Gwynneth Ever After

by Linda Poitevin

“I know. That’s why I called the police,” she said, the words slow as she struggled to say them without betraying the panic rising in her. Sandy wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have.

  “I know. And it was a great idea, but I just wanted to be sure – I just wanted you to be safe. I even called Rob and he agreed it was the best thing to do.”

  And Gwyn knew who listened to Katie’s story. Knew who waited for her in her kitchen.

  “Oh, God, Sandy, why?”

  “Hear me out before you get mad, okay? Please? He only wants to help. He knows how to handle those jerks. And besides, having a bodyguard is only temporary – ”

  Gwyn sagged against the wall. “A what?”

  “A – a – ” Sandy looked pale and miserable as she twisted her hands together. “A bodyguard. A temporary one.”

  For a long moment, she didn’t respond. She didn’t know how. Staring past her friend, down the corridor to where Gareth sat listening to Katie’s story, she waited for the panic to overtake her, to mar her thought processes the way it always seemed to when he was involved. She’d had no time to prepare, no time to shore up her defenses or assemble her arguments or plan her strategy.

  Had, really, every right to be an absolute wreck.

  But instead, calm infused her - the kind of calm she hadn’t known since before she first sat down in a theater box on a rainy Sunday afternoon and had her world turned upside down.

  “Enough,” she said.

  “What?” asked Sandy.

  She straightened up from the wall. “I said enough. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Do what, the paparazzi? Gareth said it wouldn’t last long.”

  “Any of it. I can’t do any of it any more.”

  Sandy sidestepped hastily as she strode down the hallway. “Gwyn? Sweetie, are you all right?”

  Ignored her, Gwyn focused with single-minded determination on her destination – and her purpose. Her momentum carried her to the middle of the kitchen, where she pulled up short beside the table and faced down Gareth Connor without so much as the flicker of an eyelid.

  “I don’t want a bodyguard,” she announced, “and I don’t need your help.”

  Gareth regarded the auburn-haired, whirlwind presence with a wary eye, taking in the determined set of her jaw, the coolness of her blue gaze. A far as conversational openings went, a simple hello would have been a great deal more promising.

  Pushing back from the table, he rose to his feet. At least he’d made it through her front door, even if it hadn’t been by Gwyn’s own invitation. All he had to do now was keep from blowing his chances. He began by pitching his voice to a low-keyed calm of his own.

  “I know it’s hard, but they’ll lose interest soon. I’ve already arranged to appear on a talk show next week with Amy. Once the whole story comes out, the tabloids will move on to more exciting things. In the meantime, this is Guy Armand, a friend of Sean’s.” He indicated the man at the end of the table. “If it’s all right with you, I’ve asked him to make sure the wolves keep their distance from you and the kids.”

  Sean’s friend, a professional bodyguard and an absolute ox of a man, stood up. Ignoring his outstretched hand, Gwyn eyed his bulk from head to toe with a cool assessment that had Gareth admiring her sheer nerve.

  “No offense to Monsieur Armand, but it’s not all right with me. I don’t want a bodyguard, temporary or otherwise. I’ve already called the police and dealt with the matter.”

  Armand, his own gaze assessing, began gathering up his briefcase and papers.

  “I’ll just wait in the other room,” he said. “You can let me know when you’re ready for me.”

  “We’ll join you,” Sandy volunteered, shepherding a solemn Katie from the kitchen.

  With the room empty but for the two of them, Gareth tucked his hands into his front pockets and tried again. “Gwyn – ”

  She cut him off and again he felt that unfamiliar edge to her.

  “I mean it, Gareth. No bodyguards and no help. Sandy meant well, but she shouldn’t have called you.”

  “The press can be pretty rough when you’re not used to them. The kids – ”

  “The press will go away when you do.”

  Gareth felt as if she’d slapped him. He balled his hands into fists inside his pockets.

