Forever (10 page)

How had he gotten into this situation? “I must be losing my mind,” he said, his voice echoing in the empty office. He pushed his chair back to stand and then froze. What if he really
was
losing his mind? The sudden, and breathtaking, return of the pounding in his head assured him that his brain, if not his mind, was still intact.

* * *

After Tom left the house, Julie could no longer concentrate on her conversation with Patricia and ended the call. It was
possible
he’d forgotten to enter something in his daily report—but she doubted it. Tom was meticulous with his paperwork. Tom was meticulous in almost everything he did. Sometimes that drove her crazy, but most of the time she admired it.

So, if Tom hadn’t gone back to the job site, where was he? Maybe having a beer somewhere. Maybe alone. Maybe not. The second possibility preyed on her mind. Tom was unhappy; she was unhappy herself but didn’t know exactly why. Did Tom know
his
reasons?

She missed talking to Becky. Julie had been an only child, and her sister-in-law had taken the place of the sister she’d always wanted. But they’d lost some of that closeness since Becky and Dave moved to Florida. Talking over the phone wasn’t the same as sharing secrets over a bottle of wine. Still, she dialed Becky’s number.

After the usual pleasantries, Julie got to the heart of her call. “I’m worried that Tom doesn’t love me anymore.”

“You can’t be serious,” Becky said. “Tom
adores
you.”

“I don’t know. Things have changed since you lived here.”

“Well, I can’t believe they’ve changed enough to warrant that ridiculous fear. So what’s up?”

“What?”

“Are
you
the one who’s tired of the marriage?”

“Now,
that
’s
ridiculous. I could never stop loving Tom. It’s just that . . . I don’t know.”

“Uh-huh. Sounds like you’re just having a bout of insecurity. Though God knows what
you
have to be insecure about. But when you’re down here next month, I’ll keep my eyes open for signs Tom’s lost his mind.”

They laughed together, and then Becky turned serious.

“Could it be just that you’re not spending enough time together, forgetting to
show
your love?”

Julie sighed. “You’re probably right.”

“I’m sure I am.”

“Don’t mention my worrying to Dave, all right?”

“You didn’t even have to ask, Jules.”

They talked for a while about their vacation plans before hanging up. Julie felt better for the few seconds before it occurred to her Becky’s assessment was based on her remembering Tom as he had been, not as he was now.

Patricia had her own thoughts on the matter, and Julie heard them so often she thought of them as
Patricia’s Litany
. In Patricia’s eyes, Tom was a lowbrow, Julie deserved better, and their marriage was dead, stunk, and ought to be buried.

Julie felt disloyal to Tom for even listening to such advice, but it played on her insecurities, making her wonder if Patricia, looking in from the outside, had a clearer view of the situation than she did. Not that Tom
was
a lowbrow. That was just Patricia’s mean-spirited exaggeration. Yet sometimes she wondered if her love for him blinded her to the true state of their marriage.

And now Eddie was adding fuel to Patricia’s fire. He’d only spent that one evening with Tom, and even though Tom hadn’t been especially friendly, he hadn’t done anything to warrant the degree of animosity Eddie held toward him. Patricia had obviously instigated that. Now, neither missed an opportunity to make her feel that Tom was taking advantage of her, deceiving her. As if
they
were relationship experts.

Eddie was prone to affectations. One that especially irritated her was his giving advice as though he fancied himself some psychologist. His last gem—“Now, Julie, listen to Dr. Eddie. Men are dogs. If they wander off, sniffing after some bitch, it’s best to shoot them.”

As much as possible, she tried not to consider her life without Tom. It hurt too much.

In twelve days, it would be the twenty-fourth anniversary of the day they met. In twelve days and five months, it would be the twenty-fourth anniversary of their wedding. Almost every day now, she found herself wondering if their marriage would survive another year and they’d get to throw the big Silver Anniversary party they’d always planned. Julie smiled, remembering they’d first discussed the party during their honeymoon. They lay naked in a king-size waterbed eating chocolate, drinking Korbel Brut, and laughing because every tiny movement set off a wave action that sloshed the champagne out of their glasses.

