True Colors (57 page)
Meredith stirred soy milk into her coffee, watching the color change. It occurred to her that she and Jeff only talked at a distance lately, like strangers—or disillusioned partners—and only about work or the kids. She tried idly to remember the last time they’d made love, and couldn’t.
Maybe that was normal. Certainly it was. When you’d been married as long as they had, there were bound to be quiet times. Still, it saddened her sometimes to remember how passionate they used to be. She’d been fourteen on their first date (they’d gone to see
Young Frankenstein
; it was still one of their favorites), and to be honest, that was the last time she’d ever really looked at another guy. It was strange when she thought about that now, she didn’t consider herself a romantic woman, but she’d fallen in love practically at first sight. He’d been a part of her for as long as she could remember.
They’d married early—too early, really—and she’d followed him to college in Seattle, working nights and weekends in smoky bars to pay his tuition. She’d been happy in their cramped, tiny U District apartment. Then, when they were seniors, she’d gotten pregnant. It had terrified her at first. She’d worried that she was like her mother, and that parenthood wouldn’t be a good thing. But she discovered, to her profound relief, that she was the complete opposite of her own mother. Perhaps her youth had helped in that. God knew Mom had not been young when Meredith was born.
Jeff shook his head. It was a minute gesture, barely even a movement, but she saw it. She had always been attuned to him, and lately their mutual disappointments seemed to create sound, like a high-pitched whistle that only they could hear.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t shake your head over nothing. What’s the matter?”
“I just asked you something.”
“I didn’t hear you. Ask me again.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Fine.” She took her coffee and headed toward the dining room.
It was something she’d done a hundred times, and yet just then, as she passed under the old-fashioned ceiling light with its useless bit of plastic mistletoe, her view changed.
She saw herself as if from a distance: a forty-year-old woman, holding a cup of coffee, looking at two empty places at the table, and at the husband who was still here, and for a split second she wondered what other life that woman could have lived. What if she hadn’t come home to run the orchard and raise her children? What if she hadn’t gotten married so young? What kind of woman could she have become?
And then it was gone like a soap bubble, and she was back where she belonged.
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“Aren’t I always?”
“Seven o’clock,” she said.
“By all means,” he said, turning the page. “Let’s set a time.”
Also by Kristin Hannah
Firefly Lane
Magic Hour
Comfort and Joy
The Things We Do for Love
Between Sisters
Distant Shores
Summer Island
Angel Falls
On Mystic Lake
Home Again
Waiting for the Moon
When Lightning Strikes
If You Believe
Once in Every Life
The Enchantment
A Handful of Heaven
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
TRUE COLORS
. Copyright © 2009 by Kristin Hannah.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
For information, address St. Martin’s Press,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Hannah, Kristin.
True colors / Kristin Hannah. —1st ed.
eISBN: 978-1-429-99121-6
Date of eBook conversion: 07/16/2010
p. cm.
1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Washington (State)—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction.
I. Title.
PS3558.A4763T78 2009
813'.54—dc22
2008035446
First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: January 2010