  “Damn it, Gwyn – ”

  “No.” Gwyn lifted her chin. “It’s over, Gareth. I want my life back. I want to start sleeping again and stop jumping every time the telephone rings. I want to take my children to school without running a gauntlet to get there and let them play in the front yard without a bodyguard. I want to be normal again. I want – ” she paused and took a deep, shaky breath. “I want you to go home. Go back to the world where you belong, get to know your daughter, take the paparazzi with you. It’s time to let me and the kids start healing before any more damage is done.”

  Gareth turned his back on her, struggling with a sense of overwhelming futility. She spoke with such conviction, such certainty. How did he even begin to argue with a determination like that?

  He stared around Gwyn’s kitchen, his eyes lingering on the counter where a polka-dotted Maggie and her brother had negotiated with him for French fries; the stool where a tearful Katie had turned to him for comfort over a job-day gone awry; the place where he’d stood watch over Gwyn while she slept, exhausted from the demands of a life he wanted only to ease.

  Futility began to mesh with overwhelming loss.

  He closed his eyes. Listened to her slow, indrawn breath.

  “You’re sure this is what you want.”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Because this is best?” he asked. “Or just safest?”

  “Don’t you understand? From where my kids stand, I see no difference.”

  Chapter 43

  “So that’s it, then?” Sean asked as Gareth hung up the phone.

  “That’s it,” said Gareth. “Six a.m. tomorrow. It was the earliest I could get.”

  “Will you let her know?”

  “Yeah. Just so she knows she can stop worrying about the paparazzi.”

  And so she’d know the exact moment she could begin rebuilding her life without him in it.

  “What about the kids? Will you say goodbye to them?”

  The unseen fist that resided in Gareth’s chest these days gave his heart a cruel little squeeze. He thought about the moments in Gwyn’s front hall when he had faced the three small people who had become such a huge part of him. Maggie, who wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cool, juice-sticky lips to his cheek; Katie who solemnly offered him a hand in her most grown-up manner; Nicholas who stood aside and glowered, refusing to look at him.

  He remembered the way his gaze had locked with Gwyn’s over their heads; remembered the agonized, accusing “I-told-you-so” in her tear-bright eyes. Remembered how his own anguish had filled him so completely that nothing else in the world existed for while he gathered his coat, stepped onto the familiar front porch for the last time, and heard the door close behind him.

  The fist in his chest tightened some more.

  “No,” he answered Sean. “I already said goodbye at Gwyn’s.”

  ***

  “He called, didn’t he?” Sandy said before Gwyn had fully articulated her hello.

  “Yes, but how – ”

  “Your voice sounds different. Did you talk to him?”

  “He left a message. He’s leaving on the 6:00 a.m. flight tomorrow.” Gwyn wasn’t surprised to hear she sounded different. No one could have died as much inside as she had and not be changed.

  “So that’s it then,” Sandy said. “It’s really over.”

  Closing her eyes, Gwyn bit down on her lip to keep back the tears. She lifted her hand and absently massaged at the space where her heart had once resided.

  “I wanted to let you know that I’m leaving.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s really over.”

  “Are you all right? Do you want some co
mpany?”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

  “Do you think – will you call him to say goodbye?”

  “If you want to call me back, I’d like to at least say goodbye.”

  “It’s better if I don’t.”

  “What about a number in L.A. if you need to reach him for anything?”

  “I won’t need to reach him.”

  “No. I suppose not. I just thought – you know, if maybe – ”

  A harsh intake of breath. A muttered expletive. “Damn it, Gwyn, I don’t want to do this.”

  “I’m doing the right thing, Sandy.”

  Ever loyal, her friend responded with quick stoutness, “Of course you are, sweetie. You’re absolutely doing the right thing.”

  “Nothing that hurts this much can be right.”

  “I just wondered, that’s all. In case you ever decided you wanted to talk to him…” Sandy’s voice trailed into a wistfulness that made Gwyn’s hand twist into a fist over her heart.

  “Call me, Gwyn. Talk to me. Please.”

  Gwyn’s hard-won resolve began a slow crumple. She stood, sending her office chair rolling into the wall behind her. “Um, Sand? I have to go – I hear one of the kids up.”

