Roses in Autumn (2 page)

“There’s so little to tell. Marla’s agency had some finance questions we couldn’t answer about the Kansas project. So we’ve been working for days—weeks, I guess—on computer runs to see what happens to the profits if the builder is his own investor—things like that. Last night we were finally getting the answers. And they were good—incredibly good—beyond our wildest expectations. And then we were hugging each other …”

“You expect me to believe that? That all I saw was a joy of the moment celebration of a good computer run?” Her cup landed in her saucer with an angry crash.

Tom shook his head and looked at her with dead eyes. “No. I’m not trying to soft-pedal it. I’m just trying to explain what happened.”

“So there was more? How much more?” She probed with the ruthlessness of a surgeon excising a cancer. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want there to be anything to know. But her life depended on finding the truth.

His voice was as lifeless as his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You mean you’ve been cuddling her so much you lost count?”

“No!” Tom came off his chair and leaned across the table toward Laura. “No. That was the first time—and the last. What you saw was all there was. I hugged her. We had all our clothes on, for goodness’ sake.”

Laura waited. Tom took his seat. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, rumpling its silken smoothness. “I don’t even remember the first time we met. Some meeting with some potential investor. Who knows? But when we started focusing on this project we discovered we read all the same columnists in the
Wall Street Journal
and
The Economist.
Somewhere along the way we discovered we both prefer Sumatra Roast …”

Laura looked at the splattered remains of her tea. She hated coffee.

“… and Gershwin …”

Laura moved to snap off her Mozart CD, then realized she hadn’t started it.

“… I’d get an idea about the project and couldn’t wait to tell her about it …”

“And you assumed I wouldn’t be interested—or wouldn’t understand.”

“Well, investment formulas have never been your favorite topic of conversation.”

“And so, last night …” Laura prompted him back to the subject at hand. They weren’t discussing her shortcomings at the moment.

Tom shook his head. “It started as simple celebration. But—she felt so good in my arms—so warm and responsive. Before God, I’m sorry, Laura. But the least I can do is be honest with you. If you hadn’t come in … Laura, you’ve got to believe how very, very thankful I am that you
did
come in. But I can’t honestly say what might have happened … God help me.” He put his head down, supporting it with one hand. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Hundreds of unformed questions whirled in Laura’s mind. After a time she was able to grab one of them. “Did you feel guilty?”

“There was nothing to feel guilty about! We never kissed. Never held hands. Not even one time. I told you.”

Laura was surprised at the note of grimness in his voice—as if it had required a great deal of self-control that the case should be so. She tried to remember. She had met the woman on a few occasions. Marla wasn’t beautiful, but her long strawberry blond hair and porcelain skin gave her a look of fragility that was undeniably appealing. And she had long, slim legs that Laura had more than once eyed with envy, since she always wore ankle-length skirts to cover her own less attractive legs.

She looked at Tom, remembering. Then she knew what had hurt her most last night. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You looked at her the way you used to look at me.”

Silence pressed the ceiling lower and lower while remembered words and scenes ricocheted off the walls, more piercing than bullets. For a moment the vision of Marla’s arms around Tom’s neck was so vivid she thought she was going to be sick.

Suddenly she was on her feet, screaming at him. “It’s—it’s horrible! Disgusting! How could you? Like some depraved animal!”

“Well, now. That’s more like it. About time we got around to that, isn’t it?” Tom slammed his fist on the table, making the glass rattle. Any suggestion of groveling vanished. “Right! Let’s talk about
your
hang-ups now. It took two to make this mess, you know!”

“It certainly did take two. It took you and Marla!” Tears stung the backs of her eyes, but she fought them away fiercely and kept them down with her anger.

Anger was her only defense against Tom’s challenge. “Marla’s only a symptom, and you know it. We’re going to talk about us. A talk we should have had seven years ago.”

“You can’t blame me for your—your philandering!”

“I take full responsibility for last night. And I intend to take full responsibility for my future. And if you can’t treat my love for you as something other than depraved and animal, I’ll find someone who will. So help me.”

“Love! What you’re talking about isn’t love. It’s lust! And you know perfectly well I’ve never denied you your rights. Never. Not once in seven years.”

