At First Sight(18)
Author: Nicholas Sparks

Fine, he thought. She was angry? Welcome to the club, my dear. He shut the door and trailed slowly behind her, showing no desire to catch up.

“Today’s the big day,” Mrs. Reynolds said, smiling as Lexie approached. “You two ready?”

Lexie nodded; Jeremy said nothing. Mrs. Reynolds looked from Lexie to Jeremy and back again. Her smile faded. She’d been around long enough to recognize a spat when she saw one. Buying a house was stressful, and people reacted in different ways. But it wasn’t her business. What was her business was getting them both inside to sign the papers before the spat evolved into something that might cancel the deal.

“I know they’re already waiting for us,” she prompted, pretending not to notice their sullen expressions. “We’ll be in the conference room.” She took a step toward the door. “It’s this way. You two are getting one heck of a deal. Once the house is finished, you’re going to own a real showplace.”

She held the door open, waiting for a response.

“Down the corridor,” she urged again. “The second door on your left.”

Once inside, she hurried past them, almost forcing them to follow. They did, but as fate would have it, the lawyer wasn’t in the room.

“Take a seat. I’m sure he just stepped out for a minute. Let me check on him, okay?”

Lexie and Jeremy sat kitty-corner to each other as Mrs. Reynolds disappeared from view. Jeremy reached for a pencil and began tapping it absently on the table.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Lexie finally asked.

Jeremy could hear the challenge in her tone but said nothing.

“You’re not going to speak to me?”

Slowly he lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Tell me what happened with Trevor Newland,” he said, his voice quiet. “Or should I call him Mr. Renaissance?”

Lexie’s eyes widened only slightly, and she seemed on the verge of answering when Mrs. Reynolds reappeared in the doorway with the lawyer in tow. They took a seat at the table, and the lawyer spread the file in front of them.

The lawyer began to explain the proceedings, but Jeremy barely heard him. Instead, his mind flashed back to the past. The last time he’d been in a room like this, he’d been finalizing his divorce with Maria. Everything seemed the same, from the large cherry table surrounded by padded chairs, to the shelves filled with legal books and the large windows that let in the sunlight.

For the next few minutes, the lawyer explained the contract page by page. He walked them through the numbers, showed them the totals of the bank loan and the home inspection, the appraisal, and the prorated taxes. The total suddenly seemed overwhelming, as did the fact that he’d spend the next thirty years paying for the house. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Jeremy signed where needed and then slid the pages to Lexie. Neither of them asked questions, neither one held up the process. At one point, Jeremy saw the lawyer exchange glances with Mrs. Reynolds, who simply shrugged in response.

In time, the lawyer reassembled the three files: one for the seller, one for his own records, and another for Jeremy and Lexie. He offered the file, and Jeremy reached for it as he rose from the table.

“Congratulations,” the lawyer said.

“Thank you,” Jeremy answered.

There was no small talk as Mrs. Reynolds led Jeremy and Lexie from the room; once they got outside, Mrs. Reynolds congratulated them as well before heading quickly for her car.

Outside, in the sunlight, neither Jeremy nor Lexie seemed to know what to say until Lexie finally broke the silence.

“Can we go to the house?” she asked.

Jeremy studied her before responding. “Don’t you think we should talk first?”

“Let’s talk when we get there.”

The first thing Jeremy noticed when they pulled up to the house were the balloons tied on the post near the front door; he saw the WELCOME HOME banner beneath them. He glanced over at Lexie.

“I put the balloons and banner up this morning,” she explained. “I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“It is,” he said. He knew he should say more but didn’t.

Lexie shook her head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement that spoke volumes. Without speaking, she opened the car door and stepped out. Jeremy watched her walk toward the house, noting that she neither waited for him nor glanced back.

Jeremy sensed she was as disappointed in him as he was with her; that his anger mirrored her own. He knew what had happened with Trevor Newland; she knew that he knew as well.

Still, she seemed to want to avoid talking about it.

Jeremy got out of the car. By that point, Lexie was standing on the front porch with her arms crossed, facing away from him, toward an ancient grove of cypress trees. Jeremy walked toward her, aware of the sound of his steps as he moved onto the porch. He stopped when he was close.

Her voice was almost a whisper.

“I had it all planned, you know? About today? I was so excited when I got the balloons and the banner from the store, and I had it all planned out in my mind. I figured that after we closed, I’d suggest a picnic and we’d grab some sandwiches and sodas at Herbs and I’d surprise you by bringing you here. To our house, on the first day we owned it. I thought we’d sit on the back porch and . . . I don’t know, just be excited because we both knew that a day like this would never come again.” She paused. “It’s not going to be like that, is it?”

Her words made him regret his actions, if only for an instant. But none of this was his fault; all he’d done was learn something about Lexie that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him. And he’d called her on it.

He heard her draw a long breath before she faced him. “Why do you want to know about Trevor Newland? I already told you about him. He showed up in town one summer a few years ago, we had a fling, and he left. That’s all.”

“That wasn’t what I asked. I asked what happened.”

“I don’t see why that matters,” she said. “I cared for him and he left and I never saw him again. I never heard from him again.”

“But something happened,” he pressed.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “I was thirty-one before we ever met, Jeremy. I didn’t come out from under some rock, and I didn’t spend my life hiding in an attic. Yes, I dated people before you were around, okay? And yeah, I even cared for some people, too. But so did you, and you don’t see me asking about Maria or your old girlfriends. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. It’s like I have to tiptoe around every subject so I don’t offend you. Yeah, maybe I should have told you about Trevor, but with the way you’re acting lately, we still would have ended up fighting.”

