Free Morning by Nancy Thayer Page B

audience.
    “We’re going to go all the way, right ?” Mick yelled.
    “Right!” Sara yelled back. “I’m going to go see where Steve is, I thought he was getting our coats,” Sara told him in a normal tone of voice. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried up the carpeted stairs.
    Steve was in the guest bedroom, their coats in his arms.
    Mary Bennett was the only other person there. She was seated on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. Her expression was serious. So was Steve’s. When Sara entered the room, there was that quality of silence that indicates the interruption of an intimate moment.
    A spark of fantasy exploded in Sara’s mind: she would look with frigid arroganceat her husband, walk without a word from the room, drive home, pack, leave him forever.
    Instead, she said, as normally as possible, “Oh, I thought you couldn’t find the coats. Ready? We’ve got to get Mick home before he passes out.”
    “Sure,” Steve said. “I’m ready.”
    Sara crossed the room, stood close to her husband, smiled. “Help me?” she asked, and he held her coat for her to slide into. She smiled sweetly at Mary. “Bye,” she said.
    “Bye,” Mary replied, her face surly.
    Silently, smiling to the death, Sara followed Steve down the stairs. Jamie Jones was at the doorway talking to Carole Clark. “… see you Tuesday night as usual?” Jamie said, sotto voce. She looked guiltily at Sara.
    “Sure. I’ll call you,” Carole told her friend, and they hugged. When Carole turned to Sara, it seemed there was an artificial brightness about her smile.
    Now what’s going on? Sara thought. Am I truly paranoid or did those two not want me to hear their plans? But the awkwardness of the moment passed as she and Steve guided Mick out the door and into their car.
    Mick babbled all the way home about his beloved Patriots, giving Sara plenty of time to stew in her own suspicions. If I wanted to, I could work up a really good case of self-pity , she thought. The baby didn’t like her, Jamie and Carole were doing something from which they definitely but guiltily wanted to exclude her—and, worst of all, her husband had just been involved in some sort of heavy-duty discussion with his old girlfriend. This isn’t Thanksgiving , Sara told herself, this is Halloween .
    Steve wrestled Mick out of the car and into his apartment, then got back into their car for the drive home.
    “Mick’s really soused this time. He’s going to feel awful in the morning,” Steve said.
    “What was your little conference with Mary all about?” Sara asked, trying to keep her voice normal.
    “What little conference?” Steve answered innocently.
    Sara studied her husband as he drove. He kept his profile to her, concentrating as if he were steering the car through a raging blizzard.
    “Oh, come on, Steve,” she said.
    Steve was silent for a while. Then he said, “Nothing, really. It was nothing, Sara.”
    She waited, her eyes lasering into Steve’s stubborn head. Finally she turned awayand sat in a deadly silence, letting her anger fill the car like a perfume. When they got home, she slammed from the car and into the house and up to their bedroom in one sweep of fury.
    I will not have a baby, I will not stay on Nantucket, I will not stay married! Sara thought as she yanked off her silk blouse and skirt. I will go back to Walpole and James, I’ll take hundreds of lovers, Julia and I will live together, eating salad, drinking chablis, we’ll go on vacations together and pick up and discard men like playthings! She pulled her flannel nightgown over her head .
    “Yeah, you really look like a vamp,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. She sank down onto the bed in misery.
    The door opened and Steve came in. He sat down on the bed next to Sara. “All right,” he said. “I will tell you every word. Okay?”
    Sara did not look at her husband. Did not speak.
    “Mary asked me if I was happy. I said yes. Very. She said, ‘That’s