A Symphony of Cicadas (28 page)

A few creaks upstairs signaled that John was awake
.
Sara kept her eyes closed when she heard him coming downstairs,
forcing her breaths to be slow and steady
in feigned
-
slumber as he peeked his head over the couch to see if she was still asleep.

John poured out the cold coffee in the coffeepot from the day before and filled it with fresh water, setting up the pot to brew as his thoughts formed their own dark roast in his head.

Flashes of my face and Sara’s mingled in the memories of last night
.
Being that close to her had felt good
.
Real
ly
good
.
He wanted to believe it was just because Sara was the closest person to me without actual
ly
being me
.
But it was more than that
.
She was familiar, not just because of the scent in her hair or the way her lips held the same shape as mine, but because she was someone who knew him and the pain he was going through
.
They both knew what it was like to lose me, the person they both claimed as their best friend
.
John realized that more than anything, he missed having a connection with someone
.
And through the past year and a half of friendship
, he
’d
had that with Sara.

Hearing
her stir on the couch, John poured them both a cup of coffee and crept into the living room
.
Placing her cup on the coffee table, he sat down on the couch where
the curve of
her b
el
ly
created a small space and rubbed her shoulder
.
Sara smiled
, but kept
her eyes closed at his touch, inhaling the aroma of
the
coffee as she stretched.

“Mmmm…coffee…” she murmured,
trying to gauge how groggy she would be if she real
ly
were just waking up. She
open
ed
her eyes
half-way
and smil
ed
at John.

“Good morning,” he said, leaning
forward and
kiss
ing
her on the forehead
.
She sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest
.
John reached over and picked up
her
cup of coffee and placed it in her hands, waiting for her to take her first sip before barraging her with his thoughts on the night before
.
He wanted to tell her how wonderful she was, how he had appreciated all her care as he grieved for me, how he loved how close they had become since my death, and how much it meant to him that they were able to become even closer last night
.
He wanted to admit that he had no idea what the future held for them, admit that he knew this was weird and unconventional, that
, without a doubt,
their fami
ly
would wonder what was wrong with them
.
But he wanted to tell her he didn’t care
about all that
,
and
he was curious where this road would lead them
.
Most of all, he wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked in the morning, how waking up to her unbrushed hair and flush
ed
cheeks was a
treat
he wanted to experience over and over, and how he could probab
ly
live in her eyes should he be allowed to stare into them long enough.

“About last night,” he began, taking
in
a deep breath as he worked up the courage to spill segments of his heart into the coffee she drank. But he never got the
chance
.
Sara held up her hand, smiling as she shook her head.

“Say no more,” she said, stopping him in his tracks
.
“It was just a one-time fluke that never should have happened.”

“B
-b
ut
…
I don’t think it was a mistake,” John stammered.

“Neither do I!” Sara
’s enthusiasm made John’s eyes widen
.
“We both have been through so much, I think it was great for us to let off a little steam with each other
.
I didn’t realize I needed that as much as I did,” she giggled.

John was confused by her reaction
.
The Sara he knew wouldn’t be this casual about a night of passion
.
Or would she? He’d never been intimate with her before, so how would he know how she’d react?  John realized he might not know her as well as he thought.

“How are we going to move forward?” he asked her, wincing at the way he said “we” with presumption
.
But she didn’t hear his question the way he asked it, on
ly
hearing what she thought he was saying.

“Don’t worry about it John,” she said
.
“I mean, I don’t want things to get weird between us, and I real
ly
enjoy our friendship
.
We can just pretend like it never happened
.
I promise I won’t start acting like I’m your girlfriend or anything,” she said with a
light-hearted
grin.

John hid his embarrassment as she spoke
.
He had misread the whole situation, and felt stupid
as he remembered how he’d been acting like a horny teenager experiencing love for the first time
. In
an effort
to hide the fool he
had
almost made of himself, he just nodded with a chuckle
.
He thought he saw a glimmer of sadness in Sara’s eyes, but realized she was on
ly
looking down for her shirt
.
He retrieved it from the ground and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said, slipping it over her head to hide her nudity despite the fact that he had kissed every inch of her body the night before.

“Did you want something to eat?” he asked her
.
“Some cereal, maybe some eggs?  How about pancakes?  I know how to flip some mean flapjacks,” he said
.
She shook her head.

“No, I’ve taken up enough of your time already. I
real
ly
should be getting home
.
”

“Are you sure?  I mean, it’s the least I can do after all the
help you gave me with that room,” h
e
said, doing
his best to persuade her to stay a bit longer, hoping that a little
more
time might
help her see things
in a different light
.
But she wasn’t having any part of it
.
He hid his disappointment when she shook her head again.

