Gwynneth Ever After (27 page)

Silence fell over the kitchen once again, broken by a second loud click from the answering machine.

“Mommy?”

Gwyn pried her fingernails out of the wooden chair seat beneath her. She picked up the dishcloth and set it in the middle of the milk puddle. “Yes, Nicky?”

“Did you and Gareth have a fight?”

If only it had been that simple.

“Kind of, I suppose.”

“Madame Lucie says that when friends fight they should talk about it.”

Gwyn made herself smile and keep her present opinion to herself regarding the kindergarten teacher’s playground peace tactics.

“Are you and Gareth still friends?” Nicholas methodically stabbed his fork into the macaroni in his bowl.

“I won’t settle for being friends...”

Gwyn inhaled a shaky breath. She looked at each of her children in turn, seeing their uncertainty, feeling their confusion. It would be so easy to spout platitudes, she thought, so easy to give them the reassurance they wanted. But she wouldn’t lie to them. Not on top of everything else.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Katie stared at her plate, saying nothing. Nicholas nodded solemnly. Maggie sniffled.

In a devastating moment of clarity, she saw the full impact of her actions on her children. The parallels to Jack she’d sworn would never happen.

Despite all her declarations to the contrary – her empty, meaningless assertions – she had put her own desires above the welfare of her kids. Taken a calculated risk that had placed three innocents in the direct path of the same kind of hurt their father had once inflicted on them. Gambled, and lost.

Knowing that this could happen.

She shoved back her chair and stumbled to the counter. Fighting back a wave of nausea, she dropped the milk-sodden cloth into the sink, then turned on the tap and splashed cold water over her face and the back of her neck. The nausea slowly receded.

The knife in her heart remained.

She straightened up from the sink and reached for a dry tea towel. Turning, she stared at the sad little group at the table. Lord, how had she ever messed up their lives so thoroughly? And how did she even begin to make it better?

The elusive specter of “normal” hovered before her once more.

“Come on, guys,” she said, adopting a brittle note of cheer, “let’s finish lunch and then find a game to play, all right? Who’s up for Hungry Hippos?”

No one answered.

Nicholas looked up at her with a fierce scowl. “Mommy?”

“What, Nicky?”

“If talking doesn’t work...”

“Yes?”

“I can punch him in the nose for you.”

Chapter 39

The day did eventually end, but it took a very long time to do so. While the phone had stayed silent for the remainder of the afternoon, Gwyn’s nerves had jangled unmercifully at the thought of the looming conversation.

Throughout the day she found herself inventing and discarding a hundred different reasons she wouldn’t be able to call Gareth once the kids were tucked into bed. Even if she’d managed to find one plausible enough to suit her, she had no choice but to talk to him. He’d been quite serious in his last message about not giving up. She wouldn’t put it past him to show up on her doorstep if she continued to ignore him - a situation that would just compound the whole mess.

Saying what she had to say by phone would be hard enough; having to do so in person crippled her breathing just to think about it.

And so, when she had turned out the last bedroom light, fetched the last glass of water, and kissed the last cheek, she returned to the kitchen to deal with the inevitable.

She found Gareth’s cousin’s phone number still scrawled across the refrigerator whiteboard, and, before she could reconsider yet again, she punched the digits into the phone.

Gareth answered on the first ring.

Gwyn squeezed her eyes shut and sat down on the floor with her back against the fridge. “It’s me,” she said.

“I was getting ready to come over there.”

“I thought you might be.”

“You don’t want me to.”

“No.”

“Gwyn – ”

“You lied to me.”

There. It was out. A single, tidy little phrase that encompassed it all: truth, accusation, and unbearable hurt.

Starkly underlined by Gareth’s ragged, indrawn breath.

“I never meant to hurt you, Gwyn, I swear. I wanted to tell you - you have no idea how much I wanted to tell you – ”

She imagined him running an impatient hand through his hair the way he did when he was frustrated or upset. Then she wiped the familiarity of the thought from her mind.

“But you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t. I’d made a promise – ” Gareth broke off with a curse. “I need to start at the beginning for you to understand. Will you listen?”

No,
she wanted to say, because it wouldn’t matter to the final outcome. To what she knew she needed to do for the sake of her kids.

“Yes,” she said, because she wasn’t yet ready.

And she did listen. She listened, and heard the pain of what he had been through during the years without his daughter, and even understood his reasons for having kept Amy – that entire part of his life – a secret from her.

When he was done, she let herself absorb his words for a moment, wondering if they might somehow make a difference. They didn’t. His explanation may have alleviated the hurt and betrayal, but it didn’t change the certainty she’d been right all along. She should never, ever have opened up herself – or her children - to the possibility of this kind of hurt in the first place. And she would never do so again.

“Are you serious?” Gareth asked hoarsely when she told him as much.

Gwyn closed her eyes against a prickle of tears. “I’m serious. I do understand why you didn’t tell me about Amy, really I do. But it’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“Me. I can’t – I don’t – ”
 

“You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone.” Bracing her elbow on her upraised knee, she dropped her forehead into her hand. “Especially me. I knew something wasn’t right – I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. Damn it, Gareth, I knew better all along than to get involved with you.”

“It seems to me that we’re more than just
involved
.”

She bit her lip. “Fine. Then I knew better than to fall in love with you.”

“But you did.”

“Yes.”

“And I fell in love with you.”

“Gareth, don’t. Please.”

