The Year Everything Changed (11 page)

“Sorry about interrupting,” she said. “But it’s time for your pills.”

“You’re not interrupting anything,” Jessie told her. He pressed the off button and tossed the recorder on the table. “I’m through with this nonsense.” No one wanted to hear the ramblings of an old man revisiting his youth. Not really. Lucy was simply taking care of him the only way she knew how, giving him something to do to fill the hours and days, making them seem as if they had purpose.

Rhona handed him the pills and a glass of water. A month ago he could swallow them all at once. Now he took them one at a time and slowly. “My uncle was in the oil business,” she said. Jessie finished the water and handed her the glass. “He was a wildcatter, mostly in South America. My father used to talk about all the money he made.” She smiled sagely. “My mother told me he spent a whole lot more.”

“It comes with the territory.”

“Not with you.”

“I’ve only been steady the last twenty years. Before that I was up and down as often as the stock market.”

She let out a snort. “Well, I wish you’d let those people on Wall Street know how you finally figured it out.”

Now it was Jessie’s turn to smile. “There’s nothing mysterious about it—you quit while you’re ahead.”

Chapter Fifteen
Rachel

Rachel pulled into the parking lot at the soccer field with the scoreboard showing two minutes into the second half. Mothers and a scattering of fathers were gathered on the sidelines, some pacing, most sitting in folding chairs. She opened the door but couldn’t get out of the car.

She’d accepted how hard it would be to face these people—they were the ones who’d watched the affair between Jeff and Sandy develop during practice while she was at work. They’d witnessed the sidelong glances, the intimate smiles, the growing familiarity, but had chosen not to say anything when they saw her at the weekend games. She knew she was being unfair. She knew it was wrong to allow herself to think one of them could have taken Jeff aside and asked him if he knew what he was doing, what he was risking, and stopped the affair before it happened. It was shifting blame when Jeff and only Jeff was responsible. Still, she couldn’t get past wondering if it was so wrong to think one of them might have cared enough to step in with a warning.

How did she know they hadn’t
?

The anger and bravado she’d counted on to get her through this first encounter were buried under a blanket of humiliation. What insane ego trip had gripped her when she’d suggested exchanging the kids at Cassidy’s soccer game? What in-your-face-friggin’ point was she looking to prove that she hadn’t already proven when she moved out and had her lawyer contact Jeff for a formal financial support request?

If she hadn’t promised Cassidy she would be there, if she hadn’t already missed the last three games because she’d been too humiliated to face the knowing looks of the other parents, she’d leave now. But this was the second to last game of the season, and she’d promised.

She didn’t leave. Instead she watched the game leaning against the car feeling a twinge of guilt whenever she saw Cassidy scan the sidelines looking for her. The game ended in a three-three tie. The teams lined up in the center of the field to run past each other, their hands in the air for cursory high-fives. Mothers and fathers gathered chairs and bags and blankets while the coach reviewed the game with their daughters, led them in a final cheer, and handed out snacks.

Cassidy stood apart from the other girls searching the parents on the opposite side of the field. Someone offered her a drink; she shook her head. John danced around her in a five-year-old brother’s bid for attention; she ignored him. Jeff came up to Cassidy and put his hand on her shoulder, inadvertently blocking her view; she moved to look around him. At last she spotted Rachel.

Plainly puzzled at finding her mother in the parking lot, she offered a tentative wave. Rachel smiled and returned the wave. Once discovered, she had to do something, to join them, or at least meet them halfway.

She couldn’t; her feet simply wouldn’t move in that direction. When had she become such a coward?

Jeff turned, saw her, and immediately seemed to understand. He reached for John with one hand, the athletic bag with the other, and started toward her. Cassidy ran ahead.

Rachel waited, grateful to the point of tears for the small thoughtfulness, a knot of anger in her chest that it was necessary.

“Did you see my goal?” Cassidy called.

“I did. It was amazing. And the assist you gave in the third quarter was downright brilliant.” She caught her beautiful, sweaty daughter to her in a fierce hug.

