From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I’d like to stay tonight,” he said after a minute, quietly, trying to keep the humming tension out of his voice.

  She glanced his way, but they were on the freeway now and he couldn’t afford to let himself be distracted from the traffic. “Sure,” she said. “But won’t you have to race home in the morning to change?”

  “I brought a duffel bag.”

  “He’s taking me for granted,” she told any unseen listeners.

  Serious? Teasing him? Damn, he hated this uncertainty.

  “I want enough trust between us that we can take each other for granted.”

  It was a long time before she answered. “I want that, too,” she said, in a voice that made him think of old bruises, yellow under the skin. “I do, Jakob.”

  “Okay.” Despite the road conditions, he reached out and took her hand. He held on until he had to shift down to leave the freeway.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WAS EVERYTHING GOING wrong her fault?

  Amy’s gloomy conclusion: probably.

  But in this case, she didn’t think it was her imagination that Jakob was really, really quick to pounce on her whenever she said anything wrong.

  Every time they’d seen each other the past few days, a high tension wire ran through every word they said. He was careful, she was careful, and then they ended up sniping, anyway.

  She wanted tonight to be different.

  Dinner at his loft condo, which she’d dreaded all day since they did better in public than when they were alone.

  He’d picked her up, since parking in this part of town was a bitch to find and there were no slots for visitors downstairs in the garage.

  He started on dinner as she wandered, checking out his selection of books. One whole case held titles on preservation of old growth forests, rivers, wildlife, along with huge glossy books full of glorious nature photography. Otherwise, he had the same mishmash most people did: some mysteries, sci-fi, biographies, stuff likely left from college courses, half a shelf of books on digital photography and editing, a small library having to do with smart business.

  “How did your day go?” he asked from the kitchen.

  “So-so,” she said, her back to him. “I got a couple of rejections. I swear, they always come in bursts.”

  “Idiots.”

  Amy laughed. “I’d agree, except it’s the nature of the business. An editor might like my writing and topic, but the article doesn’t meet their current needs. That’s their favorite line, by the way. All it means is I shoot out queries to other publications. Usually, though not always, I find a taker. Maybe not my first choice, but once in a while it turns out better. There’s always a sting to the rejections, though.”

  “I can imagine.”

  She kept talking, and he listened, something he did well. She found herself editing what she said, though, because if she even hinted at self-doubt, he would jump on her. And yes, he had reason, but she had reason, too. And anyway, didn’t everyone doubt him or herself some of the time? Feel unworthy or incompetent, fat, ugly, stupid? So why wasn’t she entitled?

  Because without noticing I’ve spent my whole life feeling sorry for myself?

  She heaved a sigh.

  “What’s wrong?” Jakob asked, from so close behind her she leaped six inches.

  “Oh! I didn’t hear you coming.”

  “Why are you concentrating so hard on my bookcase?”

  “Don’t you know how much you can tell about someone by what he reads?”

  “Hmm,” he said. “I don’t know what you read. I’ve only seen a few books in the house.”

  She made a face at him. “That would be because mine are mostly in boxes and Mom doesn’t care if she owns books. All they do is collect dust, she says. She gets hers from the library. She can’t imagine why anyone would reread a book, especially a novel.”

  He chuckled. “Sounds like an old argument.”

  “Mom and I have spent thirty-four years either being icy polite or arguing. The arguing was icy polite on her side, too.”

  There was definite amusement in his eyes. “Yeah, you weren’t icy polite when I lived with you. Not to anyone.” The beginning of a frown drew his eyebrows together. “Well, that’s not true. You always were different with Michelle. A little standoffish, I guess.”

  Conscious of a familiar hollow beneath her breastbone, Amy shrugged and turned back to the bookcase. “Chicken or the egg.”

  “Why do you always do that?”

  She went still at his edgy tone. “Do what?”

  “Shrug, just so everyone knows whatever should have hurt doesn’t. And, in this case, turn your back on me.”

  She faced him, keeping her head high. Here we go. “I didn’t know I did.”

  His jaw was tight. “Nobody has ever pointed it out before?”

  “Nobody has ever felt compelled to criticize everything I do or say, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It wasn’t criticism. It was a question.”

  “Oh, bull!” She got mad like a spark leaping into flame. “You know, I’m getting the feeling you don’t actually like me very much. Not me.” She pointed her thumb at herself. “You know, our relationship hasn’t changed as much as you think it has from when we were teenagers. You’re still quick to attack.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed; his jaw jutted. “I ask you a question, and it’s an assault?”

  “Yes!” Amy cried. God, she was overreacting, and she couldn’t seem to help herself. She struggled to calm herself. “Can we not do this?”

  “This?”

  “Analyzing each other?” You analyzing me?

  “It was a simple question. Aren’t we supposed to be getting to know each other?” The words were okay; the hint of aggression in his voice and body language wasn’t.

