The Wife He Couldn't Forget

by Yvonne Lindsay

  Rummaging in the hall cupboard unearthed a suitcase that looked both new and familiar. He remembered buying it before a trip to Japan last year. Olivia must have brought his things from his apartment in it. He squeezed his clothing into the case and zipped it closed. Then he picked it and the bundle of clothes he’d discarded up and carried them downstairs. The case he left just inside the sitting room. The other things he shoved in the trash bin outside the back door.

  He should just go, he thought. Leave now before she came back. But some perverse masochistic impulse urged him to stay. To face Olivia and to ask her what the hell she’d been thinking. Masochistic? No, it wasn’t masochism to want answers. He deserved the truth from her, at last. No more subterfuge, no more lies or half truths. Everything.

  * * *

  Olivia was on a high when she pulled her car into the drive. The exhibition had been an enormous success. The gallery owner had been thrilled not only with the commissions they’d earned but also with the requests for more of her work in the future. There was international interest in her work, too. Sure, she knew better than to think her success from this point out was guaranteed, but tonight the world was her oyster. She couldn’t wait to share the news with Xander.

  She looked up at the house as she rolled to a stop outside the garage. It hadn’t been dark long, but no lights were on inside. At least not at the front of the house. Maybe he was around the back or even in his office in the cottage.

  Grabbing her bag and the bottle of champagne the gallery owner had given her before she’d left the exhibition, she got out of the car, quickly walked up the front path and let herself inside.

  “Xander?” she called, clicking on the hall light.

  A sound in the sitting room made her halt in her tracks and change direction.

  “Xander? Are you okay?” she asked, turning on the overhead light in the room as she entered it. “I hope you’re up to celebrating. The exhibition was fab—”

  Her voice broke off as she took in the appearance of the man sitting in one of the armchairs, dressed in what she thought of as his “new life” clothes and with an expression on his face that sent a spear of alarm straight to her heart.

  His voice was cold. “How long did you plan to keep the truth about Parker from me?”

  She sank into a chair behind her, her legs suddenly unable to hold her upright a second longer. “I...I didn’t plan to keep it from you. I just couldn’t talk about it. I didn’t know where to begin, what to say...I still don’t.”

  He cocked one eyebrow. “Seriously? Even now you can lie to me, Olivia? Yesterday didn’t give you ample opportunity to fill me in? Hell, any time in the last nearly two months wasn’t enough time for you?”

  He stood, and she fought to find the words she should have said anytime before now. “Xander, please. Don’t go.”

  “A little too late to be saying that, don’t you think?” he replied, his voice as sharp as one of the chef’s knives in her kitchen.

  “I tried, Xander. Honestly, I wanted to tell you.”

  “But you didn’t. You packed our son’s entire life into boxes and shoved them in a dark corner. You already wiped Parker’s existence from our home and our lives once before—why wouldn’t you continue to do that given the opportunity? I don’t know you anymore, Olivia. Maybe I never did.”

  She pushed herself to her feet. Even though her legs trembled beneath her, she sifted through the shock that near paralyzed her to find something to say.

  “Didn’t you do exactly the same thing? Wipe Parker from our lives when you walked out that door, when you walked away from me?”

  “I left you because I couldn’t pretend that the past had never happened, like you did. It happened. I know it did, and I’ve regretted that day every conscious moment of my life since. You seemed to find it so easy to just pick up and carry on. As if Parker had never been born,” he accused.

  “I couldn’t hold on to the past.” Olivia clutched at her blouse as if doing so could ease the tightness deep in her chest. “It was killing me, Xander. But you couldn’t see that. Holding on to Parker’s memories, seeing the reminders of his life every single day? It was killing me inside, destroying me. I had to move forward or die. I had to put everything away, or I knew I’d end up being buried with him.”

  “Even at the price of our marriage? At the expense of us?” Xander shook his head. “And you say I did the same thing as you? I didn’t. I couldn’t. I loved our son with every breath in my body.”

  “So did I!” she shouted at him. “And I loved you. I still love you. That’s why I did what I did. I brought you home, and I hoped against hope that you wouldn’t remember because then we could forget the past and the hurt and the awful things we said to each other back then. We could be together, like we’re meant to be. The way we have been. But you, you’re running away again, just like you did last time. Why stand and face our problems when you can just walk away, right?”

  The bitterness in her words stained the air between them.

  “You have the gall to accuse me of running away? You didn’t want me anymore. You made that patently clear when Parker died. Sometimes I wonder if you ever loved me or if I just conveniently fit into the plan you had for your future. You certainly didn’t need me. It makes me wonder why you even bothered to lie to me all this time.”

  Her throat choked up—just like it had the last time he left her. Her words, her fears, all knotted into a tangled ball that lodged somewhere between her heart and her voice and made her too afraid to tell him how she really felt.

  Her words, when they came, were nothing but a stifled whisper. “I did it for us. For our marriage. It, no, we deserved a second chance, but you wouldn’t listen when I said the past didn’t matter. That it was our future that was important.”

