The Saint's Wife

by Lauren Gallagher

  David couldn’t hold her gaze and looked at the books again. Then he straightened a bit. “You’ve been working on this awhile.”

  “Yes. I started a year or so before I came down here.”

  “So you…” He faced her again. “You started this before the cancer came back?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “And if the cancer hadn’t come back?”

  Joanna studied him. “Are you trying to get me to admit that I started this degree so I could leave him when I finished it?”

  David shifted his weight and, after a moment, nodded.

  “You’re right.” She shrugged, the gesture somehow managing to be tense and indifferent at the same time. “Once I graduated and found a job…” She set her shoulders back. “Yes, I was going to leave him.”

  Fury twisted in David’s stomach.

  Before he could speak, though, she said, “The blunt truth is that I wanted to leave Chris a few years ago, before the cancer hit the first time. But I couldn’t for a few reasons, and one of those was because I didn’t know what to do on my own. I haven’t had a job since high school.” She clenched her jaw. “The second time he got sick, I took a long, hard look at who I was and what I was doing, and realized I had nothing. Nothing but Chris’s house, Chris’s money, Chris’s—”

  “Chris,” he snapped. “You had Chris.”

  “Yes, I did. But I have no identity beyond him, and I’m miserable with him.” She looked at the desk, then shook her head. “I really don’t know why I thought this would work.” She gestured at the books and papers. “There was…there was no point.” She met his gaze again. “The thing is, even if I hadn’t done this, I couldn’t have left him, because ever since he got sick, he’s been a saint in everyone’s eyes. Chris McQuaid can do no wrong, and where does that leave me?”

  David swallowed. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, seriously regretting his lack of gum right then. “Look, it’s not my place to tell you one way or the other if you should’ve divorced him, but the fact is, he’s sick now. He’s dying, Joanna.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Her voice faltered slightly, but her gaze stayed locked on his. “David, you’re in no position to ask me to come home, because you obviously don’t understand what you’re asking me to go home to.” Her eyes narrowed. “And if you do know, and you’re still asking me, then you can go fuck yourself.”

  David jerked, the words catching him off guard. “He needs you. When this is all over, then think about what you need. Because thanks to him, you’ll have that luxury. But right now, he’s still alive, and he doesn’t have much time left. You’re so caught up in figuring out what you’re going to do after he’s gone, you can’t even think about him enough to be there until he is gone. Is it really too much to ask for you to be his wife until this is over? I mean, didn’t your vows include something about ‘in sickness and in health’?”

  “Yes, they did,” she snarled. “And there was also something in there about loving and cherishing, so excuse me if I’m not the only guilty party when it comes to breaking my vows.”

  “You really want to point fingers right now? Jesus Christ, Joanna. That man loves you. He has given you everything you could ever want. And this—”

  “Oh, has he?” She stepped closer, glaring up at him as she spoke through clenched teeth. “And what would that be, David?”

  He blinked, staring back at her.

  She cocked her head. “Well? What has he given me that’s everything I could ever want? A huge house that I’m not allowed to leave? A complex about my body because God forbid any wife of his has any fucking meat on her bones?” She threw up her hands. “Tell me. What has he given me?”

  “Besides a life most women would kill for?”

  “Yes! Besides that. Because his money and his material shit? I couldn’t care less about any of it. I married him because I was in love with him, not with his things.”

  “Yeah, and for some inexplicable reason, that man is still in love with you.” David struggled to keep his voice even. “He has given you everything. He’s a damned good man, and he is dying. The only thing he wants right now, short of a miracle cure, is for his wife to be there with him.”

  “Then maybe he should have thought of that before—”

  “Jesus Christ, Joanna.” He gestured sharply. “He’s not asking for the world here. Whatever mistakes he’s made can’t be changed now, but in a few months, he’s going to be dead.” He showed his palms. “You know, he said before I left that he wasn’t sure which would take a bigger miracle—curing his cancer, or bringing back his wife. Now I understand what he meant.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. Fuck it. He tried. Another moment of this, and he’d say something he couldn’t take back.

  He was halfway down the hall when she said, “David.”

  He stopped and turned around.

  Joanna’s back was to him, but she’d turned her head, and the amber light from the room’s small lamp backlit her, creating a distinctive silhouette out of her sharp features.

  “Tell Chris I’ll be home tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Joanna e-mailed her professors and her advisor, explaining that her husband was seriously ill, and that she might have to put her studies on hold temporarily.

  Then she packed her laptop and set it in the passenger seat of her car. The backseat and trunk were loaded down with the suitcases she’d been living out of all this time. She’d packed those last night before collapsing for a few hours of restless sleep, and now…now it was time to go.

  She didn’t look in the rearview as she drove away from the cabin. She just gripped the wheel for dear life, stared straight ahead and followed the familiar roads on autopilot. When she turned onto the highway that would take her north to Astoria, and from there to the bridge from Oregon into Washington, her stomach threatened to turn inside out. She hadn’t been this queasy since the first time a doctor had walked her and Chris through options, risks and prognoses.

