But today, she didn’t have the headspace for it. She felt guilty about thinking she had any right to check out and escape from everything going on in order to focus on something as trivial as the feathers on the bird she’d been working on for the past two weeks.
Studying, then. That at least had a purpose. Though her professors were willing to accommodate her situation, the textbooks stacked beside her work table were calling to her. Might as well get at least a little bit of studying done.
She pulled one of the books off the stack and took a seat. She opened her textbook to the chapter she’d been studying when David had come to Tillamook, but the words on the page didn’t make sense. After ten minutes of trying to comprehend a single page, she shut the book and pushed it away.
Working on some leather didn’t sound appealing. Going down to the gym? Forget it. She could barely move after overdoing it yesterday.
Her gaze drifted toward the manila folder Chris had given her. Immediately, her stomach felt sick—if she couldn’t deal with a hobby or studying, there was no way she was in any state of mind to cope with…that.
The reality of it. The finality. The legalese. The guilt about having been gone for so long, refusing to return until things like palliative care and funeral options might very well need to be addressed in the same time frame as her next oil change.
Joanna’s shoulders sagged. She never should have left. If she had stayed, and grown a damned spine, maybe she and Chris could have patched things up enough to end their marriage on a civil note. Maybe they could have at least walked away without anyone getting hurt more than they already had.
Maybe, if they’d had time.
But she’d run off like a coward.
No. No, she hadn’t run off. She’d been trying to get her ducks in a row so she could leave. So she wouldn’t have to come crawling back to him for money. So she could walk away and stay away.
But there hadn’t been enough time. And now she was here until the bitter end whether she liked it or not. Whether she liked him or not.
“Goddammit,” she muttered into the stillness.
Everyone always said to live like today was your last day on earth, and not to hold grudges and drag out fights, because you just never knew when someone might be gone.
No one ever talked about how to live like this. Her sister was the only one left who could still see Chris for what he was—even the people who’d sympathized with Joanna behind closed doors had changed their tunes the second he was diagnosed. Of course, most of them stayed away. It was easy to talk about how wonderful he was and what a tragedy it was when they were a thousand miles away or only had to tolerate him in small doses.
Joanna’s thought made her cringe. The fact that it was true didn’t make it any kinder to think. The knowledge that Chris would be gone sooner than later only made it worse. She wanted everything resolved, wanted to settle things so she could move on, but she couldn’t saddle him with more stress and worry right now. And she couldn’t leave him. Not when he was this sick. One attempted conversation could turn into a screaming match and send her to her sister’s house for the night, and that could be the night he took a sudden turn for the worse.
And it wasn’t like she wanted him to die. On some level, she still loved him. She dreaded his final days because she hated seeing him suffer, and his doctors had—during a period in which they thought his days were numbered last time around—gently warned her that there was only so much the drugs could do to make him comfortable. There were lucky exceptions, but for the most part, cancer patients didn’t go gently into the night.
Joanna leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. This was going to be hell. If her marriage were a happy one, it’d be an entirely different kind of hell, but still…hell. And whether she liked it or not, whether their marriage had long ago crumbled, she was in this until the end. The bitter, spiteful end, when relief had to be hidden beneath a mask of mourning, when she had to smile through tears and thank people for their condolences even though they knew. They knew what he was, what he’d done, how he’d treated her.
But he was dying.
And she was married to him.
And she…
Damn it, Joanna. She should’ve dropped the hammer and divorced him, even if it meant living with her parents until she could earn her own way. Though she couldn’t have known for certain when or if, there’d always been the very real possibility of the cancer coming back, and if it did, his odds of survival wouldn’t be good. And it had, and they weren’t, and she’d stupidly not used the time she’d had before to resolve—or end—all the shit between them…
She couldn’t fix what was wrong between them any more than she could talk his cancer out of existence. Chris was going to die. He had weeks, maybe months, and she’d have God knew how many years of regret, grief and wishing that just once, someone had understood that she wasn’t just hurting because her husband was dying. She was grieving the man he’d been back then, and the marriage they should have had over the last fifteen years instead of the quiet hell she’d had to smile through all this time.
All she could do now was wait. Keep smiling through everything. Keep graciously accepting condolences, never letting on that she was tired of picking eggshells out of her feet. Keep pretending her husband was the saint everyone believed he was. Keep feeling like a terrible person for wishing this would just be over—she didn’t want Chris to die, but this was going to kill her too.
Finally, she gave up.
She buried her face in her hands, stopped fighting and let herself cry.
Chapter Seven
For the first couple of weeks after Joanna came home, David didn’t see much of her. Fleeting glimpses now and then when he was at the house, but lately, he and Chris had been spending more time at the downtown office. An act of Congress couldn’t get her to walk into that building.