  Sandy would hear the lie in her voice, but she couldn’t remain any longer on the phone with her well-meaning friend. Not if she was going to survive this.

  “I’ll call you in the morning, all right?”

  A pause, then Sandy’s sympathy reached out to her through the line. “Sure, sweetie, I understand. And Gwyn?”

  “Yes?” her voice had dropped to a strangled whisper.

  “Try to get some sleep, okay? You’re almost there.”

  Chapter 44

  But sleep wasn’t as much of an issue. In fact, it became a non-issue around eleven, when Gwyn gave up on the idea after a mere half-hour of lying in bed with Gareth’s message replaying on an unending audio-loop in her head.

  Faced with an entire night ahead – and seven and a half hours until Gareth’s plane left, not that she was counting – she did the only sane thing she could.

  She cleaned. The entire house. From top to bottom, with the exception of the bedrooms where, to her immense relief, her children slumbered peacefully despite her frenzied attempts to avoid thinking or feeling or imagining…

  And when she finished with the routine chores like bathrooms and dusting and mopping, she cleaned cupboards, closets, her office, and the fridge. She wiped, sorted, polished, discarded, and in general did whatever was necessary to keep Gareth’s voice out of her head and her own traitorous misgivings tightly locked away.

  “You’re almost there,” Sandy had said.

  She clung to the reassurance in the words. She was almost there. A few more hours and she would have what she wanted: her life back. Gareth would be gone, her family could return to normal –

  Gareth would be gone.

  Gwyn paused in mid wipe-down of the top fridge shelf and waited for her heart to climb out of her toes and into its proper place again. Almost there? Normal? Who did she think she was kidding? She’d never been further from normal in her life…not even when Jack had left her with three children to raise on her own.

  Bloody hell, to coin a phrase.

  She sat back on her heels, took a firm grip on her wayward heart, and returned to her cleaning. Small steps, Gwyn. Make it until six –

  When Gareth would be gone.

  - and then deal with the next thing. Like the rest of your life without him.

  Bloody hell.

  She ran out of nooks, crannies, and dust-bunnies at three-thirty a.m. Two and a half hours remained. Pushing back a sweat-dampened lock of hair, she stared at the kitchen clock. Now what? She considered trying sleep again, but after a brief inventory of her energy level, she realized she’d worked herself past that magical moment of fatigue and into the kind of wired over-exhaustion that guaranteed several more wakeful hours.

  She returned to her contemplation of now what? If it had been summer she might have considered mowing the lawn by flashlight – and if it hadn’t started raining. She glanced again at the clock. Three thirty-five. Two hours and twenty-five –

  Stop it. You’re just making it worse.

  She looked around the kitchen. Raindrops drummed against the kitchen window. There had to be something – her eye fell on the half-open door to the laundry room and she groaned. God, no. She couldn’t possibly be that desperate, could she?

  Her gaze strayed back to the clock. Three thirty-seven.

  She could indeed be that desperate.

  She crossed the kitchen and pushed open the laundry room door. A basket sat on the counter, overflowing filled with items of clothing that most of them had forgotten they even owned. She swore it existed solely to torment her.

  Shoring up her resolve, she stalked across the freshly cleaned floor and reached up to the cupboard above the basket. She so detested ironing.

  She set up the board in the living room so she could have the dual distraction of television as well. Settling on a re-run of an old sitcom, she tugged the first piece of clothing from the tangle in the basket. A few minutes later she had Katie’s favorite dress neatly hung from the doorway molding.

  One item down and approximately thirty to go.

  With luck, she might have enough to keep her occupied until take-off.

  Wind gusted against the house. She looked out the window at the rain-drenched night. Would his flight even leave on time in this weather? Regardless, he’d have to be at the airport early to get through security for an international flight.

  Which means he’ll be up by now, if you want to call.

