The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet

by Susan Ward

  The Girl

  in the

  Comfortable Quiet

  The Half Shell Series

  Book 4

  Susan Ward

  Copyright © 2015 Susan Ward

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1497502780

  ISBN-13: 978-1497502789

  DEDICATION

  For Rachel. The closest I could get to ending the story the way you wanted me to. I hope you enjoy, baby girl.

  “Some secrets are meant to be kept forever. What no one ever tells you is that secrets hurt you and never the ones you lie to. They are your solitary hurt and shame. The people you withhold them from go on with their lives. They live. They fuck. They love. They are unharmed by your silence and the words you haven’t yet shared.” ~Chrissie Parker

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  November 1994

  I stare at myself in the full-length mirror and make a face. Whoever said black was slimming is a liar. But then there is no way to hide this. I run my hands over my month seven baby bump. It’s been forever since Neil’s been home and I don’t know what he’s going to think about this.

  I turn sideways. Crap, it would be nice if I wasn’t quite this big, and I could still manage to pull off a little bit of sexiness. Shit, we haven’t had sex for five months. I attempt a provocative stance and expression. I crinkle my nose. Nope, I’m all waddle and belly these days.

  I make my way from my bedroom down the hallway, checking the rooms as I pass. Perfect, even though not completely done even after two months here. I need to paint Kaley’s nursery, but at least the recording studio downstairs is finished, thanks to Jack. Neil is going to love that. The kitchen is almost together, and the living room is done.

  I stare out the wall of glass and smile. A pretty nice homecoming for Neil, even if I’m going to be a less-than-spectacular sight. He’s going to love it here.

  I make my way carefully up the short rise of stairs to the foyer, noting that I really need to put a banister here. Who builds a house and doesn’t put a banister and a rail on an upper landing? It may look dramatic, but it’s a nightmare. Someone is always accidently dropping off into the living room.

  I laugh. It is definitely a weird house. Neil will probably think it’s strange, but it is so us. It is exactly the kind of house I want to raise Kaley in.

  I grab my purse from the console table, go into the garage, hit open the door, and then climb into my black Range Rover. Thank God it has four-wheel drive. The driveway definitely needs improvement.

  At the end of the drive, I stop and check traffic. I pause for a moment to look left. Devil’s Playground is only a short hop up there. Smiling, I go right toward the highway. I slowly maneuver down the narrow one-lane tree-lined road, the forest so thick here that the sun is completely blocked, and keep a careful eye on the moss-covered boulders.

  I merge onto the two-lane highway to the city. How funny it is that I used to be afraid of the mountain pass, so afraid I used to make Neil drive it for me, and now I drive it every day.

  Twenty minutes later I pull into the Santa Barbara airport and park at the loading curb. I start to unbuckle my seat belt, and then wonder if it would be better to wait here. I don’t look as fat when I’m sitting. Grabbing my purse, I pull the key from the ignition and climb out of the car anyway.

  I walk through the nearly empty Spanish-style building that acts as the terminal. I exit onto the patio and sink onto a bench close to the entrance from the runways.

  I check my watch and my leg starts to jiggle anxiously. Any time now, Neil. I’m more than ready to see you. My gaze floats around the patio. There are a couple of other women here. I wonder if they’re waiting for their husbands, too. It’s a nice feeling, waiting on Neil. I smile.

  People start entering from the runway, and I struggle to stand up. I anxiously search the small line of arriving passengers. My heart jumps against my chest. Green eyes, smiling, and looking for me.

  Neil drops his bag, scoops me up in his arms, and gives me a passionate embrace. “God, I’ve missed you,” he whispers between kisses.

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  He steps back as if seeing for the first time the dramatic change in me. The color in his eyes darkens.

  “How’s my baby today?”

  I sink my teeth into my lower lip to hold back my emotions. Then he leans forward, kissing my belly, and I give him a gentle push away from me.

  He looks at me, a teasing glint in his eyes. “What?”

  “I thought you were asking how I was. I can see how it is. You’re completely obsessed with Kaley and have totally forgotten me.”

  He slips his arm around my waist and whispers in my ear, “Nope, I just can’t greet you the way I want to here.”

  I flush, and we start walking out of the airport. I can tell when someone in the terminal recognizes Neil by how they stare, and I ease close into him in that this guy is mine kind of way.

  He tosses his bag in the back of the car as I climb into the driver’s seat. “You want to drive?” he asks, surprised.

  I nod. “Yep. I am taking you to our house for the first time. I’m driving.”

  He climbs into the passenger seat, buckles his safety belt, then I pull from the curb. We drive for a while in silence with him just staring at me.

  “You look so beautiful, Chrissie. I’m so glad to be home.”

  “Beautiful, huh? I’m enormous, or haven’t you noticed that?”

  “You’re beautiful, Chrissie. Stop it. I wish I’d been here with you. Seeing the change all at once brings it home how much I’ve missed with you already.”

  I focus on the road, fighting back my tears. “Well, you’re home now. You can make up for it.”