Cassidy leaned her head back and looked up at Rachel. “How long have you been here?”

“Since the beginning of the second half.”

She frowned. “Why didn’t you watch with Daddy and John?”

A quick lie sat on the end of her tongue, one that would satisfy Cassidy and stop the questioning. Lies and half-truths were becoming commonplace in this new world they inhabited. Would trust be the next victim? “I felt more comfortable in the car.”

“Because you and Daddy are getting divorced?”

While it was reasonable to assume this was the direction she and Jeff were headed, neither of them had said so. At least not to each other. “Who told you that?”

“Becky’s mom.”

“I don’t know Becky. Is she a friend of yours?”

“She’s the new girl on my team.” Cassidy turned and pointed. “That’s her next to coach Brady.”

Impatient with his father’s slow progress, John let go of Jeff’s hand and ran to Rachel. She hugged him without letting go of Cassidy and bent to kiss the top of his head. With a quick glance at Jeff, she said, “Does everyone know our private business?”

“No one
knows,
Rachel, they guess.”

In a classic case of not realizing what she had until it was gone, Rachel was only beginning to realize that by losing Jeff, she’d also lost her best friend. She had no one to talk to about what was happening to them, no one to give her helpful clichés that promised a better life at the end of this hellish journey. In the middle of the night when the loneliness was overwhelming, she could imagine a day when she would get past the affair, but would she ever forgive him for destroying their friendship?

Parents were headed their way. “Did you bring their clothes?” she asked Jeff.

“The suitcases are in the car.” He gave her a pointed look. “Do you want me to get them now?”

The way he asked made her recognize just how big a mistake she’d made suggesting they meet where they would be on exhibit. For the past month, while they’d tried to work out what would be best for the kids, she’d stayed at the house on weekends and Jeff had gone to a motel.

Finally, in the middle of a sleepless night, she’d decided it made more sense for Jeff to stay at the house and for her to get an apartment. He was the primary caregiver and needed to be there to take the kids to school and pick them up and to take care of all the day-to-day moments that made up their lives.

This was the first time the kids would be staying at her new apartment. She’d been so caught up in trying to make the adjustment run smoothly that she’d missed the obvious.

“Why don’t I drop their clothes by later?” Jeff suggested.

His kindness, so typical, so
Jeff
, infuriated her. She wanted him to act as small and deceitful now as he had when he’d been in the middle of the affair, not remind her why she’d loved him. “I made plans.”

“Then I’ll follow you now.”

“All right.” Her stubbornness touched on stupidity. Rachel opened the back door to the Lexus. John got in first and crawled across the seat. Cassidy followed, leaving the door open halfway.

“Cassidy has a birthday party tomorrow at three. I can pick her up at your place and take her if that would be easier.”

Rachel nodded, fighting the urge to tell him that nothing was easy for her anymore. She’d been in her apartment a week and still hadn’t gone grocery shopping—one of the “plans” she had scheduled for that weekend along with a trip to the cleaners and half a dozen other errands Jeff used to take care of for her. “What about John?”

“He can come with me when I come for Cassidy or you can bring him by the house later.” When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “Or I can meet you somewhere.”

She didn’t know what she wanted. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“Call me on the cell. I’ll be out all morning.”

It was everything she could do to keep from asking where he would be. She moved to open the front door. “Are you sure it won’t be inconvenient for you to take Cassidy to the party?”

“I’ll be back by then.”

“If you’re sure.” She mentally cringed. Cellophane was less transparent.

“I’m going to be at the lumber yard. I figured it was time I fixed the back porch railing.”

Jeff had threatened to tear the entire railing off and start all over again so often it had become a running joke between them. “Why now?”

He looked away, took a deep breath, and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “I’ve been working on getting the house ready to sell.”

Of course. They couldn’t afford the house and an apartment long term. Still, hearing the words was like adding another mile to the distance between them. Soon everything they knew, everything they had been would be gone. The life she had loved and taken for granted would be a questionable memory. Tears filled her eyes, yet another thing she’d lost control over. “I hate you for doing this to us.”

