Together Alone (35 page)

“They’re on the mend.”

“How long?”

“Depending on how the healing goes, two or three months.”

He groaned.

“Does it hurt?”

“Huh.” Neither question nor answer. “Mouth is dry.”

She hurriedly reached for a glass of water and held it while he drank through the straw. Then she pushed at the pillows to give his neck better support. “Can I do something? Get you something?”

His eyes were closed, his mouth barely moving. “Just stay here a little.”

She sat on the edge of the bed. “I called Marilee. She wanted to fly right home. I told her to wait until she talked with you. She told me to tell you she loves you.” Her throat grew tight. She raised a hand to her neck, but it quickly fell to his arm. “So do I,” she whispered. “Do you hear me, John? I don’t like it when things like this happen to you.” Tentatively she touched his hand. Lightly, furtively, she slipped her fingers through his as he slept.

O
N A SERIOUSNESS SCALE OF ONE TO TEN, JOHN’S
accident had only been a four, but it affected Emily deeply. It made her think about the fragility of life, and its randomness. Two feet to the left, and John would have missed the patch of ice and been fine. Two feet to the right, and he would have missed the tree, tumbled into the gulley, and died.

Two paces, give or take, and Gayle Stasek would have made it safely home from her run.

Three minutes, give or take, and Jill would never have seen Doug on the stoop of that townhouse in Boston.

Four minutes, give or take, and whoever had taken Daniel from her car that day, would never have seen him there.

“Scary,” she whispered, lost in her thoughts as she stared at the flames that licked the logs in the hearth.

“What is?” Brian asked.

She sat against him with her elbows on his bent knees. Turning her cheek to his throat, she said, “Hmmm?”

“What’s scary?”

“The suddenness of things. The
finality
of things. What if I hadn’t gone to the post office that day? Or if I had gone earlier or later? Daniel’s abduction was an impulsive thing, I’m sure of it, someone deranged just happening by. If I hadn’t left the car when I did, my life would have been very different. Same with Gayle. If she hadn’t gone running that day, or had gone a little earlier or a little later, you’d be back in New York with her now.”

She faced the fire again. “Do you miss New York?”

“Only when I talk with my old buddies. From a distance their stories are all excitement and success. Then I hang up the phone and remember the endless hours and the danger and the cases that fall apart. I don’t miss that part.”

“You aren’t bored here?”

“Nah. I missed the action, at first. Missed the camaraderie. But I know people here now. They accept me. So there’s camaraderie. And action, too, just of a different sort.”

“What sort?”

“Personal. I was involved in more cases there, but here I have a greater impact on each one. There’s more follow-through. Like Leila. Ritchie. I like that. It’s gratifying. Why do you ask?”

She asked because she wanted him to stick around. High-speed chases notwithstanding, a policeman had a better chance of staying alive in Grannick than in Manhattan. Emily shuddered to think of Brian being shot or stabbed.

“I was wondering if you’re restless,” she said.

He turned her until she was cradled between his arms and knees. “Do I feel like I’m restless?”

“Right now? No.” His pale eyes held her, intrigued her. “But I don’t know what you’re feeling when you’re heading down here for yet another day in the good old Grannick Police Department.”

“Not restless,” he assured her with a glint in his eyes. “Sleepy some mornings. Relaxed. Looking forward to what’s coming, in a laid-back kind of way. Work in the city is intense. It eats you up. I never could understand why so many cops had marriage problems—well, I knew the reason, but I never really
felt
it until I got away. How can you give to a marriage when you’re consumed by high-tension stuff ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day? How can you be an attentive parent?”

He looked down at Julia, who slept on a blanket beside them. Emily watched him watching her, watched the play of emotion on his face, gilded from the fire, the protectiveness, the love.

“I made the right decision leaving,” he said. “Julia is doing well here. She doesn’t scream the way she used to when she hears a loud noise or a cry or, God forbid, a siren. She sleeps through the night and wakes up glad to see me. She’s growing. She’s talking. Okay, unintelligibly. But
I
know what she’s saying.”

Emily was content, just listening to his voice. She liked what it said. She liked the rumble of it above and behind her.

“My mom is disappointed we’re not coming for Thanksgiving. I told her I didn’t want to wrench Julia up so soon. She needs sameness for a little while more. When does Jill get home?”

