The Night We Met (14 page)

Grabbing the last pair of Nate's pants, shoving my hand into the pockets out of sheer habit before throwing them in the washer, I happened upon a piece of paper. Usual y, if I found anything, it was coins.

Thinking I'd hit the jackpot with a dollar bill, I pulled it out.

"What did Daddy leave us?" I asked the curly-headed little girl playing with my big toe, which peeked through the top of my sandal.

I ended up with a receipt, went to toss it, then figured I'd better make sure it wasn't something he needed. A business expense. Or the bill for some item he might want to return.

He'd purchased two glasses of wine. One white and one red. From a restaurant I didn't recognize.

Nate didn't drink wine. Except, on very rare occasions, with me. His choice of alcoholic beverage was either beer or whiskey and soda.

He'd used his personal credit card.

And it was dated two days ago—at 7:16 p.m.—when Nate had arrived home from Denver more than an hour late because of a traffic jam on the highway.

With a knot in my stomach, I stared at the baby gurgling happily on the floor, her earlier disappointment long forgotten as she pulled at the lace on her tennis shoe. She was busy, full of constant energy, completely secure. She trusted that she'd be loved and tended to twenty-four hours a day.

She adored her daddy.

And he adored her.

I wadded up the receipt and threw it away.

I went upstairs early that night—telling the boys not to stay up too late. Elizabeth was asleep in her crib and shouldn't need me again until morning. Pouring rose- scented bubble bath in my tub, I ran the water, stripped and got in. I soaked until my skin was silky. I shaved. And when I got out, I sprayed Nate's favorite perfume on my throat—and my breasts.

And then, feeling desperate and a bit naughty, I slid, completely naked, beneath the covers to wait for my husband to come to bed.

More than an hour later, I was stil lying there, wide awake, when I heard him come upstairs, pause by each of our children's bedrooms—checking on them as he always did—before continuing to our room.

"I thought you'd be asleep," he said as he entered.

Or hoped I had? I wondered, but pushed the thought away. It was unfair.

I shook my head. My hair, cut shorter since Elizabeth's birth, was no longer damp from my bath. "I was waiting for you."

He looked surprised but not unhappy with my response. "What's up?" he asked, throwing his clothes in the laundry bin as he undressed.

"Nothing."

He glanced over at me, then disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the water running as he brushed his teeth. I'd planned to be sitting up with the covers about my waist when he came in but I'd chickened out.

Now I wished I'd put on my nightgown. What if he climbed into bed and turned over without even finding out that I was lying there naked?

Or worse, found out and wasn't in the mood to make love.

But if I got up now and he caught me walking naked to my dresser, I'd feel even more stupid.

This whole come-on thing was new to me and I was quickly becoming aware that I wasn't good at it.

Squirming under the covers, I cursed my lack of experience. The room was lit by one small light on Nate's side of the bed. And the soft illumination cast a golden glow on his skin as he came in from the bathroom. He'd shed his underwear.

And was already big.

My body surged with desire and al self-consciousness fled as I openly perused Nate's nakedness. I stuck a leg out from underneath the covers, giving him a glimpse of my thigh. Over the past months I'd slimmed back down to my prebaby weight and was confident that my husband would find no fault with my body.

One glance at that thigh and Nate, reaching the bed, yanked at the covers, pul ing them down to the bottom of the bed. I was ready enough for him that I welcomed the exposure.

"Make love to me, Nate," I said, my voice husky with need. If fear was there, too, he needn't know.

Unlike the rest of me, my breasts hadn't gone down to prebaby size when I'd weaned Elizabeth, as they had with the other children. I lifted my shoulders, proud of them.

He didn't hesitate as he lay down with me, immediately taking one of my nipples into his mouth.

I touched Nate in ways I'd never touched him before that night. Climbing on top of him, kissing him, following my instincts as some integral part of me sought to claim him as solely mine.

To show him I could please him to the point of exhaustion. That he didn't need anyone else.

