Lightning (45 page)

“Are you sure they have?” he asked softly.

“Positive,” she said firmly. “I'm not his wife now. I'm someone different than I was before. I don't know …I'm not sure you can ever go back, after all that happened to us. You can only go forward.” And she had, into Brock's arms, but she was not his wife either. She was no one's. She was her own, for the first time in years, and as lonely as it had been for a while, now at times she even liked it. She had the best of both worlds. A sense of herself she'd never had before, and Brock, whom she loved deeply.

“Just let me know if anything changes,” he said simply, watching her eyes, and only somewhat reassured by what he saw there. He knew she was torn by everything she was feeling. She felt sorry for Sam, and loyalty to Brock. And in her own way, she loved both of them, and Annabelle, and she wanted what was right for everyone. Sometimes that wasn't easy.

“Don't say things like that,” she chided him. “Nothing's going to change. It's just going to be a hard time for him, and I'd like to at least be supportive.”

“Why? He didn't support you last year. Why should this be any different?”

“Maybe for old times' sake.” But Brock wanted that with her. He wanted the same ancient bond that tied her to Sam even now, even from a distance.

“Don't feel too sorry for him,” he warned, kissing her again gently. “I need you,” he whispered.

“So do I,” she whispered back, and they made love that morning in the bed she had once shared with Sam, and knew she never would again. What she had said to Brock was true, and she believed it. The past was gone, and it was time to move forward. Besides, she loved him.

But Sam was in a pensive mood when she picked Annabelle up at the Carlyle late that afternoon, after their day together. It was as though in the past twenty-four hours, the verdict had really sunk in, and he was beginning to panic. He was about to lose everything, his freedom, his life, his little girl, even the last whispers of all he had once shared with Alex. And he was suddenly a lot less philosophical and less glib than he had been the night before over his Scotch after the verdict. Being with Annabelle had reminded him of all he would lose, and seeing Alex made it even more poignant.

He had told Annabelle that afternoon that things hadn't gone well for him. She still didn't understand what that meant, and he hadn't explained it fully with all the implications. He had said nothing about leaving her, or going to prison. He would have to deal with that later. He had another thirty days in which to do it.

“Did you two have fun?” Alex asked, smiling at them. She had come to pick Annabelle up, while Brock shopped for their dinner at Gristede's.

“We had a great time,” Sam said, looking better but still tense. “We went skating.” And then he sent Annabelle into the other room to get her doll and her sweater, and he turned to Alex with a look of anguish. “I'm sorry about your friend this morning. He seemed annoyed. I think I upset him,” he said. She nodded, hesitating about how much to say to him, but as always she was honest.

“He's afraid of our history, Sam. I can't really blame him. Eighteen years is a long time, it's hard to explain that to someone else. He's afraid that loyalty is more powerful than love, which is foolish.”

“Is it?” he asked softly, daring to raise his eyes to hers, and he ached instantly at what he saw there. He saw a woman he had hurt deeply, and every moment he spent with her, he remembered. “Is it only loyalty?” he asked thoughtfully. “I'm sorry to hear it. I suppose I'm lucky there's still that, after what I did to you.” He had spent the previous night, and even that afternoon, thinking about her, and the pain he had caused her.

“Sam, don't …” she said gently. It was too late for recriminations. There were too many regrets, and bad memories, along with the good ones.

“Why not? I guess I shouldn't say anything, but I have this crazy sense of time running out suddenly, which we both know isn't so crazy, after Friday's verdict. Maybe it's important to say things now, just in case there's no chance to say them later.” She understood what he felt, but she couldn't help him. She could be there for him, to a point, she could help him with Annabelle, and sympathize with what he was going through, but she couldn't give him more than that. That part of her life was Brock's now. “I still love you,” he said softly, and tore at her heart, as Annabelle skipped back into the room with her doll and her sweater. “I mean it,” he said pointedly, and she turned away, ignoring him, wishing he hadn't said anything. He had no right to.

Alex helped Annabelle put her sweater on, and then her hat and coat with trembling hands and she didn't say a word to Sam until Annabelle went to ring for the elevator, and they followed.

