Distant Shores by Kristin Hannah

Author:Kristin Hannah [Hannah, Kristin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345450722
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2003-04-29T07:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

What in the hell had made him say divorce?

Jack slammed on the brakes. His rental car fishtailed on the muddy road and skidded to a stop. His headlights pointed out toward the rippling, black ocean.

He hadn't been this shaken since his mother's death, more than thirty years ago. Then, as now, his emotions had been a tangled mass with no clear beginning and no end.

If asked a week ago, he would have sworn that he and Birdie were in one of those rough patches that sometimes befell a long-term marriage. He would have said that it would pass, that nothing fundamental would change between them.

He'd thought--when he'd read her letter--that it was her way of getting his attention. The proverbial two-by-four between the ass's eyes. It had worked. He'd talked to that snooty East Hampton rental agent, then called in sick to work and driven to the airport.

It had never occurred to him that she meant it.

Not his Birdie, who couldn't make a decision to save her soul. How could she suddenly have found the guts to leave him? Her father's death must have really shaken her. He'd known she was unhappy, of course, but this . . . this he hadn't expected.

He'd spent more time thinking about his wife in the past twenty-four hours than in the past twenty-four years. He'd relied on his knowledge of her in planning what to say. He'd distilled it down to a script, which he'd practiced on the flight across the country.

But the woman he'd just spoken to wasn't his Birdie.

We aren't happy. We haven't been happy in a long time.

Those two sentences had ruined all of his plans. He'd been scared by them, terrified, even. That was when he'd known she was serious. Fear had immediately put him on the defensive, made him say what he'd never intended to say, never even thought about.

He slumped over the steering wheel, listening to the rain. Always the rain in this godforsaken place.

He almost turned the car around. The urge to go to her, to take her in his arms and beg for forgiveness was so strong he felt choked by it. Desperate.

But what then?

She was right. That was the utter hell of it. He might have reacted impulsively--saying divorce, for God's sake, what an idiot--but that didn't change the truth.

If he turned around now, she'd take him back (he couldn't imagine that she wouldn't), and they'd slide back into that boring, half-love rut they'd developed.

Here, alone in the car, he could admit that she was right. They both deserved better.

After all these years, she'd taken the decision out of his hands.

He closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. Rain patterned the windshield, thumped hard on the roof of the car.

"I loved you, Birdie," he whispered aloud.

It didn't escape his notice that even when he spoke to himself, in this cheap little car where no one could hear, he used the past tense.

The next day, the movers showed up with the furniture. Elizabeth stumbled out of bed to greet them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.