by Robin Janney
“So, then, she didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not why she’s panicking and that’s not why you’re angry.” Anger began to leak into Kevin’s voice now. “You’re angry because she saw something you didn’t want her to see.”
“What I sketch…”
“Is your emotional outlet.” Anger was clear now. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Craig. So, answer your wife’s question for me: why are you sketching a woman you said you didn’t choose? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I can’t just turn my feelings on and off, Kevin. Katie’s dead and do you have any idea how much that hurts? No matter what happened, she was still my friend. Yes, I chose Angela, I will always choose her.” Back in his office, Craig sat behind his desk, looking at the sketches which had set this chain of events into motion. “But I might as well have been the one to kill Katie…”
“Katie’s death was the result of a sick woman trying to manipulate you into ruining your marriage. And even though she’s awaiting trial in New York, you’re still letting her manipulate you! I understand Katie’s death hurt you, and I know you have to grieve, but damn it, Craig, you have to do it in a way that doesn’t continue to hurt your wife.”
“I’m trying!” said Craig, his anger burning hot. “I’m staying in my office where she can’t see it, or the grief I have over the miscarriage she blames me for. If Angela had minded her own business, she’d never have seen the sketches and would never have been hurt by this.”
“Your wife is not stupid, neither is she blind. She might have her own issues to deal with right now, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t aware of yours. Angela’s not as self-centered as she thinks she is. Your wife doesn’t need to see your sketches to know something’s bothering you. The sketches just leave her confused as to what that is.”
“If she’s forgiven me for Katie, why did she go through my things?”
Kevin’s sigh was deep, anger dissipating to be replaced with frustration. “Craig, she said she was in the office looking for you because she wanted to talk to you about something. I don’t know what, but it’s something to do with the ranch. The sketchbook was there, and she looked at it because she’s trying to figure out how to help you, how to rebuild your friendship. Angela knows as well as I do that you sketch out what’s bothering you.”
Craig was silent, seeing for the first time his wife’s laptop and a small pile of papers sitting on the corner of his desk. When he’d returned from the bathroom, he’d only seen the sketchbook out of place and laying haphazardly on his seat.
“Craig?” asked Kevin when the silence dragged on. “I’m sorry, but right now, whatever you’re feeling is insignificant compared to what is going on inside your wife at this exact moment. Between the sketches and the tone of your voice when you called to her, she began spiraling into a panic attack. I heard your voice and to be honest I don’t blame her. I’ve never heard that tone of voice from you, not even during the intervention we did for you that one spring break.”
Kevin sighed before continuing. He sounded better in control of his anger now, Craig could hardly hear any trace of it as he continued to counsel him. “Do you understand there is an aspect of Angela’s emotions that she cannot control? She tries, Craig. She tries valiantly, but once the trigger inside of her is flipped, it’s beyond her control. We spoke about this before you were married, and you said you’d be able to handle it, that you understood.”
“I remember,” Craig said. “I just thought she’d get better over time.” Running a hand over his face, he leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know how to fix this, Kevin. Because I still want to be with her.”
“Even if she doesn’t get better?”
“Yes. Even if she doesn’t get better.”
“Then Craig, you need to get a handle on your grief, and your guilt, much of which is misplaced. Because your wife, the woman you love and is very much alive, needs you. Aren’t you the one who usually calms her fears?”
“I am. I still want to be, it’s just…”
“Just what, Craig? What is holding you back?”
“I’m sorry Kevin, but my wife was my best friend before this. And we don’t have that right now! I know it will never return until I can give her all of me. And right now, I’m afraid to because she’s fragile yet from everything that’s happened. I can see it in her eyes. How can I share what’s hurting me when…why are you laughing?”
Kevin was laughing, but there was a sour note to it. “Because after over four years together, you still underestimate your wife. Don’t mistake Angela’s fragility for weakness. You know the depth of her strength, Craig; I’d know that much from your comic books even if we’d never talked about it. You said just the other day that the dragon has come to represent strength and power to you. And yes, I understand to some degree that it’s a power over you. If you want things to go back to normal, are you going to be able to let Angela use her strength? Could you submit to her power over you once again?”
Craig considered this. “I want to.”
“Then, just do it. Go, find her. She said she was going to go down to the horses. Do what they can’t and rebuild your relationship with her. Open the door to your heart and let her back in, so she can do the same. She has always trusted you to set the pace for your relationship, so she needs you to do this.”
Craig let out a breath he’d been holding. “Okay, okay. You’re right.”
“Angela loves you. Far more than Katie ever could. Her love for you is why she contacted me in the first place.”
“I know. I don’t deserve her.” Craig rose to his feet, intent on finding his wife even as Kevin talked on.
Kevin sighed. “Craig, you deserve the best. And you’ve said before that Angela is the best thing to ever happen to you. I don’t think you’ve changed your mind.”
“I haven’t. Thank you, Kevin. I’ll talk to you later tonight.”
“Good enough.”
