The Shadow Wife

“I’ll take my cell if we go out,” she said.

She and Sam stayed on the porch until Liam had pulled out of the driveway, and she was relieved that Sam didn’t seem distressed as he watched his father drive away. It had been a while since she’d spent much time with the little boy, and she hadn’t been sure how he’d react to being left alone with her.

Pulling open the screen door, she walked inside the house. Before she did anything else, she wanted to get her fill of just holding Sam in her arms, so she sat on the sofa with him and began nuzzling his delicate little neck.

“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!” she said, and he giggled, squirming as she tickled his neck with her lips. “What shall we do today, sweetie pie?”

The sun was shining outside the living-room windows, and the sky was a cloudless, vivid blue. “Let’s not waste our time inside,” she said. “Who wants to go tide pooling with me?”

“Me!” He wriggled from her arms to stand in front of her on the floor, his little hands on her knees. “Me, me, me!”

“Do you even know what a tide pool is?” she asked.

He nodded. “I go bool,” he said.

“Not a pool, silly. A tide pool.”

“Tybool.”

“Right! Let’s go.” She stood up and headed for the mudroom, where she knew she would find an extra car seat and where the cupboard above the laundry sink would hold some sunscreen. Sam followed close behind her, trying to grab her leg as she walked.

“We go tybool!” he said.

Once in the car, Joelle drove to a parking area along the coastal trail. She got Sam out of the car seat and watched with trepidation as he ran toward the rocky beach. Maybe this was not such a good idea. She hadn’t realized how mobile Sam was these days.

They spent an hour exploring the tide pools, and Joelle thought Sam enjoyed himself almost as much as she did, although she was certain he was tired of hearing her say, “Don’t touch,” by the time they were ready to leave.

Liam called her cell phone as she was driving back to his house.

“I’ll be another hour,” he said. “Is that all right?”

“No problem. We’re on our way back from the beach, and I think you-know-who is ready for a nap.”

“Okay,” Liam said. “I usually put him in his crib with a couple of books. He entertains himself until he falls asleep.”

“All right,” she said. “Thanks for the tip.”

She changed Sam’s diaper when they got back to the house, then laid him in his crib with a couple of picture books. She doubted the books were needed, though, because Sam was ready to crash. Standing over the crib for a moment, she stroked her fingertips over his blond curls. Mara, she thought, her eyes filling just a bit, I wish you could enjoy your beautiful baby boy.

In the kitchen, she poured herself a Coke, then noticed the yellow envelope propped against the phone on the counter. The envelope read Joelle in Liam’s handwriting. Picking it up, she tore open the flap. Inside was a card, the sort you would send to a child for her birthday, with a big-eyed puppy and kitten on the front. Below the animals were the words For A Special Girl. She opened it to find the verse, Says the Little Kitty, and Puppy, too, There’s no Other Girl as Nice as You! Happy Birthday! It was signed, Love, Liam and Sam, and simple and silly though it was, it put a grin on her face. She could picture Liam and Sam picking the card out together.

She wandered aimlessly around the house for a while, sipping her Coke, looking at the framed pictures of Mara that were scattered here and there, noticing the dust on the guitar case standing in the corner of the living room and the ever-growing pile of Sam’s toys in the den. Finally, she found herself in the doorway to Liam’s bedroom. She stared at the bed, trying both to remember and forget the night she had slept in this room. Liam had made the bed in a hurry this morning, the green-and-white-striped coverlet pulled up sloppily above the pillow. The blue afghan, which matched nothing else in the room, and which Liam had tucked around her nude body before moving to the guest room, hung over the footboard of the bed.

On the bookshelf behind the bed she spotted the book of meditations she’d given him. It was lying flat on the shelf, separate from the other books, as though Liam read from it often. She walked into the room and sat down on the bed, pulling the book from the shelf, remembering their Point Lobos hike and how close she’d felt to him as he’d read aloud from the book.