An Unfinished Marriage

An Unfinished Marriage

A NOVEL

CINDY BONNER

Deck Night Press Deck Night Press

Contents

Publisher

Also by Cindy Bonner

Prologue

Sarah

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Troy

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Sarah

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Adam

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Troy

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Sarah

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Adam

Chapter 25

Sarah

Chapter 26

Troy

Chapter 27

Sarah

Chapter 28

Epilogue

© 2024 by Cindy Bonner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic of mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Design by Betty Martinez

Author Photograph by Lisa Richard

With thanks to Lauren Humphries-Brooks and Duncan Murrell for your careful editing.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024912491

ISBN 979-8-9859225-7-8 (Hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-9859225-9-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-9859225-8-5 (ePub)

First Edition, October 2024

Also by Cindy Bonner

LILY

LOOKING AFTER LILY

THE PASSION OF DELLIE O’BARR

RIGHT FROM WRONG

FOR LOVE AND GLORY

Prologue

OCTOBER 26, 1988

When Adam comes home, I’m downstairs in my nightgown. For the past four hours, I have paced from window to window, watching the driveway. He called at six, said he had to take a client to the airport. Said he’d be home in a couple of hours. A couple equals two, right? It’s now half past midnight.

When the headlights on his Jeep flicker through the bathroom window, I dash through the kitchen and upstairs for bed. I dive beneath the covers and shut my eyes. Silently, I plead with my lungs to regulate and not give me away. I don’t want him to know I’ve waited up. He’ll say I’m hovering too much, smothering him. He’ll say he doesn’t need another mother, that the one he has is quite enough.

I’ve left his supper in the oven on low. Probably he’ll see the oven light and eat before he comes upstairs. By then, if I try hard enough, I might be able to will myself to sleep. I wedge my arm beneath my pillow and tell my body to relax.

The back door opens and closes. I hear it clearly and feel the slight shudder through our old house. In another moment his feet hit the stairs, each step creaking as he climbs. Either he missed the oven light or ate somewhere else. God, let him be sober I pray, then tell myself it doesn’t matter. He’s home. That’s the important thing.

He comes straight into the bedroom as if he senses me pretending to be asleep. He touches my hip, his hand warm through the quilt. Sarah? He gives me an easy shake. I lift my head. His figure is a silhouette in the light from the hallway. Are you awake? Please get up.

I rise from the pillow. Something in his tone makes me forget to act sleepy. It’s that word please. It sounds so formal, so foreign, so un-Adam-like. What is it?

Can we talk?

Talk? What time is it? I ask, as if I don’t know, as if I haven’t been watching the clock for the past four hours.

Come downstairs, please.

There it is again. That please. My stomach tightens.

I follow him out of the dark bedroom and into the hall. The doors to both boys’ rooms are closed. They’ve been asleep for hours. School day tomorrow.

We descend the stairs in a line, me behind Adam, matching my steps to his. I feel like Marie Antoinette being led to the guillotine. My brain scans through possibilities: The client’s flight was delayed, or maybe the plane crashed. Ridiculous—that would have made the news. He’s been in an accident. No, he’s home and unscathed, walking right in front of me. Light from the window on the landing catches the blond whirl at the back of his head. Could it be something’s happened to his parents? Mine are still on vacation in Europe, so it would have to be his. Adam’s dad, Oliver, has a bad heart.

Once we’re down in the den, Adam switches on the lamp beside the couch. The room smells like the new varnish and wallpaper paste from the recent remodel, all mixed together with the complicated, musty, hundred-year-old-house smell.

He waves me over to the couch, then begins to pace in front of me, the same steps I’ve taken for several hours. His stride is uneven, listing to one side and then the other. So he has been drinking. His tie is missing, his collar open and wrinkled. His hair looks wet.

The leather couch against my back feels cold. It causes an involuntary shiver. Why is your hair wet? I ask, breaking the silence. Where have you been? Adam? I soften my tone. I don’t want to sound confrontational.

