Making It Last - A Novella (Camelot Series) (2 page)

“Okay!” the van’s driver called. “Let’s get all the people onto the shuttle for the airport now. Everyone taking the shuttle to the airport, please bring your luggage to me!”

She liked the musical sound of his accent. The way he said “pee-
puhl
” for
people
and danced, tongue tapping, over the word
shuttle
.

She thought she might have liked this place if she’d come at a different time, or in some other, completely different set of circumstances. When Caleb told her back in the fall that he and Ellen were going to get married here, she’d mentally packed herself a suitcase full of new sundresses and beach paperbacks. She’d laid by the fantasy pool on a fantasy lounger in a fantasy bikini, skin shiny with oil, holding Tony’s hand. She’d looked fantastic—the product of months of work at the gym with Marc, sculpting her body back into shape. And Tony had noticed. He’d stared at her. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her.

In her fantasy.

Over by the column, Katie smiled, and Sean leaned down and kissed her. It was the kind of kiss that Amber had almost forgotten existed—a long and lingering kiss that wasn’t meant to go anywhere in particular. A kiss like breathing, like saying
I love you, I want you, I need you
with every shared breath.

It kept going. Her chest got tight and achy. Her eyes hurt in that tired, watery way, like she’d been staring at the roadway of her life through the high beams for too long, and she just wanted to close them. She wanted to
rest
.

Tony kissed her before bed and when he left for work—quick and perfunctory.

They kissed when they were going to have sex.

They didn’t kiss out in the open, for no reason but the pleasure of it.

You’ll lose that
, she thought.

And then she hated herself for being such a bitter old hag.

Hated that the thought made her want to cry even more, and that there wasn’t any place or any time for her to cry. Not for hours and hours.

She hated that she’d become the kind of woman who looked forward to the next time she could be alone to cry.

In the last few months, Amber had felt herself slipping off course—moving in a misshapen orbit that pushed her farther and farther away from the life she wanted to live. When she tried to figure out the when and the why of it, she couldn’t put her finger on any one thing that had changed. It was more like a hundred little asteroids had come along and knocked her out of alignment. Her dad’s stroke over a year ago. Tony’s mom dying a few months later, and Patrick tucking himself into a tight downward spiral that had culminated in his decision to quit working for Mazzara Construction.

Longer ago, the housing bubble popping with a wet splat. Tony starting to work more hours for less money. Then more hours. More.

Jacob starting full-day school, leaving Amber alone in an empty house for the first time in a decade, and her realization that she was supposed to feel elated, but really what she felt was alone.

She’d lost whatever sun she’d once orbited around, and without it—without that feeling of knowing herself, of
being
known—there was a part of her that never warmed. A part of her that was always shivering and cold, right on the verge of tears, and loud in its misery.
Loud
. So that the real work of her days, even as she took the kids to play dates and bought milk and gassed up the car, became keeping it quiet. Shushing it sternly, yelling at it if she had to, because if she didn’t keep it in check, she ended up crying in the kitchen in the middle of the day with no one around but the dog to notice, and that wouldn’t do.

It wouldn’t do at all.

“Do you have any crackers?” Jacob asked.

“Just the ones with peanut butter.”

“Do those have milk in them?”

“Yeah. But I think I have one of those Rice Krispie bars in my purse, too. If you can keep down the pretzels, I’ll give it to you at the airport.”

Jacob perked up. “I thought it was for Ant.”

“Ant just lost it.”

Though it looked like Anthony was getting a consolation prize. Over at his bench, her mother had produced a red bag from her purse full of some kind of candy he immediately tore into. They probably had the dye in them that made him absolutely apeshit. He shoved several in his mouth, and her mom started steering him toward the van.

“You ready to try this, bub?” Amber asked Jacob.

“Sure.”

She stood up. When he held out his arms, she lifted him to her hip, even though he was too big for it. Six years old—people gave them funny looks sometimes. But he was her baby. Her last baby. When he stopped wanting her to carry him, no one ever would again.

