Christening (3 page)

Seth’s unshakeable commitment to anything important in his life was at the core of his nature. He’d never cheat on her with someone else.

But, still, Erin couldn’t help but feel an irrational pang of jealousy. Of resentment. Of rage and grief both. That this other woman had been so close to Seth. That he’d looked at her with that warm smile in his eyes. That he’d liked her so much he’d kissed her cheek like that.

It wasn’t romantic or sexual, but he was close to this woman in the picture—if only momentarily.

It felt like forever since Erin had been that close to her own husband.

Mackenzie and Anna had been having a serious conversation while Erin mulled this over. She was finally distracted when Mackenzie asked her, “What’s this word, Mommy?”

Erin glanced over. Answered without thinking. “Domestic.”

Mackenzie had been reading for a year and a half now, after Erin's focused attention to teaching her early. And now she was showing off her skill, moving her finger beneath each word as she read out loud to her sister, who was listening with attentive awe: “Seth Thomas (that’s Daddy, you know) is finally bored with dom-est-ic life, since he spent a hot evening with—”

“Mackenzie,” Erin said sharply, finally coming to her senses and hearing what her daughter was reading. “That’s enough. We don’t need to read that nonsense.”

The girl frowned, obviously surprised by her mother’s terseness. “I was just—”

“I know, pumpkin. I didn’t mean to be crabby. But there’s no reason for us to read mean things about Daddy when we know they’re not true.”

Anna nodded resolutely. “No mean things ‘bout Daddy.”

Mackenzie put down the tablet. She was stubborn and unusually precocious, but she was fairly obedient for the most part.

“How did you find that story, anyway?” Erin asked.

Frowning in concern, Mackenzie explained, “It popped up in your email. I didn’t know it was bad.”

Erin knew exactly who’d sent her that story. Mary Carlyle, whose blog this was, held a grudge for a really long time.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Erin concluded with a big smile, knowing she had to move past this or Mackenzie in particular wouldn’t stop brooding about it. Her daughter was extremely intuitive—she always knew when something was wrong. “Are you getting hungry?”

On hearing their affirmative response, Erin said, “Why don’t we make pancakes today?”

This announcement, of course, produced loud enthusiasm from both of her daughters, and it successfully distracted them from the story on the blog.

As she reached the door of the bedroom on her way to the kitchen, Anna turned back toward her mother. “Daddy comes home today?”

“Yes,” Erin assured her again. “Daddy comes home today.”

Both girls scampered barefoot down the hall, still in their colorful nightgowns, with tangled hair of red and gold.

“Daddy damned well better come home today,” Erin muttered to herself, deleting the email from her inbox and trying to rid her mind of the image of Seth kissing another woman, even in an innocuous way.

She’d assumed Seth had been working constantly, but apparently he’d had enough time to go to a party and kiss someone else.

Erin glanced in the mirror. Her hair was just as messy as the girls’, and she’d put on a few pounds in the last month, so her curves were a little bit too curvy in her sloppy pajamas. She looked horrible. Couldn’t really be surprised that Seth wasn’t rushing home to
this
.

Shaking her head ruefully, she rid herself of the stupid thought. She knew Seth loved her. Loved the girls. But she also knew that he made choices every day. He could make more choices to prioritize his family over work—if he’d really wanted to.

In weak moments, she couldn’t help but wonder if she just hadn’t made domestic life exciting enough to compel him to spend much time at home.

For years, Seth’s career had given him his security and sense of self. He’d changed in the last six years, but people rarely changed completely. His work would always have the tendency to pull him away from his family.

The lurking awareness she’d been conscious of for too long rose up in a sudden burst of resentment.

“Do you hear me?” she muttered again, under her breath, staring at Seth’s side of the bed before the girls demanded her presence in the kitchen to make them pancakes. “You damned well better get your ass home today.”

***

Erin took the girls to the zoo that afternoon, so they wouldn’t get hyper waiting for Seth to return.

