The Ocean Between Us (17 page)

Katie leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“Yeah, thanks,” said Brian.

“There’s a letter for each of you,” he said. “But you should read that later.”

“We always do,” Katie said.

Writing those letters was always the hardest part of preparing to leave. No one ever said it aloud, but the fact was, he might go off on deployment and never return.

There was a lull as a waiter brought coffee refills and the check. Steve took a moment to look at each of his children before he broke the news. He took in their beloved faces, folded the images into his heart to keep during the long months to come. They adored him. He knew that. But in just a moment, he was going to alter their perception of him forever.

“I need to tell you guys something,” he said.

“Are we at war?” Katie asked with terror blazing up in her eyes.

“I thought this was a WestPac cruise,” Emma said.

“It’s not about the cruise. It’s about me.” He looked down at his hands, solid and square, with the wedding band from Grace he never took off unless he was on deployment. Then he looked again at his kids’ expectant faces. “I’ve never really had much to say about the way I grew up,” he said. “I need to tell you a little more now.”

All three of them sat up a little straighter in their chairs and leaned in a little closer. They knew about the abuse and neglect that had turned him into a ward of the state of Texas by the age of nine. They knew about the string of foster homes, none of them particularly welcoming to a smart, athletic boy with a giant chip on his shoulder.

“I need to level with you about something that happened to me a long time ago.”

“Did you do something really bad?” asked Katie.

“Did you get arrested?” Brian wondered.

“No, nothing like that. But…” He allowed himself one final hesitation. In that moment, he was still the dad they knew and loved. What he had to say next was going to change everything. “Right out of high school, just before I went off into the Navy, I got married. And then I was divorced six months later.”

Three pairs of eyes stared at him as though he’d grown antlers. Then they all looked at Grace. She turned her hands palms up. “This is your father’s story, not mine.”

The kids directed their attention back to Steve. “What’s her name?” Katie asked. “Where is she now? How come you never told us this before?”

Emma turned to her mother. “Did you—”

“I just found out this afternoon,” Grace said evenly. She betrayed nothing, sitting there, watching him unravel in front of the kids.

“I never told anyone,” he said, “because it’s not something I’m proud of.” Even now, the stinging hot shame of his failure broke over him like a rash. “And, I suppose, because I never dwelled on the past. You kids and your mother are everything to me, and I just didn’t see the point of telling you about something I did when I was young and stupid, something that was completely over by the time you guys came along.” It was awkward, talking to Grace through the kids. She wasn’t helping, either, sitting there as neutral as Switzerland.

“That’s totally weird, Dad,” said Brian. “I can’t believe we never knew.”

“You should have told us.” Katie pushed her mountainous dessert away from her.

“No, he shouldn’t have,” Emma said suddenly, vehemently. “It’s his own private business and it doesn’t have anything to do with the way things are now.”

He stared at her in surprise, and Grace did the same.

Emma sipped her water. “I just don’t see why he should have to tell everyone about every single mistake he made. He should be allowed to move on and forget it ever happened.”

Touched, he patted her arm. “Honey, I think you captured my feelings exactly. But it was wrong to keep this from you kids and especially from your mother. Something like this…I should have admitted the truth instead of hiding it. I wish I had.”

“You never told us her name,” Katie reminded him.

“It’s Cecilia King—Cissy. She was as young and as ignorant as I was right out of high school. It took her no time at all to realize she wasn’t cut out for Navy life.”

“Where does she live?” Katie asked. “What does she look like?”

Steve held up a hand. “I never heard a word from her after the divorce. All she said was that she had met a guy in Atlanta. It turns out that as soon as the divorce was final, she married him. A civilian. A dentist or something.”

“So why are you bringing it up now?” asked Emma.

“Because there’s more to the story. Cissy left and remarried without telling me something really important. She was pregnant.”

“By you?” Katie looked horrified.

“There’s a kid?” Brian said. “Geez, Dad.”

“I just met him today. Before that, I had no idea.”

“A boy,” Emma said in a wondering voice. Then, almost whispering, she said, “A brother.”

And for the first time, the impact nailed Steve squarely between the eyes. He had a son. Another son. “His name is Joshua Lamont.”

“Are you sure he’s yours?” Katie demanded.

There would be those who might suggest a paternity test, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Any fool with eyes in his head could see the truth.

“I’m sure. He’s an officer in the Navy. A flyer. He never would have come to see me, except that he’s going to be—”

“Flying in your air wing,” Katie interrupted, way ahead of him. “Holy cow.”

