Safe Harbor?

by Wardell, Heather

  Owen’s silence extended to the emails going back and forth between the six of Linda’s sons and daughter-in-laws, so after he ignored a few of them I took the responsibility to decide with the others that rather than all of us going to each appointment we would split them up.

  Corinne would take care of Jenna while Austin accompanied Linda to her first appointment then Melissa would go to the second because having the squeamish Nicholas there while Linda got blood drawn wouldn’t help much.

  The third appointment, on the first Wednesday in February, would fall to the Reels, but though I said that Owen and I would decide who would go closer to the time I felt sure it would be me. He was pretending none of this was happening, and though I understood the urge to hide I didn’t know how he could possibly think it would work.

  I even emailed him that sentiment at the end of January in a moment of frustration, when I told him I’d take Linda to the appointment but he needed to contact her and quit acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand. The only response I got was, “Thanks for the update.”

  Two days before Linda’s appointment in February, I waited for Owen after work as usual but he never showed. After an hour, during which I texted and called him several times but got no response, I gave up and got myself home alone. When I walked into the condo, tired after the unusual trip by public transportation, and saw him sitting on the couch, I was furious that he’d driven off without me for the single moment before I registered his pale skin and exhausted miserable expression and recognized that something was very wrong.

  “Is it Linda?” I said, dropping to the couch beside him before my knees gave way. “Is she...”

  He shook his head without looking at me. His eyes fixed on the empty wine glass on the coffee table before him, he said, “It’s work. I fucked up, Celia. Big time.”

  The swear word I’d never heard him use before shocked me. “What happened?”

  He shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be fired tomorrow. But you can stay here until you decide where you want to live.”

  The pieces of his statement didn’t go together, and I focused on the one that scared me the most. “You want me to leave?”

  He gave the tiniest bit of a head shake, almost more of a twitch. “You won’t want to stay. Not after you hear. Everyone’ll be talking about it tomorrow.”

  “What did you do?” I breathed, and it wasn’t until he sighed and began to talk that I realized I should have told him that I didn’t want to leave him. Which I didn’t. I wanted to help him.

  “Troy’s been sucking up to Suzette,” he said, his voice flat, “ever since she took over from Lawrence. I was going to too, but I just couldn’t... it seems so pointless. Especially now...”

  “I get it,” I said quietly. Linda’s illness was making us all think about what really mattered. “So he’s been making you look bad?”

  He gave a grim laugh. “Got it in one. ‘Oh, Suzette, it’d be better to send me on that trip, not Owen. You see how tired he looks now, it’ll just get worse.’ All like he cares about me, and all right in front of me, and when I argue I just look stupid.”

  I wanted to touch him but I couldn’t bear to have him pull away. “I can see that. So what happened?”

  He drummed his fingers on his knee, then said, like the words were being dragged out of him, “I posted, from his computer, an email that looked like it was from him to his buddy Gary saying he and Suzette are sleeping together and that’s why he’s getting all the best trips. ”

  I stared at him. “You did what?”

  “They warned us recently our email was being monitored and I thought it’d get him in trouble. It was a moment of stupidity, and I couldn’t take it back.” His head dropped until his chin was nearly on his chest. “But they know he didn’t send it because he was in a big meeting then. A big meeting I didn’t get invited to. That’s why I got so upset and sent it. I just lost my mind for a second and... Suzette said she had to talk to HR about what would happen, but I know. I’m gone. Tomorrow.”

  He pushed up to his feet and walked away toward his cave, looking like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  I took a breath to speak but he said without looking back, “Don’t. Thanks for listening but don’t. It’s over.”

  Not if I could help it.

  *****

  For the first time I was glad Owen was hiding in his cave. It gave me time to think, and by bedtime, I had a plan.

  I knew from past conversations that Suzette got to the office by eight in the morning for some uninterrupted work time, so I slipped out the next day while Owen was in the shower and reached the office myself at a few minutes before eight.

  When I went to Suzette’s desk, she was already there. She looked up and gave me a vague smile, and I realized she didn’t remember me. Not a surprise since we’d only met once. “I’m Celia Reel, Owen’s wife. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She stiffened at my name. “I can’t change what he did. I’m meeting with HR at nine.”

  “He didn’t do it,” I said calmly, hoping she couldn’t tell I was lying. “I did.”

  Her eyes widened. After a second of shocked silence, she said, “We should talk.” She turned at the sound of distant footsteps, then said, “Conference room?”

  I nodded and followed her to the little room down the hall. Once we were seated inside with the door closed, she said, “Okay. Explain this to me. Why on earth would you send an email claiming I was... inappropriate... with Troy?”

  Why indeed. That had been the hardest part of my planning, since there was no good reason for me to have sent such a thing. But after thinking about exactly what Owen had sent and to whom he’d sent it I’d come up with something I hoped would work, so I took a deep breath and said, “It was a joke. Supposed to be between me and Owen. We talked about Troy, of course, and we also talked about someone Owen’s brother knows who did have an affair to get better work, and I thought it would be funny to make it look like Troy had done that. I was intending to send it to Owen but I guess I picked Gary instead.”

