Big Girls Don't Cry

by Brenda Novak

  When a group of businessmen passed between him and his brother-in-law, he finally stood and started toward the escalators. Keith had settled in to work on his computer. He wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until they boarded the plane.

  Then Isaac would be going with him.

  Dundee, Idaho

  REENIE COULDN’T HELP waiting up. She knew it was crazy to lose sleep when she had to get the girls off to school in the morning. But she still felt that old rush of anticipation when she knew her husband was coming home.

  She sat in the living room, the filmy black lingerie she’d bought in Boise last week hidden beneath the heavy fabric of her robe, sipping a glass of white wine and playing with Old Bailey’s silky ears. Her dog had been acting a little sluggish lately, but he was eleven years old and suffered from arthritis, so that was to be expected. “You’re okay, aren’t you Bailey?” she asked.

  He licked his snout and gave her a short whine, and she sighed, hoping she’d been imagining his lack of appetite and increased lethargy.

  Taking another sip of wine, she listened to the wind buffet the trees against the house. A steady drip fell from the rain gutter at the side of the house, but the worst of the storm had blown over. Conditions must have improved in Boise, too, because Keith had called at nine-thirty to say he was boarding his plane. Surely, he wouldn’t be much longer.

  The ring of the telephone startled her. She wasn’t used to receiving calls so late. Her husband rarely called when he was gone. If he hadn’t been delayed, she doubted she would have heard from him at all today. He would have simply appeared, luggage in tow, as he always did.

  Pulling her gaze away from the silver sheen of wet pavement that lay beyond her big, sloping front lawn, she extricated herself from Bailey, who padded after her as she answered the phone in the kitchen. She hoped Keith wasn’t calling to say his plane had been forced to land elsewhere.

  “Hello?”

  “Reenie?”

  It wasn’t Keith; it was Gabe. She knew her brother well enough to guess he was feeling badly about this morning. That was why he’d brought the girls a tree swing. But she’d already promised herself she wasn’t going to forgive him too easily.

  “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No. Keith’s getting in soon.”

  “You haven’t talked him into quitting that lousy job yet?”

  “It pays the bills.”

  “It makes you miserable.”

  She raked her fingers through her hair. “He’s afraid he won’t be able to replace his paycheck. And he says he’s used to the traveling, that I should be used to it by now, too.”

  “Are you?”

  “Mostly I’m tired of having him gone. But I’m not sure it’s fair of me to demand he give up what he feels successful at, what he loves. Besides, what if he’s right and he can’t find anything better?”

  “He’d be fine. It’s time he started thinking of you and the girls.”

  “He’s good to us.”

  “When he’s around.” Gabe fell silent for a long moment, then drew an audible breath. “I’m sorry about this morning,” he said, offering the apology he’d probably been working on all day.

  Because the words sounded as though he’d had to drag them out of some place very deep, they melted Reenie’s heart almost immediately. So much for not forgiving him too easily.

  Oh well. Maybe they argued often. They were both passionate people. Stubborn. Opinionated. But their arguments never lasted long. Regardless of their ups and downs, Reenie knew Gabe would do anything for her, and she felt the same way about him. “I know you’re still having a hard time with what Dad did,” she said. “But it happened so long ago, Gabe. And Lucky really is—”

  “A nice person,” he interrupted. “I know. You’ve told me that before. I keep thinking I’m over whatever it is that makes me dislike her. But then I see her and…” His sentence trailed off.

  Bailey, tired of waiting for Reenie to return to their cozy spot in the living room, lay across her feet.

  “She’s your best friend’s wife,” Reenie said, trying to approach the situation from another angle.

  “Which only complicates the situation,” Gabe replied. “Dad. You. Mike. I’m cornered.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to accept what we can’t change.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  Considering the accident that had stolen so much from him, she guessed it was more a matter of her poor brother reaching his “tough luck” threshold before they’d even learned about their father’s affair with the infamous Red.

