Page 1 of Two Couples

ONE

SAMANTHA

This trip to Lake Tahoe was going to change everything. I felt as if I’d been planning it forever, and now, it was finally here. The fresh air I desperately craved in my life, and honestly, in my marriage, was blowing through the open window. Patrick had asked me three times to close it.

“You’re defeating the purpose of the AC,” he said.

When he’d asked the second time, I inched the window up, but I couldn’t bring myself to close it. The scent of the air as we climbed Highway 50 into the Sierra Nevada mountains was too delicious. I drank in huge gulps as if I needed to replenish every molecule in my body. Tahoe was my happy place. I felt it pulling me there like a siren.

It seemed Patrick had forgotten what I’d told him as we approached the foothills—that the clean, fresh air stirred my memories and filled me with a euphoria I couldn’t describe. Despite the trauma I’d experienced there when I was eleven years old, the good memories were much more powerful, and alluring.

In one hour we’d be pulling into the driveway of our new lakeside home. This was our first time we were staying in the house since it had officially become ours. Our first getaway with my best friend and her husband who co-owned the house with us.

We’d never vacationed with Emily and Keith. We’d enjoyed countless dinners out and shared even more home-cooked meals. We’d spent long days hiking local trails, celebrated special occasions, and talked for hours into the night, sitting around their backyard firepit. But this was something new.

When Emily suggested we invest in a vacation home together, we’d agreed it would never be a requirement that we stay there at the same time. We’d keep a calendar to organize our use of the house. But she’d been my best friend since we met in high school freshman English, assigned to a joint project. Once Patrick and Keith were in our lives, our friendship grew to include them. So of course we’d also agreed it would be fun to share the place once in a while, starting with our first trip.

The icing on the cake was that matching people with their forever homes was the driving passion of my life. Selling real estate had called to me when I was seventeen years old. I had an instinctive belief that a home which was a perfect fit, a place of safety and comfort, nurtured and grounded people. Knowing my professional connections had allowed me to find this divine house added to my excitement. The moment I saw it, I knew Emily would love it as much as I did.

I was deliriously optimistic that spending all that time around Emily and Keith would change things for Patrick and me. Patrick would notice how Keith put Emily first in everything, how they were so tightly bound they flowed in an easy rhythm with each other. Not a single person on earth came between those two. They glowed with love for each other, even after four years of marriage.

Over the course of our three-year marriage, I’d felt as if Patrick put everyone else in the world ahead of me. It wasn’t deliberate, or cruel. It was his nature—always needing to help, even rescue, other people. If a neighbor knocked on our door while we were eating dinner, Patrick didn’t hesitate to run down the street and help them fix an out-of-control sprinkler or any other minor crisis, returning home to pop my delicious meal into the microwave where it withered slightly.

I smiled into the breeze, thinking about the upcoming ten days basking in Emily and Keith’s affection for each other.

“Please close the window, Samantha.”

I couldn’t wait for Patrick to see up close how amazing and satisfying, how absolutely blissful marriage could be. It didn’t have to happen the moment we arrived. I wasn’t delusional. But after a few days, he would start to notice. There’s nothing like living with other people to change how you see yourself, your own life.

Glancing at the side of his face, a wave of affection washed over me at the sight of his clean-shaven jaw and his sandy hair, clipped short, making him look younger than his thirty years. I closed the window.

By the time we arrived, I had a splitting headache. It might have been the blasting AC, or it might have been the altitude—more than six thousand feet above sea level. Or it might have been my tense, overexcited anticipation. It was probably that.

Patrick unloaded our bags and suitcases along with a cooler filled with beer, wine, and sparkling water, while I walked through the house, opening windows, gazing out at the lake in the far distance, glimpsed between a thick growth of towering pines. I ran my fingers over the pieces of furniture Emily and I had chosen together. She’d driven the two hours from Sacramento twice during the past few weeks to oversee the delivery and arrangement of the furniture.

As I stood at the kitchen sink, swallowing two painkillers, sipping from my water canister, Patrick appeared in the doorway. “Headache?”

I nodded.

“I’ll make the grocery run so you can rest.”

“It will be gone soon. Emily and I can go when they get here.” I gave him a weak smile, feeling the ache across my forehead.

“We should let them relax,” he said. “I’ll do it, so you don’t have to fight the late afternoon crowd.”

A moment later, he was gone. I went into the bedroom and opened my small overnight bag. I took out a box with a wide blue satin ribbon tied in an elaborate bow. It contained four truffles. I also had a vanilla-scented candle and a small box of matches. I went into Emily and Keith’s bedroom and placed the gifts on their dresser. I pulled up the blinds and cracked open the window to let in a sliver of clean mountain air.

In our bedroom, I began taking my clothes out of my suitcase, hanging some in the closet, placing shorts and T-shirts in drawers. When I was unpacked, I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. A short nap would allow the painkiller to do its job.

The crash of our bedroom door slamming closed shocked me awake, disoriented. A gust of cold air had rushed through the open window, forcing the door closed. I got up and shut the window. The puffy white clouds over the lake that had greeted us when we pulled into the driveway were moving quickly across the sky, expanding as they went. The wind was strong, causing the treetops to bend.

I opened the door to the sound of Emily’s voice downstairs. I hurried to wash my face and brush my teeth and hair before walking slowly down the stairs. From the entryway, I heard Patrick talking to Emily in the kitchen. I glanced at my phone. I’d slept for over an hour, but it was worth it. My head felt clear and light.

I walked into the kitchen to see canvas bags of food crowding the counter between the sink and cooktop. Emily was helping Patrick stock the fridge and cabinets. Looking out of the picture window over the sink, I saw Keith pulling suitcases and bags from the back of their SUV.

Emily put a bottle of olive oil into the cabinet, closed the door, and rushed toward me, giving me a hug. “You’re awake! I hope your head is better.”

“Much. My nap helped.”