by Nora Roberts
With the photo still in his hand, Thorpe sat on the bed.
“I hope I used all the hot water,” Liv said from behind the door. “It would serve you right for dragging me out of bed at the crack of dawn on a Saturday.” She opened the door and stood for a minute looking down as she belted her robe. “I don’t smell any coffee. The least you can do when . . .”
Her voice trailed off as she looked up and saw what Thorpe held in his hand. He watched the laughter and color flow from her face.
“Liv.” He started to explain the hunt for the matches, then stopped. The words would hardly matter, even if they penetrated. “Who is he?”
Thorpe could count a full ten seconds before her eyes lifted to his. He watched her swallow, saw her bottom lip tremble; but when she spoke, her voice was clear and strong. “My son.”
He had known it the moment he had seen the photo. The resemblance was unmistakable. Yet he felt a thud of shock at her answer. Keeping his eyes level, he too spoke calmly. “Where is he?”
Her face was dead white now. He had never seen eyes so dark, so full of thoughts and secrets and pain. A ripple of emotion shook her. “He’s dead.”
Quickly, Liv turned to the closet and began pulling out clothes. She saw nothing more than a blur of colors. She chose at random with hands that were too numb to shake. Even when she felt him take her shoulders, she continued, pushing at hangers and pulling out a blouse.
“Liv.” It took a firm hand to turn her.
“I have to get dressed if we’re going.” She shook her head, already warding off questions as she tried to break his grip.
“Stop it.” The command was curt, and the shake he gave her was strong enough to draw a quick breath from her. “No, don’t do that. Not now, not ever again. Not with me.” Then, before she could speak, he pulled her against him and held her.
She might have withstood the command. But he was offering comfort, strength. She leaned into him, and her defenses crumbled.
“Come, sit down,” he said, “and tell me about it.”
With his arm still around her, Liv sat on the bed. The snapshot lay beside her. She picked it up and set it in her lap. He didn’t press her further, sensing she needed a moment before she could begin.
“I was nineteen when I met Doug.” Her viewers wouldn’t have recognized her voice now. It was small and hesitant and threaded with emotion. “He was studying law. He had a scholarship. He was a brilliant man, very free spirited, yet intense about what he was going to do. He was going to be the best defense attorney in the country. Change the system from within the system, challenge windmills, fight dragons. That was Doug.”
When he said nothing, Liv drew a deep breath and continued. Her voice grew stronger. “We were attracted to each other right away. Maybe partly because our backgrounds were so totally different and our ideals were so shiny. We sparked something in each other. And we were so young.” She sighed, gathered strength and went on. “We married quickly, less than three months after we’d met. My family . . .” With a little laugh, she shook her head. “Well, leave it that they were surprised. Sometimes I’m afraid that might have been one of the reasons I married him. I don’t like to think it was.”
She stared off into middle distance, into her own memories. For a moment, Thorpe felt cut off from her. He shook the feeling off and continued to listen.
“It wasn’t the sturdiest marriage—we were young and there were a lot of pressures. College. Doug was cramming for exams; I was interning at a local station and studying every spare minute. Money didn’t matter much to either of us, luckily, because there wasn’t a great deal of it. We had some good times, but Doug was . . .” She let out a long breath, as if searching for the proper words.
“He had a weakness for women. He loved me, I really believe he did in his own way, but he had a difficult time with fidelity. None of his—slips ever meant anything to him, and I wasn’t very sexually experienced.”
Thorpe found himself forced to choke words back. He didn’t want to interrupt her now that she was talking, really talking, but the urge to curse the man she had married was almost too powerful to resist. He could remember very clearly her telling him, the first time they had made love, that she wasn’t very good at pleasing a partner. Now, at least, he understood how the notion had been planted. He kept quiet and listened.
