Hope Street (15 page)

Ellie had nowhere to return to. The first day she found herself completely alone in the house, she stormed through the rooms with a huge trash bag and threw out all the flowers, most of which had begun to droop and wither. Then she entered Peter’s bedroom, sat at his desk and hit a key on his computer. A page from MySpace opened, featuring the photo of an extraordinarily cute girl and some text about how crazy
she was about baseball players. Had Peter been corresponding with her, or just fantasizing about her? He’d been so young, too young for love but not too young to attempt an online dry run.

She clicked on an icon at the bottom of the screen, and a list of Peter’s MP3 music files appeared. She double-clicked on one. She had no idea what the song was—it turned out to be a thumping rap number—but she closed her eyes.
This is what Peter would be doing right now if he were here,
she thought: listening to hip-hop, dreaming about a cute girl…and munching on Goldfish. Ellie dug into the bag and scooped out a handful of the small yellow crackers. The music was awful, the crackers stale, but she didn’t care. This was as close as she could get to Peter.

“Hey.” The low voice broke into her reverie.

She swiveled in Peter’s chair and saw Curt standing in the doorway. How long had she been in a trance, listening to Peter’s music and munching on stale Goldfish? All day?

Flustered, she silenced the tune with a click of the mouse and pushed away from the desk. “I was just…” Just what? Acting unhinged? Losing her grip?

Grieving?

If Curt was home, it must be close to six o’clock. Jessie must have arrived home from school, too. Ellie hadn’t heard the menter the house. She’d been in her own little world. In Peter’s world.

Curt entered the room, extended his hand and helped her to her feet. His arms felt strange around her. Touching Curt meant touching reality, and reality was where all the pain existed.

“We can do some takeout for dinner,” he was saying as she tried to relax in his embrace. “Pizza, Chinese, whatever you want.”

She’d been eating Goldfish all day. She wasn’t hungry.

But Curt apparently was, and Jessie would expect to eat
something, too. “Takeout. Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded miles away.

Curt arched his arm around her shoulders and led her out of Peter’s room. Did he think she was deranged? Maybe she was.

All she knew was that, for the first time in her life, Curt’s touch made her want to scream….

S
HE STARED AT THE REMOTE
control until she’d memorized every damn button on it. When she lifted her eyes to Curt, their gazes collided for an instant before he looked away.

She had never before seen such anguish in him, or such anger. Curt didn’t have a temper. That was part of what made him a successful attorney; he could argue his position coolly, rationally. He was always the most reasonable person in the room. This trait often exasperated her, in part because she envied it.

He’d certainly been reasonable after Peter died. For months afterward, she’d been a wreck. She’d spent most of that spring and summer in therapy and popping antidepressants. Prozac had wreaked havoc on her digestive system. Xanax had not only upset her stomach but created problems with her vision. Valium caused no side effects, but it didn’t do much to ease her depression, either.

She’d felt as if she were living in a glass bubble. Inside was her pain; outside, the world just kept rolling along. Jessie had announced that, despite her sadness, she would be attending her senior prom, and that her friend Kirsten’s mother would take
her shopping for a prom dress because Ellie clearly wasn’t up to the task of helping Jessie select a gown.

Curt had resumed his regular schedule at the firm. He’d negotiated deals, handled some civil litigation, met colleagues for lunch, put in time at the fitness center. Judging by his behavior, one would assume that life was normal.

While he and Jessie had behaved like rational, healthy human beings, while Curt had run up billable hours and Jessie had studied for her exams and the two of them had discussed the latest news out of Washington or watched
South Park
together, sometimes actually laughing at the comedy show’s perverse humor, Ellie had spent hour after hour, day after day, sitting in Peter’s room, listening to his CDs and MP3 files—Ludacris, the Beastie Boys, 50 Cent and someone named Nellie who turned out to be a man, not a woman—and eating Goldfish crackers, and wondering how on earth Jessie and Curt could be functioning so well when Peter was gone.

Curt had never cried, not in front of Ellie. He’d been quiet and steady, fixing simple suppers on evenings when Ellie hadn’t managed to get a meal prepared, and answering phone calls when Ellie had recoiled from the shrill ringing. He’d made apologies to their friends and relatives when she couldn’t bring herself to attend social gatherings. He’d covered for her and reclaimed his place in the world.

She hadn’t. She couldn’t.

If only she’d known that he’d been weeping in the shower. If only he’d told her. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt like such a failure for her inability to resume her own routines.

Sighing, she swung her legs back up onto the bed and peered at the television. She’d paused the movie on a photo of Peter seated at his desk, leaning back in his chair and
grinning at the camera. One of the girls must have snapped the picture, because Ellie didn’t recognize it. Peter’s hair was shaggy and he wore an oversize blue T-shirt with Rock The Boat printed across it.