  The traitorous thought rocked her back on her heels. Lord, could her extremely annoying inner voice not give her the least bit of rest? Of course she didn’t want to call. She wouldn’t think of prolonging the agony like that – for either of them.

  She plucked another item from the basket and blindly spread it out on the ironing board. They’d already said the necessary goodbye – at least as much of one as she could tolerate. Another conversation at this point would be nothing more than a rehash of what had already been covered. It would change nothing. It couldn’t, because she couldn’t allow a repeat of Jack in their lives.

  She swiped the iron over the fabric on the board. Stopped. Stared.

  She was ironing Gareth’s shirt. The denim one he’d worn when he’d cleaned out the bathtub. The one she’d watched him take off ever so slowly in her upstairs hallway while her toes curled into the carpet and her heart –

  The smell of superheated fabric singed her nostrils. She yanked the iron off the shirt and set it upright with a shaking hand.

  And then stood helpless before a flood of other images that refused to be stopped.

  Gareth’s dark head thrown back in a delighted laugh; his gentle arms cradling her sick daughter; his gaze, nearly black in its intensity, pinning her to the wall like a captured butterfly; his body wedged into a rocking chair with her son for storytelling; his capable hands making short work of cleaning a kitchen; those same capable hands intent on another purpose altogether…

  And then his voice, speaking words that she had refused to listen to, hadn’t wanted to hear. “Damn it, Gwyn, there doesn’t have to be this much pain. I’m not Jack. I’m not running out on anyone.”

  Gwyn put a quivering hand to her mouth.

  Gareth wasn’t Jack.

  And he wasn’t running out on them.

  This wasn’t about him at all. It was about her. Her need, because she’d been so wrong about a man once, not to repeat her error now. Out of sheer desperation, she’d forced the very break-up she’d sworn to avoid.

  The illumination was nearly blinding.

  “Gwynneth Jacobs,” her own muffled voice said to the accompaniment of the sitcom’s canned laugh-track, “you idiot!”

  A sudden shadow loomed.

  Gareth. The plane.

  Oh, God.

  She looked at h
er watch. Twelve minutes after four. He’d be getting ready to leave for the airport already. She had to stop him.

  She unplugged the iron and bolted for the kitchen. Shaking fingers dialed Gareth’s cell-phone number, committed to memory in spite of herself when she’d finally been able to erase it from the fridge whiteboard. But mid-way through the first ring, a tinny female voice cut in to advise that the cell phone number was no longer in use.

  Gwyn pushed the call end button with a shaking hand. Of course. Gareth would have picked up a temporary cell phone to use while he was in town, but now that he was leaving –

  Now that he was leaving and she couldn’t remember his cousin’s phone number…God, now what?

  “Think, Gwyn, think!”

  Phone in hand and Kirsten’s line ringing in her ear, she jogged back down the hallway. Taking the stairs two at a time, she struggled out of her soiled sweatshirt as she ran. Two rings, nothing. She darted into her bedroom and stripped off her jeans, then scrabbled in her closet for clean ones.

  Halfway through the fourth ring, Kirsten’s sleep-drugged voice mumbled a greeting. Gwyn pulled her head out of the closet, fresh jeans in hand.

  “Kirsten, thank God you’re home!”

  “Gwyn?” her babysitter muttered. “What time is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s late. Or early. Very early.” Phone tucked into the crook of her shoulder, she struggled to pull on the jeans without toppling. “I need you to watch the kids for me.”

  “Now?”

  “Five minutes ago, actually.” She tried to keep the panic from her voice as she looked again at her watch. Four twenty-three. He’d be going through security in just over a half-hour. The drive to the airport would take her – she didn’t want to think about how long the drive would take. She just wanted to get there.

  “Kirsten, please. I don’t have time to explain. Just please, please get over here. Don’t even get dressed, okay?”

  Finally awake, her babysitter’s voice cleared. “I’m on my way.”

  Gwyn tossed the phone onto her bed and wrenched open a drawer in search of socks. Before she had the second one pulled on, the doorbell rang. Lord, the poor girl must not have even bothered with shoes.