“We had Joshua within the year—hardly a year after we had first met. My family thought we were mad, starting a family so quickly and with an income far below what any of them could conceive trying to live on. But we both wanted a baby. We both wanted Josh. It seemed, for a time, he’d center our lives. He was so special.” Her eyes fell to the photo in her lap. “I know all mothers think that about their babies, but he was so beautiful, so good-natured. He hardly ever cried.”
She saw the tear fall onto the glass of the frame and squeezed her eyes shut. “We both adored him. It was impossible not to. For almost a year, we were happy. Really, really happy. Doug was a tremendous father. No job was too small or too demeaning. I remember once he woke me up, absolutely beside himself with pride when he had discovered Josh had cut a tooth.”
Liv said nothing for nearly a full minute. Thorpe didn’t want to prompt her. He understood her need to continue at her own pace. Keeping his arm around her, he waited.
“After I had graduated, we moved to New Jersey. Doug had a position with a small law firm, and I had landed a job with WTRL. I had the night desk at first. It wasn’t easy on either of us. We were both just starting out, taking career crumbs, working obscene hours, raising the baby between us. I don’t think Josh suffered. It certainly didn’t seem so, he was such a happy baby. I was with him all day; Doug took over in the evening and put him to bed. Then, there was an incident with a law clerk Doug was attracted to. A small slip; he hadn’t had one in a year. I overlooked it.” She shrugged. “Tried to overlook it,” she corrected herself. “He blamed himself enough for it in any case. We tried to put things back together. We had the baby to think of. Nothing was more important to either one of us than Josh.
“Finally, I got off the night shift and onto days. I started reading the weather and doing a few minor reports. We spent a lot of time finding a sitter who satisfied both of us. Even then, we disagreed. Doug wanted me to stop working and stay home with Josh. I wouldn’t do it.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes a moment, then laid them back in her lap. “He was so well adjusted, so content. I loved him more than anything else in the world, but it didn’t seem necessary, or even wise, for me to stop work, give up my career to be with him every minute. There were financial considerations, and my own needs. And I didn’t want to smother him.”
Her voice lost its strength and started to waver. “It was so tempting to just stay with him, spoil him. Doug used to say if I had my way I would have kept him a baby forever. I always thought he was trying to make Josh grow up too quickly. It was really sweet the way he’d buy him a football and talk about two-wheelers when Josh was only eighteen months old. But then he bought this huge swing set on Josh’s second birthday. It terrified me, all those high bars. We argued about it a bit—not seriously. He laughed and called my overprotective. Then I laughed because Doug had been the one to research car seats for three weeks before he’d bought one. If I’d . . . If I’d stuck to my instincts, everything might have been different.”
Liv stared down at the picture a moment; then, she pressed it to her breast. “The sitter called me at work to tell me Josh had taken a tumble from the swing. Just a bump on the head, she said, but I dropped everything, called Doug and rushed home. He’d gotten there even before I had. Josh seemed fine, but both of us were panicked. We took him straight to the emergency room at the hospital. I remember sitting there while he was being X-rayed. This big room, with all these black plastic chairs, metal ashtrays, and overhead lights. The floor tile was black with white speckles in it. I counted them and Doug paced.
“When the doctor came out, he took us both into this little room. H
e had a gentle voice. It terrified me. I could see it in his eyes before he said anything, but I wouldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible.” She pressed her hand to her mouth to try to keep the sobs from breaking through. Every detail was flooding back over her, and with them, all the pain. “I didn’t believe it when he told us Josh had thrown an embolism. He was gone. Just like that.”
Liv rocked back and forth, the photo pressed close as the sobs began to tear at her throat. “I don’t even know what happened then. I got hysterical; they sedated me. The next thing I remember clearly was being at home. Doug was devastated. We couldn’t seem to do each other any good. Instead, we lashed out. We said terrible things. He blamed me for not staying home watching our child. Caring for him. If I had been there, then maybe . . . And I clawed back. He’d bought the swing set. The damned swing set that had killed my baby.”