The questions came hard and fast: “Did you meet him, too, Mom?” “What’s he like?” “Where does he live?” “When are we going to meet him?”

“I saw him,” Grace said quietly. “Briefly. He’s a Navy pilot. That’s what he’s like.”

Steve didn’t really consider Navy flyers a “type,” but deep down, he knew he belonged to a brotherhood that had certain fundamental things in common.

Brian hadn’t said much. He was looking at the table, lost in thought. Maybe this came as the biggest shock to him, Steve realized. In an instant, Brian went from being an only son to a little brother.

“When do we get to meet him?” Katie persisted.

“That’s up to him,” Steve said. “And your mom.”

“Did you, like, fall over each other, crying and everything?”

Steve gave helpless laugh. “It’s not like that at all. I don’t consider myself his father and he doesn’t consider himself my son.
He came to me because he knew our paths would cross eventually, and he wanted to get it out of the way. Look, we’re strangers, and the fact that he came forward out of the blue doesn’t change anything. Not for me, not for this family. I love your mother and I love you guys, and that will never change for as long as I live.”

“Then you should have told us,” Brian muttered, finally speaking up.

“He just did, moron.” Emma elbowed her brother.

“I think we need therapy,” Katie announced, brightening. Ever since she’d had a friend in fifth grade who went once a week to an art therapist, she’d longed for counseling. “Can we all go into therapy, Mom? Please?”

Steve put his arm around her. “We’re going to be fine, Katydid,” he said. He caught Grace’s eye, looking for concurrence and finding none. “I swear, we’re going to be fine,” he repeated.

Grace woke up early, aware before she opened her eyes that this day would be different from all others. Ordinarily, deployment set in motion a series of rituals, of quiet, frightened moments, of emotions rising right to the surface and then spilling over. Now she wasn’t sure what to expect.

She turned on her side, scarcely breathing. Steve was still sound asleep, thanks to that enviable gift he had of emptying his mind so his body could rest. She had the urge to wake him, to carry on the terrible conversation they’d had the night before, but she tucked her hand under her pillow and resisted. There was no way to resolve this in the time they had left. In a few hours, she would be alone with this problem.

Like so many of the moments in their marriage, this one was about to be interrupted by the call of duty. Steve was going away for six months or more, leaving her to sort through the wreckage in the aftermath of a friendly-fire bombing.

The revelation about his past stirred up a storm of doubt and confusion in Grace. He had been married, for heaven’s sake, and he never told her. Why? What else was he hiding? How much did she really know about the man she’d married in such open-
hearted joy? This stranger. This intruder. Did he belong in her life anymore?

She had been so young when she met him. So desperate to escape the confines of Edenville, a tiny town by a lake in the Texas hill country. It was a place where she had almost drowned—not in the lake, but in the oppressive expectations of her parents, who had her life all planned out for her. They expected her to finish school, marry into the wealthiest family in town and live three blocks away from them. Against her will, they were already making plans without even consulting her.

Steve had rescued her in every sense of the word. The day she met him, she was home from college for the weekend and had gone swimming with her friends in Eagle Lake, hoping, perhaps, to wash away the latest argument with her parents. As she stood by the water’s edge drying her hair, he roared in out of nowhere, straddling a purring Softail Harley.

Backlit by the setting sun and stirring up a swirl of caliche dust from the road, he planted his feet, in knee-high boots, on the ground. Then he took off his helmet.

She’d been uncharacteristically speechless and self-conscious, aware that her bikini top and cutoff shorts didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. In the background, her sorority sisters whispered and giggled, no doubt as captivated by the stranger as Grace was.

“Howdy, ma’am,” he said.

At twenty, she didn’t get called ma’am very often. “Um, can I help you?”

“I’m looking for someone…” His eyes were devastating, blue and intense. “But I’ve forgotten who. My God, I can’t even think straight. What’s your name?”

She’d actually whipped a glance behind her to see if he was talking to someone else, but no, he was looking directly at her. Grace McAllen, Grace the invisible, Grace the overlooked. And now here was this young god on a Harley, looking at her with lust and fascination and something so promising that she got chills.

She didn’t have him to herself for long. Her sorority sisters from
Trinity University quickly got into the act, flirting and peppering him with questions. She learned his name was Steve Bennett, that he was on a rare two-week leave from the Navy and had ridden all the way from Pensacola just because he felt like it, and because a friend from pilot training had invited him.

“Bud Plawski,” he said, grinning at Grace. “That’s who I came to see. Do you know him?”

