From Now On

by Louise Brooks

  Jo and Sandy both turned in surprise. Kathleen was standing in the doorway, surveying the scene with an unreadable expression. Sandy quickly jumped to her feet. “I should go,” she mumbled, brushing past Kathleen and giving Jo a quick thumbs up before she disappeared.

  “I tried calling you a few times,” Kathleen said as she came into the room, looking around the room slowly and examining the three boxes that held five years of Jo’s life. “I guess you were too busy to answer.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jo said, running her hands over the thighs of her jeans to wipe away the sweat that had suddenly accumulated there. “Yesterday was a pretty chaotic day.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Kathleen said.

  “I should have told you myself about my decision to quit,” Jo continued, “but I wasn’t really thinking very clearly at the time.”

  “I understand that.” Kathleen took a seat in one of the straight back chairs in front of Jo’s desk. “I was told the scene with Becca was quite entertaining.”

  Jo dropped the last of the books in her last box and moved it to the floor, not only so she could see Kathleen’s face from her place behind the desk, but to give her a moment to consider her answer. Jo settled in her office chair and laid her hands on the blotter, studying her poor, over-chewed fingernails as she finally said, “I’m not proud of what happened yesterday. I was upset when Becca confronted me. I should have handled it differently. For that, I apologize.”

  Kathleen inclined her head slightly. “I appreciate that,” she said. “But I didn’t come here to chastise you for your behavior.”

  Jo looked up, her eyebrows raised to show her mild surprise. “It was incredibly unprofessional.”

  “Agreed.” Kathleen leaned forward, her hands clasped on the desk before her. “Now, can we forget all that for a moment?”

  Jo nodded.

  “Good,” Kathleen said. “Now, what can I do to convince you not to quit?”

  Jo sat back and studied Kathleen’s face. “You want me to stay?”

  “You are a good worker, Jo, I’ve told you that. And here recently you’ve begun showing yourself to be an asset to the company. Your work on the daycare proposal was inspired.”

  “But that was you’re idea. I just helped you flesh it out.”

  “You did more than that. You gave up your Saturday to come in here and help me with something that wasn’t even within your purview. Not only that, but I am confident that without your ideas for funding the center it would not have gotten the go ahead from the guys upstairs.”

  Jo began to protest, but Kathleen held up a hand to silence her. “I’ve always known that you are passionate about your job, that you put the interests of the people over the interests of the corporation, and that’s exactly the kind of mentality that makes our department work so well. I can’t afford for you to quit now, just as you are beginning to live up to your full potential. So tell me, what will it take to make you stay?”

  What would it take? Jo wondered to herself.

  A few minutes after Kathleen left, Jo was standing in the middle of her office, studying the boxes she had spent the last hour packing. Before she could decide what to do next, there was a knock on the door.

  “What now?” Jo asked the empty room before recalling that she had invited Mark to stop by this morning. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Mark who stood there.

  “JoJo!”

  “Jack.” Jo laughed, unable to resist the pure happiness she could see in his expression. And the dark bags under his eyes. “How’s it going, Daddy?”

  “It is the most exhausting, frustrating, lovely, amazing thing I have ever done in my life.” Jack pulled out his cell phone as he walked into the room. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  Jo studied the dark haired, blued eyed beauty that was Jack’s tiny infant daughter. “Beautiful,” she sighed as Jack moved up behind her and flicked the screen to reveal another and then another photo of Michelle Elizabeth. “I can’t tell you how happy I am for you, Jack.”

  “She’s perfect, isn’t she?” he asked as he studied the pictures along with her.

  “She is.”

  When they came to the end of the picture gallery on his phone, Jo turned and handed it back. “How’s Kyra?”

  “As exhausted as I am.” Jack slid the phone into his pocket. “She said to tell you thanks for the blankets and the spa day you sent her. You’re the only one who sent her a gift that had nothing to do with the baby, you know?”

  “I figured she would need some pampering when the newness wears off. Tell her there’s no rush, though. The coupon doesn’t have an expiration date.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  Jo studied Jack’s face for a long minute. “If you had asked me two years ago if I could imagine you as a husband and father, I would have had a really good laugh.”

  Jack smiled. “Yeah, me, too. But Kyra…she changed everything.”

  “I really am happy for you, Jack,” Jo said. “You’ve done a lot of growing up. You deserve this.”

  Jack groaned. “Don’t go getting all sentimental on me, Jo,” he said in a voice grown husky. “You know how I hate that.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Jack grunted. Then he held out his arms and Jo willingly moved into them. Jack was her oldest friend, maybe her only friend. And he was as familiar as an old blanket. Even now, even when his life was moving in a different direction from Jo’s, he was still her confidant, the older brother she never had. Somehow she felt that even if, for some reason, they were separated by distance and time, it would still be this easy between them.

  As though he could hear her thoughts, Jack pulled Jo closer, squeezing her tightly for a brief moment. It was like those bear hugs her father had given her as a child. It told her everything was going to be alright. Nothing bad could ever happen that wouldn’t somehow work itself out if given enough time. Suddenly, standing there in Jack’s arms, Jo felt at peace with everything in her life.

