“ . . . mix household scouring powder with water to make a slurry, and mop it over the area. Let the solution stand for approximately five minutes.”
She shouldn’t feel so prideful. Slurry, that’s all it was.
“Make love to me.” Tia circled her arms around Bobby’s waist.
• • •
Tia climbed on top. She was ready before Bobby began. Her synapses fired at a million miles per minute.
Nathan. Nathan. Nathan.
She rode Bobby to the sound of Nathan’s name in her head; the chant sent her over the top. “Oh God,” she murmured.
“Oh Jesus,” Bobby answered as he arched into her.
Afterward, Tia curled up in Bobby’s arms and stroked the reddish chest hair that wasn’t Nathan’s. Everything about Nathan was dense and dark.
Her fingers itched to touch Nathan. She settled for resting her head on Bobby’s shoulder, which, like Nathan’s, was thick and muscled.
“Damn.” He kissed the top of her head. “From now on, I’m bringing hyacinths every time I come over.”
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“You cooked and cleaned?” His voice teased, but hope showed on his face. He knew Tia didn’t cook—hated it, in fact. If she cooked for Bobby, he’d think it meant true love.
“There are some eggs in the fridge,” she said. “I don’t remember how old they are, though.”
Bobby sat up. “I’ll make us an omelette. Going out is too much work.” His kiss was gentle. “Did you send out any resumes today?”
“I cleaned today.”
He took both her hands in his. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I just want to be part of your life; I want to make your life better.”
Tia’s chest tightened. “You’re too good to me.” She laughed so as not to cry. “Am I good to you?”
He stroked her hair as though petting a kitten. “Of course you are, baby.”
Nathan was never coming. She’d acted like a love-struck girl, cleaning for him. God himself must have looked down on her scrubbing and laughed until He and Jesus cried.
Nathan called because his wife ordered him to check up on Tia, that’s all. They had a hidden agenda, something to do with Honor, and Tia had better face that truth.
• • •
The clean living room brought Tia a feeling of purification. Her life offered possibilities. She could let go of Nathan. Seeing him had led to nothing worse than cleaning the house and making Bobby feel like the hero into whose arms she wanted to be swept. Nothing awful had happened.
Tomorrow she’d work on her resume.
Bobby placed the tray on a clean, uncluttered coffee table, took off the two plates, and set them down with a flourish. “Dinner is served.”
Cheese bubbled from perfect omelettes surrounded by slices of apple. Mealy apples, but apples nonetheless, and English muffins, although he’d rescued them from the depths of the freezer and probably had to scrape frost off them. The English muffins looked miraculously good, perfectly toasted with butter melting into each nook and cranny.
“I opened that bottle of Charles Lafitte I put in the fridge last week,” he said. He handed her a wineglass filled with fizzy gold champagne.
No one but Bobby had ever brought her champagne just because she liked it.
“A toast,” he said.
“To what?”
“To being here. I’ve thought about it for a long time.”
“And has it turned out like you’d hoped for?” Tia bit into her English muffin.
“You make me happy. Maybe it’s like they say: every pot has a cover. I’ve always felt like you were my cover.” He kissed her buttery, crumb-flecked lips. “I want to make you happy.”
“I don’t want to make you unhappy.”
He drew back a bit. “What are you worried about?”
With Nathan back in her life, no matter how tenuous the connection, one misstep portended disappearing into him again. She might as well live her life dancing on the edge of a knife.
“I had a baby.” Her words came out twisted and tight.
He stared at her, looking baffled. “When?” he finally said.
“Five years ago this March.”
He sat beside her and took her hand. “What happened?”
“I loved a man who didn’t love me,” Tia told Bobby. “Or he didn’t love me enough.”
She dug shaky fingers into her knees.
“He was married.
“I sinned with him.
“I couldn’t sin again, so I didn’t get rid of her.
“But I gave her away.”
She told him everything she could.
They sat for a while.
Quietly.
He handed her a tissue but didn’t touch her.
“Do you still love him?”
Tia pressed her lips against repeating his question back.
Did she still love him? Did it count that her blood pumped faster since seeing Nathan? That his name was the only one she wanted to say, and that she could still feel the skin of his hand under her thumb?
“No. Of course not,” she said.
“How about the baby?”
“What about her?”
“Do you love her?”
“How does that matter?”
“It just seems like such a sad thing to give up a baby.” He took her hand. “I hate thinking of you going through it. That’s all. I’m not judging. He’s the one who should be judged. He’s the one who was married. He’s the one who deserted you.”
All she could think to do was throw out an easy axiom: words that would keep them at a distance from discussing Nathan and Honor. “Water under the bridge, I suppose.”
“I don’t believe you,” Bobby said. “You look too unhappy. God, this explains so much about you. Maybe about us.”
“Us?”
“You had to keep everyone at a distance, right? Including me. I think knowing the truth will make all the difference.”
“I suppose.” Maybe Bobby was right. He’d be the one—the one who knew. She could trust him. He’d provide a safe haven.
“It sounds like you were under pressure to give her up.”
“From who?”
“From him. He pushed you away; he pushed the baby away. You weren’t thinking straight. And your mother was dying. Jesus, Tee. You couldn’t possibly think straight.”
