The Woman Next Door

by Barbara Delinsky

  Whenever the town manager suggested razing the tower, the citizenry inevitably made such an uproar that the issue was tabled. The general sentiment was that if there were ghosts, this was their rightful spot.

  Amanda gave the smallest smile now at Graham’s attempt at humor. “You took your chances walking through there at night.”

  “No more than you took walking into that school. Is it settled?”

  “Quinn’s punishment, yes. His problems, no. He has them, Gray. That wasn’t a happy kid I saw sitting there tonight. I told the parents I’d like to talk with him. I told them I’d even meet with him somewhere away from school. No one would know that we weren’t discussing a peer leadership issue.”

  “They refused?”

  “Totally.”

  “That’s frustrating for you.”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled her even closer with a sure arm around her back, and she felt herself falling in love all over again—in love with the largeness of him, the warmth, the way he smelled, the way he knew what she needed. In that single instant, there was no tension between them. There was nothing of the world to put them at odds.

  “You sound tired,” he said softly.

  “I am.”

  “Sometimes I think it’s me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That you don’t want to talk to me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You could have called this afternoon. I was waiting.” His voice remained soft, but the words were pointed. “You’re not the only one with an investment in this, you know.”

  She angled away so that she could look up, bracing her hand on his ribs now, but his features were dim. “Investment. That’s such an impersonal word.”

  Angling farther way, he met her gaze. “It’s become that. Something impersonal. A project. I never expected it to go on so long. We should have had a baby by now. I don’t understand why we don’t.”

  That quickly, they were back where they had been earlier. Now, though, she was more tired and more defensive. She had struck out with Quinn’s parents. She feared doing the same thing with Graham. “It’s not like we haven’t tried to find out,” she cried softly. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to get pregnant,” he said. “Didn’t they say anything during the last try?”

  “Like what?” Amanda asked, turning to face him head-on. “I would have told you if they’d said something. It was a totally positive, totally routine procedure. They measured my egg follicles by ultrasound and said the time was right. Everything looked good, they said.”

  Pushing up, Graham went to the window. After a minute of staring into the dark, he returned, this time to the opposite sofa. With six feet of Oriental carpet and a large, square coffee table between them, he sat forward with his elbows on his knees. “I only asked, Amanda. I’m feeling frustrated.”

  “You didn’t ask. You accused.”

  “No. I did not. If you heard that, it’s your problem.”

  “It’s our problem,” she said. Turning her head away, she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think. About anything.

  “What’s next?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. The thought of starting another cycle—another round of Clomid, another month of BBT charts, dipsticks, and breath-holding—turned her stomach.

  “They said it might take three tries at artificial insemination for it to work,” Graham said, sounding as though he were trying to get a grip by reasoning aloud. “We have one try left. There’s still ICSI or IVF.”

  On another night, Amanda could have described each of the last two procedures in detail. She and Graham had become experts on the choices. Right now, though, she couldn’t bear to even think the words behind the acronyms.

  “No,” she said softly.

  “No, what? No to the third try?”

  Amanda couldn’t move. Her limbs were leaden, her heart heavy, her voice thin. “No to all three.”

  There was a long pause, then an alarmed, “No to all three? What in the hell does that mean?”

  She opened her eyes, trying to think what it meant, but the only words that came were, “I’m tired.”

  “Of this? Of me?”

  “Of me. Of my life like this.”

  “You’re giving up?”

  “No. Taking a break. I need a rest.”

  “Now? Geez, Amanda, we can’t stop now!”

  “For one month, Graham. One month. It won’t matter in the overall scheme. Maybe it’ll help. Like when you’re trying to lose weight, you follow a diet so closely that your body shuts down. If you break the diet for a day or two, eat totally different things, it can jolt your system enough to get it to start losing weight again.”

  “Since when do you know about diets?”

  “Since I’ve been on Clomid and gained eight pounds.”

  “Where?”

  “Nowhere now. I lost them. But I had to work at it.”

  “Did Emily okay that?”

  “No. It was no big thing. I just watched what I ate.”

  “Amanda, you’re either under a doctor’s care or you aren’t. You should have told her.”

  Amanda folded her arms. “Fine. I’ll tell her tomorrow, but if you think that’s why I haven’t conceived, you’re out in left field. By the way, Gretchen is pregnant. Karen went over there and asked. I wasn’t wrong. I know what I saw.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “We were trying to figure out who the father could be.”

  Graham remained silent.

  “I can’t see your face,” Amanda said. “Are you shocked? Dismayed? Worried?”

  “Worried? About what?”

  “That someone may think it’s yours.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s seven months pregnant. That means she conceived last October. You were working with her then.”

  “I did her landscape plan.”

  “You were in her house.”

  There was silence, then a low, “I don’t believe what you’re suggesting.”

  Angry that he didn’t just come out and deny it, she said, “If the shoe fits ...”

  He was off the sofa in a flash. “I’m going to forget you said that,” he told her on his way to the door. “I’m going to forget it and forgive it, because I can almost understand why it came out. You grew up in a house where parents cheated. That was your mother speaking just now.”