  He leans in and kisses me lightly on the shoulder. “I plan to. I don’t care what you have on your calendar. We’re not leaving the bedroom for a week.”

  I laugh and turn onto the mountain pass.

  Neil frowns. “Where are we going?”

  “Home, Neil.”

  He stares at me, surprised. “You bought a house on the mountain? You picked a house on the mountain?”

  I nod. “Don’t say it that way. I wanted the perfect home for us and I found it. Up here.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m slowly making my way down our driveway. Neil’s expression is priceless. He’s savoring being in the forest, but looking at me like I’m crazy.

  I stop before the Spanish-style structure hugging the side of the mountain. There is not another house in sight, the acres around us are lush natural forestland, nothing but indigenous plant life here, but everywhere there’s blue sky and a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean. It’s so quiet. The only sound is us and the comfortable quiet of the forest.

  Neil stares. “You bought this?”

  I keep my expression carefully neutral. I can’t tell if he’s happy, disappointed, or confused. I climb from the car and unlock the front door.

  I kiss him. “Welcome home.”

  I step into the entry foyer. I point.

  “I don’t have a railing or banister yet,” I say, dumping my things on the table. “That first step is a big drop if you go the wrong way. I need to fix it soon. Jack fell down it yesterday.”

  Neil laughs, then freezes and stares. He sinks on the red painted concrete floor of the landing, his legs dangling over the side. He’s just staring.

  His eyes widen. “Jesus Christ, Chrissie. I can’t afford a house like this.”
>
  “Too late. We already bought it. You told me you didn’t have to see it. That it was my choice. I bought this.”

  “Chrissie,” he says in an exasperated growl. “Rich-girl you are. Rich-boy I am not. I can’t afford this house.”

  “Oh, stop. We’re married. Whatever we have belongs to the both of us, and that includes this house. I love this house. We’re not moving from here.”

  I grab his hands and pull him onto his feet and kiss him on the cheek. I point at the door on the far side of the living room.

  “That goes downstairs,” I explain. “There are guest bedrooms. And Jack helped me convert some of the space into a recording studio. You have everything you need to work from here.”

  His brows lift. “You did that for me?”

  “I did that for us. Our entire life, everything we love, all is here. We don’t ever have to leave the mountain unless we want to.”

  I pull him with me to the wall of glass and his eyes widen even more as he looks out.

  “This house is us, Neil,” I say. “It’s you. It’s me. It’s where I want to raise Kaley.”

  “Chrissie, what did it cost?”

  I ignore the question.

  I point to the left. “Over there is a trail to Devil’s Playground. And look, there is Judgement Rock, the edge of the earth, and we can see it from our living room. We can hike there every day once I’m able to go uphill again. And there, you can see the beach. And I can see Hope Ranch and the islands and downtown. From every room we can see the Pacific. Everything we love is right there out our back window for both of us to see every day. It’s us, Neil. Perfect. I walked into this house and I never wanted to leave.”

  He turns me, taking me in his arms and his lips start moving on my flesh. “It definitely has everything. Does it have a bedroom?”

  I laugh. Between kisses and touches I start pulling him through the kitchen toward the master suite.

  “Neil, we have everything. It couldn’t be more perfect if we had it custom-made.”

  Chrissie’s Journal

  It’s funny how someone can envelop your life without even being near you. I haven’t seen Alan since that day, and yet I know in certainty I will see him again someday. It was there in his eyes the last time he stared at me. A strange look, one I still can’t decipher completely. But tucked in the shadowy black depths of his gaze there were other things I understood without effort. The unrelenting connection between us that I have felt from the start. The love. The shared history, and the sense of unfinished things between us.

  It is good that at the moment during Jack’s party when I had to choose right or left—Alan or Neil—the crossroad came unexpectedly and there was only a flash of a second to say what I wanted. I didn’t think. I didn’t command. My mouth spoke, finding my words on its own.

  I’m glad I chose Neil, though I’m not really sure why I did. Perhaps it was the way he was staring at me. The hurt. The comprehension. The forgiveness. And the unconditional love. Unconditional love is a seductive thing. Perhaps it was just because he was with me. Perhaps it was because I loved him more in that flash of a second than I loved Alan.

  Or perhaps it was because events moved with Alan one step faster than my mind and heart could keep up with, just as they always seem to do. I still don’t know why he came to Jack’s party. Not really. Did he come because he loved me? Was a second chance with him within reach? If I had grabbed onto it and held onto Alan—I don’t know if that was even what he wanted—would we be together somewhere, someplace?

  I don’t know for sure, and today it doesn’t matter. So typical of me with Alan; messy uncertainty about everything. Or perhaps I should say typical of just me.

  All I know for sure is that we will cross paths again. It will be unexpected. In that moment I will love him and he will love me. The other parts of our lives will not matter. For a second we will love and then spin away.

  Bullshit, Chrissie. Don’t turn your history with Alan into romantic make-believe in your journal. Your affair with Alan wasn’t all moonlight and roses. And you did a shitty thing to him that day. Your grand From Here to Eternity-type delusion is guilt-ridden nonsense and fantasy.