“Wednesday afternoon. The forecast is for snow.”

“Snow for Thanksgiving? Whoa! That’s great!”

“Not if I can’t drive in for Jill.”

“She can always take a bus.”

“I know. But I wanted to be there at her dorm. She’s feeling unsettled about Doug.”

“Angry still?”

“And sad. She’s torn. She wants to hate him, but she can’t. She’s struggling with her loyalties. I keep telling her she doesn’t have to choose, that she can have both of us, but the situation is still very new.”

He put the pad of his thumb to her lower lip. “She’ll do fine. She has you. You’re level-headed.”

“How else can I be? I want what’s best for Jill. I don’t want her hurt.”

“Is she nervous about the holiday?”

“A little. How about you? It’s your first without Gayle.”

“I think about her. I wish she could see Julia. Am I dreading Thanksgiving? No. We always went to Gayle’s parents’ home in Westchester for formal sit-downs. They lasted forever. I was ready to leave halfway through. What did you and Doug do?”

“Had it here. Friends came over. This’ll be the first time I haven’t cooked the turkey in twenty-two years.”

“Will you miss it?”

Slowly, deliberately, she shook her head. “I couldn’t do the same thing this year. Not with all that’s happened. I need something different, so I won’t be making comparisons.” She smiled in anticipation of what was in the works. Everyone was descending on the Davies—Brian and Julia, Emily and Jill, Celeste and Dawn and Celeste’s new heartthrob, several of Kay’s colleagues, several of John’s—all bringing food. It would definitely be different. “I can guarantee you nothing will be formal this year.”

“That’s good. I’m not a formal person. That part of New York didn’t fit me real well.”

“Tell me you used to go to the opera.”

“Nuh-uh. I drew the line there. But theater. Symphony. Fancy parties thrown by Gayle’s firm.”

“I can’t picture you in a tux.” The most dressed she had seen him was in a shirt, tie, and jeans. Usually at home he wore sweats. At night he wore nothing.

“I look dashing in a tux.”

“No doubt. But confined.”

“That, too. That a
lot,
which is why I gave the tux away before I moved. It was symbolic. Giving up one life for another.”

Emily wondered if he would ever come to miss it, if he would tire of Grannick one day, and want to leave. It could create a problem, if they were together. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t.

She shifted again, so that her cheek lay on his chest and her ear timed his heart. There was something about resting against Brian like this, something soothing about his scent and reassuring about his bulk. There was something comforting, in the sense of not being alone. The fact of Julia being inches away only added to the moment. Emily had known moments like these for a short time with Daniel and Doug. She had hoped to live them again after Jill was born, but that hadn’t happened.

“I love you,” Brian whispered.

She nestled closer.

“Did you hear me?” he asked, whispering still.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

“I want to marry you.”

“Shhh. I can’t think about it now.”

“Why not?”

“Too soon. I just want to enjoy this.” She turned her face into him. Her voice grew muffled in his warmth. “I don’t want to plan. I just want to
be.
”

She felt a large, protective hand on her back, sliding around and up under her hair.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I can live with letting you
be
for a little while. But can I say the words when I am so moved?”

She smiled. “You can say the words.”

“Good,” he said.

Still smiling she waited, fully expecting that he would say them again before long. When he didn’t, she let out a slow, soft breath. She didn’t need to hear the words. She could feel the caring coming from him. It was more than she’d had in so long. It was more than enough for now.

Doug called Emily that night. She had just put a chocolate cake in the oven. “How’re you doing?” he asked with the kind of enthusiasm he hadn’t directed her way in years.

She was quickly wary. “Not bad.”

“What are your plans for Thanksgiving?”

She told him about the group heading for the Davieses’. “Since John can’t go anywhere, it makes sense.”

“Is Brian going?”

“Yes,” she said without apology.

“Is it serious between you two?”

“Kay wouldn’t hear of his doing anything else, since he’s new in town and alone with Julia.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No. I didn’t.” She had no intention of answering his question.

“Well?”

“What are you doing for the holiday?”

He persisted. “Is it serious between you and Brian?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Does Jill know you’re involved with him?”

“Jill likes him. She feels comfortable knowing he’s here.”

“She might not, if she knew you were sleeping with him.”

