marriage shouldn't matter to you this much."
"You know it does no matter what.
Silence ensued on both sides of the line, and I gripped the receiver a little harder. I didn't want to admit my defeat to myself, much less over the phone to him. "I could try harder; but you're right, I don't want to. But neither does Nicolas."
"Nicolas is a piece of shit," he grumbled, insulting my husband out loud for the first time since they had been acquainted nearly a decade ago. "You've always deserved better."
"I don't agree," I said, but my words didn't come out with much conviction. "Nicolas is a good man, deep down."
"People called George Bush a good man, and now we're stuck in war."
"Nicolas and I aren't in war," I declared, my hand one step away from slamming the receiver down, "just a small battle."
"If that's the case, then I hope you lose. Miserably."