  “Gretchen’s pregnant,” Amanda repeated, on a roll and unable to stop. “She didn’t do it on her own. So where’d the baby come from?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t know who she sees. I don’t watch what she does.”

  “She doesn’t date.”

  “How do you know? She could be seeing someone in town.”

  “She’s home every night.”

  “So? Babies are conceived in daylight.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, but you don’t have to date to conceive. It could happen in five minutes in a hallway somewhere—a hit-and-run accident—a spur-of-the-moment fit of passion.”

  “Precisely.”

  An icy silence came from the archway. It was followed by an angry, “You don’t know anything, Amanda. You don’t know what Gretchen wants or who wants her. For all you know, that’s Ben’s baby. For all you know, he banked his sperm. For all you know, she had artificial insemination and it took.” He walked off.

  ***

  Amanda didn’t move. The minute the silence settled in, she heard the echo of her words and knew that Graham was right. That had been her mother speaking. Amanda had grown up with accusations, and most had been valid. Both of her parents had had any number of lovers, taken in retaliation for the other’s infidelity. To this day, Amanda didn’t know who had been the first to stray. At least, she didn’t know the truth of it. She had heard arguments aplenty, as though every indiscretion that followed could be explained by that first affair.

  Had she been
a therapist working with her parents, she would have recommended that they divorce. When trust was so eroded as to be unsalvageable, there was no hope for love.

  But she hadn’t been her parents’ therapist. She had been their daughter, feeling the pain of each new battle.

  Now, here she was, accusing her own husband of infidelity when she didn’t have cause. Graham was one of the most loyal people she had ever known. Indeed, it was one of the things that had drawn her to him. In his entire life, he’d had one relationship before her. It had been long and monogamous. That was the O’Leary way—and another selling point for Graham. His siblings were as solid as they came, free and generous in outward shows of affection, genuine in their caring. Not a single one had been divorced except Graham, and that was no blemish on his record. Amanda knew the circumstances of his marriage to Megan. Megan was the girl next door; they had been childhood friends; he had been faithful the whole time they were married. He would have been married to her still if she hadn’t backed out.

  Even knowing this, Amanda had never questioned Graham’s love for her. It was lust that concerned her. She knew his needs. She had been their object, though not lately. Lately, what they did in bed was deliberate and prescribed. There was no spontaneity, no carefree passion.

  And across the street was Gretchen Tannenwald—alone now, definitely a man’s lady, and looking like Megan in ways that Graham and Amanda had often joked about.

  Joked about. With Gretchen pregnant, Amanda wondered whether the joke was on her.

  Immediately she chided herself. That was definitely her mother thinking. But how to stop those thoughts?

  Wondering where Graham was, she went into the kitchen. He wasn’t there, or in the bedroom upstairs. She even checked what was supposed to have been the children’s rooms, but they were empty.

  Part of her wanted to go out looking. He was probably in his office.

  The other part needed to protect herself from his coldness. Entering the small den beside the bedroom, she stretched out on the sofa, pulled an afghan up to her chin, closed her eyes, and shut down her mind. She breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling in the kind of even rhythm she hadn’t felt all day. In time, there on the sofa, she fell asleep.

  ***

  Graham didn’t wake her up. He was waiting in the kitchen Wednesday morning, though, his mouth a hard line, his large hands wrapped tightly around a coffee mug. Grave green eyes locked on her the minute she appeared.

  Chapter Six

  Before either of them could say a word, the phone rang. Though Amanda was closer, Graham pushed back and reached it first.

  “Yeah,” he said. Seconds later, his face lit up. “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

  Amanda shoved her hands into her pockets. She knew that look, knew that tone. She hadn’t seen much of either lately. She missed them.

  “What’s up?” he asked, the light in his eyes already dimmed. He turned away and said a quieter, “Not now. . . . Yeah. . . . How about noon?” He listened, lowering his head. “I can’t. I have an appointment then. One? . . . Okay.” He hung up the phone and turned back. His eyes held a challenge.

  Who was that? Amanda wanted to ask when he didn’t look like he was about to say. But asking would have made her sound suspicious. And being suspicious was her mother, not her.

  So she ignored the call and said instead, “You should have woken me. I would have come to bed.”

  “Just as well you didn’t. I was annoyed. Still am. I don’t like being accused of things, Amanda, particularly not things like that. I don’t cheat.”

  “I know.”

  “Could’ve fooled me last night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was your mother’s tone of voice. Honest to God, it was. I’ve never heard that from you before. It scared me. I didn’t marry your mother. I married you. I don’t want your mother. If you’re going to be like her, we have a problem.”

  “We have a problem anyway” Amanda said, because her mind was clearer after a night’s sleep. In the few minutes she had just spent in the bathroom, she’d had an overview of things.

  “Yeah,” Graham muttered. “Infertility.”

  “No. How we’re dealing with it. This is the first problem we’ve had to face together. We’re not handling it very well.”

  “I am. You’re the one who wants out.”

