Almost Forever (43 page)

Seeing that the women had everything under control, Clay went to the office to relieve his father, who had stepped in temporarily while they were in L.A. Thelma, who had already decided that she would stay over in one of the spare rooms for a while, made lunch for everyone and began planning the dinner menus for the next week.

Over the days that followed, Andie was grateful for her mother's help and support. Thelma cooked and cleaned and sympathized with her daughter unstintingly when Andie's breasts were sore from nursing and when Andie looked at her pouchy stomach in the bathroom mirror and burst into tears.

“I kept waiting to be thin again,” Andie wailed. “And look at me. I'm like an empty paper sack.”

“It will go down,” her mother assured her.

Andie was shameless. “You promise me, Mom?”

Thelma was, too. “Absolutely. I guarantee it. Especially if you start exercising soon.”

“I will. I swear I will.”

From the bedroom, Emily started to wail.

Andie groaned, thinking about the pain when that small mouth latched on to her breast.

“You could go ahead and switch to formula,” Thelma suggested gently, reading correctly the expression on her daughter's face.

“No, just a few more days and it won't hurt anymore. All the books say so.”

On the second Monday in September, when Emily was a little over two weeks old, Thelma went back to her own house. Joe wanted his wife back. Like everyone else, Andie's father adored his granddaughter. But he was tired of sleeping alone and foraging in the freezer when dinnertime came.

Andie was feeling much stronger by then. She took over the maintenance of her own house without much difficulty. She was even able to start dropping in at the office for a few hours twice a week or so, since Thelma was more than happy to keep an eye on Emily for a while.

And Clay was wonderful, he really was. He worked all day. Yet in the middle of the night, when Emily cried, he would get up and check for a full diaper, even rock her before waking Andie for the feeding that was usually required.

Looking back in later years, Andie remembered those first weeks of Emily's life as a stressful yet magical time. A time during which Emily daily performed miracles. She kicked her
arms and legs; she gurgled and cooed. Clay swore she smiled, though Thelma insisted that was only gas.

Andie would have been happy. She
was
happy. Except for the distance between herself and Clay. A distance that, somehow, seemed to inch a little wider every day.

Clay ate breakfast across from her. He went to work and came home right on time—there were no more detours to Doolin's pub. He slept beside her. He was kind and considerate and always ready to do whatever she asked of him.

Except to let her beyond the wall.

Three and a half weeks after Emily's birth, the doctor gave Andie the go-ahead to resume, as he put it, “intimate relations.” He even fitted her for a cervical cap, which she went right to the drugstore and bought. She felt so nervous and happy at the prospect of making love with Clay once again.

That night, Andie told her husband what the doctor had said. Clay patted her arm and muttered something about that being fine.

And that was all. The next day he left for Lake Tahoe for a week of continuing-education classes, which were necessary for him to keep his CPA license.

Andie told herself that as soon as Clay returned, they would rediscover the physical side of their marriage.

But when he came back, they rediscovered nothing. Over the next weeks, she tried dropping subtle hints, cuddling up against him, even asking him outright if there was something wrong that he didn't seem to desire her anymore. Clay managed to be vague and distant and neither answer her questions nor respond to her attempts to arouse his interest.

Sometimes Andie dared to imagine that he looked at her with the old hunger in his eyes. But it was always just a glance, quickly masked. It could have been no more than wishful thinking.

There were certainly no other signs that he had any interest in her sexually. Though Clay slept in their bed with her, he kept to his side of it. It almost seemed as if he was making a conscious effort not to let his body so much as brush against hers.

How could she get close to him when he so constantly kept her at bay?

The answer was, she couldn't.

At least, that was what Clay hoped.

Because he was doing just what she suspected. He was keeping clear of her physically. It was driving him nuts, but he was doing it.

Clay was determined to avoid making love with her for as long as he could hold out. Too much happened when he made love with her. He was weakened by the sexual power she had over him.

He knew her too well. With Andie, physical intimacy and emotional intimacy were one and the same. As soon as they made love, she'd be at him, wanting to talk about things he never even wanted to think of again, wanting to root around in the past like a pair of emotional archaeologists at some major dig.

Clay didn't want to do it. He wasn't
going
to do it.

But, damn, he did want her.

If he believed in such things, he would have sworn she was a witch, that she'd put some sort of sex spell on him so he'd finally go crazy from wanting her so much.

And he knew she was exercising to get back in shape. He'd seen the workout pants and T-shirts hanging to dry on the service porch, noticed the stack of exercise DVDs by the TV.

And the exercises were working. Her body was slimmer again. It was taking on its former tight contours. Except for her breasts. They were disconcertingly ripe, heavy and fuller than ever because she was nursing Emily.

The maddening changes in his wife's body weren't all
Clay had to contend with, either. She was spending more time at the office, as well. While she was there, she seemed to make it her personal mission to single-handedly wreak havoc with his concentration.

Clay found that he couldn't walk into the copier room or look for a file without dreading the possibility that he'd have to confront the sight of her, bent over a table stapling papers together. Or standing on tiptoe reaching into a file drawer, the muscles of her calves flexing in a way that sent his libido into hyperdrive.

And then, in bed at night, he didn't know how he bore it. The warmth and scent of her came at him every time she moved. She was so close, just an arm span away. All he had to do was reach for her.

But he refused to reach for her.

It was pure hell. Sometimes he'd lie there, staring at the ceiling,
scenting
her and
knowing
that he wasn't going to last a split second longer. That he was going to roll over and grab her, pull her beneath him and shove himself into her without any preliminary at all.

He'd grit his teeth and turn away, to the very far edge of his side of the bed. He'd think of the shirts he needed laundered, his least favorite client,
anything
to reduce his state of total arousal.

Sometimes Emily, who was now sleeping in her own room, would start to cry. Clay always sighed with relief when that happened.

