by L. L. Soares
There was a time, early in his career, when some people came to him for depression, but he could only tolerate them for a short time before he had to admit he couldn’t help them. He’d referred them to colleagues who were better equipped than he was. His specialty was anger and he tried to make that quite clear. There were so many angry people in the world, so much rage all around us. Did he really need to be able to do anything more?
He pulled the car up into the driveway, and as he stopped in front of his house, his thoughts turned from Charlie to Maggie. Poor, lost Maggie. He had to do something to help her.
Shutting off the engine, he thought about his options. It was probably best to confront her about this. If he continued to ignore it, she would never feel the need to change her behavior. While this might have been easier with a patient, with his own wife he found it was a tremendous weight upon him. He had no desire to rub her nose in it. But he had to say something.
Sam got out of the car and walked across the lawn to the house. He fumbled for his keys and let himself inside.
“Maggie,” he called out before he had even shut the door. “Are you home?”
An exploration of the house revealed that she wasn’t. Which was totally unlike her.
Maybe she went to work today, he thought. Maybe she’s working overtime and got caught in traffic.
He went over to the answering machine, but there weren’t any messages.
He sat down on the couch in the living room, searching the floor with his eyes to see if any stray liquor bottles were around. But there was no trace of her problem.
Maybe she resolved this herself, he thought. Maybe right now she’s attending an AA meeting.
He knew it was a foolish thing to think. But if it were true, that would mean he wouldn’t have to deal with it. He wouldn’t have to confront her at all.
Yes, he thought. She took care of things herself. I just know it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
There was no turning back, now. Not only would Colleen be living in this house for the time being, now her old apartment was no longer available to her.
She carried her suitcase inside. Jeremy brought in the rest. He put her boxes on the floor.
She looked around the living room. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?” she asked, then instantly wished she hadn’t; she was afraid he’d misinterpret her comment and think she was hinting at getting the bedroom again. But she didn’t want to inconvenience him any further, and certainly didn’t want to kick him out of his own bed.
“Don’t be silly,” he told her. “There are other rooms. It’s just that I wasn’t prepared for company when you first arrived.”
There were two hallways. One led down to Viv’s room. The other toward his own. But the halls held other rooms than these. Closed doors lined the corridors. Jeremy took her in the direction of his room. He stopped halfway, and opened a door.
“Here you go,” he said, leading her inside.
The room was in disarray. Boxes were here and there. Big hardcover books were scattered on the floor. Items wrapped in brown paper and plastic covered the desk and the bed. “Just let me clean this up a bit.”
“Let me help you,” she said, putting down her suitcase.
“It won’t take long at all,” he told her as he started taking things away to another room across the hall. In a much shorter time than she expected, the room was cleared of debris and available for her. She went over and sat on the bed when it was uncovered. It had an old comforter on it, musty with age.
“Don’t worry about the bed sheets. I have fresh linens in the closet.”
She looked around the room. There was even a chest of drawers for her to put her clothes in, and a closet, which had been hidden behind boxes.
He stopped and sat on a wooden chair next to the desk.
“Well, we got a lot accomplished today. I told you there was plenty of room for you.”
“This house is bigger than I thought it was. So many rooms.”
“A lot of them are just storage areas now, for the most part. I’m a real pack rat, you see. Always collecting something. At one time it was art, then it was books. It’s amazing how things accumulate in here.”
“When was the last time someone stayed in this room?”
“Hmmm,” Jeremy said, half-closing his eyes. “It’s always been considered a guest room, I suppose. But I think only one or two people ever slept in here. So it has a very innocent history, I’d think. At least in my lifetime.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have a maid or anything,” she said.
“I never was much for servants. Too protective of my privacy, I suppose. Although I can’t for the life of me tell you what I’m protecting.” He laughed. “I only use half the rooms here; there really wouldn’t be much for a maid to do. Besides, it really isn’t that big.”
“Did this used to be your parents’ house?”
“One of them, a long time ago. Even when they were alive they didn’t come here very often. They weren’t much for the beach, I suppose. They preferred being in the city proper. They bought this place when I was a child, and I remember only weekending here once. They might have come back a few times without me. This is actually rather small compared to our other homes. This place was pretty much ignored, until I came here after the accident, that is.”
He stopped. He was clearly uncomfortable talking about the accident. Colleen had made sure not to bring it up, even though she had read all about it in the tabloids. She’d heard about the tragedy, as well as the glamour. The way he acted when he brought it up made her feel even more uncomfortable talking about it. It was like a secret they had both agreed not to mention.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he said. “Where was I? Oh yes, after the accident, I came here as an adult for the first time. The house had been left to me in their will, but I’d avoided it for years. And now that I’ve lived here, I can’t understand why I didn’t come sooner. It’s everything I’d want. A private, comfortable house by the ocean. Now, I can’t imagine having lived anywhere else.”