Grace not only knew him, she’d grown up next door to Seymour “Buddy” Plawski. Her entire youth had been tormented by him; he was so energetic and annoying that his own mother used to shoo him outside and lock the doors. Years later, he surprised everyone by getting his act together and winning an appointment to the Naval Academy. Upon graduating, he went into pilot training. Then he returned to Edenville on leave, with wings of gold pinned to his chest, an instant hometown hero.

Grace still found him annoying. But he had excellent taste in friends.

She’d married Steve before the summer was out, managing to alienate her parents and grandmother and to escape her hometown for good, all in one stroke. If Steve hadn’t rescued her, she might have sunk into unhappy obscurity.

Or maybe not.

Maybe she would have created a fabulous life for herself, all on her own.

She tried to remember if there had ever been a moment when she should have asked him about his past relationships. Had they even come close to discussing it? She’d been so relieved to find Steve that perhaps she hadn’t dared to question him.

She recalled one conversation they’d had concerning the topic, and it had centered on her. Her parents were livid at the idea that she would reject their well-laid plans for her future. After she and Steve blasted out of town on his Harley, she hadn’t heard from them again. Ever. Just from Gran, whose heart was softer. Grace never went home again except to attend her father’s funeral. Her mother refused to speak to her and Steve; nor would Olivia
McAllen comment on Grace’s belly, enormous with twins. Grace’s last image of her mother was of a slender, stiff-backed woman in a black knit suit, her face stubbornly pointed away, her fury at life’s disappointments snapping around her like heat lightning.

Grace had been so grateful for Steve then, and even more grateful still when she’d returned to Edenville two more times—for the funeral of her mother and, finally, just a few years ago, for Gran.

She and Steve became the family that neither of them had ever had. They went to church together, celebrated holidays with cozy intimacy, shared everything, good and bad. Grace realized that, without consciously planning to do so, she had created the sort of family she’d always wanted.

She used to consider their marriage the safest of places, the center of a circle made of love. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for Steve, nothing she wouldn’t share. He knew everything about her. He always had. From the first day she’d met him, she’d held nothing back. She trusted his love to hold steady through anything, even the hostility of her parents and the damage done by their refusal to give their blessing to her and Steve. She’d simply assumed he was as forthcoming as she. He didn’t have a lot to say about his traumatic boyhood, but she figured that was because it hurt to speak of it, not because he was willfully keeping a secret from her.

Her name was Cissy. Grace was desperate to learn everything about her and knew this burning curiosity could easily become a sick obsession. She felt frozen in that moment of horror when she’d learned he used to be married to someone else.

She was consumed by uncertainty. It was like waking up one day and discovering the world had turned color. She wondered endlessly what Cissy was like, how she and Steve were together. Was she pretty? Judging by Joshua Lamont’s looks, it was likely. Was she charming? Adventurous? Intriguing?

It wasn’t such a big deal, Grace told herself again and again. Lots of people—half the population, if statistics were correct—married more than once.

But how many kept it secret?

She lay with her head pillowed on her elbow, facing Steve, aching with a sense of her world coming apart. The breakdown had started long before this, but they’d both ignored the warning signs. Now they couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Eventually he woke up. The years in the Navy had eliminated any sort of between-time bridging sleep and wakefulness. His eyes opened and he was fully alert and instantly aware of her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

He reached out, his strong arms enveloping her. Usually she loved to cuddle up with him in the morning; she even loved to sink easily into the mindless pleasure of half-awake sex. But this morning, everything was different. She didn’t melt. She didn’t sink. A Pandora’s box of doubts and discontent had flown open, and she couldn’t feel what she was supposed to feel for her husband, for this man to whom she had given her whole heart and half her life.

She pushed herself out of his arms and scooted up in bed. The clock read 6:05 a.m. In ninety minutes they had to be on the road to Naval Station Everett.

“Lie back down,” he murmured. “I need to hold you before I go. I thought after last night—”

“We didn’t settle anything last night,” she said. They’d stayed up late, arguing while he finished packing. She usually hid things in his bag for him to discover when he went aboard—a love note, a package of Jelly Bellies, a picture of the kids. She didn’t have anything to slip into the bag this time.

“Then let’s settle it now,” he said, looking at the clock. “We’ve got a little time.”

“What, five minutes and the storm is past? I don’t think so,” she whispered, fighting tears.

“Then let me make love to you, Grace. At least give us that.”

“I—” She pushed aside the covers and got out of bed.

“Baby, it’s our last chance.”

