Sleeping With the Enemy

by Laurie Breton

  She switched on a lamp as he turned away from the window, and she saw the misery on his face. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch. “What’s wrong?” she said sharply. “Is it one of the kids?”

  “The kids are fine. Everyone’s fine. But I need to talk to you. Sit down.” He patted the couch beside him. Frightened by the gravity of his expression, she sat. Without preamble, he said, “Henry suspended me today.”

  Rose gasped. “What? Why?”

  He took a deep breath. “Jolene Hunter told her parents that I’ve been having an affair with her.”

  The numbness was instantaneous. If anybody had asked her thirty seconds ago, she would have said that it was impossible for blood to turn to ice. It was nothing more than an expression. But she would have been wrong, for she was experiencing it now, right in her own body. She found her tongue, wet her lips. “No,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. “Oh, God, no.” This was not happening. This couldn’t be happening. She’d paid enough for the sins of her youth. They couldn’t come back to haunt her. Not now, not when she’d finally found what she’d spent thirty-six years looking for.

  “Rose,” he said, taking her face in his hands and forcing her to look at him. “Nothing happened. Do you understand? It’s all a lie. I don’t know why she said it, but it’s not true. You have to believe me.”

  All of a sudden, she couldn’t bear to have his hands on her. She yanked away from him, stood on legs that were weak and trembling. Even in the gloom of twilight, she could see the hurt her withdrawal had caused him. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Last night, coming back from the play, Jolene made a pass at me. I turned her down. It was terrible, and embarrassing for both of us. I guess this is her idea of retaliation.”

  She didn’t know what to do, what to say. Her brain had frozen along with the rest of her, so she just stood there in front of him, like a cigar store wooden Indian, and waited for him to continue.

  “She’s been sending me love notes. She never signed her name. I thought they were from Amanda Ashley. Amanda’s always mooning around me. I never suspected Jolene. How the hell am I supposed to know what goes on in the mind of a teenage girl?”

  There was no reason why he should. But she did. She knew what it was like to want somebody that way, to be certain that he wanted you the same way. To build elaborate fantasies around the lies he told, to believe that it would be just the two of you, forever. “I thought—” she said, her heart hammering in her chest. “I thought that Tessa went with you.”

  “Tessa’s grounded,” he said grimly. “We went alone. And I’m an idiot. A complete and utter fool. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know better than to be alone like that with a teenage girl. I was too worried about looking like a fool if I backed out. Instead, I ended up looking like a pedophile.”

  And he’d been alone because she’d been with Torey Spaulding. Because once again, she’d put her work ahead of her marriage. “And you have no witnesses.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “It’s my word against hers.”

  “I think,” she said carefully, “that you need a lawyer.”

  “I’ve already called Paula Fournier. She’s coming over in a bit. I wanted time to talk to you first.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and turned away from him. Walked to the French doors and stared out into the deepening twilight. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady and failing wretchedly. “But I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Christ, Rose.” Hurt rang in his voice. “Don’t quit on me now.”

  She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Jesus,” he said bitterly, “that ex-husband of yours must have really done a number on you.”

  Because it was easier than telling him the truth, she let him believe it. There was no way she could tell him the truth. Nobody knew, except Maeve, and even Maeve had found out by accident during one of their adolescent squabbles. She left him there alone, fled up the stairs to her bedroom, and locked the door behind her. Then, because she couldn’t face this alone, she called her sister. Maeve would know what to do. Maeve always knew what to do.

  When her sister answered the phone, she closed her eyes. “Maeve?” she said, then stopped because her voice was trembling so hard she could barely speak.

  “Rose? Is that you? What’s wrong?”

  She forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths before she tried again. Slowly, deliberately, she made her lips form the words that her brain just couldn’t accept. “Jesse got suspended from his job today. One of his students claims that he’s been having an affair with her.”

  At the other end of the phone, Maeve was silent for a moment, then she whispered, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

  “Yeah. I think that just about sums it up.”

  “Give me a minute. I need some time to think this one through. Oh, boy.” There was a long pause, and then Maeve said, “I suppose I have to ask. Does he know about Alan?”

  Even after all these years, hearing his name spoken out loud still had the power to tighten her stomach into a hard knot. “Of course not.” A single tear spilled over and ran down her cheek, and Rose brushed at it furiously. “And I’m not telling him.”

  “It’s still eating you up, Rose.”

  “Pretty ironic, isn’t it? Considering what I do for a living. I’m the one who’s supposed to have it all together. I help people fix their broken lives. But I still can’t fix mine.”

  “Listen to me, damn you! Alan was a user. He took whatever he wanted, and he didn’t care who he hurt in the process.”

  “I thought he loved me,” she said bitterly. “I was such an idiot.”

  “You were a child,” Maeve said. “And that was part of his charm. We all thought he loved us. He treated every damn one of us as if we were the only woman on the planet. That’s heady stuff for a teenage girl.”

  Rose closed her eyes. “Did you ever tell Mom?”

  “God, no! Did you?”