He’d been so alive until the moment he died. Seeing him smile like that, when in a matter of months he would be dead, caused a boulder-size ache to lodge in Ellie’s chest.

She pressed the play button, eager to erase that bright, happy image from the screen. The photo faded, replaced by a picture of the front of their house, the azaleas in scarlet bloom, the red maple on the side of the porch lush with burgundy leaves. An orchestral rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” played on the soundtrack, and Ellie realized what a simple, pretty tune it was when Curt wasn’t lampooning it with silly words.

“It took time, but Ellie rebuilt her life,” Katie’s voice intoned on the soundtrack. “She cheered at Jessie’s graduation—” the photo of the house dissolved into one of Jessie in her cap and gown, flanked by Ellie and Curt “—and by the following September, she was back at her job.” The graduation photo vanished, replaced by a shot of the Felton Primary School. “Slowly, and with great courage, Ellie got back to the task of living.”

“I didn’t have any courage,” Ellie muttered.

Curt glanced her way but didn’t dispute her. He was still stewing after his outburst. Had she actually believed he never got angry? Maybe he’d just been hiding his anger all along. Maybe he’d been burying it for the past fifty years, ignoring it, burning it off at the fitness center. Or maybe he’d never experienced anger, just as Ellie had never experienced depression, until they’d lost Peter.

She was no longer depressed. But damn, Curt was still angry.

Fourteen months ago

T
HE EMPTINESS OF THE HOUSE
unnerved Ellie. Everyone was gone—Katie and Jessie in college and Peter…

Gone.

Her foot steps didn’t literally echo when she walked through the house, but she heard an imaginary echo, the sound of no one. When she arrived home from work each afternoon, no voices shouted a greeting. No smell of microwave popcorn or cocoa greeted her. No backpacks lay on the kitchen counter, no pile of boots and cleated athletic shoes huddled by the back door, no babble of music or telephone conversations drifted down the stairs.

Her nest would have emptied anyway. But not this soon. And not when she and Curt were having so much difficulty dealing with each other.

She’d managed to make a nice dinner tonight, at least. She was getting better at that—not just preparing decent meals but downsizing the amount she made to feed only two. For months, she’d found herself filling her shopping cart at the supermarket with Peter’s favorite snacks and then having to place those items back on the shelves, everything but the Goldfish crackers, which had become her own personal addiction. Some nights, she’d accidentally cooked enough food to last her and Curt several days—a quantity Peter would have scarfed down in a single sitting. Some nights she’d lacked the will to prepare anything more complicated than sandwiches and sliced pickles.

She’d gotten it right tonight, however. Roast chicken, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli and a tossed salad. Given that she’d spent the past few days working with faculty representatives on a curriculum unit that covered diet and nutrition, she was pleased to have assembled a healthy, balanced meal for herself and Curt.

He appeared genuinely pleased when he saw what she’d fixed for them. “Wow, this looks great,” he said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, as he settled across the table from her in the kitchen. “I love the way you make chicken.”

The way she made chicken was to shake some seasonings onto it, dab it with butter and stick it in the oven. Hardly worth the high praise. She knew what Curt was really complimenting, though: her effort. Her baby steps in the direction of resuming a normal life.

As they ate, he told her about the negotiations he was about to begin. “Remember Professor Benzer? That guy from MIT?” he asked her. “He came up with a bunch of patents, and we were able to assign the better ones to him and not the guy from Tufts who’d collaborated with him. I handled that negotiation a year and a half ago.”

A year and a half ago, Peter had died. Ellie hadn’t been aware of any negotiations Curt was involved in at the time. She smiled blandly so he’d think she remembered. He seemed so jazzed about this latest development at work.

“Anyway, we helped him set up a corporation to license the patents, and now a major player from Silicon Valley wants to buy the corporation. They’re dangling big, big bucks over his head.”

“Lucky him,” Ellie said.

“He wants to retain control over the patents,” Curt went on. “The Silicon Valley folks want to buy the patents outright, give Benzer a lump sum and send him on his way. So we’re about to enter into some complicated negotiations.” Curt’s eyes sparkled, silver and gold. He loved complicated negotiations. “And here’s the best part. Moira Kernan is representing the Silicon Valley people.”

“Moira Kernan?” Ellie frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

“She used to work with me. She made partner a year after I did. I’m sure you met her at parties. Short woman with straight black hair. She had a blunt personality, sometimes kind of tactless. She was scary smart.”

“Oh. Right.” A picture materialized in Ellie’s mind. She’d gotten to know most of the partners at social events, and she recalled a petite dynamo who favored bright red lipstick and told dirty jokes without blinking. “She’s representing the other side?”

“She moved out to San Francisco a few years ago. One New England winter too many, and when a Bay Area firm started sending out feelers, she packed up and left. So now she and I get to butt heads.”

