More Than Friends (10 page)

"I'm right here," she said with a teary smile. She held out an arm to Jon and slipped it around his waist when he gave her a hug. She was blessed to have children like these. Particularly now.

Particularly now. The tears came again, along with the image of Sam and Teke together. Her stomach turned, and for a minute she thought she might be sick. Except that she had been sick before. There was nothing left to throw up.

She sniffled and managed a watery, "I'm sorry. This is difficult for me."

"Michael will be all right," Jon assured her.

"I know." With final squeezes to Zoe and him, she said, "Go on downstairs. I'll be down in a bit."

Jon went. Zoe was slower in leaving. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Uh-huh," Annie lied.

"You seemed okay in the car. I thought you were okay when we got to Michael's room. Then you went for a walk with Daddy. Was it the hospital that did it? The machines and all?"

"Something like that."

"Will you be able to take us there tomorrow?" Annie tried to imagine getting up in the morning and carrying on as usual. But nothing was as usual now. Nothing would ever be as usual again.

"We'll see," she whispered, then felt so bad for causing Zoe distress that she added, "I'll try. Okay?"

"Okay," Zoe whispered back. "And Mom? About Jana? I know it's tough for her with Michael unconscious and Teke a zombie and J.D. uptight. But what she said wasn't fair. Maybe you could talk to her? Tell her I wasn't being disloyal?"

Annie smoothed the blond waves from her daughter's forehead. "I will."

Zoe gave her a kiss. She was halfway across the floor when Annie heard her say, "She's all yours."

Annie turned to the window. Without light in the room, there was no reflection on the glass. Beyond it, the night was clear and starry, cold as the chill she couldn't seem to shake, cruelly beautiful given the awful upheaval of her life.

"Are you all right?" Sam asked quietly.

She bit her lip to keep from crying again.

He waited. "I was worried."

Good, Annie thought. You deserve it.

"Did you come straight back here?"

"No," she said.

"Drive around some?"

She pushed the heel of her hand higher on her cheek, letting her fingers tangle with the waves framing her face. She wished he would leave her alone. With her wound so raw, his presence hurt.

"Did you have dinner?" he asked.

"I threw up lunch. Dinner would have been a disaster."

"Annie, I'm sorry. I am in absolute agony asking myself why I did what I did and trying to think of ways to make it all better. You have no idea how awful I feel."

Annie slid her palm to cover her eyes. She was could feel the beginnings of a migraine.

"Teke knows you know," he said. "She feels as awful as I do." Teke. How could he have done it with Teke? Annie asked herself for the umpteenth time. At least if he'd had to be unfaithful, he could have picked someone she didn't know. Wasn't that what most men did, created a secret life for themselves, separate from home? That might have been easier for her to bear. Then again, maybe not. Betrayal was betrayal.

"Talk to me, Annie. Please? We always talk."

"We used to. We used to be faithful, too."

"One time. That's it. I did it one time. Five minutes' worth, maybe less."

She grunted. "You always could be fast when you wanted."

"Annie--"

Her thoughts suddenly exploded. "How could you? We took vows, Sam! We swore to be loyal!"

"I didn't plan it."

"With Teke. My best friend. How could you?" She had been asking herself that over and over and over again. The thought that Sam might be in love-romantically--with Teke was too painful to consider, so she asked, "Was it her looks?"

"Of course not!"

"Some scent she has? Or just a curiosity that's been nagging at you for years, that you had to satisfy?"

"For God's sake, Annie, there's no reason to what I did. It was crazy. Insane. Ask me to describe the details of what happened, and I can't. There weren't any details. There wasn't any awareness."

"Did you come?" It was an ugly little fact, haunting her, necessary to make the picture more complete.

"What?"

"You heard." If she had to repeat it, she would gag. He snorted. "Yes, I came. I always come when I'm with you, and in my mind, I was."

"Don't soy that!" she screamed. "It's an insult to my intelligence!"

"Shhhh."

