Secrets She Left Behind (21 page)

So, I wondered as I picked up the basin of water from the closed toilet-bowl lid, did Jen have a boyfriend?

I carried the basin back into the family room. Jen had moved the coffee table aside and put her basin on a towel in front of the sectional. She was already soaking her feet. I lowered my tub to a second towel.

“I put on
In Her Shoes,
” Jen said. “I thought that was appropriate to watch during a pedicure.”

“I love that one,” I said.

“Me, too.”

I sat down and rolled up the hem of my capris.

“Is one of the people who own this house an artist?” I asked.

“Why?” She held the remote toward the TV, pumping the volume button.

“I saw the painting in the bedroom.”

“Oh. Yeah. Mrs. Roscoe paints, I think.” She fiddled with the remote for a second. “You have great hair,” she said suddenly.

“Are you kidding?” I lowered my feet into the warm, slippery water. “I’d give anything to have yours.”

“Mine’s so totally straight. You’ve got those amazing waves.”

“I’d rather have straight,” I said. This felt so high school, the two of us pampering ourselves and talking girl talk. I was loving it.

“Ready?” She pointed the remote toward the screen.

“Uh-huh.”

She clicked the button, then groaned. “A preview,” she said. “I hate previews.”

“Me, too.” The preview was for
The Holiday,
which I’d seen about five times.

“Oh, well.” She hit the mute button, then reached for one of the throw pillows on the sectional, plumping it up behind her back. “So,” she said, “what was it really like in prison?”

Huh?
It was such a totally weird time to ask a question like that, that I was too surprised to answer right away. I guessed it was her idea of small talk while the preview was on, but there was nothing small about the subject.

“It was what you’d expect,” I said finally. I stared straight ahead at the TV, where Jack Black was chatting with Kate Winslet. “It was scary. Lonely. A lot of really tough women.” I so did not want to think about prison.

“You see those shows that make it seem not all that bad.” Jen lifted one foot out of the basin and watched the water stream off her heel for a couple of seconds before submerging it again. “You get three meals a day and health care if you get sick and recreational stuff to do, right?”

She was so far off the mark that I didn’t know what to say.

“You get all that for free,” she said. “I mean, I know it’s not like being on the outside, but how bad could it be? You don’t have to have a job and go to work every day.”

“Jen,”
I said. I felt like there was a huge animal inside my chest that was fighting to get out. “It’s nothing like that. It’s—”

“Shh, shh! It’s starting!” She pressed the volume button on the remote, then suddenly laughed out loud. “Oh, God!” she said. “Cameron Diaz is such a hoot in this movie!”

I fantasized about grabbing the remote. Turning off the movie so
I could set her straight about the last year of my life, but Jen was smiling. Giggling. Totally absorbed in the movie, and I knew the animal in my chest would stay trapped in there for the rest of the night.

Maybe forever.

Sara
A Hole in My Heart
1991

“H
EY!” JAMIE SAID AS HE WALKED INTO MY HOSPITAL ROOM,
and I pressed my lips together to keep from crying. I felt as though I’d been waiting weeks instead of hours to see him. He didn’t look at me as he reached toward Steve, who sat next to my bed. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks!” Steve stood up and shook his hand. “Did you get to see him?” He nodded toward the hallway and the nursery. “Nine pounds, four ounces.”

“I saw him. He looks great.” Jamie leaned down to kiss my cheek. “How’re you doing, Mama?” he asked softly.

“Okay.” I smiled, although I was not doing okay at all. My calm exterior was an act. Inside, I was falling apart.

“I think he has your lips,” Jamie said to me.

No,
I thought.
He has
your
lips.
Your
hair.
Your
eyes.

“Listen.” Steve stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to take advantage of you being here to grab a bite in the cafeteria. Is that okay with you, Sara?”

I nodded. It was better than okay. I didn’t know how I was going to hold it together with both men in the room.

We listened to Steve’s footsteps receding down the hallway and when I knew he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear me, I burst into tears. Jamie pulled the curtain around my bed—I had a sleeping roommate in her own curtained cubicle—then sat on my mattress and wrapped me in his arms.

“Shh,” he said, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Oh, God, Jamie.” I tried to keep my voice a whisper, but it was so hard. “I
needed
you here.”

“I’m here now,” he said.

My voice caught on a sob. “I wanted it to be
you
with me.”

“I know.” He rubbed my back. “I wish I could have been.”

Steve had surprised me with how well he’d handled my labor and the delivery. I’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to get through it after what happened the last time with Sam, but he hardly left my side. I was grateful to him for that, but he wasn’t Jamie.

