Forever (20 page)

No, he didn’t remember that conversation on Monday—the morning fucking Eddie showed up. With a shock, Tom realized he had little recollection of what happened after that. Evidently, his mind must have still been on that bizarre visit and not on his work when he talked to Dean. He swallowed hard as he headed out for the belated inspection. Not once in nearly thirty years had he been so lax on the job.

Before he walked twenty feet from the trailer, Tom’s assistant caught up with him. “Hey, Tom, what’s with the painting crew? They were supposed to start on the Phase One interiors today, but they haven’t shown.”

Jeezus
. “Uh . . . yeah, there was a scheduling problem, Steve.”

“You mean they’ll be here later today. Tomorrow? What?”

Tom nearly choked. The lump in his throat sure as hell felt like swallowed pride.

“No. Thing is, I forgot to schedule them at all. I’ll get right on it.”

As Steve stared at him in disbelief, Tom slunk away. There was no one to pass the buck to. He was the boss. Everything that got done here—or didn’t—was his responsibility. If he didn’t focus his attention on work again, his reputation would be shot to hell.

It’s stress
.

He must have suffered some kind of stress episode this past week. He’d done some crazy stuff. Maybe even hallucinated. But that was over. He was back to normal. Chastened but normal.

When he returned to the office, Bonnie handed him a message from Julie asking him to come straight home for dinner tonight. And he would. Tonight and every night. He’d go home to his wife where he belonged.

Tom threw himself into his work, wincing every time he came across more evidence of his neglect. He was just beginning to think he might be able to get the job back on schedule before the end of the week when the first clap of thunder sounded. Within seconds, the rain poured down in sheets. Within ten minutes, the site transformed into one massive mud puddle. His men shut down for the day and left, but he stayed working in the office until Bonnie opened his door and told him the weather service had issued a tornado warning. That put a cap on the miserable day. Knowing that an office trailer in an open field was an easy target for such a storm, they turned off the computers and lights, locked up, and tore out of there.

* * *

Tom arrived home not knowing if he should expect some sort of argument or, at least, serious discussion with Julie. He took off his muddy boots in the garage, planning to hose them off later. As he reached for the knob of the door into the kitchen, Lindsay flung it open from the other side. He jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting hit. Before the first syllable of greeting passed the tip of his tongue, she stepped into the garage and shut the door behind her. From the look on her face, he guessed he was about to have a discussion with his daughter as well.

Lindsay took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and plunged in. “I need to talk to you, Dad.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It’s very serious.” She’d fixed him with a stare but now glanced away for a moment. “I think there’s something wrong with you.”

There was more than one thing wrong with him, but he had no idea which of those his loving child had discovered. “And what is that?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Lindsay,
you
said there’s something wrong with me.”

“I know. So what is it?”

Tom felt sure this conversation would soon make sense to neither of them, so he tried a different approach. “Lindsay, what is it I’ve done, or not done, to make you think there’s something wrong?”

She rolled her eyes heavenward as she ticked off the list on her fingers. “Well, you seem different, not all the time, but sometimes. And it’s like Max doesn’t even recognize you half the time, which is
so
weird. And you used to stay home more. And we used to talk. And I think you’re drinking a lot more too.” She ended by giving him a direct look that told him he’d better not try to deny it.

Tom wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’ve had some extra stress at work, baby girl, and I’ve had to work more to keep up with it, but I’ve been here a lot of times when you were out with your friends or at work. I might have bought a little more beer than usual; I’ll watch that. As for Max, well, who knows what goes through a dog’s mind. You know? But most importantly, we can talk anytime you want.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m always available to you.”

She smiled up at him weakly, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, a car pulled into the drive. Her boyfriend, Eric, palmed the horn twice. Tom waved at the boy, barely able to squelch a sigh of relief.

“I’ve got to go.” She stopped before she passed under the raised garage door and turned back to him. “Is everything all right with you and Mom?”

He grinned, and prayed to God that his daughter would believe one more lie out of his mouth this evening. “As far as I know.”