“The way I’m acting?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice rising. “A little jealousy is normal, but this is ridiculous. First Rodney, now Trevor? Where’s it going to stop? Are you going to ask me the names of every guy I dated in college? Do you want to know who I went to the prom with? Or how about the first boy I ever kissed? You want all the details? Like I said, when’s it going to stop?”

“This isn’t about jealousy!” he snapped.

“No? Then what’s it about?”

“It’s about trust.”

“Trust?” Her expression was incredulous. “How am I supposed to trust you if you don’t trust me? This whole week I’ve been afraid to even say hello to Rodney, especially since Rachel got back, for fear of what you might think. I still don’t know where she went or what’s going on with her, but I’ve been on pins and needles trying to keep you happy, so I haven’t even had time to ask. But just when I think things are getting back to normal between us, you start asking about Trevor. It’s like you’re looking for excuses to pick a fight, and I’m tired of it.”

“Don’t blame me for this.” Jeremy answered. “I’m not the one who keeps hiding things.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“I read Doris’s journal!” Jeremy retorted. “I saw your initials in there!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Her journal!” he said again. “It’s right there in her notes—that LMD was pregnant, but that Doris couldn’t tell the sex of the baby. That to Doris, it meant that the woman would miscarry. L-M-D. Lexie Marin Darnell! It was you, wasn’t it.”

She swallowed, not hiding her confusion. “It was in the journal?”

“Yeah, and so was the name Trevor Newland.”

“Wait . . . ,” she said, her confusion growing more evident.

“Just tell me,” he demanded. “I saw your initials, I saw his name, and I put two and two together. You were pregnant, weren’t you?”

“So what?” she cried. “Why does it even matter?”

“It just hurts to think that you didn’t believe in me enough to tell me. I’m tired of these secrets between us—”

She cut him off before he had a chance to finish. “It hurts? Did you ever stop to think about my feelings when you saw the journal? That I might have been hurt? That maybe I didn’t tell you because I don’t like to remember what happened? That it was a horrible period of my life, and I never wanted to relive it again? It has nothing to do with trusting you. It has nothing to do with you at all. I got pregnant. I had a miscarriage. So what? People make mistakes, Jeremy.”

“You’re missing my point.”

“What point? That you wanted to pick another fight this morning and were looking for any excuse to start one? Well, you did find one, so congratulations. But I’m getting tired of this. I know you’re under stress, but you don’t have to keep taking it out on me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“With your writing!” she said, throwing up her hands. “That’s what this is all about, and you know it! You can’t write, and you’re taking it out on me, like it’s somehow my fault. You’ve been blowing everything out of proportion, and I’m on the receiving end. A friend is in trouble, so I talk to him, and all of a sudden, I don’t trust you. I don’t tell you that I had a miscarriage four years ago, and it’s because I don’t trust you. I’m sick of being made to feel like I’m the bad guy because you can’t come up with an article.”

“Don’t blame all this on me. I’m the one who made the sacrifice to come down here—”

“See!” she said. “That’s exactly what I mean! You made the sacrifice.” She practically spat out the word. “That’s exactly how you’ve been acting! Like you ruined your whole life by moving down here!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but that’s what you meant! You’re stressed about writing, and you take it out on me! It’s not my fault! And did you ever stop to think that I’m stressed, too? I’m the one who made all the wedding plans! I’m the one who’s been in charge of renovating the house! I’m the one who’s doing all this while carrying a baby! And what do I get? ‘You didn’t tell me the truth.’ Even if I did, even if I’d told you everything, you still would have found another reason to be mad at me! Nothing I do is right anymore. It’s like you’ve changed into a person I don’t even know.”

Jeremy felt his own anger flare again. “That’s because you don’t think I do anything right, either! I don’t dress right, I don’t order the right foods, I want the wrong kind of car, I didn’t even get to pick the house I’m going to live in. You’ve been making all the decisions, and my ideas count for nothing!”

Her eyes flashed. “That’s because I’m thinking about our family. All you think about is yourself!”

“And what about you?” he shouted. “I’m the one who had to give up my family because you wouldn’t. I had to risk my career because you wouldn’t. I live in a piece-of-crap motel surrounded by dead animals because you didn’t want people in town to get the wrong impression! And I’ve been the one paying for things you want—not the other way around!”

“Money? You’re mad about the money, too?”

“I’m going broke down here, and you don’t even notice! We could have waited on some of these renovations! We didn’t need a five-hundred-dollar crib! We didn’t need an entire dresser full of clothes! The baby’s not even here yet!” He threw his hands in the air. “So you can see why I’m stressed about writing. It’s how I pay for all this stuff you want, and I can’t do it here. There’s no news to draw on, there’s no energy, there’s nothing here!”

When he finished, they both stared at each other for a long time without speaking.

“Is that what you really think? That there’s nothing here? What about the baby and me? Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“You know what I mean.”

Lexie crossed her arms. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?”

Jeremy shook his head, suddenly exhausted. All he’d wanted her to do was listen. Without a word, he started off the porch.

He walked toward the car, then decided to leave it. Lexie would need it; he’d figure something out later. He fished the keys from his pocket and threw them near the tire. Heading up the drive, he didn’t bother to look back.

Eleven

Hours later, Jeremy sat in the easy chair at his parents’ brownstone in Queens, staring out the window. He’d ended up borrowing Doris’s car earlier that afternoon to change clothes and grab his things from Greenleaf, then rushing to the airport. Noting his expression, Doris hadn’t questioned his request, and during the drive he’d replayed the argument a hundred times.