The Solitude of Passion (40 page)

“I’m sorry, guys.” I don’t look at either of them the rest of the way home.

Lee helps put the kids to bed. She doesn’t say a single word and barricades herself in the bedroom before I have the chance to kiss her goodnight.

Shit. It’s like he’s turning her against me without even trying. I head downstairs and switch on the comedy channel. Mitch strolls in about a half hour later, looking no worse for wear, even though I tried my hardest to shove his balls into his throat. He disappears in the guestroom for a few minutes before plopping on the opposite end of the couch.

“You want to finish what you started?” I mean for it to sound a little more sarcastic than it did.

“No. I’m through fighting with you.” He looks exhausted as he stretches his legs over the ottoman.

“Great.”

“What’s it gonna take to make you happy, Max? Other than me taking off for good?”

Sounds like he’s searching for some missing ingredient.

“Nothing.”

“Fine. I’ll let Lee impeach you on her own.”

“On what grounds?”

“Moral corruption.”

“It’s completely moral for me to be with my wife.” I stop from laughing. “You’ve got a lot of nerve touching her like that. I wish you’d respect the fact Lee and I are still together. I didn’t come around pawing at her while the two of you were married.” True story. And, honest to God, I thought about it. “What’s it going to take to make
you
happy? I’m not going away, and neither is my marriage.”

He gives an intense stare, examines me up and down for a minute. “Townsend. I want all of it back.”

That piece of crap splinter in my side? “Sure. I’ll let you take over the managerial duties. You can start tomorrow by tackling that irrigation problem.” Crops will be dead in two weeks. “Good luck with that.”

“You want to give me the name of the plumber you’re working with?”

“I’m not holding your hand.”

“Got it.”

He took that well. It feels like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders, all those pressing nonsensical needs Townsend’s been inflicting for years, vanished just like that.

“I’ve been thinking Lee and I should move,” I offer. “We’ve outgrown the house—and that way you can have it back.” I would take Lee and the kids and run off tonight if I had her blessing. I’d toss all our crap in a couple industrial strength trash bags and get us out in under fifteen.

“Where you going?” He doesn’t sound the slightest bit concerned.

“Wherever Lee wants. I’m sure it’ll be in town.” Who am I kidding? I can’t set foot in our bedroom, and I think Lee is going to move away with me? Nice. I’m sharing my delusions of grandeur with Mitch at midnight like some schoolgirl at a slumber party. It’s all so bromantic
I want to hurl myself out the second story window.

And since we’re speaking without peppering our sentences with expletives, “What’s the big mystery? What happened?” I let it hang out there several minutes to see if he’ll take the bait.

“Your mother.” He closes his eyes.

I don’t think it was my mother. My mother happened months before he stopped talking to me. In fact, we had dozens of conversations regarding our parents’ infidelities before ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, took place, and Mitch shoved me out of his life like I had the plague.

“You’re lying, Mitch. Your dad was every bit to blame, and it never occurred to me to shut you out.”

“You’re right. I am lying.” Mitch springs up and heads into the guestroom.

Really?

Now I want to know what the hell he’s lying about, almost as bad as I want him out of my life.

If I’m lucky—and I always am, one will lead to the other.

Lee

The clouds loom over Mono in heavy sheets, grey as pencil lead, and I expect a downpour any moment now. I sit and wait for Colton in the Rustic Cantina, where he said he would gladly buy lunch for his favorite sister-in-law.

All week long Mitch and Max have been going to their ‘special’ appointments with Dr. Van Guard together. Neither of them has said anything regarding whether or not progress is taking place, but the silence, the peace I feel around the house, is staggering.

They actually took a walk on the beach with Stella and Eli the other day while I indulged in a quick nap. I’ve been so damn tired lately that I’m scared as hell to take a pregnancy test. I made the mistake of asking for one of Kat’s leftovers, and she’s been harassing me ever since. Besides, deep down, I already know.

If that wasn’t problematic enough, Max has suggested we move—somewhere, anywhere, far, far away from Mitch. That’s not exactly how he phrased it. I believe he carefully chose the word
outgrew,
and
when he finds out I’m pregnant, he’ll prove himself right.

It’s as if my nightmare has morphed into something bigger than I could have imagined, and now there will be maternity clothes and paternity tests to contend with.

I remember the days when Sheila would point out the fact Max and I normalized the Shepherd family. Now I’m sure she sees it for the sham it really was. How we’ve
abnormalized
it to the point of becoming tabloid fodder—how we turned it into a talk show worthy event. The I’m-pregnant-and-don’t-know-who-the daddy-is edition.

A familiar baseball cap bounces through the shrubbery outside the window and enters through the front. It’s about time. I’ve got to pick up Stella in an hour and a half.

I stand with a smile ready to greet my favorite pervert but it’s not Colt, it’s Mitch.

“Hi!” I lock my arms around his waist and hold him an unreasonable amount of time, take in his warm scent, feel his five o’clock shadow scruff against my cheek. All this hands off is making me miss him even more, Max, too. I hate the double-edged sword my heart has become.

“I intercepted my brother.” He winces out a smile as we take a seat in the booth. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Is Colt joining us?” A wave of guilt swells in me. If Max finds out, he might think I’m secretly seeing Mitch.

“No.” Mitch gives a peaceable smile as if that were the plan all along. “He’s not.”