After the farewells and the call disconnected, Craig laid his wife’s phone on the bureau by the front door and stepped outside. He walked across the large yard to the horse barn. No doubt Nan had left the door hanging open earlier to help remind Craig of the damage he was causing his wife. Except for that one afternoon, Nan’s attitude toward him had been professional as always. Well, there was enough of a bite to it telling him in no uncertain terms that her loyalty rested with Angela.
As he walked among the stalls, Craig could see the evidence of his wife’s presence because all the horses were agitated; the stable hands present didn’t look all too happy either. If looks could kill, he’d have been dead. How had he never realized how much their staff idolized his wife beyond what their job description required? For some reason, it was a comforting thought.
He found Angela in Belle’s empty stall, sitting hunched over on her bales of hay. Her knees were pulled to her chest, and she was hugging them tightly. Princess was curled at her feet, her canine eyes watching his every move.
Standing in the doorway, watching his wife and hearing the soft sounds accompanying her weeping, Craig’s mind cleared. How could he be doing this to her? This woman was the most precious piece of his life, and why was he doing this to her? He drew a deep breath and wiped at his own eyes. Why was he doing this to them? There was no good answer; there wasn’t even a piss-poor answer.
Resolving to treat his wife better, he sat next to her on the hay bales and slipped his arm around her. Angela flinched, but she didn’t pull away. “Angela,” he began softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you still angry?” she asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Only with myself.”
“Why?” she demanded. His wife’s struggle to calm herself was visible, but she managed to do so.
“For not sharing my grief with you, so you would understand it better. That way seeing the sketches wouldn’t hurt you like they did,” Craig managed to keep his tone even, though he couldn’t stop all emotion from leaking through. He couldn’t s
tand the strain in their relationship anymore.
“Do you miss her that much? Do you still want her that much?”
“No. I don’t. Truly. It’s just, Angela – she was my friend once, and I feel like her death is my fault.”
Angela snorted, and it amused him to hear one of the horse’s snort in response. Even she managed a small, weak laugh over that. “That had to be Buster. Craig, please. You’re no more responsible for Katie dying than I am for Nikki going to jail in place of her father. Don’t let your ego do to you what it did to Nikki.”
Craig looked at her with relieved amusement, and amazement. Just like that, she repeated Kevin’s words and put him in his place. He ran a hand over her hair. “My God, Angela…how I’ve missed you.”
His wife managed a sad smile. “I’ve missed you too, Craig.”
“Why don’t we go back inside, and you can show me whatever it was that had you coming to me in the first place.”
She bit her lip. “Can I ask you one thing first?”
“Anything,” he answered, wondering what was coming next.
“Why didn’t you want to have sex last night?”
Craig managed not to sigh; she had every right to ask. “Because I felt like it would have been just sex, and as much as I want to resume that part of our relationship, I want more than that, Angela. I want your smile back, I want your laughter back, I want our friendship back. We might not go back to the way things were before, not exactly, but it can be something better.”
“It could have been a start,” Angela pointed out.
“Maybe,” he replied, tucking hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry my rejection hurt you, it wasn’t my intention. I’m also a little nervous, because of your miscarriage. I don’t want to hurt you.” He leaned in close to her, planting a kiss on her temple. “Besides, we didn’t start there before we were married, and I don’t want to start there now.”
“I don’t know about that,” his wife said, a mischievous glint in her teary eyes. “I might not remember it all, but you did whisk me to Vegas to be married the same day you proposed.”
Craig chuckled. “That I did.” He ran his hand over her hair again, soothing her, soothing himself. “Do you regret that?”
Angela shook her head. “I don’t care how much things hurt right now; I wouldn’t trade these past few years for anything.”
“Me neither. And I mean that, Angel. I wouldn’t trade you for Katie, ever.” He stood to his feet and held his hand out to her. “Come back inside, Mrs. Moore.”
Angela smiled and took his hand as she stood up. “Okay, Mr. Moore.”
As they walked out of the stall, Craig looked down, remembering she had run out in her bare feet. And there they were – the pink polish on her toenails clashing with dirt. The familiar sight cheered him. In a smooth motion, he had her lifted off the ground and cradled in his arms.
“What are you doing?” demanded Angela breathlessly. Her arms came around his neck as they used to.
“I’m carrying my barefoot wife back into our home,” Craig answered, seeing the appreciative looks the nearby workers were trying hard not to let him see.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” she muttered, though Craig could have sworn she sounded pleased about it. “I’m not too heavy?”
She might not remember everything, but his wife still clung to her brother and ex-boyfriend’s conditioning. He’d been quite impressed she’d eaten the entire pint of ice cream he’d found outside his door last night. “Angel, honey, you will never be too heavy for me to carry. Even if you eat all the ice cream in the freezer.”
“Oh.”
Once inside, Craig set his wife down and suggested she go wash her feet. He smiled as she rolled her eyes at him and strolled away to the downstairs bathroom. He picked her phone back up from the bureau and returned to his office, where Nan stood waiting outside the doorway.
“Is everything alright now, Mr. Moore?” the woman asked. He could see her eyebrow twitch. She was clearly upset with him still.
“Yes, Nan. Have you already started dinner for tonight?”
“I have. Miss Angela requested tacos followed by chocolate cake.”
