Honesty - SF8 (28 page)

"Did you ever speak to her again?"

"No," Ryan admitted. "She paged me later that night, but I didn’t return it. She must have paged me twenty times in the next few days, but I just couldn’t face her. I was chickenshit," she admitted, coloring a little as she said this.

"How old were you?" Jamie asked, not having noticed this detail in the report.

"18," Ryan said quietly.

"How old was Tory?"

The dark woman shrugged, her shoulders lifting perceptibly. "Dunno. Maybe 30…hard to tell. Everybody looks the same when you’re 18. They all just look older."

Jamie got up and slid her arms around her partner, reassuring her by her warm presence. "It’s okay, Love. You did the best you could."

"Crap, Jamie," the taller woman sighed. "Do you think he divorced her just because of me? I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to have my ex-husband take my child away like that." She looked like she was about to cry, but Jamie tried to remind her of the reality of the situation.

"I can tell this bothers you, but Tory hid a lot of things from you. She was much older, and she had a responsibility to either be honest or set things up so her husband and child weren’t impacted by her actions. You were pretty blameless here, Love."

"I still feel like crap," Ryan muttered, walking back to the window. "I might have been the cause for her divorce and for her losing her child. And I was too much of a chicken to even talk to her! How self-centered!"

"Every 18-year-old is self-centered," Jamie soothed. "Some of us grow out of it. You did," she insisted. "You did your best, Ryan. Try not to let this bother you."

Ryan sighed, then took in a deep breath, trying to rid her mind of the image of Tory sitting in her apartment, her husband and son both gone.

Jamie broke into her musings by saying bitterly, "I know that Daddy thinks what you did is the equivalent of his behavior. It’s not," she snapped. "You made a reasonable mistake." She looked up into Ryan’s deep blue eyes and said, "I know you’d never have sex with someone if you knew they were married."

Ryan swallowed, her gut tensing appreciably. With a heavy sigh, she looked at her lover and told the truth. "That’s not so, Jamie," she said softly. "I have had sex with women that I knew were married."

Flopping down onto the bed, Jamie blinked slowly, trying to get her mind around this. "You…you have?"

"Yes, I have. I’m not proud of it, but I have." Her lips were pursed, and she looked quite somber as she said, "I’m sorry to disappoint you, Love. I know how you feel about marital commitment."

"But why, Ryan," she begged. "Why would you do that? I know how
you
feel about marriage. Why?" She looked like she was about to cry, and Ryan deeply regretting causing her lover any more pain this evening. She knew that Jamie was justifiably disappointed in her, and she had to admit that she was disappointed in herself.

"I don’t really have a good reason. If a married woman approached me, and I was certain that she’d done it before and was going to do it again, I sometimes agreed to a little fling. I reasoned that I didn’t cause the problems in her marriage, and that the problems wouldn’t go away if I held back." She shrugged, repeating. "I told you, I don’t really have a good excuse. All I can say is that I regret having slept with married women, especially now that I see what the aftereffects can be even in a marriage that has long-standing problems."

Jamie pulled her close, dropping her head onto Ryan’s chest. She sighed deeply as she admitted, "I wish I didn’t know that you had done that."

"I wish I hadn’t done it," Ryan agreed fully.

Giving her a squeeze, Jamie reminded her of the promise she had made many weeks ago. "I told you before that the past was past. It’s buried between us. Let’s let it go."

"Can you do that?" Ryan asked, timidly.

"I think so. I don’t like it, but I think I understand your logic at least. The bottom line is that you learned something from it, and even if we weren’t together, I doubt that you’d ever do it again."

"No, I’m certain that I wouldn’t," she agreed, her heart starting to beat normally once again. "I thought I respected marriage before, but now that I’m committed to you…" She trailed off, shaking her head. "Now I understand how sacred the vow is," she said quietly. "It’s hard enough to build a relationship without a third party trying to destroy it."

