Remember the Time (44 page)

Chastened for the moment, Sheryl said, “Sorry. But really, Mike, where is she?”

“Parking her car.”

“What?”

“We came in separate cars, in case she wanted to leave and I didn’t.” Mike saw the look of disbelief on his sister’s face. “Look, Sheryl. Kate’s not coming here to celebrate Christmas with the family.”

“What, then?”

Matt had entered the hall, and now said, “She’s coming to talk to you, Mom.”

Sheryl’s voice wavered. “What about dinner? Can’t we eat first?”

There was a soft knock on the front door and Mike opened it for Kate, who reluctantly stepped inside only after he took her hand.

The standard Christmas greeting hardly seemed appropriate, and so Sheryl simply said, “Hi, Kate.”

Kate nodded at Sheryl, while Mike helped her off with her coat.

Sheryl found the silence unnerving, and inanely said, “Are you hungry? The turkey’s a little dry, but—”

“I’m sorry we’re late,” Kate interrupted. “But Mike has a hard time with the word ‘no.’ ” She lifted her chin and leveled a look of defiance at Sheryl, wanting her to understand which of them mattered most at the moment. “I don’t want to hold up your dinner, but what I have to say won’t take long. Is there someplace we can talk?”

Sheryl’s office seemed even smaller as the two women faced each other in the tense silence that Kate finally broke. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, as you can imagine. I’ve tried to understand your side of the story. I’ve gone through it over and over again, and no matter how I present it to myself, it always comes out that what you did was wrong. All of it was
wrong
.

“Both of you are to blame. I know that. But Paul died, and he’s left me with this pile of garbage to clean up. And I can’t do it. Not right now.”

“What would you have done if we
had
told you? What good would it have done?” Sheryl asked.

“No!” Kate’s hand slammed the desktop. “Don’t you dare rationalize this to me! I don’t know what I would have done with the truth, but I think I deserved to know it. Maybe we weren’t best friends back then, but we were like family. And what about the past few years? When I think about everything we’ve talked about, everything I’ve told you … my most private feelings. God! I must’ve given you a few good laughs.” Kate’s eyes stung as she heard the beginning of Sheryl’s denial. Her anger erupted along with the threatening tears. “You called me your friend, but I know you’ve always resented me for some reason. Don’t think I didn’t
know the way you made fun of me behind my back when we were young. And you must’ve gotten quite a kick out of my so-called marriage!”

“Kate, please believe me. I
am
your friend!”

“Friends respect each other,” Kate said, ignoring the tears that steadily rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t think you’ve ever respected me.”

“Oh, God, Kate … you have no idea how much respect I had for you. I knew what you had to put up with being married to Paul, and you always held your head up. I was never going to tell Paul about Matt, but I found out what he was doing to you because you couldn’t have kids. I only told him to hurt him! I never meant to hurt anyone else.”

“But you did.” Kate’s eyes held Sheryl’s. “I can’t forgive this. Not yet. I don’t know if I ever want to trust you again. I wanted to be a part of your family so much. I used to love spending time with you. I always felt I could be myself with you. But right now I don’t want to see you for a very long time.”

“But what about Mike?”

Using her sleeve to wipe her face, Kate angrily said, “That’s the hardest part! I love Mike. And he loves you. I’ll never stand between you and Mike, but make no mistake whose side I’m on, Sheryl. Someone has seen fit to give me a second chance at this. It’s taken me a long time to take off my blinders and see the world around me. I know it’s not a perfect world, but finding Mike makes it pretty damned close. I fell in love with him a long time ago. I just didn’t understand that till now. But more than that, he’s always been my best friend. His respect means everything to me. Everything! And
I will not let you take that away from me
.” Kate’s words echoed off the walls, until only silence remained.

Sheryl knew there was nothing she could say in return. Not now.

Kate turned away from her and in a steady voice said,
“Could you please send Matt in? I have something I want to give him before I go.”

“I—Kate. I wish you’d stay.”

“What for?” Kate asked.

“Because it’s Christmas …” Sheryl’s voice trailed off before she gathered her strength again. “It won’t be much of a Christmas if you leave. Mike won’t stay. You know that.”