  She frowned. “How could you pick Gary instead of Owen? They’re nowhere close--” I saw it hit her. “Gary Reed. Owen Reel.”

  I nodded, trying to look embarrassed and horrified instead of pleased at how lucky it was that their last names were so similar since our email system sorted people by last name. “Yeah. I had no idea it hadn’t gone to Owen until he got home and told me what had happened. He doesn’t know it was me, but I couldn’t let you think it was him.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “But why do it from here, if you had to do it at all? You know we’ve been monitoring email lately.”

  That was the key to my plan’s potential success. “I didn’t,” I said, rubbing my forehead as if my head hurt. “Nadine never told us. If I had, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “She didn’t...” Her face cleared. “She’s been away, you’re right. She hasn’t had a chance to tell you.”

  “Please,” I said, leaning forward, “please don’t punish Owen for what I did. It’s not his fault. He loves his job and he’s good at it, and by the way he is more than capable of going on trips. If anyone’s suggesting he’s too tired, that’s simply not true.”

  She studied me, her face expressionless. “I could have you fired for this, you know. Misuse of company resources.”

  “I know,” I said, and I didn’t have to fake the nervous shake in my voice. “You could. But I’m hoping you won’t. This is the first time I’ve done something like this and I promise it will be the last. You’ll never have trouble with me again.”

  “Or with Owen, right?”

  Since her face was still blank, I let down my energy field enough to pick up her emotions, and what I found stunned me. She knew I was lying to protect my husband, and she liked it. “You didn’t have trouble with Owen this time,” I said quietly, “but you never will. Never with him and never again with me.”

  The corner of h
er mouth curled into a tiny smile. “Excellent. Well, I will have to report this, since I’ve already got HR involved, and it’ll go on your record, but Owen’s record will stay clear.”

  I shut my eyes for a second as relief dizzied me. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, shall we both get back to work?”

  “Definitely. Thanks for letting me take up your time.”

  She smiled. “I’d say ‘any time’, but I don’t want to.”

  I smiled back. “There won’t be a need for it, I promise you that.”

  “Good stuff.”

  We left the conference room and found Owen standing at Suzette’s desk. His eyes widened when he saw us, and to make sure he didn’t ruin things I quickly said, “Suzette knows now that you didn’t send the email. I’m so sorry, honey, but I did. I was trying to make a joke but it didn’t work.”

  Owen, fortunately, caught on fast. Though he looked shell-shocked, he turned to Suzette and said, “She obviously won’t do it again, so her job is safe, right?”

  Suzette repeated what she’d told me about needing to note this in my permanent record then added, “But yes, she won’t be losing her job. And neither will you, of course.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  She smiled at me and said, “I’d like to chat with your husband about an upcoming trip, if you don’t need to talk to him now yourself.”

  “He’s all yours,” I said, smiling back, and she escorted Owen to the conference room. I hoped she didn’t notice the way he looked back over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, at me as they went.

  I settled in at my desk and got to work, but wasn’t surprised to get an email a little later from Owen suggesting we have coffee.

  When we met in the café, where everything had started for us, he chose a table off in the corner then sat studying me.

  “What?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe...” He looked around as if checking if anyone important was nearby. “Well, I can’t believe you did that,” he said, clearly deciding it was safer not to spell things out.

  “It felt like the right thing to do.”

  He leaned forward. “You could have been fired.”

  “Better me than you.”

  Owen stared at me like he’d never seen me before. “But... why?”

  Because he was so overwhelmed about Linda and he’d made one stupid mistake after years of amazing work despite Lawrence’s prejudice against him for being unmarried, and because he’d been so good to me and I might not have survived without him?

  I didn’t know how to say all of that, but then I did.

  “You’re my husband,” I said simply.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I walked into the condo late the next afternoon more tired than I’d ever been in my life. I’d spent the day with Linda, first seeing the specialist who’d be removing her lower leg and then the prosthetist who’d be creating the fake one she’d wear once her stump had healed. In between we went out for lunch, and throughout she was simply unbearable.

  I’d felt horrible about being so aggravated with her, because I knew her complaining came from how much she hated having no control over her life at the moment, but I couldn’t help it. She griped that the specialist was five minutes late and that she didn’t like the decor in her waiting room and that her hands were cold and her bedside manner colder. Lunch, which I paid for, was over-priced and also too salty, and the restaurant was too noisy, and the prosthetist had a funny smell and she didn’t like his haircut. It was never-ending.

  I tried so hard to be kind and understanding, but by the end it was all I could do to avoid screaming at her, especially when she launched into pointing out yet again that Owen and I hadn’t attended the cruise. “It might be my last one,” she said, glaring at me, “and you made my son not show up.” She was right, but what could I do about it now?

  The strain of keeping my energy field solid against the ferocious emotions she felt was incredible, and the instant I left her at her house I let the field dissolve because I simply couldn’t hold it up another second.