  More than once, she debated turning around, but as much as she hated to admit it, David was right. No matter how broken her marriage was, she had made those sacred vows to Chris, and as long as the marriage existed on paper, she needed to stick to them. She should’ve divorced him when she had the chance, but that window had closed.

  Till death do we part, it is.

  She could’ve sworn Highway 101 was longer. That the stretch between Tillamook and Astoria was at least thirty or forty minutes more, and that it was at least another hour along Highway 30 to the bridge. But before she knew it, Astoria had long since disappeared in the rearview, and she was cresting the massive bridge over the Columbia from Oregon into the town of Longview.

  At the crest of the high bridge, the sign made her heart sink:

  Welcome to Washington.

  Acid crawled up her throat.

  From Longview, the highway took her to I-5. I-5 took her north at way too many miles per hour. Every time she passed a milepost, the sick feeling in her stomach grew. In Olympia, still a couple of hours south of Seattle, she stopped for lunch. She wasn’t hungry at all, but damn, she needed to get out of the car for a few minutes. Even if it was just delaying the inevitable, it needed to be done.

  In the corner booth of a chain family restaurant, she stared down a burger and fries. It wasn’t the kind of thing she usually ate, just something she liked to have once in a while because sometimes a greasy cheeseburger and steak fries were exactly what the doctor ordered. Especially when she knew it would be the last time she could get away with eating something like this guilt free.

  “I’m already paying for Kevin to train you three times a week.” Chris’s voice echoed inside her head, and she could almost see a specter of him eyeing her from across the table. That look, that smirk, that head tilt—tha
t certainty she’d be hearing about this cheeseburger the next time a dress fit a little too snugly before some charity event she was required to attend.

  She eyed the burger. Part of her wanted to inhale the fucking thing and order that six-layer chocolate cake just for spite. Part of her was pretty sure if she took more than a few bites while her stomach was this queasy, she’d regret it. Even if it didn’t come back up, she’d regret it when she was face-to-face with Chris. The man was like a bloodhound when it came to busting her for eating anything she shouldn’t.

  Goddammit. And David had the nerve to wonder why she didn’t want to go back. She’d never really had to work hard to keep a reasonably slim figure, and food had never been an emotional thing with her. She ate when she was hungry, balanced the good stuff with the bad stuff, and didn’t think much of it. Fifteen years and an eating disorder later, every meal was a battle. A slice of pizza was an act of rebellion. An undressed salad, an act of contrition.

  And the gym. God. Fuck the gym. That had been a pleasant diversion for a long time. A way to blow off steam. A punishing workout left her feeling good and invigorated. Now she just felt…punished.

  She paid the bill and left her barely touched meal behind. Wasting food didn’t help the torrent of emotions threatening to turn her inside out, but that little bit of guilt was just a drop in the bucket.

  One more drop in a very, very full bucket.

  Joanna had left only a few months ago, but it felt like years since she’d been gone. The familiar buildings lining the freeways through Renton and Bellevue, two cities on the east side of Lake Washington, seemed like something out of a dream or a guidebook—places she’d seen, but not up close and personal. Something that hadn’t been real up until this moment.

  It was certainly real now, though. Especially now that she was taking the exit to Kirkland, the upper Eastside city where she and Chris had made their home. A few streets before the turnoff into the gated community, she pulled into the parking lot of a gas station and touched up her makeup. She let her ponytail down and ran a brush through her hair. Once she was presentable, she continued on her way.

  She entered her code at the gate. For a second, she was surprised it worked, but then realized, of course it did. Chris was hardly going to change the code or the locks. That would only give her a reason to not come back.

  The wrought-iron gate swung open, and she rolled forward, following the wide strip of asphalt from the upscale development onto their property. A thick blanket of pine needles crunched beneath her tires as she followed the driveway up the hill. There must have been some wind last night. Or even this morning. The needles on the ground couldn’t have been there long—Chris wouldn’t have stood for it. No doubt the landscapers would be out here soon with brooms and rakes. She’d have to keep an eye out for them and make sure she brought them coffee.

  The driveway wound through the trees, and then, just like that, she was in front of the enormous house. They’d lived in this place for nearly a decade, and it never had felt like home. That feeling definitely hadn’t changed. Gazing up at the immense stucco structure up against a backdrop of evergreens, she may as well have been pulling up to a stranger’s house to deliver a pizza like she’d done a lifetime ago.

  When they’d first moved into this place, she’d thought it was too big. Far too empty, far too much space. The farther she and Chris had drifted apart, the more grateful she was for the cavernous rooms and long hallways. The one-bedroom apartment they’d shared when they were dating would never have contained the cold and rapidly expanding distance between them.