The women were sitting on the deck when Catherine’s light tread finally sounded on the staircase. Duffy’s tail was whapping against the house so sharply that Martin came out, thinking someone was knocking on the door. He noticed Ryan holding on to the dog’s collar, then saw Catherine’s blonde head peek up as she smiled at the gathering. She was dressed in a pair of tan linen slacks with a pure white linen square-cut oversized blouse. The blouse hung out over her slacks, giving her a slightly casual air, but her exquisitely tasteful jewelry and carefully applied make-up diminished the casualness. In her left hand she carried a bottle of liquor, in her right a small purse that perfectly matched her buttery soft sable-colored leather flats.

"I wasn’t sure that the traffic gods would comply, but I’m finally here," she said brightly, a few signs of tension on her face.

"I’m sorry, Mom," Jamie said, getting up to greet her with a kiss and a hug. "We should have come down to you."

"Nonsense," she said, brushing off the suggestion. "Traffic was much worse the other way. I’m happy to come, Sweetheart."

Ryan greeted her mother-in-law, already feeling slightly better to have the older woman nearby. Martin dashed into the house and called for the boys and they filed out moments later. The look on Catherine’s face was priceless as Brendan bent over and gave her a robust hug, closely followed by Conor, who mimicked his greeting.

Composing herself, Catherine said, "It’s very nice to finally meet you, Brendan. Now I just have one more to go, correct?"

"Yes," Martin agreed. "Rory will be home by the weekend, so you’ll meet him at the party." He said this so matter-of-factly that Catherine was unable to disagree with him, figuring that she had a party to attend.

The boys returned to the house to continue watching the Giants game and Martin started to go with them, but Catherine asked him to stay. "Would you mind discussing what went on today with us, Martin?" she asked. "I’d like your opinion."

"No, no, I’d be happy to, if I’m not interfering."

"We’d love you to talk with us, Martin," Jamie insisted. "Let me go get a glass for you, Mom."

"Oh," Catherine said, looking at the bottle that she still held in her hand. "I wasn’t sure that you kept Scotch in the house, and I hate to switch."

She looked a little sheepish, but Martin immediately got to his feet and said, "Well done, Catherine. I think a wee nip would be just the thing." Moments later he returned with four glasses, a pitcher of water, a metal mixing bowl filled with ice, and a bottle of Connemara whiskey. "You’ll find no Scotch in the O’Flaherty home," he teased, his eyes twinkling. "It’s Irish or nothing here."

Ryan took a glass and helped herself to some whiskey, suitably impressed that her father had pulled out the good stuff, while Jamie joined her mother in imbibing a little Scotch.

"Well," Catherine said, letting the smooth warm mellowness of the liquor bring a nice heated tingle to her chest as she swallowed. "An impromptu Friday evening chat, a pair of very anxious looking young women, and two bottles of liquor. I have a feeling this is bad news indeed."

"It is, Mom," Jamie admitted. "I promised you that I wouldn’t take any major steps without talking to you first, so I wanted to let you know that I’m going to cut off all contact with Daddy in the future." She said this calmly, but there was such a well of sadness in her eyes that Catherine felt her heart clench in sympathy for her daughter.

"I’m sure you wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t justified, Jamie," she acknowledged. "What happened, Dear?"

"Daddy hired a private investigator to trail Ryan," she said, drawing a slight flush from her partner as all eyes turned to her.

"Oh, Ryan, I’m so sorry," Catherine said, her eyes blinking slowly against the shame that she felt. "I’m embarrassed to share a name with that man." Letting out a heavy sigh, she leaned back in her chair and drained her drink, immediately pouring another. "Is there anything that I can do to make amends, Ryan?"

"No, it’s fine, Catherine," she insisted. "Jamie knew almost everything in the report." She looked down at her feet and admitted, "It was pretty humiliating to see my life laid out like that—but I guess that was his goal."

"How do you feel about this, Martin?" Catherine asked, seeing the fire burn in the cold blue eyes.