“That’s up to him. He can make his own decisions.” Kate faced Sheryl. “Could you please get Matt?”

Sheryl’s mouth opened, then closed tightly. Kate felt the gust of wind Sheryl generated as she left the room. A few moments later Matt’s body filled the doorframe.

Sheryl waited till she heard her office door close before speaking. “She’s not staying, you know.”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t blame her.”

“What the hell could she possibly have for Matt?”

“He’ll tell you if he wants you to know.”

“Well, can’t you give me a hint?” Sheryl asked.

“Just leave it, Sherry.” Mike stood and said, “I’m hungry. You want me to carve the turkey?”

Sheryl looked at him thankfully. “You’re going to eat?”

“Sure,” he said as he opened the oven. “And not a moment too soon, I think.”

Later that night—long after Kate’s departure, after he and his mother and his uncle had eaten and opened their gifts, a few minutes after Mike left—Matt retreated to his bedroom. He lay on his bed, the wallet with Matt’s baby picture hidden away in it on his chest. A calm descended over Matt so profound that he could feel every muscle—every sinew and tendon—in his body let go.

Kate’s words as she gave him the wallet indelibly imprinted themselves on his brain, and now they were all he heard. All he saw as he closed his eyes.

“He did care. He cared enough to die for what was in this wallet. I’m giving it to you so you’ll always remember that no matter what else he did, he went back for you, Matt.”

“Thank you,” Matt whispered to Paul. But in reality he was speaking to everyone he loved.

T
he door slammed, shaking the house. His heavy, running footsteps thundered down the hallway and up the stairs. He shook off his jacket as he ran and let it fall to the floor. Mike shoved open the bedroom door. His eyes immediately found her in the bed and he went to her. Pinning her between his arms, he brought his mouth down on hers. He was like a starved man. Nothing else mattered but the nourishment her body gave him.

Drawing a deep breath, he said, “I couldn’t think of anything else but you the whole night.”

“I’m here,” she answered.

“Thank God,” he responded before pulling the quilt down and burying his face in the silky fabric that covered her soft belly.

He couldn’t remember ever being this hungry for anything in his life. Kneeling beside the bed, his hands coaxed her hips to the edge of the mattress. He pushed her gown up and lifted first one leg, and then her other over his shoulders. Her dusky eyes had become darker with anticipation, and his own locked with hers, as he lowered his head to taste her for the first time.

Mike felt her tense as his tongue circled her. She moaned at the intensity of feeling he brought, and she
murmured, “Not there … not yet.” His lips closed around the flesh of her inner thigh. And then he was lapping at her, his warm tongue meeting her own heat, and she relaxed, opening herself to him. Her juices bathed his lips, his chin. The scent of musk engulfed him and he sank into her, receiving all she had to give. Sucking, swallowing, he was gluttony itself, while she writhed underneath him.

Kate clutched at her nightgown, tugging it higher. Blindly grasping at his hand, she placed it on her breast. When his thumb dragged across her nipple, she arched up, wanting more. She groaned when he withdrew his tongue. Gasped, when she felt his fingers enter her. Cried out, when he suckled her swollen clitoris.

She came hard, every muscle in her body quivering with sensation. Before she could come down, he was undoing his zipper—freeing himself—with one hand, as he stood and lifted her to him. He plunged inside her, driving in deep.

Kate watched through eyes at half-mast. She saw his jaw clench, his eyes close tightly, his head fall back. Seeing him in the throes of his passion brought her to the edge once more. Her hands covered his and she begged him to go harder. The second wave of orgasm enveloped her and she repeated his name. When his own relief came, and she could actually feel his hot semen spurt into her, she reached for him, sobbing the words “I love you …” over and over again.

He let her hold him. His disbelief that making love could feel like this closed his throat. Before he could stop himself, he was crying and Kate was smoothing his perspiration-soaked hair from his forehead.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” she murmured through her own tears.

He pulled away from her and took her face in his hands, kissing every feature. When he was able to speak coherently, he whispered, “It’s been a long time coming,
Katie. And I knew it could be like this …” Her eyes smiled at him. “God, I love you so much.” His voice dropped lower. “So much …”

“Take off your clothes, Mike. I want to feel your skin next to mine.”

