Cupid’s Confederates

by Jennifer Greene

  “There is no crime in wanting a few minutes alone.”

  “You’re angry.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “As hell.”

  “At…me.”

  “At you.”

  She set down the glass, thinking of all the times they’d bickered. Zach was darn close to a bastard when he had a cold; she was impossible to live with about the third day into a snow-in. That was bickering. This was something else. If on rare occasions Zach had turned icy before, that was like the cube versus the berg this time. And she didn’t have the least idea what was wrong.

  Zach picked up a pencil from the desk, weighing the thing in his hands, and then started idly flipping it over, eraser tip to lead, then lead tip to eraser. “It’s way past time you called it off,” he said flatly.

  She waited. If that was supposed to mean something, she most definitely didn’t understand what.

  “I’m the one who asked your mother here. She always did strike me as a little off the wall. In a nice way. Whatever. Maybe I didn’t really understand how nerve-racking she’d be day by day, but I thought I could handle it.” His eyes suddenly met hers, hard and flat. “And over time, I discovered that I can handle it. She drives me absolutely nuts, but I love her, too. And if I hadn’t given a damn about her, I would have found a way to deal with her. For your sake,” he said quietly. “Only, Bett, you’re undermining both of us, and I’m furious.”

  She opened her mouth, but he didn’t give her a chance to say anything.

  “You’re the one who’s always had trouble with her, Bett. I know you as wife and lover, not as daughter. That whole scene of daughter makes you unhappy, guilty, unsure-I don’t know what you want to call it. Sometime or other you had to work out those feelings. This seemed like a good time. She needed you, and you wanted to be there for her-fine. Because even if every chip was down, I was there to help. I thought we’d deal with it together.”

  “I thought that’s what we’ve been doing,” Bett said softly. “I don’t understand, Zach. That’s exactly what’s been happening-we talked. If you don’t think I appreciate what you-”

  “To hell with that.” Zach lurched out of his chair, tossed the pencil on the desk, jammed his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the bookcase in the shadows. “I walked into this house tonight and didn’t even recognize the place. It isn’t home. It isn’t my house. It isn’t the place you and I put together anymore. And while Liz may be the one who made the changes, she’s made them with your consent.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Bett said defensively. “You were the one who asked her here. She could hardly come and stay for any period of time without leaving her things around-”

  “If we had a child,” Zach interrupted flatly, “I expect the house would be total chaos. Diapers and interrupted love scenes and bottles and crying and dinner at odd hours. I keep thinking about that. Of how I would be bothered by that. But the truth is, two bits, I wouldn’t be bothered by it at all.”

  His head was certainly going faster than hers; she didn’t understand the connection. “I don’t know what you’re-”

  “It wouldn’t bother me, because chaos doesn’t bother me, just like odd dinner hours don’t bother me. I can live with an awful lot as long as you’re happy. Only you’re not happy. Your pewter’s been banished to the study and plastic flowers have taken over the living room. I’ll laugh if you will-but I haven’t seen you laughing. Bett, she isn’t sick. She isn’t still grieving the way she was. You’ve had me to back you up, to support you, and you know it. So why the hell are we living in Elizabeth’s house?”

  Bett uncoiled from the couch, stiff and hurting and suddenly furious at his even tone. She hadn’t been prepared for knife wounds this evening. She thought fleetingly that she could be married for a million years and never be prepared for a hurt deliberately delivered by her mate. “Come on. You think that’s fair?” she protested. “If our lifestyle’s changed, it’s because you invited her here. All I’ve been doing is the best I know how to-”

  “You haven’t done a damn thing but let it happen,” he said flatly. “You know exactly what we value as a couple, what we need as lovers, what the two of us are all about. And it’s really as simple as the lock on the bedroom door that doesn’t exist-but you bought that lock, didn’t you, Bett? It’s in the top drawer of the dresser.”