Honesty could never go all the way, not between a man and a woman. How could she tell him that Honor would have reminded her too much of Nathan? That she’d been the worst sort of coward. That she’d been that stupid with love—or thought she’d been. In the end, was there even a difference?
“It’s all his fault. This is so wrong.” Bobby’s face reddened with anger. “Damn it, she’s your daughter. She belongs with you.”
“It’s too late for that. She’s five years old. I signed her away. Jesus, I still remember the words: final and cannot be revoked.”
“We can at least talk to a lawyer, right? It can’t hurt. There are always loopholes.”
Loopholes. Spoken like a true son of Southie. More than anything, she knew she should say no. More than anything, he tempted her to say yes.
CHAPTER 24
Juliette
The shop was cold. Or maybe Juliette was cold. Either way, she shivered as she sat in her desk chair. Perhaps someone had walked over her grave. That’s what Nathan’s mother said when anyone shivered.
Jews could be so awesomely dark. Would Juliette’s father have been gloomy if her mother hadn’t been around to lighten him? Her mother’s soul was made of helium. Juliette worried that she too had a buoyant soul. If she were more melancholy, then Nathan wouldn’t have lost interest in her and strayed to more troubled women.
At that moment, Juliette felt dark enough to depress an entire circus. She’d hoped that finally sharing everything with Nathan would make her feel better, but instead it seemed as though she’d given him the keys to the candy store. Now he had a r
eason to see Tia. In the weeks since she’d confronted him about the child, he’d given her only the most cursory of answers about what he’d done or was planning to do.
“Nathan,” she’d begged repeatedly, “don’t leave me out. Not anymore.”
He’d given her a tortured look. “I’m kind of lost right now, Jules. Give me some time, okay?”
Juliette lost her fire after confronting Nathan. When he sealed himself away, he’d taken her anger with him. Perhaps her love also—without fire, she feared they’d die.
“Juliette?” Gwynne stuck her head through the doorway, her expression creased with concern. “Someone’s here to see you.”
Juliette threw her head into her hands. It was too early to face a client popping in for an emergency eyebrow consultation or pleading for her to choose a lipstick guaranteed to produce a three-carat engagement ring, or a company rep who hadn’t done her homework and didn’t know that juliette&gwynne sold only its own products.
“Can you make them go away?” Juliette put her fingers to her temples. “Please. I’m not up to anyone right now.”
“Don’t think I can make this one disappear.” Gwynne placed her hands on the edge of Juliette’s desk and bent until her face loomed so close that Juliette was forced to look up.
“Who is it?” Juliette became anxious, hoping this wasn’t the day she’d always dreaded, the day an angry client appeared covered in rashes, disfigured by a juliette&gwynne product. Juliette trusted their ingredients, their merchandise, but who knew what toxin a woman might mix in and then blame them.
“It’s not a client.” Gwynne covered Juliette’s hand. “It’s Tia.”
• • •
Juliette tried to control her shaking as she walked to the front of the shop. Madge, their sixty-three-year-old receptionist, whom they’d chosen as an advertisement for the beauty of age, pushed papers as she stared at the unfolding drama.
Sparks were in the air.
Juliette faced Tia as though preparing for a duel. They’d never been this close. Juliette gripped her own upper arms so tightly it hurt. Tia looked so young, younger than twenty-nine. She was twelve years younger than Juliette. Prying that information from Nathan had been like pulling rusty nails from petrified wood.
“What does it matter?” he’d asked.
“It matters,” Juliette had answered.
It seemed like a generation of difference.
Tia’s clothes looked cheap. Her thin black T-shirt was cut too low, almost showing the top of her bra. Her jeans were worn past fashion.
And she looked good despite her awful outfit. All I-don’t-care pixie-pretty. Her enormous brown eyes, the color of damp soil, were ten fathoms deep. Those were the eyes in which Nathan had been lost.
Such a tiny waist. A baby had grown in there?
Tia stared back at Juliette. Judging from the intense stares of the handful of clients who’d drifted into the waiting area, their tension must have been apparent. Madge continued to pretend not to look, even as she memorized every move to report back to the rest of the staff. She might not know exactly what was going on, but enough tension crackled to alert Madge to put on her gossip-columnist hat.
Finally, Gwynne stepped in. “Juliette. Maybe you should take your . . . your appointment to your office.” She gave Juliette’s elbow a gently purposeful squeeze. “I’ll bring in coffee.”
Gwynne was letting Juliette know she’d check in. Did Gwynne think they’d end up on the floor pulling hair and slapping?
Juliette nodded. “Why don’t you follow me?” She turned her back as she bit off the words.
They walked silently down the hall to Juliette’s office. She gestured for Tia to enter and then followed. She indicated the chair across from her desk. Juliette had no plans to share the couch or sit kitty-corner-intimate in the two cushioned chairs angled by the window. No, she’d give Tia the glossy oak chair reserved for problem employees.
“What can I do for you?” Juliette set her face in a corpse-like mask.
“I think there’s a different question,” Tia said. “What is it you think I can do for you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Juliette’s father-in-law drummed this into her: in business, make the opponent name the price first. This was the business of her marriage.
