Forever

by Lewis, Linda Cassidy

  “I grabbed a few things from home and left a grocery list with Lindsay. We have enough to survive on till morning.”

  “Beer?” He grabbed the cooler and headed to the porch.

  “Yes, and wine for dinner.” She lifted the one grocery bag from the back seat of the cab and followed him. As she passed it, she lifted the handle of the flight bag and rolled it behind her. “Hey, Old Man, did anyone ever tell you you’ve got a cute butt?”

  He kept walking. “I used to have a woman who told me that. Hard-hearted woman, she was. Never could please her.”

  “Play your cards right, she might give you one more chance. But first she wants to see your boat.”

  He laughed. “So that’s what they call it nowadays.”

  While Tom cleaned off his shoes and got the boat ready to take out on the lake, Julie unpacked the cooler and their suitcase. She was dressed in her swimsuit and waiting on the screened porch with their smaller lunch cooler when he came up from the boathouse to swap his jeans for trunks.

  “Boat’s ready. Give me a minute to change.”

  Their cabin sat on the shore of what they called the old lake, a natural lake formed during one of the glacial epochs. She’d researched that once but never remembered which epoch. The lake was now an appendage of a large man-made one, a reservoir, which the old-timers at this end called “that new lake,” often with a “damned” thrown in for good measure. Flooded when they built the dam, an old town on the Buckeye River now lay underneath the new lake. Julie tried not to think about that. It made her sad, gave her a chill. Although she knew it was a tiny community and the few residents had relocated to higher ground, she pictured a ghost town at the bottom of the lake—with the ghosts still in residence.

  Wow. Way to cloud over the sun there, Julie.

  She leaned forward, scanning the lake as far as she could see. This lake, the old lake, was the beautiful part, more private, serene water with woods on three sides. But since today was a Saturday in June, even this part would be crowded with boats. She and Tom would cruise for a while and swim a little to cool off. The fish probably wouldn’t bite this late in the morning, anyway. Tomorrow they would ski with Lindsay and her friends. Had she mentioned that to Tom?

  She stood when the door opened behind her. “Did I tell you Lindsay’s bringing a couple of fr—” The look on Tom’s face silenced her. A quick scan showed no signs of another panic attack. “Tom?”

  “Were you just inside?”

  “No. Why?”

  He laughed, but no confidence sounded in it. “I thought I saw … just a shadow, I guess. Nothing.” He put on his sunglasses and picked up the cooler. “Got your sunscreen?”

  Tom smiled with pride as he eased the Stratos 326 XF out of the boathouse. This was his baby, like the Chatham Estates house was Julie’s. For his own needs, he would have preferred a dedicated bass boat, but Julie had water-skied since her parents first bought their place here, back when it was the original Buckeye Lake.

  Julie sat on the front deck, her face tilted toward the sun, her hair sleeked back in the breeze. She was as pretty as she was good. A true All-American beauty. Cheerleader, he’d thought when they met, with her perky little side ponytail and her bubbly laugh. He’d been wrong about that, but he’d been right that he didn’t deserve her, a fact he believed she knew but never took advantage of. He loved her even more because of that.

  As he steered the boat around the first bend, he watched for Julie’s reaction. She’d told him about the mill town that had stood near this point. It gave her the creeps that the construction of the dam put that place underwater. Every time they passed this spot, she looked skyward as though by not looking, she could deny her location. He doubted she was aware of showing her fear that way.

  Fear.

  Since the moment he woke this morning and realized what Julie had planned, he’d determined to leave their everyday crap at home and give his all to this weekend. The cabin was neutral territory, and he wouldn’t violate that by allowing even thoughts of … his secret life. And he’d been successful until his freak out in the truck. Then he’d thought of Jacob, and now he’d seen … what? Something dark in the cabin.

  Maybe shadow was the best word for what he’d sworn had passed the bathroom door when he was taking a leak. Then again, at best his view of the door was a thirty-degree angle, almost peripheral, so maybe he’d seen nothing at all. Maybe the cold, clamminess that washed over him was a product of his mind only thinking he’d seen something.