“Oh, no. You’ve been the perfect, submissive wife. But you’ve never accepted my lovemaking as anything more than a duty. How do you think that makes me feel? It so happens I’m a human being with feelings, and I would like to feel that my wife takes pleasure in my company in bed. You’ve never shown the least response in our whole married life.”

“And it therefore follows that you’ve never had pleasure in my company in all this time?” Her throat was so tight she was surprised her voice could come out.

“Your logic is impeccable. Just like the rest of you—impeccable, perfect, and passionless!”

It wasn’t until she heard his engine roar in the driveway that she realized he had left the house. Had he gone to the office? Of course. What else? Would Marla be there?

Laura wanted to scream, hit, tear something. If Tom hadn’t left, she would have lashed at him with her bitten fingernails. She wanted to wound him as she was wounded. She sat there, replaying scene after scene in her mind. Last night in the office—if only she had flung the picnic basket at them. Or better yet, the contents one at a time … She smiled at the thought of that silky strawberry hair with chocolate éclairs rubbed in it, the soft crepe blouse drenched in Almond Pleasure tea …

Or sneak up behind them still locked in their embrace and pour the steaming contents of the Thermos over their heads. If Tom wanted a steamy romance, she’d give him one. And then scream at him. Smash his precious computer. Shred his exalted spreadsheets with those tidy columns of figures … She sighed. Of course she would do no such thing, but living it out in her head was cathartic. Laura stumbled down the hall and sought refuge again in her favorite chair.

Still unable to face the present, she turned her thoughts from the past to the future. And again she faced the empty “God is dead” void. How could she bear it? Could she ever trust Tom again? Could she ever stand to let him touch her now? If he ever took her in his arms again, would he be thinking of Marla? Would
she
be thinking of Marla? Would that other woman always be there between them?

And yet, what if he never held her again? Last night with him in the next room had been unbearable. She had become accustomed to his absence on business trips, but to have him sleep in another bed when he was home was unthinkable.

Bed. She thought of the warm comfort of him curled beside her. Then her senses revolted and she could think no further.

Chapter
2

Tom was home for dinner at his usual hour. And Laura had done dishes and laundry and scrubbed the bathroom and spent two hours at her computer, as if it had been any other day. Strange; the world could be ravaged by war or earthquake or infidelity, yet the daily pattern continued. People needed food and clothing and shelter, and it was a woman’s job to provide it. Old-fashioned thinking, maybe, but the way the world worked. In normal times it was a woman’s burden, but in a time of crisis it could also be her salvation. Take refuge in the routine, the small, the nittygritty details that keep the world turning. Even when there is no world left to turn.

“How was your day?” Anything to break the silence. It was the first time in seven years she hadn’t met him at the door with a kiss. They both seemed at a loss without it.

“Busy. I approved the advertising campaign for the condos in Palm Desert. Then Phil and I went over the proposed contracts before we negotiate the K.C. deal.”

It didn’t
sound
like he’d been with Marla. “Oh, is Philip back?” Philip Marsden, Tom’s partner, was the legal brain while Tom was the marketing expert. They made a powerful team. But Phil was older and not in good health. He was considerably past retirement age, but his creative, energetic mind wouldn’t retire, even if his body and his wife wanted him to.

“He claims the week in Sun Valley rested him completely. But I suspect he worked every minute Lois turned her back.” Tom set down his briefcase and pulled off his jacket.

It was so easy. It was almost as if the past 18 hours hadn’t happened. Laura turned to slice mushrooms for their green salad while Tom put on tall glasses of ice water. The crazy idea came to her that they could simply go on from here. She could pretend it was all something she had read in a book—in a florid, poorly written romance—something that had nothing to do with her or with real life.

She set the bowls of stroganoff and noodles on the table. Tom held her chair for her as he always did. They bowed their heads for a brief grace. Laura took a bite of bread—and choked. It simply would not go down. The little ball of dough stuck in her throat. There was nothing to do but go to the sink.

The rest of the evening was a disaster. The green salad wilted and the untouched stroganoff congealed in its sour cream sauce while they alternately flung threats and recriminations at each other, rehashing everything they had said that morning—only saying it with greater violence each time around.

