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“You know what I mean. You blush like a teenager every time you say Nick’s name, and I’ve hardly seen you in the past two weeks. You’re doing a hell of a lot more than baby-sitting up there. Last night I heard you talking on the phone. You were telling Terri that Nick was just a friend. So, I guess I’m not the only one who has noticed. ”
“It isn’t love,” she answered quietly, but even as she spoke the words, she wondered. When she was with Nick, she felt young, full to bursting with adrenaline. Dreams seemed tangible to her again, as close as tomorrow; it wasn’t how she’d felt in her marriage. Then, she’d thought dreams were the toys of childhood, to be put away when real life came to call.
“Are you doing it to get back at Blake?”
“No. For once, I’m not thinking about Blake or Natalie. I’m doing this for me. ”
“Is that fair?”
She turned to him. “Why is it that only women have to be fair?”
“It’s Nick I’m thinking of. I’ve known that boy for a long time. Even as a kid, he had eyes that had seen a dozen miles of bad road. When he started dating Kathy, I thanked God it wasn’t you. But then he settled down and became the best cop this town has ever had. We all saw how he loved Kathy; and that little daughter of his was the apple of his eye. Then, that . . . thing happened with Kathy, and he . . . disintegrated. His hair turned that weird color, and every time I saw him, I remembered what had happened. It was like a physical badge of sorrow. No one blamed him, of course; but he blamed himself, you could tell. It was damned hard to watch. ”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You’re a fighter, Annie, and—”
“Ha! Come on, Dad, I’m a doormat of the first order. ”
“No. You never have seen yourself clearly. You’ve got a steel core inside you, Annie—you always did. And you see the world in positive ter
ms. Your glass is always half full. ”
“When Blake left me, I fell apart,” she reminded him.
“For what—a month?” He made a tsking sound. “That’s nothing. When your mom died, I didn’t hide out for a couple of weeks and then emerge stronger than I’d started. ” He paused, shaking his head. “I’m not good at saying what I mean. What I’m trying to say, honey, is that you don’t understand despair or weakness, not really. You can’t get your mind wrapped around hopelessness. ”
She stared out at the river. “I guess that’s true. ”
“You’re still a married woman, and if you think Blake is really going to leave you for a bimbo, you’re crazy. He’ll be back. When he comes to his senses, Blake will come home to you. ”
“I don’t feel married. ”
“Yes, you do. ”
She had no answer to that; it was true and it wasn’t. As much as she’d grown and changed in the last months, Hank was right: Annie did still feel married to Blake. She’d been his wife for almost twenty years . . . that kind of emotional commitment didn’t evaporate on account of a few hastily thrown words, even if those words were I want a divorce.
Hank came up beside her, touched her cheek. “You’re going to hurt Nick. And he’s not a man who rolls easily with life’s punches. I don’t mean to tell you what to do. I never have and I’m sure as hell not going to start now. But . . . this thing . . . it’s going to end badly, Annie. For all of you. ”
The next night, long after the dinner dishes were washed and put away and Izzy had gone to bed, Annie sat in the rocker on the front porch. She watched a tiny black spider spin an iridescent web on a rhododendron bush. The scratchy creak-creak-creak of the rocker kept her company in the quiet. She knew she should go inside; Nick would be waiting for her upstairs. But it was so quiet and peaceful out here, and the lingering echo of her father’s words seemed softer and more distant when she was alone. When she actually went inside and looked into Nick’s blue, blue eyes, she knew her dad’s advice would return, louder and too insistent to ignore.
Nick and Izzy had already been hurt so badly. She didn’t want to do anything that would cause them more pain, and yet she knew, as certainly as she was sitting here, that she was going to do just that. She had another life in another town, another child that was going to need a mother as desperately as Izzy had only a few months ago. Her real life was out there, waiting for Annie, circling in the hot, smoggy air of Southern California, readying itself for the confrontation that was only a few short weeks away. It would test Annie, that reunion; test everything that she was and everything she’d decided up here that she wanted to be.
Behind her, the screen door creaked open. “Annie?”
She closed her eyes for a second, gathering strength. “Hey, Nick,” she said softly, staring down at the hands clasped in her lap.
The door banged shut and he came up beside her. Placing a hand gently on her shoulder, he crouched down. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
She looked at him and, for a second, felt a flash of panic. The thought of giving him up was terrifying.
But it was Nick she had to think of, not herself. She gazed at him. “I don’t want to hurt you, Nick. ”
He took hold of her left hand, tracing the white tan line with the tip of his finger. “Give me some credit, Annie. I know it’s not as simple as taking off a ring. ”
She stared at him for a long time. The urge rose in her to make impossible promises, to tell him she loved him, but she couldn’t be that cruel. She would be leaving in two weeks. It would be infinitely better to take the words with her.
“We don’t have forever, Annie. I know that. ”