She lowered her voice. "You should have been thinking of the children then, too. What will they think when they find out?" Sam sighed. "They'll think I'm a louse, and they'll be right. They'll think all the same things you do. Annie, we have to discuss this. I don't know how to

handle it. They'll be going back to school tomorrow calling the Clinger kid a liar. Should I tell them the truth now? Should I wait?

What should I do?"

Annie didn't know. She struggled to separate her personal anguish from the rest of the problem. In a small voice she said, "They'll be so hurt."

"And angry and confused, just like Michael must have been. If I felt I could spare them that, I would. I'd tell Teke not to tell them. I'd tell J.D. not to tell them. But then there's Michael. When he wakes up, he's sure to say something."

If he wakes up, she thought fearfully. Aloud she said, "If he remembers."

"And then there's Virginia. She's a plague."

For the first time since learning the truth, Annie pictured Virginia chatting it up around town about Sam and Teke having an affair. It had been bad enough when Annie thought it was a lie. Now it was even worse. The whole town would know that Annie couldn't satisfy her husband. She was mortified.

Wrapping an arm around her head, she moaned. When Sam's arm came around her shoulders, she shrank away by flattening herself into the corner.

He took a step back. "I'll talk with her."

"That won't do any good. She'll think you're trying to cover something up. We'll have to talk with her together. That'll look better." She moaned again. "I never thought I'd be lying for the sake of how things look, but I don't see any other way out. Virginia has to be told that you and Teke aren't having an affair."

"We aren't," Sam declared.

She shot him a look in the dark. Sadly she said, "Don't quibble over semantics, Sam."

"I'm not. An affair implies something ongoing, but I was with Teke once, for a handful of minutes. It was unpremeditated and ultimately abhorrent, and

it won't ever happen again. Now, there's no way I can stretch things to call that kind of situation an affair."

Annie shrugged. "Call it what you will."

"Annie."

"It's disgusting by any name."

"Was. Past tense. It's over." He took a short breath. "Y'know, if you'd been home, it wouldn't have happened."

She gaped at him. "You're blaming me?"

"You were the one I wanted, but you weren't there. I raced all over the house looking for you. I called the school. When I ran through the yard, I had visions of your being at Teke's, but you weren't."

"And you couldn't wait? You were that desperate?"

"I could--but it happened so fast, it was done before I knew it had started, and then there was Michael."

Annie pressed her face to her knees. In the ensuing silence she pictured Sam running a hand through his hair, pictured that hair looking even better for the mussing. It wasn't fair. He should have looked like a monster. At least a little.

"What a mess," he muttered.

"Maybe it was inevitable."

"How so?"

"The closeness between our families." In her search for explanations, this one had cropped up. "Maybe it was unhealthy."

"We weren't that close."

"We're close enough to co-own two vacation places. What are we going to do about those?"

"I don't know." He paused. "I haven't thought about it." He paused again. "A lot depends on what happens between you and me. I love you, Annie. I

don't want our marriage to fall apart."

The fear in his voice touched her. She told herself to ignore it, but she was cursed to love Sam too completely for that. Still, it didn't change the fact that he had betrayed her trust and that their relationship would never be the same.

With that thought, she began to cry again.

"Annie--" He reached for her.

She jerked away. "Don't!"

"I want to touch you."

"Like you touched Teke?" she sobbed.

"Like I touch you. You're different from any other woman, Annie. You look different, feel different, smell different, taste--" She covered her ears.

He pried her hands away, coming down on a knee on the window seat.

"Taste different."

"How do you know?" she cried through her tears. "I thought you said you didn't see or feel anything with Teke. How do you know I'm so different?"

"You're the only one who turns me on."

"That was what I always thought, but I was wrong. I thought one way, while you were feeling another."

"I wasn't," he swore, and sighed. Holding her wrists, pleading now, he said, "I'll do whatever you want, Annie. I'll sleep on the sofa if you can't bear lying in the same bed as me. I'll give you my keys to the Maxwells' house so you'll know I won't go in on my own. I'll see a shrink, if you want."

"That won't do any good," she wailed. "You're the most sane person I know. That's one of the things that's so awful about this. Your profound sanity makes what you did all the more absurd."