He automatically started to reach for her, then at the last second drew back. In a voice only she could hear he asked, “What can I do? How can I make it right between us again?”

“You can’t.”

“I won’t accept that.”

Foolishly, her heart did a skipping dance of hope. Her mind refused to follow. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the parents headed their way. She got in the car and opened the window. “Don’t bother meeting me. I’ll pick up whatever the kids need for tonight at the store.”

He nodded and bent to wave to Cassidy and John. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Rachel backed out and started to drive away. Almost as an afterthought, she glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Jeff watching them. The anguished look on his face stole her breath. For an instant, unwillingly, she was drawn into his pain.

The apartment was like a new toy to Cassidy and John, one to be explored, played with, and tossed aside after a couple of hours. The novelty had worn off by bedtime, and they were ready to go home.

Up for the third time to go to the bathroom, John stood at the doorway to the living room and stared at Rachel. “When is Daddy coming to get us?” he asked softly.

Rachel put her laptop aside and fought a flash of frustration bordering on anger. The feeling was gone as quickly as it had come. John and Cassidy were suffering as much as she and Jeff, if not more. “Tomorrow,” she said gently. “Now go back to bed.”

“I don’t like that bed. It’s too hard.” The Spiderman pajamas he’d chosen at the store were so big they would be worn out before he could grow into them.

“I can make it softer, but not tonight. We have to wait until the stores open in the morning.”

His lip quivered. Another minute and he would be crying. “Do you want to try my bed?”

He considered the blatant bribery, then bobbed his head in a slow nod.

Rachel crossed the room and took John’s small warm hand in her own, leading him down the short hallway. Her bedroom looked even less inviting than his, the only furniture a queen-size bed with no spread. The clothes that couldn’t be put on hangers were in boxes lining one wall, and there was only one light, a lamp that sat on the floor beside the bed.

John stopped at the doorway and stared at the sad-looking room. The only way he was going to stay without argument was if she stayed with him. She sat on the edge of the bed and patted a spot beside her. John climbed onto her lap instead.

“I’m not very happy, Mommy.”

She put her arms around him and hugged as hard as she dared, knowing any harder would scare him. “I’m not very happy either, John.”

“I don’t want you to live here. I want you to come home with me and Cassidy and Daddy.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes mommies and daddies stop loving each other, and when that happens they can’t live together anymore.”

“Daddy loves you. He told me so. He told Cassidy, too.” He sat up to look at her. “See? You don’t have to stay here. You can come home.”

Damn you, Jeff
. By telling John he loved her, in their son’s eyes, the separation became her fault. He would undoubtedly grow up believing she’d broken his father’s heart. When he was old enough to be told what really happened, it would be too late.

What was it with her and men? She wasn’t good enough for her real father to stick around when she was a child, she’d been everything from a nuisance to a temptation to a half-dozen stepfathers, she’d married a man who’d betrayed her, and she had a son who preferred his father over her.

What was it that she lacked that men looked for in a woman?

She’d not only loved Jeff, even more important, she’d trusted him in a way she’d never trusted any man. Implicitly. Without question. He’d had her from the moment he climbed onto the lab stool next to hers in chemistry class their junior year and told her he’d had to bribe his friend to let him sit there. She’d believed him. More importantly, she’d believed
in
him.

“Mommy?”

She opened the covers for John, then settled in beside him. “What?”

“Do you love Daddy?”

She knew where he was going and how it was bound to end. “John, is it okay if we don’t talk about this now?”

“How come?”

“I’m tired.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, softly, “Will you still be tired in the morning?”

Under other circumstances she would have cheered his tenacity. He was fighting for something he wanted in the only way he knew how. She pressed her cheek against the silkiness of his freshly shampooed hair. “Would you like to hear a story?”

“What kind of story?”

“About a little boy and his big sister and their mommy and daddy and how they started a new life that seemed really scary at first but turned out okay.”

“I don’t think so. I’m kinda tired, too.”

Rachel kissed him again and brought him closer. “Maybe in the morning then.”