When they got back to the apartment, she remembered to check her messages.

Seth had left her one.

He sounded stressed and exhausted—Erin knew how to recognize the signs. Whatever he was working on must have been beating him down. His voice was hoarse from fatigue and frustration, and it sounded like he had to pause during the message occasionally to rub his face or clear his eyes.

But Erin didn’t have much pity left when she got to the end of the message.

“Hi. It’s me. It’s…actually, I have no idea what time it is. Anyway, I’m still here. Things are a mess, and I can’t get away. We’ve been working all night and still have several hours left. Sorry. I’ll leave as soon as I can and should be back tomorrow afternoon. I won’t be able to call before bedtime, so say goodnight to the girls for me and that I’ll see them tomorrow. I hope things are better there than they are here. Talk to you soon. Bye.”

Erin was shaking so much when his voice finally faded off that she had to steady herself with her hands on the dresser.

The lurking awareness was fully formed in her mind now. She knew what it meant. Knew she’d have to deal with it. Soon.

She took a shuddering breath.

Pulled herself together.

Went to tell her happy, excited daughters that their daddy wasn’t coming home today after all.

It was almost midnight the following evening when Seth finally made it home.

Erin had been in bed for more than an hour, but she hadn’t been able to get to sleep. She heard the subtle sounds of Seth entering the apartment, putting down his stuff, making his way down the hall to their bedroom.

Then she felt him standing in the middle of their room for a minute, and she was sure he was watching her as she lay motionless in bed, facing away from him.

Soon, she heard the sounds of his taking off his jacket and shoes. Then a rustle of fabric—probably removing his tie.

He walked over to the bed and lowered himself beside her without speaking. Scooted over until he was spooning her from behind, his arms going around her all the way.

Erin felt strange. Half of her was flooded with relief and a kind of homecoming at the feel of his strong, warm body against hers, at the feel of his familiar arms around her.

But the rest of her was so angry. So tired. So overwhelmed with the heavy weight of awareness in her gut that just wouldn’t go away.

And with the unshakeable certainty that something had changed.

Seth was breathing behind her, and his long, heavy exhales were a sure sign that he was relaxing, unwinding—after who knew how many days of stress and hard work. He must know she was awake, since he wasn’t trying to be discreet or careful as he held her against him.

She knew how much he needed this—needed his home and his family, the only place he could let go a little of the ruthless grip he held on the world. She felt a little pang of tenderness as she felt his warm breath blowing against her hair and skin, but when he lowered his face to kiss the side of her neck, she couldn’t help but turn her head to ease her neck away from his mouth.

Seth grew momentarily still behind her, as if assessing what had caused the atypical reaction from her.

“You’re angry,” he murmured at last, still holding her against him, but not making any further advances.

“A little,” she admitted, her voice cracking strangely, as if she hadn’t used it in a long time. “But it’s more than that. It’s…” She had no way to put into words what it was, so she concluded weakly, “You’ve been gone a really long time.”

Seth released a long sigh and slowly rubbed her belly over the fabric of her cotton pajamas. “I know. I was gone too long.”

His admission of this undeniable fact didn’t seem to change anything about the situation or about Erin’s inner turmoil. She replied stiffly, “Yes. It was too long.”

He sighed again and brushed a kiss into her hair. Then he pulled back and said, “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to look in on the girls.”

“Don’t wake them up,” she said, her voice sharper than she’d intended. “It took me forever to get them to sleep.”

They’d had another difficult evening before bed. Both of the girls had been crying again because their daddy hadn’t arrived as promised, before the end of what they considered the day.

“I won’t wake them,” he murmured, moving in bare feet to the door of their room. “I just want to see them.”

Erin waited for him to return, feeling oddly hard and numb. It felt like she was mourning something, but she wasn’t close to tears. The brief rush of pleasure at her husband’s return seemed totally drowned now beneath the flood of everything else.

In some ways, it had been better before he’d returned. Now…now she was going to have to
do
something about what she’d finally acknowledged as wrong.