Expecting to sustain that flavor of love forever was unrealistic, but she hadn’t expected it to lose its taste entirely. It hadn’t entirely, of course; the dissatisfaction came in waves. Maybe Becky was right—she and Tom had grown lazier this last year, taken each other for granted. They hadn’t forgotten how to love; they’d simply forgotten to be loving. Maybe.

She walked through the empty house checking locks and turning out lights. He’d given her everything she wanted in this house. “Julie’s Dream Home,” he called it. “But our happy home is on a shaky foundation, Tom. And I’m terrified this is one repair you don’t want to make.”

Julie climbed the stairs, removed her make-up, and fell into bed. She was exhausted—she was
always
exhausted these days—but it was a long while before she stilled her mind. And by the time Tom slipped into bed beside her, she’d drifted too close to the edge of sleep to turn back.

June 10

U
pon waking from a fitful sleep, Annie remembered today was the anniversary of her marriage to Gary. With her nerves still raw from last night’s “true confessions” to Tom, that memory was all it took to raise her stress level a notch above bearable. She fled the house to seek the comfort she always found in the company of trees and water.

Driving down the side roads of what used to be rural Indianapolis, she noticed another fallow field had sprouted a billboard announcing a new sub-division of homes—PHASE ONE AVAILABLE THIS FALL. Kate’s complaint about their living in the
boonies
wouldn’t be valid much longer. The city was spreading in all directions like a lava flow devouring all obstacles in its path. The construction sign made her think of Tom. Although, honestly, she’d thought of little else for days.

The golden flash of Black-eyed Susans growing along the side of the road caught her eye. “He loves me, he loves me not,” she recited.

No doubt she loved him; when would he admit he loved her? Bad relationship choices seemed to be her weakness in this lifetime. Of all the men in this city, it was her luck to have some psychic link with a married one. But her heart told her he wouldn’t
stay
married to someone else.

Tom hadn’t actually said he had a shaky marriage, or even an unhappy one, but he’d spent long hours with her on two of the last four evenings, and was apparently free to call her at night without any problem. Didn’t that prove he was miserable with his wife? And now that she and Tom had found each other . . . well, it would have to work out. After all, they were destined to be together.

Annie turned off onto the narrow road that led to the river. Some of her sweetest memories had a connection with nature. Her thirteenth summer had been both horrible and wonderful. Because both her parents stayed drunk most of the time, the saner members of the family thought it best to take the children out of the house for a while. Her two younger brothers went to live with an uncle in Texas. They stayed five years.

Annie and “baby Kate” spent three months on a Kentucky farm with other relatives. Aunt Bess and Uncle Howard had no children of their own, and for the first time in her life, Annie knew the feeling of being a pampered, cherished child. One of her favorite pastimes that summer was daydreaming by the river that bordered the farm.

Now, as she sat in the sun beside this creek, that same sense of peace flowed over her. She lay back on the grassy bank. Behind the crimson glow of her closed lids, she pictured Tom, eyes lit by his grin. She wanted so much to believe that everything would work out fine. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She wanted—

My baby. Oh God, my baby is drowning. Please, help him. He’s dying. Oh God. Help us. Nooooo . . .

Annie shot upright, gasping and terrified. Clawing at grass and tree roots and rocks, she scrabbled up the bank to escape the clutches of the river. Her baby was drowning.
She
was drowning.
Oh God
.

She ran all the way back to her car before she could shake it off. As if she’d just run a 10K, Annie paced beside the car and then, bent at the waist, a hand clamped above each knee, she waited for her heartbeat to slow. As she caught her breath, the image of her frantic flight from the riverbank flashed through her mind. She must have looked like the devil himself chased her. Annie burst out laughing. The sound sliced through the silence with an edge of hysteria.

The taste of the creek water, the weight of her clothes, soaked and dragging her down, those sensations had seemed
real
. For one shocked second Annie feared she’d tried to drown herself. She grabbed her shirt—her
dry
shirt—with both hands.

“I fell asleep, I had a dream, that’s all it was.” But the half-laugh half-sob that escaped her belied her words.