He blushed slightly as he told the truth. "If it wasn’t for you and Jamie, I’d find him and beat him to within an inch of his life." His voice was low and filled with such venom that Catherine shuddered a bit in reaction. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in any of the three women that Martin would successfully complete his mission if he did not feel the need to control himself for the sake of the Evans women.

The older woman nodded after composing herself, and she turned to face her daughter. "I understand why you think this is your only option, Jamie. I wouldn’t have said this two weeks ago, but I’m in agreement. This might be the only chance he has to see how wrong he is." She sighed and leaned her head back, gazing at the moon high overhead. "I thought I had experienced pain in my life," she said softly, "but everything else pales in comparison to having the man who helped bring your child into the world intentionally hurt her. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for this, Jamie," she said with a world of hurt in her deep brown eyes. "He might have lost both of us tonight."

With tears streaming down her face unchecked, Jamie got to her feet and crossed the short distance to her mother, dropping to her knees and resting her head in her lap. Catherine’s composure crumbled, and she began to sob softly as she tangled her fingers in her daughter’s fine hair and began to rhythmically stroke it.

Catching his daughter’s eye, Martin inclined his head towards the door, indicating that he thought the Evans women should have a moment alone. No sooner were they inside the house than he wrapped his daughter in such a fervid embrace that her lungs were unable to expand. "I’m so proud of you,
Siobhan
," he whispered raggedly. "I thank God for having given you to me."

She hugged him back with all of her strength, overcome with feeling. "I told Jim that all I wanted in life was for him to be half the man that you are," she said, her own voice hoarse with emotion. A small chuckle escaped as she admitted, "If he could only manage twenty five percent, it would still be a massive improvement."

At eleven o’clock Jamie poked her head into the house. Martin and Ryan were sitting in the living room, chatting quietly, and both dark heads turned in Jamie’s direction. Even from fifteen feet away Ryan could tell that she was bleary-eyed. "Mom’s gonna leave now," she said a trifle thickly.

Hopping to his feet, Martin strode out to the deck and stood in front of Catherine. "Would you rather stay over tonight, or would you prefer that I drive you home?" His deep blue eyes were locked on her, and it was obvious that only those two options were on the menu.

She sighed, not wishing to burden the poor man but realizing that resistance was futile. "I can just take a cab, Martin. I don’t want to be a bother."

"Nonsense. Cabs are an endangered species around here, Catherine. I’ll drive your car and have Brendan follow me."

"No, no," she insisted, loath to have both men driving that far just because she had overindulged. "I’ll go stay at our city apartment," she proposed. "Can I take a cab there?"

"Again, no," he decreed. "I’ll drive you."

She sighed, catching her daughter’s amused look. "All right. Why don’t you just drop me off there. We have an extra car at the apartment. I can come over tomorrow and pick up my Mercedes."

"Are you sure you’ll be alone, Mother?" Jamie asked warily.

"Yes. He’s down in Pebble Beach. For the fourth consecutive weekend," she added, a harsh smile marring her features.

As their parents left the deck, Jamie sat between Ryan’s legs on the chaise lounge, soaking up the comfort that the dark woman’s body always provided. "I’m worried about her," Jamie murmured.

"I am too," Ryan agreed. "She must need the security or the familiarity or something to have stayed with your father this long. I think this is really going to be tough for her."
I just hope that she doesn’t continue to drink like this. Jesus, that bottle was more than half full when she arrived.
She gazed at the empty, sitting upright on the table next to them.
Jamie seems a little buzzed, but not too bad, so Catherine must have caused the most damage.
Fighting the lethargy that seemed to settle into her bones, she laughed at herself mockingly.
You’ve got a lot of room to talk, O’Flaherty. You spend the afternoon in a bar, then you come home and do a good bit of your own damage on that whiskey bottle. People who live in glass houses…

"You haven’t read the whole report yet, Honey," Jamie reminded her partner. "There’s some stuff about you and Sara in there, and I was thinking that you’d better call her and tell her about it."