Queen of Broken Hearts (46 page)

Zach nods agreement, but Abbie looks worried. “Can Chief Big Cooter have a cookie if he promises not to say ugly words?” she asks Zoe.

Abashed, Cooter hangs his head. “Hey, I didn't mean to, Princess Yellow Hair. Your gramma Zoe hurt my male egret, is all, calling me weak. I'm in better shape than young braves half my age.”

Although Zoe throws him a look, she tells Abbie that Cooter can have a cookie if he'll behave. When they start toward Zoe's house with the palace guard trailing behind, Cooter picks Zach up and rides him on his shoulders, even though he's grimacing and hobbling slowly. With Abbie's hand in hers, Zoe stops in the driveway to wait for them.

“Aw, look at that.” Dory grins mischievously, coming to stand beside me at the foot of the steps. “Makes you believe in the power of love, doesn't it?”

“Either that, or an intense terror of being alone in your old age,” I say.

“Don't turn cynical on me, honey. I don't think I could stand it.”

With a laugh, I put an arm around her shoulder. “Surely you jest. What on earth could I see on a daily basis that could turn me into a cynic?”

“I know,” she says softly. “But still …” She raises her eyes and looks toward Zoe's cabin. “We find ways to make it work for us, don't we? Rather than spend our nights alone, we find a way.”

I'm a creature of habit. Regardless of what time I go to bed at night, I get up at the same time each day without having to set an alarm clock. After my exercise routine, I take a quick shower, slip on a robe, then head downstairs to dish up the breakfast I've fixed myself for years: yogurt topped with two spoonfuls of granola, which is made by Zoe Catherine and so full of sunflower, pumpkin, and flaxseed that Mack swore it was the same stuff she fed her birds. Since most Fairhope mornings are pleasant and sunny, even winter ones, I take my yogurt and coffee to the arbor outside. Half an hour later, it's time to dress and head to the office.

Monday morning, however, my routine is disturbed. With the tray holding my breakfast in one hand, I stop in surprise when I reach for the back door. A note has been pushed under it, and I recognize Lex's bold scrawl: “Clare, didn't want to scare you, but I'm outside—I need to talk to you.”

Sure enough, when I go outside, Lex is sitting at the table under the arbor, hunched over a Styrofoam cup of coffee, his face dark and troubled. For an early March morning, it's still fairly chilly, but not really cold. Yet Lex is wearing his marina jacket with the collar turned up as though an arctic wind is blowing. He's so lost in thought, he doesn't notice my approach, but when I put down the tray, he raises his head. His eyes are red and bleary, and his mouth is a tight line, white-rimmed and taut.

“Jesus, Lex,” I say in alarm, sinking into my chair. “What is it?”

He looks at me for a long moment before saying, “I fucked up last night.”

“Evidently. Have you had any sleep? You look dreadful.”

“Couple of hours, maybe.” I wait for him to go on, but he looks away, his eyes traveling to the garden. It's been so peaceful out here these late winter mornings, with the singsong chatter of the cardinals clustered around the bird feeder, and the tartness of the salt-scented air. Finally Lex turns back to face me and rubs his face wearily. “I got drunk last night. Falling-down, stumbling, commode-hugging drunk.”

I sigh and lean back in the chair. “Oh, dear.”

“‘Oh, shit' is more like it,” he says wryly. “I won't even tell you what my blood pressure was this morning. My doctor's gonna chew my ass out good. I've put off my checkup for ages now, and I finally got it scheduled for later this afternoon. But I'm thinking of canceling it so I won't have to face him.”

I take my coffee cup in both hands, cradling the warmth, trying to decide on the best plan of action. He's so resistant to talking about his emotions that I have to proceed cautiously. Usually humor works best with him, so I say lightly, “Well, it could've been worse. I was afraid you'd come to tell me that you'd gone back to Elinor.”

“That, too,” he says.

“Oh, shit,” I say, and both of us smile.

“It was your damn fault,” he says peevishly, and I stare at him openmouthed.

“What do you mean,
my
fault?”

“You left me a message Saturday, remember?”

“Of course I remember. I'm not senile yet. I was at Wayfarer's Landing, and I called to tell you how much I appreciated all the work you did on my office. It looks great, and I really love it.”

“As soon as I got your message, I sent you an SOS, knowing how anal you are about returning your messages. I asked you to call me back because I needed to talk. Good thing about having a therapist as a friend, I figured. Ha! Didn't occur to me you wouldn't even bother to return my call.” He finishes off his coffee, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at me.

He's right; I always return my messages, and I did so yesterday. Or at least one of them. It was pretty late when I got in. Since I'd taken the kids with me on Saturday, I hadn't gotten as much work done as I'd hoped, so Sunday I returned to Wayfarer's Landing alone. I spent the day fixing up my office, stopping a couple of times to drive to Wal-Mart for supplies. Last night I had dinner at Rye's, and afterward we turned on the stereo, pushed back the rug in his living room, and worked on our tango moves for an upcoming dance. When I got home about eleven, the first thing I did was check my messages. In addition to the one from Lex, I had three frantic calls from a client. After being on the phone with her an hour, I went to bed thinking I'd call Lex first thing this morning. I had no idea he was having a crisis.

“Dammit, Lex, you did
not
say that you needed to talk. Here's what you said.” In an imitation of his Maine brogue, I growl gruffly, “Hey, Clare, Lex here. Gimme a call, would ya?”

“So? Why would I be calling if I didn't need your help?”

“I can think of a dozen reasons.” I put my cup down so hard that the coffee sloshes on my hand. “First of all, let me remind you that you've only called me a few times in the last couple of months. You've—”

“That's your damn fault. What you get for hurting my feelings, throwing me out in the cold.”

