“Okay,” Sheila said, “let’s talk about this, shall we?”
Kacey slid the ring back onto her finger, but instead quickly pulled it off—in pain.
“Damn! What was that?” Kacey said.
Kacey turned the ring over; looked inside it.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Sheila asked.
“There’s something wrong with it—something inside....”
“Let’s have a look.”
Kacey continued examining the ring beside Sheila. Sheila leaned over and gave Kacey a big, wet, open-mouthed kiss. Wiped her mouth. Sat back and eyed Kacey.
“What was that for?” Kacey asked without looking up, still inspecting the band.
“I love you.”
Kacey handed the ring to Sheila.
“There’s something written inside,” Kacey said.
“Wow... and it doesn’t say forevermore.”
More laughter.
“Can you read it?”
“No. Can you?”
“No, but I know what it says. It says—”
2
Kacey awoke, startled, the acrid scent of ammonia waved back and forth beneath her nostrils. Banner stood before her, Fisher down on one knee beside her, performing the ammonia passes. Kacey lay limp on the floor, still in the police station. She felt like Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz.
And you were there, and you were there...
“You all right?” Fisher asked, removing the ammonia.
Kacey shot to an upright sitting position, but Banner caught her. “Easy does it,” he said, easing her back down to the floor, and the folded blanket beneath her head.
Kacey mumbled a few words, then sat up more slowly, bringing a hand to her head. “What... happened?”
“You fainted,” Fisher said.
“You seem to be having a bit of a rough day, Ms. Miller,” Banner said.
But Kacey was still trying to hold on to the images screaming through her head. Something about a ring...
Together forever...
Kacey shot a hand to her pocket.
Both were still there.
She closed her eyes, felt an intense vertigo, and let the dead weight of her body sink into the floor.
Mark... Emily—Sheila...
“I think,” she said, exhausted and weary, “I’d better get home.”
3
Kacey closed her apartment door behind her and collapsed onto her couch. It’d been nice of Banner to drop her off, but it had been a quiet, awkward ride back. Some days it just didn’t pay to get out of bed. She felt beat... like she’d not only been run over by a steamroller, but backed over with it.
And there was the lesbian.
Her past had come back to bite her. Embarrassment, guilt, and pleasure all wrapped up into one, anything-but-tidy, little package. Throw in a hefty appetite of leaving your husband and daughter, and you have the makings of either a gone-platinum country ballad or a made-for-TV movie. When it rained it fucking poured.
Twang.
But why had things felt so good with Sheila, so unaccountably right when she currently felt so much hellish guilt? She’d gone over it a million times since their encounter and still felt that they’d never met before their little airport introduction.
Yet felt as if they had.
Somewhere. And, now, heh-heh—Life could be so goddamned funny sometimes—here they were, cozily working together on the same story.
And they’d kissed on the lips.
Fooled around naked-like.
How would she ever be able to look at herself in a mirror again?
Go back to her husband?
She couldn’t be lesbian—she’d never felt that way with any other woman before or since—so why Sheila? What made Sheila so goddamned special? The depression? The alcohol? The entire stressed-out, angst-ridden on-the-run flight from commitment?
Sheila was the lesbo—not her.
Sheila’d been the one who’d made the play for her... so maybe there had been a somewhat stacked deck against her, pardon the pun, but that didn’t make her...
But, was there really anything wrong with what she’d done? All they’d done, really, was kiss and be kissed... nothing more. Okay, it had been with a woman, and okay, she was married, and, yes, there had been exposed body parts...
She just couldn’t shake that one part... that it had been with a woman.
Kacey removed the rings from her pocketbook and set the one she’d found on the Interstate on the coffee table. She held the other one—her wedding band—out before her.
To have and to hold.
Til death do us part.
I do.
Good Lord, there it was, the instant replay in super slo-mo.
I do.
Two of the most legal and emotional words ever spoken by anyone to anyone.
It’s not the complicated that impacts people’s lives the most, no ma’am, it’s the simple. The basic. Things only get complicated when we try to go against the grain. She’d found a wonderful man, one who’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her—her, no one else—and together they’d created a child. And what had been his biggest fault? His only crime? That he loved changing his daughter’s poopy, smelly diapers? That he gave up sky and scuba diving? That he got a real job to support his family and became attentive to them instead of his past, self-involved, life? That he tried his damnedest to create a life with his wife and child, one with which they could be proud?
Yeah, guilty as charged.
Hang em high, and let em kick in the wind, sheriff.
And what had she brought to the table?
Selfishness? Fear? Abandonment—lesbianism?
Mommy had a child, then ran away to become a lesbo...
And a lesbian who seemed to have tracked her down and was about to make her life a miserable hell all over again.
Well, okay, maybe she hadn’t exactly tracked her down. There was absolutely no way she could have known where and who she was. She, herself, hadn’t even known what she was going to do with her new on-the-run life when she met Sheila. All they exchanged, besides some spit and nipple, were shared misery and first names. No, this was just one of life’s little coincidences. But, what comes around always, always, sweet Charlotte, without a doubt, goes around. She’d screwed up, that was that, and now she was having to learn and grow from it. Face her mistakes... take responsibility and move on.