The rain stopped and the clouds cleared just in time for a brilliant sunset. Julie had marinated chicken breasts, baked potatoes, and prepared foil packets of zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and herbs. Now, she sat on the patio drinking a glass of Chardonnay and watching Tom grill the meat and vegetables.

“Lindsay says she’s finished all the applications for school,” she said.

“Has she?”

“She thinks I’m a bitch.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Julie smiled at him. “It’s all right, Tom, you don’t have to spare my feelings. Every teenage girl thinks her mother is a bitch at some point. At least, I know I did.”

“But your mother was a sweetheart.” He froze. The implication of his words had hit him the second they left his mouth. He stretched his open hand toward her as though he were reaching for the words to grab them back. With a sigh, he dropped his hand back to his side.

“I know you didn’t mean it to come out that way.” She sounded sad, not angry. “But . . .
do
you see me as a bitch?”

“Of course not.”

He’d answered automatically, but it was true. Julie was kind . . . in all shades of the meaning. Someday her own son-in-law would describe her as a sweetheart.

(Then why are you cheating on her?)

“. . . what’s on your mind,” she was saying. “Really, I guess I’m just as guilty as you are.”

Guilty
.

The word jolted him to attention. She’d confessed them both guilty of something, and he had no idea what. Damn his wandering mind. She stared at him, expecting some reaction. When he said nothing, she sighed deeply, as though interpreting his silence as a response.

She took a sip of her wine and then stood. “The temperature’s dropped since the storm. I think we’ll eat out here.”

Wondering what he’d missed in the conversation, Tom watched Julie walk inside. He knew what
he
felt most guilty of, but he was damned sure Julie had not confessed to being a cheat. His daughter thought he was acting weird and his wife thought he was guilty of something. He was both. He couldn’t admit either.

Julie returned to the patio, set the table, and refilled their glasses. She kicked off her sandals and walked barefoot in the wet grass. In the fading light, she surveyed her flower beds and then leaned close to the honeysuckle growing along the fence. One of her favorite scents, she’d told him. On her way back toward him, she reached out to catch the first of the evening’s lightning bugs. The innocence of the gesture made him smile. When Julie opened her cupped hands just enough to see the green-gold fluorescent glow, his heart ached with love for her.

How had he been so blind? He had everything a man could hope for right here. Counting since the day they met, Julie had put up with him for twenty-four years. She wouldn’t leave him now unless he gave her no choice. And he wouldn’t. He’d do whatever it took—even double-dating with Patricia and Eddie—to make her happy. He’d be insane not to.

At first, Tom ate in silence, giving Julie the opportunity to lead the conversation down whatever road she wished. But she made only an occasional comment on the food or the weather. After a while, the tension of waiting for her to reveal why she’d summoned him home caused Tom to chatter mindlessly. Still, she said little in response. Finally, he began to wonder if she’d already broached the topic of the day during the few seconds he’d missed earlier. No, she wouldn’t have let it pass so easily.

Barely another word passed between them during the kitchen cleanup and the two and a half hours of TV they watched after dinner. When the bomb did drop, it wasn’t anything Tom had feared. In fact, it was the furthest thing from his mind.

“I’m going up to bed,” Julie said, “I’d like you to join me. If you want.”

“Oh!” he said. “Yeah. Sure.”

He turned off the television and the inside lights, flicking on the porch light for Lindsay. As he followed Julie up the stairs, he flashed back to Annie sandwiched between the Camry and his crotch. Knowing Julie would think his obvious arousal was just for her, he suffered a stab of guilt. More like a machete blow, actually.

Still, it was through no fault of Tom’s that their lovemaking that night was unsatisfactory. They started off fine, with some of the passionate abandon of long ago even, but then Julie cut short the foreplay and thwarted his attempt to bring her to orgasm. Now, they lay in the dark, side by side with a cold gulf between them. He grew drowsy wondering why she’d initiated sex in the first place. As he drifted closer to sleep he tried to convince himself that her mid-stream reversal couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Annie. Julie didn’t know he’d ever seen Annie again.

