Commitments

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Maybe because I don’t want to talk about them.”

  “Oh.” It was her turn to sit straighter in the chair. “Okay.” She looked at him, then looked away. The coldness was back, and she didn’t want to see it. He was the felon again. The convict. The murderer. His features were granite-hard, his expression nearly as steely as the bars through which she’d passed to see him.

  The silence between them lengthened. She thought about cold steel. Did convicts bring it in with them, or was it something they caught from the bars, inhaled like asbestos, poisoning the system?

  Movement caught her eye, but it wasn’t Derek’s. He was sitting in his chair, offering her a hard-carved profile as he glared at the window, looking for all the world as though Michelangelo had told him not to breathe. The movement was from one of the other visitors who was leaving. Sabrina wondered if she should do the same. If Derek didn’t want to talk, if he was tired of her chatter, if he’d suddenly decided that his Thursday afternoon work detail was preferable to her company after all …

  “The difference between maximum and medium security,” he began coolly, “is one of degree. The bars are thicker, the locks louder, the body counts more frequent, the privileges more sparse. If this were a maximum security prison, we’d be separated right now by a wall of thick wire mesh.”

  Sabrina wasn’t sure why he had changed his mind about talking, but she felt as though she’d been given a reprieve. She wasn’t ready to leave yet. “The atmosphere must be much more oppressive, then.”

  He took his time answering, finally saying, “Yes and no.”

  She waited. When he didn’t elaborate, she said, “Start with yes.”

  Derek worked the muscle in his cheek as he stared at her. He wanted to talk, but he didn’t. He wanted to share, but he didn’t. His toe tapped the floor, beating the rhythm of energy crying for release.

  “There are the obvious reasons why maximum is more oppressive,” he began tightly. “Less freedom. Less choice. Every hour is programmed. Body counts are more intrusive. Visiting is more restricted. Privileges are fewer and farther between.”

  He barely paused for a breath. Pandora’s box had been opened; the evils were spilling out. Sabrina was convinced that the airing was healthy, still, she couldn’t help but feel that there was something of a defiant You wanted to hear, lady—well, hear! in his presentation.

  “In maximum, the nature of the beast is different. Inmates there have been in the system longer. Often they’ve committed more serious crimes. More violent ones. The average sentence is longer. Hopelessness, despair—they’re greater, if that’s possible.” His eyes grew distant. Whether he’d planned it or not, he was slipping away, down the black tunnel that had shaped his experiences for the past months. “There’s no trust. Terror moves freely, back and forth between the bars. The inmates fear each other; the guards fear the inmates. It’s something you can almost smell and taste and feel. Like hatred.” His Adam’s apple moved. “Like bigotry. Or suppressed violence.”

  Sabrina could see it all on his face. His eyes were dark as pitch beneath low-lying brows. A fine sheen of sweat covered his skin, like an ill that had emerged from inside him with the spilling of his words. Tension rode the bridge of his nose. His nostrils flared with each breath. His lips curled in disgust.

  He was there. He was in it. He lived the fear and the hatred, the bigotry and the violence, suppressed or otherwise, because he had no choice. He was in a terrifying world, and because he had to go along to survive, he was one of them. A stranger.

  Sabrina didn’t want that. She knew the Derek he’d been before, the one who was calm, creative, capable of compassion. She believed that he still existed, even if he was momentarily overshadowed. So she pushed on. “And no?”

  He blinked. His shoulder twitched. He drew himself back, clearly confused.

  “The second half of the yes and no,” she explained gently. “In what ways is the atmosphere here as bad?”

  He gnawed on the inside of his cheek until he’d found himself. “Psychologically. The sense of helplessness and dependency and emasculation. It’s there wherever you turn. Maximum … medium … doesn’t matter.”

  “I’d think,” she said, “that those things might be worse for you than for some other men.”

  His dark eyes asked, “How so?”

  “The contrast, one life to another. I don’t picture you as ever having been helpless. To suddenly be that way—”

  “Is infuriating. But is my fury any less than that of the man who has always been helpless and is now even more so? Take the guy who’s in for armed robbery. It’s his third conviction. Why does he keep robbing banks? He’s out of a job, out of cash, he feels helpless, so he dreams. He robs banks to make those dreams come true. He robs banks with a gun in his hand for the sense of power it gives him. Then he ends up in here, where he’s even more helpless than he was before. He turns on the TV in the rec room or picks up a paper and sees how the rich and famous live. And you think that he doesn’t feel fury?

  “Or the kid who steals cars. Again and again he steals cars. Why? So he can tool down the road totally free, on his own, independent, the big man and his powerful machine. He’s picked up by the police for running a Stop sign. Twenty-two years old and it’s his fourth conviction, so he winds up here. Bye-bye freedom. Bye-bye independence. Bye-bye macho man.”

  He’d been working himself into a pious rage, but the air suddenly left his balloon. He slumped back in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at the floor. Then he touched Sabrina with his scowl en route to anchoring it on the window.

  She gave him a minute. When he didn’t budge, she asked, “No more talking?”

