Page 33 of Sunset on the Solstice

What made her think that he was that kind of guy? She didn’t know.

“You’re awake,” Jared said sternly, as though she were in trouble.

Shelby turned to look at him in the darkness. His eyes glinted from the moon. She felt a strange swell in her chest, one that felt like love mixed with tremendous dislike.

“You shouldn’t be awake,” Jared said.

“I was worried about you,” Shelby shot back.

Jared sat upright in bed and glared down at her. “You’re the one who came into my life,” he said. “You can’t expect me to play happy husband every night. It’s too much.” With that, he snapped around and slept with his back facing her, leaving Shelby to stew.

Something that had never been far from Shelby’s mind was what Monica and Jim had said in the hospital: that the doctors had been worried about a personality change in the wake of Jared’s injury. Sometimes she wondered if he was crueler, now, because he’d hit his head. But other times, she remembered that she hadn’t known him very well before the accident. They’d had a summer romance. She’d fallen in love with the Nantucket version of him. Now, maybe, she was just getting to know the Cambridge version. She told herself she loved the Cambridge version, too.

Well, she had to. She’d married him. She was pregnant with his child.

As the weeks wore on, she communicated with her sister and mother less and less. She told herself that this was because they weren’t supportive of her marriage. They’d wanted to tear her out of the courthouse and take her back to Nantucket. They’d wanted to “fix her mistakes.”

But Jared wasn’t a mistake! She loved him.

The morning after Jared’s night out, Jared turned to Shelby before he left for class and said, “That was pretty pathetic last night.” Without letting her answer first, he stormed out.

Shelby opened the oven door to find the beef Wellington, forgotten and going bad. She put it in a trash bag and put it in the dumpster outside, her eyes stinging with tears. When she returned to the kitchen, she reached for the phone and dialed her sister.

“Shelby?” Lily sounded panicked. “Shelby, is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine! I’m just calling to say hi,” Shelby said. There was a slight hiccup in her voice, but she thought she sounded mostly normal. Sort of normal.

“I’ve been thinking about you all week,” Lily said. “I wanted to call, but I don’t know. I didn’t think you wanted me to?”

Shelby closed her eyes. “I want us to have a good relationship. We always have!”

“We always did,” Lily offered. “How are things going? How’s Cambridge?”

“It’s beautiful. Spring has sprung. You should see some of these old trees,” Shelby said. “I love going for long walks around campus and reading wherever I end up.”

Shelby had done that exactly one time, but she hadn’t been able to focus on the book she’d brought along with her, as she’d been too frightened of her approaching dinner preparations and worried she would forget something at the grocery store.

“And the pregnancy? How are you feeling?” Lily asked.

“I feel great!” Shelby said, although her morning sickness had carried on throughout the first trimester, so much so that Shelby had nearly lost more weight than she’d gained.

“We really want to come see you,” Lily said. “Can you find a good weekend for us to come? I’m sure Jared has a lot of studying to do, and we could, I don’t know, go shopping, or even go to New York and visit some friends? Molly really misses you. I don’t think she likes her new roommate.”

Shelby thought of that apartment in Manhattan, about Molly on the sofa, watching television and pulling Shelby into her cozy orbit. “You can study later,” she’d always said.

“We’ll find a weekend!” Shelby said to her sister now.

“Look at your calendar now,” Lily ordered her. “I have mine pulled up. When works? Maybe the first weekend in May? Actually, the third weekend would work, too. We’ll have to decide whether we want Mom to come, but I think we should invite her. She misses you so much.”

Shelby felt a pang of dread. She imagined bringing her mother and Lily into this house. She imagined showing off her recipes. She imagined telling them, “Jared doesn’t think we should eat sugar anymore.” She imagined her mother’s panicked face.

“Yeah, maybe in May? Or maybe in June?” Shelby said.

“Let’s set down a day. Now,” Lily said, exasperation in her voice.

“It’s just I can’t right now. I have to check with Jared,” Shelby said. “I’ll call you back later, all right? We’ll find a day. Love you.” Shelby hung up, gasping and self-hating.

But she knew that Jared wouldn’t like it if she went away with her sister and mother. She knew he’d say something snide about Shelby’s commitments to him. And he knew, of course, that Lily and Rebecca hadn’t wanted Shelby to marry him. Shelby shouldn’t have admitted it, but it had felt so true on the day of their wedding. Rebecca’s face had been shadowed and angry.