  It’s a fantasy born of regret, and it is time to put it in a lockbox and tuck it away. A nice dream that will never be. The quiet of the mountain is at times too quiet. It lends to too much thinking. Thinking about the past. Alan. Loving him. Walking away. The way he stared at me that last day. And it makes the truth—that I am being dishonest with Neil and with Alan—also an inescapable thing.

  I am too young for regrets. I’m only twenty-four. I love my husband in a very real and peaceful way. My life is good, very good. All that I could ever want it to be. But I still have regrets and I have hurts and I have secrets that I cannot make go away.

  Secrets, just like when I was young. Only they are different now, because they are adult secrets. Unlike those from my childhood I shared with Alan, this secret is meant to be kept from him forever.

  Some secrets are meant to be kept forever. What no one ever tells you is that secrets hurt you and never the ones you lie to. They are your silent hurt and shame. The people you withhold them from go on with their lives. They live. They fuck. They love. They are unharmed by your silence and the words you haven’t yet shared.

  They don’t know the pain you are forced to live in. The regrets. The sorrow. The longing. The shame. The fear. A secret kept forever is a burden you carry alone.

  But it would be nice to share this regret. To have someone help me carry the weight of doing such a terrible thing to so many people I love.

  But I can’t tell Alan.

  And it wouldn’t be fair to tell Neil.

  So it will exist here in the comfortable quiet of my home on the mountain, and the truth of this is not something I will ever speak. The truth isn’t always a good thing. It’s better for us all this way.

  CHAPTER ONE

  December 1994

  I sit on a stepladder in Kaley’s nursery and dab with a sponge at the white paint on the light gray wall. I pause to study my handiwork. Ugh. It’s supposed to provide texture, a visual fluffiness to the clouds I’m creating. I flip the page in the craft book. Nope, my clouds don’t look anything like that. Damn, I want this room to be perfect for her and I want to be the one who makes it so.

  I try again. Darn, not any better. There are just some things I will never be good at, no matter how much I want to be or how much I try. The list is long and only seems to be growing since marriage. Cooking dinner. Filling my time while Neil is on the road. Having relationships with other women. Decorating a house. Stylizing a nursery. Following directions. Knowing where I’m going in life…

  Fuck, Chrissie, take that one off the list now. I repeat my mantra in my head: Think only of where you are, not the past and not the future. Breathing slow, steady breaths, I say it over and over again in my head until I feel myself calming. Jack was right. It is better to focus on only where you are, to live exclusively in the now, and never to think of where you’ve been or where you are going.

  With all the time I have alone on the mountain, if I let myself think, I would never make it through a single day. There is too much in the past, and the present, that’s unsettling.

  I lift my forearm to push back the straggling blond curls from my face. You are where you are, Chrissie. How you got here, the things you did, don’t matter anymore. Not to Neil. Not to you—I feel a prick at my heart—and they probably wouldn’t matter to Alan.

  I certainly have a happier life than I probably deserve. I’m married to Neil, it was the right choice, and life is good, even if he’s hardly ever home these days. Home for a few weeks in November. Gone December. Back a few weeks in January. That’s our life since I can’t travel with him and have to wait for the long breaks on the road for him to travel to me. But the nonstop touring is starting to pay off and he is rapidly becoming a superstar in the music world.

  The baby starts to stir within me, har
d bangs instead of rolls and flutters. I smile. The poor little love can hardly turn. This girl is definitely going to be a big one and most probably a metal chick with how she head bangs.

  In five short weeks there will be Kaley, and Neil and I will have the family we both want. A familiar anxiety and sadness whispers through me.

  I stare at the wall mural, feeling tears threaten out of nowhere again. Don’t think about that, Chrissie. Leave it in the lockbox where it belongs.

  I do a rapid tally of my blessings. Neil is doing OK. I’m doing OK. I pat my month eight baby bump. Kaley is doing OK.

  Don’t think of the past. Not today. You have a nursery to finish.

  I lightly coat the sponge in the paint tray and then start to dab at the wall again. Better. They look better if I take my time at this. If I don’t push at it, it turns out as it’s supposed to.

  The phone rings and I drop the sponge into the tray. I do a rapid search around me. Shit, why did I leave the phone in the kitchen instead of next to me?

  Struggling onto my feet, I hurry from the nursery into the kitchen. I grab the cordless off the island and click it on.

  “Hello?” I pant.

  “Shit, are you OK? You sound out of breath. You’re not in labor, are you?”

  Neil. Anxious and worrying about me. Some things never change.

  Smiling, I sink down on a barstool. “No, not in labor. Thank God, since just trying to get from room to room is exhausting enough. Your kid is a monster, Neil. She’s huge.”

  Neil laughs. “Are you doing OK? How are my two girls?”

  My smile grows larger. “We’re wonderful, but we miss you. I haven’t looked at the itinerary yet today. Where are you?”

  “Rome.” He says it in a slow, kind of worn out way.

  I make a pout. “Doesn’t sound like you’re enjoying the European leg of the tour. I thought Rome was supposed to be beautiful.”