"Then, what? What should I do? Tell me, and I'll do it."

"Give me room. Let me breathe."

He immediately released her hands and withdrew to the end of the window seat. "Now what?"

She felt bereft, cold, confused. "I don't know."

"I love you. And you love me, don't say you don't, because it can't just have died in a minute, not a love like we have."

"I can't think," she cried. "I need time."

"How much time?"

"I don't know!" He was pressing her for direction, but she was treading foreign ground. Sam had never caused her pain or inspired this kind of anger before.

"What do we say to the kids?"

She wiped the tears from her cheeks. Foreign ground it was, indeed, but there were certain immediate problems, among which handling the children was foremost. So she groped her way on. "Nothing, I guess. Not yet." One part of her prayed they wouldn't have to know at all. Will Clinger's rumors were nothing compared to straight talk from Annie and Sam. She couldn't begin to assess the emotional damage that would cause. "It's too much, with Michael so sick."

"How do we act with them?"

"We focus our worry on Michael."

"Can I kiss you?"

"No."

"What about Virginia?"

"Kiss her all you want," Annie said bitterly.

"You know what I mean."

Yes, she did; still, the bitterness was there.

"We'll talk with Virginia," he said.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to move out?"

She looked at him then. His expression was hidden by the night, but she knew he was fishing for hope. Quietly, if a bit dryly, she said,

"That would

defeat the purpose of not telling the kids, don't you think?"

"Yes. Same thing with my sleeping in the den."

"You take the bed. I won't be sleeping much anyway."

"Annie, that's absurd--"

"What's absurd?" she cut in. "I rarely sleep through the night anyway, so instead of lying in bed, I'll be walking around or sitting up here. The kids know I'm upset about Michael."

"I don't want the bed if you're not there. You take it."

"So what'll you tell the kids?"

"That I'm upset about Michael."

"And when they wake up and find you sprawled on the sofa in the den?"

"Same thing. I was upset about Michael, walked around for a while, fell asleep there."

"Night after night?"

When he didn't answer, she knew she had made her point--both about keeping up a facade before the kids and about the extent of her hurt. Night after night. She wondered when it would end, if it would end. She felt as though the neat little bundle that was her life with Sam had been torn apart and the pieces strewn on the floor. Still stunned from the tearing, she didn't have the strength to start picking them up.

Sam rose from the window seat. As wearily as she felt, he said, "We can both take the bed. I'll just be careful not to go near your side." He was halfway to the door when he stopped and bowed his head. "Annie?" She was silent. "We're holding a press conference tomorrow morning. About Dunn v. Hanover. I canceled it yesterday and would scrap it for good if I had my way, but our public relations people are insisting."

"While Michael is sick?" she asked. Victory or not, a press conference seemed inappropriate.

"J.D. wants it. So does J.S. I'm going to have trouble doing it." He hesitated. "Will you come?"

Annie let her head loll against the window frame. In the past, she had attended Sam's press conferences. It had been her pleasure to be there, to be introduced, to beam at her husband. She couldn't do it now, though, couldn't possibly do it now. She couldn't produce a beam if her life depended on it, and the last thing she wanted was to be introduced. She didn't want people looking at her. She felt sure they would know the truth and stare, perhaps be amused or feel pity.

"I have school," she said.

"I know, but I thought maybe you could go in a little late." That was what she had done in the past. Her silence said she wouldn't do it this time.

He stayed where he was for another minute, before whispering, "Okay," and going quietly down the stairs.

Annie was a chronic insomniac. She could function at peak level with five hours of sleep, which meant that, in theory, she could go to bed at midnight, wake up at dawn, and be fine. In practice her eyelids were often drooping by ten at night. She would sleep straight for several hours, then only on and off after that. Normally she made the most of the wakeful time to do creative thinking, read a book, grade exams. Often she simply fitted her body to Sam's and took pleasure in his warmth.

There was no warmth this night. She didn't go to bed at all but stayed in her office, dozing on the window seat, waking to a cacophony of thoughts. Once