He stops pacing, gives me a strange, piercing look. With Carolyn.

Carolyn? My voice is thick. Carolyn Jeffrey is my best friend. She lives in west Austin, in a new apartment complex halfway between Adam’s office and the airport. But until this second I didn’t realize he even knew that. You were at her place? Why hadn’t she called me? What’s going on, Adam? What do you want to talk to me about?

He puts his hands on his hips. His face is tight, mouth pale at the edges. He keeps his eyes on the floor, the rug under his feet. I look where he’s staring and see nothing but his brown tasseled loafers.

I don’t think I love you anymore, Sarah . . . I mean, I just don’t feel like I love you⁠—

"What do you mean you don’t feel like it?"

I don’t want to sound cold, I really don’t. But I don’t know how else to say it. I’m not in love with you anymore. I’m just not. I feel like we’re friends, or . . . I don’t know . . . roommates.

You do too love me, you know you do. I move to the edge of the couch. I feel hollowed out suddenly.

He hurries to sit down beside me, takes my hand. His thumb presses my knuckles. "That’s not how I meant to say it. I do love you, I’m just not in love with you anymore. I feel like we’ve lost that . . . like we’re just living together. Like brother and sister. Or like⁠—"

Roommates. I heard you. I pull my hand away from his. "I think we’ve just hit a lull. We’ve talked about this, remember? We both said it’s normal for good marriages to have hills and valleys. We said that. You said that. Well, I think we’re just in a valley. That’s all."

His eyes are Paul Newman blue. I’ve always loved the color of his eyes. They waver away from me. A single tear slips down his cheek. I resent that tear. I’m the one who gets to cry right now. I haven’t just told him I don’t love him. But I sit there dry-eyed, numb.

This is more than just a lull, he says finally. I don’t want to argue, Sarah. Please, let’s don’t argue. Carolyn said I should come tell you before I left.

My mouth goes dry. What do you mean before you left?

I wasn’t planning to do this tonight. I thought I would just check into a hotel and call you tomorrow. But Carolyn said⁠—

Carolyn said what? She told you to leave me?

"No, you’re not listening to me. You never listen. She made me come home and tell you before I just walked out."

"She made you?"

Christ, Sarah, I’m trying to do this the right way, OK?

You mean you’re leaving now? This minute?

I just came home to get some of my things. He stands up. I grab hold of his arm. I want to pull him back down on the couch beside me. I only manage to make him bend a little sideways.

Don’t go, Adam. Not tonight. It’s late and you’ve been drin— I stop myself, quickly course correct. You’re tired. We’re both tired.

"Drinking? You were about to say drinking. He flicks my hand away. You think I’m drunk and don’t know what I’m saying?"

No—listen, Adam . . . I stand, too. I don’t want to make him angry. Not right now. It’s late. We’re both tired. Let’s talk about this in the morning.

Nothing will be any different in the morning. This isn’t going away.

You can’t leave like this. Not so abruptly like this. Let’s talk tomorrow. I want to understand, I really do, Adam. Please. Think about the boys. What will they think if they wake up in the morning, and you’re gone? Just like that. Without a word.

I hold my eyes wide and unblinking, until the air stings them, and finally, finally—they start to water. Two tears drip off my bottom lashes and slide down my cheeks. Adam has never been able to withstand tears. He’s softhearted that way. When he sees my tears his own eyes well up again. I reach my arms around him, press my cheek against his chest. I hear the familiar thud of his heartbeat. His hand ventures up to pat my shoulder.

He doesn’t leave. In fact, he doesn’t go anywhere for four days—not to work, not outside. Neither of us do. We sit in the den or at the dining table, while the boys are at school, and we talk—and talk and talk—until we both feel crazy.