“Don't make things harder than they have to be. I know this is a hard time for you, and I feel terrible, but Sam …don't hurt all of us again now.” If he toyed with her, it would only hurt her, and Brock, and Annabelle, and even himself. “Don't do that.”

“I didn't mean to hurt you,” he said thoughtfully. There was suddenly so much he had to tell her. “I guess I ought to have the guts to leave you alone, no matter what I feel, especially if I'm going to prison. I promised myself that. But maybe it's a bigger mistake to just let you slip away without at least telling you I love you. I know I have no right to you. Hell, I don't even feel like a man anymore. Everything I ever hooked my identity to is gone, money, success, position … I guess that's how you felt when you lost your breast, but we're both stupid. Your womanhood wasn't in your breast …my manhood wasn't in my office …it's in our hearts, our souls, who we are, what we believe in. I don't know why I never understood that before. I understand so much more now, and the bitch of it is that I've figured it all out too late, too late for us anyway … all I want is to turn the clock back a year and start over.” She was shocked by what he was saying.

“I can't, Sam,” she whispered, as she closed her eyes for a moment so she wouldn't have to see the pain in his eyes, or the love she suddenly saw there. Why hadn't he said it all a year before? It was too late now. “Don't say these things to me … I can't go back again, and I can't do this to Brock.” She had promised him she wouldn't only that morning.

“What are you doing with him?” Sam said, sounding annoyed. “He's a kid. A nice kid, I can see that. And he's been good to you, but ten years from now where will you be? Can he really give you what you want?”

“It's not what he can give me,” she said firmly to Sam, “he's already given me so much. It's my turn to give now.”

“You can't give him your life to make up for what he did for you, any more than I can make up to you for what I didn't. But I still love you, Alex …you're still my wife. Maybe I have no right to you anymore, I'm sure I don't. But I want you to know I'll always love you. Even at my craziest, at my worst … I always loved you. I didn't want to leave, but I couldn't stay either. I was running away from everything, you, my mother's ghost, reality. And I had to get that girl out of my blood. I know how wrong it was, but she was driving me crazy. And so were you. I was driving myself mad more than anything. But I never meant to hurt you.” He wanted her to hear all of it from him, before he went to prison. But it wasn't fair. He pulled a string that hadn't been severed yet, and touched a part of her that was still his, which hurt too much. She didn't want to love him.

Her voice was deep and sad when she answered him, and glanced ahead at Annabelle, waiting for them in the distance, in the hallway. “It would be so much easier, Sam, if we left each other cleanly. Don't look back, don't cry over the past …what's the point now?”

“Maybe there is no point anymore. But there is no ‘clean' after eighteen years. I don't know where you stop and I begin,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Can you really walk away from it like that? Can you say you don't feel anything, only loyalty? I don't believe you.”

Neither did she, but she was suddenly furious at what he was doing. Suddenly, he wanted to confess all his sins, and bare his soul. At the eleventh hour, in spite of everything that he had done, he didn't want to lose her. “What do you want from me, Sam?” she asked him angrily. “To make me admit I love you, so you can feel good about it when you leave? …Let me go …let us both be free, just as you said yesterday after the verdict. We both need that. Don't carry this with you to prison.”

“I can't let go of it,” he said, in visible agony. He had been awake all night, thinking about her, and the verdict. And suddenly, everything was different. He wasn't willing to just let her slip away from him in silence. “I don't know how to let go,” he said, touching her arm, and aching to kiss her. “I still love you.”

“So do I, Sam,” she said miserably, and Brock knew it too, he had said so. “But it's too late now.” They both knew it, but he wasn't ready to give up yet, and she looked at him, Annabelle waved and the elevator door opened. “Don't do this, Sam …please …for both our sakes.” It had been much easier than this when he'd left her for Daphne. He had seemed so sure then, and now he seemed so broken, and she was no longer clear what she owed him.

“I'm sorry, Alex,” he apologized, looking desperately unhappy. “Can I see you sometime?” He looked panicked. The elevator was waiting.

“No.” She shook her head and hurried toward Annabelle, sorry she had come at all. “I can't, Sam …” She couldn't do that to Brock, or herself. She just couldn't. “I'm sorry.”