  That was, until he let her go and she turned to see Mark’s horrified expression as he watched from the doorway.

  Chapter 26

  “Mark!”

  Mark turned and walked away as though he hadn’t heard her voice, a look of such profound disappointment in his eyes that Jo felt a knife slice and twist in her heart.

  Jo rushed through the door, Jack completely forgotten as she rushed to catch Mark. He walked faster than she could have imagined and she was nearly out of breath when she finally caught him with his hand on the stairwell door.

  “Please, Mark, wait. Let me explain.”

  Mark paused for a moment, the door cracked, but not open. He didn’t turn, instead he stood frozen, neither moving nor speaking. Jo wasn’t sure he was even breathing.

  “That’s was just Jack. My friend. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him a few times.”

  Again, he didn’t respond.

  Jo studied his back, watched the tension ripple through the muscles in his shoulders, his arms. She moved forward, driven by an overwhelming need to make that tension, and the pain she imagined came with it, go away. But the second her hand touched him, he jerked away, finally moving through the door.

  Jo physically jumped an inch when the door slammed back into place. She didn’t know what to do. Her head was spinning, her heart was aching, and she was overcome with a fear that was paralyzing. Was it over? Had she ruined everything? Would this forever be the metaphor for her life? A closed door?

  Hadn’t it been the closing of the door that had informed her of Ryan’s betrayal? And hadn’t it been a knock on the door that had brought her the news of her father’s death? It was always a door, either keeping her in or locking her away.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen this time.

  Jo wrenched the door open and rushed inside, surprised to find Mark standing just a few steps below her. He was leaning against the wall as though the trek back to his floor was more exercise than his overwrought emotions could handle at that moment. Jo
kept her distance, careful not to even make the appearance of attempting to touch him. Instead, she stood on the landing and ignored the hurt that was growing again in the pit of her soul.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you, Mark,” she said in a voice that had a little more of a plea to it than she liked. “I wouldn’t invite you to my office just to allow you to walk in on a scene like that.”

  “But you did.”

  “I didn’t know Jack was coming.” It sounded like an excuse, the last thing she wanted. So she rephrased. “Jack came by to show me pictures of his new baby. We were just…” she paused, unsure how to express what seemed evident. “We’re just friends. I’ve known him since I was a kid.”

  He didn’t respond, but he turned so that they were eye level. For the first time, she noticed how red his eyes were, how tired his expression. Again she wanted so much to reach out and erase it all with a touch, but there was a guardedness in his eyes that warned her to stay back. She took a step back and clasped her hands in front of her in an attempt to obey that warning.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” he asked suddenly.

  Jo glanced down at her jeans and old concert t-shirt. Out of nervousness, she ran her hand over Robert Smith’s face to straighten wrinkles from the shirt. “I wasn’t expecting to work today.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated,” Jo said. She opened her mouth to explain, but found it was unnecessary as Mark spoke first.

  “I heard a rumor you quit. That you and Becca got into a public argument and you walked out.”

  “I did. But I—”

  “And I had to hear it from the rumor mill.”

  Hurt flashed in his eyes, but quickly disappeared. Jo stepped forward, but that only caused him to step down another tread. “I wanted to talk to you about it. But you never called—”

  “Phones work both ways.”

  “I just thought after what happened with Danielle—”

  Mark straightened, his eyes hard on her face. “What do you mean, Danielle? What do you have to do with Danielle?”

  Jo bit her lip for a second, wondering why he didn’t already know. Could it be that Danielle didn’t tell him about their confrontation? What about his coworkers who were so interested in the conversation?

  “You know she came by to see you yesterday, don’t you?”

  Mark shook his head. “Dillon was sick. I took the day off to get him to the doctor.”

  “I didn’t…” Jo let her words just hang in the air between them, the unfinished thought bringing a slight guilty flush to Mark’s face. She should have known, however. Jo could see it now, the way Danielle sat in his cubicle like she had every right to be there, the way she goaded Jo without fear of Mark walking in on them. Danielle had known Mark wouldn’t be there.

  Jo ran her fingers through her hair and turned slightly, trying to work it all out in her head. Danielle’s voice rang in the bell tower of her memories, repeating over and over until those self-doubts began to add themselves to the other emotions rolling around in Jo’s belly, making her nauseous and breathless.

  “She knew you weren’t going to be here.”

  Mark confirmed her suspicions with a nod of the head. “I called her and told her what was going on.”

  “Then why—” But even as she began to ask, she realized she already knew the answer. Danielle was looking for information to help her in the custody fight against Mark. And Jo just walked right into her web.

  Jo shook her head, regret bringing tears to her eyes. “Mark—”

  “Tell me what happened,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t know,” Jo began, feeling like she was repeating herself. “I went to see you. I wanted to see you, but she was there.”

  He closed his eyes and Jo could see that Mark was coming to the same conclusion she had come to moments before. “You told her about us?”