He has needs, he says, needs I’m not providing. I want to throw up. Needs? I’ve given him children, a home, a life. What more could he possibly need from me? But I don’t say any of it out loud. I’m afraid to provoke him into leaving—not just me but two children and fifteen years of an unfinished marriage. I don’t think I could make it on my own. I wouldn’t know where to start living without him.

At one point I ask, Is this about Carolyn? Are you having an affair?

He gives me a disgusted look. Jesus, Sarah.

I sit quiet; try to listen. He feels trapped. I don’t understand him. I pay more attention to the boys than I do to him. He wishes I’d put on a dress once in a while, wear heels, comb my hair a different way, get a manicure, be somebody who isn’t me. At the end of those four days, when school lets out for the weekend and the boys are home all day, we stop talking. I feel drained, stripped to bare bone, ugly and undesirable. At times during these long, too long, conversations, and during those first days afterward, I wish I had just let him go.

Gradually, without any resolutions, promises, or apologies, we drift back into our old routines, except maybe there’s more politeness, more caution. There’s definitely a new distance. I work hard at smoothing things over, like spackling a hole in a wall. But we aren’t newlyweds anymore, and quietly I wonder if marriage is supposed to be this difficult. And if this is just another lull, a valley, can we drag it back up the hill again?

Sarah

One

For the first time in recent memory, we’re having Thanksgiving dinner alone, just the four of us. Adam’s parents, Maureen and Oliver, are in Kansas City with Adam’s younger brother and his family. My parents are in Europe for four months, celebrating Dad’s retirement. It’s nice to plan my own Thanksgiving menu for a change, bake my own pies, baste my own turkey. Cody, our youngest, helps me cook. He’s eight and can finally read my handwriting on the recipe cards. He likes punching down the bread dough after it has risen, and now I watch his little boy hands squeeze the lump of dough that will eventually become molasses bread.

I’m grateful for the two ovens in our newly renovated kitchen. Our house is a Queen Anne Victorian, circa 1892. We’ve been here four years and it’s still a work in progress. We haven’t gone into debt for it. Adam waits until we have enough to pay in full for the work that’s done. The next project is the upper balcony. The floor needs to be replaced and the porch columns need repair, upstairs and down. After that, Adam has plans for a swimming pool—by next summer, he promises.

Joel, our oldest, is upstairs, most likely with his stereo headphones wrapped around his ears. He’s fourteen and deep in the throes of adolescent moodiness. Adam’s in the den on the phone with his partner, Marty Dean, planning tomorrow’s hunting trip. They’re also talking business. I hear snippets of their conversation—something about McCabe and Company—some big deal they’re putting together.

Bradley Harper’s parents are getting their Christmas tree this weekend. Cody continues to knead the bread dough, gritting his teeth. They’re going to a place where they grow wild, chop one down and bring it home to decorate.

I crumble cornbread into a bowl for the stuffing. A Christmas tree farm?

I guess so. He wants me to go with them if it’s OK with you.

A Christmas tree farm is not exactly growing wild but I don’t correct him. It’s OK with me. But maybe you should ask your dad.

He’ll just say to come ask you.

That’s probably true. I move behind Cody and take the bread dough from him before he kneads the life out of it. We need to divide this into two pieces, now, so we’ll have two loaves of bread. Once they’re in the pans, you can brush them with butter. I reach into a cabinet for two loaf pans.

He stands back, rubbing his doughy hands together. I could chop down our Christmas tree, too, while I’m there. If you want me to.

Do that over the sink, Cody, you’re making a mess. I guide him to the sink where he continues to rub dough balls off his hands. I flip up the lever on the faucet. Here. Try a little soap and water. I fuzzle the blond hair on his head. You know we usually buy our tree from the Boys Optimist. That way the money goes to a good cause. To boys who aren’t as lucky as you and Joel. I poke at his nose. He swipes my hand away.

Well, this year couldn’t we chop one down anyway? Just this once? He rolls the soap in his hands under the faucet. Mister Harper said he’s gonna show me and Bradley how to swing an axe. He said every boy ought to learn how to swing an axe because you just never know.