“I will apologize a hundred thousand times for hurting you, Gwyn,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “but not for that. Never for that.”

She steeled her heart against the frustration in his voice. “Then I’ll apologize for it,” she said, “because I’m the one who knew we should never have gone as far as we did. I could have stopped it and saved us both – saved us
all
– a lot of pain.”

“Damn it, Gwyn, there doesn’t have to
be
this much pain. I’m not Jack. I’m not running out on anyone.”

“Maybe not now, but you and I both know that there are no guarantees in life, Gareth. Who’s to say we wouldn’t split up somewhere down the road? In a year, or two, or ten?”

Gareth’s snarl of impatience came clearly through the phone line. “Even if we did – and understand I’m following
your
line of thought here, not mine – I would never just drop out of their lives the way he did.”

“You wouldn’t have to. They’d still be hurt - and I would still be responsible.”

Chapter 40

“So what now?” Sandy asked when Gwyn finished telling her the tale on the phone the next morning.

Gwyn sat back in her office chair, resting her head against the padded leather. “Now I get on with life. I get up in the morning and make breakfast, I take the kids to school, I get caught up on all the work I’ve let slide...”

And I wait for a very, very long time for the pain to go away.

“Do you think he’ll just let it go like this?”

“Maybe not right away, but eventually he’ll have no choice. My mind is made up, Sandy. I’m doing the right thing.”

“Are you?”

Gwyn lifted her glasses up slightly and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Was that the start of a headache? After two sleepless nights and counting, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her friend sighed. “I don’t know. I mean,
I
think you’re doing the right thing – I know I’d certainly do the same in your shoes, but – ah, hell, Gwyn, you don’t need me second-guessing you on this, do you?”

“Not really.”

“As long as you’re sure you’ll be able to hold out against him. He seems pretty persistent.”

“I’m sure.” Most of the time, anyway. As long as she remained clearly focused on how this was best not just for her, but for the kids too, her determination stayed pretty steady. In weaker moments, however...

She shored up her resolve for the hundredth time that morning and continued, “He has to leave eventually. He has his work, his life. All I have to do is hold out long enough and – ”

“Theoretically,” Sandy’s dry voice interrupted.

Gwyn sighed. “Theoretically,” she agreed.

“This isn’t going to be easy, Gwyn. You know that.”

“I know. I also know I have no choice. I can’t put the kids through a second family break-up.”

“You didn’t put them through the first. Jack did.”

“Whatever. I can still make damned certain there isn’t another.”
 

“Who’s to say there’d be another? You and Gareth might – ”

The phone beeped in Gwyn’s ear, signaling another call waiting. Only too happy to cut the conversation short, she said, “Sorry, Sand – I have to go. I have another call coming in.”

“What if it’s him?”

“Then I’ll make polite conversation about the weather and tell him to have a nice day,” Gwyn lied, thinking it far more likely she’d hang up out of sheer panic. “It’s probably just a client anyway.”

“Call me later?”

“Of course.” She held the receiver button down for an instant, prepared herself the best she could for the possibility it might be Gareth after all, then answered with her professional daytime, “Gwyn Jacobs Architecture and Design.”

“Ms. Jacobs? It’s Nicole at the school. Can you come over here? I’m afraid we have a situation.”

Chapter 41

“Holy shit, it’s like running a gauntlet out there!” Sandy panted, slamming the door shut behind her and looking more frazzled than usual. She clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled a face at a giggling Maggie. “Forget Auntie Sandy said that, okay, Magpie? Hey, how about putting my purse in the kitchen for me?”

Still giggling, Maggie ran to do as she was bid, and Sandy turned to envelop Gwyn in a hug.

“You poor thing,” she said. “On top of everything else...”

Gwyn gave a quick squeeze back but felt no need to remain in the embrace. She was too damned angry to need Sandy’s – or anyone’s - sympathy. She pulled away, calling out a reminder to Nicholas as she did, “Away from the windows, Nicky.”

Her son obediently bobbed his head back down from where he’d been sneaking a peek through the blinds at the gathered paparazzi. He returned to his Lego-building.

“How did they find out?” Sandy asked, trailing after her into the kitchen.

“Katie did some bragging on the playground last week. One of the lunch monitors apparently overheard her and, when the news came out about Gareth this weekend, decided to make a few extra bucks.” Gwyn held up a hand to forestall her friend’s wrath. “She’s already been suspended.”

Undeterred, Sandy growled, “She should be fired. Or drawn and quartered!”

“That could still be arranged.” Digging into one of her kitchen drawers, she located the Aylmer community telephone book and slammed it onto the counter. “Anyway, when the kids went out at recess, the paparazzi were waiting. They scared the living daylights out of poor Maggie.”

“And
they
should be – ” Sandy shot a sideways look at the avidly listening
poor Maggie
and finished, “Well, never mind. You get my drift. What about Nicholas and Katie?”

“Katie’s on a field trip for the day, thank heavens. The teachers will keep her inside the school until I pick her up. And Nicholas – ” Her fist closed spasmodically on a page in the phonebook, tearing it from its binding.

Sandy looked alarmed. “Are you okay?”

Gwyn made herself release the paper. She smoothed it out again as best she could, then continued turning the pages.

“I’m fine,” she said, “but one of the photographers is probably limping. Nicky laid into him and landed a half-dozen good kicks on the shin before the teachers pulled him off and got him inside.”

“Seriously?”

“Nich’las was pertecting me,” Maggie said proudly.