Marriage Seasons 01 - It Happens Every Spring (24 page)

Brenda flopped back on the pillow and shut her eyes. Steve
could tell she was trying not to cry. Her chin quivered and her nose
began to turn pink. If she hadn't just insulted him, he might go
over and try to comfort her. But he couldn't trust Brenda anymore.
What if he attempted a touch of tenderness and she lashed out at
him again? He honestly didn't know what to do with her, and he
was so worn-out from working all day and then trying to shore up
his collapsing marriage that he just couldn't think straight.

"Listen, honey," he said in the most gentle voice he could muster. "I love you. I do. I always have, and I always will. I don't know
what the problem is, but if I could fix it, I would."

She covered her eyes with her hands, pressing back tears.
"Here's the problem," she told him, a sob echoing in her throat.
"You don't need me anymore. My husband doesn't have time for
me.

Steve glanced at the clock through bleary eyes. He shook his
head and groaned. "For pete's sake, Brenda, how can you even say
that? We live in the same house. We have three great kids together.
We've been married nearly twenty-five years. How much more of
me can you possibly want?"

"Minutes," she said. "Hours."

"You've had me nearly half an hour tonight, and all you've done
is yell at me and accuse me. Look, I've got a meeting at the title
company at eight, and I need to do some prep work in the office
before that. I don't know how to do this marriage any better than
I'm doing it, all right? I'm a good man. I'm being the best person I
know how to be. And if that's not enough for you, then ... well,
then I guess it's up to you. Decide what you want, and let me
know."

With that, he stood and walked into the bathroom. He could
hardly believe the words Brenda had been throwing around. Affair.
Divorce. Surely things couldn't be that bad between them.

As he brushed his teeth, Steve thought about Jackie Patterson
and her interest in putting seed money into his agency. Jackie thought Steve ought to purchase property as well as move into the
commercial side of the real-estate market. She saw the big picture,
and she made Steve feel as though he was capable of accomplishing
anything he set his mind to.

Brenda was right about one thing. He didn't enjoy spending
time with his wife. Why should he? A woman like Jackie Patterson
was interesting, supportive, and intelligent. Even though she was
older than he, she was very attractive. If she reached out to him, he
might find it hard to hold back.

Steve felt sure he would keep his marriage vows to Brenda, but
she wasn't making it easy with all her whining and complaining.
Each day that passed, he found it more and more difficult to keep
his mind from wandering where it shouldn't go. So he focused on
his business instead. And then, when he couldn't postpone it any
longer, he finally drove home to the frozen wasteland of Narnia.

Stripped down to his boxers, Steve stepped into the bedroom.
As he climbed under the covers, he noticed that Brenda's light was
off. He reached over, hoping for at least a touch, but her side of the
bed was empty.

"Brenda?" he murmured.

Glancing down the hall, he spotted the light on in Jennifer's old
room. So Brenda was the one who had left their marriage bed after
all. He thought about mustering the energy to get up and walk
down there and try once again to fix the tangled mess of their relationship. Laying his head back on the pillow, Steve closed his eyes.
And that's when he realized this was the first peaceful moment
he'd had in his own home in a very long time.

"I reckon that basement of yours ought to be about done by now,"
Pete Roberts said early Monday afternoon. He slipped two rotisserie hot dogs into a paper sack, dropped in some packets of mustard and ketchup, and stuffed a handful of napkins on top. "I guess I'll have to start cutting back on how much I order from my food
and condiment supplier. You and Nick LeClair have been keeping
me in the hot-dog business for quite a while."

Brenda smiled at the bearded man as she took the sack. "Don't
cut your order too low. Summer's almost here, and that means
your traffic should pick up a lot."

"I hope you're right. It was pretty dead around here last week.
Spent most of my time building that soundproof wall between here
and the salon."

"Does it work?"

"No idea. I'm waiting for a leaf-blower or chain-saw repair to
come in. That'll really put it to the test."

"Poor Patsy. Pete, you have to know that you've just about
driven that lady out of her mind."

"Aw, she loves coming over here and getting up on her high
horse about all the noise. You'd think she was a schoolmarm the
way she goes to pointing here and there, chewing me up one side
and down the other, and threatening to call in the law. We have a
good time."

Brenda had to laugh. "I think she might see it a little differently."

"Don't let her fool you. Patsy's sweet on me; that's for sure."

"Sweet on you? Pete, can I be honest?"

"Sure. I can take it."

"I've known Patsy a long time, and she is awfully persnickety
about certain things. The truth is, Pete, half the time you smell like
catfish bait, and the other half you smell like engine grease. If you
want Patsy to be sweet on you, you'll have to do a little better on
your grooming."

"You really think she cares about a thing like how a man smells?
Especially one as big and tough as me?"

Again, Brenda chuckled. "Just go next door and you'll see what
Patsy Pringle likes best in a man. Nothing puts a smile on her face
like a client with a nice close haircut, a clean shave, and maybe even
a little cologne. As for herself, she always wears pretty dresses and skirts, and she's got the nicest shoes of anyone in Tranquility. Her
makeup is always perfect, and her hair-"

"Yeah, about that hair ... one day it's black, the next it's red,
brown, or polka-dot. Who knows what's coming at you? I keep
waiting for plaid."

"My point is that Patsy enjoys looking nice and making the
world around her a pretty place. She's the first one to give out compliments. You should have heard her going on about my daughter
Jessica when she was home. Has Patsy ever said anything nice
about you, Pete?"

