Big Girls Don't Cry

by Brenda Novak

  Her fingers twitched, but she left her cuticles alone. “This is…this is unbelievable.”

  “I know, but we’ll work through it together. We’ll figure out a fair amount of support and—”

  “I don’t want to talk about support anymore,” she said.

  “The whole thing’s a shock,” he replied. “But you’ll recover. I’ll stay here in L.A. with you as long as you need me.”

  “What does she look like?”

  The sudden change in subject took Isaac by surprise. “What?”

  “You heard me. What does his other wife look like?”

  Obviously, her mind was bouncing around, still trying to grasp the full extent of the catastrophe. But Isaac knew she wouldn’t like the truth. He hesitated, wondering how to answer.

  “Isaac?” she pressed.

  “She’s…small,” he said.

  “And?”

  “Dark hair.”

  “Great, we’re opposites.”

  He said nothing.

  “Is she beautiful?” she asked.

  “Liz…”

  “Tell me.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  “Stop torturing yourself,” he said with a scowl.

  “She is beautiful.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re beautiful.”

  “But she’s the one who’s walking away from this with her family intact!”

  “You don’t really want Keith anymore, do you? Not now. Not after everything he’s done.”

  “This isn’t about me, Isaac. Keith now lives in Idaho, which means my kids will never get to see their father.”

  “In the long run, maybe things are better that way.”

  “Better for whom?” she cried.

  “For you.”

  “But not for my children!”

  “We can make him pay child support. We can’t make him visit the kids.”

  Her eyes darted nervously over the road as she worried her bottom lip. “If we lived closer to him, I know he’d see them. He loves them. That much of what we had has to be real!”

  “You don’t live anywhere near him,” he reminded her. “Not anymore.”

  “We could,” she said. “All we have to do is move to Idaho.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  REENIE FELT oddly removed from the situation, as if she was standing outside herself, watching what was taking place in her living room. Yet she’d slept with Keith for eleven years. She’d cooked for him, washed his clothes, planned his birthday parties, borne his children. How could he be facing her right now with tears in his eyes, begging her to believe that he’d merely “screwed up”? That she should give him another chance?

  Maybe if he’d had a one-night stand, she could make an allowance. They spent a lot of time apart. She could understand being tempted. But he’d married another woman. Whenever she managed to dredge up some hope that they’d be able to salvage their marriage, the image of that other woman and her children waiting for him, kissing him hello, sending him off—everything she’d done herself—created an impenetrable barricade around her heart.

  Gabe sat in the doorway leading to the kitchen, a silent but brooding presence. She could sense the rage he felt toward Keith, a man he’d always liked before last night.

  Her life had reversed itself so completely. The events of the past fifteen hours seemed absolutely surreal.

  She glanced at the clock ticking on top of the piano, conscious of the fact that Jennifer, Angela and Isabella would soon be getting out of school. What would they come home to? Would they have to hear that their parents were splitting up? That their father had been asked to move out? Or could she somehow save them from that?

  “Reenie?” Keith looked at her imploringly. “Are you listening to me? I said we’d buy the farm, do anything you want.”

  She’d heard that part, understood it easily enough. The part she couldn’t grasp was how he’d kept his actions a secret for so long. And what had made him want to develop a long-term relationship with another woman in the first place. He’d never once mentioned that he was unhappy. He’d never said she was falling short in any way. He’d said only that he loved her, that they’d be together forever, that they were a family.

  Had he told his other wife the same things? Made the same promises?

  “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.

  He didn’t bother to wipe the tears that fell down his cheeks. Sliding off the edge of his chair, he went down on his knees and took hold of her limp hand. “You’re just sitting there, staring at me,” he said. “Where’s the passionate woman I love?”

  “She’s lost,” Reenie said simply. She’d already cried so long and hard, the anger had drained right out of her. In its place was a dull acceptance, like what she’d experienced when little Isabella had broken the handblown vase Reenie’s parents had bought her when she’d traveled to Venice with them before her marriage. Of course, this situation was far worse, but underlying her sadness was the same unavoidable truth—tears were useless because there wasn’t any way to bring the vase back. Just as there wasn’t any way to recover what she and Keith had lost.

  “Maybe you should go now,” Gabe suggested, speaking for the first time since Keith had begun his profuse and rambling apology.

  Keith put up a hand. “Wait, Gabe, please? I know you think you could never make the same mistake, but…I—I’m only human. Sometimes people do…stupid things, really stupid things. I fell. That’s all. Then I didn’t know how to get out of the mess I’d created. Liz…”

  “Liz,” Reenie echoed, but it wasn’t a question, it was a statement. “Liz,” she repeated again, mulling over the casual sound of the other woman’s name on her husband’s lips—a name she’d never heard from him until now. Who was this woman? What was she feeling? And what about her children?

  “Her name’s Elizabeth,” Keith said, his eyebrows drawn as though he was struggling to understand what her response might indicate. “Anyway, she…she got pregnant, Reenie. It was an accident. But once there was a baby, I felt cornered. How could I tell Liz about you, then?”