  “I wouldn’t listen? You shut me out, Olivia. You shut me out from the truth. From our son’s memory, from our past. No!” He waved his hand in a short cutting motion in front of him. “You don’t get to do this again. You don’t get to make my decisions for me.”

  “What about our decisions, Xander? The decisions we should be making for us?” she pleaded.

  “Us? There is no us.”

  Outside, she heard a car pull up and the driver toot the horn. Xander bent and reached down for the bag she hadn’t seen standing there before. She recognized the suitcase immediately—after all, it hadn’t been that long ago she’d packed it herself.

  “Goodbye, Olivia. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer—and this time the divorce is going through.”

  He started to walk toward the door, and she followed him, her movements jerky as if she were some marionette being played by a demented puppet master.

  “Xander, please, don’t go. Don’t leave me,” she implored. “We’ve been happy together. Things have been good again since you’ve been home, and this is our home.”

  He kept walking. Olivia put on a burst of speed, passing him and getting to the door before him. She pressed her back to the solid wooden surface, barring him from dragging it open and walking away from her.

  “Think about how well we worked together with your rehab and how close we’ve become again. This is our chance to rebuild our lives. We made mistakes before—I know that. But we can work past them. Please don’t throw away this chance for us to make it all right again. To rebuild our marriage.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and physically steered her away from the door. She lacked the strength to fight him and just watched as he turned the brass knob and opened the door wide.

  “You’re good at this, you know,” she murmured, using the only weapon she had left. “Walking away. You blame me for lying, for withholding the truth from you, but you’re equally to blame for the way things fell apart. You always walk away instead of accepting or asking for help. You’re prepared to share your body, but y
ou’ve never shared your deepest feelings or your thoughts with me. Ever.

  “Please, Xander. I can be there for you. We can work through this. Let me help you come to terms with your grief. You say I put Parker’s life away into boxes, but you did exactly the same with your feelings. You stopped working at home and you spent every hour you could at work. We never talked. We never admitted how much we needed each other. Help me, Xander. Let me help you.”

  Xander shook his head again, his face a taut mask devoid of expression, his eyes cold. “You are the last person I will ever ask for help.”

  He stepped through the open door and out onto the porch. Past his shoulder, out on the street, Olivia saw Rachelle get out of the car and look toward the house. Xander raised a hand to Rachelle in acknowledgment and kept walking.

  Olivia stayed there, frozen in the entrance hall of her home, as she watched her husband walk away from her for the second time in their marriage. His parting words echoed in her mind. As the sound of Rachelle’s car driving away faded into the distance, Olivia slowly shut the door and rested her forehead against its surface.

  Every part of her body hurt from the inside out. She’d thought it was bad the last time he’d left her, but she’d still been so numb with losing Parker that she hadn’t had the capacity to think or to feel too much. But now—given all that had developed between them since he’d been back, given how much she still loved him—she hurt in ways she’d never dreamed possible.

  Where did this leave them, exactly? Wherever it was, she knew she didn’t like it. Hated it, in fact. Hated that once again she’d allowed the best thing that had ever happened to her to walk out that door.

  And still she loved him.

  Fifteen

  Xander sat in the car as Rachelle drove away from the house, his eyes fixed forward. Look to the future, he told himself, away from the past. Away from the hurt, the anger, the betrayal. Anger still simmered beneath the surface. At Olivia, at himself.

  “Did you want to stop somewhere for a meal or a drink?” Rachelle said as they entered the harbor bridge approach.

  “No,” he said abruptly. “Thanks,” he added. “Just to my place would be fine.”

  She nodded, but he sensed her disappointment. He remembered now that before his accident they’d become closer than two people who simply worked together. Friends still, not lovers. But they’d been heading in a more romantic direction. Although, when he’d been honest with himself, he’d found it impossible to engage his emotions to the extent he needed to in order to embark on an intimate relationship with someone. He knew she was a lot more invested in developing their relationship than he’d been. At least she’d never hidden that from him, not the way Olivia had hidden so much.

  His stomach tightened on an unexpectedly sharp pain. Why did it hurt so much to be leaving her again? He’d already done it once before—and now that he remembered why, he understood and agreed with the choice he’d made two years ago. This time shouldn’t have been any different, and yet it felt as if he was leaving a vital part of himself behind.

  Being a Friday night, traffic was quite heavy. The journey gave him far too much time to think and reflect. He was relieved when Rachelle pulled into the underground car park and drew to a halt in one of the parking spaces allocated to his apartment.

  She turned off the engine and twisted in her seat to face him. The smile on her face didn’t quite match the uncertainty he saw in her eyes.

  “Xander? Are you okay? Do you want me to come up with you?”

  “Look, thanks for the ride, but I’d prefer to be on my own right now.”

  Her smile faded. “You’re not angry with me, are you? I wanted to say something to you when I saw you and Olivia at the apartment, but she wouldn’t let me.”

  Xander sighed. He just bet Olivia didn’t let Rachelle say anything. “Of course I’m not angry with you,” he said and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay? At the office.”

  “You’ve been cleared to come back to work? That’s fabulous. We’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed you.”