Seth returned in a few minutes and finished getting undressed in the dark. When he got back in bed, he remarked, “Anna’s in Mackenzie’s room.”

“Yeah. She’s been sleeping there for weeks.” It seemed impossible that he hadn’t known that.

“Why?” He rolled over behind her again, pressing himself into her back and adjusting her so he could embrace her from behind.

“She’s been having bad dreams.”

“She has? For how long? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Erin shrugged. She thought she
had
told him, but she could have forgotten. “You weren’t here.”

Seth didn’t respond to that, but he wasn’t as relaxed as before. She could almost feel him watching her, observing her, assessing her behavior and putting the clues together into some kind of precise interpretation of the situation.

For some reason, it annoyed her. That he would try to so coolly and rationally figure out something that even she didn’t fully understand.

They lay in silence for several minutes, Seth occasionally massaging her belly or shoulder. After a while, however, Erin felt him begin to harden behind her, his arousal starting to rub against her ass.

After one instinctive jolt of answering desire in her own body, all of Erin’s tangled emotions drowned the spark of arousal into nonexistence. She shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Seth. I just don’t think I’m in the mood to…”

“That’s fine. We don’t have to.”

He was still semi-hard behind her, though, and Erin felt self-conscious for no reason she could understand. This was her husband of four years, after all. Yet in some way it felt like he’d transformed, at least in part, into someone she didn’t really know.

Or maybe
she
was the one who’d transformed.

Seth seemed to sense her unease. “Is it all right if I hold you?” he asked diffidently.

She knew she had hurt him. He’d come home after a long, hard trip expecting to be welcomed completely—to be safe and cherished and loved by his family. And she had failed him in that. Felt guilty because of it. But there was something inside her that resisted. That kept preparing her for what she knew would follow.

“I know I was gone for too long, Erin,” he began, his head resting behind hers on the pillow. “There were a lot of—”

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” she interrupted. She knew how hard the conversation was going to be, and she just didn’t have the energy tonight.

“All right.” He brushed another kiss into her hair. Nestled her more snugly against him.

Then she felt his body almost immediately relaxing. His breathing shifted into slow inhales and exhales.

He was asleep in less than five minutes.

And even
that
bothered Erin unreasonably. That he could fall asleep so easily when it felt like her world wasn’t quite holding together.

She knew it was probably the first time in weeks he’d had a good night’s sleep. She knew that he only really relaxed when he was home, and so he never slept well anywhere else. And she knew he’d been working for several days and nights straight.

Of course, he needed to sleep.

She didn’t sleep though. Not at all, not all night.

She lay awake in the dark, trying to sort out what had changed and how they could possibly change it back.

***

Erin knew that Seth’s reunion with his daughters wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting either.

He was showered and dressed before they got up the following morning—he needed to go into the office to catch up on everything that had piled up in his absence—and Erin went into the girls’ bedroom to make sure they woke up before he’d left for the morning.

So they were groggy and a little confused when Seth came into the room, looking coolly professional in his dark suit and blue tie. Mackenzie went over to give him a hug as requested, but she was quiet and wary, instead of brimming with the intense joy with which she usually greeted him.

Anna wouldn’t go over to him at first. She had always been a little shy, her vibrant emotions only emerging once she was comfortable. She actually hid behind Erin’s legs for a minute, peeking out at Seth until his smile and low voice convinced her that everything was okay.

She ran over to hug him, and she even giggled a little and pronounced herself glad that Daddy was home.

Erin was relieved that the first greeting was over. Her heart ached in her chest—for her girls, who had to deal with their father’s long absence. And for Seth, whose face hadn’t changed at all from its mild composure, but whom Erin knew was sharply hurt by his daughters’ hesitance.

They were going to have a family night this evening, and Erin hoped that spending time with their father would do much to mend over the rifts that had emerged. Children were resilient, and Seth had always been a loving father. The tension, she was sure, would be temporary.