“The baby’s sick,” I said as Jamie let go of me. I wasn’t sure he knew.

“He’s going to be all right.”

“He has a
hole
in his heart!”

“I know, but it’s small. I called Dr. Glaser, the pediatrician Laurel used to work for. He said it’s not that uncommon and that it usually goes away on its own, and—”

“They said he might need surgery when he’s older!” I grabbed his arm. In my mind, I was already burying another precious son.

“Dr. Glaser said that even if he needs surgery down the road, it’s successful in ninety-nine percent of the cases.”

Steve suddenly pulled back the curtain, and I jumped. “They told us more like ninety-nine-point-nine, didn’t they, Sara,” he said.

Jamie got to his feet. “Cafeteria closed?” He looked so guilty. As guilty as I felt.

“I didn’t go to the cafeteria,” Steve said. “I went to the nursery to have a chat with one of the nurses.”

“About Keith’s heart?” I asked.

Steve shook his head. “No, not about his heart.” His voice sounded tight, and the cold-steel color of his eyes made my own heart start to pound.

“What do you mean?” Jamie asked.

Steve leaned against the wall by the window. “I was confused by something the pediatrician said when he was in here earlier.” He looked at me. “About the baby being forty-one weeks.”

Oh, God.

“I thought I must have heard wrong, because according to what you told me, you were only thirty-eight weeks along.”

“Steve,” Jamie said. “It’s not an exact—”

“Science?” Steve finished his sentence. “Actually, it is. And I had the nurse check his chart and it said, yup. Forty-one weeks. You think I’m an idiot? I can count. I was in Monterey forty-one weeks ago. And forty weeks ago, and forty-two weeks ago, just in case you want to try the ‘not an exact science’ argument again.”

“What are you
saying?
” I tried desperately to play dumb.

“How could you
do
that to me, Sara?” Steve looked so hurt, and for the first time—truly, the first time—I wondered if maybe he
did
love me after all.

“Look, Steve,” Jamie said, “let’s—”

Steve suddenly stepped away from the window and pushed Jamie
hard,
shoving him into the footboard of my bed.

“Steve!
Don’t!
” I said.

“I opened my house to you, you son of a bitch!” Steve shouted as Jamie recovered his balance.

“Settle down.” Jamie held his hands in the air, either in sur
render or to ward off another blow. “Let’s you and me go out in the hall—”

“That’s supposed to be
my
son in there!” Steve pointed toward the hallway. “
My
son! I already lost one and now you’re taking this one away from me, too!”

I saw the tears in his eyes, and my heart broke for him. “Steve.” I leaned forward, reaching toward him, but he ignored me.

“Why couldn’t you be like the other wives?” he asked me. “You never even try to fit in. They’re just happy to have a man who cares about them and a roof over their heads. Do you think they screw around when their husbands are away?”

“C’mon, Steve.” Jamie reached for Steve’s shoulder.

“Get off me!” Steve shrugged his hand away.

“We need to talk, but not here,” Jamie said. Suddenly, he shut his eyes, two deep lines between his eyebrows. His face was gray. “Let’s get out of Sara’s room,” he said.

The way he looked frightened me. “Jamie, are you all right?” I asked.

“What’s the point in talking?” Steve shouted. “The damage is done, isn’t it?”

Jamie suddenly sucked his breath as if he were in pain. He bent over, his hand on his chest. “Oh,
shit!
” He grabbed the footboard of my bed. “Call someone, Sara!” he said. “I think I’m dying.”

At first, the doctors in the emergency room thought Jamie was having a heart attack, but I guessed it was his guilt that finally brought him to his knees. Steve called Laurel to tell her Jamie was in the E.R., and I listened to his call to her in terror, afraid he would tell her the truth about the baby. But he didn’t. And Laurel, who somehow managed to drive herself to the hospital in Jacksonville
by herself, thought Jamie’s chest pains were just his overdeveloped capacity for empathy acting up. Our baby had a heart problem, so Jamie’s pain made perfect sense to her.

Late that night, Steve told me he’d made a decision: he wanted a divorce. Our marriage had been a mistake from the start, he said. He couldn’t live with a woman who’d betrayed him the way I had, and he absolutely couldn’t live with another man’s child. He’d stay home for the next week, so my mother, who was coming to help out, wouldn’t know anything was wrong. Jamie and Maggie would be gone anyway, since the plan all along had been for them to spend that week back in the Sea Tender.

I listened quietly. I was so tired. All I felt was relief that he was making all the decisions for me.