Emily let out a breath. “Doug. Please. You’re beating a dead horse.”

“How so? What you do affects her. I’m concerned about her.”

“Oh, my God!” she exploded. “You are incredible! You’re worried about what
I
do?
Nothing
I do could be half as hurtful as what you’ve been doing for the past five years.”

“Eight years.”

“Excuse me. Eight years.”
Eight
years. She felt the blow of that revelation in her gut, felt stung, dirty, cheapened. “You didn’t think much of me at all, did you?”

“I blamed you for Daniel,” he said, as though to excuse it.

“You didn’t have the guts, Doug. You were fooling around behind my back for
eight
years, you knew we had no future together, but you didn’t have the guts to make the break yourself.”

“I kept thinking of Daniel,” he repeated, but without pride.

“You hated me because of Daniel, but couldn’t divorce me because of Daniel.”

“Something like that.” There was a pause, then a tentative, “Do you think he’s alive somewhere?”

Oh, God. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if he were, he’d have tried to contact us. He would be twenty-one.”

“What if he was told that the people who raised him were his biological parents? He wouldn’t have known there was anyone to contact.”

Emily had considered that possibility. “I still think he’d have known, somehow.”

“What if we’d gotten him back?”

“When?”

“Anytime. Say after four or five years.”

She wasn’t sure what he was asking. “Yes?”

“Would things have gone back to how they were?”

“Between us?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. It would depend on how he had lived during those four or five years. Anything negative, and you’d have blamed me still.”

She held the receiver through another long stretch during which the only sounds coming from Doug were those of breathing and the occasional false start. He sounded to be struggling with the issue of Daniel in ways she hadn’t thought him capable, and while it didn’t excuse what he’d done, or the fact that he continued to blame her, she was relieved to know that at least he remembered his son.

His
first
son.

“I wonder if they could find him now,” Doug said.

“No. Too much time has passed.”

“Lots of cases are solved later.”

“Not ones like this.”

“Don’t you want to know what happened to him?”

“Yes! My God,” she cried, “I was the one who fought to keep the investigation open. I was the one whose emotions seesawed for years, while you just put it all aside. When they closed the investigation because there wasn’t anything to investigate, even
then
I tried, but there was nothing. I can’t get my hopes up again. I just can’t. He’s dead, Doug. One way or another, he’s dead.”

“Is that what you’ll write in your book?”

“
If
I do a book, it’ll be about my feelings about Daniel, before, during, and after. It’ll be about years of torment and the struggle to find an ending. Our divorce may help. The other thing that will help is accepting, finally, that I’m not getting Daniel back.”

“You’re a lousy mother if you do that.”

“But I have to survive!” she cried. He was at it again, making her out to be the bad guy, when she
wasn’t.
“I can’t go looking for him again. Don’t ask me to do that.”

“What if I ask your good friend, Brian?”

“No! Don’t!”

“Why not?”

Because Brian is pure, where Daniel is concerned. He’s my present and future. I don’t want him tainted.
“He won’t be able to find anything. John couldn’t, and God knows, he tried.”

“John isn’t very bright.”

“He
is.
”

“Couldn’t solve
this
case.”

“And you resented him all these years for it.” She had known it, of course, had seen it in Doug’s slow but steady distancing of himself from John. “He’s a cop, not a miracle worker.” She took a fast breath. “I have to go now, Doug. I’m baking for Thursday.”

“So you’re eating at the Davieses’. I might drop in and say hello.”

Her heart rose to her throat. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? Jill’s my daughter. I have a right to see her on Thanksgiving.”

“Before or after. Not at.” At was a
terrible
idea. It would upset
everyone!

“I want to talk with Brian,” Doug insisted, prodding where he had found her weak.

“If you do, it’s without my consent. Before or after,” she repeated, “not at.”

“I want the mystery solved once and for all.”

“Before or after. Not at. Goodbye, Doug.” She hung up the phone with an uneasy shiver.

Emily kept waiting for Doug to show up. He was obsessed with Brian, obsessed with Daniel, neither of whom he had had much interest in until after she had learned about
his
indiscretions. But she didn’t want him touching Brian in any way, shape, or form that might have to do with Daniel. She had lived and breathed false hopes for years. She just couldn’t do it again.