It was sheer exhaustion that finally brought it to a stop. “I’m going to pack now.” Tom wrenched open his closet door. “I leave for Kansas City in the morning. I’ll stay at the airport hotel for what’s left of tonight. I can’t face those high-powered syndicators tomorrow without any sleep.” He began stuffing shirts and ties into the carryon bag he always used for business trips.

On his second time out of the bathroom with toothpaste tube and red toothbrush still in his hand, Laura found the courage to ask, “And when will you be back?”

“What makes you think I’m coming back?” He crammed the zipper shut on his case and flung himself out the door.

The next four days Laura spent in a state of suspended animation. She thought of calling her mother in Texas but couldn’t bear the thought of hearing that tight, accusing voice telling her it was all her fault. She thought of calling their pastor, but she didn’t just want a shoulder to cry on; and she knew any serious counseling would have to be a joint effort. She thought of reading her Bible and praying … but God was dead. When there was no one to pray to, there were no answers.

She tried to write, but her heroine’s problems were insipid and contrived next to her own. Her journal was her only solace. She wrote until the words ran out and the blank pages jeered at her. She put the cap on her pen and began looking back through the pages of her life—not reading the words but reliving the scenes:

A debate tournament at some college in southern Oregon. “… and this is Tom James, the Great White Hope of Rocky Mountain’s debate squad.” Instant friendship between our teams because we were from sister colleges, established by the same denomination. Later that day, dragging back to the central lounge, exhausted after a grueling round of debate. Tom waved to me from across the room crowded and noisy with faceless bodies. I wasn’t tired anymore.

Double date that night. Tom with my debate partner and I with his. Got it right later. Transferred to Rocky Mountain College at semester. A debate romance; a wonderful time together on every trip the team took, then something always went wrong—usually my fault—and we’d not speak to each other back on campus.

And then that tournament in North Dakota—at a Black Hills resort, of all places. A long walk down a dusty country lane the first evening. Tom’s arm around my shoulders in the cool air. The sunset a pale yellow in a pastel blue sky behind a newly green field. Went back to my room and pounded the saggy iron bed with my fists because I was in love, and I had blown so many chances with Tom. Nobody got that many second chances. But I did. For years we celebrated the sixth of every month because we had fallen in love on April 6.

Tom.

A perfect June wedding with my bridesmaids in long yellow dresses and picture hats. Our reception on the church lawn. Afterward, I saw the photograph of my bridesmaids on the grass and realized they looked like daffodils in the breeze. But that afternoon I had eyes only for Tom, stunning with his boyish smile and tender eyes, his tall, lean grace and thick blond hair, his tuxedo and ruffled shirt. “To love, honor, and cherish till death do us part.” The Lord’s Prayer on the violin while we knelt and took Communion to symbolize the Lord’s presence at our wedding and in our lives.

Our honeymoon to Carmel-by-the-Sea. Wandered through tiny streets, browsed in art shops, ate ice-cream cones at a sidewalk café, took pictures of each other under the gnarled old cypress tree on the beach. Then romped in the glorious white sand and blue surf, shared an unspeakable spiritual closeness when we prayed together, awoke in the middle of the night to find Tom raised on one elbow beside me, stroking me with gentle wonder. Inexpressible tenderness.

Tom.

That wonderful lazy summer in our tiny apartment. Midnight rambles along the greenbelt, then sleeping till noon because Tom’s job in the grocery store didn’t start until 1:30. The fun it was to waken first, slip out, and fix breakfast so I could surprise Tom with a tray in bed. Everything so idyllic. Perfect, really. All except one thing. And Tom was patient and loving about that.

Tom.

Then packing to move East where we both had scholarships for graduate school. Hearing the tornado warnings on the radio as we crossed into western Nebraska. Feeling tense all the way across the state because all our earthly possessions are in that little U-Haul trailer. Tom studying for his Harvard M.B.A. Me sitting beside him reading for my English degree from Boston University. Reveling in the student life in those sleek, high-rise apartments along the Charles River. Walking through piles of rustling leaves to Harvard Square. Driving along country lanes under breathtaking fall foliage. Stopping at little roadside stands to buy jam and apples from children.