by Wendy Walker
Her eyes were unwavering as they stood inches apart in the doorway, and Troy could see what had to be done.
She felt the hold on her arms loosen.
“All right. I’ll go, for now. But I’m coming back tomorrow to talk about all of this. You get a good night’s sleep.”
Gayle let him believe what he needed to believe to get him out the door. She handed him his keys, held the door for him while he picked up his suitcase and made his way down the walk to the driveway. Twice, he turned around, each time saying the same thing. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” But there would be no more talking, and no more tomorrows. Not for him. When his car pulled away, Gayle closed and locked the door, then walked straight past Celia, who had returned after hearing the car drive out.
“Leave an address on the counter. I’ll send your check and forward your mail.” Gayle didn’t stop as she spoke, instead letting her words trail behind her.
Upstairs she checked on Oliver. She hovered over him as he slept to kiss his cheek and pull up his blanket. Moving slowly, she knelt down to the floor and grabbed the bottle of pills from under his bed. Then she closed the door and headed for her room.
It was over now’the party, her marriage, and all of the structures she’d built around her life. Without Celia, her days would have to be reconstructed’around her son, the only one who ever mattered. None of this would be easy. Troy was fighting for his own life now, and he would come at her with everything he had. First, with his seductive apologies and pledges to be a good boy. But she didn’t want a boy. Not as her husband. And, like an irreverent child, he would then return with anger. She would change the locks, bolster the security system. It would be a long time before she would sleep through the night.
He would turn next to the relatives’her mother being first on the list. No Haywood had ever been divorced. Unhappy, yes. Unfaithful, yes. But not divorced. It was too messy to sort out, too expensive to divide the wealth. They would remind her of where she lived. Hunting Ridge was a married community. People moved in units of two. She would be the token outcast at the charity functions. Where would they seat her? Other couples would have to take sides, choose which one of them to befriend. Husbands would be cautious, disapproving of their wives being with her’just in case divorce turned out to be contagious. There were so many problems.
But none of that worried Gayle tonight. After years of being a pawn, of fearing the unknown should she stray too far from the party line, she was oddly relieved. As she had kneeled in the bathroom listening to her husband grope another woman, something had switched off inside her. Her mother, Dr. Ted, her New York friends, and country club acquaintances’she felt indifferent to the judgments they would invariably levy against her. Her thoughts were already a step ahead to the last battlefield Troy would take them to. Lawyers, lawsuits, accountants’the fight over Oliver and the money would be ugly. But in the end Troy would trade his son for a price, agree to weekend visits in exchange for a settlement. And Gayle would pay it.
The room was quiet. Troy was gone, and with him the anxiety that filled every room he occupied. With the door open, Gayle changed into sweats. She put away her clothes, then went to work packing up his. Boxes and suitcases were filled with every one of his belongings. Through the night, she worked to clear him out of her house and her life.
When she was done packing, the back hall was filled with luggage. It would not end here, she knew. There would be haggling over every wineglass, every television and car and painting. There would be moments of doubt, she told herself, as she made her way upstairs to her room. The intensity of tonight would give way to exhaustion, to fear. She walked into the bathroom where she’d left her pills on the counter. She thought about what her life might feel like without them. It had been years since she’d known, and it would take time to wean herself. But she would find someone to help her, she would use her name and her money to choose the best person for the job, and she would make it happen.
She washed her face, then dried off in the mirror, studying the lines that time had drawn. There had been so many years of unhappiness, of untruthfulness. Tonight was the first step back. Tonight, she had found a way out. And though she didn’t know where that life was headed, one thing was certain. The little boy in the sketch would fade away. It would take time, and she would be patient. She was determined. Her son would not live in the shadow of fear.
SIXTY-THREE
THE GOOD-BYE
AT FOUR THIRTY THAT morning, Marie shot up from her bed. It had been nagging at her all night, but with her head filled with worry over the party and Gayle, and Janie Kirk sleeping with Troy, it had simply gone underground. Until just now.
Slipping out of their bed, Marie stepped lightly across the wooden floorboards. Out into the hallway, then down the stairs, the thought was now taking shape. She flicked on the lights in the study and logged on to her computer.
It was the way he’d said it. Good-bye, Marie. Not the colloquial sort of good-bye that people say as a matter of course. He had said that kind to her every day since he entered her office and turned her life on its head. This good-bye had been altogether different, and she didn’t like what it implied.
When the computer was up, she logged into her e-mail. There were twenty-two new messages, half of them disposable spam, the rest work-related. The last one was from Randy. Marie stared at the address, not willing to believe that she was right. But she was usually right, especially when it came to people, and this person she happened to know very well. It was in his tone, the conflicted look in his eyes. He had been prodding her to know, hoping she would see what he was doing and then stop him. But she had been frantic. The Farrell case, the party. There had been too much preoccupation. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to see.
Her heart pounding, Marie clicked to open the message.
Dear Marie,
I saw true love today, and knew I had to leave. I’ll be in touch.