  He shook his head.

  “You have a lot to say. If you could write it down—”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t write squat.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded. “Uh-huh. Sure. The illiterate investigative reporter.”

  “Not illiterate. I can read.”

  “But not write. Uh-huh.”

  “It’s true. I had the ideas. I did the interviews. I could stand in front of a camera and talk for an hour, but I couldn’t write it down.”

  “Are you dyslexic?”

  He let out an impatient breath. “No, I am not dyslexic.”

  “Do you have some other kind of learning disability?”

  “No, Sabrina.”

  “Then why can’t you write? It doesn’t make sense. If you have the ideas, all you have to do is pick up a paper and pencil, or sit down at a typewriter and go to it.”

  He drew his scowl from the hapless window and bestowed it on her directly. “Life isn’t laid out in blacks and whites. It isn’t tied up in neat little packages with the contents listed on the front. How in the hell do I know why I can’t write? Do you know what’s wrong with your son?”

  It was a cheap shot. He regretted it the instant it left his mouth, when he saw her crumble. Swearing softly, he came forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs and his forehead on the heels of his hands. Head bowed like that, he could be very close without meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry, Sabrina. But you push me. I’m a little tense.”

  She wanted to touch him, wanted to stroke his hair and tell him that it was all right, that he could be tense with her and that she wouldn’t mind as long as he didn’t go all dark and brooding and angry. But she was afraid to touch. Touching him was dangerous. Last time she hadn’t wanted to let go.

  “I suppose,” he said, still without looking at her, “that I don’t have the patience to write. I could never sit still long enough when I was a kid, and I get a bad taste in my mouth when I remember the measures taken to make me do it. I have patience for most other things. Just not writing. So I talked my thoughts to my assistants, who wrote them down and polished them up.” He darted her a quick glance around his hand. “I can’t write about this place.”

  “Can I do it?”

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sp; He dropped his hand from his head and steepled his fingers between his knees. “If you want to write about bank robbers and car thieves, be my guest.”

  She came forward to meet him. “I want to write about you.”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I say not.”

  “But why?” she asked, then argued softly, “The same people who watched you week after week would read your story in a minute. They identified with you. They’d want to read about the things you’ve seen and experienced.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Come on, Derek. If you were back on Outside Insight and someone else were here in your place, you’d do a story on him.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “This is me.”

  “Do as I say, don’t do as I do?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’d make a great book.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’d be an outlet. You could tell your side of the story. It’s done all the time. Colson did it, Dean did it—”

  “I’m not Colson or Dean,” Derek snarled under his breath. “They knew exactly what they were doing when they did it, and they deserved what they got. The crime was compounded when they cashed in. Books, the lecture circuit—they squeezed by before the Son of Sam law took effect. I don’t want or need the money—”

  “Neither do I. But think of the satisfaction you’d get—”

  “No.”

  “It’d give you something to help pass the time.”

  “I don’t need anything to help pass the time. I still have a whole wall of holes to count.”

  “Holes?”

  “Where the guy before me threw his dart. One wall has six hundred and eighty-seven holes, the other has eight hundred and ninety-eight. Just think of the wrist action involved.”

  “I’m riveted,” she said with a dry twist of her lips, but in the next breath the twist was gone and her tone grew urgent. “I could do it, Derek. I could write your story and do it tastefully. Biography is my field.”

  “You don’t have the time to write.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why did you suggest it?”

  “Because it feels right.”

  “But if you don’t have the time—”

  “I’ll find it!”

  Their heads were close, shoulders almost touching. He inhaled the faint jasmine scent that wisped around her. She had a wide-eyed look that held more than a hint of desperation. It was one of those times when he felt in control.

  He took her hand, then spoke in a voice that was quiet, even gentle. “When I talked with you at your place that time, you said that you don’t write because you don’t have the psychic energy left after dealing with Nicky all day. Has that changed?”

  “No. But it has to soon.”

  He studied her face. “You’re going to Vermont from here?”

  She nodded.

  “Is it the place for Nicky?”

  “I think so. I’m meeting the director for dinner. I’ll talk with more of the other personnel tomorrow.”

  “Shouldn’t your husband be there?”

  She gave a short, high, sad laugh. “Yes.”

  “But he won’t go. He can’t face it.”

  “No.”

  “He’s a schmuck.”

  She tipped her head and shrugged, but she wasn’t feeling at all nonchalant about the facts. Suddenly she felt very close to tears. “I have to go,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he whispered back.

  “I wish I could stay longer—”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Shhhh.” The finger moved, so lightly that at first she thought she’d imagined it. Upper lip … gentle arch … tiny dip … lower lip … a slow circle, setting sparks along the way. Again it went round. Her lips softened, parted on a short breath, and she wasn’t imagining any of it. The sparks turned inward, spiraling in similar slow circles through her chest. This time the breath she took shuddered.

  “I want to kiss you so bad I can taste it,” he whispered. His eyes were coal-black, but the coal smouldered, spreading faintly glowing embers to his cheeks.

