Always Box Set

by Ward, Susan

  “Last week of November.”

  She pulled me down on the bed with her. “I took out my diaphragm when I showered and I want to get right at it. Make love to me again, and then I’ll go fix Ernie Levine.”

  As I suspected, getting right at it—fucking wonderful, because the woman in bed was happy and that was an incredible thing—didn’t change anything and never would.

  Three months she stayed.

  Three periods.

  And right when I was thinking the closest Linda would get to a baby was Chrissie’s shower—definitely an insensitive move to have asked her to organize that—the adoption attorney called.

  A month later, the Rowans adopted Bobby.

  It bothered me, her creating a family with Len, but our life was good and we went on. Linda had everything she thought she needed and I had enough.

  I was the man Linda loved.

  That was enough for me.

  Forty-Nine

  There are no random moments in life. The second we forget that, we become careless. Every moment overlaps the one before and the ones yet to come, part of who we are forever, because life is like a woman.

  It’s the big moments of our life we remember, but it’s the small moments soon forgotten that often become the most significant.

  But then, when the road is smooth and good, it is human nature to relax and enjoy living.

  Linda and I certainly were after twenty-five years. She was still married. We were still an affair. Chrissie’s second affair with Alan Manzone, five years this run, was in the past and she was now on her second husband—the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Jesse Harris—second child, and second house on the mountain above me.

  The years had woven my life with Linda’s into something as interconnected as the closest of families. We had shared friends, shared experiences, shared memories, and one particular unforeseen shared moment.

  The maxim before a storm there is calm is true.

  We had lived for ten years in delicious calm. I was sixty-three, loving life, still madly in love with my life partner, and I didn’t doubt Linda loved me the same way.

  As I sprinted out into the driveway to open her car door, how her eyes lit up the second she saw me was all the confirmation I needed that everything was as good between us as I believed it was.

  I took her in my arms for a kiss. “How’s my favorite girl?”

  She laughed. “You’re the only one who still calls me that, Jack.”

  I reached into the backseat for her bag. “You’ll always be a girl to me.” I frowned, lifting her bag to test its weight. “What’s up with this? One bag. Hardly packed. I thought you were staying longer.”

  She arched a brow. “Thank you very little. I know you think I overpack for everything, but I’m traveling light these days.”

  I touched my lips to her nose. “Not buying it. Light bag, short stay.”

  Inside the house, I took her carry to the bedroom then returned to the kitchen to find her staring out the wall of glass.

  I went to a cabinet for a glass and reached for one of the bottles she’d left here. “Do you want some wine? Friday commute from LA is always rotten.”

  She shook her head. “No wine. Drive wasn’t bad. I’m late because I got a late start.”

  I put away the glass, set back the bottle, and tried to read her mood. No wine? Definitely tense demeanor. Jackie boy had done something to get himself into trouble again.

  The phone rang, which would have annoyed me, except I wasn’t getting a good vibe from Linda and I didn’t want to push her.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Daddy. I thought I’d bring the girls down, let them play at your beach so we can visit for a while.”

  “Nope, can’t do that. I’m busy.”

  “Doing what?” she asked annoyed.

  “Things.”

  Chrissie made an aggravated growl. “Things? I found out about you and Linda a long time ago, so can we stop pretending you’re not involved? It doesn’t bother me. Why does everyone think everything will upset Chrissie? I like Linda. Why does it bother you to be open about this with me?”

  “It doesn’t, Chrissie. I just don’t want you here ruining my game.”

  A startled, embarrassed laugh. “Well, that was kind of inappropriate, Jack. Jeez, if Linda’s heard, you’ll be lucky if it doesn’t piss her off.”

  I shifted my gaze to Linda—yep, she was chewing on something not good. “Baby girl, I really have to go. No beach. Not today. Kiss Kaley and Krystal for Grandpa and go bug your husband instead.”

  I clicked off the phone, tossed it on the counter, and held back on my side of the kitchen. Linda’s posture said unapproachable.

  I raked a hand through my hair as I tried to figure out my next move. “OK, do you want to talk, go for a walk, or go to bed?”

  No answer.

  I hadn’t a clue what I’d done, but I’d done something.

  Linda wasn’t reactive or sullen or unreasonable.

  Not ever.

  Straight shooter and blunt every moment of her life.

  I sighed. “It doesn’t look like you want to do any of those. So why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you?”

  “Let’s go for a walk. Can we just go walk on the beach for a while?”

  Not my first choice, since how she was acting was starting to alarm me. Beach meant serious discussion about to unfold.

  “Is everything OK?” I asked her cautiously.

  She made one of her Linda smart-ass expressions. “Depends on how you look at it.”

  “Doesn’t sound promising. Maybe you should have had the wine,” I teased, wanting to get a feel for how serious this was.

  She laughed halfheartedly, and then passed through the patio door I opened for her. We crossed the lawn and made our way down to the sand. It was just before sunset, her favorite time at the ocean.

  We walked hand in hand along the shoreline for a while, her silent and me waiting for her to tell me whatever I’d done wrong.

  She slipped her hand from mine, stopped at the edge of the surf, and bluntly said, “Jack, I’m pregnant.”