Randy
Marie stared at the words, reading them again and again. True love. What did he mean? Carson Farrell’s love for his wife, the kind that blinded him to her illness? He came close to losing his children, leaving them with a woman who was ill in a misguided attempt to spare her further agony. Or did he mean Anthony coming through in the final inning? The last possibility took her breath away. Could he really believe that what passed between them was love? True love? Randy Matthews didn’t believe in that kind of love. He’d come damned close to making Marie a love skeptic herself. And now he was saying that he’d seen it? That it was the reason he had to leave?
Marie got up from her desk, but she had nowhere to go. The message was there, and despite the cryptic part about love, there was no need to decipher the ending. He was gone, and the thought of it tore through her. Day after day, even before that first kiss, she had looked forward to seeing his face. They’d worked together like hand in glove, read each other’s thoughts before they were spoken. He had infused her with the defiance of her youth, given her back that part of herself who wouldn’t be caught dead in Hunting Ridge attending charity functions. In his presence, she was transformed from a made-for-TV working mom into a competent, intriguing woman. He had been the smile on her face, which had been gone for quite some time.
The thoughts played out in her head. She could call him, tell him not to leave. But if he stayed, what would happen? They both knew. The first kiss had led to a second, and with the second, came an untenable desire’the kind of desire that is not containable, running like water through every opening, filling every space until it is spent. Was that really what she wanted’to be unfaithful to Anthony? She thought of how he’d been tonight, the comfort she’d felt having him beside her. They’d talked for a long time after the party, about Gayle, the corrupting influence of Hunting Ridge, the Farrell case and what lay ahead for her career. Still, who would hang on her every word? Who would study her face to decipher her every worry, then move mountains to take them away?
Returning to the desk, Mari
e ran her finger across the screen, the last trace of Randy Matthews she had left. She moved the cursor, then clicked delete. It was gone. It had to be. She felt unnerved just the same, lost in the haze of a marriage that had slipped off course and the longing to feel Randy’s hands on her face one more time.
She shut down the computer and pulled her legs onto the chair, resting her head on her knees. She knew what would happen next. Time would pass, life’s distractions would tug at her day after day, keeping her mind occupied. The memories would fade as others were made and stored in front of them, and before long the smell of his skin would be gone, then the feel of his mouth. Step by step she would reinvent herself again, confronting the Farrell situation, rebuilding her career. She would hold Anthony to their agreement, find a way to live with his need to escape on the golf course. And slowly, perhaps, the love would return’the kind of love Marie believed in. And life would be good again. Or at least what it needed to be.
Still, she felt the tears falling on her skin. She had been flying, soaring above her own existence in a whirlwind of anger and excitement and thoughts of change. None of it was real. She lived here on the ground, in a house, with a husband and two children. She had a mortgage to pay, a job to save. She wiped the last tears from her cheeks and got up from the chair. At the kitchen sink, she let the cold water run through her hands, then pressed them onto her burning skin. Against the darkness of night, she could see her reflection staring back at her in the window. In all her years, with all her wisdom, she never would have seen this coming. Was it a well-kept secret, this ability to go back in time, to revisit the passion of the young? Did everyone carry with them this knowledge? She had many friends, good friends who bared their souls to her, and still, no one had ever confessed to knowing. Maybe Janie Kirk knew. Maybe Troy Beck had shown her. All through this town, the wives walked the streets as if they held the key to life’s perfection. Perfect kids, perfect houses, perfect marriages. No. They couldn’t know, or maybe they just didn’t remember how it felt to be so alive. Marie was beginning to envy that kind of ignorance.
As she turned out the kitchen light and headed for the stairs, she felt herself returning to calm. Already her thoughts were running away from her to her sleeping girls and the plans for the day that was almost upon her. She stopped to look in on Olivia, then Suzanne, and it was their sleeping, peaceful faces that she saw before her as she crawled quietly under her own covers. Olivia with her Powerpuff Girls pajamas, unruly hair, and cherry-red cheeks. Suzanne coiled up like a little doll, her pink nail polish now worn and chipped around the edges. As she closed her eyes, she heard Randy’s words in her head and she smiled to herself. Yes, she thought. That’s what he had seen in her. The mother, above all else. That was why he had left. It was the one thing they both believed in. That was the true love.
Marie opened her eyes and sat up to look at her husband. Anthony was snoring, his stomach bulging beneath the blankets. Reaching across the bed she pressed her hand against his chest.
“Wake up,” she whispered. But he didn’t move.
“Tony’wake up,” she said, louder this time.
His eyes shot open, startling her. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, his face flushed with alarm.
Marie didn’t waste any time. “We’re leaving this place.”
Anthony sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the palms of his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“We have to leave this place. I can see that now.”
He studied her face. She was serious. Reaching across to the night table for his glasses, he let out a sigh of resignation. There was going to be a conversation.
“All right. Let’s go downstairs and make some coffee.”