  “Hannah thinks I should give her a call in the morning,” he said.

  Hannah. Gabe’s wife was so immovable in her love for him. If not for the strength of the relationship that had developed between them, and Hannah’s two boys, he’d probably still be closeting himself away in the remote cabin where he’d lived for two years after the accident. Instead, he’d bought a house in town and was coaching football at the high school.

  Reenie wondered if she was expecting too much of him. Her brother was making progress. But it didn’t hurt to encourage him. “I’m sure Lucky would be glad to hear from you,” she said.

  The sound of a car in the driveway brought Reenie’s head up. Bailey, who was hardly an excitable animal, lumbered to the door and gave a rare “woof!”

  Finally. Her husband was home. She was going to talk to Keith about the Higley farm. Again. She knew having him around more often would be good for the family. Not only were his long absences driving her crazy, but she had this…this terrible sense that his traveling threatened her and their children in some way.

  She knew he’d laugh at her the moment she admitted it to him. Until recently, she wouldn’t even admit it to herself. But she could no longer ignore what she felt. She wasn’t being insecure or overly possessive. Keith was becoming increasingly distant. Sometimes she’d be talking to him, possibly speculating on what their lives could be like if he did something else for a living, and his mind would just drift off. She needed his attention again. She needed him to concentrate more on her and the kids and less on work.

  Hearing Keith’s key in the lock, she told Gabe she’d call him tomorrow. Now that she and Keith would be face-to-face, and alone, she was going to sit down with him and tell him exactly how she felt. His job—or his marriage. He’d have to choose.

  But as soon as her husband walked through the door, she found herself in his arms and knew she wouldn’t bring up the subject tonight. She didn’t want to argue. He was whispering how much he loved her, how much he’d missed her, and his hands were slipping beneath her robe, seeking the places on her body that craved his touch.

  She’d already put up with his traveling for nearly eleven years. She supposed her ultimatum could wait one more night.

  * * *

  ISAAC SAT in the back seat of the taxi he’d hired at the airport and stared across a narrow country road at the house Keith had entered only a few minutes earlier. A quick glance at the clock on the dash next to the meter in front told him it was 11:58 p.m.—a little late for Keith to be visiting a friend.

  Frowning, he let his eyes rove over the house. Made of wood and painted white, it had been built some years ago but, like the yard, it was well kept. He could see the top of a swing set over the back fence. A tricycle with pink tassels dangling from the handlebars waited near the front door. A detached garage took up a large section of the right-hand side of the property, but it didn’t look as though it was being used to house vehicles. There was a Jeep, parked beneath a tarp and sporting a For Sale sign. A minivan sat in the driveway next to the blue SUV Keith had driven.

  “You gettin’ out?” the cabby asked when Isaac made no move to open the door.

  “No.”

  “You want I should take you somewhere else?”

  “No.”

  The license plate of the minivan said, 1 I LUV. Keith’s license plate was pretty conspicuous, too. It read, MY3GR
LS, which had made him quite easy to follow.

  Isaac lightly rubbed his lip. He’d risked his grant to follow Keith across two states, but he still wasn’t sure what his brother-in-law was up to. He only knew it didn’t look good. Especially when two figures, a man and a woman, appeared in the window. The glaring porch light made it difficult to see much detail, but a softer light coming from another room in the house threw both their bodies into relief.

  They were kissing. The man was Keith. No question. The woman he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t discern any specific features, not even the color of her hair.

  “Meter’s running,” the cabby reminded him.

  When Isaac made no response, the driver rolled down his window and lit a cigarette while Isaac watched Keith shove the woman’s robe off her shoulders. When Keith bent his head to kiss his partner’s neck, Isaac looked away. He felt sick. Elizabeth was going to be devastated. This would hurt Mica and Christopher, too.

  What should he do? Dropping his head in his hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think.