  She bowed her head. Taking a bolstering breath, she looked up. “Not out. I just want to pull back from constantly thinking about a baby. We need to focus on us again for a few weeks.”

  He stared at her. She tried to identify his expression, but it was one she didn’t know. It might easily have been anger, or disappointment or disdain.

  “I’m not giving up on having a baby,” she insisted softly, urgently. “All I’m saying is we need to give it a rest for a bit.”

  Graham put his hands on his hips. “So what do I tell my family? I was hoping to bring good news to my mother’s party.”

  “Me, too. But we can’t. And frankly, I feel worse for us than for them. This isn’t their life. It’s ours.”

  “They want this baby for us.”

  “Yes, but they’re not us.”

  “They are. They’re me. I can’t separate myself from them.”

  “No,” she said pointedly. “You can’t.”

  He gripped the counter flanking his hips. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, none of us can separate ourselves from where we came from. Not completely. If I sounded like my mother, it wasn’t voluntary. I didn’t mean to do it, Graham. You know how I feel about her.”

  “Yeah, but I thought I knew how you felt about me, too—you used to trust me.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “You accused me of fathering Gretchen’s baby.”

  Amanda sighed. “I’m sorry. I was upset. Look at it from my point of view. Sex has been work for us for months now. It’s not inconceivable that some men going through something like that would be tempted to find fun elsewhere.”

  “I’m not some men. I’m your husband. I’m insulted that you’d even think I’d cheat.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “Do you know how that made me feel?”

  At that moment she only knew that he was making her feel like a heel. “Can we get past this, Graham? Good God, injured innocence doesn’t become you.”

  “What does that mean?” he asked, indignant now.

  “It means I’ve apologized more than once, I’ve said I trust you, and you’re still going on about it. If you’re innocent, drop it.”

  Graham drew himself straight. His eyes were cold. “If?” Holding both hands up, he set off. “I can’t deal with this.” He was across the room and out the door before she could think of what to say.

  ***

  Several minutes later, sitting in her hotel room, with a pot of coffee on a tray on the desk and a warm cup of it in her hand, Georgia called home. She imagined the scene when the first ring came— Tommy spooning up milky Froot Loops, Allison all but choking on her wheat toast in her rush to get the phone, Russ beating her to it by putting out a leisurely hand from where he stood at the stove, frying eggs.

  “Hello?” he said.

  She smiled. “Hi. I knew you’d get it. Who’s having eggs?”

  “Me. Not that I didn’t offer a little protein to our progeny— No,” he said to the side, “they do not kill you, Allie, not according to the latest studies.” He listened to something Georgia couldn’t make out, then chuckled.

  “What did she say?” Georgia asked.

  “She said to wait a week. The next study will say something else. Smart kid.”

  “Cynical kid,” Georgia said. “What happened last night?”

  “Not much.”

  “About Quinn.”

  “Lots of talk.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Sure is.”

  “How about you? Did you have a good evening?”

  “Sure did. Aren’t you supposed to be at a break
fast meeting?”

  “They moved it back half an hour. I can still make my plane. If there’s a problem, I’ll call.”

  “I may not be here. I’m meeting Henry for lunch.” Henry Silzer was Russ’s editor.

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “Me, neither. He called last night. He had an urge to get out of the city and give his expense account a workout. He loves having lunch at the Inn.”

  So did Georgia. “I’m jealous. Have a nice lunch. Can I talk to Allie?”

  “She’s shaking her head. Ooops, there she goes, out of the room. Why can’t you talk?” he called, waited, said, “She says she has bedhead and needs to fix her hair.”

  “Then Tommy.”

  “Sorry, he left before she did. He was pressing his mouth. I hope that wire didn’t pop out of his braces again. I’d better go check. Can’t wait to see you, sweetie. Fly safe.”

  Hearing nothing then but the silence of her hotel room, Georgia hung up the phone.

  ***

  Karen cooked pancakes for breakfast. She added a cup of fresh blueberries to the batter, not so much because blueberries had been on sale at the market, or because the children loved them, but because Lee didn’t. He liked his pancakes plain.

  Yes, and she liked her men trustworthy. People didn’t always get what they liked.

  “Where’s the face?” Julie asked from her elbow, sounding and looking totally dismayed as she stared at the cooking pancakes.

  “No face today,” Karen replied. “No time.”

  “You never have time anymore.”

  “I do.” She had time. What she lacked was patience. Arranging blueberries to make a happy face with eyes, a nose, and a mouth took more than she had.

  “You didn’t do faces last time, either. Can I do that?”

  “They’re a little tricky to flip. But okay. Here.” She manipulated the child’s hand around the spatula and helped her flip a few. “Good job. Now eat. Yours’ll be getting cold. What’re you guys doing?” she asked the twins, who were reaching syrupy hands into each other’s plates.

  “Trading blueberries,” Jared said. “His are bluer.”

  “His are fatter,” Jon added.

  “Be careful. You’ll make a mess. Agh,” she cried when a glass of juice went over. Grabbing a dish towel, she mopped up the spill. While she was at the table, she glanced at Jordie. He had his head buried in the sports section of the paper.