  Imagining Keith making love with another woman—some stewardess he’d met while flying off on one of his many business trips—and conceiving a child with her somehow pierced through the strange numbness that had protected Reenie since his arrival. How long would he have let his affair—his double life—go on? Indefinitely? Why hadn’t he loved her enough to admit his mistake, so they could somehow deal with it? Instead, he’d waited until Isaac had caught him. And now that he was compelled to admit the truth, he expected her to forgive him?

  Nausea roiled in her stomach. Rocking forward, she covered her mouth so she wouldn’t be sick. “I’ve heard enough,” she said weakly.

  Gabe immediately wheeled toward them. “You need to leave.”

  “No!” Keith said, his eyes wide, pleading. “I—I can’t. I already quit my job. Called them up first thing when I got into Boise this morning. I’m serious about staying put. I won’t ever contact Liz again. Anything Reenie wants to do, we’ll do. I’ll prove that I’m a humbled man, that I never meant for any of this to happen. I’ll be so good, she’ll have to forgive me eventually. You’ll see.”

  The muscles in Gabe’s arms stood out beneath his T-shirt as he shoved himself even closer. Her brother was hurt and disappointed, too, Reenie realized. He’d cared about Keith, welcomed him into the family without reservation.

  Reenie wished the anger she’d experienced at first would come to her rescue. She thought it might stave off the nausea. Keith was right—she typically vented her feelings. But what she’d learned last night had changed her. She couldn’t seem to overcome the blow; she’d never felt like this before.

  “Get an apartment or go stay with your parents for a while,” Gabe said. “What you’re trying to do—” he shook his head and glanced at Reenie “—it’s too soon.”

  “Right. Too soon,” Keith echoed, making an attempt to be accommodating. “So maybe in a day or
two we could talk again?” he asked hopefully.

  “Maybe,” Gabe said. But Reenie was fairly certain she wouldn’t want to see her husband in a few days. Or a month. Or even a year.

  Keith climbed to his feet, his head hanging so low he looked almost nothing like the proud, handsome man she’d married. Now he’d agree to almost anything to be on good terms with her again. But what had happened was like the broken vase. Isabella hadn’t meant to destroy it. She simply couldn’t overcome her desire to handle something she’d been told she couldn’t touch.

  Keith had done the same thing, hadn’t he? Only on a much bigger scale. He hadn’t acted with the desire to hurt her or anyone else. She believed that much. He’d just been too selfish, vain, weak or stupid to avoid it. And once he’d gotten involved with this “Liz,” his better character traits—his strong sense of responsibility, especially to children—made it impossible for him to escape his own lies.

  “What are we going to tell the girls?” he asked.

  Reenie finally felt a twinge of sympathy for him. She hated what he’d done to her, guessed the anger she’d felt earlier would reassert itself at some point. But right now, he seemed so pathetic. He’d hurt himself as much as he’d hurt her. “We’ll tell them…” Her mind raced through the various scenarios she’d imagined. “We’ll tell them the truth,” she said at last.

  He hesitated. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  Fresh fear entered his eyes. “About Liz?”

  “No. If we can help it, I don’t want them to know how badly you let us down.”

  He blanched at the barb but seemed relieved overall. “Then what?”

  “We’ll say you made a mistake you didn’t mean to make and—” she lifted her eyes to his “—and broke my favorite vase.”

  “What?” He glanced at Gabe in confusion.

  “She needs time,” Gabe said.

  They didn’t understand. But deep down Reenie knew. The relationship she’d had with Keith was lost forever. Like the broken vase, her marriage was beyond repair.

  * * *

  “I STILL SAY THIS IS CRAZY.” Isaac couldn’t believe he was helping his sister pack and load her belongings into a U-Haul, couldn’t believe he’d soon be driving her and her children nine hundred and forty-two miles to Idaho, even though he’d already contacted a real-estate agent there and rented a house. It had been two weeks since Keith had left, but Liz hadn’t wavered from her course. She’d quit her job and, if anything, become more determined.

  “It’s crazy to want my children to be closer to their father?” she responded, turning from the kitchen cupboard, where she was busy wrapping dishes.

  Isaac finished sealing the box he’d filled and shoved it toward the door. “You don’t know what Dundee is like.”

  “You’ve told me about it.” She grimaced slightly while stretching her back. Packing up a house this size was no small task. They’d been bending, reaching and lifting for three days. Fortunately, it was easier today because the children were in school instead of trying to help. “It’s mountainous there,” she recited. “It gets cold and snowy in the winter. And it’s small.”

  “The meaning of small is what I don’t think you understand.”

  “So there won’t be any movie theaters or shopping malls.” She went back to packing.

  Isaac slouched into one of the few chairs left in the room and stretched out his long legs. “Liz, look at me.”

  “What? It’s not like I’m selling the house, Isaac. I’m renting it out on a month-to-month basis, okay? That’s not permanent.”

  “I had to sign a six-month lease in order to get a place in Dundee.”

  “Six months isn’t that long.”

  “Going there even for a few weeks will be bad enough. Reenie’s father is an Idaho state senator and has been for years.”

  Her eyebrows drew together in an expression of impatience. “So?”

