Free Newton Neighbors (New England Trilogy) by Suzy Duffy

Lopez had produced twins and still looked like a sex siren, whereas Maria looked like she’d swallowed JLo! Losing her youth and her looks was bad enough for Maria, but if she had Ricky’s undying love, it would still be okay. Now she was beginning to wonder if that was conditional, too.  
    Was it her body he’d fallen in love with and not her personality? Was he really going to stick around if he was beginning to look at the sitters that way already? What would their marriage be like in five years if they’d reached this point in just a decade?
    When she’d left home, Maria assumed she would go to college in Vermont, work for a while in New York, perhaps, and then head back to Puerto Rico. It had never been in her plan to leave the tropical island forever, but life had other plans. Ricky Sanchez had stepped into her world.  
    His grandmother and his mother, both now deceased, had been Puerto Rican. Ricky spoke fluent Spanish, but more important than any of that, he simply got her. Maria used to tease him that he was marrying his mother, because both she and her mother-in-law came from the same little island in the Caribbean, but he insisted that there were plenty of differences between the women. Ricky had been so romantic back in college. He had written her notes and left them under her pillow or next to the bathroom sink. She would find them in her folders or even in the fridge. In those letters he swore his undying love. Ricky wrote with such passion—how could she not fall in love?  
    Then there was the sex. It had been amazing in those early days. Ricky hadn’t been able to get enough of her. They’d been like rabbits, morning, noon, and night. It was a miracle she had scraped through her degree, they’d spent so much lecture time in bed together. But somehow both of them had left college with degrees, and she’d also gained an engagement ring. The rest—she took another cracker—was history.
    Ricky had gotten a terrific job in a large marketing firm in Boston and worked his way up to head of his department in Internet marketing. She had paid little attention to his work at that stage, although she did know he’d secured a generous share option in the company during his last bout of employment contract negotiations. This meant as the company grew so did their nest egg, but it also meant he was tied to the company for the foreseeable future. Michael, Ricky’s best friend, worked there, too. Cathi’s husband wasn’t quite as senior, but the men liked working together. She knew from listening to her husband that his work life was fun. Lucky him.
    Maria cleaned Alice’s face, unstrapped her out of the high chair and let her down on the kitchen floor. The baby couldn’t walk yet, but she was a fast little crawler. Maria had tried to encourage her onto her feet, but Alice would give one of her piercing screams, pull herself back down onto her backside, and then speed crawl away. Today Maria was in no mood to fight, so she let the girl do what she wanted. It was dangerous to let Alice out of her eyesight for even a minute, because she could head for the front door, or worse—the back. It would be difficult but not impossible for her to get to the lake if she was determined. Maria needed to speak to Ricky about enclosing the backyard for the baby’s safety. There hadn’t been the money to do it when Cody had been small, but now she felt the need.
    It was Cathi who had told her to put up a fence. “You wouldn’t believe how many domestic accidents there are each year in the United States—just with babies crawling into danger, Maria. I’m telling you, don’t leave it to chance.”
    Maria believed her. Cathi was a great mom with two little girls, Stacy and Katie, nine and ten years old. Michael called the three women in his life his girls . He doted on them and with good reason.  
    Cathi was the consummate corporate wife. She ran an oh-so-smooth house. The children were always immaculately dressed and