by Mindy Klasky
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anna’s voice was sharp.
“Tell you what?”
“I saw the way you looked at him at the game the other night. I should have added things up then.”
There wasn’t anything to add then. Emily asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“I have a call in to the team’s lawyers. I don’t know what they’ll need, to prove Tyler’s sentence isn’t a sham. Maybe an affidavit. Or they might want to bring this in front of the judge who’s managing Tyler’s case. Maybe they’ll put you on the witness stand.”
Emily swallowed hard. The last thing she wanted was to stand in front of Raleigh, God, and everyone and testify about her relationship with Tyler Brock. But she said, “I’ll do it. Whatever you need.”
Anna’s exasperated sigh echoed down the phone line. “God, Emily, if you had to add Tyler to your list of conquests, couldn’t you have given me a warning?”
List of conquests. If Anna only knew. And the worst thing was, Emily could never tell her the whole truth. She was too ashamed of what she’d done.
She hung up the phone and placed another call to Tyler. Left another message. And then there was nothing left to do, but wait to hear what the lawyers had to say.
* * *
“I’m sure you understand,” Anna said, the very next day.
Emily sat across the desk from her best friend, feeling like a child called into the principal’s office. She cleared her throat and braved the wrath of the Rockets’ putative owner, keeping her voice low and steady. “You’re overreacting.”
“If anything, Emily, I’m under reacting. My general manager wants to sue you for intentional interference with Tyler’s contract! I’m not just telling you to stay away from Tyler for the good of the team. I’m trying to protect you!”
“You sound like Aunt Minnie, forbidding me to go on a date!”
“Aunt Minnie was a lot smarter than you gave her credit for.” Anna sighed and finally met her eyes. “Emily, you’ve got to help me out here. I can’t risk you and Tyler being caught together. I’ve seen what reporters do to ballplayers in this town. They were relentless with DJ Thomas and his fiancé. They’ll watch you day and night until they get the story they want. So I’m begging you: Don’t talk to him. Don’t see him. Please. Promise me.”
Every fiber of her being screamed not to make that promise. But a good number of those fibers were seriously compromised—they had been from the first moment she’d laid eyes on Tyler Brock.
Anna said, “I’m not talking about forever. Just until this blows over. Until the court decides what to do about his sentence.”
Emily stared at her hands miserably. This was precisely the time she most needed to talk to Tyler. She had to apologize for trapping him. She had to see if there was any hint of a shadow of a chance they could clear the slate. Start over again, without any lies between them.
But she’d known Anna a lot longer than she’d known Tyler. And the team had millions of dollars hanging in the balance, on Tyler’s contract, on whether he’d be able to play or if he’d be sent to prison. And Tyler wasn’t returning her phone calls anyway.
“Okay,” she said. “I won’t see him. For now.”
* * *
Promises were easier to make than to keep.
Emily hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on Tyler. She expected him to be around the house, helping Will put the finishing touches on the renovation. She expected to talk to him after his games, to hear the elation in his voice after a win, to comfort him when the team lost. She expected to hear the slow way he said her name, dragging the vowels through honey.
But a promise was a promise.
Even when the court refused to issue a decision. Even when the team hit a losing streak of seven games. Even when Emily lay awake, night after night, remembering the throbbing heat of his body, the way she’d felt herself awaken, the way she longed to make love with him, even one more time. They could do things right. Make things fair. They could be together without lies or artifice.
But she’d told Anna she wouldn’t see him. And the consequences of breaking that promise were too much to bear. So she watched the Rockets play every night. She tracked their road trips like a travel agent. She saw them go from Cleveland to Arizona to Texas.
Texas—where Tyler had played the beginning of his career. Texas—where Tyler had gotten into the bar fight that had started this entire mess. Texas—where he’d lived a lie, where he surely needed to talk to a friend, to someone who would accept him for everything he was.
But she didn’t call. She only waited for the rules to change.
* * *
Tyler stood on the porch, staring at the doorbell he’d just rung. “Hey, Mama,” he said when the door was finally open.
“Tyler!” She folded him into a hug that smelled like baby powder and cinnamon sugar, same as always. “I knew you were playing here tomorrow, but I didn’t think I’d hear from you till then!”
“We have a travel day today. The team’ll get in tonight, but I came out early.”
“Your brothers will be so happy to see you! Come in, come in!” She chivvied him into the kitchen. “Let me just call them now, maybe Billy and Tom can get over here for lunch.”
He caught her hands before she could grab the telephone from its hook on the kitchen wall. “Sit down, Mama. I want to talk to you.”
She looked surprised. And for just a heartbeat, afraid. But she let him lead her over to the kitchen table. “What’s wrong, son? Is this about that story I read in the paper? You and that girl, the one you were working for, the one you were…dating?”
“We weren’t dating,” he said, fighting a cold wash of embarrassment. “Not the way they made it look, anyway, when they took those pictures.”
His mother just stared at him—trusting him, believing him, because that was her job. That was what she’d always done.
“Mama, her name’s Emily. And I told her something. Something important. Something I’ve never said to anyone else, even though I should have told you years ago.”