“You know all her moves,” Ellie pointed out. “You should be able to run rings around her.”

Curt chuckled. “Unfortunately, she knows all my moves, too.” He nudged away his empty plate and smiled contentedly. “It’s going to be fun.”

Fun. Ellie tried to recall what that was. Something you enjoyed, something that made you smile. Something you could experience only if you weren’t viewing the world through a gray veil of sorrow and regret.

Something Curt didn’t seem to have any trouble with. His veil of sorrow had lifted off him and blown away a long time ago. He waltzed through his days as if everything was as it was supposed to be, as if the worst thing that might befall him was a traffic ticket or a computer virus.

Ellie had always believed she and Curt were in sync, their thoughts and emotions perfectly matched. She’d been wrong. Eighteen months after Peter’s death, Curt was having fun. Actually, he’d started having fun just weeks after Peter died.

Ellie couldn’t imagine having fun ever again.

He helped her to clear the dishes from the table. She rinsed, he stacked, and their rhythm seemed almost natural. When she turned her attention to the roasting pan, he moved behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed the crown of her head.

No,
she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to shake free of him. A light kiss on her hair—it didn’t mean anything. She shouldn’t shrink from him. He was her husband, after all.

But his hands remained where they were, and he used his chin to brush her hair away from her neck. When his mouth touched the skin beneath her ear, she flinched.

“Don’t,” she said. Her body went stiff, as if it had been instantly freeze-dried. She couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t.

“Ellie.” His voice was warm and soft. His body, pressed close behind her, was warm and hard. He slid his hands down her arms, stroking, heating her chilled skin. “Let me just…” He circled his hands forward and eased her against him, then nuzzled her throat with another kiss. She felt his arousal through their clothing, the flexing of firm male flesh.

“No.”
She jerked away, sudsy water splattering from her hands as she dropped the roasting pan into the sink. “Don’t do this, Curt. Please.” The last word emerged on a sob.

He stepped back and sighed. “Ellie, it’s been so long. A year and a half—”

“I know exactly how long it’s been since Peter died,” she snapped.

He closed his eyes, drew in a breath and then opened them again. “It’s been a year and a half since we made love.” She heard the tension in his voice, saw it in the jut of his chin and the curling of his fingers into fists. “I want that back, Ellie. I want to make love to my wife.” He drew in another deep breath and let it out. “I want my life back.
Our
lives.”

She was shaking, queasy. She wanted her life back, too. She wanted Peter’s life back. She wanted to be able to have fun. But she couldn’t. The grief was still too thick around her, a dense, cold fog that refused to release her. Grief and remorse and a crazed longing to go back in time, to revive the past, to make everything come out differently.

That she could get through a day without weeping, that she could put together a nutrition curriculum at work, that she could cook a well-rounded dinner—she considered these tiny successes nothing short of phenomenal. Curt couldn’t ask her for more. Not yet.

“Damn it, Ellie…” He sighed again. “What is it? Are you punishing me?”

“I’m not punishing you,” she retorted. “I just can’t…I can’t feel these things. I can’t make myself want this. I can’t…” Another sob threatened, and she swallowed it down. “I’m not ready.”

“
I’m
ready,” he said. “What the hell do I have to do to make you ready?”

He’d been ready the day of the funeral. She remembered that horrible night, hours after they’d buried their youngest child. They’d climbed into bed together and she’d sobbed in his arms, and he’d held her, consoled her. And his comfort had evolved, his caresses changing from soothing to sexual. “My son isn’t even cold in the ground,” she’d moaned. “How can you even think about that?”

“It would make us feel better,” he’d explained. “Maybe we could just forget, for a few minutes…”

“I can’t forget,” she’d argued. “I don’t want to forget.”

He’d backed off that night, and made no more overtures for a while. But then, a few months later, he’d brought home a bottle of an expensive Bordeaux and refilled her glass several
times over dinner, and when her mind began to get fuzzy he’d tried to seduce her again. “Not yet,” she’d begged, bursting into tears. “Not yet.”

He’d comforted her then. He’d hugged her and rocked her gently and murmured, “Okay, it’s okay, Ellie,” while she’d bawled like a baby.

It wasn’t okay now, and he clearly had no intention of comforting her tonight. “Maybe you should try some more therapy,” he suggested, doing his best to sound reasonable.

“I went through plenty of therapy,” she reminded him. “The therapist said mourning has no timetable. There’s no set schedule that says I’m supposed to be over it by now, or I’m supposed to be ready for sex after a certain amount of time. She said we all heal at our own pace.”
And your pace is pretty damn fast,
she thought bitterly.
You were all healed by the time we left the cemetery. Peter’s dead, what a pity. Let’s distract ourselves with a little hanky-panky.