“I have to get into the shop today, and the girls are coming back tonight. I’d like to get home to have enough time to put stuff away and get freshened up,”
she got up and started to fold her blanket, but he waved her away.

“It’s
okay,
I got it,” he said
.
“I know you’re in a hurry
.”
She
gave him a grateful smile
.

Ten minutes later he was helping her carry boxes to her car parked a few blocks downhill and waving goodbye as she drove away.

Sara let out a deep breath as she watched him disappear in her rearview window
.
She
wasn’t sure
how to read him, but
was certain
he was on
ly
being polite in what could have been a
very
awkward morning
.
At least she knew
how
to hide away her feelings before she made herself out to be some foolish school girl
.
However, her intention to protect herself from being rejected all over again
had
failed
.
As she drove further from his apartment, she couldn’t help feeling like she was losing in love all over again.

And despite the fact that I had never wanted them together in the first place, I wanted to reach inside her head and shake her for being so blind.

Twenty

“
T
here are my girls
!” Sara cried when she heard the doorknob tur
n and footsteps pounding toward
the kitchen where she sat
.
She had been eating a bowl of cereal at the table, reading a book and trying not to stare at the clock too much
until they
arrived. Before
they burst through the door
, she had done her best to keep the thought of John’s hands on her from her head, on
ly
resulting in happy and melancho
ly
shivers as she remembered the feel of John’s lips across her mouth, her neck, down her stomach…

“Mommy! Mommy!” Megan called out, colliding into Sara with great force, Li
ly
running at her heels and copying her sister’s enthusiasm.

“Wow!  I think you both got taller!” Sara exclaimed
.
They both grinned.

“Mom, it’s on
ly
been two d
ays,” Megan pointed out in her seven
-
year
-
old wisdom
.
Sara laughed.

“I know. It just feels like a long time,” she told her, ruffling her hair.

“Knock knock,” Kevin called from the doorway. Sara
shot up
and smoothed out her hair, wiping at the bit of milk that had spilt on her shirt
.
Usual
ly
she did her best to look decent when Kevin showed up, attempting to give him a
taste of what he was missing and couldn’t have
.
Today, however, she put on her sweats as soon as she got home from work, and looked as though she had been sleeping all day long.

“Come in,” she called out even as she walked toward the door
.
Kevin stepped over the threshold of his former home
with caution
, smiling
an
apolog
y
when Sara appeared around the corner.

“I’m sorry, I should have knocked before they bounded in
.
But they barreled through the door before I had a chance to stop them,” he explained
.
Sara waved her hand in dismissal.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said
.
“It’s their home too.”

“I know,” he said
.
“But one of these days you might have someone
over
and…” he drifted off
.
Sara looked up
in alarm
, wondering what he knew
.
But she realized he was on
ly
making an observation about the future
.
She also read into it that the same might be true of him, perhaps already
.
She shook
away
that
thought
, fighting off the urge to be jealous
over
things she
held no facts about
.

“How was your weekend?” Sara asked him.

“It was great,” he said with a smile
.
“I took the girls to the zoo this weekend, and Megan decided she wants to be a large animal veterinarian when she grows up
.
She’s so dang bright, it kills me!  Li
ly
, on the other hand, decided she wants to be a tiger when she grows up
.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that being a monkey was a better choice
.
You know, more fun.”

“That’s our Li
ly
,” Sara said, shaking her head in amusement
.
They both watched the girls playing lion
-
keeper in the corner of the room, Li
ly
on all fours growling up at her older sister, Megan pretending to fling a whip at her to make her do what she needed her to do
.
“It sounds like you guys had a great weekend.”

“How about you?  I mean, unless it’s personal,” he said.

“I’m not seeing anyone, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said in a tone that was a little harsher than she intended
.
She decided that she didn’t need to even hint that she had slept with John, concluding that it didn’t count if it wasn’t planned and would never happen again
.
“And I didn’t real
ly
do much this weekend, just worked and then helped John clear out the spare room at his house of all Joey’s and Rachel’s things.”

“Oh, jeez
.
That must have been rough
.
Are you
okay?
” he asked with genuine concern
.
Sara was taken aback by his altruism
.
E
ven though they had been kind to each other in the months that followed their split
,
i
t felt foreign for him to show any kind of concern for her since they were technical
ly
in the midst of a long and drawn
-
out break up.

“Do you real
ly
care?” she asked him, unable to mask her skepticism over his sincerity.

“Sara, just because I left doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,” he told her
.
He
looked
at the girls in the corner of the room, then back at Sara
, and raised his eyebrows
.
“Can we not do this right now
?
” he
murmured
.
She nodded
, still scrambling to figure out Kevin’s
change in demeanor
.