Her lips quivered into a smile and she reached out to pat his hand. “Don’t be silly, sweetheart. I’ve always known you love me. Even if you never said it out loud.”
But Tyler hadn’t told Emily he loved her. He’d thought it. Realized it just as his world came crashing down around him. He shook his head. “That’s not it.” He took a deep breath and looked directly into his mother’s eyes. “I told Emily I can’t read.”
“Of course you don’t read! You don’t have time for it. Always traveling from one park to another, getting ready for the next game. You’d have to be a superhero to have time—”
“No, Mama,” he cut her off. “I didn’t say ‘I don’t read.’ I can’t.”
She sat back in her chair, deflating like he’d stuck a pin in the balloon of her happiness. “Why do you have to bring that up again? You know how upset I was when your fourth grade teacher started telling those lies. I don’t know what I would have done if your daddy hadn’t stepped in. If he and your coach hadn’t set that school straight.”
Tyler shook his head. “I couldn’t read then. And I can’t read now. And it’s not because I’m lazy or stupid or stubborn, like Daddy always said. There’s something wrong with me. Something mixed up in my head. My brain doesn’t put the letters together the right way, doesn’t connect things up the way it’s supposed to.”
He watched her start to protest, start to tell him that there was nothing wrong with him at all, that he’d always been perfect in her eyes. But she caught herself. Swallowed hard. And then she asked, “Is that what you told your Emily?”
His Emily. Yeah. Like Emily Holt was ever going to be his again.
“Actually, she’s sort of the one who told me, at least the stuff about my brain. She says there’s a doctor I can see. Someone at the University there in Raleigh. He might have new ways to teach me. Different machines that can make my brain work better.”
His mother looked scared. “And you believe her? She’s not just trying to use you? To find her way into your bank account?”
Tyler shook his head. “She’s not like that.”
Somehow, his mother heard the words he didn’t say. She leaned forward and put her hand against his cheek. “What is she like, then?”
And before he’d planned on sharing, he found himself telling his mother about Emily Holt. About all the things that were wonderful. About how she’d helped him. How she’d hurt him, too.
Well, not exactly how she’d hurt him. His mother would be mortified if he shared those details. But he explained how he’d trusted Emily with his greatest secret, but she’d been afraid to tell him hers. He finished with, “And now it’s all messed up. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what to do. And the worst thing is, I can’t figure out why she did it. Why she didn’t just tell me the truth.”
Those were probably the most words he’d ever said to his mother at one time. He sat back in his chair, embarrassed, but also relieved. Until his mother laughed. “Oh, son,” she said. “It’s different for women. We talk to each other. We share so much. But every single one of us has something that’s too terrible—too frightening, or embarrassing, or sad—to share with anyone.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“No, it isn’t. It isn’t easy to talk about our worst secrets. You, of all people should know that.”
She was right. He should. He felt ashamed.
His mother took mercy on him. “Your Emily’s secret may have felt like it was about you, but it wasn’t. It was about her. About who she is. Who she wants to be. She never meant to hurt you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do, Tyler. Because I’m a woman, too.”
For the first time in his life, he realized that the woman sitting in front of him wasn’t just his mother, wasn’t just a wife, wasn’t just Mrs. Brock, the keystone in the family arch he’d known forever. He sat there, trying to imagine what secrets his mother must have. In about a heartbeat, he decided he never wanted to know.
Instead, he fiddled with the edge of the oilcloth on the table and said, “I want to forgive her. I’m ready to forgive her. But we’re not even supposed to talk to each other until October, until the court hearing on my community service.”
She smiled fondly at him before she got up to pour a glass of milk. She was probably just as grateful as he was that they were through talking about secrets and the way women’s minds worked and all of that. When she set out a plate of snickerdoodle cookies, he inhaled two.
But it wasn’t until he reached for his third that his mother started to tell him exactly what he needed to do to make things right with Emily, once and for all and forever.
* * *
Emily sat on the edge of the couch in the Resource Room, filled with remorse and apprehension.
Remorse, because she couldn’t look at the couch without thinking of Tyler, without remembering exactly what they’d done in this very spot.
Apprehension, because Ethan Samson was the man who sat beside her now. Ethan Samson, with his ill-fitting suit, and his lopsided mustache, and his sour smile as he paged through a three-ring binder filled with checklists. Aunt Minnie’s executor eternally looked like a man who disapproved of the world.
“Please, Mr. Samson,” Emily said, unable to take another moment of torture. “May I get you a cup of coffee, while you go over those documents?”
“Not necessary,” he said, clicking his tongue three times. “Not necessary at all.”
Maybe not for him. But she was about to declare a caffeine emergency. She barely resisted the urge to chew on her fingernails. The last thing she needed was to ruin her manicure. She’d purposely had her nails done to impress the dour old man, to make him think of her as a mature adult, instead of Minnie’s wayward niece.
Of course, if he had the first idea of what she’d done on the very cushion where he was perched…
She cleared her throat and ordered herself to block the memory. Instead, she looked around the room.