  I searched her face, hoping I’d heard her wrong and seeing on her face that I hadn’t. A dozen thoughts collided in my head.

  “What? Is that a joke? I’m sixty-three years old, Linda. Believe me, it’s not funny.”

  Her eyes flashed—oh shit, that was out of my mouth, in a totally wrong way, before I could stop it.

  “It’s not meant to be,” she snapped. “Personally, I think it’s pretty damn serious. About as serious as life gets.”

  I stared at her. “How? I don’t understand.”

  “Aha.” She arched a brow and crossed her arms. “You’ve figured me out. After twenty-five years, my plan has come together. Jesus Christ, Jack. I stopped using birth control when we decided you were right and couldn’t get the job done. You know that. We talked about it. Remember? Continuing in spirit was what you jokingly called it. You’d be up to your neck in shit with that last comment if I didn’t know you are always a stumbling jerk when life surprises you and if that joke comment wasn’t pretty much what I said when the doctor told me. I thought it was early menopause. I’m forty-six. So don’t look at me like I shot your dog or something. Jesus Christ, Jack. I’m fucking forty-six.”

  Her voice broke on the last words, and she sank down onto the sand and started crying.

  I settled close to her and pulled her into my arms. “Don’t cry, baby. We’ll figure this out.”

  Her face jerked up and her eyes flashed again. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Oh fuck.

  “How pregnant are you?” I asked, and damn, it was another blunder, because I could tell she thought I was asking are you too far along to fix this? instead of trying to figure out if she had that preggers hormone thing yet.

  Her lips tightened before she took the lower one in her teeth and made her I
’m really mad, Jack sound. “Ten weeks.”

  “OK. That gives us time to consider all our options. Is your doctor concerned because of your age? Is that why you’re so rattled by this? The risk—”

  She sprang to her feet. “Oh, don’t you even try that. If you don’t want me to have it, say so. It won’t change what I do, but at least it would be fucking honest.”

  I stared up at her, fighting to maintain my calm. I was just trying to figure out what she was thinking about this. I hadn’t even had time to process what I thought.

  “Your body, your choice, Linda,” I said patiently. “My vote ended when I climbed into bed with you. Whatever you want to do is what we do.”

  She stared down at me, eyes sparkly and anxious.

  “But I don’t know what I want to do. Our life is perfect. We have the best of all worlds, Jack. We’re faithful, committed, in love, and independent.”

  “Thank you for not saying old,” I added carefully. “Well, on my side of the list.”

  She unbent a tad and dropped down onto the sand, laying her head on my shoulder this time. “Definitely not what I expected at this point.”

  I kissed her cheek. “Me either.”

  “Life is supposed to get easier, not harder. Why is it so fucking hard?”

  For some reason, I didn’t like the sound of that comment on the heels of the our life is perfect speech.

  “Life is pretty damn simple, Linda, if you let it be. Why don’t you just tell me what it is you want us to do? What do you want me to do for you?”

  I knew what I wanted.

  The baby was a deal changer, and I couldn’t settle for anything less than them both being here with me always. Even if it didn’t work with her unique way of balancing her universe, it wouldn’t work for me any other way.

  I waited, tense with dread, my heart rapidly pounding as every muscle on her face tightened.

  “Oh? You’re the priority here. Not me. Not my life. Not my job. Not everything I’ve worked for. Jack not wanting kids—priority. Then let me fix that fast for you so we can move on to our next argument. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want anything in our life to change, Jack.”

  Oh fuck. Did she really think that existed in the realm of possibility for me? Us being as we were, except now both the woman who owned my heart and my child would be part of the happy Rowan family.

  “Linda, you don’t mean that.”

  She stared me down with her dark brown eyes.

  “Oh yeah, Jack, I do. It’s for the best we leave everything exactly as it is.”

  I squared off with my eyes right back at her. “You know me better than that, Linda. I can’t do what you expect me to do.”

  “Then don’t,” she whispered before she stood up and hurried back toward the stairs to the lawn.

  I stopped her. “Don’t ask me to give you things I can’t. Not now. Not after everything we’ve been to each other. I love you, Linda.”

  Her eyes lost their luster before she squared her shoulders. She shook off my hand from her arm. “I didn’t ask you for anything, Jack. That’s how we love. Remember?”

  She hurried up the stairs, went home, and seven months later named my daughter Madison Rowan.

  Fifty

  The present…

  My phone dings and I look up to see that it’s nearly sunset over the Pacific and it’s a notification from Kaley.

  Oh Jeez, if she’s texting me I’m a great-grandfather.

  My heart races as I swipe open the phone. Probably one of Kaley’s massive group texts.

  Ah, a video.

  I hit play and my eyes burn with tears as I lock on the screen. Bobby and Kaley in the hospital. Alan and Chrissie on one side of the bed—they look so happy—and Linda on the other side.

  My heart clenches.

  I turn up the sound.

  My granddaughter’s face smiles out at me.

  Music plays in the background.

  When the hell did Kaley find time after having a baby to produce a video? Jeez, she is an amazing girl—married, blogger, independent film producer, and now mother at twenty-one.

