Treading Water (2 page)

Taking her hand, he held it against his
face, and smoothed the blonde hair off her forehead with his other
hand. “I know you can hear me,” he said softly. “The things I said
that day…I didn’t mean them. You know I didn’t. Whatever’s
bothering you, we can fix it. I need you to come back to me.
Please, Clare. Don’t give up.”

How could this have happened to her? To
them? If the girls were to be believed, she’d let the car hit her.
But why? The questions tortured him through sleepless nights and
agonizing days. Since her accident, he’d run through every minute
he could remember from the last few months. Something had
definitely been off between them. In place of her usually sunny,
upbeat disposition, she’d been prone to long silences and bad
dreams she thought he didn’t know about. But every time he’d tried
to broach the subject with her, he’d been rebuffed.

Their usually passionate and satisfying sex
life had all but disappeared. Was it possible she’d met someone
else? Had she decided to end a marriage that ranked as one of the
proudest accomplishments in his life? Had she been waiting for the
right time to tell him?

No. Not Clare. She loved him. They’d loved
each other from the start and had a marriage and family others
envied. She’d never leave him. But looking down at the battered
woman in the hospital bed and remembering how she’d gotten there,
suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

Jill stepped into the room, and Jack forced
a smile for his oldest daughter.

“
Hi, honey.”

“
Hey.” She stared at her
mother with gray-blue eyes that were just like his. “No
change?”

Since he couldn’t bear to tell her what the
neurologist had said, he shook his head. “Could I ask you
something?”

Jill moved to the other side of the bed and
rested a hand on her mother’s arm. At fifteen, she moved with the
poise of a woman twice her age. “Sure.”

“
Before this happened, did
you notice anything…you know…different about Mom?”

“
Well,
yeah
.” Her sarcastic reply surprised
him.

“
Like what?”

“
That she was totally
distracted, disorganized, scattered? And she was always forgetting
stuff—like getting Maggie from school. That happened a bunch of
times. They’d call the house, and I’d have to go get her because we
couldn’t reach Mom.”

Astounded, Jack stared at her. “Why didn’t
you tell me?”

Her shrug was full of teenage insolence. “We
didn’t think you’d care.”

“
Why in the world would you
think that?”

“
Because! All you care
about is work! And making money! You don’t care about
us.”

Jack stared at her, his heart aching.
“Everything I do is for you and your sisters.” He glanced down at
Clare. “And your mother.”

“
When was the last time you
came to one of my lacrosse games or watched Maggie play soccer? Do
you even
know
that
Maggie plays soccer now?”

Where was this coming from? How long had she
wanted to say this to him? “I’m sorry you think I don’t care about
you. I love you more than anything. I’ve always tried to show you
that.”

The cold, hard look she sent his way let him
know he’d failed miserably.

“
I tried to talk to her
about what was bothering her, but she refused to tell me,” he
said.

“
I wonder if we’ll ever
know.”

Jack couldn’t bring himself to tell her that
the doctor had said her mother would probably never recover.

Frannie held back the tears until she
reached the parking lot and couldn’t contain them any longer.

“
Fran,” Jamie called from
the next row. As he jogged over to her, tall, blond, and so
handsome, she brushed frantically at the dampness on her
face.

He stopped short in front of her. “Hey,” he
said, cupping her face and forcing her to meet his gaze. “What’s
wrong?”

Telling him what the doctor had said brought
new tears to her eyes.

“
Shit,” he muttered as he
gathered her into his arms.

Frannie relaxed against his muscular chest,
wishing she could stay there forever. “Why’d this have to happen to
her? To them?”

“
I wish I knew.” His ragged
sigh told her he was upset, too. As Jack’s best friend and business
partner as well as the girls’ godfather, he’d always been close
with Clare. Telling herself this embrace was all about comfort,
Frannie put her arms around his waist.

“
Are you going to be okay?”
he asked after they’d held each other for a long time.

“
What choice do I have?”
Reluctantly, she released him and took a step back. “My brother
needs me.”

He reached for her hand. “I’m here if you
need me. You know that, don’t you?”

She wished she had the nerve to tell him all
the ways she needed him, but she never had before, and now was
certainly not the time. “Thanks. I may take you up on that. I’m
moving in with Jack and the girls.”

“
Really?” He seemed to
brighten at that news.

“
I can’t keep running back
and forth between here and New York, and the girls need someone
they can count on.”

“
They’re lucky to have
you.” Tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, he surprised her
when he pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Whatever you
need, whenever you need it. I’m here.”

His softly spoken words nearly reduced her
once again to tears. “I’d better go. Maggie’s waiting for me.”

“
Take care, Fran.” He
opened the car door and held it for her as she got in.

She waved to him as she drove past him.
Glancing in the mirror, she saw that he was still watching her. Now
what did that mean?

Frannie moved in lock, stock, and easel to
care for the girls while Jack made phone calls, searched the
Internet, and consulted with doctors around the country. They all
said the same thing—the longer the coma lasted, the less likely it
became that Clare would recover.

Since he refused to put Clare in a nursing
home, Jack brought her home to the large contemporary house he’d
designed and built as a surprise for her five years earlier. He had
the first-floor dining room converted to accommodate a hospital bed
and the equipment needed by the team of round-the-clock nurses.
Most nights he slept on a sofa he’d dragged into the room so she’d
never be alone.

A week after Clare came home from the
hospital, Jack received a call from Sergeant Curtis, the Newport
police officer who’d investigated the accident. The driver had
suffered a fatal heart attack, which explained why the car had been
so out of control in the mall parking lot. Jack had thought the
case was closed as far as the police were concerned.