She stepped into the elevator then, next to Annabelle, and his eyes blazed into hers as the doors closed. And all the way home to her apartment, she tried to force him from her mind, and everything he had said, and think of Brock, as she clung to her daughter.

“Was Daddy mad at you?” Annabelle glanced up at her, looking puzzled, in the chill wind, as Christmas shoppers hurried past them.

“No, sweetheart. He was fine,” she lied, wondering why children always saw all the things they shouldn't.

“He looked sad when we left.”

“He was probably just unhappy to see you go, but he wasn't mad. I promise.” Only sad. And very foolish.

It was a relief to get home to Brock, and the rich smells wafting from her kitchen. He was making spaghetti sauce and garlic bread, and Alex had promised to make soup and pasta and salad, and hot fudge sundaes.

“Everything go okay?” he asked, glancing at her as she took her coat off and warmed her hands. She seemed very cold and somewhat shaken.

“Fine,” she smiled, slipping her arms around him as he stood at the stove, and forcing herself to forget everything Sam had told her. But no matter what she did that night, or how tightly she clung to Brock as he lay beside her, Sam's words continued to drift around her like spirits.

Chapter 22

A
nnabelle spent a week with Sam, starting on Christmas Day, and Alex made a point of not seeing him when she dropped her off. She let her go up alone in the elevator at the Carlyle. Alex hadn't heard from him again since the last time she saw him, and she could only assume that he had come to his senses. And whether or not he was thinking clearly again, she knew she was.

Christmas Eve had been wonderful with Brock and Annabelle. And they had rented the same house in Vermont for the week between Christmas and New Year's. And this time she skied and had a great time. She had never felt better all year. Her hair had grown longer by then, and she was wearing it in a stylish bob that Brock said he loved, and thought was very sexy. And after a few days in Vermont with her, he relaxed about Sam. Brock knew how much Alex loved him, and he felt suddenly foolish to have been worried.

They also learned, while they were there, that Sam had filed for divorce just after Christmas. And Alex was particularly relieved to hear it. He had obviously come to his senses. Leaving the past behind was difficult for both of them, but there was no question in her mind that they had to do it.

She and Brock talked about getting married quietly in June, and she reminded him again that they still had to work things out at the law firm. They even talked about their honeymoon as they lay by the fire on New Year's Eve, and Alex said dreamily that she would love to go to Europe.

“I think that could be arranged,” he said, sounding warm and comfortable and sexy. They had just made love, and he was half asleep lying next to her, as she smiled up at him and smoothed his hair back. He looked like a boy to her sometimes, a huge overgrown child, so innocent and trusting, it made her love him even more as she held him.

And on New Year's Day they drove back to New York from Vermont. It was a long drive, and they went to the apartment first, and dropped off their skis and suitcases. And then she walked over to pick up Annabelle at the Carlyle still in ski clothes. She called Sam from the desk downstairs, and he asked her to come up just for a minute. She hesitated, and then decided there was no harm in it. He'd filed for the divorce while she was gone. He understood what she wanted.

But when she got upstairs and he opened the door to her, she was shocked when she saw him. He looked haunted.

Seeing him brought it all home to her again, and the agony of what he was facing. She suddenly ached for him, and hated the thought of his going to prison. And somehow, being faced with him again brought back all the emotions she'd been avoiding.

Annabelle still seemed unaware of the strain her father was going through, and she said she'd had a wonderful time with her Daddy.

“I'm glad, sweetheart.” Alex kissed her and held her tight as Sam looked longingly at her over their daughter. She wanted to tell him to stop the moment she saw him. She was still tormented at times by what he had said the last time they met. And this time was no different.

“I missed you,” he said softly, as Annabelle packed her things in the next room. He didn't want her to hear him.

“You shouldn't,” Alex said quietly, and then she thanked him for filing for the divorce. She knew he had done it for her sake and she was grateful.

“I owe you that at least,” he said unhappily, searching her eyes for something that appeared not to be there, and if it was, she refused to show him. “I owe you a lot of things, most of which I'll never be able to repay you.”