He didn’t notice Julia’s lamp until he went to turn it off an hour later. His hand stopped in midair. He looked down at Kate, already well on her way to sleep. Everything and everyone seemed to be in the right place, and he told her that.

A soft smile came to her lips. She kissed his chest and said, “Merry Christmas, sugar.”

The barking nagged at him in his sleep. It was a never-ending series of sharp yelps, punctuated with long howls. The sound finally woke him and Mike sat up jostling Kate into semiconsciousness. He listened for less than a second, then shook Kate’s shoulder. “Katie?” When she didn’t respond, his voice grew loud with worry. “Kate! Wake up. Where’s Homer?”

“Huh?”

Mike quickly went to the window and threw it open. Homer’s barking filled the room. “Did you feed him tonight?” Mike asked. He had turned to Kate, when something caught his eye, and he spun back to the window and the black night. “Oh, Christ … Kate! Wake up!” Mike clambered over her, trying to reach the telephone.

The fear in his voice brought her fully awake, and she found herself crushed to the mattress. “What? What’s wrong?”

But he was already talking into the phone. “Fire at number eighteen Frazier Street …”

His terse words shot her full of adrenaline, and Kate pushed him aside. She tumbled from the bed and ran to the window. She refused to register what she saw.

Pale yellow flames licked at the tower room’s window, and Kate watched, as if seeing a film of something familiar. Yet it had to be fiction. It had nothing to do with her. It was someone else’s nightmare.

Mike was suddenly behind her, his tense voice telling her to get dressed, when the tower window exploded and sent a fiery crystal shower into the night. She screamed and stepped back. His fingers tightened painfully around her upper arms and he propelled her toward the chair that held her clothes.

“Get dressed!” he roared. “I’m gonna go get Homer!”

And he was gone, leaving her to fumble blindly with buttons and zippers as her eyes streamed with terrified tears. Kate heard the first siren as she ran down the staircase.

In the gray light of dawn, with the acrid smell of smoke and wet, burned wood filling her nostrils, Kate sat on the curb. Her hand gripped the leash that tethered Homer to her. She watched as the last fire truck reeled in its hose. Watched as Mike shook hands with one of the firemen. Kate had stopped crying some time ago, but her eyes burned as if the fire had somehow spread through her body.

Neighbors, who had dressed hastily and looked like refugees in their slippers and overcoats, stood in small clumps, whispering. Relieved the fire hadn’t spread to their own homes, they now took an active interest in the real-life drama they were witnessing. Kate wanted to go back inside. She wanted to hide from them and their furtive looks. Wanted to go back to Mike’s bed and pull the covers over her head. But she stayed and stared straight ahead, waiting for Mike to come back across the street.

The tower was gone, along with everything it had held. In its place was a dark, ragged hole that extended
into the roof. The firemen had covered it with tarps, but the ugliness of it stayed with her. Tom Dennison, a former schoolmate and volunteer firefighter, had said she’d been lucky. The fire hadn’t done any major damage to the second floor because it had moved up. Staring at the smoldering roof as he’d talked, Kate hardly thought “lucky” was the word she would’ve used.

“We’re so sorry. Do you know how it started?”

The voice startled her, and Kate’s head snapped to the left. An older couple who lived two doors up the street stood side by side. They weren’t looking at Kate, but at her house.

“No, I don’t,” she replied.

“Lucky you got out,” the man said as he eyed the muddy mess that had once been her front yard.

Kate began to say she hadn’t been inside when the fire started, but thought better of trying to explain where she’d been at three in the morning. Instead, she said, “Yes … lucky.”

They didn’t catch the slight sarcasm in her tone, and they finally looked down at her and smiled vaguely. The woman said, “Bad time of the year for this sort of thing.”

Kate gazed at her for a moment and bit her tongue to keep from asking if there was ever a good time. “Thanks for your concern,” she said as she stood. “If you’ll excuse me?” And she walked across the street toward Mike, Homer following behind her.

“I want to go inside,” she stated.

“Why don’t you wait?”

“I don’t want to wait,” Kate said impatiently.

Mike sighed. “Okay, let’s go.”

Kate handed him the leash. “No. I want to go in alone.”