Wedding At the Riverview Inn

by Molly O'Keefe

  Sad and torn and worried about the future, he did as she asked.

  He heard the flip of a switch and light bloomed behind his eyelids.

  “Open them,” she said and his eyes opened to a surreal water landscape. The silks covered the ceiling, blowing slightly with the ceiling fans she’d turned on, undulated like waves across the wooden beams. Long cords hung down among the silks and ended in old round Christmas-tree lights of the clear variety, and among the waves and the half dark, they looked like bubbles all across the ceiling, at different lengths and different intensities.

  He took a slow turn, admiring her vision, her work, and wishing all the while that things were different.

  “I could put up a few anchors if you think it would be better,” she said and he realized she’d taken his silence for disapproval.

  “Not on your life,” he said, he couldn’t look at her, not yet. “It’s amazing, Alice. Really beautiful.”

  She sidled up to him, wrapping her arm around his waist and he felt so guilty for his words out in the yard, his callous, deliberate misunderstanding of what was between them that he stepped away, making it seem as though he wasn’t quite done looking around.

  “I’m sort of hoping she wants a disco ball,” Alice said. “Then it would really look like we were underwater.”

  Gabe laughed and worked at getting himself back in check. Back on point. He watched her from the corner of his eye as she stared at her work, a satisfied smile on her lips. So beautiful, so different from the woman he’d hired.

  But, history repeats itself. And their’s was bloody and painful. He didn’t need any more lessons in how incompatible they were when the going got tough. In these times—easy and happy and hard at work—they could survive, help each other. But any moment things could go wrong and then the truth of their marriage would win out.

  Right?

  He couldn’t gamble that it would be different. There was too much at stake.

  Gabe felt as if his skin were falling off in great strips, his back, his chest were naked, his heart pounded under muscle and bone, flinching from the cold air.

  I want a family. I want children. Grandchildren. I want to watch my dad teaching my kids how to sand wood, and watch Max showing them the differences between red and white oak. I want babies and the terrible twos and driving lessons and failed science tests. I want it all.

  And I can’t have it with her.

  “I can take it down in the morning,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure it would all work before it’s too late.” She pulled her ever-present notebook out of her back pocket. “We’ve got one week before the family arrives and two weeks before everyone else arrives and we start the rehearsal dinner and wedding activities.”

  It was the time line, the hourglass running out of sand, and he felt as if he were in a race. Love her, love her as much as he could before she left. Touch her and kiss her and hold her close because in two weeks it was over.

  “My folks will come in that last week and we’ll get all our prep done. We can—”

  He knocked the notebook out of her hands and hauled her into his arms. The pins fell out of her hair at the rough touch of his fingers and her arms were hard and fast around him as if she, too, understood it was all coming to an end.

  She swung up in his arms as if pushed by some force and he was led out of the lodge by something outside of himself. Their clothes fell off and they never stopped kissing.

  He felt his heart gathering itself, beating faster toward something. Something dark and stupid and foolish.

  This is the last time.

  The thought pounded in his brain as he kissed her throat.

  I can’t do this anymore.

  The truth screamed through his blood as his hands cupped her hips, her waist, the light swell of her breast.

  Gotta slow down, he realized. Everything felt too out of control—her breath against his chest, her hands on his body, the growling sighs from the back of her throat. It all felt as though it spun too fast toward oblivion.

  Slow down.

  He lowered her back onto the bed. Pushed away her hands when she reached for him. He crawled down her body, ignoring her efforts to pull him up.

  “Ask me,” he said, seeking distance in these games of control and contrition that they excelled at. He kissed her belly, blew cool air across the damp curls at the apex of her thighs.

  “No, Gabe.”

  He chuckled, glad she played her part with such skill.

  “Ask me, Alice.” He kissed her thigh, traced that sweet tendon at her hip with his tongue. “You’re going to have to ask me.”

  Her hands, strong and cool, framed his face and forced him to look up at her, her black eyes gleaming in the dark. “Love me, Gabe. Like it was in the beginning.”

  His heart exploded in painful joyous memories of two people in love, looking at each other while they kissed, while they orgasmed, two people so naked in their need for each other that there was no need for games.

  Two people, unwounded, free from scars, with no idea that loving would be so painful.

  He shook his head, dislodging her hands. He couldn’t do it.

  “Please,” she sighed. “Please, Gabe. No games. Not tonight.”

  He couldn’t move, torn between staying and leaving. Loving her his way or hers.

  In his silence and inaction, she took over.

  “Shh,” she whispered, sitting up. “It’s okay, Gabe. It’s just me.” She brushed the hair back from his face and smiled crookedly into his eyes. “Just us.” She kissed him, pushed him onto his back and he allowed it to happen even though he knew where it would end—the destruction of the barriers he kept around himself, the removal of the cushions he kept on the sharp corners of things that could hurt him all over again.

  I love her.

  I love her and I can’t be with her.

  “Just this,” she breathed into his ear, peppering his face with small kisses, his lips with tiny bites. She held his hand, put it to her face, looked into his eyes.