  “You know me.” She was almost begging. “You know why I shrug and pretend I don’t care when sometimes I do. You’re not asking a question, you’re jumping on behavior you don’t like.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he snapped.

  All she did was look at him and fail to see any chagrin or even softening. After a minute, she shook her head. “You know what, I’m not in the mood for this.” She spun away and crossed the open space to where she’d tossed her coat over a chair. “Let’s just say I’m in a bad mood. I’m going home.”

  “Running away.”

  The sneer in his voice made her want to throw something.

  She kept going instead, slamming his door behind her. She was waiting for the freight elevator, hearing the creaks and groans as it rose, when he caught up with her.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “I’d rather catch a cab.” She was perilously close to crying and could not make nice with him for the twenty minutes a crosstown trip would take.

  “Not many of them come by out here.”

  “I can walk two blocks. It’s not late.”

  The doors opened. She refused to look at him or acknowledge him when he got on with her. She pushed the button for the lobby floor. He pushed the one for the parking garage.

  “Amy.” His voice was rough, his confusion apparent. “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t want to do this right now.”

  “When are we going to do it?”

  She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath and tried to regain some control. Thank God, the doors opened to an empty lobby and the sight of the rainy street beyond. She managed a step before they silently slid closed again and she saw his hand pressing the button.

  In a fury, she finally turned on him. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not letting you get away like this. Amy, I don’t know what happened.”

  She knew suddenly that she
couldn’t stand going on like this. Why had she ever imagined this would work?

  “We both know something’s wrong with me.” She didn’t let herself react to the shock on his face. “I have this feeling you’re trying to fix me, and getting frustrated it isn’t happening quicker. Well, I’m sorry. I happen to like myself the way I am. Do not interrupt,” she snapped, when he started to do just that. “And yes, that means stumbling around a lot and not always feeling sure of myself, but that makes me a better writer. Arrogant people can’t get under anyone else’s skin, feel what they do. I can.”

  He pulled his head back. “I take it I’m the arrogant one.”

  “If the shoe fits.” Oh, childish.

  “I’m not trying to fix you.”

  “Yeah,” she said slowly, really thinking it through for the first time. “I’m pretty sure you are. It has to be guilt. All of a sudden, you’re my best friend in the world, you think I’m sexier than any woman you’ve ever met, even though your friends were clearly stunned at what you’d dragged to their house.”

  A storm cloud rolled over his face. Amy didn’t let it stop her.

  “Exotic.” She huffed. “I can’t believe I bought that for a second. Sure. That’s me.”

  “You’re determined not to let anyone love you, aren’t you?”

  “Why would anyone?” she yelled. “Look where I came from!”

  They stared at each other. Even she was taken aback.

  She retreated a step, fumbling behind her for the panel that would allow her to escape.

  “You’re so hung up on the past, you can’t let yourself believe what’s right in front of you.” He sounded sad and angry both.

  Amy shrugged, then cringed at the expression on his face and the startled realization. That’s what I always do. He’s right.

  Could she make him understand? She had to try.

  “That was a stupid thing to say. You were right—obviously, my biological father is not a monster whose genes infected me with something horrible. I’m still coming to terms with what the rape does mean, with finding out why I’m different. When I said something is wrong with me, I didn’t mean it the way you took it. I mean, in your eyes I’m flawed.”

  “I don’t think you’re flawed. I’m in love with you, Amy.”

  She shook her head hard. “Don’t say that. Not now. Listen. Please.”

  He bowed his head and ran his hand over his face. “I’m listening.”

  “If we’d met out of the blue—say, I came to interview you—and you’d asked me out, would you think of me as exotic or different?”

  He stared at her, his eyes intense. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because I’m not. Because it’s only in the context of our family that I’m different.”

  His breath rasped out. “You ever heard that saying about the eye of the beholder?”

  “Okay, forget that. I have self-esteem issues.” In a different mood, she would have laughed at her use of that word. Issues. It seemed they both had them. “You wouldn’t have reacted the same if we didn’t have the past hovering. You’d have asked, you’d have listened, you’d have understood or gotten irritated and ditched me. Whatever. You wouldn’t secretly be blaming yourself. Everything I said wouldn’t stab you with guilt.”

  If his jaw got any tighter, he was going to crack a molar. Eventually he managed to talk. “I have listened. I’ve understood. You’re the one who keeps thinking everything about us has to do with having grown up together.”

  “No.” She hugged herself. “That’s you, Jakob. Yes, I have trouble believing the golden boy I idolized would ever look at me, but it’s you who still remembers lusting after his sister, and how he treated her to keep himself safe.” She reached out and pushed the open button. “Now I’m going home.”

  “We can get past this,” he said to her back.

  She hadn’t moved yet. “I don’t know if we can.”

  “Please let me drive you home.”

  Tears were so close she didn’t know if she could hold them back that long, but after a moment she nodded.

  Once again, they made the entire drive without talking. He pulled to the curb and braked. She reached for the door handle.