  She swallowed, folding her arms stiffly across her chest. “I could hardly put it on. I knew just how hurt she’d be if she saw it, how horribly embarrassed at the thought that she’d been interrupting-”

  “Right. A lock wasn’t the answer. Telling her to handle her own insomnia was. I tried once-and failed. Your mother has a disarming way of being manipulative. But I didn’t try again, because the fact is, two bits, it was your job. She’s your mother. And you’re the one who needs to deal with her.”

  He was very still, half in shadow, half in light. Waiting. For what? she thought furiously. “What did you want me to tell her, to stay out because we wanted to make love?”

  “Yes.”

  “Zach, that’s ridiculous,” Bett hissed.

  “No,” he said quietly. “It would just be hard. And that isn’t the same thing as ridiculous at all. What you and I have built together-you have to stand up for it sometime. Now, if you want me to put it all back in order, I will-so fast it’ll make your head spin. This is not your mother’s house. It’s yours. I can do it for you, Bett, but somehow I never thought I’d have to. Do the two of us mean something to you?”

  Tears burned in her eyes. “Of course we do,” she said in a low voice. “How could you even ask that? Zach, if you’re demanding that I make her leave-”

  He shook his head. “You’re not hearing me at all, honey. I don’t give a damn if your mother leaves or stays. I’m talking about you and me.” He straightened, staring at her. “You’d better think it out,” he said flatly. “Soon.”

  He walked past her, and a moment later she heard the thudding sound of his footsteps on the stairs. She couldn’t seem to look away from the blank, empty doorway. The tears dried in her eyes, leaving a salty aftersting. She felt cold. Her fingers curled around her upper arms, rubbing up and down. Zach? So cruel? You haven’t done a thing but let it all happen. Did he think it had all been so easy on her? How unfair could one man be?

  Her head ached, and an odd tremor disturbed the even beat of her heart. Fear. Never in the five years of her marriage had she ever considered that Zach might leave her. He hadn’t threatened to leave her now, but it was there, suddenly, the reminder that love wasn’t carved in stone and never came with a guarantee.

  Déjà vu: She could remember exactly that tremorous heartbeat from when she’d first fallen in love with him. An incredible elation when she was with him, followed seconds later by depression at the thought that she could lose him, followed seconds later by elation again. She’d forgotten about those insane mood swings. Other people in love seemed to exhibit the same psychotic symptoms. But they’d gone away, of course, because once she had the ring on her finger she didn’t have to worry quite so much about that love. Did she?

  Where had that horrible lump in her throat come from? Darn it, she was exhausted. And confused. She switched off the lights in Zach’s study and the lights in the kitchen and headed for the stairs. And then didn’t go up. The house suddenly seemed smothering to her. Mindlessly, she grabbed a coat from the front hall closet and let herself out the front door.

  Cold wind snatched at her hair and whipped around her cheeks; she gulped it into her lungs. Her legs were in a terrible hurry, walking nowhere. Just down a farm road. A few snowflakes fluttered down, blurring her vision. The uneven earth set obstacles in her path, just small stones and ridges and hollows, but she could barely see in the darkness. She stumbled, yet didn’t slow her headlong pace.

  It helped, the rush. Anger bubbled up inside of her, shunting aside the unbearable fear. Zach had asked Elizabeth here; she hadn’t. Did he think there’d be no piper to pay, having
someone else in the house with them full-time?

  For Bett, there’d always been a piper to pay where her mother was concerned. Resentment and love came in the same package. She’d thought that Zach understood. Just as he’d said, for once in their lives she’d wanted to relate successfully to her mother. Now, when Elizabeth needed her. And that’s all I’ve been doing, Bett thought furiously. Being good to Mom. Loving her. Caring for her. So where exactly was the crime?

  She walked and stumbled, walked and stumbled. Out of nowhere, Zach had turned selfish. Men were the pits. Husbands were the worst. She was not Wonder Woman. She was so damned tired she could barely see straight. Exactly what more was she supposed to do?

  She walked through the orchards, over the clover hill, past the woods, and finally stopped at the pond, out of breath. The full moon was partially shrouded by clouds, but that faint silver circle still glistened on the icy waters. The cattails were brown now; frogs and crickets had gone to sleep for the winter. Her fingers were so cold she could barely feel them; she jammed her hands into her pockets.