  The weight of that question was heavy in the air between them. Jo felt like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, unable to deny what was so clearly her mistake. How could she have done what she had? How could she have given Danielle that knowledge when she was so eager to find cause to steal Mark’s children from him?

  Jo nodded, a tear falling slowly from her eye. “She guessed.”

  “Jo—”

  “I’m sorry, Mark.”

  He just shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said after a few tense moments of silence. “She would have found out some other way.”

  Jo stepped back, leaned against the wall as her knees began to shake with the resignation in his statement, the anger in his voice. Jo wasn’t sure who that anger was directed toward, her or Danielle, but it belied his words and left her wondering if it was inspired by regret.

  Regret that he had ever met Jo.

  That thought again enflamed the ringing of Danielle’s voice in her head.

  Danielle had called her the rebound girl, a temporary mistake that Mark had made before. Danielle had said that she wasn’t even Mark’s type, that this would never last. Jo had convinced herself that she was wrong, that those were the words of a jealous ex who didn’t want to see her former spouse find happiness first. But was that really the case? Wasn’t there just a little truth to her cruel assumptions?

  Was Jo really willing to give up her hard won self-respect to find out?

  “Maybe this was a mistake.”

  The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. But it seemed like all roads were leading to this. Why shouldn’t she be the first to say it?

  “Jo, please,” Mark said, suddenly at her side. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”

  “No,” she held up her hands to keep him from touching her. “I know you weren’t. But that doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “This is not a mistake.”

  “It is.” Jo stepped back to put more space between them, to keep him from touching her. She knew if he did, if he so much as laid a finger against her burning skin, that she would lose her resolve. But she also knew that this was the way it had to be.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, his voice raw.

  “You have to think about your kids, about this custody battle You’ve got so much on your plate right now, you don’t have room for this. You knew that, you told me so, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “But we’re making it work.”

  “We were, before. But it was tenuous, Mark. Too tenuous.”

  “I don’t think it is. I think what we have—”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  Mark opened his mouth as though prepared to deny it, but then his jaw closed with an audible click. They both knew it was true and that truth broke Jo’s heart into a million pieces. Tears began to slowly roll down her cheeks.

  “She broke you,” she whispered through her raw throat. “You need time to heal.”

  He shook his head, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “You don’t understand,” he said in a voice as raw as hers. “I spent eighteen years with a woman I thought was one thing, only to find out she was another. How am I supposed to just move on from that?”

  “You aren’t. That’s the point.”

  “But I don’t know how to get past that.”

  Jo drew in a long breath and held it as she moved closer to him. She lay a hand on his chest, releasing a pained sigh as she stroked his cheek with her other hand. “Kathleen told me about a position opening with a new BerCo subsidiary in Houston. She was going to offer it to Becca, but I think it would be better for everyone if I took it.”

  “No, Jo.”

  “I always wanted to go back, ever since college.” Jo wiped tears from her cheeks and stepped back. “I think this is exactly what I need.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Mark brushed a piece of hair from her face like he had done so long ago in her office. Then he cupped her chin, studied her eyes. “I can’t change your mind, can I?”

 
“No,” Jo said, her voice firm.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish things were different.”

  “Me, too.” She grasped his wrist with one hand and gently pulled his hand away from her face. “But this is the way it has to be. I know you can see that.”

  Much to her disappointment, he didn’t argue. He rolled his head forward and stared at the floor for a minute before he looked at her again and nodded.

  Jo reached up and kissed him lightly. The touch nearly broke her resolve. This was not how she had thought this would go. This was not what she wanted when she walked through that door. But she could see that it was the only way. For both of them.

  Jo walked to the door and paused before pushing it open. “Come find me if things change,” she said with a hopeful smile, even though she knew deep in her heart that nothing would.

  “Count on it,” was the last thing she heard him say.

  Chapter 27

  “How does it look?”

  Jo stepped back and studied the reflection in the mirror. “Perfect, as always,” she said.

  Emily smiled at their joint reflections, adjusting one of the tight curls lying against the soft curve of her jaw. “You don’t really think that,” she asked, her expression suddenly growing serious.

  “What?”

  “That I’m perfect.”

  Jo stepped back and sat on the end of her bed so she could put her shoes on. They were heels, the highest she had ever worn, and she was already having second thoughts about standing for the entire ceremony in them.

  “Of course I do. You’re my little sister. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to think?”

  “Seriously,” Emily said as she stood, her wedding dress rustling as she moved to sit beside Jo on the bed. “Do you think I’m perfect?”

  “I think you are a lot closer to perfect than I will ever be.”

  Emily bit her lip, her eyes falling to her hands as they began to knead the material of her skirt. Jo grabbed her hands to make her stop.

  “I always thought the same thing about you.”

  Jo stared at Emily and she stared back. After a minute they both burst into gales of laughter. It felt good, to sit with her sister and laugh like they did when they were younger, before makeup and boys and popularity became a part of their vocabulary. Jo wrapped her arms around Emily and buried her face in the hair they had just spent an hour curling and combing into a delicate French knot. She held her tight, wishing it could always be like this, but aware that everything was about to change. Nothing would ever be the same.