Thinking it best not to go there, I continue, “And furthermore, you did not call me yesterday. Not technically, anyway. You simply pressed a button to return
my
call, so that doesn't count. For all I knew, it could've been something about my office, in response to what I'd said to you.”

“You would've called me back if it'd been about your precious office,” he grumbles. “But I need you, and what happens? You don't even bother to see what's going on. What kind of therapist are you?”

“What do you mean by that crack? I'll tell you what I'm not—I am not your therapist, thank God. Are we in agreement on that, at least?”

“That's for sure. If you were, I'd fire you for dereliction of duty.”

“This is crazy. I planned to call you this morning. Since you told me nothing about what was going on with you—as usual—I assumed it could wait. Why didn't you say anything? You could've said, ‘Clare, something's happened, and I need to talk to you.'”

“Any more coffee in the house?”

“No!” I slam my hand on the table, and he jumps back, startled. “I mean, yes, of course there's more coffee, but
no,
you are not going into the house until you tell me what's going on.” We glare at each other until Lex sighs heavily and lowers his head. After a long moment, he looks up sheepishly.

“Then can I have some fucking coffee?”

“Oh, for God's sake.” I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling, but I'm determined not to let him do this again. “Go get your bloody coffee, because it looks like you need it bad. But you're telling me everything when you get back, you hear?”

A look of panic crosses his face as he gets to his feet, banging his knees against the table. “Everything?”

“Every disgusting detail. Tell it, brother.” I hand him my cup. “And warm mine up while you're at it.”

I expect to have to drag it out of him, but when Lex returns and sits across from me, it comes pouring out. I sit quietly, sipping the coffee and struggling to remain silent, to keep from scaring him off with my prodding. Although he had filled me in on the basic details of his marriage to Elinor when we first told each other our war stories—as single folks are prone to do—he'd talked very little about his feelings. As usual, he'd treated them lightly and humorously.

“I went to Elinor's last night,” he begins, and I nod helpfully. Then, with a note of defiance, he blurts out, “And ended up spending the night with her.”

Ah. So that's it. Again I nod and sip my coffee, putting on my best professional face. When they first moved to Fairhope, Elinor and Lex bought an old bungalow on Magnolia Avenue, a couple of blocks from downtown, and restored it. After their divorce, she kept the house, and Lex moved into the little efficiency above the marina. It was supposed to be a temporary move for him until he found a bigger place, but he found it so convenient, he'd stayed. After all, he told me, like the quarters of a ship, it had a fridge and microwave, a bunk, a TV, and a john—what else could he possibly need?

“Did you decide to spend the night with her before or after you got drunk?” I say, unable to resist.

If he notices my sarcasm, he doesn't react. “I got drunk at her place before deciding to stay over.”

“You got drunk, and you stayed all night.” A common therapist's trick, echoing back a client's response until I come up with one of my own.

Lex seems to be waiting for me to say more, but when I watch him in silence, he shrugs. “Yeah. And quit looking at me like that.”

“How am I looking at you?”

“You know.” He puts his cup on the table but continues to fiddle with it, rocking it back and forth absently. “I didn't intend to spend the night at Elinor's, but sometimes it gets so damn
lonely
at my place.” He shakes his head in bewilderment. “I always thought I was the kind of person who never got lonesome.”

“Such a person doesn't exist.” He cups a hand to his ear, and I have to repeat myself, I said it so quietly. As I do, a memory flashes through my mind. Rye said almost the same thing this past summer when he took me by surprise with his proposal. “By choice, I've been alone my whole life, Clare,” Rye said. “But for the first time, I've been feeling lonesome lately. Just downright lonesome.”

“So, do you think it was mainly loneliness that sent you to Elinor's?” I ask as I watch Lex over the rim of my cup.

He thinks about it. “Yawp, that's part of it. That's when I called you, by the way, before I went over there. Guess I was hoping you'd talk me out of going. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Elinor's and my divorce.”

I stare at him in surprise. “No kidding? How time flies when you're having fun, huh?”

“I'd blocked the date out—didn't even realize it until Elinor called to ask me over. She said it was all she'd thought about all day. We had dinner together, then we started talking about when we first met, and when we got married … when Alexia came along …”

“She called you over to reminisce about your marriage, then.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. But some of those memories weren't so great for me. Matter of fact, they kind of cut through me like a knife blade, and that's when I started pouring the booze.” I nod, and Lex falls quiet, deep in thought as he stares into his coffee cup. Finally he says, “What got me most of all was reliving the time she left me last year. It's not easy for a proud man like me to admit this; matter of fact, it's pretty humiliating. But I begged Elinor not to leave me. I pleaded with her, even though I didn't think she'd loved me for a long time. Maybe years. You can tell these things, you know? But like a fool, I still didn't expect her to end it like that.”

“Nothing foolish about it. Especially now, when she obviously thinks she made a mistake by doing so.” When he looks puzzled, I say in exasperation, “You spent the night with her last night. That means you two are back together, doesn't it?”

He lets out a ragged sigh and runs his fingers through his hair. “Aw, hell, I don't know. Last night Elinor said our divorce was the biggest mistake of her life. Said she wished to God she hadn't gone through with it, but that's what it took to make her realize how much she loved me.” He glances over at me and adds, “And yeah, she did ask me to move back to our house.”

“What was your response?”

“I told her I'd have to think about it, because I couldn't go through all that crap again. I mean it. All that about killed me.”

“‘All that' meaning?” I know what he means, but he needs to articulate it.

“All that back-and-forth before she filed. Her saying one day she wanted us to stay together, then the next that she wanted me out of her life for good. No way I'll go through that again. If I move back in, I'm not by God moving out the first time things don't go her way and she gets pissed with me.”