  Zach was clearly being a bastard. Unfair, unreasonable, callous, insensitive. Yet that whisper of fear shivered again through Bett’s bloodstream. Fear that came from nowhere. From the wind and the night.

  She was so totally different from her mother. She’d tried, so often, to be a Brittany. She’d been trying for almost three months. She’d been miserable most of that time. Just once, she thought fleetingly, she had wanted her mother to say that she understood. The farm, her chosen lifestyle, the zillions of things that made up the person that Bett was. The woman she was.

  Winning approval was a game that children played. There must still be some of that child in her, because Bett suddenly saw all too clearly how much she had sacrificed in the past three months, trying to win it. Mothers were such very powerful people. Love wasn’t the only thing that made up that blood tie; there was the intrinsic definition of femininity, of everything it meant to be a woman. A mother spelled out her version of that definition first, before anyone else had a chance.

  Tears burst from her eyes suddenly, shocking her, choking her. They kept on coming. She’d tried so damn hard. Damn Zach. How dare he think she hadn’t minded the changes in the household, the loss of their privacy? How could he accuse her of not valuing the love they had? Couldn’t he understand the impossible position she’d found herself in, trying to please her mother, her husband and herself? It was a no-win situation. What on earth did he expect her to do?

  What she’d been doing was walking a tightrope, trying to live by her mother’s standards, trying to appease Zach. He was the one who was angry? She was the one who’d gotten totally lost in the meantime.

  So who let that happen, Bett? nagged a most unwelcome voice inside of her. Zach? Your mother? Or you?

  The night was frigidly cold. She could not remember ever feeling a wind quite like this one, so unforgiving, so fierce and icy and eerily silent.

  Chapter 13

  Thanksgiving dawned with four inches of crystal-white snow on the ground. At six in the morning, dressed in a long flannel robe, Bett awkwardly pulled the twenty-pound turkey from the refrigerator. The unwieldy bird was certainly more than big enough to feed six. Two weeks before, she and Zach had mentioned to Elizabeth that they always took in lonely strays from the neighborhood on the holiday. That they’d found three unattached men in the age bracket of forty-five to sixty was purely accidental, they’d let Elizabeth believe. But then, two weeks ago, Bett and Zach had been confederates in the gentle conspiracy of finding someone for her mother to love.

  Who could have guessed they’d risk losing their own love in the process?

  Humming “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Bett burrowed into the back of the pantry for the huge roasting pan she only used twice a year. For five long days, up until now, she’d been humming funeral dirges instead. For five very stupid days, she’d let anger hum between herself and her husband, a silent song. Two of those days she’d still been furiously angry with Zach. Two more days had been wasted being furiously angry with herself. The one productive day out of the five was yesterday, when with far too painful clarity Bett had tried to put her emotional house in order.

  That was done, and battle hymns were now appropriate. It seemed she had a few bridges to mend, none of them small ones. Both careful and immediate mending was called for, and that was not going to be easy, when this Thanksgiving had already been set up as yet another day revolving around her mother. Which was not, Bett was finally beginning to understand, her mother’s fault, but her own. The last thing she and Zach needed was yet another day interrupted by strangers, which was why she was humming. Humor was armor against fear-fear that her husband was out of both patience and compassion-and Bett had a great deal to put right and now, chaotic day or no.

  With a cup of steaming coffee on one side and the turkey on the other, she started slicing tiny slips of mushrooms and celery for the dressing. She’d measured a cupful of each when she heard the quiet footstep in the doorway. Zach.

  “Morning,” she said brightly, suddenly so busy she could barely think. Where exactly was it that she kept the mugs, the coffee, the spoons…a freshly brewed cup was set in front of him almost before he’d slid into the chair.

  “Morning,” he echoed back.

  Her nervous system registered a little chill emanating from him, a little startled stare at her exuberance, and about five miles of distance.