  “No. At first, when I found out I wasn’t the only one, I was too devastated to tell. I really believed he loved me. Hell, I was just fifteen, and he’d told me so many pretty lies. After a while, I was too embarrassed to tell. Humiliated because I’d actually believed him.”

  Softly, Maeve said, “There was nothing to be embarrassed about. He was the one who did something wrong. He was a grown man. We were victims, Rose.”

  “I know that now. But I didn’t understand it then.”

  “I think you should tell Jesse.”

  Her fingers tightened on the telephone receiver. “I can’t.”

  “Look,” Maeve said, “I really don’t know your husband. You’re the one who sleeps beside him at night. I only know what I see, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to take advantage of a young girl. Do you believe he’s capable of doing what this girl has accused him of?”

  She thought about her husband, thought about his impeccable manners, about his easygoing demeanor. About his dark eyes, warm with humor, yet at the same time, wary. Distant. What did she really know about him? After four months of living together, he remained, for the most part, a stranger. Like Alan, he could have used his position as a teacher to take advantage of a young girl.

  Nausea rose in her throat, and she forced it back. “I don’t want to think so,” she said. Phone in hand, she paced the room. “He doesn’t seem the type. But Alan didn’t seem the type, either, not on the outside. And he got away with it for years before somebody blew the whistle on him.” She paused by the window, stood there staring out into the darkness. “And he was handsome, intelligent, sensitive, poetic—”

  “Don’t forget slimy and manipulative.” Maeve let out a hard breath that carried over the telephone line. “So what about Jesse? Do you love him, Rose?”

  Outside the window, the stars were beginning to twinkle in that crystalline winter sky. Rose squared her shoulders and said miserably, “Yes. I love him.”

  M
aeve sighed. “I don’t know whether to offer congratulations or condolences. Do you want me to come up there?”

  “And do what? Hell, Maeve, the damage is already done. I can’t change the past.”

  “You can change the way it affects your present.”

  She blinked back tears. “Can I?”

  “If you love him enough, trust him enough, you can get through this.”

  Rose closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath. “I need you, Maeve. Will you come?”

  “You better believe I will. Hang in there, kiddo. I’ll be there before bedtime.”

  ***

  While Rose hid in her painting studio, he and Devon made supper together, like a real father and daughter. She chopped the vegetables and he melted the butter for garlic bread. He rolled the meatballs and she added her secret ingredients to the spaghetti sauce. She told him stupid knock-knock jokes and he pretended they were funny.

  Neither of them mentioned her mother.

  The boys had gone over to Rob and Casey’s house after school, and Luke called to ask if they could stay over. Jesse made sure Casey didn’t mind, reminded both of the boys to come home in the morning for showers and clean clothes before they went to school.

  “Guys are such idiots,” Devon said. “You actually have to tell them when to change their underwear.”

  “Better be careful,” he said. “You’re talking to a guy.”

  “You’re not a guy,” she said. “You’re a dad. It’s different.” Stirring the sauce, she added with elaborate casualness, “When the baby’s born, you’ll have a daughter.”

  He buttered the French bread with a pastry brush. “So the doctor tells me.”

  Still stirring, she said, “I bet you’ve always wanted a daughter.”

  Her back was ramrod-straight, her hair sticking out in little puffs all over her head, like a sheep that had been inexpertly sheared. “I already have a daughter,” he said.

  She glanced up at him sharply, then quickly shuttered her eyes. But not quickly enough to hide the spark of pleasure he saw there. “But it’ll be different,” she said. “She’ll be your real daughter.”

  “The only difference is that then, I’ll have two daughters instead of one.”

  They were both silent for a while. “Jesse?” she said at last. “What happened at school today? The kids were saying that you left in the middle of fifth period and never came back.”

  His hands, still clutching the pastry brush, went still. “Nothing,” he said. “Just a little misunderstanding.”

  “Is that what you and Mom are fighting about?”

  He let out a hard breath. “We’re not fighting. Not exactly. It’s complicated.”

  “I think Mom’s scared,” she said, lifting the cover on the kettle of spaghetti to check it. “You have to understand what my father put her through.” She poked a fork into the boiling spaghetti, lifted a couple of strands, eyed them carefully. “He ran around on her for years, and he and Heidi got married before the ink was dry on the divorce certificate.” Setting the cover back on the pot, she said, “For a while, I hated him.”

  Jesse sprinkled garlic along the trail of freshly melted butter. “He’s your father, Devon. You shouldn’t hate him.”

  She shrugged. “I got over it. Like you said, he’s still my father. And I decided it wasn’t his fault if he couldn’t see quality when he had it right in his hands.”

  He gazed at that pixie face, at those dark eyes, and felt a hard tug in the region of his heart. “How’d you get so smart?”

  She dipped a spoon into the sauce, took a taste. “MacKenzie genes,” she said, “and good prenatal care.”

  ***

  Paula Fournier arrived a little after seven, toting a briefcase and looking every inch the lawyer in her charcoal suit and wool dress coat. “Looks like you’ve got yourself into quite a pickle,” she said briskly, plunking the briefcase down onto the kitchen table.