Never know what?

Cody shakes water off his hands, shrugs. How to chop stuff down like Christmas trees.

That’s something you think you’ll be doing a lot of in life? I turn off the faucet and hand him a cup towel to dry his hands, then steer him back to the cook island. A bowl of melted butter sits ready to brush onto the two soon-to-be loaves of molasses bread.

I don’t know. Maybe, he says, as he picks up the butter brush.

I watch him drip butter all over the counter. Brush it on evenly, honey.

I hear Adam’s footsteps come from the den, and in a second he appears in the kitchen doorway. He stops to take us in, then goes to the window on the back door and moves the curtain aside. A norther has blown in and the windowpane shakes. The windows in this house operate with weights and pulleys so they’re gappy and rattle like maracas.

If it’s all the same to you, Adam says, without turning toward me, Marty and I thought we’d go on up to the deer lease today instead of tomorrow.

Dad? Cody keeps brushing butter on the bread dough. Can I chop down our Christmas tree this year?

Outside the window the pecan tree whips around in the wind, flinging brown leaves and nuts like bullets against the house. Adam doesn’t answer Cody. He continues to stare out the window. With this front blowing in, the deer will move early tomorrow.

Can I go with you? Cody drops the basting brush in the bowl of melted butter. I want to target shoot again. Can I go?

Not this time, son. Adam lets the curtain fall back over the window.

To Cody I say, I thought you wanted to chop down Christmas trees. I laugh and give his shoulder a little shake.

Adam gives me a pointed look. You’re avoiding me.

No, I’m not. How could I? You’re standing right there.

I asked you a question.

The smile leaves my face. You didn’t. You said this norther will make hunting better, or something like that.

Something like that, he repeats, his voice condescending. He folds his arms. So? Is it OK with you if I go early? He sounds exasperated, like he’s asking permission and resenting it.

Now? Before dinner?

I’ll wait till after.

Will you drive, or will Marty? I don’t know what this has to do with anything. I’m stalling. It’s Thanksgiving and I want Adam to stay home today—maybe play board games with the boys later, or all of us watch a football game together. Be a family.

I thought I would drive. Why? he says. Do you need the Jeep for something?

I shrug, pick up the basting brush to finish the job Cody has abandoned. Carolyn mentioned going to an antique auction tomorrow. I haven’t seen her in ages— My car’s small, the Jeep has more hauling room in the back. Adam knows what I’m getting at. I just won’t buy anything.

Cody cuts in, Why can’t I go with you, Dad.

Adam eyes me as he moves from the window. We’re circling each other again, lions after the same prey. We’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I guess I could ride with Marty if you need the Jeep.

I don’t know if I’ll need it or not. I might not find anything anyway.

"Dad, Cody complains. You haven’t taken me hunting this whole year⁠—"

You can’t go, Adam snaps. Now shut up and let me talk to your mother.

Cody clamps his lips together and looks hurt. I give him a pat on his back. Why don’t you go upstairs and find something to do, sweetie. We’ve got to let this bread bake for a while anyway. I’ll call you when it’s ready.

Cody sulks out of the kitchen and pounds up the stairs. He likes to be in the middle of everything, unlike Joel, who lately avoids the rest of the family as if we’re contagious. I go back to brushing butter on the unbaked loaves of bread.

He needs to learn not to interrupt. Adam leans against the counter with his arms still folded. It’s such a defensive poster and it irritates me. Just say if you don’t want me to go, Sarah.

I slide the two loaves into the bottom oven, then check the top oven where the turkey roasts. I thought it would be nice for us to have this day together. The four of us. Since we’re alone without the grandparents this year.

"So you do mind if I go."

I close the oven, set the timer, reach to adjust the apron around my neck. I haven’t even bathed yet this morning, or combed my hair. I’ve been too busy in the kitchen. I imagine what Adam sees—a harried, thirty-six-year-old housewife without makeup, hair wadded in a scrunchie. I didn’t say I minded.