He grimaced, but then smiled in amusement. “Whatever makes her happy. But tomorrow I want to do something special. I’ll have it all worked out for you by morning. I don’t want it to look thrown together.”
“Very good. Do you want something different for yourself tonight?”
“No. I’m not sure I’ll have cake right away, but I’ll have the tacos with her.”
Nan smiled, dimples in her cheeks showing. “Good. I’m pleased things will be returning to normal.”
“So am I.” Craig went into his office as the housekeeper returned to the kitchen. He was wise enough to leave the office door wide open, although he hadn’t yet made the connection to the closed door and Angela’s reticence to approach him. He started to sit at the desk but decided not to. Remaining on his feet, Craig picked up his sketchbook and looked at the sketches that had caused so much trouble.
He looked at them with a critical eye. They weren’t bad sketches, but they were far from his best work. Katie just didn’t have the same aura Angela did. Moving to the fireplace along the right wall, he began to tear the sketches out of the book. Crumpling them up one at a time, he piled them in the center of the fireplace. He was lighting the bottom of the pyramid he’d built with them when Angela came into the office.
“What are you doing?” she asked, stopping short of where he was kneeling.
“Burning sketches,” he answered quietly, watching the past go up in smoke. There was no regret, just relief. As though he’d taken a burden off his back; he could breathe again. He stood and turned to his wife, who was looking at him with her best poker face.
“You didn’t have to do that,” said Angela smoothly.
It bothered her, he realized. “Think of it like when you said goodbye to Randy. You were laying the past to rest and changing your focus. I’ve done the same. No doubt it will still come up from time to time, between you and me and our doctors, but I’m going to do my best to focus on the woman I love and not concern myself with the one I don’t.”
Angela looked at him another moment without expression, but he could feel her uncertainty as surely as he could read her bluff. “I’ll be right back.”
She turned and quickly left the office. He listened curiously to her run up the stairs, and a moment later her flight back down. He hoped she didn’t trip over the bottom step again. Had that just started today? And when had the slight stutter started? At least it wasn’t as bad as the first time he’d encountered her when she’d been a teen, there was that much.
He recognized his sketching paper in her hand when she came back into the office and knew a moment’s frustration over the fact she’d folded it. Was she trying to piss him off?
“Here,” she said, unfolding it and holding it out to him with a hand too shaky for his liking. “Do you want this one too?”
Craig took the paper from her and felt a wave of grief that had nothing to do with the smudges her folds had created. The sketch he’d been working on the day Angela had told him Dr. Ryan had cleared her for sex stared back up at him. Would he be forever punished for one moment’s weakness? “Why did you take this?” he asked as he ripped the sketch into pieces and tossed it into the still burning fire.
“I was panicking,” his wife answered with a shrug. Hurt and despair mixed on her face. “And it made me angry. Alive or dead, I can’t compete with her looks. And I-I was afraid it’s the biggest reason why you didn’t want to have sex with me.”
Craig took a deep breath and stepped close to her. “Angela.”
“Tell me the truth, Craig. Don’t give me any of that ‘you’re beautiful’ crap; I don’t believe it. She’s the beautiful woman, not me. Why did you choose me?”
He wiped away her newest tears. “Because I love you. Don’t you understand, Angela? She didn’t measure up to you. And yes, I me
an that as much physically as I do emotionally.”
“But…”
“But what Angela?”
“Her breasts were bigger than mine.”
Craig bit the inside of his cheek in an effort not to laugh. Why did she think it had anything to do with breast size? “They were fake, Angela.”
“What?”
“Apparently they were an anniversary gift from her husband.” Craig glanced down at his wife’s chest. “If my memory serves, Katie used to be about your size. Granted she was a teen then.”
Angela blinked at him, speechless. He waited for it to pass, which it did. She wanted to ask him something, he could see it in her eyes. “Do you…? I mean…I don’t know what I mean!”
He thought he might have an idea. Cradling her face in his hands, he kissed her forehead. “I like your breasts just fine. They are more than enough to satisfy me.”
Relief filled her eyes, and she nodded. Those same eyes were crying out for him to kiss her, but if he did that now he wouldn’t stop. Some things were worth waiting for, and he wanted to repair more of the hurt in her before he made love to her.
“Now,” Craig said, moving to the desk and handing her laptop and papers to her. “What is it you wanted to show me?”
Angela took her things, but looked as though she didn’t know where to start. Craig pulled her gently over to the loveseat in front of the fireplace. “Come on, Angel. Just start at the beginning.”
“Alright,” she said. She fumbled with her papers a little. “I’m not a business woman, Craig, but I’ve done my best to research this. I wanted to have more than a vague idea of what I wanted to do before I approached you.”
Craig couldn’t help but be curious. “With what? It’s your home too, honey, you can do whatever you want.”
Angela shook her head as she opened the lid of the laptop and woke it up. “No, I’m smart enough to know I need a partner in this, and who better than the man I’m already partnered with?”
Why that melted his heart, he didn’t know, but it did. Even with the schism between them, she still considered him her partner. He smiled and encouraged his wife to continue.