  He went to the cupboard, took out two coffee mugs, filled them from the coffee maker beside the stove. Carrying one to the kitchen table, he set it down in front of her. “Paula,” he said earnestly, “I didn’t do it. The girl’s lying.”

  She made no move to touch the cup. “How’s Rose taking it?”

  He turned his back on her, crossed the room, stirred sugar into his own mug and picked it up. The heat warmed his cold fingers, and he took a sip of the hot, sweet liquid. “Rose,” he said bitterly. “My darling wife.” And he shook his head. “I don’t think we’re going to make it, Paula. I think this is going to sink us.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I thought—oh, hell, what difference does it make what I thought?” He turned around to look at her. “Can you blame her? What kind of monster do you suppose she thinks I am?”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Paula said. “Nobody likes a crybaby, including me.” She opened the briefcase, took out a legal pad, and began to write on it. “Have you talked to anybody about this?”

  He cupped the mug in both hands, leaned against the counter. “Just Rose,” he said. “And Henry.”

  “From this moment on,” she said briskly, still writing, “you speak to nobody about it. Absolutely nobody. Not family members, not the school department, not the police, not DHS, and sure as hell not the media.” She looked up at him. “You refer everybody to your lawyer. I’m available to you twenty-four hours a day. They can’t force you to talk if I’m not present. But if you run your mouth when you shouldn’t, you might as well shoot yourself in the foot.”

  He thought about what she’d said, nodded agreement. “What about the kids? They know something’s up. I have to tell them something.”

  “Let Rose tell them the bare facts. You’ve been accused, you’re not allowed to discuss it with anyone. I’m going to try to set up a meeting with the Hunters and their attorney. We don’t want to drag this out any longer than we have to. DHS will probably move in pretty quickly on this. You have a teenage stepdaughter living with you. If they feel she’s in any jeopardy, they may remove her from the home. And if the police haven’t questioned you yet, they’ll come knocking any minute now.”

  “Christ,” he said. “How did I get myself into a mess like this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said bluntly. “I wasn’t there. Suppose you sit down and tell me exactly how you did get into it.”

  So he told her everything, from the notes to his suspicions about Amanda Ashley to the confrontation with Jolene in the car. “The notes seemed harmless,” he said. “Every year, there’s at least one girl with a crush on me. I always ignore it, and it always goes away.”

  But Paula was pleased with the hard evidence. “If we can establish that the girl wrote these notes before the alleged incident, it gives credence to your version of the story.”

  “My version,” he said bitterly. “My version is the truth. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be all about?”

  “Truth,” Paula said dryly, “while useful in certain situations, seldom factors into the law. What usually matters is who can present the most airtight case and look the best while they’re doing it.” She made a note on the legal pad.

  “I never touched that girl. I won’t hang for a crime I didn’t commit.”

  “That’s why I’m here. To see to it that you don’t.” She skimmed her notes, her mouth a thin gray line in her face. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go through this one more time to make sure I haven’t missed anything.”

  ***

  When her sister arrived, Rose was painting, a furious riot of color layered over a more delicate wash of a pale golden hue.

  Maeve took off her coat and scarf and stood behind her, watching silently as the jumble of mismatched colors took form and turned into a male figure wearing a red plaid shirt. “I always said you had all the talent in the family.”

  “Right,” Rose said as she glopped crimson paint onto her brush and then applied it in a swirling stroke over the Payne’s grey she’d
just laid down. “That’s why you sang solo in the choir for four years of high school, while I could never carry a tune in a bucket. And why Rob’s traveled all around the known world, playing that guitar of his to sell-out crowds.” She dipped the brush into the jar of water beside the easel and swished it around. “Did you see Jesse?”

  “He’s in the kitchen, with the lawyer.”

  Rose rapped the brush furiously against the side of the jar to remove the excess water, then dipped it into the glob of ultramarine on her palette. “That’s Paula Fournier. She’s the only friend I have in this godforsaken wilderness.”

  “You should come home to visit more often, Rose. I hate to think of you buried up here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I don’t want to come home.” She began applying the ultramarine in a thin coating to the edges of the plaid shirt. “I like it here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “But there’s nothing here,” Maeve said in astonishment. “Nothing but trees and mountains and snow.”

  “And cows. Don’t forget the cows.” She stepped back, critically surveyed her work, then moved back to the easel and made a correction. “There isn’t even a decent Chinese restaurant within twenty miles. Isn’t it the damnedest thing?”

  “Does Jesse know how you feel?”

  “Jesse,” she said, using a square-tipped brush dipped in ultramarine blended with white to create the illusion of soft creased denim, “has never bothered to ask.”

  “Jesus, Rose, don’t the two of you ever talk?”

  “About anything important? Not really.” She fished through the jumbled articles on the sideboard, found her painting knife, and used it to scrape clean a small area of the canvas. With meticulous precision, she dabbed on a different color in that spot, then blended it in with the edge of the knife. “Mostly, he does his thing, and I do mine. And right now, he’s furious with me. He’s too polite to say it. But I can tell.”