“Oh, come on.” Tia’s nervous laugh made Juliette want to throw her bowl of paper clips right at the young woman’s head. “I’m certain you know what I mean.”
Heat steamed from Juliette’s brain straight to her twitching fingers. She picked up her coffee cup and pretended to take a sip from the empty mug. “Actually, I don’t.”
“Honor,” Tia said. “My daughter. What’s your interest in her? Why did you send Nathan to talk to me?”
“Send Nathan?”
“You know he came to see me, right?”
Juliette prayed the mug handle wouldn’t crack in her grip. “Of course,” she lied. “But what made you think I sent him?”
“ ‘Juliette wants to see her.’ That’s what Nathan said, that you wanted to see my daughter. Why?”
That bastard. He hadn’t even told her he’d spoken to Tia, much less that he’d gone to see her. Why keep it secret?
Juliette could only imagine.
“Actually, I don’t owe you an explanation for anything,” Juliette said. “I have no idea why you came here or what you expected.”
“I want you to stay away from my daughter.” Tia folded her hands in her lap as though she were in school.
“I want you to stay away from my husband.”
“I’m not planning anything with Nathan.” Tia grasped the arms of the chair, looking like she was about to leap out. “I came here to tell you that there are no rights for you with my daughter. None of this is your business. Neither of you. Leave her alone.”
“You gave her away.”
“I found good parents for her,” Tia said. “Great parents. I think about her every day. Nathan never did one thing for her. He didn’t even acknowledge her.”
Juliette closed her eyes, praying Tia would disappear.
“Did you think you could just go around meeting my daughter without even telling me? Leave her alone.”
Juliette opened her eyes. “Your daughter? Do you know her favorite food, what her bedtime book is? Do you know what color she likes?”
Tia bit her lip, looking like she was about to cry. “You think you know me, don’t you?”
Juliette didn’t want to feel Tia’s sadness creeping toward her. “She’s Nathan’s daughter. That connects me to her.”
“Please, leave her alone.”
Tia looked so frightened. Juliette worked to remain invulnerable to her. This was the woman who’d ruined her life. “I can’t promise you that.”
Tia stood to leave. She walked away, but when she got to the door, her hand on the knob, she turned back to Juliette. “He kissed me, you know. Nathan kissed me. Why do you think he did that?”
• • •
Juliette called Nathan the moment Tia left. Seconds later, their fight began, mainly a one-sided battle. While Juliette ranted, Nathan muttered “Uh-huh” into the phone, supposedly because he was walking on campus and afraid someone would hear him. Juliette believed that excuse as much as she believed anything else he’d said.
“Honest to God, Jules, I was doing this for us. For our protection.”
“We can’t have secrets. Don’t you think I know that? But I needed to find out the facts.”
“I planned to tell you. I honestly did.”
When Juliette got home, Nathan was there, but, of course, so were the boys.
They had dinner. Afterward, Nathan opened the mail and paid bills. Juliette answered emails and cleaned the kitchen. Then the two of them kissed the boys good night. Finally, they were alone in the family room, Nathan in the club chair, Juliette on the couch. Juliette put down the magazine she held as a prop and turned to Nathan. He held the remote in his hand, ready to switch on the television.
“You kissed her.” The TV remained off. “I can’t believe you kissed her.”
“Kiss? It was a chaste peck on the cheek, Jules.” He leaned over and touched her hand. “It meant nothing. It was just a hello.”
Juliette pulled away. “How could you not tell me you visited?”
“I didn’t go to her house; we met at a coffee shop.”
“Where?”
“What difference does that make?”
“What difference does it make to tell me? Why can’t you just answer me instead of repeating my questions?”
“Quincy, we met in Quincy.”
“Because you didn’t want to be seen?”
“Honey. Keep your voice down—do you want the boys to hear us?”
Juliette grabbed a pillow and held it over her stomach, squeezing it so hard she felt the stems of the feathers that filled the downy cushion.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered. “Quincy? It’s the opposite of convenient.”
Nathan remained silent. He looked sick.
“Was Quincy one of your old stomping grounds?”
He put down the remote. “Sweetheart, you told me we should see Honor.”
“Savannah. That’s her name.” Juliette worked on not screaming, not crying. “I said we should see the child, not that woman.”
“Was I supposed to march over to Dover and demand to see the girl? I’ve never had any contact with them.”
“You didn’t give the child up, she did.”
“Actually, I did.” Nathan looked miserable in a way that twisted Juliette’s heart into frayed rope. “By walking away from Tia without a word, I walked away from the baby.”
Juliette clenched her eyes shut against hearing him say the name. She kept her head bowed so Nathan couldn’t see her face.
“I asked her to get rid of it,” Nathan said.
Savannah’s face—so like Max’s—rose like an apparition.
“I asked her to have an abortion,” Nathan added, as though his words hadn’t been clear enough.
It didn’t seem possible to keep two such disparate thoughts in her head: horror at the idea of that little girl having been snuffed away, and a hopeless, retroactive wish that the abortion had happened.
The Comfort of Lies: A Novel Page 20