  That’s what he told himself, sitting in the boat he loved, on a lake he loved, with the woman he loved. And damn to hell anything that tried to intrude on that.

  Julie wondered what it was about being near the water that made her ravenous. Tom too, apparently, because he’d eaten the store-bought lasagna for dinner without complaint. Probably the wine had helped; she’d grabbed a bottle of the good stuff. They’d brought the last of it out to the screened porch, so they could watch the sun set over the lake. She felt so mellow, it hardly bothered her that Tom was smoking another cigarette—at least his tenth today.

  They sat side by side, she with her feet tucked up beside her, Tom keeping the swing gently moving. She breathed in the honeysuckle-scented air waiting to see the first flash of yellow. Lightning bugs always reminded her of the night she fell in love with him. On that warm June night, a twin of this one, they’d sat by this very lake watching as the insects awakened from their grassy slumber. Within minutes, the darkening air had filled with their dancing fairy lights.

  That night she’d sat on a blanket between Tom’s outstretched legs, leaning back against him. He’d nuzzled into her neck, his voice muffled by her hair.

  “You know why they light up like that?” he asked.

  She did. It was their mating signal. But the thought of uttering those words to Tom—or any other words with a sexual connotation—rendered her speechless. She shook her head.

  “They’re trying to turn each other on,” he whispered, his lips lightly brushing against her right ear.

  Julie had met him only that morning. Her older cousin, Wendy, who was dating Tom’s brother Dave, had invited them both to spend the day with her and Julie at the lake. Wendy told Julie’s father that Tom was nineteen; she confessed to Julie that he was twenty-three. And lucky for her, Tom’s boyish grin and quiet manner fooled her father. But not her.

  Tom was a man, no doubt about it. And his virility both excited and terrified her. Although boys had been giving her the eye since she blossomed at the age of thirteen, her parents had not allowed her to date until after her sixteenth birthday. In the nineteen months since then, she rarely had a dateless weekend. But even the two guys she’d “really loved” had only gotten to second base, and then just barely, since she’d only let them feel her up through her clothes. She’d taken one look at Tom the Hunk and knew, just knew, that few girls ever refused him.

  Every time he looked at her, she felt her face grow warm. And not only her face. She felt an intense desire for him to touch her down there. And why did she keep noticing how well his jeans fit … front and back?

  They ate lunch with her parents, and then Wendy sweet-talked “Uncle Frank” into letting her and Julie and the guys take the boat out on their own. She and Wendy skied while Dave and Tom, who didn’t know how to ski, took turns driving the boat. After they brought the boat back, they swam until dinner time. Then the Landons, from two cabins down, came over to play euchre with her parents.

  Wendy and Dave and she and Tom stayed outside in the dark serenaded by a chorus of frogs and insects. Dave and Wendy sat on one blanket and she and Tom on another several feet away. The heat of the day lingered, and they wore only their swimsuits. Although her two-piece was modestly cut, Julie had become acutely aware how close to naked they were. With Tom’s bare chest against her back, his bare arms around her bare midriff, and their bare legs lying side by side from thigh to ankle, it was more skin contact than she’d ever had with a boy. And despi
te her inexperience, Julie knew that was his thing she felt pressed against her backside.

  Tom kissed the nape of her neck and for one heart-stopping moment Julie imagined his left hand sliding up to cup her breast and his right slipping down between her legs. With a shock, she realized that if they stayed in this position, that scenario might be played out any second. She scrambled to her knees and turned to face Tom.

  “We’ll be eaten alive by mosquitoes if we stay out here,” she said. Her voice was too loud and too bright, betraying her embarrassment, but she kept talking. She was trying to shut out the voice that told her Tom might have been thinking the same things or—oh, god let me die now—he might even have read her thoughts. “Why don’t we all go inside and play Rummy or something?”

  When she started to stand, Tom grabbed her hand. Though he was silhouetted against the light from the cabin, she knew he was looking at her with those eyes. Bedroom eyes.