  So when Owen looked up from his seat on the couch and said, “I need your help,” my first thought was to tell him to leave me the hell alone.

  My second, of course, was guilt for that, so though I didn’t know where I’d find the strength to do anything else I dropped onto the couch beside him and said, “With what?”

  He blinked. “How was today? With Mom?”

  “She’s furious about what’s happening and taking it out on everything around her.”

  “You included?”

  “Me especially.”

  He stared down at his knees. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. What do you need help with?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Owen, I’m exhausted. I want to help but I don’t have it in me to tease it out of you. What’s going on?”

  For an instant I thought he’d slapped me, then I realized he had in a way. His emotions had. Fear and misery and a deep and painful confusion flooded into me from him, and the combined shock of his feelings’ intensity and the fact that he was letting them out at all stunned me.

  “You... get it somehow,” he said, staring at me. “You feel things. Don’t you? I don’t even know how to explain it, but you do. I know. And I need you to help me with it all. I’m so mixed up. Mom, and what I did at work and then what you did, and Melissa...”

  “What about her?” It was probably the least important question but I couldn’t stop myself asking it.

  He sighed. “She hurt me. And it still hurts.”

  Did he have any idea how much he was hurting me right now? Knowing he was still aching over Melissa cut me like that surgeon would cut Linda.

  “Not by leaving,” he said, leaning toward me. “She did the right thing there. We weren’t good together and it would never have gotten better. But having to go to work and tell everyone what happened? Tell Troy?” He cleared his throat. “And it wasn’t the first time I’d been dumped with no warning, either. Not that everyone knew that. But there was this other woman--”

  “Michelle. I know,” I said, trying not to lose myself in my unexpected delight that he didn’t want Melissa any more. “Tam accidentally told me.”

  He took a breath to speak, then shook his head. “Later. That’s not what-- look, I don’t know what it is about you, but somehow you help. You help Mom, you helped Austin...” He cleared his throat. “And I need you to help me. I can’t handle everything any more. I need you to take it.”

  Take it. I had already taken on his mom’s illness and his screw-up at work. I wanted to help him, but to take it all?

  “I can’t,” I said, throwing up my energy shield to protect me from everything coming from him, and ran from the condo.

  *****

  The second I got outside, of course, I regretted that. I did want to help him. I’d wanted to from the moment we met. First I’d thought helping him keep his emotions locked away was the way to go, and lately I’d questioned whether that was making things worse for him, but I’d always wanted to help him.

  But to do that now I’d have to tell him about my ability and risk having him think I was a freak. I’d have to risk losing him.

  My feet carried me without my conscious direction to the park across the street and the little pond I sat by whenever things seemed too much. They certainly seemed too much now.

  Half-hidden by the trees, I sat and watched the smooth surface of the water and wondered about what lay beneath it.

  Owen kept his surface so smooth and quiet. On the few occasions he’d shown me what he had beneath that surface, I’d immediately done everything in my power to stop him. But he’d still had the courage to ask me to help though he didn’t understand how I could.

  He wouldn’t ask again. I felt sure of that. Opening himself up so much, admitting he still hurt over the embarrassment of Melissa and Michelle, admitting he hurt at
all... with how hard being so vulnerable must have been for him, no, he’d never ask for help again.

  I’d have to offer.

  I rubbed my hands over my face and thought of everything we’d been to each other in the nearly two years we’d been together. How many times over those years had he, without knowing it, been the refuge I needed so badly?

  How could I not be his refuge now?

  I didn’t have a choice.

  As that thought sank in, I realized I didn’t even want a choice. Owen was my husband. I didn’t love him yet, but I could. If I let myself.

  And maybe... if I helped him accept and handle his emotions, maybe some day he would love me too.

  I pushed to my feet and began walking back toward the condo. Halfway along the twisting path from the pond, though, I was surprised to see Owen approaching me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when he reached me. “I shouldn’t have asked you to take everything. You’ve already taken so much more than you should have had to.”

  “I... thank you,” I said, glad he recognized how hard I’d been working to take care of Linda. “But how’d you know where I was?”

  His smile was weary, and sad. “You always come here when you need a break from me.” He turned and pointed back up at our condo building, and I recognized our living room blinds as he added, “I keep an eye on you. Not to spy, just to make sure you’re okay.”

  My heart melting, I said, “Then come sit with me. We both need a break from everything. And I’ll tell you... well, I’ll tell you how I know things.”

  He nodded and followed me in silence back to my spot where we sat without speaking for a long time. Finally, though I was terrified, I said, “Owen, I’m an empath. I can read people’s emotions.”

  He considered this. “Can you control them? Other people’s, I mean?”

  I nodded, his response taking the edge off my nerves. At least he hadn’t run away immediately. “I’ve only done it a few times, practicing with Pam, but I can.”

  He blinked. “Pam?” As I took a breath to explain he said, “Right, your art teacher. Never mind. But you can do it?”