  “Don’t,” she gasped. She curled her fingers around his wrist but didn’t pull his hand away. She just held on, held on.

  “I want to.”

  “But I’m married.”

  He brought his other hand to her face and watched his fingertips trace her eyebrows, then her cheekbones. “Married people kiss people other than their mates.”

  “Not the way you’d kiss me,” she whispered half-dazed, then rushed on in the same breath. “I have to leave.”

  “You’ll come again.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He held her face. “Soon.”

  “I don’t know.”

  His thumbs inched over her cheeks, callused pads whispering. “You have to.”

  “It’s not smart.”

  “Do it anyway.”

  “Derek, I can’t think.”

  “Then listen,” he commanded in a deep murmur that was hoarse and intimate enough to send tremors down her spine. He kept her face imprisoned, and his hands were the least of the chains. “We’re going to stand up. I’m going to put my arms around you and give you a hug.”

  “No—”

  “I need to feel you against me, even if it’s just for a minute.”

  “Derek—”

  But he was already rising, and her body went to his as though it had learned the way years before. His arms encircled her, then tightened when he felt her palms sliding up his back. He held her close, savoring her feel from head to toe.

  A warm body. A heartbeat. For all his deficiencies, Nicky Stone did know a thing or two.

  Derek heard the shallow intake of Sabrina’s breath, the whimper that was muffled against his throat. He absorbed the rapid tattoo of her heart and the fine tremors that arced between them. He whispered her name, but it was lost in the thickness of her hair.

  “Derek?”

  “Don’t talk.”

  “I’m frightened.”

  “Shhhhh.”

  “My life is such a mess.”

  “So’s mine. Can I kiss you?”

  “No.”

  “I need your mouth, Sabrina.”

  She tucked her head lower, but that mouth he needed was parted, warm lips burrowing into the dark tufts of hair at his open collar. He felt hard, tasted hard, smelled of man—and she was beguiled.

  “Will you come back next week?”

  As she shook her head, her lips brushed over that V of flesh.

  “The week after?”

  “I don’t know,” came her muffled reply.

  “I’ll think about letting you write your book.”

  She went still, then raised her head. “You will?”

  “I’ll think about it. I won’t make any promises.”

  Her heart was pounding. She was aware of every long inch of him, of the power that lay in wait beneath muscle, of the heat that could consume in a minute. She was a married woman. She had a sick child on her hands. She should turn and run and never look back.

  “Three weeks from today,” she whispered. “I’ll try.” Then she freed herself from his arms and beat a hasty retreat.

  Chapter 5

  THREE WEEKS from that day was the twentieth of April, and Sabrina spent the twentieth of April at the hospital. Nicky had gone into convulsions the night before. Once the doctors had set to work, he quickly stabilized, but finding the cause of the seizure was slow.

  Sabrina wasn’t able to reach Nick, who was in Dallas. She tried repeatedly through the course of the night, but if he was at his hotel, he was neither answering the phone nor receiving the urgent messages she left.

  She was furious. It wasn’t that he could be doing anything more than she’d already done if he were in New York: Nicky was at the best of hospitals with the best of doctors. But sharing the worry would have hel
ped. She could have used some emotional support through the long hours of waiting. Nick had let her down again.

  Dawn found her curled in a chair in Nicky’s room. The child was sedated. Wires radiated outward from various points on his tiny body, offering a steady readout of his condition. Sabrina felt as though she were monitoring it herself. She was exhausted, but her eyes wouldn’t close. They clung heavily to the shape of her son, leaving him only periodically to glance at one or another of the machines.

  Her mind churned. She thought frightening thoughts, frustrated thoughts, discouraging thoughts, dismaying thoughts. Her emotions ran the gamut, leaving her stretched to the limit.

  Just when she thought she would snap, memory of Derek came from the corner of her mind where she’d stashed it, and her tension eased a bit. He’d held her with such strength. She wanted that strength now, oh Lord, she did. She wanted a hand to hold or an arm around her shoulder. She wanted someone to lean on, to talk to, someone to see her pain and understand it, someone to assure her that no matter how hopeless things seemed, they’d get better.

  Wrapping her own arms around her middle wasn’t the same, but it was better than nothing. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other, tucked her stockinged feet beneath her and let her head loll against the winged back of the chair. She focused on Nicky’s small chest as it rose and fell, rose and fell with the typically quickened cadence of a child and with such regularity that she wanted to scream. That everything should look so right but be so wrong was cruel!

  From time to time she glanced at her watch, shifted position, glanced at her watch again. Shortly after nine, when the clatter of the breakfast trays that had never been brought to her intravenously fed son were a memory, she left the room. Wedging herself into a corner of the phone booth down the hall, she called Parkersville. She fully expected that she wouldn’t be allowed to talk with Derek, and that was the case, but she conveyed her message and was told that he would receive it.

  “Please. It’s critical. He’s expecting me to be there this afternoon and I can’t make it.”

  “He’ll get the message,” said the male voice at the other end of the line, but it sounded terribly uninterested to Sabrina.