  “Hey, Dave,” he called to his brother, “let’s build a fire to chase the mosquitoes away.”

  Dave agreed and the two of them got up to grab logs and kindling from the woodpile beside the cabin. As the guys worked to get the fire going, Wendy came over and dropped to her knees in front of Julie.

  “Well, how do you like Tom?” she whispered.

  “He’s definitely good looking, and he seems nice too.”

  “Sexy isn’t he?”

  “I … um … didn’t notice.”

  “Oh, come on. You noticed. And he’s certainly noticed you. By the way, Uncle Frank won’t be coming out here to check on us, will he?”

  “I don’t know what my dad might do. Why?”

  “Why? Good grief, Julie, don’t be so dense. Things are going to heat up here real soon. And I’m not talking about the campfire.”

  Julie strangled a gasp. She felt a funny fluttering in her stomach—or lower. It was lower. Was it a good feeling or bad? Evidently, her indecision was visible on her face. Wendy gave her an exasperated rolling-eyes-and-a-sigh, the universal signal of the wise having to deal with the idiots of the world.

  “For God’s sake, Julie, grow up. You’ll be eighteen in a couple of months. Have a little fun for once.” Not waiting for a response, Wendy got up and stomped over to where Tom and Dave fanned the flames.

  Within minutes the fire blazed and Tom and Dave repositioned their blankets just below the edge of the deck, as far apart as possible. Julie wasn’t dumb. The move would hide them from immediate view if her father or mother got curious enough to check on them, and the footsteps on the deck above, would give the couples a few seconds warning to make themselves decent.

  Dave and Wendy were already entwined and oblivious to the world. Julie dropped to the blanket beside Tom. She’d never felt so torn between what she really—really—wanted to do and what the “good girl” rules allowed her to do. That night, she let him touch her in places only she had touched before, but though she thrilled at those new sensations, she sent him home with a newly dampened, and stiffening, spot in his swim trunks.

  After that June night, she dated only Tom, though for a long time, considering his charms, she held out against letting him goalltheway. One night in August, she gave up all semblance of good girl status. Soon after, to her relief, Tom placed a ring on the third finger of her left hand. She loved him so much; she truly believed they would live happily ever after.

  Tonight, she still held that hope—at least the ever after part. Every marriage went through rough patches. They’d already made it through a few, and she was trying her hardest to believe they would make it through the worse coming one. She needed Tom’s strength.

  She rested her head against his shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. A lightning bug landed on the porch screen in front of them, flashing its tail twice.

  “You know why they light up like that?” he asked.

  “They’re trying to turn each other on.” Smiling, she swung her feet to the floor and pulled him out of the swing and into the cabin. “Let’s go hit a home run, Old Man.”

  Julie lay in the dark smiling to herself. The sex had been like old times. Better than old times. Tom had said, “I love you, love you, love you” and then he’d said, “Thank you for the A-plus fuck, woman. Triple-plus!” She’d swear one minute later he was snoring, so satisfied he didn’t even need his usual post-coital cigarette.

  In their haste to get to the bed, they’d left a light on in the living room, but she was too relaxed to care. She lifted his arm, draped across her rib cage, and scooted out from under it. On her side of the bed, she rolled to her side, facing him, and traced his profile with her eyes. Her heart had almost burst with love for him earlier when she realized he’d been sitting beside her on the porch sharing her memory. What a surprise that the Old Man remembered the exact words he’d said to her that night?

  “My old man,” she whispered.

  All was right with their world tonight.

  Tom jolted awake, heart-pounding, sweating. It took him a minute to reassure himself he wasn’t having another panic attack. He was just scared shitless. It took another few seconds to remember where he was. The cabin. He slid his hand across the sheet. Julie was beside him. If he’d been dreaming, he couldn’t remember what. He knew only that he was in terror—still. He mentally talked himself down, concentrating on slowing his breathing.

  As long as he was awake, he should probably get up and take a leak. He threw back the sheet and sat up. The memory of the shadow outside the bathroom door engulfed him. He lay back down. He was halfway to berating himself out of acting like a wimp when the light in the living room went out. Swallowing hard, he scooted closer to Julie.