“Sorry,” she
murmured back
.

“Look, I think you and I are due for
a long
talk about everything. Perhaps we can meet up for coffee this week or something?”

“I think that would be a good idea,” Sara lied
.
What would they talk about?  How their marriage had failed?  Filling out divorce papers?  How she was a horrible wife?  She couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do less than to meet with her ex-husband.

After Kevin left, Sara spent the final hour of the day hanging with the girls and listening to their stories
.
They all hung out in the bathroom while Li
ly
took her bath, Megan
leaning over
the side of the tub
and
playing with the bubbles that surrounded Li
ly
.
Megan had outgrown taking baths with her sister, as they had done for years when the girls were small
.
Somewhere in the
past few months
, Megan had
become hyper-modest about
her body,
especially
around
her mother
.
Even in the midst of her wonderment at these tiny glimpses of Megan’s future self, i
t made Sara a little sad to see her daughter moving beyond her younger years.

They both took turns telling Sara about the different animals they saw at the zoo
.
And Sara listened as best as she could, fighting the urge to delve into the
swirling
thoughts spinning a tornado in her mind
.
Soon she was filled with images of giraffes and monkeys, coffee talk with Kevin, feeding pigeons with leftover popcorn, the weight of John’s body hovering over her, bears sleeping in the sun…

“Mom, are you listening?” Megan asked, bringing Sara back to where she was, running the washcloth over the same
sp
ot on Li
ly
’s back as her
four
-
year
-
old played in the bubbles.

“Of course, sweetie,” Sara said, putting the washcloth down and unplugging the tub to let the water out.

“Then what did I say?” her older daughter asked, hands on her hips
, acting very much like the parent
.

“Uh…” Sara racked her brain
.
Bears?  Giraffes?  “You were telling me about the lemurs?” Sara asked
with a hopeful grin
.
Megan pushed her lips out in disappointment
.
“Busted,” Sara said with a chuckle
.
“Sorry Megan, I guess I got caught up in a daydream.”

“What were you thinking about?” Megan asked.

“Nothing
,
real
ly
.
Most
ly
how good it was to have you both back
.
The house is so empty without you!”  Megan
’s face beamed
at the answer, and Sara breathed an invisible sigh of relief that the girls couldn’t read her mind
.
“So what were you saying?”

“I was asking you what divorce meant,” Megan asked
.
Sara did a double-take at the question
.
What the heck were they talking about this weekend?

“Why do you want to know?” Sara asked
after a moment’s pause to control her voice
.

“I heard Daddy talking about it on the phone
.
He said he might be getting a divorce
.
One of my friends said her parents got a divorce but I never asked them what it was
.
Do you have a divorce?  Do you know what it is?” she peppered at her mother
.
Sara thought about how to answer her daughter, and realized that her daughter needed the full truth
.
But first, she couldn’t help but gather a bit of information on Kevin.

“Was your daddy sad when he said it?” Sara asked her.

“Not real
ly
.
Why, is it a sad thing?”

“It can be
.
I mean, it might feel sad at first
.
But sometimes it means that someone can be happier than they were before a divorce
.
Do you know who he was talking to?”

“I’m not sure
.
I didn’t answer the phone
.
But Mom, what IS a divorce?”

Sara sighed
.
She took Li
ly
out of the tub, lifting her wet body onto the towel across her lap and then wrapping her up in it.

“Divorce is when two people who were married decide not
to
be married anymore,” Sara said, hugging Li
ly
close to her and looking Megan in the eyes
, trying to look calm and reassuring
.

“Are you getting a divorce
, too?  L
ike Daddy?” Li
ly
asked
in a sleepy voice, sedated from the warm bath water
.
Megan’s eyes were already filled with tears.

“Of course, dummy
.
” Megan
’s voice was sharp, matching her angry wor
ds
.
“Mommy and Daddy are married to each other
.
If Daddy’s getting a divorce, then Mommy is too.”

“Well, hold on Megan
.
First, don’t
call Li
ly
a dummy
.
She’s on
ly
four
, she doesn’t know. Second, I don’t know if we’re getting a divorce
.
Daddy and I haven’t talked to each other about it.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” Megan demanded.

“Because Daddy and Mommy are taking a
small
break
from
being married to each other
.
It’s not a forever break right now, just a vacation break,” she said, realizing how lame that terminology sounded
.
Vacations were when you went somewhere fun
.
This was anything but fun.

“So when is he coming back from his vacation break?” Megan asked.

“I don’t know,” Sara said
.
“I’m not sure if he’s coming back,” she admitted.

“You won’t let him come back, will you?” Megan accused her
.
“You go
t
mad at Daddy and told him to leave.”