  And loved him.

  Alice turned her head, stared out the window at the sky turning gray and pink, and fought back tears when she heard Gabe stand up and start to get dressed.

  She wished she could be more surprised, summon up some stunned outrage that he could love her and leave her this way.

  But she wasn’t surprised.

  She’d known the moment was coming when he stared, heartbroken, into her face as they made love. As he’d kissed her as if it were the last time.

  Grief and anger warred in her. Maybe if she hadn’t pushed the issue, forced him to truly make love to her. Maybe if she’d waited. Maybe if he wasn’t such a coward.

  There were so many maybes.

  “I need to go,” he said.

  “You haven’t slept,” she said, as if he’d say, “You’re right, scoot over,” and climb back in with her rather than do what she knew he was about to do.

  “Too much work to do.” He shot her a grin over his shoulder that struck sorrow in her heart. The man she’d made love to, looked in the eye while he came, had left the building, and this Gabe, this slick, uncaring man, was about to end it all. “I’m not sure how much time we’re going to have in the next little while.”

  She sat up.

  “So, if we can’t—”

  “Turn around, Gabe.” Her voice was iron again and he stiffened, hesitated, but finally turned to face her. She’d known this moment was coming since this affair started, but when she’d overheard Gabe and Patrick talking tonight, she knew it was coming sooner, rather than later.

  Sooner as in right now.

  “I would adopt,” she murmured. She was older, wiser, more adept at reality, at understanding that not being able to have children did not make her less of a person. Adoption sounded like a good idea, if it meant she could build a family with this man.

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, he simply gaped at her, thunderstruck, and she rushed to fill the si
lence. “I heard you talking to your dad. And you’re right. This is supposed to be goodbye, but—” She swallowed, looked down quickly at the edge of the sheet she pleated in her hands. “But I don’t want it to be.”

  “We don’t work,” he whispered. “Remember?”

  She shook her head. “Not as well as I used to.” She tried to smile, but in the end she just stared at him, willing him to reveal himself to her—his true self, not this man of obstinance and fear. “You can’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.”

  “About what exactly?” he asked.

  “About trying again. About second chances.” She took a deep breath. “About regrets.”

  “Sure,” he said honestly. “But I’ve also been thinking about the fights. And the tears. And how we went out of our way to hurt each other. I’ve been thinking about how you said you were tired of being disappointed in me. That I wasn’t the man you thought I was.”

  Echoes from their fights and those words, meant to hurt, had scarred him. Three months ago she would have been delighted to know she’d managed to affect him in some way. But now, watching him gather himself to leave her again, she wished desperately that she’d never said such hurtful things.

  “But it feels so different right now, doesn’t it?” she asked. “If we could just sit down and talk about how we feel about the miscarriages—”

  He jerked on his shirt and shoved his feet into his boots, muttering under his breath. She’d pushed him too far.

  I should have kept my mouth shut. This was too much. Too fast. He can’t handle all this.

  “What are you doing?” She grabbed his arms, fighting for her life. “Why are you running?”

  “I’m not running, I just have to go.”

  “What did I say?” she asked, feeling panicked and hurt.

  “We can’t get over the past—”

  “Right,” she cried. “Not if you don’t talk about it. Sit down and we can talk—”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything!” he yelled, pulling her hands off his arms. “This isn’t a second chance. It’s goodbye. Like we agreed.”

  He looked at her with frozen eyes, his face glacial. His heart unreachable. She sat back on the bed, cold. Alone.

  “Go,” she said. “Get out.”

  He left without another word.

  He went to his room, stripping off the clothes that smelled of her. Of sex. Of two people doing stupid things, and fell exhausted across his bed. His eyes shut briefly and he saw those babies. His children. He felt them in his hands, their still chests and cold skin.

  He gouged his fists in his eyes, trying to shove those images away. Push them out of his head.

  He didn’t want to talk about them. Think about them. And being with Alice again, talking about adoption. Regrets. Jesus, how much did a guy have to take?

  Everything hurt—his body, his head. He rubbed at his chest, where it felt as if something sat on him, crushing him. He struggled for breath.

  It hurt. It hurt worse than the first time, when he’d been so anxious to leave. This time he could have stayed, could have climbed back into bed with her and talked about adoption.

  He sat up.

  It was best this way. They’d be busy, then she’d be gone and life could return to some sort of equilibrium. He could concentrate on those things that were important to him now. He couldn’t go back to those failed dreams, sifting through the ashes of what they’d once had to see what could be reused. It would only be a matter of time before the fighting started again, over something else.

  He put his hands to his eyes again, feeling them burn beneath his fingers. But a baby…

  He shook his head and stood. It was dawn and since there was no way he could sleep now he figured he might as well get to work.

  Patrick sat back from the table and studied the objects of his downfall. His hemlock and poison asp. They looked like mere pen and paper, lined up square against each other waiting for him to set in motion what could be the worst mistake he’d ever made.

  He took another sip of the fine scotch that seemed suited to this moment of big decisions and strong emotion. A swig for the soon to be executed.