June 17

A
nnie sat in her kitchen absently counting and recounting the panes of glass in the window. Her cup of tea, now cold, was half-empty, but her breakfast sat untouched. Maggie hadn’t reappeared to her. Tom hadn’t called her.
Maybe I don’t exist
. Sometimes she almost believed that, if only for a second. When she sat in a restaurant ignored by a waitress or stood in a store ignored by a sales clerk, she wondered if she were invisible. Or maybe didn’t exist at all.

A flash of red as a cardinal flew past the window startled her back to her very real existence. Suddenly, Annie remembered her plan to go back to the genealogy library to search for records of Elihu Bennett’s trial and the birth of Maggie’s baby. She’d found neither online. She sighed. Thinking about Jacob and Maggie was useless. Since she might not have any future with Tom, what was the point in trying to learn more about her past with him?

At ten o’clock, her boss called to ask if she could come in to work for a few hours. Feeling guilty about the times she’d cut her hours and over-scheduled the teens since she met Tom, she consented. Besides, she would only feel worse sitting home waiting to hear from him. After what his friend Eddie had told her, it might be a long wait. Tiptoeing on cold little feet across the back of her mind was the fear that she might not ever talk to Tom again.

The phone rang just as she was walking out the door. It was Tom, asking to see her. In a voice half-strangled by the effort to keep from crying with relief, Annie told him she had to go to work. Her mood shot from hopeful to ecstatic when he said he’d meet her there.

* * *

Tom’s resolve weakened the minute he saw Annie. They sat at one of the tables in the theater cafe. He was eating a lunch of hot dogs and nachos from the concession stand, sacrificing nutrition and risking heartburn, so he could act like a man and break it off with her face to face. Bad decision. She emitted some kind of magnetic pull that made him ache to take her in his arms, some electrical pulse that scrambled his thoughts.

“Will you let me cook supper for you tomorrow night?” she asked.

“Uh . . . let me check my schedule.” Damn him for the evasion. He’d call her when he got back to work, break it off that way.

“I’m an excellent cook.”

“Good to know.”

“Is something wrong, Tom?”

Annie laid her hand on his arm, and the power of her touch shot through him.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” he said, but his legs wouldn’t obey him when he tried to stand. “I’ve . . . got a meeting . . . this afternoon.”

Finally, he made it to his feet and headed toward the exit. It felt as though he were walking underwater, and the going only got harder when he reached the parking lot. Annie called his name, but he didn’t dare turn around. The first zing of pain through his temples nearly brought him to his knees. His vision blackened at the edges.
I’m having a stroke
.

Then Annie was in his arms, and they were kissing. And he was pain free. Such was the power of lust.

“I wish you weren’t working till close tonight,” he whispered into her hair.

“But I’m not. I came in today just to train Jacqui to work the cafe, so I get off at six.”

He smiled. “Then I’ll come to you tonight.” He kissed her again.

“I’ll be home,” she said and returned his smile. “But right now, we both better get back to work.”

She gave him a playful push and turned to go back in to the theater, but Tom grabbed her hand, pulling her back for one last kiss.

* * *

Tom didn’t get much work done the rest of the afternoon. Although he tried to concentrate, his thoughts were like helium balloons worked loose from their tether weight. The only problem he stuck to was working out a plan for getting out of the house to see Annie. Confidant he’d come up with a good one, he was whistling as he parked in his driveway. The tune died on his lips as soon as he opened the front door.

“It’s
disgusting
!” Lindsay yelled from the direction of the kitchen. “How can you just sit there calmly telling me this?”

Julie replied, but he couldn’t make out her words. Lindsay’s response to her mother came through with excruciating clarity.

“Yes, I
do
know what’s going on, and it makes me sick to even
think
about it!”

He stood frozen in place. Julie was speaking again, but even if she’d been shouting like Lindsay, he wouldn’t have heard her over the clamor in his head.

Oh, God. Oh, God. They know
.