“
I was wondering if I could
come by for a few minutes,” Curtis said.

“
Is there something new
with the case?”

“
I have something you need
to see.”

Fifteen minutes later, Jack opened the door
to the tall, blond cop, and they shook hands.

“
What’ve you got there?” He
nodded at the disk in Curtis’s hand.

“
I was finally able to get
a copy of the security video from the mall parking lot. I think you
need to see it, but I have to warn you, it’s tough to
watch.”

Jack swallowed hard and gestured for Curtis
to follow him into the family room. He fed the disk into the DVD
player, turned on the television, and watched in stunned silence as
his daughters jumped out of the way of the speeding car and then
turned to scream at their mother to do the same. They’d had time to
turn and scream. Clare had time to move, but she didn’t. She stood
there and let the car hit her as her horrified daughters looked
on.

“
I just don’t understand,”
Jack whispered as he watched it a second time. “Why in the world
would she do that?”

“
Can you, um, think of any
reason why she’d want to end her life?”

“
Of course not,” he said,
but after his conversation with Jill he wasn’t so sure anymore.
“She’d never do that, especially in front of her children. They
were her whole world.”

“
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to
imply—”

“
That my wife was
suicidal?”

“
It’s just, well… Why
didn’t she move?”

Crushed by yet another wave of helpless
despair, Jack shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Chapter
2

The video of Clare’s accident haunted Jack
for months. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in
sweat and breathing hard because he had once again relived the
horror of it in a dream. It was the same thing every time—he saw
the car coming toward her but couldn’t get to her in time to push
her out of the way. He was equally plagued by the questions of why
she hadn’t moved and what she’d been thinking in that final
life-changing instant before the car hit her.

After more than a year of waiting and hoping
for some change in Clare’s condition, Frannie clued him in that the
girls never brought their friends home anymore because their house
had become a hospital staffed by round-the-clock nurses. In light
of this revelation, he’d made the unbearable decision to move Clare
into a nearby place of her own, her care overseen by the same team
of nurses.

Jack had taken the day after the move to
wallow in his grief, but now he had no choice but to pull himself
together. Jamie had been running the architectural firm they owned
for more than a year on his own, the girls needed their father, and
he had to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. While
he’d much prefer to ignore all these pressing issues, he couldn’t
do that any longer.

Standing in front of the mirror, he dragged
a razor over his face for the first time in several days. He went
through the rote motions the way he did everything lately—out of
necessity. His face seemed a little thinner than it had been the
last time he’d looked closely. On the inside, he was totally numb.
Would it always be this way? From now on, would he go through life
without feeling anything? Without experiencing joy? Was that his
fate?

As he started the water in the shower, his
thoughts turned once again to Clare. Since memories were all he had
left of her, he allowed himself to revisit them often. He vividly
remembered the first time he ever saw her. She’d been tending bar
at the National Hotel on Block Island. In constant motion, she’d
been a whirling dervish of activity and banter and wit as she made
drinks, washed glasses, talked to customers, rang up sales, and
carried on a good-natured sparring match with the other two
bartenders.

She’d looked then much as she did twenty
years later: petite with unruly blonde hair and the most amazing
blue eyes he’d ever seen.

From across the bar, she’d glared at him.
“You got a problem, buddy?”

“
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
to stare. I’ve just never seen anyone get so much done in as little
time as you do.”

Collecting abandoned glasses, she worked her
way to his end of the bar. “I don’t let any grass grow. That’s why
they ask me back every year.”

“
You’ve worked here before?
I don’t remember you.”

“
This is my fifth summer. I
bussed tables until I was old enough to bartend. Ready for a
refill?”

He pushed his mug forward. “Heineken,
please. Funny, I’m sure I’d remember you.”

“
I’ll bet you say that to
all the girls.” She winked and moved on to other
customers.

Jack continued to watch her—without
staring—while he ate dinner and drank another beer. The bar got
busier, and though he’d planned to hit some of the island’s other
hot spots, he was still there at last call.

“
One more for the road?”
she asked as she cleaned up discarded glasses and
dishes.

Since he wasn’t driving, he said, “Sure,
thanks.”

When she brought him the beer, he asked what
she did the rest of the year.

“
I teach third grade in
Mystic.”

“
I had you pegged as a
college kid.”

She laughed. “Everyone always thinks I’m too
young to be the teacher, but I’m going into my third year. What
about you?” While they talked, she cleared off the bar, washed
dishes, and ran credit cards.

“
I’m an architect. Just
finished graduate school last week. I’m taking a break before I go
back to work.”

“
I love architecture. I’ve
always been interested in how buildings are designed and put
together. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun.”

“
It is.” He sipped the
beer, trying to make it last so she would keep talking to him.
“I’ve had the opportunity to work on some great projects, and I’ve
got a couple of others waiting for me when I get back.”

She crooked a skeptical
eyebrow. “If you just graduated, how is it you’ve already worked on
such great stuff? Doesn’t that usually come
after
school?”

“
I worked for a Boston firm
while I was in grad school.”

“
Where’d you
go?”

“
Berkeley and
Harvard.”

She let out a low whistle. “Oh, well, don’t
mind me, Harvard boy. La-di-da.”

“
It’s just a
school.”

“
Yeah, right. Just a school
we mere mortals couldn’t begin to aspire to. So what’ve you worked
on? Anything I might’ve heard about?” Her pace slowed as the crowd
filtered out to find after-hours fun elsewhere.