Chapter Thirty-One

The following morning as she was in the kitchen dressing a salad for lunch, Polly nearly jumped a mile when the house telephone rang unexpectedly. The phone had rung on occasion during Polly’s visit, people inquiring about the cabins or booking one or more for the future, and she expected that workload would go up tremendously when they had more cabins completed and ready to offer to the public. In fact, Polly had spoken on the phone the day before to a high school student who had inquired about updating their website for free, if he could use it for his graphic design portfolio, to which Polly had readily agreed. 

Putting down the salad bowl, she wiped her hands and reached for the cordless receiver. “Hello?” She said pleasantly, leaning up against the counter.

“Polly?”

Polly’s heart skipped a beat at the voice on the other end of the line and she stood up stock straight.

Matthew.

She took a few seconds to compose herself before replying. “Hello, Matthew.”

There was a slight pause on the line. “How are you?”

“Ducky. You?”

She could hear Matthew’s audible sigh. “I suppose I deserve that. I don’t even know how to start this conversation with you, except that it needs to start.”

Polly waited, unwilling to make the first move, to be the first to show her cards.

“First, I owe you an enormous apology. I know I can never atone for the grief I’ve caused you or the strain I’ve put on our marriage, and I’m deeply sorry for that.”

“I appreciate that,” Polly said simply.

“I want you to come home,” he said in return. “There are so many things for us to say, but I don’t particularly feel like having a heart to heart conversation via telephone from two thousand miles away.”

Polly bit her lip, considering. “I have commitments here, Matthew.”

“You have commitments here as well!” Matthew boomed, nearly cutting her off, and Polly instinctively took a step back, despite the miles of distance between them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Give me a good reason why I should,” Polly said softly. “Give me a reason to have some hope if I set foot on a plane home.”

Matthew paused, and then sighed. “I’ve… I’ve been going to therapy.”

This was a huge step for him, Polly realized. Matthew had long disdained ‘head shrinkers’, claiming that mental health wasn’t something you had or didn’t have, but something you chose. And he’d always chose to eschew anything having to do with sitting on a couch talking about your feelings to a total stranger.

“It’s been helping me, and I’d like us to consider couples therapy. It might help us… fix a few things that are broken,” Matthew said, sounding sincere.

Polly mused that one of them had a lot more broken than the other. 

But then, she considered, her heart had been broken, so maybe that made up for his other fallacies.

“I… I turned myself in to the authorities for the embezzling, so that we wouldn’t put the office in an awkward position of having to turn me in or anything. I’ve sold a few stocks, returned the money, and will pay a fine as well as do some pro bono work as community service.”

Polly waited, sensing there was more.

“I’ve changed, Polly. That other woman… that was an aberration. I promise you. But please come home so I can prove it to you.”

When Matthew said the word ‘home’, she still had to stop and wonder if home was California or home was right here on the shores of Lake Superior.

Yes, her life had gotten decidedly muddier since she’d flown here.

“I appreciate the efforts you’ve made,” she said carefully. “And I’m glad you’ve called to speak to me. I’m going to need a little time to process this, and decide what my next steps are. I’ll give you a call when I have a plan in place.”

“But,” Matthew began before Polly cut him off.

“We’ll speak soon. Good bye, Matthew.”

And with that, she gently replaced the receiver, her hands shaking slightly.

**

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Mae said, putting down the sander she was working with as Polly walked through the skeleton of the cabin she was working on, her arms wrapped around herself protectively. “You okay?”

Polly nodded numbly. “Matthew called.”

“Dude.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he grovel?”

Polly considered the question. “I think in his mind, it was serious groveling. On my end, not so much.”

“What did he want?” Mae asked, nearly breathless with anticipation.

“He wants me to come home, to talk about things in person, and to see if we can fix whatever is broken between us,” Polly said, still feeling nothing, her voice emotionless.

“What are you going to do?” Mae asked, her tone sympathetic.

Polly shook her head slowly, her eyes unseeing. “I’m not sure,” she paused, and then looked at Mae. “Tell me what to do.”

“I can’t tell you what to do!” Mae squeaked. 

“Fine, give me your advice, then,” Polly amended. “I’m sure you’ve got some,” she added with a small smile.

Mae laughed in agreement. “Yeah, I’m not known for being opinionated or anything. Okay, well as much as I’m on Team Jump Chase, I think you should go back to California.”

Polly’s jaw dropped. “You do? Why?”

“You have ghosts there, man. If you don’t go back and confront Matthew and your marriage and all the ghosts you have floating around about your life, you’ll never be happy here, or anywhere else, or with anyone else. You said yourself you could never commit to jumping Chase because of your marriage. So – go home and see if it can be revived, or if it’s DOA. You have to, Pols. You already know the answer to this question – you just want something else to tell you so you don’t feel guilty.”

Polly nodded ruefully. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Go home and either close the book or rewrite the story. That’s what I’m telling you to do,” Mae said definitively.

Polly swallowed thickly. “What about…”

“Chase?” Mae filled in for her, and Polly nodded mutely. “I don’t know what to tell you there, except that you need to deal with one man at a time. If things with Matthew are irreparable, then you can jump Chase without guilt. If you patch things up, then Chase was a nice distraction while you were up here, with the added bonus of having rekindled your friendship, right?”

“Right,” Polly said uneasily. “I mean, do I leave him a note to tell him I’m going back to my husband to see what to make of my marriage? That doesn’t seem like something you jot on a Post It note.”

Mae rubbed Polly’s arm sympathetically. “I’ll talk to him. As soon as he gets back, he’ll come here, and I’ll explain it to him so you don’t have to write a Post It note. Gently and tactfully, if you can believe it.”

“Gentle and tactful would be good,” Polly agreed with a small smile. “I mean, I… I care so much about him, but…”

“Polly, go. I got your back here,” Mae said firmly. “Go – figure out your life. And good luck – but you have to promise to come back, okay?”

By six o’clock that evening, Polly was on a Delta flight back to LA, her stomach in knots the entire flight, but with a promise to return to the Keweenaw one way or another.

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