“Liv.” He wanted to wipe it all out—the pain, the grief, even the memories. She had the photo pressed against her breast as if she would try to bring it to life with her own heartbeat. What comfort could he offer? Not words; there weren’t any. He could only hold her.
She dashed at the tears in her eyes as Thorpe drew her closer. Now that it was coming out, it was far from finished. She was functioning only on emotion now, and it had to run its course. “Greg came. He was Josh’s godfather, our closest friend. God knows we needed somebody; our world had just fallen apart. He kept us from hurting each other more, but the damage was done. Josh was dead.”
She gave a long sigh that rippled through her and had her shoulders trembling under his arm. “He was dead, and nothing could change it. There wasn’t any blame. An accident. Just an accident.”
She was silent for a long time. He could sense she was gathering her strength to continue. He wanted the pain to stop, wanted to help her close it off in the past where it had to stay. But even before he could speak, she continued.
“Greg took care of the arrangements—the funeral. I wasn’t coping with it well. They were giving me something; I don’t even know what it was. That first week, Doug and I were like zombies. My family came, but they didn’t know me. They hadn’t known Josh as I had. Every day I expected to walk by his room and hear him playing. I went back to work because I couldn’t bear staying in the house waiting for him to wake up.”
The tears were flowing as she spoke. Her voice was raw with grief. Whatever Thorpe had expected to find beneath the guards, it hadn’t been this. She was blind with it now. He didn’t think she was aware of him any longer, or the arm that kept her close.
“The marriage was over. We both knew it, but we couldn’t seem to bring ourselves to say the words. It was as if we were both thinking that if we hung on, he’d come back. We were polite to each other, tiptoeing around. I wanted someone to hold on to, someone to tell me . . . I don’t know what words I needed to hear, but he didn’t have them. I don’t suppose I had them for him. We shared the same bed and never touched each other. We lived like that for over a month. Once I—once I asked him to come into Josh’s room with me to help me—help me sort through his things. I knew I couldn’t do it alone, and that it had to be done. He left the house, and didn’t come back all night. He couldn’t face it, and I couldn’t face it alone. I had to call Greg, and we . . .” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and tried not to choke over the words. “Doug and I never spoke of it again.
“Then Melinda came, my sister. She’d been fond of Josh. She used to send him useless, expensive little toys. Her being there seemed to help for a while. She was a distraction. She made us get out of the house, forced us to entertain her and keep our minds off . . . everything. I think it helped me, because I began to realize that Doug and I were only hurting each other by keeping up the pretense of being married. We had to stop. I decided to ask for a divorce before one of us did something unforgivable. It wasn’t easy. I thought about it for days.
“I came home early one afternoon because I wanted to have a little time to sort out what I would say. I’d made up my mind to talk to Doug that night. When I got there, Doug’s car was in the drive. I thought he might have been ill and come home. When I went upstairs, I found him in bed with my sister.”
Very gently, she laid the photo back in her lap. “It was the final blow. My sister, my home, my bed. I left before either of them could say anything. I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to say the horrible things that I knew I’d say if I waited. I went to a motel. That’s when I made up my mind that my parents had been right all along. If you live calmly, without disturbing your life with emotional attachments, you can’t be hurt. That’s how I was going to live. From that moment. No one, nothing, was ever going to take me to that point again. I’d had enough pain. I filed for divorce right away. Doug asked Greg to handle it for me. I never even spoke to him again, except through Greg. After a while I began to realize that Doug had just taken the step before I had. He’d used Melinda to end something that was killing both of us. That made it easier to forgive him. And because we’d had, and lost, something extraordinary together.”
On the last word, she began to weep passionately, uncontrollably. As she turned into Thorpe, his arms cradled her to hold her until the grief passed.