Tonight, though, Chris was hosting a massive charity gala in support of renal cancer research, and naturally, Joanna was there.
The second she walked in, David’s heart jumped.
Oh my God.
Apparently Chris hadn’t been kidding when he’d proudly said Joanna’s personal trainer was working with her five days a week now. Since the last time David had seen her, she’d lost weight. The muscles in her bare arms were more pronounced than before, but the shimmery blue material of her dress clung to a waist that didn’t need to be that slim. The overhead lights cast shadows that dug deep into the grooves above and below her collarbones. Her cheekbones seemed sharper now—her face wasn’t quite gaunt but definitely thin.
Though David was no expert, he was pretty sure even a hardcore workout regime couldn’t take that much weight off someone who was already that slender. Maybe Chris also hadn’t been joking about looking into “alternatives” for her.
She looked too thin, and she didn’t look happy. Not that she ever did at these events. She hated them, and it showed. Well, not when anyone was looking. She was an Oscar-worthy actress when she was on display in the spotlight. The posture, the smile, the demure hand around Chris’s elbow.
But every now and then, when the world’s attention was elsewhere and she must’ve thought no one was looking, the veil lifted.
A tired sigh. Shoulders slumping under an invisible weight. A pause—inhaling slowly, eyes closed—before she shook herself and returned to her usual poise, as if she needed just a second to talk herself into continuing.
He’d always thought she was stuck-up and full of herself, but tonight…he wondered. She seemed on the verge of cracking. Crumbling. Breaking down right there at the table.
Had she always been like this at charity events? He could’ve sworn she’d been annoyed and impatient before. Not this.
Chris insisted on bringing her to all of these events, but now that David paid attention, he realized Chris rarely engaged her. In fact,
the more he watched, the more he saw that Joanna was like Chris’s gold Rolex. She was there, and visible when he wanted her to be. An impressive piece of bling that didn’t need to be acknowledged, only noticed for what she was—a status symbol. A trophy wife in the truest sense.
The most unsettling thing? All through dinner, David didn’t see Joanna put more than three bites into her mouth. The food wasn’t even that bad this time.
As the waiters came by to collect plates before the final course came around, Joanna set her napkin on the table. She inched her chair back, then leaned over to Chris and said something. He waved a hand slightly, seeming to not only dismiss her from the table but dismiss the fact that she’d even spoken.
David’s stomach turned to lead as he watched Joanna walk out of the ballroom. Chris still didn’t even seem to notice she was gone—or that she’d been there to begin with—but David was concerned.
He waited a minute or so, then excused himself from the conversation, feigning a need to take a call, and stepped out.
The hallway was empty except for a few waiters scurrying in and out of the other doors. Damn. She might’ve gone outside for some air. Maybe the ladies’ room? To the bar in the hotel lobby?
He was about to go check the bar when the ladies’ room door opened.
As Joanna stepped out, she glanced at him, then did a double take and stopped. After a second, her expression hardened, and she offered the ghost of a nod to acknowledge him. “David.”
“Hey. I, um… How are you doing?”
She eyed him warily. “Why do you care?”
“You’re my best friend’s wife. With everything you two are going through, it’s bound to take a toll.” He shrugged. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” she said through her teeth, and as she turned to go, added over her shoulder, “I’m sure my husband would be happy to keep you updated about how I feel.”
“I do care about you, Joanna.”
She stopped in her tracks and slowly faced him. “What?”
“Look.” He shifted his weight. “We don’t see eye to eye. Never have, never will. But…I mean, you’re…” He paused, struggling to hold her gaze. “Chris’s illness, it’s hard on all of us, but you’re his wife. I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”
“You’re right,” she said coldly. “You can’t.”
He blinked. “I do care, though.”
“About me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Or about keeping His Majesty happy?”
“You. For God’s sake, I—”
“Save it.” She glared at him. “If you cared about me, you would have left me in Tillamook.”
“Would you really have stayed there? While Chris was…” He swallowed.
Joanna’s eyes lost focus for a moment. Then she met his again, and nodded. “Yes. I would have.”
Anger tightened his throat. “You’d really—”
“David.” She put up a hand. “Please. I know you care about Chris. Believe it or not, so do I. But you have no idea what my life is like. And as long as you think I should just suck it up and take whatever he”—she stabbed a finger toward the door—“dishes out, then forgive me if I have trouble believing that you care about me any more than you care about one of his cars or that goddamned yacht.”
He wanted to snap back that Chris was dying, for God’s sake, that this was her husband and his best friend she was talking about, but then he noticed the way the light was playing on her way-too-thin cheeks and her way-too-prominent collarbones.
David chewed his lip. “Is there…is there anything I can do?”