  Completely together, getting everything right at a third my age. I feel a sharp jab at my heart and force it away as the music fades because I don’t want to feel anything other than this moment.

  “Hello everyone,” she says proudly. “I have a special guest joining me for Kaley’s World today. He arrived at 4:02 p.m.” She turns the baby to face the camera. “I’d like to present Samuel Parker Rowan. I’m going to sign off now and I’m taking a short leave from my vlog, but I’ll be back soon with new stories and definitely a baby tale or two. Thank you all for your texts and calls. As you can see, we’re all doing wonderfully in Kaley’s World. Love and peace.”

  The video ends on a picture of baby Samuel.

  Oh fuck.

  So much is running loose in me I can barely breath. I can’t believe she named the baby after Sammy.

  I brush at my tears as I shoot a fast text to Kaley.

  I should have been there. Some moments in life are too special to miss.

  I replay the video without the audio and this time focus only on Linda. Lovely Linda. Lovely—stubborn and proud—Linda.

  She still gets my heart racing. Nothing is ever going to change that, and the wrongness of where we are hits me like a ton of bricks in a painful, unmistakable way.

  Neither of us has done one right or emotionally honest thing since that fight on the beach when she told me she was pregnant.

  I did, for a while, try to roll with things the way Linda wanted, but trying to love her the way she needed me to without having her in my life hurt too much, and by Madison’s third birthday I couldn’t do it anymore and stepped into the role she forced me into.

  Family friend.

  In managing her life the way she thought she had to—correction, where that argument at the beach made her think she had to—I was dropped to a status in Linda’s world below her career, her family, and my daughter.

  We’re still friends.

  We talk and see each other regularly.

  Our lives are forever interwoven.

  It is impossible to untangle that.

  And I don’t want to untangle us, because even though she walked away from me, I’d never walked away in my heart from Linda.

  I tried many times to make amends. To figure a way out of the situation I created and she lets exist. But clearly somehow I wasn’t doing it the right way.

  So I left the ball in her court, sat back, loving and patient, waiting for Linda to come back to me.

  A lot of good that did me.

  There are religions that believe every agonizing moment of your life you will go through more than once until you get it right. I’m not a wholehearted believer in any faith or philosophy, but time has pretty much confirmed that maxim for me. We do go through the agonizing moments over and over again until we get them right. But that’s not the result of a divine being or some superior master plan. It is the inescapable flaw of human existence.

  We live the same moments and they end the same way, only to be repeated, until we change. We have to change the road we’re on and the journey we are making.

  I’ve always been a constant and unchanging man.

  Patient, steadfast, and loving.

  Those traits in many ways have been my doom.

  But the trick isn’t to change who the man is; it’s to change how he uses who he is to better his life and the lives of those he loves.

  Patience—that hasn’t worked thus far with Linda.

  Steadfast—some success, but we were never completely what I wanted us to be. We sure as hell weren’t now.

  Love—our life wasn’t better from me having loved Linda. I simply loved and left it to do the work for me, and I should have learned back with Lena that that is the ultimate failure of a man.

  I stare down at my cell, eyes locked on the p
icture of Kaley with little baby Sammy. Jesus Christ, a new generation of Parkers has entered the world. Joy and sadness suffuse my flesh.

  I’m not really sure how I got to the place I presently am with Linda. Maybe the how doesn’t matter. I will always love her and I’m pretty sure she still loves me.

  It’s time for me to change my journey the way I’ve longed to since 1980. It’s time for me to be the man I need to be for me.

  I spring up from the grass and walk from the cliffs to the house. When I reach the patio, Liam is stretched out in a lounger by the pool.

  “Where the hell you been all day?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Fishing.”

  His brows shoot up. “I went to the beach at noon. Empty chair, line in the water, cooler, but no Jack. I thought maybe you got a call from the hospital and took off to see Kaley and forgot to tell me goodbye.”

  I settle in the chair beside him.

  “No. Going down after everything calms down. I’m a great-grandfather, though. I got the text an hour ago.” I switch on my phone and show him the picture of Kaley and the baby. “Samuel Parker Rowan.”

  He smiles as he looks at the picture, but I can see that flash in his eyes caused by the baby’s name.

  “Congratulations, Jackie boy. A great-grandson and Kaley naming him Sammy. No words for that. You’re a lucky man, luck of the Irish. You’ve got a beautiful family.”

  Two daughters. Five grandchildren. One great-grandson.

  “Yep, I do.”

  Liam studies my face for a moment. “You doing all right, Jackie boy?”

  I nod. “Who would have thought we’d still be together all these years? Still friends. Still a band.”

  He laughs. “I knew that I wasn’t getting rid of you ever the first time I met you in that bar in Southie.”

  “Do you regret it?”

  “What?”

  “Me. The band. Our life. I don’t know. Everything?”

  “Fuck no. We’ve had one hell of a wild ride together. Dodged a bullet with ’Nam. Dodged a bullet with the booze. Definitely dodged a bullet with the women we’ve loved. Crazy times, Jack, but I’d do every fucking one of them again.” Still looking at me, he frowns. “What’s wrong with you today? You’ve got that look, Jackie. Like I need to talk you from a drink.”