  “I love you,” he said, his voice low, gritty. “The woman you are. Maybe I’m still mixed up about those years. I don’t know. The thing is, I’m pretty sure I loved you then, too. Separating then from now isn’t easy.”

  “I know that,” she said. Whispered. “I’m sorry, Jakob. I guess I really do better by myself.”

  She got out and fled before he could say anything else.

  * * *

  JAKOB WENT HOME to a burned dinner, the squawk of the fire alarm and emptiness that felt like a black hole.

  When the phone rang an hour later, he lunged at it, but the caller was his father, not Amy. He muted the ring and went back to staring into a future so empty, he didn’t know how to face it.

  He went to work the next day, made himself go through the motions and came home to an emptiness as profound. This time when his father called, he answered.

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “Thought you could tell me how Amy is. She’s worse than her mother. Neither of them will return a call.”

  He hadn’t known anything could hurt like this.

  “I don’t know,” he said after a minute. “We had a fight last night. She, uh, told me to get lost.”

  The silence was so long, he began to think the call had been dropped. “Dad?”

  “What did you do?” his father asked.

  “Good to know it has to be my fault.” Here he’d worried Amy blamed herself for everything wrong up to the kitchen sink not draining, but what do you know? He was the one who screwed up the most wondrous thing that had ever happened to him.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Sure it is. And you’re right. I told her I love her. And yeah, I slept with her. That’s what you do when you fall in love with a woman. But, turns out, she doesn’t believe anyone can love her. And me, I gave her reason to think...” His voice cracked like a fourteen-year-old boy’s. He couldn’t finish.

  “I really didn’t mean it,” his father said, his voice gentle the way it had been for Amy. “I guess I always knew there was something.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” he told his father, who gave him what he could—sympathy—but didn’t have any answers.

  * * *

  A SCRATCHING SOUND had Amy stiffening. She lay in bed, eyes shut, trying to convince herself that she could sleep. She had to sleep. Human beings couldn’t live without sleep, could they?

  Thump.

  Primitive fear slid up her spine. Human beings didn’t always live after an intruder stole into their house late at night, either.

  The next sound she recognized as the back door being carefully closed. Oh, God. Someone was in the house. She hadn’t been imagining things.

  She inched to the edge of the bed and found the floor with her bare feet. Did she have anything that could serve as a weapon?

  Flashlight. The one she had was army surplus. She slid open the drawer on the bedside stand and found it by touch. Then, heart thudding, she tiptoed through the darkness, peeking cautiously into the hall.

  A light came on downstairs. Not moving, not breathing, she stared. Did burglars or—oh, God—rapists turn on a light when they broke into a house?

  Of course they didn’t.

  She heard footsteps.

  “Mom?” she called, still clutching her heavy flashlight.

  “Oh, dear. I was hoping I wouldn’t wake you.”

  Amy advanced to the top of the stairs. “You scared me to death!”

  At the bottom, her mother looked up at her. “I’m later than I told you, but surely you knew I’d call
if I wasn’t going to make it tonight.”

  She’d been vaguely aware Mom was among the callers she had ignored last night and today. She hadn’t checked voice mail, either.

  “I’m sorry. I must have been asleep,” she lied. “What time is it?”

  “It’s only a little after ten.”

  “Why didn’t you drive over from the coast in daylight?”

  “I took a last look around.”

  “Florence isn’t that big.”

  “No,” Michelle said wearily. “It was a goodbye. I never intend to go back.”

  Amy finally noticed how haggard her mother looked. She’d aged some more while she was gone.

  “Are you all right?” Amy asked tentatively.

  “Of course I am. If I take a shower, will that keep you awake?”

  “I can’t sleep, anyway.” Oh, boy. Had she actually said that aloud?

  “What’s wrong? You’ve sounded happy when I called.”

  “Wow, you noticed?” Immediately she regretted the bitterness that lent sharpness to her automatic comeback. Was she turning into a bitch? Recent experience said yes.

  Or—new and more unpleasant thought—had she always been one, and that was why nobody ever seemed to stick long? She wasn’t disappointing them with her inadequacies, she was driving them away.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  Her mother kept standing at the foot of the stairs, as if she was too tired to mount them. “I think you did. I’m certain I deserved it.”

  “We can’t go back,” Amy heard herself say. “Let’s...concentrate on moving forward.” Because she was so good at it. “You’d think I’d taken up reading self-help books. Or maybe I should switch to writing greeting cards.”

  To her astonishment, Michelle laughed. Then she kept laughing, sinking onto one of the bottom steps and bending over until her head almost touched her knees.

  Amy half fell down the steps, sliding on her butt the last few, until she reached her mother, who was now both laughing and crying in horrible gulps.

  “Mom?”

  Her shoulders kept heaving. Amy hesitated, thought, I’m used to rejection, and put an arm around her mother.

  Who abruptly went still.