  “That’s not your wife, is it?” the cab driver asked, smoke curling from his nose as he spoke.

  Again, Isaac didn’t respond. He was too busy searching for an answer. But no answer presented itself.

  When he glanced up again, the figures in the window were gone. No doubt they’d moved to the bedroom.

  Imagining his brother-in-law making love to another woman caused rage to cut through Isaac’s terrible disappointment. He had to do something; he had to stop what was happening. For Elizabeth’s sake.

  “Wait here,” he said, and got out. Wrinkling his nose against the cabby’s cigarette smoke and the car’s exhaust, he pulled his coat close and strode briskly across the street. He’d teach Keith a lesson. Break his nose. Something!

  Isaac’s mind told him a fistfight wouldn’t solve anything—he hadn’t been in a fight since he was seventeen—but his heart pumped eagerly in his chest as he cleared the driveway. He wouldn’t allow his brother-in-law to have sex with this woman!

  Anticipating the satisfying impact of his first blow to Keith’s face, Isaac barely heard the rumbling motor of the waiting taxi as he slipped inside the chain-link fence that surrounded the front yard. He passed the trike with the pink tassels, stepped over a small pair of rubber boots lying near the steps and opened the screen door so he could bang on the wooden panel behind it. But then he hesitated. There was a crayon drawing taped to the door.

  He blinked, his hand poised in the air. The drawing depicted several stick figures. One was obviously larger than the rest and, judging by the hair, was a man. The other figures were as crudely drawn but they were much smaller and seemed to be gathered around the man. At the bottom, a child had written, “Welcome Home, Daddy. We missed you. Jennifer, Angela and…” He couldn’t read the last name. Whoever had signed the drawing had attempted to write in cursive, which he or she obviously didn’t know how to do.

  Welcome home, Daddy….

  Chills rolled down Isaac’s spine as he slowly lowered his hand to his side. Was this woman also married? Was her husband away on business? Could Keith have been driving her husband’s car?

  Isaac wanted to knock and demand the truth. But the tricycle with the pink tassels, the little boots and the childish note stopped him. There were children inside….

  God, what was going on? How many lives would Keith’s affair destroy?

  Taking a bolstering breath, Isaac glanced back at the waiting taxi just as the cab driver finished his cigarette and tossed the butt carelessly away.

  He had to think, gain some perspective.

  Suddenly the porch light winked off, leaving Isaac in the dark. He froze where he stood on the front step, waiting to see if whoever had turned off the light had heard his approach or spotted the green-and-white taxi parked in front.

  But the next several seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Keith and the woman were probably too involved with each other to notice anything less than a sizable earthquake.

  The rain began to fall more heavily, but Isaac couldn’t move. Most of his life, he’d done his best to protect his little sister. She’d had no one else.

  But, heaven help him, there wasn’t anything he could do to protect her from this.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RELUCTANTLY, ISAAC LEFT Dundee behind and had the cabdriver drop him at a motel next to the Boise airport. He would’ve liked more time in the small town where Keith had spent the night. But he couldn’t haunt Dundee while his brother-in-law was around. He didn’t want Keith to know he suspected the affair. Not until he had a better sense of what was happening. Besides, his luggage had gone on to Chicago when he missed his plane and he wouldn’t have had any transportation in Dundee. The town wasn’t large enough to offer car rentals or bus service.

  He had to go home. But what he’d witnessed didn’t make it easy to leave. At least a hundred questions crowded to the forefront of his mind as he lay in the double bed, staring down the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him. Did folks in the area know Keith? How often did he appear and how long did he stay? Who was the woman he’d taken in his arms? Where had he met her—and how? What plans did he have for the future? Surely Liz’s husband didn’t feel he could continue lying to her indefinitely.

  Or did he?

  He’d come back later, when Keith was in L.A., he decided. Then Isaac wouldn’t have to be so discreet. He could poke around, ask whatever he wanted.