“And here’s the deal,” he said. “My name’s on that birth certificate, so I know I’m legally responsible for child support for that…”

I watched him reach for and discard the word
bastard.

“That boy,” he said finally. “But I’m not paying it.”

“I agree,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to.” Yet I was scared. How would I manage with no money and a baby to take care of?

“I know you can come after me for it,” Steve said as if I hadn’t spoken, “but if you do, I’ll make sure that
everyone
knows whose kid he is. Laurel Lockwood’ll know. Your mother’ll know. Jamie Lockwood’s…
ridiculous
congregation will know.”

I winced.

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“The…baby will have health insurance through the military, but you’ll lose yours. But don’t think that means you can go on welfare. Not ever. Because then the government will come after me for
child support, and then…Well, I’ve explained what will happen then.”

I nodded.

“So when your mother leaves, I’m packing up and moving out. Then your minister buddy can move back in and you can live out your years together or whatever you want. At least until the end of the month when the rent is due. Because I won’t be paying it anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.” I remembered his emotional words about losing Sam. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“Yeah, well.” He rubbed his hands together and looked out the window. “You should have thought about that forty-two weeks ago.”

I was afraid Jamie might not return to my house once Steve was gone. Without Steve there, would he worry about how our living together might look? But the day after Steve moved out, Jamie and Maggie returned. If anyone talked about us, I never heard about it and I didn’t really care. I had my family together. Jamie still slept in his room while I slept in mine, but that would change eventually, I thought. I would be patient.

“Laurel’s worse than ever,” Jamie said as he told me about his week back at the Sea Tender. “She’s drinking. I mean,
seriously
drinking, now. She hangs out with Marcus. It’s out of control and I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back here with you and Mags and Keith.”

Jamie paid the rent on the house so that I—
we—
didn’t have to move. I was exhausted, taking care of the baby with a not-quite-two-year-old underfoot, but there was such joy in my heart when I saw Jamie interacting with Keith that my lack of energy was easy to bear. I was too tired to visit Laurel—too tired to keep up that pretense
of friendship. Jamie had given Laurel every chance to get well, and now that she was starting to self-destruct, I felt little sympathy for her.

Finally, one evening when the children were in bed, he sat with me on the sofa. He was very close to me. We were physically closer than we’d been in a long time.

“A question for you,” he said.

The way he held my hand and the easy tone of his voice told me I would like his question very much.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You and I have been saints, haven’t we?”

I laughed. “You’re not kidding.”

“How would you feel about stopping the sainthood routine?” he asked. “Maybe going on the pill?”

“Yes!” I let go of his hand and nearly leaped on top of him, straddling him.

Jamie laughed at how out of character I was suddenly acting.

I leaned back to smile at him. “I’ll make an appointment with my OB tomorrow,” I said.

Jamie rubbed his palms over my thighs. “You’ve been so damn patient, Sara,” he said. He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I love you, and I love our son.”

I lowered my head, and for the first time since the night Keith was conceived, I kissed Jamie on the mouth. I loved how he groaned. I loved the way he tightened his hands on my thighs. But although I wanted to make love to him, this time I needed more. I leaned away from him again.

“Will you divorce Laurel?” I asked.

He hesitated long enough to let me know that was not necessarily a part of his plan.

“I’m still struggling with it, Sara,” he said. “She’s not well. And she’s Maggie’s mother.”

I climbed off his lap. “And I’m Keith’s, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Jamie grabbed my hand. “I know,” he said. “I’m moving in that direction. It’s just…I worry about her getting even worse than she is.”

“You still love her,” I said.

He looked down at where our hands were knotted together, his silence giving me his answer.

“Why?” I asked.

“The past. The person she used to be.”

I wanted to feel anger. I was
ready
to feel anger. Instead, I remembered seeing Laurel in the chapel long ago, looking up at Jamie with complete adoration. I could imagine how it felt for him to lose that. I rested my head on his shoulder.

“That person’s dead, Jamie,” I said. “She’s been dead a long time.”

We became lovers again, and I helped him formulate the words to tell Laurel he wanted a divorce. I knew, though, that he was still troubled about it. I’d find him in the living room late at night, studying financial statements, punching numbers into a calculator as he tried to figure out the best way to divvy up their assets so that Laurel would be taken care of. He read books about child custody, wanting to find a way to gain custody of Maggie without dragging Laurel through the mud.

Finally, he went to see Laurel, armed with his notes and determination. I waited anxiously at home with the children, trying my best not to think about the conversation taking place in the Sea Tender. I didn’t want to think about Laurel being upset and Jamie comforting her.