“Jesus, Steve, if I can’t figure out how I feel about your first wife, I sure as hell can’t make love to you.”

“You don’t need to feel any particular way about her.”

“It’s not her. It’s you. Me.
Us.
I can’t figure out—”

“How to feel about me?” he snapped. “How about being a little more understanding about something I did when I was a kid, no older than the twins?”

“I’ve always been understanding,” she shot back, anger burning away the tears. “I’ve been understanding through nine locations, through missed birthdays and holidays, through crises that happen when you’re ten thousand miles away. I’ve understood that you’re going for your dream, and that it’s my job to make sure you achieve that. To make sure my needs and this family’s needs don’t interfere with your career. So don’t you dare tell me I’m not understanding.”

“Fine. Then understand that I had a failed marriage, and I was ashamed of that and didn’t want you to know.”

She tied on her robe. “I understand that. I just don’t understand why. You know everything about me. About my lousy parents and everything they tried to do to me—”

“You chose to tell me that stuff, Grace.”

“I did not choose to. I didn’t have a choice at all. My heart didn’t give me a choice. There’s no way I would keep things from the man I was about to marry. My past is part of who I am, and I believed you had a right to know that.”

“I would have loved you no matter what happened to you in the past,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you trust me to do the same?” Her chest ached as she forced herself to lower her voice. “Look where I am,” she said. “Right here, in the middle of my life, giving everything I’ve got to supporting you and your career.”

“You love this career,” he reminded her as he got out of bed. “Don’t tell me you don’t.”

“I do,” she said softly. “I’m grateful for all the opportunities we’ve had. I take pride in everything you’ve accomplished. But now I’m standing here questioning every choice I’ve ever made. Not because I found out you used to be married. This started long before that. I’m questioning myself and my life—”

“Look, I’m sorry you woke up one day and decided you don’t like what you see in the mirror, Grace. I’m not responsible for your midlife crisis any more than you’re responsible for my failed first marriage.” He paced in agitation. “The fact that you’re turning forty is not my fault,” he declared. “And it’s not my problem.”

She wanted to slap him. She’d never slapped anyone in all her thirty-nine years. “You’re right,” she said. “My self-image is not your problem. Now, our marriage, that is definitely your problem.”

“I don’t have a problem with our marriage,” he said. “Everything would be fine if you would just—”

“If I would just what?” she snapped. “Forget the wife you neglected to tell me about? Forget your twenty-six-year-old son? Forget half the base probably knows more about your past than I do? You’re leaving, Steve. I have to stay here and deal with the fallout, and with the kids and all their questions. So don’t ask me for understanding. Not this time.”

“I was a kid. A stupid kid,” he said. “I should have told you, but I didn’t. Because of that one omission, you’re going to declare war on me?”

“You don’t get it. The early marriage is completely forgivable,” she said. “I can even understand it—you were a kid, you were all alone and you married in haste. But that’s not what’s tearing us apart. That’s only the thing that happened that made the real problem impossible to ignore.”

“We had no real problem until you got all upset about this.”

“Oh. I see. We never argued about me starting a career—”

“We did, but you don’t give a shit about my opinion,” he said. “You started that even when I asked you not to—”

“You didn’t ask. You ordered.”

“And you blew me off.”

“And that surprises you? I don’t take orders well. You know that. And about the house—”

“I thought that was settled.”

“Of course you did. In your mind, it probably was.”

“It was. But if you insist, we’ll talk about it after this cruise.”

“That’s not good enough, Steve. I’ve been trying to talk to you about this for weeks. Months, even.”

He didn’t say a word as he stuck a few more pairs of socks in his bag. She couldn’t help the way her gaze clung to his lean body, his jawline shadowed by morning stubble. He’d become a stranger, a man with secrets she didn’t know. And he was leaving.

Before heading for the shower, he twisted off his wedding band and left it on the nightstand. Personnel were advised against wearing wedding bands even on a routine deployment, because it told potential enemies too much. But today, watching him take it off caused a special agony in Grace’s chest.

She finished dressing, shaking with anger and hurt. The unmade bed mocked her; this was the first time they’d ever parted without making love. It would be the first time she’d stand on the platform without the warmth of their final embrace still lingering deep within her, knowing it would impart a memory she could hold on to in the lonely days to come. This time, he left her with nothing but cold, dry doubts.

Hidden inside her anger was the terrible knowledge that she might never see him again. It was unlikely, of course, particularly on a routine deployment, but the possibility always existed. Accidents and illnesses happened.