Even now, he could not bring himself to talk about the crash in detail. He was surprised he even mentioned it to her at all.
“There was a time when this house seemed very isolated. And I have to admit, for a while there, that’s exactly what I wanted. But now it’s coming alive again. And it’s all because of you. It’s like winter’s over and spring’s finally begun.”
“I can’t thank you enough for asking me to stay here,” she said.
“Nonsense, I’m more than happy to have you. Especially when I saw your old place. How could anyone live in such a small room?”
“I didn’t have much choice,” she said.
“Well, don’t worry about that anymore.”
“I won’t stay forever,” she said. “Only until I can afford a new place of my own.”
She stopped. She knew it was nonsense and couldn’t bring herself to continue. After all, where was she going to get the money for her own place? The best room she could afford was the place she’d just left.
“Colleen, I really don’t care. Stay as long as you like. Nobody is rushing you out the door.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Colleen asked.
“Sure.”
“What is it between you and Viv?” she asked. “You never did tell me. I guess it wasn’t any of my business before, but now that I’m going to be living here, maybe I should know what to expect.”
“There‘s nothing between us,” Jeremy said. “Not from lack of trying. When Viv met me, I was at a very low point in my life. She has been very important to me since. She accepted my offer when I told her I wanted her to move in with me. She’d been going through some apartment troubles herself at the time. I can think of once or twice when I thought something might happen. But she always had this line she drew between us. And she never crossed it.”
“Do you know why?”
He hesitated.
Clearly there was something he hadn’t told her.
“Maybe, one day,” he said. “It’s kind of a long story, and personal. I don’t know if Viv would want me talking about it. It’s nothing that should concern you, though.”
“So she isn’t a predatory lesbian or something,” Colleen said, with a little laugh to break the tension.
He laughed, too. “No, not at all. It’s nothing for you to worry about. Let’s just say that Viv and me, we just weren’t meant to be, okay?”
She wondered why he wouldn’t confide in her. She’d told him so much. Even about Turney’s murder. The strange red-faced man. Even how she’d seen those strange auras. She was more than a little disappointed. It must have shown.
“Don’t pout,” Jeremy said, and smiled. One side of his mouth seemed to turn up higher than the other, so that his grin was lopsided. “I’ll tell you one day. I promise.” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s like a rain check, then?”
“You could say that.”
She stretched out on the bed. “Hey, this isn’t too bad, considering nobody’s slept here for so long.”
“It’s a nice room. It’s just that I’d had no reason to clean it out before. But I’m glad I have a reason now. I’m really glad you’re here.”
“It seems like Viv isn’t here very often,” Colleen said, then yawned.
“She comes and goes a lot. Sometimes I don’t see her for days on end. And she rarely tells me if she’s going to be gone for a long time.”
Colleen laughed, “Jeremy, you sound like her mother!”
“I do, don’t I? That’s strange, because if there’s one person I think I don’t need to worry about, it’s Viv. Believe me, that’s one woman who can definitely take care of herself.”
He got up off the chair. “How about something to eat? We’ve been on the go so much today, we forgot to get a bite.”
“Sure, what have you got?”
“I know this really nice seafood place, down the road from here. It’s not the fanciest place in the world, but the food’s really good. It’s convenient at least.”
“Sure.”
“Give me a minute.”
Jeremy got up and went down the hall to his own room.
She lay back on the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. It was strange to find herself back here, not some distraught girl who wandered on the beach anymore, but someone who was going to live in this house, with, of all people, Jeremy Rust. It was like living a dream. To go from a tiny one-room apartment in a horrible neighborhood to this beautiful house by the beach.
She wondered what it would be like to live in this house forever. Despite a tinge of guilt, she knew she might end up testing Jeremy, to find out just how generous he really was.
He came back and stuck his head in the doorway. “Are you ready?”
* * *
When Maggie got back to the house, Sam was gone. But there were telltale signs that he’d been there. His briefcase beside the couch. The clothes he’d worn to work were draped over a chair in the bedroom. The smashed mirror in the hallway.
Had he smashed it out of anger, because she wasn’t home? There had been times when he’d been the jealous type, years and years before. She’d thought he’d gotten over it, but who knew anymore? While he claimed to be some expert in human behavior, she never had.
She poured herself a glass of wine. There were still some bottles on the wine rack on the kitchen counter. Somehow she’d been able to resist them so far. Mostly because Sam would notice if they suddenly disappeared. But right now, she didn’t care.
I have to buy more wine. She looked at the wine rack. Replacement bottles.
She thought about Viv. How strange it was to meet another woman who made her feel this way. At first, she figured it was just impulsive. She’d been drinking and wanted someone to talk to more than anything. Someone who would actually listen. Not that she’d had much important to say. Bitching, mostly. And rather slurred bitching at that. At first, even in her hazy state, she had known enough to protect her privacy, not say too much. Not name names, so to speak. But she had to say something. It was all building up in her so much, that she thought she would start screaming soon without some kind of release.