Kacey put her wedding band back on and returned to the couch, staring at the other ring...
4
Oh, God, Sheila Petrova lamented, as she collapsed onto her hotel couch. She sipped wine and listened to the sound of her hot bath running in the bathroom. She kicked her nyloned feet up on the coffee table. Nice little “run” there.
Could things get any worse?
First off their flight had been bumped. Then getting through security had taken longer than usual, because some nut job had been arguing with one of the TSA agents at airport security. Then the plane was loaded, and the first-class passenger in the seat before her had had the worst case of gas she’d ever had to endure in a confined area—and, like all planes since September 11, there was nowhere to move, because they were packed in like frigging sardines. Then her rental had been given away to another (reminding her of that Seinfeld episode... ).
Then she’d run her nylons.
And finally, to top everything off, she runs into none other than Kacey Miller, super-stringer for a local paper and glorious one-night-stand.
All in a day’s work.
All she now wanted to do was to take a nice long—hot—bath and forget about the nastiness of the world for an hour or so.
How long had it been since she’d first met Kacey?
Twelve months, two days, and seven hours.
And what had frigging possessed her to be so uncharacteristically aggressive that night? She’d never behaved so irresponsibly in her entire life. She’d run that night over and over in her head, and always, always, the
same conclusion: nothing about it made sense.
But there had been something about her, this Miller woman. Something about Kacey that had so irresponsibly drawn her to her like air into lungs. She knew what she’d done was wrong, careless, and stupidly rash, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. She knew it from the moment she’d turned to her at that bar and looked into her deep, dark—hurting—eyes. From that moment on she couldn’t get close enough, fast enough. At that moment, her entire life, her very soul, depended upon her getting as close as possible to this person. It wasn’t her beauty, though she certainly had plenty of that... it was some other factor she couldn’t put a finger on. Were past-life connections for real? Because, if they were, that was what she wondered must have been at work. What else could it be? She couldn’t explain the sudden, powerful, attraction any other way. Ever since she’d been a child, she’d felt as if she’d lived before. But this was the first time she’d ever come God’s honest face-to-face with the concept in such a concrete, real-life, emotional, way...
It had to be something else... didn’t it? Something entirely different? Sometimes you just hit it off with people, and sometimes you didn’t, and there was no real rhyme or reason either way, right? Pheromones? Body language? Who knew. She’d have to do a program on it someday, but for now... for now, she had to come to terms with her behavior that day, and its consequences today.
Man, sometimes, in a word, life just really sucked.
* * *
Kacey lay her head back in her bubble bath, and sighed.
Such sweet relief!
Baths were the cure-all for all the world’s ills, her grandmother used to say. A few candles, relaxing music, and mounds of bubbles. Only thing missing was
(Mark)
(Sheila!)
a male body in the tub with her.
No, that wasn’t even true... she just wanted to be left alone. No distractions. Not even fantasies...
She again sighed, and felt all her worries drain out of her and into this tub of hot
(boiling... )
water. She looked over to the vanity, where the rings were.
What was it about that thing?
Why couldn’t she just shove it in a dresser drawer and be done with it? Maybe she should do a little research... contact some universities, see what she could dig up.
Kacey again closed her eyes. She allowed her mind to drift... thought of the lazy Florida palm trees swaying about in balmy breezes... about the myriad of bird life that soared effortlessly overhead... of the sea and shore and waves that pounded the beaches... of vast grasslands... hills and mountains ... water—streams and rivers—a couple traveling alone across those grasslands... one on horseback, the other in a horse-driven cart... only recently married... returning to the man’s tribe...
But what were those three on horseback about, hurriedly riding toward them?
And... and the newlywed husband galloping off into the distance, alone, the three riders close behind...
* * *
Sheila exploded out of the water.
Grasped the sides of the tub.
Wiping her face, she tried holding onto the images. She’d just dozed off (not a good thing in all that water, for sure), when she saw images of an attack by three riders upon a newly married couple in a distant grassland...
Sheila splashed more water on her face then smoothed her hands down the rest of her body.
Riders and a marriage?
A ring?
Looking to her watch, she noted she’d been in the tub just over an hour. Stretching, she slowly made her way out of the tub, and toweled off, all the while experiencing the weirdest, most heart-retching and unaccountable sense of longing...
Chapter Sixteen
(TEAR-STAINED, SMUDGED, AND HANDWRITTEN LETTER)
May 2
Dear Mark and Emily:
I have no idea where to begin, so I might as well just start writing and see where it takes me.
Emily, you probably don’t even remember me, and that will be my punishment til the day I die, but I hope, in time, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive your very confused mother who really does still love you. There are no words that can ever adequately convey the sorrow and regret I feel in deserting you—sometimes grown-ups just do stupid things, and when it comes time to correct these stupid things, it’s not nearly as easy to fix them as it was to do them. Just know that I do love you, and will always love you.