14
There was the faintest of breezes over the water. It rippled over the reflections in the Potomac and just stirred Liv’s hair. Now that they were there, stretched out under the sky, Thorpe was glad he had persuaded Liv to come. The sun and the activity would be good for her. Another woman, he thought, would have wanted to sleep off the strain of that much weeping. Not Liv.
She was still pale. Her eyes showed traces of the tears they had spent. But there was an unmistakable aura of strength about her. Thorpe admired her for it even as he loved her for it. Now, he felt he could understand why she had iced herself over. He had seen the face of the boy in the photograph—a face full of life and undiluted joy. He ached for her, for her loss. It was difficult for him to imagine Liv married, having a son, building a life with another man. A small house in the suburbs, a fenced yard, toys under the sofa—all of that seemed a world apart from the woman who sat across from him now. And yet, that had been her life not so many years before. It could be her life again, this time with him. Thorpe wanted it for her, and for himself.
More than ever, he knew there would be a need to move slowly with her. She was strong, yes, but she had been terribly hurt.
Doug, he thought, and experienced one moment of blazing anger. He didn’t forgive as easily as Liv. The man, as he saw it, had done more than lose Liv through his own weaknesses. He had scarred her. Now it was up to Thorpe to show her, convince her that he meant to stand beside her. Always.
From where Liv sat, she could watch Thorpe row. His muscles rippled. There seemed to be no effort in the skill and strength he used to guide the boat over the river. He wasn’t a man who had to flex his biceps to prove he was strong or masculine. He knew himself, and his confidence came from that knowledge.
So she had told him. Years had gone by since she had opened herself like that to anyone. There was nothing he didn’t know about her now. Why had she told him? Perhaps, she mused, because she had known—or hoped—he would still be there when she had finished. And he had been: no questions, no advice, only support. He had known what she needed. When had she discovered what an unusual man he was? And why had it taken her so long? She felt relaxed and safe, and more at ease with herself than she could remember. The tears and the telling had purged the pain. For a moment, she closed her eyes and let her body enjoy the cleansing of her mind.
“I haven’t thanked you,” she said into the quiet.
“For what?” He brought the oars up and back in a long, steady stroke.
“For being there, and for not saying all those tidy little words people say when someone falls apart.”
“You were hurting.” His eyes were on hers again, looking deep. “Nothing I could say can erase what happened or make it easier. But I’m here now.”
&nb
sp; “I know.” Liv sighed and leaned back. “I know.”
They rowed for a time in silence. There were other boats here and there, dotting the river, but they didn’t come close enough to exchange waves or greetings. It might have been their own private stream in their own private world.
“It’s still early enough in the spring,” Thorpe said, “that the river isn’t crowded. I like to come at dawn in the summer, when the light’s just breaking. It’s amazing how quiet all those buildings look at sunrise. You can forget there’ll be throngs of tourists tramping up the monument or packing into the Smithsonian. At dawn, it’s hard to think about what’s going on in the Pentagon or the Capitol. They’re just buildings, rather unique, sometimes beautiful. On a Saturday or Sunday, when I haven’t got a story weighing me down, I can just row, and forget all the times I’ve climbed the stairs, ridden the elevators and opened the doors in all those buildings.”
“Funny,” Liv mused. “A month or two ago, I would have been surprised to hear you say that. I pictured you as a man with one driving ambition, totally focused on his job, and his job alone. I never would have imagined you needing to get away from it, to separate yourself from the pace.”
He smiled and continued to stroke steadily through the water. “And now?”
“And now I know you.” She sat up and let the wind catch her hair. “When did you discover that rowing was your alternative to ulcer pills?”
He laughed, both amused and pleased. “You do know me. When I got back from the Middle East. It was hard over there. It was hard coming back. I imagine most soldiers feel the same way. Adjusting to normality isn’t always easy. I started working out my frustrations this way, and found it became a habit.”
“It suits you,” Liv decided. “The understated physicality.” She grinned as he arched a brow. “I don’t imagine it’s as simple as you make it look.”