SIXTY-FOUR
THE RETREAT
THE ROOM WAS STIFLING. It was cool outside and the heat had turned on. Janie thought of opening a window, but couldn’t muster the will to remove herself from her bed. Through the sheer curtains, the moonlight sifted in and this was as unwelcome as the heat. She lay on top of the covers next to her sleeping husband, her mind and body exhausted. Spent. She closed her eyes and saw Gayle and the look on her face as she made sense of her husband with another woman. With her. She opened her eyes and saw Daniel, unaware, but now vulnerable to the same sting of betrayal she had inflicted upon Gayle. The kind of sting that doesn’t go away. Ever.
She would not see Troy Beck again. She didn’t want to, and in any case, it would hardly be possible now. She could see down that road. He would come to her unencumbered, and the lack of deviance would kill the excitement for him. An awkward, unspoken expectation would crawl into bed with them, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing they could do to get rid of it. There could be, at most, a few more encounters before they finally put it out of its misery. Even if she woke up tomorrow and somehow felt the need after everything that had happened, Troy Beck would no longer satisfy it.
She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and thought about what lay ahead. Wanting Troy Beck again did not concern her. Nor did wanting any man. This had not been about sex, she could see that now. Not about the bad sex with Daniel. Not about the great sex with Troy. She was missing a connection with another human being, and she hadn’t found that with either man.
She could feel the shift inside her’as if someone had pulled a switch. She was retreating back to that underground place where she walked half-dead among the living, speaking with words that were well-rehearsed and known to be acceptable. Attending parties and luncheons and school fairs. Smiling, smiling. Caring for her children. Servicing her husband. Smiling some more. She would impose upon herself a penance. She would be a more perfect, doting wife. She would devote herself to her home and she would not want more.
She thought about the four children down the hall. There was comfort there. She loved them, and they loved her back. It was uncomplicated’ caring for them, pouring her love into them, would be her escape. She would remind herself that staying with Daniel, keeping the family together, was a gift for her children. And this thought, too, brought some comfort.
Still, as she lay in bed next to her husband, she felt pieces of herself falling from her being. Withering in the harsh light of her perfect life.
SIXTY-FIVE
THE MORNING AFTER
GAYLE SAT ALONE AT the kitchen counter savoring a cup of black coffee. It was barely past six and the sky was light. Morning had finally, mercifully, arrived.
The adrenaline had been relentless, chasing away any possibility of sleep as she lay in her bed through the remainder of the night. Now her head was pounding, her nerves frayed. A strange mixture of emotions’ fear, excitement, anger, sadness’churned inside her, pushing and pulling her toward thoughts she had never had in her life. They were the thoughts of independence, and they were terrifying. She had kicked her husband out of her house. Now she would have to plan the follow-through. He would come back, she was certain, sometime today. There would be a confrontation and she would have to face it head-on. She’d thought of running. She could take Oliver, pack some things, and drive off. She could leave a note on the door and hope Troy would concede the battle. But that kind of fantasy required a depth of denial that she could no longer afford to embrace.
Yesterday, she had been a married woman, a Haywood. She had suffered from depression, and anxiety, and delusion. She’d been medicated, sometimes sedated. And she’d lived in a secret world that, in the end, had become unsustainable. So much had happened to that woman of yesterday that it might as well have been a lifetime that had passed rather than one night.
The sound of the doorbell sent a fierce panic through her. Could he really be back this early? She rushed to a place out of sight from the window. She would pretend to be asleep. She would not answer. A voice called from outside the door and she recognized it instantly. It was Janie Kirk.
“I told Daniel I forgot my purse,” Janie said when Gayle finally appeared.
Gayle stood in the doorway. “I’m sure he bel
ieved you.”
Janie hung her head, accepting the retort. “Can I come in?”
Stepping out of the way, Gayle let her pass, and they walked in an awkward silence to the kitchen.
“Coffee?” Gayle asked, though she had no idea why. She should hate this woman. They should not be sitting and chatting over coffee as though they were still friends’as though she hadn’t heard Janie Kirk laughing as her husband ran his hands across her bare skin.
“No, thank you.” Janie was as surprised as Gayle. Still, she took a seat next to her at the island counter. Then she pulled a letter from her purse.
“I’m resigning from the board. I’ll send copies to everyone.”
Janie paused as Gayle scanned the short explanation. Personal reasons … my husband’s illness … etc.
Gayle looked up when she was through. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. You’ve worked hard for the clinic. You don’t need to see my face all the time,” Janie said, interrupting her.
Nodding with understanding, Gayle accepted the gesture. “You could have mailed it,” she said.
“I know. That’s not the only reason I came.” She drew a long breath and held back the shame from what she had done. “I don’t think it’s even appropriate to try to apologize. But I thought I could explain. I suppose that’s what I would want if I were in your position.”
Gayle thought about this. An explanation. Would that make any difference now? Her husband’s affair was a cupful of water in the ocean of their troubles. Still, she did have questions.