And Viv had listened to her tales of woe. The neglectful husband, the unsatisfying job, the disillusionment with life itself. The desire for a child she couldn’t have.
She was sure it had sounded like the kind of self-indulgent diatribe you’d hear on a soap opera. The pathetic whining of an unhappy wife. But she’d felt such a need to let it out.
She would never have told any of this to her friends. They weren’t much help when it came to the real painful stuff. She didn’t want them to see her that vulnerable. She didn’t want them to know she had flaws, weaknesses, so she’d been avoiding them. At first she had made excuses when they’d tried to make plans to get together. Now, she didn’t return their calls at all.
She’d thought of going to a therapist, but she was always afraid they’d know Sam and she couldn’t betray him, despite their problems. She resented therapists anyway, the whole lot of them, because of him. Because of what Sam had become over the years. On the surface, he was a man on a mission to cure the world of mental illness, wanting to suck up all the anger around him and replace it with a great Age of Calm. On that level, he was an altruistic, good man. But she saw the other side of it, too. He was obsessed with his patients, and his cause. To the exclusion of all else. Even her.
She didn’t want to spill her guts to someone like that. Someone who would view her as just another pathetic patient to be cured.
And, even more so, she would never discuss things with him. There was a time when she would have. When she would have at least tried to trust him, and respect his opinions about things. But the wounds were too raw now. And since many were attributable to him, she had no desire to let him know just how deeply he’d been hurting her.
She didn’t want to be put under his microscope.
She resented his work, saw it as her rival, and had no desire to become part of it.
Viv, on the other hand, was removed from all this. She was not part of the problem. The fact that she was a stranger made her even more attractive. Made her all the easier to talk to.
It would be only a matter of time before she opened up completely. Revealed her
soul. It was so easy talking to Viv, and at least she tried to make the right noises to comfort her.
The sex had been a surprise. Not that Maggie hadn’t seen the look in Viv’s eye when they left the bar together. She knew what Viv’s agenda was. The surprise was that Maggie had gone along with it so easily. At first, she attributed it to the booze. To the letting down of her curtain of inhibitions in an inebriated state. That, mixed with her vulnerability and desire to do something for Viv in return, for being there for her. For listening.
But it was more than that. Maggie had experienced fantasies, after all. She had toyed with the idea of being with another woman. Surely she wasn’t the only one. The media almost made you think that every woman had those tendencies on some level, but Maggie didn’t believe it was that widespread. That was probably some kind of lascivious myth perpetrated by men to make women more open to sexual experimentation. If a woman didn’t go that way, all the marketing in the world wouldn’t change her mind. Either you were attracted to the same sex, or you weren’t.
But Maggie had always had a part of her that toyed with such ideas. She never acted on them, of course. But they were a mental game she played now and again. There were at least two of her friends she’d fantasized about at some point, or she’d had dreams, which, after all, are completely beyond our control.
Viv made her feel at ease, free, and it didn’t take much convincing on her part to
get Maggie to go along for the ride. It had been so easy.
She looked forward to seeing Viv again. In fact, she’d wanted to stay longer in that motel room, to continue exploring each
other’s bodies, so alike and yet different. But she’d come to her senses for some reason, and realized she should be home. That Sam would be concerned. Would wonder where she was.
She had enough presence of mind to still think of such things. But she could see a time in the near future where she simply forgot completely, giving in to the binging and the impulses. Their marriage was becoming more and more empty, and she was less inclined to maintain the illusion anymore.
Which made her think of the broken mirror in the hallway, and the early years of their marriage, when an angry, jealous Sam had tried to control her comings and goings. In those times, it was not uncommon for Sam to break things, to lash out at inanimate objects. To lash out at her on occasion. But he always gained control again before things got too bad. She always wondered if that would continue to be the case, however. She lived in fear that someday he would snap completely. That he might even kill her in a fit of rage.
That was the past, though. Sam had learned to take control of his temper. Physician heal thyself, and all that. Which was a good thing, because she wouldn’t have stayed in the marriage if he hadn’t gotten his act together. As it was, she’d lived in fear longer than she’d planned to. She’d thought about leaving him so many times, but could never seem to bring herself to do it. Perhaps she really had loved him, and hadn’t wanted to accept that their marriage was unsalvageable.
Now, saving their marriage seemed like an utter waste of time. Save it for what? Sure there were some good years in between. He’d started making good money and was less prone to outbursts, and they’d started really enjoying themselves again. But the closeness didn’t last more than maybe five years, and then it became a kind of hollowness. Not really worth the trip at all.
At one point, she’d tried to get pregnant. She’d had some misguided idea that having a baby would save their marriage. That was before she’d gone to the doctor who’d told her she was infertile. But she knew now that a child wouldn’t change him, that it would have just complicated things further. She was glad now she hadn’t pursued other options.