The computers were up and running. Each displayed the dynamic Minerva House website, the meticulously organized screens of information to help clients who couldn’t make it to the physical house. Emily could just make out her own smiling face on the nearest display—the photograph Jamie Martin had taken.
Behind the computers, the bookshelves were filled with resources—books and magazines and pamphlets, all grouped by topics. A colorful display held the flyers Emily had slaved over, each one branded with the Minerva House logo.
Everything looked neat and clean and inviting, not that Mr. Samson seemed to have noticed. He pushed his nose deeper into his mysterious spreadsheets, muttering to himself as he flipped forward half a dozen pages, then flipped back two.
Emily stifled a sigh and looked across the foyer. The Fun Room was ready for her clients’ children. She’d had the kid-size furniture delivered from the warehouse store. The toy chest was filled with blocks, and art supplies were stacked on the counter.
If she craned her neck, she could make out one of the back rooms. She’d set out a circle of folding chairs, made it look like a meeting was about to happen any minute. Alas, Mr. Samson didn’t seem to have the imagination to picture a book group, or a support group, or any other type of gathering.
Maybe she should have hired actors. Maybe if he saw actual families gathered in Minerva House, using all the tools she’d assembled for them…
Mr. Samson slammed his binder shut with enough force that Emily jumped. “Well, we definitely have some problems,” he said peevishly.
“Problems?” Emily was proud that her voice didn’t quaver.
“Minerva would hate what you’ve done with that woodwork. Painting original oak? That’s a sacrilege!”
“It wasn’t original oak,” Emily countered. “The windows were out of kilter for years, and all the sills were damaged beyond repair. By replacing them with less expensive wood, I was able to invest Aunt Minnie’s funds in more meaningful ways. The paint makes the rooms more welcoming. Brighter.”
“Brighter.” Mr. Samson shuddered. “That’s another problem. It looks like an operating room! Minerva would find that vulgar.”
“My clients won’t be eating a formal dinner in what used to be the dining room. They’re not listening to records on the hi-fi in the living room, like Aunt Minnie did. They need light, so they can see each other. So they can attend meetings, and group sessions. So they can read a broad range of resources.”
“Resources,” the supercilious man said, as if the word coated his tongue with oil. “Minerva would never accept flyers from any old storefront that wants to prey on these poor families.”
“Mr. Samson, I have personally vetted every organization that offers its services at Minerva House. The printed resources come from our federal and state governments, the University’s outreach programs, and various area hospitals.”
“Hospitals,” Mr. Samson repeated. “Minerva would be aghast that her home, her private residence, has been converted—”
And that was too much. Because the entire idea behind Aunt Minnie’s will had always been that her home was going to be converted into a new space. Emily cut off Mr. Samson’s wheezing indictment before he could spit out his last hateful words.
“Mr. Samson, I’ve obviously failed to communicate effectively with you. Minerva House is a unique institution, a clearinghouse of resources for some of the most underserved people in our community. My aunt wanted to help our nation’s veterans, and I’ve relied on her generosity and giving spirit to convert her home into a flexible, comfortable, professional space. I’m proud of what I’ve done here. Any fair review of Minerva House would conclude that the terms of my aunt’s will have been met. Indeed, every one of them has been surpassed.”
She sat on the very edge of the couch, quivering with rage—with Mr. Samson for pushing her too hard, with Aunt Minnie for setting up
this ridiculous test in the first place, with herself for losing her temper. She set her jaw, and she waited for Mr. Samson to tell her she’d failed. She braced for his final, withering line of attack.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, the man’s watery eyes grew red. His lips began to tremble beneath his uneven mustache. He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing in noisily and exhaling with a series of stuttered gasps. Mr. Samson was crying.
“Mr. Samson?” Emily asked. When he didn’t speak, she began to grow alarmed. “Mr. Samson, are you all right?”
He nodded and waved one dark-veined hand in a gesture she would have considered dismissive just a moment before. He fortified himself with another shaky breath, and then he said, “I’m fine, child.”
Child. Mr. Samson had never shown Emily the first sign of affection.
“May I get you a cup of tea?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, anything else to offer. At his curt nod, she scurried into the kitchen. Waiting for the water to boil, she went back over their entire conversation, his endless criticism of Minerva House, his constant objections.
She placed Aunt Minnie’s creamer and sugar bowl on a tray and added a pair of cups and saucers. Scooping darjeeling into the pot was a soothing bit of routine; she’d made tea for her aunt countless times. After the water boiled, she added a strainer to the tray and carried everything into the front room.
Mr. Samson was sitting back on the couch, staring at the bookshelves with a distracted air. He stood as Emily entered, and he helped her settle the tray on the nearby desk. He picked up one of the teacups and stared at the old-fashioned red and yellow roses.
“Minnie loved this pattern,” he said.
Emily heard the quaver in his voice. “Mr. Samson?” she asked. She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know how to ask the dozens of questions that spun inside her mind.
But that one opening was enough. Ethan Samson set down the teacup and stumbled back to the couch. He looked at her pleadingly and said, “I haven’t been fair to you, dear.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mr. Samson blinked several times. “Minnie wouldn’t like the things I’ve done.” He swallowed hard. “I loved her.”