  Now he needed to sleep, so he could get up early and fly out. He couldn’t make his interview, but he was anxious to be home.

  Problem was sleep wouldn’t come. Traffic rambled by; the television in the room next door blared too loudly. He was still getting used to such noise after spending more than a year cocooned in the deep jungle.

  The ice machine not far from his door clattered, and he swore softly under his breath. But it was the memories that really bothered him—the memories he hadn’t let himself think about for years. Elizabeth repeatedly waking in a cold sweat, shaking from some terrible nightmare. Luanna, their stepmother, who was the cause of those nightmares, constantly belittling her. Can’t you do anything right?…You clumsy idiot…My hell, if you had half a brain you’d be dangerous…Look at the way you did these dishes. You’re not worth a damn, you know that?

  For some reason, Luanna had been kinder to Isaac. He’d grown up feeling guilty for getting away with the little things Elizabeth would be punished for doing. Things like leaving his clothes on the floor, or forgetting to put his plate in the dishwasher. Maybe it was because he didn’t need Luanna as much as Liz did, because he didn’t really care whether she liked him or not. There was a certain amount of safety in indifference.

  But Liz had been younger and much lonelier. She’d desperately craved the love they’d lost when their mother died, and it seemed to be that neediness that made Luanna so harsh. At any rate, Liz’s vulnerability gave Luanna her power. The more Luanna punished Elizabeth, the more insecure and forgetful the girl became. The more insecure and forgetful she became, the more Luanna found reason to punish her. It grew into a never-ending cycle, one which Isaac could not stop. Whenever he tried to defend Elizabeth, Luanna would turn on him, and he’d run away from home. A day or two later, he’d go back because he couldn’t leave Liz there alone.

  He’d built up a deep resentment of his father for not putting an end to the petty meanness. To this day, they weren’t speaking.

  Fortunately, Elizabeth had slowly gained the strength she’d needed to stand up to their stepmother. When she was seventeen, she’d run away herself and refused to go back. She’d graduated from high school while living with a girlfriend and spending most weekends sleeping on the floor of Isaac’s dorm room. Once he’d obtained his degree, he’d tried to help her get through college, but she’d left school to become a stewardess, which she seemed to really enjoy. That was when she met Keith. They’d married, had two children, and Liz had been happier than Isaac had ever seen her
.

  Which was all about to change.

  Isaac shifted to his back and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Who was the poor schmuck Keith’s new lover was cheating on? Did he have any idea what his wife was doing?

  Sleep, he ordered himself and tried to stop thinking. But it was no use.

  Finally he snatched the phone from its cradle and leaned back against the headboard to dial. A call this late would probably wake Liz. But he had to talk to her, if only to remind himself that she was older and stronger than she’d been before, that somehow she’d be okay.

  “Hello?” Her sleep-filled voice seemed to reach across the line and grab him by the throat.

  “Hello?” she repeated when he didn’t answer right away.

  “It’s me.”

  “Oh good, you got my message.” Her last word thickened with what sounded like a yawn.

  “Your message?”

  “On your answering machine. I wanted to make sure you got in safely.”

  “I’m fine.” Isaac hated lying to her. She thought her husband was in Phoenix. She thought her brother was in Chicago. Yet they were both in Idaho, of all places. But, guilt or no guilt, he wasn’t about to admit the truth yet. First, he needed to understand more about what was going on, figure out a way to soften the blow. “Have you heard from Keith?”

  Isaac knew she had to wonder at his sudden preoccupation with her husband. Other than the usual felicitations, they didn’t talk about Keith a whole lot. But Isaac couldn’t help asking. He wanted to know who Keith really was. Obviously, his brother-in-law wasn’t the man Isaac thought he knew. Hell, he wasn’t even the man Liz thought she knew—and she’d been living with him for eight years!

  “Unless there’s a problem with the kids and I leave a message that I need him to call me, I usually don’t hear from him till he gets home, remember?”