  “Cleared or not, I’m coming back. Even if it’s only for a few hours a day. I need to get back to normal.” Whatever normal is now, he added silently. “Again, thanks for the ride. I appreciate you coming to get me at such short notice.”

  “Anytime, you just call me. I’m here for you. I could even get you some groceries now, if you like, and bring them back. It’s pretty empty up there right now.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “No, that’s fine. I’ll get some things delivered in.”

  “On the weekend?”

  “I’ll deal with it,” he said firmly and opened his door to get out of the car. “See you Monday.”

  She took the hint and nodded, but her disappointment was clear in her eyes. “Monday it is. Good night, Xander. I’m glad you’re back to your old self.”

  After she’d driven off, he took the elevator to his floor and let himself into his apartment. The soullessness of the space was just what he needed right now. He didn’t want memories or feelings or anything. Except maybe a shot of whisky. He walked over to the cabinet where he kept his liquor and grabbed a bottle of Scotland’s finest before going to the kitchen, where he splashed two fingers of amber liquid in a crystal tumbler.

  He walked over to the windows that looked out over the harbor and toward Devonport—toward Olivia—and took a sip of the spirit. It burned as it went down, not the deep satisfying burn he’d anticipated but something far less pleasant. Xander looked down at the glass in his hand and wondered what the hell he was doing seeking solace in alcohol. He’d never done it before, and he certainly shouldn’t be starting now.

  He strode to the kitchen and tipped out the contents of the tumbler into the sink. He needed a distraction, but whisky wasn’t it. He stared at the large flat-screen TV mounted on the far wall of his sitting room. No, not even watching a movie or channel surfing appealed. Instead, Xander walked down the hallway toward his bedroom, stopping at the door to his office.

  His hand was on the handle before he realized what he was doing. Work had always been a panacea for him—why should that be any different now? He should still have some client notes here he could go over. He rued the fact his laptop had been destroyed in the crash. Not even its leather case had protected its harddrive from the impact. If he’d had the laptop, at least he could have looked forward to losing himself for a few hours by updating himself on his files and who had handled what in his absence.

  The minute Xander stepped in his office he knew Olivia had been in there. The picture of Parker that he’d taken with him the first time he’d left her wasn’t on his desk where he knew he’d left it. A roll of rage swelled inside him. Wiping their son’s memory from their house had been one thing, but tampering with his apartment, as well? That was going too far.

  He searched the office for the picture, his movements becoming more frantic the longer it took him to find it. The relief that coursed through his body when he found the frame, face down in a drawer, was enough to make him drop heavily into his chair. He looked at the beloved face of his only child. Felt anew the loss and grief that he usually kept locked inside. Relived the guilt.

  Carefully he put the picture back on his desk where it belonged and stared at it for several minutes. Losing Parker was a reminder that he couldn’t stray from the path he’d set himself. He didn’t want to love again the way he’d loved Olivia and their little boy because when it all fell apart it hurt far too much.

  He understood why his father had collapsed within himself the way he had. His grief and guilt over Xander’s brother’s death had been too much for him to handle, especially with the way Xander’s mother had locked herself in a non-emotional cocoon and forged her way through the rest of her life. He hadn’t had the support he needed. After losing his
son and his marriage, Xander hadn’t had any support to lean on, either. But he was tougher, more determined not to become a victim of his own dreadful mistake, and if that meant separating himself from emotion—the way his mother had—then that’s what he would do.

  * * *

  It had been the longest two weeks of her life and Olivia felt decidedly ragged around the edges when she forced herself to get out of bed and embark on her new daily routine. Who was she kidding, she wondered as she padded downstairs in her dressing gown, her hair askew and her face unwashed. This tired, halfhearted attempt to continue on as though everything was normal was a step back into the past, hardly anything new.

  The house felt empty without Xander there, and her heart echoed with loss. She’d spent the past fourteen days listlessly wandering around, feeling unmotivated and empty. Even a call from the gallery owner to say they’d just sold the last piece and had requests lining up for more of her work couldn’t lift her spirits.

  She’d screwed up. Again. So what now? She aimlessly went through the motions of making coffee and pouring it into a mug. As she lifted the brew to her lips to take a sip, the aroma filled her nostrils and turned her stomach. She’d been off and on different things for days now, and coffee was just another to add to the list. With a sigh she tipped the contents down the drain and turned instead to put the kettle on. Maybe a cup of peppermint tea would revive her flagging appetite.

  As she pulled a teabag from the box in the pantry she forced herself to acknowledge that it would take more than a cup of herbal tea to make things better. There was only one thing—one man—who could make a difference in her life. The only one who had ever mattered. Xander.

  She’d just finished brewing the tea when the phone rang. She recognized the number on the caller display with a sinking sensation that pulled at her stomach. Her lawyer wasted no time on pleasantries.

  “Mrs. Jackson, we’ve been instructed by your husband’s lawyers to expedite matters relating to your dissolution of marriage. Do you need us to forward new forms to you, or do you still have the ones we originally sent?”