She jumped a little, as if she’d been expecting a very different response. And maybe she was. She recovered quickly, though, and set her jaw. “Yes, actually there is something you can do.”
“Name it.”
“If I ever manage to work up the courage to leave him again?” She took a step toward the ballroom door. “Don’t try to stop me.”
And with that, she was gone.
By the time Saturday rolled around, David still hadn’t shaken off his thoughts about Joanna. Several times, while they’d been working in either Chris’s home office or the downtown one, he’d been tempted to ask if things were getting better between the couple. Pick Chris’s brain a little, look for the red flags, try to put his finger on what was fucked up between them. And whether it was a new development, or if it had been that way all along and he’d completely missed it. He was curious and concerned, but they’d been too busy to talk about anything personal.
And this weekend, David had other things to concentrate on.
At just a little past nine in the morning, he pulled up in front of his ex-wife’s house. On the way up to the front door, he couldn’t help smiling, and that smile got even bigger when he heard “Daddy’s here!” from the other side.
His ex-wife opened the door, and Tiffany, his four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, exploded through it. “Hi, Daddy!”
“Hey, kiddo!” He scooped her up and hugged her. “How’s my favorite little girl?”
She giggled. “Good.”
“Good.” He kissed her cheek, and then set her down. “You ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?” Alexandra asked. “I think you still needed to pack your bag.”
Tiffany’s smile vanished in favor of a sheepish expression, and her cheeks glowed red.
“Why don’t you go finish packing?” David gently nudged her, and she quickly turned and trotted down the hall.
Leaving David alone.
With Alexandra.
They followed her to her room. Alexandra had stacked some folded clothes on the bed, and Tiffany carefully started putting them into her Dora the Explorer backpack. Though she was not yet five, she insisted on packing her own things. She’d definitely inherited her mother’s independence.
While she packed, David and Alexandra stood in the doorway. They exchanged glances but didn’t speak. David hated to admit to himself that that had become normal. At least the slightly frosty silence was better than the bitter sniping they’d done when they’d first split up. Especially since Tiffany was getting old enough to notice these things, and they owed her better than that.
He cleared his throat. “So, um. Has she been to the zoo recently?”
Alexandra shook her head.
“There’s a new exhibit,” he said. “They just added a couple of…some new cat.” Nodding toward Tiffany, he added, “I thought I’d take her to see it.”
Alexandra smiled a little, which was nice to see once in a while. “She’ll enjoy that.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.” He paused, hesitating. “Listen, uh, before I go…”
Alexandra shifted impatiently. “I have to take off, David. I can’t—”
“Just a quick question.” He swallowed. “What do you make of Joanna?”
His ex-wife jumped. “What…what do you mean?”
“I mean…” He sighed. “The thing is, ever since she came back from Oregon, she’s just seemed…off.”
“She’s always seemed off,” Alexandra said, an oddly bitter edge to her voice. “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to bitch slap her on Chris’s behalf.”
David’s eyes widened. That was so not like Alexandra. “Really?”
“Well, yeah.” Alexandra folded her arms loosely. “But, I mean, I can kind of see where she’s coming from.”
“How so?”
She studied him, her eyebrow arching slightly. “Do you pay attention to anything?”
He bristled. “Humor me.”
She didn’t speak right away, and he was about to suggest letting it go, but then she took a deep breath. “When was the last time you saw Joanna with a friend? And I don’t mean the wife of one of Chris’s colleagues. I mean someone she spends tim
e with on her own.”
“I don’t…I don’t really watch her that closely.”
“Well, I’ll give you a hint.” Alexandra shifted, tightening her arms across her chest. “She doesn’t have any. And the reason for that is Chris.”
“What? How do you figure?”
His ex-wife rolled her eyes. “Chris suffocates her. I mean, I thought she was just antisocial or way too clingy to him. But, I mean, watch them when they’re together. He’s the one with the death grip on her, not the other way around.”
David gnawed the inside of his cheek and avoided her gaze, instead watching Tiffany hunt for one of her shoes.
“And she’s…” Alexandra hesitated.
He turned to her. “What?”
“Look, I know you and Chris are close, and you and I…aren’t.”
David winced. Three years, and that still hurt.
“I don’t want to sit here and rip on your best friend and my ex-boss.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “To be honest, I’m concerned about her.”
Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. “You’re concerned? About her? That’s a first.”
He glared at her.
“Okay, okay.” She exhaled. “Look, Chris told me…a lot of things. I mean, you spend that much time with someone…” Her cheeks colored slightly, and she stared at the carpet between them.
“Go on.”
She lifted her gaze, and her eyes flicked toward Tiffany. Shifting uncomfortably, she turned toward David. “One of the biggest things that’s driven them apart is they blame each other because they never had children.”
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