Lifelines: Kate's Story (16 page)

She’d
been up front with him at the beginning of the evening, so he figured he owed
her the same. “Dinner was great ... I needed to forget my problems for a few
hours. Thank you.”

She
gestured to his wedding ring, and her eyes seemed to invite confidences.

“We’re
having problems,” he admitted. He stared into the fire and the silence pressed
on him. “She wants us to try again.”

“And
you?”

In
the fire, a log fell to one side and sparks showered upwards. He reached for
the poker, then he pulled the screen aside and escaped her question by shoving
the coals and wood around in the fire. When he stood up from the fire, she was
still watching. Waiting.

“I
don’t know if I can do it any more.”

“It?”
she asked.

“Our
marriage.”

Silence,
the sort you drop into softly, like a cloud, and he said, “I’d better go.”

Kate
stood, facing him. Why had he never noticed the quiet magnetism of her gray
eyes before?

“How
old are you,” she asked.

“Forty-four.”

“Twenty
years from now, when you’re sixty-four and you think about your marriage, will
you wonder if you gave up too soon?”

Her
question hit somewhere in his gut.

“It’s
your choice, whether to let the marriage go, or fight for it.

His
choice. He wished he could stay and stare into her unlit fireplace until sleep
came. Wished he could go outside, pick up an axe and cut wood to feed her fire.

Simple
pleasures.

“Was
your marriage good, Kate?”

She
clasped her hands together. “David was my partner, my lover. We did life
together.”

“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean—I should shut up.”

“Real
partnership doesn’t happen in a year, even five years. It’s like building a
house, one step at a time. Once, something happened and it almost destroyed our
marriage. It was my fault. Afterwards, for a long time I couldn’t ... we would
have crashed if he’d given up on us. He didn’t give up.”

Mac
felt like crying, something he hadn’t done since he watched his mother walk
down the sidewalk to the black car when he was six years old. He walked to
Kate’s window. A storm coming, the trees a silent shadow movie playing to him
as they bent to the wind.

When
he turned back, he saw Kate standing in the archway to the kitchen.

When
she reached up to the coat tree for his jacket, he saw her hand hesitate over a
light gray coat. Her husband’s? She’d hammered nails into OSB, set bolts in his
freshly poured concrete. Worked to forget?

“Any
weekend you want to come along and hammer a few more nails, feel free.”

“Maybe
I will.”

“I
could come back Saturday to measure up for the supplies you’ll need for your
kiln and wheel.”

“Maybe
you’ll be taking your wife out Saturday.”

“I
don’t know.” He wondered if he had the strength to find a way back into his
marriage. What would Jake have done if Mac’s mother tried to come back? Would
he have turned her away after she’d abandoned their child?

He
didn’t know his mother’s reasons for leaving. As for Rachel, he wanted her to
have made a different decision ... wanted the impossible.

Socrates
pushed against him as he opened the door. He gave the dog a pat and rubbed at
those wrinkled ears. He wanted to ask Kate if the dog slept with her, or if she
woke alone and cold, as he did in the shed.

“Drive
carefully,” she said. “And if you do take your wife out Saturday, remember, the
best way to do a lot of things in life is with baby steps.”

“Baby
steps,” he echoed. He hadn’t a clue what she meant. He wanted to touch her, but
didn’t know what would be appropriate. Shaking hands seemed too formal, but a
hug might be misinterpreted.

He
patted the dog again.

Two
miles from Kate’s house, he pulled into the old brickyard and stared out at the
ocean. Jake used to say if things were hard, that didn’t excuse a man not doing
them. Mac always wondered if he meant bringing up Mac alone after the kid’s
mother took off.

What
had Kate Taylor done to almost destroy her marriage? He found it impossible to
believe she could do anything truly terrible.

Mac
picked up the cell phone and dialed his house.

Three
rings and he had his thumb on the button to disconnect.

“Hello?”

“It’s
me.” A dark shape flew towards his truck, then swept away into the sky. An
eagle? An owl?

“You’re
calling from your cell, aren’t you?” She sounded breathless. Excited. “Are you
coming home?”

Three
months ago he’d loved this woman. There must be something left.

“You
said we needed to talk. You’re right. Can we meet for lunch ... um ... on Saturday
at the Breakwater Pub?”

“Oh,
Richard ... I’m so happy. I knew you’d change your mind. Can’t we have dinner
tomorrow? I can’t wait for Saturday.”

Dinner,
and afterwards, she would expect him to go home with her.

“Baby
steps,” he said. “I think we should take this very slowly.”

“Slowly?”

“Lunch.
Saturday.”

Forty
hours from now, he would sit across a table from his wife. He wondered what the
hell they’d say to each other.

E
velyn
balanced with one hand on the counter as she bent down to check the macaroni
casserole in the oven for the fifth time. She mustn’t trip and fall today, of
all days.

Even
though the casserole hadn’t started to brown yet, she turned the oven down.
Noel wasn’t due to arrive for another twenty minutes, and lunch absolutely
couldn’t be burned.

Han
had always loved macaroni casserole with hunks of tomato and real cheddar melted
over the noodles. She should have asked Noel, but she wanted to surprise him.
He might be allergic to tomatoes for all she knew.

She
should have asked.

She
checked the oven again, then ran her hand along the wall as she walked to her
bedroom. The big mirror on the dresser reflected back messy salt-and-pepper
hair, and she took the brush to it.