"You didn’t say anything. That’s why I’m asking you, one more time: do you mind if I go to the lease today instead of tomorrow A simple answer, yes or no, is all that’s required."

It isn’t as easy as that. And anyway, I don’t understand why he can’t read between the lines. If he were at all tuned in to me, he would know what it would be nice to have this day together means. If he were at all tuned into our family he would want to be here with us on Thanksgiving, and the question would never come up.

I go back to mixing cornbread stuffing, giving him one sideways glance. Do whatever makes you happy.

He breaks an edge of crust off the pecan pie cooling on the counter, puts it into his mouth. He doesn’t speak, just chews softly, staring at me. I can feel his eyes. After a few moments of this silence, he exits the kitchen. I keep mixing, adding sage, thyme, savory leaves. I hear him on the phone again:

Yeah? Marty? Yeah . . . can we take your car? Sarah needs the Jeep. Yeah, she’s got a shopping date with a friend. OK . . . I’ll be ready by five.

I’m not used to a clutch and shifting gears, and there’s a lot of it involved getting the Jeep through the steep hills on the way to Redbridge. Carolyn reads the brochure about the antique auction, running her finger down the list of items.

Oh, there’s a mermaid lamp. She says this with eagerness. She reads, "Metal mermaid holding a nautilus lamp. Oh my god, I wish they had a picture of it."

I’m suspicious when they don’t publish a picture. It probably needs rewiring or something. I steer into the parking lot of a convenience store and park in front of the pay phone on the outside wall. I want to check on the boys real quick.

Joel’s old enough to be left in charge of Cody for a couple of hours, or at least that’s what I tell myself, but I’m still adjusting to the idea. As soon as I park Carolyn hops down from the passenger’s seat.

I’ll go get us something to drink. She heads into the store.

It’s cold and we’re wearing nearly identical velour jogging suits, hair pulled back in similar jaw clips, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Carolyn is four years younger than me, single, gorgeous, confident. She has long, thick hair the most peculiar combination of brown and natural platinum. I’ve been racking my brain for eight years trying to think of some single man good enough for her. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks and I wonder if she’s dating.

Through the store windows, I watch her smile and flirt with the clerk behind the counter, and realize I’ve missed her company. The store clerk is more of a boy than a man, but Carolyn has his full attention. I pick up the pay phone on the wall outside. The quarter I drop in falls with a chink. Wind blows into the earpiece. Joel answers on the third ring.

Yes, Mom. He sounds bored—and a little too cute, guessing right away who’s calling.

Is everything all right there?

You haven’t been gone twenty minutes. Give me some credit. His voice is changing. It cracks halfway through his words.

OK. Sorry I called. We’ll be home in a couple of hours. There’s leftover turkey for sandwiches. Mayo’s in the fridge, and mustard, cheese. You know where the bread is.

I know where everything is. I live here, remember?

Well, pardon me, I say, with a frown. I’ll be home soon. Love you.

He mumbles something barely discernible—a choked Love you, too, I think. Anyway, it’s what I want to believe he said.

I hang up as Carolyn comes out of the store with two glass bottles of fruit juice. I had hoped for hot coffee or cocoa, but Carolyn recently converted to a healthier diet, and says coffee has ugly bad caffeine so I should have known better.

We met when we worked at Balcor Electronics together. That was right after Cody was born. I had just come back to work again after maternity leave, and there she was, a newbie in the computer room. Sometimes people just click, and that was us. We laughed at the same jokes, liked the same music, and had the same opinions about a few of the others who worked at Balcor.

Adam and Marty had just teamed up and left Waterton-Pierce Financial to strike out on their own. Glasser Dean Investments took a few years to provide a living, so I stayed on with Balcor until we bought our Queen Anne. I wanted to get the boys out of Austin, and Adam wanted me to quit work to be a full-time wife and mom. He said he always hated how his mother worked full time. He felt like he’d missed something because of it. He said he wanted an old-fashioned family—who knows what he wants now. Anyway, even though I left work, and even though we moved to this bedroom community thirty minutes from Austin, Carolyn has remained my closest friend.