Mark... what can I say? I never planned on running off and leaving you and Emily behind, though you might pointedly disagree with me on that. I really tried to make things work (at least in my own mind), but something inside me just snapped, I guess, is the nearest I can figure. And I don’t think it had anything to do with either of you. It was something to do with me. In me. I had, and still do, things burning away inside. Questions I still don’t have answers to. Feelings and confusion I still don’t even have questions for. I’m really messed up, and I can’t come back until I find out what’s the matter. I’m just sending this letter so you won’t worry—if you even still are. I’ve got a job, an apartment—I’m living alone, Mark, so don’t you worry about me having left you for someone else—that was never the case and still isn’t—and am doing about as well as I can, all things considered. So, please, don’t come looking for me (and ignore the postmark on this envelope; I gave it to another to mail for me in another state). When I’m ready to return, only then can I come back to you and Emily, because I don’t want to have anything like this ever happen again. I mean it—please don’t try to find me. When I’m ready, I’ll return—if you’ll have me. I know that sounds selfish, but it’s the best I can do for now. Please try to understand, because I’m having a hard time understanding it myself.
I’m sure Emily is growing up into a fine young girl, and though I am joyous of this, I am also deeply saddened. I should be there. Forever. But I’m not, and this, I’m finding, much to my surprise, is tearing me apart. I never thought I’d feel this way about children, but I do. I’m more the mother than I ever thought, yet less than I should be. If and when I ever get things straightened out, I promise this will never happen again. But I can’t ask for you to wait for me, because I don’t know how long this’ll take—it’s simply not fair for you to wait on your screwed-up wife to return. As hard as this is for me to say... if you want a divorce, you have every right to one and I won’t fight you over it. But since I’m not going to tell you where I am, you can use this letter for the lawyers, to give them my approval for you to proceed—if you feel the need to. I hope you don’t, I really do, but will understand if you do. This is my official approval to let you file for a divorce—if you feel the need. But, please... don’t.
Why did I leave? I’m not really sure. I think it might have had something to do with feeling trapped. That’s the closest I can come to any kind of an answer. It had nothing to do with any other men, as I’ve already said. I think it mainly comes from feeling that my life was running away from me, leaving me behind. I wasn’t ready to become a mother, with a child, diapers, feedings, and laundry. To live in one place. I still felt the need to do so much—and still do, I guess. To slap the world in the face and yell “This is me, world!” I didn’t feel like I could do that any longer. And to have a place of my own, called a home?! Wow, that, too, was a permanence I just wasn’t prepared for.
And then there you were, giving up your fun life—for diapers, no less. You seemed to have lost your edge, your drive for doing anything remotely “fun.” It was like I saw you afraid to take chances any more, now that we (you) had a kid. I just couldn’t do it. I needed to be free.
And this brings me to the next thing, which I can’t believe I’m actually going to tell you. Whew—are you ready for this? Sitting down? The night I left you and Emily, I got held up in the airport. I had... a little too much to drink, I missed my flight... and I met someone—like I said, this still has nothing to do with men. Boy, I can’t believe I’m actually going t
o put this into words and tell you (and I’m not really all that sure I’m actually going to mail this, either). We spent the night together. There it is. Out on paper. This bothers me a great deal. We didn’t do anything “bad”... but did enough to leave me with enough guilt to carry around for the rest of my life. I just need to be totally honest with you, if I’m to get through all this shit and come home (if THAT’S still even an option). I never planned on doing anything with this woman, but I’d had a bit too much to drink, and well, I’d just run out on my family, you know? As much as I don’t think so, I don’t know if I’m interested in women, but my actions that night pain me a great deal each and every day. I should never have left—but would things have been any better if I’d stayed? Would we have divorced by now? Would Emily have witnessed fights and anger? So I really don’t know which is better. Since I’m here, where I am now, I just have to make the best of it. Sort out all my demons and try to get beyond everything. But know this: I am so sorry for all I’ve done... for leaving—and the “airport thing.” I hope you can forgive me some day, some year—some life. You and Emily. And please, please, don’t ever tell her about what I did at the airport—it would kill me, and serve absolutely no purpose. I’d kill myself if she ever found out. Of course, you’re probably not thinking that’s a problem about now, but just try to think of our daughter’s future and not about me on this one. I’ve given it a lot of thought, believe me.
God, what is wrong with me?
Know that I still love you, Mark, and you, too, Emily, my dear, sweet, girl, and that I hope to be coming back to you both, soon—if you’ll still have me.
Love,
Kacey
Chapter Seventeen
The Circuit Court of Sarasota Building
August 1st, 9:53 p.m.
1
Harry Gordon looked down to the paperwork before him. This was it. Time to go. Tomorrow was the big day... the Safe Harbor murder trial, the Honorable Judge Howard Stoker III presiding. The time of reckoning for a group of unrelated people who journeyed from all across the world to the sleepy little town of Sunset Harbor, Florida, to do one thing and one thing only—murder the entire resident population of a sleepy retirement complex. Seventy-two people. No apparent motive, no single M.O... and many who continued to dispute their own part in it regardless of the evidence. Some had even been apprehended with murder weapons still in hand, bodies at their feet. Months of investigation, and not one, corroborative, linking clue could be applied across each and every defendant. They’d simply hit a dead-end. And the speediness of getting to trial? Unheard of.
The Uninvited Page 20