I don't even know where my hands and mouth and body had learned the things I did that night, but when we lay together, sweaty and wet and spent a couple of hours later, I was happy again.

"I love you," I said, my face against his chest as I drifted off to sleep, cuddled securely in his arms.

He'd fallen asleep. But he was at home, in bed with me, naked, holding me.

For that night, it was enough.

Two weeks later, just before our daughter's second birthday, I came into the master bedroom after putting Elizabeth down for her nap to find Nate in the bathroom, bent over the sink. The boys were at the resort, helping out with summer camp for the younger guests. Nate had come home after a morning in Denver to have lunch with me before going in to work.

He'd been doing that a lot more lately—stopping by the house to spend unexpected moments alone with me. The fear that had taken hold of my heart when I'd discovered that receipt was slowly receding.

"What re you doing?" I asked, my hands on his shoulders as I peered around him.

He had a pair of his underwear beneath the water and was scrubbing at a spot with a bar of soap.

"Is that blood?" I asked, dropping my hands to come around beside him. Was something wrong?

Fear of a new kind took root inside me. I glanced down at his clothed lower body, my mind running through possibilities. Things like a urinary tract infection. Or a bug bite.

But the smear was too large for that. And shaped like...

I glanced up then, and when I met the stricken look in Nate's eyes I knew. The stain- was in the shape of a woman's lips. It was lipstick.

Not mine.

As stupid as it sounds, I was completely stunned. I'd managed to convince myself that there'd been some logical explanation for the receipt I'd found—done such a thorough job of hiding from the truth that I hadn't even bothered to share my discovery with Nate.

Without a word, I turned and left the room, but didn't know where to go. Shaking, panicked and dizzy, I stood in the middle of our room, my arms wrapped around myself, and couldn't move.

"Liza..."

Nate came in, reached toward me, but let his hand fall.

"Who is she?" I managed to ask.

"No one. She's no one important."

And that's when my heart broke. He didn't deny her existence.

I had nothing else to say. Life as I'd known it had just ended.

"Talk to me, Liza."

I'd left the bedroom, couldn't stand to be there with him, with the bed we'd shared for sixteen years, and the memory of what I'd done with him such a short rime before. I was in the living room, standing almost exactly as I'd been in the bedroom.

Nate sat down on the edge of the couch, his hands clasped in front of him. I wondered, perhaps inanely, what he'd play if he sat down at the piano now.

What songs did he play when he thought about her?

"I'm sorry, Liza. So sorry. I don't know what happened, how it got so far out of hand. I love you."

"I don't believe you." He would never have done this to me if he'd had me anywhere close to his heart.

"She's chairman of the Funds for Kids auction."

A charity function held annual y in Denver to raise money for needy kids. We'd been donating a week at the resort for the past few years.

This year we were hosting the auction. A function that would've been my responsibility except that I hadn't returned to work after Elizabeth was born.

I'd never met the woman my husband had been working with so closely.

"How long has it been going on?" It didn't matter. I just seemed compel ed to jam the knife in further.

"Not long."

"How long?"

"I met her in January."

I turned at that. "You've been sleeping with another woman since January?"

"No!" Nate's eyes were moist. I tried not to care. "We met to talk about the auction."

"How many times have you slept with her Nate?"

"I don't know!"

That many.

"I didn't count because it didn't matter," he said. "A few times. Not many."

"Is she married?"

"Divorced."

"Young?" I just kept twisting the knife. I wasn't a kid anymore. And Nate liked them young, I thought bitterly. Look at how he'd gone after me when he'd practically been old enough to be my father.

"No! She's my age."

I couldn't believe it. It didn't fit. Young wasn't good enough? The age barrier between us suddenly grew to insurmountable heights. This was something I couldn't fix.

Chapter 12

"I'm sorry it happened, Liza." Nate still sat on the couch, clearly troubled. Penitent. Not begging, not defensive, just honestly sorry.

I discovered that sorry wasn't enough. "Do you love her?"