They walked across the lobby. Jacob rested his head against her neck, and a rogue tear got away from her. It worked its way down her cheek to her neck before she could free a hand to wipe it away. When she’d managed to take another deep breath and get herself under control, she looked up to see Tony watching her.

Not looking at her impatiently, or looking through her or past her—really looking
at
her.

She stopped. Another tear fell, and she brushed it away.

There was something about the way his mouth was set. Something in his eyes, like anguish. Like
longing
.

She couldn’t understand what it meant. She was right here.

He closed the space between them and took Jacob by the armpits, hoisting him into his arms.

“You okay now, buddy?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, but I want Mom,” Jacob said.

“I know. We’re just getting in the van, though. Give Mom a minute, okay?”

Jacob made a faint noise of protest, but Tony was already bundling him through the door, and Amber was left alone in the middle of the bustle. She could hear the ocean. The driver talking as he loaded in Sean and Katie’s bags. Her kids’ voices inside the van and the low,
familiar register of Tony soothing Jacob.

A breeze blew through the open lobby, cooling the back of her neck and leaving her feeling naked and isolated.

She shivered.

She wished Tony hadn’t seen.

There was no excuse for the tears. She hadn’t yet left the gorgeous resort where she’d spent a few days with her healthy, beautiful family. Money had been tight for so long—was tighter than ever right now—that they never would have come if her brother hadn’t been getting married here, and if he hadn’t insisted on paying for the plane tickets.

This trip was the first significant vacation her family had taken together, the first time any of the kids had traveled internationally, visited the ocean. The first time they’d had their father to themselves for five days in she didn’t know how long.

A treat. A luxury that she was grateful for.

She
was
.

Whatever was wrong with her, it was some kind of first-world problem, and she didn’t want to dump it on her husband. He worked so hard—worked as close to constantly as one man could without breaking. The housing market had been in the toilet for longer than anyone had expected, but Tony did everything possible to make up for it. He took jobs all over the state, wherever he could get them, and he never complained.

The work took him away from her, took him away from their kids, but the work was Tony. It was the way he loved them—by doing what needed to be done. Building them a big, beautiful house, carefully planning the details to suit her, making sure there would be enough room as the boys got older.

He was a good person, a great father. She didn’t want to resent him for never finding time for her, because they were partners, and they’d worked out their roles a long time ago.

They both had to pull their part of the load.

It was just that she was afraid to think about what that look on Tony’s face might mean.

Amber approached the van and started to file in behind Sean, who was ducking into the back with Katie. Tony turned around from where he was crouching across the front bench. “Hold on a sec, hon. I’m coming back out.”

“Aren’t we in a hurry?”

“Yeah. But hold on.”

She eased back out, apologizing to her aunt when she bumped into her. Jamila gave her a beautiful smile. “That’s all right. Help me up?”

Amber supported her aunt’s elbow as Jamila lifted her bulk into the van. She was very fat. Amber’s mom was always harping on it, but Jamila carried the weight as though she was supposed to have it. When the sisters stood next to each other, Amber often thought her mother looked starved, rather than Jamila excessive.

After her aunt was settled in the middle bench seat, she fussed with her purse and then said “Here, honey.” She pressed something into Amber’s hand. An envelope. “Put this in your purse for later.”

“Thank you,” Amber said, because Jamila was always pressing things into her hand. When she was a kid, it had been rolled-up five-dollar bills. At her college graduation, it was a card with five hundred dollars in it—an unbelievable sum.

Amber stepped back, tucked the envelope away. Tony followed her. He took her elbow and led her to a spot on the curb.

“We don’ want to be late!” the driver called. His smile appeared strained. Everyone in the van was watching them. Tony steered her so her back was to the vehicle, but she could still feel all those phantom eyeballs, wondering what this was about.

She looked at Tony, wondering the same thing.

Ten years of fatherhood had carved all the lines in his face deeper, and ever since he’d shaved off his hair for a charity fund-raiser he’d been keeping it short—he said because it was more convenient, but she thought mostly because it had grown back much more salt-and-pepper than it used to be.