  “She’s lived in Dundee her whole life and is well entrenched in the community. Everyone likes her.”

  “Even you,” she said, her tone slightly accusing.

  Isaac couldn’t deny it, so he focused on his point. “I’m saying you won’t be welcomed.”

  “I know what you’re saying. But I’m not going there to win any popularity contests.”

  “You’ll be the antithesis of popular. You’ll be notorious, a pariah. Are you sure being near Keith will be worth the sacrifice?”

  She set two mugs on the counter and stared at them instead of wrapping them in newspaper. “I talked to Chris’s teacher yesterday, Isaac.”

  Isaac could tell by the tone of her voice that this wasn’t going to be good. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. “And?”

  “Since I told the kids that their daddy left us, Chris hasn’t been making any progress in school. His teacher said he doesn’t even look at the papers she passes out. He sits in his chair, staring out the window, his mind off in some other world. She’s worried about him, doesn’t know how to reach him. And neither do I.”

  “He needs time to adjust, Liz,” Isaac said gently. “He’ll be okay. He’s not the first kid to suffer through a parental divorce.”

  “You mean annulment, right? Divorces are only for legal marriages.”

  “In this case, after so many years, it amounts to about the same thing. Except it saves you money.”

  “Lucky me. Well, annulment or divorce or whatever, Christopher isn’t coping. This is hitting him as hard as I knew it would.”

  Isaac understood. He just wasn’t sure the risk she was taking would improve the situation. “Keith hasn’t returned your calls, Liz. Yesterday, he had his cell-phone service shut off. You can’t even leave him a message anymore.”

  “Which is exactly why I have to go there! Don’t you see? I need some type of closure. I need him to face me and tell me he doesn’t love me anymore. This silence is…it’s like being locked in a dark room. I can’t get my bearings. I’ve been feeling my way around, searching frantically for the light switch. Idaho is that light switch. I’m not sure going there will bring my husband back to me, but I can’t extinguish that hope until I see him, talk to him, figure out what happened to us.”

  “Can’t you fly up there and meet with him?”

  “For what, a half hour? That’s not the same. I have to know he won’t change his mind in a week or two.”

  “If he’s back with Reenie, you might have a real fight on your hands. She’s probably forbidden him to see you again. Otherwise, he would have kept his cell-phone service.”

  “You said cell phones don’t work there.”

  “They don’t. But it was your only link. He could’ve kept the service so he could check his voice mail from a land phone. At least then you’d have a discreet way to communicate with him.”

  “You’re saying he doesn’t want to talk to me,” she said softly.

  “Maybe he can’t.”

  She considered this for a moment, then lifted her chin. “I don’t care. Once we get there, he’ll have to acknowledge the children, at least. They need the same kind of closure I’m searching for.”

  Keith shook his head. “The next few months are going to be a nightmare.”

  “I’m already living a nightmare,” she said.

  “Trust me. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” If it gets better, he thought.

  “You can go back to Chicago, if you want.” She shoved two more glasses in the box at her feet. “Just because I’m doing this doesn’t mean you have to come along.”

  She’d tried to tell him that at least a dozen times already. But he couldn’t leave her. Especially now. Once she arrived in Dundee, she wouldn’t have a friend in the world. “Sorry, but you’re stuck with me,” he said.

  “You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

  “Maybe.”

  “At least you have to go back after Christmas. That’s only six weeks away.”

  He watched her reach for more newsp
aper. “Actually, I’m not teaching spring semester this year.”

  She glanced up. “What?”

  “I’ve taken a sabbatical from the university.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “When?”

  “I made it official yesterday.”

  “But what about your grant? Your trip to the Congo?”

  “I forfeited that to Harold Munoz.”

  Her fingers twitched but she could no longer destroy her cuticles. He’d insisted she use Band-Aids to protect them from further damage.

  “Please tell me you didn’t really do that,” she said.

  When he didn’t answer, she weaved through the boxes littering the floor and knelt in front of him. Several strands of hair had fallen from her ponytail and there was a smudge of black ink on her cheek. Her dishevelment made her look almost as young as the sixteen-year-old girl who’d been so vulnerable to Luanna. “Isaac, why?”

  He scowled so she’d quit making such a big deal out of what he’d done. “Because I wanted to. I needed a break.”

  “That’s not true. You love to teach. And you were desperate to get back to Africa. It was all you could talk about.”

  “Reginald will send me the applications for next year.”

  She buried her face in her hands. When she eventually looked up, he could see the tears in her eyes. “Please don’t let this ruin your life, too,” she whispered.

  “It’s not ruining my life. I’m taking a sabbatical, okay? A few months off. No big deal.”

  “But—”

  He resecured the Band-Aid that was about to fall off her thumb. “You’re my little sister, Liz. I’m not going anywhere until you’re back on your feet.”

  The tears began to spill. “You know, what happened to Mom—”

  “Don’t think about Mom right now,” he interrupted. “You’ve got enough going on.”

  “No, it’s okay. That’s what I want to tell you. I’ve missed her terribly, but my life would’ve been a lot worse if—” he wiped away the smudge on her cheek while waiting for her to continue “—if not for you,” she finished.