  He tilted his head back, felt the burn of the fine liquor in his belly and allowed himself to wonder for the very last time if this was the right thing to do.

  She’d been sick in some way. He knew that. There was something dark that lived in her that he couldn’t touch all those years ago. A demon that had run him ragged and he was inviting it back.

  He sucked back the last of the booze, picked up the pen and scrawled:

  Come. We’ll be waiting.

  He threw down the pen, folded the paper, crammed it into an envelope, not stopping when he tore the paper and crinkled the envelope. He licked the seal, put the return address in the corner so she’d know where he was, so she wouldn’t have to go through their lawyer. He called his lawyer and left a message to have someone come and pick up the letter first thing in the morning.

  “Done,” he said, his heart thundering around his chest like some jackrabbit. For good or bad it was done.

  15

  Alice made every effort to take this second breakup in stride. To convince herself she’d been wrong, that Gabe, with his fear of intimacy and abandonment issues, was right.

  This was better. Really. It was better being alone in that bed, for the past three nights.

  But these few weeks with him back in her arms had scattered the previous five years like birds, as if they’d never happened. His empty side of the bed was a gaping wound all over again.

  And despite her efforts, she wasn’t convinced that it was better feeling as if she couldn’t breathe every time they were in the same room. Or that it was better waiting with pounding heart and cold hands for him to enter the room so she could pretend he wasn’t there.

  “Hey,” Cameron said over her shoulder, while she worked mindlessly on a bowl of egg whites. “Is that supposed to be meringue?”

  She looked down to see egg whites the consistency of library glue around her fork.

  Disgusted with herself, she threw the bowl down on the counter.

  “You…okay?” Cameron asked just as Gabe walked in the door, crossed the corner of the kitchen as if no one was there and slammed the door of his office shut.

  She and Cameron watched and flinched at the noise.

  “What’s with him?” Cameron asked and Alice, sad and sick of being sad, swore. Like a sailor. A sailor who only knew swearwords.

  Cameron’s eyebrows skyrocketed.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just…frustrated.”

  “Is it the wedding?” he asked. “I mean, because we’re behind on the prep or something?” He was so worried that he might have something to do with what was wrong that her heart went out to him.

  Six weeks ago this faith, this pressure he put on her—to be at least a participant in this relationship, to give him the smallest crumbs of affection and loyalty—would have sent her running for the door. Right now she wanted to hug him. She wanted to promise that nothing else would hurt him.

  As much as that was a lie.

  “Not at all,” she assured him. “We’re ahead of schedule. The families arrive in five days and all we need to do is figure out what to serve them the first night they’re here.”

  He nodded, fidgeting slightly with the tie on his apron.

  “Did you have an idea?”

  “Well, I’ve been looking at your books, you know…” He pointed to her shelf of cookbooks and grabbed her old family one, grease spattered and dirty. “I like this one.” He flipped to the grilled rabbit stuffed with parma ham and herbs.

  “Rabbit?”

  “Max said it tastes like chicken. We could serve it with this.” He turned the page to the delicious springtime risotto.

  “Yeah, but rabbit?”

  “It’s probably a dumb idea.” Defeated, he shut the book and started to put it back on the shelf.

  It mig
ht very well be the least appropriate meal to greet them with, she thought. Time intensive and hard work for just the two of them. Heavy and oddly paired and—

  What did it matter? she wondered suddenly. In the long run the Crimpsons would forget that meal, but Cameron would never forget the chance to put this meal together.

  Sometimes the greater good, the real payoff was hidden behind compromise, lost among the wrong priorities.

  Alice braced herself against the counter as the new reality of her life settled in around her.

  Look at me, she thought. Look at me with this boy. Before I came here I never would have sacrificed something for his feelings. Oh my God, three nights ago I told Gabe I would adopt.

  She put her hand to her forehead. When did this happen?

  She’d been focused so hard on Gabe, on making them work, that she’d missed what was truly important. She was over the past. Well, maybe not over, but getting over it. Those children didn’t haunt her. Adoption sounded like a good idea, it still did, with or without Gabe. She wanted a family and was ready to get it, find it. Beg, borrow and steal it.

  She was sober. Working.

  She was happy.

  “Rabbit it is.” She nodded, grabbing the cookbook. “I’m going to need you to call our butcher and get this set up for fourteen people. And we’re going to need a lesson in risotto.”

  He looked at her, slack jawed. “You sure? I mean, I could screw it up—”

  “Yep, but that’s how you learn.”

  Cameron took a deep breath and took the book. “Can I work the grill?”

  “Not on your life.”

  Gabe opened the office door and stormed out into the dining room, again pretending the two of them weren’t there.

  She saw him with new eyes, and while it hurt, while her whole body hurt from the force with which she wished they could work it out, she knew they wouldn’t, not until he got where she was.

  Pretending the past never happened didn’t make it go away. His mother leaving, the babies dying, the marriage falling apart, they all ate away at him and he’d never let anyone close again until he figured it out.