After the girls went to bed tonight, she and Seth were going to have a long talk about things. Erin wasn’t going to continue this way, and it was long past time she’d hashed it out with him.

The day wasn’t as bad as she'd feared. Both girls were a little testy and so they bickered more than usual, but Erin had the evening to look forward to, during which they could start to work everything out.

Seth came home a little later than they’d planned, but still in plenty of time for their scheduled time together. They had pizza in the family room and then set up to play the girls’ favorite board game.

Things were going quite well, and Erin was starting to relax for the first time when Seth’s phone rang.

Something clenched in her chest as he answered it, and Mackenzie stiffened visibly as she watched Seth walk out of the room, talking in low, urgent murmurs on his phone.

Erin and the girls sat in tense silence until he returned.

His face was torn, exhausted, and reluctant. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I have to go in. It’s an emergency.”

Erin couldn’t seem to feel anything. She was frozen. Numb. Felt…nothing.

Anna blinked up at Seth. “Daddy’s going away again?”

“I’m sorry, honey. I’ll just be gone an hour. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“But tonight was supposed to be with
us
,” Mackenzie said accusingly, something so tight on her face it was almost unspeakable. Something far too sharp and knowing for a girl of only six.

“I know,” he said, kneeling down and stroking Anna’s soft blond hair. “It’s not fair. But I don’t have a choice.”

Erin was holding her breath as she watched Mackenzie’s face. The delicate features had started working and twitching, as the girl tried to control her emotions.

She couldn’t. She choked on tears of hurt and disappointment. Then stumbled to her feet and ran out of the room, evading Seth’s arm as he reached out to comfort her.

“Mac?” Anna mumbled, wobbling to her feet as well, her huge eyes wide and swimming with tears. “Mac’s crying?”

Then Anna started crying too and ran after her older sister.

The frozen numbness in Erin’s chest was beginning to crack. She jerked to her feet and stared at Seth with something too intense to articulate.

“I
have
to leave,” he said, his eyes almost desperate and his voice breaking slightly. “Erin, it’s not just work. It’s a serious criminal case. Someone’s whole future is on the line.” He rubbed an urgent hand over his face. “I’ll go and try to explain it to them.”

He was turning to follow his daughters when Erin cut him off.

“Don’t bother. If you’re going to go, then just leave.”

She hurried after her daughters, both of whom were crying in Mackenzie’s bedroom.

Even as she followed them, Erin kept hoping that Seth would change his mind. That he wouldn’t be able to bear having caused his daughters to cry like this and would decide to stay here with them instead.

After a minute, however, Erin heard the door of the apartment open and close.

Seth had gone back to work after all.

***

When Seth returned two hours later, Erin was packing a suitcase.

She’d put the girls to bed shortly after Seth left, and they’d eventually fallen asleep in exhaustion. By then, Erin had known what she needed to do, so she didn’t waste any time, didn’t give herself a chance to talk herself out of it.

She was neatly folding shirts and stacking them in the suitcase when Seth came into the room—his eyes utterly drained and haunted, as if the evening had been too much for him.

He immediately snapped into urgency when he saw what Erin was doing. “What’s going on?” he demanded, striding over to stare down at her half-packed bag.

“I’m packing,” she said simply, turning away from him to go back into the closet and get some more clothes.

“Erin?” He followed her, grabbing her arm and swinging her around to face him. “
Why
are you packing?”

“I’m leaving,” she explained, the words sticking in her throat. When she saw the brief flash of shattering anguish on his face, she qualified quickly, “For a couple of weeks. I need to get away and think things through.”

His face was composed again, but there was a barely suppressed panic visible beneath his composure. “What do you mean by get away?”

“I mean,” she replied, taking a deep breath and trying to keep her voice calm, “things aren’t working. I need to figure everything out. I can’t do that here.”

“What?” Seth’s fingers were clenching spasmodically around her upper arm, so tightly that it actually hurt. “What?”