We find the auction by following the other cars. The only reason anybody goes to Redbridge is for antiques. The auction is in an old warehouse building with benches lined up in the center of the room. Along the walls are the items up for auction: barrister cases, tables and chairs, pitchers and bowls, crystal, and a hall tree with an etched-glass mirror that I immediately covet.

That would look gorgeous in your house, Carolyn says, as we both admire the hall tree. She reads the attached tag. "It says it’s carved English Walnut with fluted columns and Corinthian capitals. Whatever that means."

It means exquisite. I laugh. But will it fit in the Jeep?

Adam won’t like this? She turns the starting bid price tag toward me: $1,800.

I lift my eyebrows. Let’s keep looking.

We find the mermaid lamp, which Carolyn says she absolutely must have. Look, her tail wraps around this piece of—what do you think this is supposed to be? She touches the stem of the lamp that has been handled so much it’s grooved and shiny in the middle. Is that driftwood?

I laugh, shake my head. She laughs, too. Whatever it’s supposed to be, it looks kind of nasty.

I want it. She hugs the lamp to her body, but puts it back on the table when she catches the dirty look from one of the women workers.

By the time we finish admiring all the items, the only two seats left together are in the back row. A woman with a lace collar on her dress hands us a list of suggested opening bids.

They take plastic. Carolyn points to the Visa/Mastercard logo at the bottom of the sheet.

The auctioneer steps up to the podium. The buzz in the room stops. He’s solemn and stiff in his black tie and Stetson, as he explains that the items on the block come from a large estate and are valued at twice what’s listed on our sheets.

Carolyn lifts her eyebrows at me and gives me a look. Wonder if he’s single? I remember she has a thing for cowboy types.

When the program starts, the auctioneer’s chant comes all of a sudden at a breakneck, tongue-twisting speed. It gives me the giggles. I try to suppress it but I can’t. When the bidding starts, the auctioneer’s cadence gets even faster and more chaotic. I burst out in open laughter. Carolyn looks at me, confused, but she catches on and starts to laugh, too. Before long we’re both covering our mouths, tears running. It’s uncalled-for yet uncontrollable, and it’s the sort of thing that has endeared us to each other. Since we’re thankfully on the last row, we sneak out of the auction barn without causing too much commotion—empty-handed, of course. Outside on the walkway, we catch our breath. Laugh a little more. Catch our breath again.

"What was that all about?" I say, when I can speak.

You started it. Her mascara has run circles around her eyes. She looks like a raccoon.

I couldn’t help it. I swipe my eyes. And I really wanted that hall tree.

I wanted that nasty lamp, she says, still smiling. And I planned to go up to that cute auctioneer when it was over, see if he was worth some attention.

When we get in the Jeep and she paws through her purse for tissue. She flips down the visor mirror, starts rubbing at the mascara smudged under her eyes.

Can you just imagine him in bed. She changes her voice to resemble the auctioneer’s cadence. One little rub, now two, two, will you give me two? Now can I get three⁠—

I burst into a new fit of laughter. Stop!

When we pull into the driveway, Cody’s in the yard wrestling with Snowball, the big Persian cat who lives with us periodically during the year. He disappears sometimes for so long we think he must cheat on us with another family in the neighborhood. We had him fixed so we know he’s not tomcatting. Anyway, he has been missing for several days but I’m not surprised to see him now. He always comes with the first norther because we let him sleep inside.

Cody has brown leaves stuck on his sweatshirt and in his blond hair. An angry red cat-scratch runs down the side of his cheek. He’s grinning and out of breath.

Who won? Carolyn calls out as we exit the Jeep.

Snowball always wins, Cody answers. He has switchblades!

I inspect the