Detours (7 page)

“I bet. Thanks again for doing that.” Ellis cast a glance down the hallway, then realized Nathan had seen her do so.

“I told Mary I’d be here at twelve-thirty.” He looked at the LED readout of the time on the DVD player. It said twelve-forty. “I’ll never know what takes Mary so long to put a couple of things in a backpack so that Nat can spend the night with me. You’d think she was going on a month-long trip instead of spending one night at my apartment.” Nathan rubbed his hands together nervously, then jammed them in the pockets of his pants.

Since Ellis knew precious little about how or why Mary did anything—with the possible exception of kiss delightfully—she was at a loss for a reply. Two more silent minutes rolled slowly by. Finally, Natalie roared up the hallway and into the living room.

“Hi, Daddy. Can we eat at McDonald’s tonight?” She wrapped her arms around Nathan’s neck and perched on his lap, which was no easy task, given her long body.

“We haven’t even had lunch yet. What’s the rush for picking where we eat tonight?”

“No rush. I was just asking.”

Sam trotted into the room and went directly to Nathan and Natalie. “This is Sam,” Natalie said.

“I know. I met him yesterday.”

“Not him, Daddy. Her. Samantha.”

“Oh. My mistake.”

“I forgive you.” Natalie slid off his lap and stood by the chair. “We should go.”

“We can’t until your mom brings us your backpack.”

“Oh, right. I’ll be out in the backyard with Sam.”

Girl and dog sped toward the kitchen door.

Nathan raised his voice in hopes of being heard before Natalie was out of earshot. “Don’t get dirty, or you can’t go to the movies.”

“It’ll be dark in the theater. Nobody will know.” Natalie and Sam dashed outside.

Nathan said, “She’s always got an answer for everything.”

Ellis heard his fatherly pride. “So it seems. It’s hard to believe she’s only nine.”

“Nine, going on twenty-seven, most days.” The look on Nathan’s face left no doubt of his adoration for Natalie.

Again, Ellis was left with nothing to add.

At last, Mary joined them. “Sorry you had to wait, Nathan. I wanted to send Natalie’s library book with her, and I couldn’t find it. For reasons known only to her, she’d put it between the mattress and box spring.” Mary handed a bulging backpack to her ex.

“Couldn’t quite get her desk and bicycle in, huh?” Nathan stood and hefted the small rucksack.

“Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

Nathan chuckled. “In case you don’t recognize it, Ellis, that’s the overprotective, worried mother’s motto.”

Ellis grinned. “Somebody should put it on Tshirts and sell them at Toys“R”Us.”

Nathan looped his arm through the strap of the backpack. “Only if they’re made with flame-retardant fabric and the proceeds go to Mary’s latest charitable cause.”

“I’m cautious, not overprotective, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to help people who are less fortunate.” Mary placed both hands on Nathan’s back and gave him a little push. “Get the yard ape and hit the road, bubba.”

“On my way. We’ll have to hustle if we’re going to make the next showing of
The Santa Clause 51
at the buck and a bucket theater at North DeKalb Mall.” Nathan started toward the kitchen.

“It’s only
The Santa Clause 3,”
Mary said as she left the room.

Ellis listened in on their conversation, hoping to get a better understanding of their relationship.

“Give ’em another year or two,” Nathan said. “The sequel will be out before this one’s on DVD. They know a moneymaker when they see it. This is at least the fifth time I’ve taken Nat to see it. Good thing the tickets only cost a dollar. The popcorn is making a pauper of me.”

Mary followed Nathan to the door. “Enjoy it while you can. Prom dresses and college will be here soon enough.”

He gripped the doorknob, and the door gave a creak as he opened it. “I’ll have her back by dinnertime tomorrow night, okay?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Nathan opened the door and summoned Natalie from the far corner of the backyard where she and Sam were playing tug-of-war with a stick.

“Behave yourself at Dad’s,” Mary said.

“I always do.”

“Right. And I’m Miss America.” Mary blew a kiss to her daughter. “Love you.”

“You’re weird.”

Ellis heard the tires on the driveway and saw Mary wave from the doorway; a car horn honked in response.

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

“Sweet freedom,” Mary said as she and Sam rejoined Ellis in the living room. Sam stretched out full length on the floor beside the sofa and fell instantly asleep. Mary repositioned the chair before sitting down. “I don’t know how I’d survive if Nathan didn’t take her as often as he does.”

“And I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t rescued me and my dog yesterday. Thanks for everything.” Ellis shoved the sleeves of her sweatshirt up, then tugged them back into place. “Nathan seems like a good guy.”

Mary rocked back and held the chair in place while she spoke. “He is. Sometimes I wish we could have made our marriage work.” She rocked forward.

“How long have you been divorced?”

“It’ll be five years in March.”

“So Natalie was just a little shaver, not that she’s exactly ready for Social Security now.”

“Right, but I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a perfect age to tell a child that her parents aren’t going to be together anymore.”

“What happened between you two? It looked to me like you and Nathan get along all right.”

“Odd as it may sound, nothing happened between Nathan and me.” Mary grinned dourly. “And if you were to ask him, Nathan would tell you that was about ninety-nine percent of the problem.”

“Nothing happened? Care to elaborate?”

“Oh, we took walks, went to movies and concerts and plays, worked together in the yard, gave each other nice presents on our birthdays, almost never fought, shared chores around the house, took turns caring for and playing with Natalie. We looked like the perfect family.”

“But?”

Mary chewed on the corner of her lower lip. “But I’d rather have eaten razor blades than go to bed with my husband.”

“Oh.”

Mary watched Ellis’s face as the impact of her confession set in and wondered if Ellis would ask for more information.

“So Natalie…?”