She liked that salt-and-pepper. All her favorite things about the way Tony looked were the things no one else noticed or cared about. The way his bottom front teeth had been moving slowly out of alignment, one pushing to the front, the other ducking behind. The dimple in his right ear where he’d had it pierced as a teenager.

She’d found a snapshot of him with a diamond stud in that ear at his mother’s house. He looked so young in the picture, so unfinished and unsure, that she’d asked her mother-in-law if she could take it home. She’d framed it and put it on top of her dresser, because she loved that boy he’d been once. Long before he met her, when he’d raised hell with his brother Patrick until
the horrible day when Patrick struck his daughter with his car and killed her. Tony had been in the backseat. The young, unfinished boy he had been had died that day, too.

Tragedies happened, and people kept going, but they never forgot. Never really got over it. Grief for Nicole still stood between Tony and Patrick, all these years later.

Amber looked at the pink slash of scar tissue through Tony’s eyebrow where Patrick had decked him last year. The last night they’d spoken to each other.

Tony returned her gaze, but he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like him, and the longer she waited, the farther her stomach sank. Finally, she asked, “What is it?” because she knew, suddenly, that he was about to say something terrible and ill-timed.

He’d met someone else. Someone young and vibrant who had ambitions beyond fitting back into her pre-pregnancy clothes. A woman who read the newspaper and had opinions, topics of conversation other than her children.

The idea made her belligerent—so much so that it must have shown in her eyes, because Tony flinched away from her slightly, taken aback.

I never asked for this to happen to me
, she wanted to tell him.
I’ve just been trying so hard for so long, I don’t have anything left. Not for you. Not even for me
.

I don’t know who I am anymore
.

“You can stay,” he said. “If you want to.”

“What?”

“I want you to stay here a few more days. Take a break.”

“Where is this coming from?”

She turned slightly so she could see the driver. He was standing on the running board, his head popping over the top of the van. Beaming discomfort in their direction.

Tony took her by the shoulder and firmly steered her back around to face him.

“It was Jamila’s idea, but she’s right. This vacation sucked for you. I think—I think a lot of things must suck for you, and I can’t usually do anything about it.” He exhaled and raked his hand over his head. Pushing his fingers through hair he didn’t have anymore. “This time I can. You know how Jamila’s leaving early?”

Amber nodded.

“Well, she says her reservation is completely paid for. Nonrefundable. Their room’s going empty. You can stay there, eat on the resort’s dime, and we can swing the change fee on
your ticket. So why don’t you just take a few days?”

“Without you and the boys?”

He smiled. “It’ll be better without us. You can eat at that restaurant you wanted to go to—the fancy one—without listening to us complain. And get a massage. Take a nap and read your book on the beach.” He squeezed her shoulder.

“How come?”

But she knew. It was because she’d cried, and he’d seen her.

Because she couldn’t keep it together anymore.

“You deserve a break.”

“I’m really okay. Despite any appearances to the contrary.”

“I know. But you wanted this, right? The whole thing with the beach and the sun and the girly umbrella drinks. And you didn’t get it at all.”

She
had
wanted it. She’d bookmarked the website page about the resort’s family-friendly activities. The Kids’ Club.
A second honeymoon
, she’d told herself. She and Tony, at least halfway unburdened from their ordinary preoccupation with jobs and children.

Everything he described, she’d thought they would be able to do together.

But Jacob hadn’t wanted to go with the Kids’ Club employees, and Clark and Anthony had both declared themselves too old for the family activities. Tony had thrown his lot in with them.
Why are we here
, he’d asked,
if not to spend time together as a family?

And then she’d killed him.

But not really.

So it had been a long weekend of buffet dinners, and burgers and fries for lunch. A vacation spent watching Tony toss a Nerf football in the pool with the boys, or listening to him chew out some poor underling on his cell phone while she tried to keep the kids entertained by herself.