  “Want some breakfast?”

  “Just coffee. You’re up early.”

  When one intended to rebuild an entire life in a day, one could hardly sleep late. “Yes.” He wasn’t encouraging any more conversation. She took a deep breath and then turned her back, searching for a skillet. He was getting scrambled eggs and ham. He loved scrambled eggs and ham. Whether he wanted them or not was irrelevant.

  She stole a few surreptitious glances at him. She loved the look of his hair all tousled from sleep, the softness of his mouth framed in a morning beard, the sleepy-lazy blue of his eyes before he really awakened and took on the world. He’d managed to be out of the house a great deal these past few days. Early to rise, late to bed, and around as little as possible. It was up to her to break the silence; she knew that. Only they’d never had an argument like this one before, where they’d actually hurt each other very badly, where something had broken down that they’d both assumed had a lifetime warranty.

  Had her heart picked up a murmur during the past five days? It just wouldn’t beat evenly. What if she said the wrong thing now? So she said nothing, but browned the ham, whipped up the eggs, then hurried to the opposite counter to finish chopping. She reminded herself to melt some butter in the microwave to toss in with the bread crumbs. If the dressing didn’t get packed in the turkey, the turkey wouldn’t get cooked, the people wouldn’t get fed and she couldn’t kick them all out to talk to Zach. She could feel his eyes on her back, and her mind reeled through a practice run of what she wanted to tell him. So much, so very much, and it was all lumped in her throat.

  The eggs started bubbling. Bolting back to the stove, she stirred like mad, and heard the unwelcome sound of water running upstairs. Her mother was up. This wasn’t the time to try to talk to Zach anyway, yet she couldn’t possibly keep on another minute with that horrible lump in her throat. She flipped off the stove burner, slid his breakfast onto a plate, nervously rubbed her hands on her robe, heard the ping of the microwave timer, poured melted butter into the bread crumbs, told herself to stop all this racing, and set the fork and knife and bowl down in front of him, perching on the edge of the opposite chair at the same time.

  “Look, Zach,” she started unhappily.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, you two,” Elizabeth chirped brightly from the doorway, and bent to give first her daughter and then her son-in-law a peck on the cheek.

  Bett lurched back up, her total frustration masked by an innocuous smile. “Sleep well, Mom?”

  “Wonderfully. Better than
I have in weeks-at least until I looked out the window and saw the snow. I just hate winter, the thought of driving on icy roads. Now, that’s one beautiful turkey,” she complimented her daughter.

  “Yes,” Bett said distractedly.

  “You should have woken me. You know I would have-”

  “Bett.” Zach’s low voice somehow reverberated within her amid her mother’s bright chatter.

  “-helped you with the stuffing. We’ll have to get the turkey in awfully early if we’re going to have it done by three. I thought I’d wear the lavender print, though-”

  She heard him. That was just it-how often hadn’t she heard him in the past few months of frantically following her mother’s conversations? Her eyes locked on his face, and she was startled to glimpse the first natural smile she’d seen on his lips in days. She savored a fervent hope of a thaw in the frigid barrier between them for several seconds before she noticed where his hands were motioning.

  Elizabeth, unfortunately, had already turned around. “What on earth is Zach doing with the stuffing?”

  “Nothing,” Bett said stiffly. She whisked the bowl back to the counter and put his plate of cooling eggs on the table in front of him. Brilliant, Bett, she thought morosely, thoroughly demoralized. Maybe she should offer up a prayer that at least she hadn’t stuffed the turkey with scrambled eggs.

  Her spirits rallied when she saw her mother zeroing in on the turkey. “Nothing doing,” Bett said firmly. “Mom, you’ve been cooking for us for weeks. Now, I know that’s been your choice, but it’s my turn. Just sit down, and I’ll make you some breakfast.”

  “Brittany, I am hardly going to leave you with all this to do by yourself.”

  “Sure you are.” Bett steered a cup of coffee toward her mother’s hand. “Think of it as a vacation day. A ‘feet up’ relaxer.”

  “Well…”