Mary rubbed her jaw. “I don’t want to say she was a mistake. She wasn’t. I always wanted kids, and I think I got a great one—I won’t even pretend to be humble when it comes to how I feel about her—and I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world, but I’m an old-fashioned girl. I think kids do better in a family than as an appendage to a single person.”

“Half the kids in this country come from broken homes.”

“Statistics only apply to other people’s children, not mine.”

“So why didn’t you stay with Nathan?”

Mary frowned. “Lord knows I wanted to. For that matter, Lord knows Nathan wanted me to stay, too, but he wanted a whole wife.” Mary made a sound between a laugh and a snort. “Let me rephrase that, and forgive me if this sounds crude. Nathan wanted a wife with a hole, and try as I might, I couldn’t convince myself that having sex with him was something I could do—at least not anywhere near as often as he wanted me to.”

“I see.”

“On our honeymoon, I kept telling myself I only hated it so much because I was so new at it. I was sure if I got a little practice at it, I’d figure out what made all the dames on the nighttime soap operas fall in the sack with every guy who’d crook his finger at them.”

Ellis squinted at Mary. “Let me get this straight. You were a virgin on your wedding night, and you got pregnant on your honeymoon?”

“Right on all three counts. Straight, virgin, honeymoon.” Mary ticked off each word on her fingers as she spoke it. “So right off the bat, I told Nathan ‘no sex while I’m pregnant.’”

“How did he take that?”

“Not well, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.” Mary held her arms in an X across her chest. “The store was closed.”

“And after Natalie arrived?”

“That kid’s head was the size of a watermelon. It took months for my episiotomy to heal. Then she had colic for her first year. We were exhausted. It was all we could do to even make the bed, let alone think about making love.”

Ellis murmured sympathetically. “But the incision healed, the baby outgrew her colic, you caught up on your sleep.”

“And the gods answered my prayers.”

“How so?”

“Nathan went to work for Georgia Power as a linesman. Right from the start, he was put on a schedule that had him working four days—and I mean on call twenty-four/seven for those four days—then off for three days. We’d go for days at a time without even seeing each other because he was at work. And if there was a wind storm or an ice storm, he might be gone for a week or more cleaning up downed trees. He could almost always have as much overtime as he was willing to put in.”

“But what about the days he wasn’t working?”

“On his off days, he was so weary, he’d sleep eighteen hours a day. Any energy he did have went to playing with Natalie.” Mary wrapped her arms around herself and purred the next words. “Pure heaven.” She smiled ruefully. “For a woman who wanted to avoid having to dodge sexual advances, that is.”

“Since you’re divorced now, it obviously didn’t work forever.”

“No, after about three years of having sex maybe twice a year, Nathan started making noises about having an affair.”

“Him or you?”

“Both, actually. He accused me of having a lover and threatened to find one for himself if things didn’t change.”

“I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but we seem to have gone from zero to sixty in five seconds as far as telling each other everything, so here goes. Were you having an affair?”

“Does it count if I pretended?”

Ellis laughed knowingly. “You and Jimmy Carter—lusting in your hearts.”

“Remember, he confessed to lusting after
women
in his heart. He and I were peas in a pod in that regard.”

“Another nosy question—if you knew you were attracted to women, why did you marry Nathan in the first place?”

“One word. Mother.”

“You wanted to be a mother?”

“Well, yes, that’s true, I did, but what I meant was I did it to shut my mother up.”

“Kind of an emotionally costly way to put a gag on someone, isn’t it?”

“If you only knew the half of it. Someday when you’re plagued with insomnia, I’ll show you my wedding album.”

“It would probably just make me jealous.”

“You wanted a big wedding, too?” Mary couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

“Hardly,” Ellis said with a scoff. “I’d be jealous of Nathan.”

Mary found herself too tongue-tied to respond, so she looked at Ellis and hoped the expression on her face wasn’t too stupefied.

Ellis’s voice dropped as she spoke. “Sorry. I guess I stepped way over the line again.”

“Why would you say that, Ellis? I’m flattered.”

Apparently it was Ellis’s turn to be at a loss for words. Mary waited, hoping that when Ellis did speak, it wouldn’t shatter her heart.

“Look, Mary, this whole situation is just so… so… I don’t even know how to describe it. I mean, I’ve known you for all of about twenty-eight hours now, but look at us. You have to help me get to and from the bathroom. You keep track of when I need to ice my ankle and have my meds. You make meals for me and wait on me hand and foot. You and your family have done everything from do my job to feed my dog.” Ellis took a deep breath. “I’m used to being a lot more independent, and I’m not real sure how I feel about anyone doing so much for me, but that’s not the worst of what makes this whole thing so strange.” She mashed her thumb against her lips for a moment before continuing. “We slept in the same bed last night, and this morning, unless I miss my guess, we were on the verge of doing some heavy-duty kissing. All that is more than I can wrap my brain around, and I haven’t even gotten to the real kicker yet.”

“And what would that be?”

“Please don’t think I’m complaining, okay, but you and I sit in this living room and talk to each other like we’ve been best friends our whole lives. It’s like we’re some old married couple shuffling around in our bathrobes and slippers—except, of course, I can’t shuffle, thanks to the number I did on my leg. I’ve been wedged in this spot on your sofa for so long it probably has an indelible imprint of my butt on it.”

“If what you just said isn’t a complaint, what is it?”

For dramatic effect, Ellis let her jaw hang limply open. She used the back of her hand to put her jaws back together. “Damned if I know. An observation, maybe. Or a question. Or a wish.” She blew the air out of her lungs and her lips flapped noisily. “You tell me. How do you feel about it? About us?”

Mary rocked in the glider, a pensive mood overtaking her. “Confused. Scared. Excited. Overwhelmed. Nervous. Out of my element. In over my head. Lucky.”