  12

  June 14

  On Monday morning, minutes before dawn, Tom silenced the alarm and struggled out of bed with gloom wrapped around him like a shroud. For him, the glow of the weekend had dissipated last night, ten minutes after they returned home. He’d done his best to hide that, of course, not wanting to ruin it for Julie and Lindsay. The time spent at the cabin had been good for all of them. Cleared the air. It was like old times, not just between him and Julie but between Julie and Lindsay too. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d laughed together like that.

  Sure, there’d been the panic attack, and his silly fear of shadows thing … oh, and Max’s odd reluctance to explore the woods with him, but he’d been happy and relaxed ninety-five percent of the time. Not a single headache.

  That changed when he came home and took his phone from the nightstand drawer where he’d left it. He wanted to be sure he wouldn’t be interrupted by business calls is what he’d told Julie when she asked. The real reason was fear of Annie calling, concerned because she hadn’t heard from him. And that fear was grounded. When he turned on his phone, he discovered two texts and a missed call from her. What an idiot he’d been to give her his number—though, he realized later, she probably already knew it from caller id. No, you were an idiot to ever call her period. He deleted the messages. He vowed to delete her from his life. Within a few seconds, his head felt like it was being crushed in a vise, but he’d faked a good mood until bedtime.

  He even responded to Julie’s advances, though their lovemaking wasn’t as hot and heavy as it had been at the cabin. Afterward, he lay awake, head throbbing, wondering how he was going to clean up the mess he’d made by creating a secret life. The image of a battered Annie rose in his mind and punched him in the gut to remind him he’d been messing with someone else’s life too.

  He could no longer claim innocence in that flirtation. And none of that “just friends” nonsense. He wanted his life back. After this weekend, he believed that if he and Julie worked at it, not only could they reclaim the closeness they’d lost but maybe end up with a stronger marriage than they’d had before.

  As he showered and shaved, Tom recalled wondering how his life might have been different if he’d married someone else. Someone like Annie. What a ridiculous speculation. He had nothing in common with Annie.
All this reincarnation stuff was fantasy. A crock of shit to put a finer point on it. He’d known from the moment they met that Julie was the perfect woman for him—and still was.

  Leaving her to enjoy her last hour of sleep, Tom dressed quietly and crept downstairs to make the coffee. With a steaming mug in hand and Excedrin in his stomach, he stood on the patio watching the sun rise and reflecting on the damage he’d done to his life.

  Max nuzzled his knee, signaling he was ready to go back in. Tom checked the time. “Whoa, buddy, I’d better get going. No more half-assed work days for me.”

  Despite Tom’s attempts at stealth, Julie had heard nearly every move he’d made since he slipped out of their bed. She could have let him know she was awake. She could have gone down to make the coffee while he was in the shower. But she hadn’t moved. Drowsy, she’d listened to the spatter-thrum of the shower and the buzz of his razor. The sounds he made in the kitchen had not reached her ears, but she’d heard the faint thump of the patio door when he went out and then back in with Max. The rumble of the garage door had fully woken her. Now, as the drone of his truck faded into the distance, she rolled over—and her stomach followed suit.

  Julie ran for the bathroom, dragging the bedding to the floor behind her. The first retch emptied her stomach. The second and third produced only bile, setting her teeth on edge. When she felt confident the vomiting was over, she rose to the basin to rinse her mouth. Food poisoning. She wanted to blame that for this morning’s rude beginning. But she had a doctor’s appointment on Thursday. You can’t anticipate food poisoning in advance.

  Something far more sinister than botulism worked inside her. The pain and spotting had started again in the middle of the night. She couldn’t ignore them any longer. How many other women at forty-two would pray those were only signs of early menopause?

  “All of them—when the alternative is so much worse.” She’d spoken to her reflection in the mirror. For another minute she stared, willing that women to be strong and healthy. She turned away and let her nightgown slide to her ankles. Her face already wet with tears, Julie stepped into the shower.