This time, for the first time, she—or Maggie—had managed quite well to produce a vision without Tom’s magic touch. Annie sank to her knees, a stuttering sob the precursor to a flood of tears. At that moment, she was Maggie, screaming underwater, and she was Annie, pouring out a lifetime of hurt and fear and anger.

Crouched beside the car, her arms clutching her middle, she rocked herself slowly, and cried until her heart numbed. Then with one last shuddering sigh, she stood, opened the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. She needed Tom. Only he could understand what had just happened.

* * *

Annie had left her phone at home on purpose, but she went to it as soon as she walked in the door. It notified her of three voice mails waiting. She played the first.

“This is Tom. I hope you’re feeling better this morning. It’s about eight. I’ll call back.”

The second.

“Annie? Tom again. Please pick up if you’re there. I’d really like to talk to you for a minute. Just a minute or two. I’ll try again, later.”

The third.

“It’s almost ten o’clock. I’m sure you’re awake by now. I guess you don’t want to talk. Please, let me know you’re all right. I’ve got to leave here in a minute on business, but if I get a chance, I’ll try to call again. Anyway, if I can’t reach you before you go to work, I’m going to stop by the theater on my way home.”

Annie groaned at his last words. After leaving the river, she’d stopped at the first pay phone she saw to call in sick. She whispered a plea, “Please, call me again, Tom.”

As she heated soup for her lunch, she allowed herself cautious glimpses of the drowning baby. Although she wondered if she was blocking more, she recalled only the same few seconds of sight and sensation. She’d experienced Maggie’s death. What would her own be like?

Shouldn’t you be more concerned about your life
?

She admired people who saw things in black and white, able to make practical decisions about their lives. Sensible people. Nothing in her life seemed sensible right now. She felt raw and wounded, completely unprotected. The truth had become fantasy, nightmare had become reality, and yet, she held onto the hope there would be a happy ending. Was that possible for her?

* * *

Tom sighed in relief when Annie answered her phone. “Are you okay? I tried to call you all morning.”

“I’m . . . I just . . . didn’t feel like going in to work today.”

Her voice had wavered and the snuffling sounds that followed told him she was crying, again.

“Annie, please don’t.” He mentally kicked himself, cursing his stupidity in forcing open the floodgate she’d built to hold back the memories of abuse she’d never dealt with and probably wasn’t ready to deal with now. “I’m so sorry I’ve caused you to be this upset.”

“Oh. No,” she sobbed. “I’m not crying because of last night. Today started out lousy, and then . . . well, something really scared me.”

In a split second, he switched gears from penitent to defender. “What happened?”

“I had a vision at the river. I went there to be alone . . . to think. At first, I thought maybe I’d fallen asleep and dreamed, but it wasn’t a dream, Tom. I was
awake
.”

“You had a vision by yourself? Spontaneously?” The possibility rocked him. He’d assumed the visions were something they had to share, something it took both of them to produce. He was angry—and yes, frightened—at the idea he might have one of these visions alone. At any moment.

“Yes,” she said, “and it scared me to death.” She gasped. “I shouldn’t say that.”

“What did you see?”

He listened as she described the vision, and how scared and helpless she’d felt when she couldn’t talk to him about it. “Write this down,” he said, when she paused. “This is my cell number. You can reach me anytime on it. And if it’s in the middle of the night, leave a message, and I’ll call you as soon as I can the next morning.” He recited the number, but as he waited for her to write it down, a moment of panic washed over him. He
must
be insane. What if she called while he was with Julie? What if—

“Thanks for your number,” she said, “but I won’t use it unless there’s an emergency. A supernatural emergency.” She uttered a weak laugh.

His offer had consoled her. He couldn’t take it back, but he hedged. “Yes . . . only if you
really
need to talk to me . . .”

“Hey. You didn’t say why you were calling this morning. Did your father tell you something more about those longrifle hunters?”

“I called because I was a little worried about you. You were crying when we hung up last night.”

“Oh, I
enjoy
a good cry sometimes. It’s healing.”