“Well, anyway, I’m more than happy to have lunch with you.” My eyes widen momentarily. I have to keep reminding myself I’m not breaking any rules, self-imposed or otherwise.

“I miss you,” he says with an intensity I haven’t heard in a long while. It makes this feel like he might say something huge, like he’s tired of waiting for me to come around or that he could never get along with Max.

“You can’t miss me, we’re living together.” Any lighthearted feelings I might have had about meeting Mitch fade, and suddenly it feels like someone laid a boulder on my back. I’m afraid he’s going to cut to the chase—ask me to tell Max things I know I can never say.

“Dr. Van Guard wants to see us all together.”

“When?”

“Friday.”

Three days.

Dr. Van Guard would never push me to do something I’m not ready for. This is only buying me time.

“Lee, it’s me, Mitch.” He leans in as if I might have forgotten. “It’s like you don’t even recognize me anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

A tall, skinny girl comes over and takes our drink order, says she’ll give us a moment to read over the menu, but her eyes linger on Mitch as if she wants to box him up and take him to go. There’s not a woman on the planet who wouldn’t want a bite out of Mitch Townsend.

“You know what I’m talking about,” he whispers. “I want things back the way they were. They’re never going to be that way again, are they?” He looks tired, desperate.

“They are,” I whisper. Deep down I believe this. There’s a film of moisture building in his eyes. “I swear to you. I’m not going to break your heart.”

“What about Max? Can you break his?” His eyes elongate, making his features sag. “I don’t think you can, Lee,” he says it somber.

A stalled car outside the window catches my attention. Two strangers run over and help push it to the side of the road.
I
feel stalled. I feel like Max and Mitch are both pushing me in two different directions, and we’re not getting anywhere, least of all forward. We’re trapped on a dangerous road, and at any given moment something’s going to ram into us, destroy us all for good.

The waitress comes back but we hold off on the order—just sit there feasting on our misery.

“Do you want to talk to him?” I ask. Maybe if I put this all off on Mitch he’ll pull me out of the wreckage.

“I tell Max off routinely,” he says. “It doesn’t have any effect on him. He needs to hear the right words from you. If you say it, maybe he’ll believe it.” He gives a wry smile. “Maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t think Max is going away so easily. He’s more of a fight-till-the-finish kind of guy. The finish being death.”

I take a deep breath. “Max would never hurt me. I know for a fact if I make a decision, and it doesn’t involve him, he’d support me… over time.” Not really.

“Are we talking about the same Max?” His eyes offer a smile all their own.

“Same Max,” I say. Mitch’s mood seems to have lightened. “I’m sorry I’m putting you through this.”

“You’re not putting me through this. I put us through this.” He winces.

“You didn’t put us through this.” I collapse my face in my hands a moment. “Do you ever think maybe this was part of the plan?”

“Some master plan?” A dull laugh pumps from him. “If it is, God is going out of his way to prove how much he hates me.”

“Mmm,” I glance out the window, dismissing his theory. “It sure feels like some kind of weird sideline though.”

“You think you’re supposed to be with Max?”

I don’t have the heart to say no. On some level, I’ve always felt Max would be in my life.

His features harden, his eyes dart out the window as he gets lost in the haze.

“We’re part of the plan, Lee. Me and you.” It sounds like a plea more than a fact.

“So
this
—
this horrible thing was supposed to happen?” A watershed of tears breaks loose. I once thought heartbreak was a manmade misfortune. I never once believed God would dole it out by the spoonful.

Mitch swoops in and scoots next to me, drops a hot kiss on the top of my head.

“It’ll all be over soon, I can feel it,” he whispers. He pulls back and looks me in the eye. “We’ll get through this. But it’s entirely up to you how quick we get to the other side.” He sinks into the booth as he takes me in. “Lee, I’d walk through fire for you. I’d jump over the moon, but I can’t have Max warring over you for the next fifty years. It’ll be the last nail in my coffin.”

It’s all coming to a head. I can feel the dam about to break. It’ll sweep us all away in the current and in the end it’ll be my fault.

I can’t choose Mitch or Max—one over the other.

Something tells me walking through fire—jumping over the moon would be a hell of a lot easier.

Mitch

We’re going old school tonight at Dr. Van Guard’s office. Max and Lee are in there first, then Lee and me—then the grand finale—the smearing of Max Shepherd’s heart over the walls.

I thump my fists over one another—stare across at the maroon walls trying to imagine what they could possibly be discussing. I don’t like this. It feels like Lee is full of secrets all of a sudden. We shared everything before I left. Then again, she wasn’t married to anyone else at the time. There were no privacy issues, not one ounce of intimacy she experienced outside of me.

Colton said Max came to my funeral. We hadn’t talked in years, and he showed up with bells on. I bet. I’m sure he was gunning for Lee even then. I’m not sure why, but even with Lee’s reassurance I can’t lose this sickening feeling.

Max and Lee aren’t sleeping in the same bed anymore, and yet that doesn’t bring me all that much comfort. Although he did hint at the fact they didn’t need a bedroom, that broad daylight sufficed as evidenced by their date a few weeks back. It feels like both Lee and Max are taking turns strangling me. That pretty much sums up how if feels when I open my eyes in the morning and remember who I am, where I’m at, and how in the hell I got there. Max—procreating with my wife—playing house. If I never came back it would have all worked out beautifully for him.