Mating for Life by Marissa Stapley Page B

restaurateur, and I could probably find you a backer. We could open up a restaurant and live in my house and . . .”
    He looked at her strangely and then he said, “ We should sell this place?”
    â€œWell, I mean, I meant  . . . I know it’s yours, and—”
    â€œAnd you have your house. If you want to go back to the city, you can. But I’m not going anywhere.” And he’d shaken his head like she was crazy and walked toward the main house, his work boots undone, his laces dragging. She wondered asshe always did how it was possible he never stumbled. (“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to lace up your boots?” she had once asked him. “My mother is dead,” he had said, and she’d wanted to ask but knew he didn’t want her to, so she didn’t.) I should really go, she’d said to herself after that conversation. He’s right. I have my house. I should go.
    But although she had always believed this urge for going would eventually overtake her, she had believed it would happen in winter—probably this winter, when she finally accepted and mourned her barrenness and couldn’t take it anymore. And so it came as a surprise to her that the way this red-haired woman left would make her think about leaving, even in summer. She had watched those taillights and thought, I could do that, too. I could get in a car and just go. I don’t have to feel jealous of this woman for being able to leave. No one and nothing is forcing me to stay here. Would the boys be upset? Maybe Jesse would. Was that enough of a reason to stay?
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    Myra walked toward the store. Johnny was back and he stood in the doorway, apparently waiting for her, his smile slow and easy. “Walt Anderson brought his boat in to get the engine looked at and now he’s heading back to the city and needs us to take it back out to his place on the southwest side of the island. But I’ve got Amos coming in to look at the stove any minute and the boys are all busy, except Jess. So can you go out there with him? You can drive our boat and he can drive Walt’s, and then you can come back together.”
    â€œSure,” she said. “I’m just going to grab a water.”
    As she squeezed past him through the door he slapped her on the seat of her jeans. “You’re looking fine today, you know,” he said, and it felt like there were pop rocks, the kind they sold in the store in little packets, fizzing inside her chest, hopeful effervescence, her body and mind responding withdesire. The call of Johnny’s body to hers was a difficult thing to ignore. And maybe this time it would happen. Maybe, just maybe, when she was on the precipice of giving up, it would happen. She certainly wouldn’t be the only thirty-seven-year-old in the world to get pregnant. So she winked at him. “Be sure to make some time for me later,” she said, and he kissed her quickly and said, “You betcha, babe,” and walked up the hill toward the restaurant while she stood in the doorframe where he had just been, now watching him, the water forgotten. What if it happened? What if I did get pregnant? Would I stay if I had his baby? Would I really want to raise a baby here?
    Myra didn’t know the answer to that. But one thing she did know: she’d never leave her baby here with him. She would be different from the other women in that way, too: if she left, she’d take her baby with her.
    Maybe you don’t love him as much as you think you do.
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    On the way back to the marina after returning Walt’s boat, the water was rough and Jesse drove slowly. This pleased Myra. She was certain that if she had not been there he would have been far more reckless, because he was a teenage boy and that’s what teenage boys did. (Jesse even had a battle scar to prove his recklessness, on his upper lip,