He scrunched up his nose and searched the upper corner of the
room as if that might help him remember. "Come to think of it .. .
not exactly. But looks aren't all there is to a man. I've got everything else a fellow could need-loyalty, good deeds, a kind heart,
and enough money to treat a woman to a nice restaurant dinner
every once in a while. I don't drink, smoke, or cuss ... well, I hardly
ever cuss. And I've been going to church, too."

"Good for you. Maybe you're just the kind of man Patsy needs."

"'Course I am. I just have to prove it to her. Give me a little time,
and you'll see. She'll come around."

"All right. I'll be watching." Brenda straightened her purse strap
and turned to go.

"Say, Steve was in here bright and early this morning," Pete
called after her. "Told me he has a long day ahead."

"As always." Brenda rolled her eyes and pushed open the door
to Rods-n-Ends as she waved good-bye to Pete. The morning after
her last fight with Steve, she'd woken to an empty house. They had
barely spoken since. Brenda had left him a voice mail to tell him
about the invitation to have dinner with Ashley and Brad Hanes on
Sunday evening, but Steve called back to say he couldn't go. He
needed to prepare for an early meeting on Monday morning and
would be working in the office until late Sunday night.

As she drove toward Deepwater Cove, Brenda sensed the pain in
her heart growing more intense and heavy as the days passed. She had told Steve point-blank what the problem was between them:
she wanted them to spend more time together. But he had flatly
turned her down. He believed the fact that he had married her,
fathered their children, and provided for her to be sufficient. Why
should he give her anything else, especially his valuable time?

The more Brenda thought about it, the more she wondered
what more she could do to make Steve want to be with her. The
answer was always nothing.

She could never compete with the wealthy, attractive women
whose company her husband enjoyed every day. They wore the
latest fashions and hairstyles, they mingled with the kinds of
upper-class people Steve would love to sign on as new clients, and
no doubt they had hundreds of interesting things to say. After all,
what did they talk about but real estate? Steve's favorite subject.

Brenda knew almost nothing about the property market and
how it worked-and in truth, she didn't care to learn. She rarely
enjoyed dressing up in fancy clothes. She preferred the jeans,
sneakers, and T-shirts she wore almost every day. She got a haircut
when she noticed the ends getting scraggly. And the topics she
most enjoyed discussing were the differences between annuals and
perennials, the techniques of painting plaid on a chair, or the skill
it took to bake her well-loved chocolate cake.

The truth was obvious. To Steve, she was boring. Plain. Dull. No
wonder he preferred to spend time working in his office or driving
clients from house to house around the lake.

As she pulled into the garage of her house in Deepwater Cove,
Brenda allowed a horrible thought to creep into her mind for the
third time that day. More and more now, she caught herself pondering it. Turning it over one way and then another. Wondering
what it would be like.

Divorce.

She imagined herself telling Steve their marriage was hopelessly
dead, asking him to move out of the house, dividing up their
belongings and their money, sitting the children down and break ing the news. Oh, it was too awful to even contemplate. But she
did.

She imagined the peace of a life without a husband whose apathy toward her ate at her heart and twisted her stomach into knots.
She imagined inviting friends over to the house, weeding in her
garden, perhaps sewing a wedding dress for Jessica or Jennifer. At
night, she could sleep without hearing Steve snore or having him
wrestle the covers away from her. She could open the windows and
blow away the dusty bleakness of their marriage. She would start
afresh. Be her own person, not some barnacle attached to someone
else's speedboat.

And then she thought of all the negatives. The kids would be
crushed if their parents separated after so many years together.
God would be disappointed in Brenda-surely He already was disgusted with her for entertaining such thoughts. Actually going
through with it would be even worse.

How could she hold her head up in town if she had tossed out a
marriage just because her husband wasn't paying enough attention
to her? It sounded so selfish. So petty. No one would understand
the pain and emptiness she felt every time she reflected on her current life and the many long, lonely years to come.

Brenda gathered her purse and the sack of hot dogs and climbed
out of her car. There was no way to turn. No path out of the impossible nightmare in which she found herself.

If she stayed with Steve, she would spend the rest of her life playing second fiddle to his career, his goals, and all the interesting people in his life. She would be the little wife at home, sewing pillows
and planting petunias. Even if she did one day manage to start an
interior-decorating business, they would have nothing in common. She would do her work while he immersed himself more and
more deeply in his separate world.

But if she left him, she could never forgive herself for hurting
her children and making a public issue of something many people
would consider trivial. She would toss out all the years she and Steve had spent together as if they had been irrelevant. They
hadn't, though. She and Steve once shared a good life-mostly
happy and definitely united in the effort to raise their children and
build a strong home.

Brenda knew she still loved Steve, but her emotion was based
more on what had happened between them in the past than on
how she felt about him now. These days her husband brought little
but hurt, doubt, even fear into her heart. What desire could he possibly have toward her? She was nothing but a body in his bed at
night. In truth, he could replace her with someone else and hardly
know the difference.

What hope was there? How could she ever get out of this black
coffin with its nailed-down lid and suffocating lack of air? Brenda
wanted to cry, but she couldn't summon up enough emotion
toward her husband to shed even a single tear.

On entering the house, she heard Nick LeClair working downstairs. As usual, he had his radio tuned to a country-music station,
and he was whistling along with a favorite song. Brenda listened to
him for a moment as she laid her purse on the table in the foyer.
Then she stepped into the kitchen, took a plate from the cupboard,
and poured him a glass of soda, no ice. She slid the two hot dogs
onto the plate and squirted mustard along the length of each.