"No. I'm completely in love with you." I didn't want to hear that—didn't want him confusing me. I had to get through this and find the other side. Elizabeth would be waking up soon. Needing a mother.

The boys would be home for dinner. I had roles to play. Responsibilities. "Then why?"

He shook his head. "I've been asking myself the same thing. And I have no excuse other than that I've been feeling so old lately. I'm turning fifty this year. That's half a century."

"So? Age never mattered to you before."

"You run after Elizabeth and still have energy for the boys and games and cleaning, and making love al night. I take care of her for an afternoon and I'm ready to fall asleep in front of the TV. I yearn for quiet, expensive dinners in adult company. You thrive when Elizabeth's throwing food."

Not real y, but there didn't seem to be any point saying so.

"Let's face it. I'm growing old and you aren't and it's bothering me."

We were al growing older. Every second, with every breath.

"My age threatens you?"

"No. Mine does when I'm with you."

"But not when you're with her."

"I've never been with her," he said, though I had no idea why. He'd been with her in every sense of the word. Her lipstick was on his underwear.

The thought twisted me up all over again.

"We've met for the auction and two or three times we've done more than talk about the auction.

That's it. We've never gone anywhere together, made plans or talked about anything that really mattered. But no, to answer your question, I don't feel so over the hil when I'm with her. I don't feel like I'm going to die long before she does."

"I could die in a car wreck tomorrow."

"And if you live a normal life span, you'll be spending the last ten or fifteen years of your life without me." His voice was firm. His gaze straightforward and intense. "When you're most frail, most needy, I won't be there. Do you know what that does to me?"

"It's a choice I made when I married you, Nate. You think I didn't know that? Wasn't prepared for it?"

"I didn't think about any of this very much until Elizabeth came along."

In one smal part of my heart, I could understand. But I was too shattered to hold on to that.

Still... "Have you told her it's over?"

His silence was my answer.

"When's the last time you were with her?"

"Liza, don't do this. I'l call her right now, tell her to hold the auction someplace else."

I didn't care about the damned auction.

"Today, Nate? While I was home this morning making beds and changing diapers, were you in Denver screwing another woman?"

I couldn't believe how I was talking. Didn't recognize the ugly, bitter tone in my voice.

Nate didn't answer.

"Why didn't you just throw the damned underwear away?" I railed.

"I don't know"

I rubbed my arms, became aware of the cramping in my calves. I'd been standing in the same position too long.

"Do you have plans to see her again?"

"I'l cancel them."

He'd been expecting to see her again. If I hadn't come into the bathroom, caught him, he would've continued to have sex with us both. Not only had he not ended it, he'd had no plans to do so.

And that severed what was left of any feeling inside me. Killed it off as if it had never been.

"Pack a suitcase and get out, Nate." I could find no anger. No hurt. Just cold, calm thought. "Out of this house. Out of my life." It was one month before our seventeenth anniversary.

He jumped up, came toward me—the strong, caring man I'd known and loved all these years. The man I'd laughed with, made love with, grieved with and almost died with.

A man I didn't even recognize. And would never trust again.

"Liza..."

"Now, Nate."

I didn't move.

He did.

And within twenty minutes, while our infant daughter stil napped in her crib, he was gone.

I slept on the couch that night, unable to lie in the bed I'd shared with Nate—to lie there alone—to lie there knowing that while I'd touched him so intimately, al owed him to touch me in ways no one else had, he'd also been touching someone else.

And letting her touch him.

I couldn't get past that part. I'd thought the one thing sacred between Nate and me—the one thing we shared with no other person—was our intimate, sexual selves. Our hearts, our minds, our time, our arms and hands and feet we took into the world with us. But not that which made us male and female.

I turned on the television for the first time that day. TWA Flight 847 had been hijacked with 153

passengers and crew aboard. Nineteen passengers had been released as a trade for fuel, and another twenty at the next stop. The rest, 114 men, women and children, including a U.S. Navy diver, remained in captivity.