  In the driveway, Joanna stopped, letting the engine idle while the garage door opened. She gazed up at the house, eyeing it like some nervous adventurer who’d come to spend a night in a haunted mansion. Except she was the ghost this time. The restless spirit who kept trying to leave and kept being pulled back by forces she couldn’t overcome.

  Joanna shook herself. No need to go down that mental road.

  She parked in the five-car garage between Chris’s Land Rover and his Ferrari. An invisible little imp on her shoulder suggested opening her door hard and putting a massive ding in the door of the Ferrari—of course she’d never do it, but the thought amused her enough to make her laugh, if halfheartedly.

  She got out of the car and slung her laptop case over her shoulder but left everything else in the car. The house and the man inside it would be easier to face without trying to wrangle a bunch of awkward, moderately heavy suitcases at the same time.

  And what a surprise—when she stepped into the kitchen, he was right there waiting for her. He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer, arms folded and shoulder pressed against the doorframe. His lip curled a little as he said, “Long time, no see.”

  His voice sent a shiver down her spine. She tried not to read too much into the comment. There wasn’t really an undertone of it’s about fucking time. The triumphant but unspoken I knew you’d come back eventually was just her imagination.

  He looked well enough. He’d lost some weight, especially in his face, but his blond hair was still thick and his eyes were still clear. Nothing about him gave away the presence of the microscopic cells that would, little by little, shut his body down and eventually kill him.

  Joanna set her laptop case on a chair. “How are you doing?”

  “How much did David tell you?” With a dry laugh, he added, “Besides enough to convince you to come home.”

  “I meant how are you feeling?” she asked quietly.

  He shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

  Right. Because that said a lot.

  She shifted her weight, struggling to hold eye contact with him. “What’s the treatment plan?”

  He studied her, and she didn’t bother trying to read into his expression. If he wanted to nonverbally condescend to her, or silently and sarcastically ask if she actually cared, that didn’t mean she had to absorb it. She was too damned exhausted to deflect or even care about his unspoken criticism.

  Finally, he said, “There aren’t a lot of options at this stage.”

  Stage four. The last stage before he exited stage left.

  Her throat constricted. This was real, wasn’t it? “What…what are the options?”

  He shrugged again, and it was a taut gesture this time. “Surgery. Again. More immunotherapy and maybe some chemo.”

  “Do they…” She bit her lip. “How optimistic are they that those will help?”

  “It’s not going away.” His voice edged toward a low growl.

  “I know. But…” Joanna swallowed. “Do they think the treatments will help enough to be worthwhile?”

  “I wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t.”

  His lips were thin and tight, his eyebrows pulling together over slightly narrowed eyes. The unspoken you would know all of this if you’d been here came across loud and clear.

  Joanna dropped her gaze and reached for her laptop. “They said before that chemo didn’t do much for that type of cancer.”

  Chris flinched, and Joanna cringed, instantly regretting the seemingly benign choice of words. She’d forgotten how much it stung him to even hear the name of the disease. Calling it by its name was like mentioning an ex-girlfriend whose memory still hurt. A kick in the balls when he wasn’t strong enough to take it.

  She absently ran her thumb along the laptop case’s shoulder strap. “How much do the doctors think it’ll help?”

  He gave a tight shrug. “It’s hard to say.”

  Silence fell, and they locked eyes across the expansive kitchen.

  His lips thinned. “Well, it’s good to see you.” With a humorless laugh, he added, “I wondered if something like this would be enough to finally bring you home.”

  She bit down on a snide remark and forced herself to speak calmly. “I’m going to go settle in.”

 
“All right.” He looked her up and down, and his lip curled slightly. “I assume you’ll be back to your gym regimen now that you’re home?”

  Jesus, Chris. Already?

  Joanna gritted her teeth. “Apparently I will.”

  The curled lip became a “that’s a good girl” smile. “I’ll call Kevin this afternoon.” He gestured down the hall. “Everything is right where you left it. The housekeeper cleaned everything in the gym this morning.”

  Of course she did.

  Chris shifted a little. “One more thing.”

  Joanna raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m holding a press conference tomorrow,” he said. “To make the formal announcement to the shareholders and the media. I’d appreciate it if you would join me.”

  After fifteen years, she knew damn well that “I’d appreciate it if…” meant you’ll be there unless you want to hear about it for a while.

  “Of course.” She gestured back toward the garage. “I’m, uh, going to get my things out of the car.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Where will you be staying?”

  “I had…” Joanna hesitated. “I think one of the guest rooms will be—”

  “Jo.” Sighing, he pushed himself off the doorframe and started toward her. “There’s no telling how much of a normal life I have left.” He stopped in front of her and put his hands on her waist. “I’d like to spend what little I have with my wife.”

  She stiffened. “One thing at a time.”

  “There isn’t much time.” The resignation in his tone gave her goose bumps. He’d insisted from day one that this thing would never kill him, and even during those periods when no one believed he’d pull through, he’d refused to believe he’d succumb. This was the first time she’d heard him not only admit he was going to die, but that it would be sooner rather than later.