“I'll go,” he'd whisper.

He'd slide out of the bed and pull on his terry robe over the pajama bottoms he slept in nowadays. He'd slip over to the little room next door.

And there he'd find a brief peace, even if it turned out, as it usually did, that Emily was hungry and he couldn't give her
what she wanted. There was still that first moment, when he bent over the crib and she blinked and focused in on him, forgetting to wail for an instant.

“What's the problem here?” he would ask.

She'd wail again, flailing her little arms that had grown so fat and round.

He'd pick her up, put her to his shoulder. Every once in a while, that would do it. She'd let out a little burp and snuggle against his neck. But even if burping her didn't work, there was still the chance that changing her was all she needed.

In any case, if she didn't need to be fed, he could sit for a few minutes in the rocker that Granny Sid's mother had brought from the old country. He could hold Emily close and look at the moon out the window.

He could whisper to her how it would be for her, how she would learn to crawl, to walk and to talk. How she'd go to school and take gymnastics or play soccer or maybe even the violin. And how he and her mother would always be there, to teach her about the world and to see that nothing ever harmed her.

Those moments alone with Emily held the greatest peace Clay had ever known. Right now, Emily's wants were so simple, so pure. Food, a dry diaper and a caring touch. Clay could give her those things without much effort at all. Loving Emily was the easiest thing he'd ever done in his life.

Just as what he shared with Emily's mother was the hardest.

 

The first storm of the season came on a night in late October, nine weeks after Emily's birth.

That night had been a tough one. Another of those nights when Clay lay in bed awake, wanting his wife and yet somehow managing to hold himself away from her.

The gathering storm outside made it all the worse. There was so much electricity in the air, such a heavy
waiting
feeling. Storms always made him want to break free of all the controls he normally put on himself.

After the first few thunderclaps, he'd heard Emily's cry. Andie had stirred. He'd told her to go back to sleep. And he'd come in here, to hold Emily and soothe both her and himself.

He'd rocked Emily and told her all about storms, how he loved them, how one of his two mothers, whose name had been Rita, had loved them, as well. He whispered what he remembered of Rita in the red coat, turning in circles beneath a downpour. He'd said that storms were nothing to be afraid of. A good storm was one of the best things in life.

Now, Emily was asleep over his shoulder. Clay could feel her stillness, the evenness of her breath moving in and out of her little chest.

Outside, rain lashed the window and the sky lit up. Emily didn't even flinch when the thunder crashed.

Slowly, Clay stood from the rocker. He went to the crib and laid the sleeping child down. She cuddled right up, never stirring, as he covered her with the blankets and tucked her in.

He stood watching her through three more thunderclaps. But she simply went on sleeping. Her little body didn't so much as twitch.

Clay tiptoed back to his own room. But when he got there, he couldn't quite bring himself to climb into the bed beside Andie.

He was drawn to the glass door on which the rain was beating, to beyond that door, where the wind and lightning and thunder ruled. He spared a glance for Andie. She seemed to be sound asleep.

And the storm was pulling at him, inviting him out into it. He went, padding across the floor like a man in a trance.

But he was careful. He slid the door open as smoothly as he
could, just wide enough that he could slip through. And he closed it all the way behind him so no icy drafts would wake his wife.

The storm embraced him. He went to the edge of the deck and turned his face to the sky.

 

In the bed alone, Andie slowly sat up.

She knew where her husband was. She had heard his return, knew that he stood by the bed, felt his hesitation as the storm beckoned to him.

The storm had won. Now he was out in it.

A feeling of sweet anticipation rose inside her. It tingled along each and every one of her nerves.

She probably shouldn't…

Yet when it came to Clay, Andie really had no shame.

She threw back the covers and flew to the bathroom where her clumsy fingers almost defeated her in the insertion of her new contraceptive device. But at last she succeeded. The darn thing was in.

Andie looked at herself in the mirror, a shadowed form. She hadn't dared to turn on the light. It was just possible that Clay might have noticed if she had, since there was one high window over the bathtub that looked out on the deck where he now stood.

Andie wore a modest cotton gown with a button front. The gown was perfect for a nursing mother, but not so great for what she had in mind. She gathered up the hem and pulled the gown over her head, dropping it to the tiles at her feet.

She looked at the dark shape of herself in the mirror. Naked, slim, her hair a black cloud. Her breasts were very full. Her milk could come, she knew, if he kissed her in a certain way. She felt the heat in her cheeks at the thought.

But it couldn't be helped. And surely women had made love with their men for century upon century with milk in
their breasts. She'd just have to deal with it when and if the moment came.

On the counter not too far from the sink, there was a monitor, as there was in the master bedroom and in all the major rooms of the house. The monitor picked up noises from the baby's room. It was blessedly quiet right then. And Clay had just been in to check on Emily. The chances of her daughter's interrupting them were minimal.

Andie's heart was beating very fast. What if he rejected her? What if she walked out on that deck stark naked and he turned her away?

Oh, that would be terrible.

But she couldn't let herself think that way. If she thought that way she'd give up trying and worse things might happen if she gave up trying. Sweet Lord, he might never make love with her again.

That awful thought mobilized her. She went out of the bathroom and across the floor of the bedroom. At the glass door, she hesitated, pressing her face against the glass to look for him.

She saw him at the railing. He wore his robe and his pajama bottoms, both of which were wet through and clinging to his broad back, his hard, strong legs. He stood with his face turned up, transfixed, beneath the angry sky. His proud, tall body yearned toward the roiling clouds.

Andie's own body relaxed as she watched him. In the space of an instant, everything was changed. All her little fears of rejection, of embarrassment, faded to nothing. The world shimmered under the onslaught of the storm. And she herself was shimmering, needful, hungry for the man outside.