Once
her hair looked half-decent, she removed the jogging suit Kate had given her
last Christmas. Comfortable, Kate said, but Evelyn thought it ugly—although not
as ugly as her own naked body. As a girl, she’d possessed firm breasts, but her
nipples now pointed downwards, and her stomach fell into an apron of flesh that
creased her hips.

She
hurried to cover herself with green slacks and a matching silk blouse. Long
sleeves and a high collar hid a world of sins, but what if Noel invited her to
stay with him overnight?

Clothes
off ...

She
couldn’t do it.

What
if he never asked?

She
hadn’t been with a man in fourteen years, and the last time had been a
disaster. She drank too much, went out to a bar, got picked up. Then he—Edward,
he said, though he looked more like a George. Whatever his name, he couldn’t do
it. Impotent, he said, but she knew her fleshy body turned him off.

She
went on a diet the next day, and now she was thin, but everything drooped.

The
doorbell rang. Noel, ten minutes early.

“Just
a minute!” she called.

She
brushed her hair again, carefully fluffing the thin part at the top. With her
sagging breasts hidden under the blouse, no one would ever think Evelyn
Stewardson seventy years old.

She
stumbled as she hurried out of the bathroom. The doorbell rang again.

“Coming!”

Don’t
fall. Don’t fall.

She
used both hands in the hall.

He’d
come to the front door, not the back. A message, telling her this was special.
Very special, the first time she cooked for him. She smiled, a really big
smile, and then she opened the door wide and hung onto it, so she wouldn’t fall
or stagger.

Kate.

“You?
What are you doing here?”

“Hi,
Mom. I came to talk.”

“This
is a bad time. Why didn’t you call first? It’s a bad time.” Noel could come any
minute.

“Mom,
you’ve been saying it’s a bad time for weeks.” Kate spoke with insulting slowness.
“This can’t wait. I need to tell you the truth about your friend Mr. Wilson.”

“I
knew it. You hate him; you want to spoil everything.”

Please
don’t let Noel come now.

“I
don’t hate him; I don’t even know him. Let’s go into the kitchen, Mother.”

“I
don’t want to go into the kitchen. I want you to leave.” Evelyn began to cry.
How could this happen? Why did Kate have to intrude the first time Evelyn
cooked for Noel? “Go away now.”

“Mom,
Noel Wilson has a criminal record.”

“I
don’t believe it,” Evelyn snapped. “I don’t believe you.”

“He’s
been convicted of fraud, and you’ve loaned him money.”

Evelyn
heard Noel’s footsteps on the back stairs. Urgently, she shoved at Kate’s
shoulder. “Get out of here! He’s coming. Get out!”

“I’d
like to meet him.”

“If
you don’t get out of this house now, I will never forgive you!”

Noel’s
knock sounded eager and certain.

“Kate,
if you don’t go now, I will never forgive you.”

“You’re
making a mistake, Mom.”

“Get
off my back! I won’t let you spoil Noel the way you spoiled my marriage. My
daughter has no place telling me how to live my life. I have the right to see
anyone I want.”

Kate
stared at her as if Evelyn were some kind of monster. Finally, she muttered, “I
guess you do.”

“I
want you to go.”

Kate
stepped back.
Please, please go.

“If
you need me ...”

“I
don’t need you. I’m fine.”

Kate
stepped outside just as Noel knocked again.

Evelyn
tripped on the edge of the carpet as she hurried to the back door. She grabbed
at the kitchen doorway. “I’m coming! Noel, I’m coming!”

I
f
you don’t get out of this house now, I will never forgive you!

If
a client reported the conversation to Kate, she would probably say, “You gave
her the information. You can’t protect her from making her own mistakes, any
more than you can protect a child forever.”

“Get
off my back.” Very clear. Your mother doesn’t want you fixing her life.

Why
was life so damned complicated? If David were here, she could talk about her
mother, share the weight and the decisions. He could tell Kate she wasn’t a bad
daughter, not a bad mother. Six months after David’s death, life persisted in
demonstrating how much she needed him.

She
remembered one stormy night years ago. David was late coming home from a
meeting, and she’d fallen into accident-hospital-disaster fantasies. She had
counseled clients trying to find their feet after a partner died, had witnessed
the inevitable confusion, depression, and anger. But, arrogantly, that night
she believed if she were the one left behind, she would leap those painful
emotions and emerge alone, but intact. Loss would leave her inner core
untouched.

She
hadn’t understood memory’s power to attack, hadn’t expected the vivid dreams
that yanked her awake each night. David on the floor, middle-aged frost at his
temple, eyes half-open, the remote telephone inches from his right hand.

Had
he hurt himself, broken something, a leg or an arm? She didn’t know what to do.
Had he knocked himself out? Despite the icy-road-late-husband fantasies that
grew on stormy nights, she never considered he might be dead.

Injuries,
not death.

The
phone in her hand. Call 9-1-1. He’s unconscious, but the phone won’t work.
Battery dead. Run for the kitchen, dash back to feel his merciful breath warm
on her cheek. Call 9-1-1 and then run back to David.

Between
the sound of the ambulance in the drive, and her return from the front door
with paramedics, he died. She hadn’t thought of a heart attack, hadn’t done
CPR, although she’d taken the course. They said it wouldn’t have made any
difference, but night after night, lying beside David’s unoccupied place on the
bed, she knew she’d failed him.

He’d
called, and she’d kept her hands in the dishwater. If she’d responded sooner,
he might still be alive.

Kate,
you know better than that.

Let
it go. Can’t bring him back.

She
hated platitudes.