Accidental Happiness (18 page)

I gave up on any attempt at controlling the wave of pain that came over me; sat on the hard floor surrounded by all that was left of my life with Benjamin. And as the timer for the lights clicked down to nothing and the world around me went dark, I heard my own sobs echoing in the empty hall outside my space. I heard, but couldn’t stop, because for the first time since the day I’d met my husband, I felt betrayed.
What else had I missed in our marriage? Had he been better at lying than I ever imagined?
Those doubts took Ben from me in a way that death could not. Georgie pressed close beside me, her warmth the only kind thing left in the world.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Someone came into another part of the warehouse. The bright light that suddenly returned as they turned on the timer startled me. Then I heard the echoed rumble as they opened their unit. I wondered what they came to bring or to take away. And as my thoughts jumped around, avoiding the random sadness and confusion of the necklace, I saw a wardrobe box, the tape already cut open. It held Ben’s wool sport coats, the ones he wore to work in the winter.

I stood and opened the box all the way, fingered through the jackets, one by one, hoping to feel the immediacy of him the way I always did. The smells remained, the familiar feel of the fabric. But he no longer came to me. It was as if he’d left. For the first time since I’d been coming to the space, I felt completely alone. On one shoulder of his favorite blue blazer, two delicate strands of hair lingered, and I touched them with the tips of my fingers, could barely feel them. I thought of Angel’s hair, recently discarded on my car console with the borrowed elastic band. Nearly the same color. But there was only one way to tell if the hairs shared the same mysterious genetic concoction that would make Angel and Ben belong to each other in all the ways that nature offered. I took the strands from Ben’s coat, then secured them under the plastic that held my driver’s license.

On the way home there was a laboratory where I could stop. I’d done a story once on siblings who found each other after thirty years through a DNA match. A couple of technicians at the lab had answered my questions. One of them had asked me out for a drink. I’d declined, playing the “I’m married” card even though it would have been another excuse if I hadn’t had that one. But he’d been a nice guy and I figured he’d remember me. I could take in the two samples of hair, Ben’s and Angel’s, and then there would be an answer. At least to one of the questions that plagued me.

My hands were shaking as I lowered the door to the storage space. Did I want to find out? Did it really matter? An answer wouldn’t change the idea that Ben and Angel spent time together. I wouldn’t answer my questions about Reese. What he may or may not have begun to feel for her again. But finding some measure of truth in the messy mix of questions was somehow important to me. If I could discount Angel at least through science, then maybe I could take back some part of Ben again for myself. If the flip side of the coin came up, knowing would count for something.

Maybe in the days or weeks (I couldn’t remember) that it took to get the results, I could convince myself that some kind of answer would be enough to make a difference; perhaps enough to let me put it to rest. But driving away from Ben’s things, the automatic gates closing behind me, I felt less and less sure that I could reclaim any good from the memories I had of Ben. The question was, could I cut out that part of my life, the same way I’d tried to cut out my failures with Elise, and still be whole enough to go on?

15

Reese

R
eese went through the door at the glass storefront. The strip mall looked plain and familiar. The kind of place that paid little attention to who came and went. She’d traveled through at least half the country in the eight years since she’d left Ben, and the one thing she could count on was how much the generic outskirts of any good-sized town looked just like the one she’d left before.

For her own tastes, she preferred the small, beating heart of Charleston: a last holdout of horse-and-buggy clopping streets, and the market where black women sat surrounded by displays of baskets that their mothers and aunts and grandmothers had taught them how to weave.

But for the moment she needed an ugly strip mall. She needed a pay-by-the-minute computer that would connect her to a pharmacist who would ask no questions. She had a prescription pad with the DEA number of a doctor in Boone, North Carolina. She’d slipped it out of the manila folder in the trunk, leaving her other papers inside. And thanks to Gina, she had a valid credit card. With any luck, through the magic of FedEx, she would have the solution to her most pressing need in her possession by the next day. That would get her through the short term. Long term? That remained a work in progress. At some point she’d need real help, the kind of help she almost got in Boone before she got Angel’s hysterical call.

A large pharmacy sat at the end of the strip. It would be more immediate, and it was tempting to try. But someone might turn her in. She’d been all over the news with the shooting. Passing off an illegal prescription would land her in jail, and they’d take Angel away for sure. She could wait a couple of days if she had to. It was safer to go online. The delivery would be a bit tricky. She couldn’t have it sent to the boat. Then she thought of Charlie. He’d be in the Ship’s Store the next morning, taking over the day guy’s shift. That would work. Maybe she’d even agree to that date with him after all.

16

Gina

A
storm had threatened, but passed on by. The sky looked clear again. I drove to the laboratory, broke any number of rules by walking in with my wallet and the elastic band in one hand and Georgie tucked under the other arm.

“You can’t bring animals inside,” the receptionist told me.

“I’m sorry. It’s too hot to leave her in the car. I wanted to drop off these samples and see if they are a match to be blood related. I know Jonathan.”

At the mention of the tech’s name she softened. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Gina Melrose. From the newspaper story a while back.”

She called back and confirmed my favorable status with the talent. Told me to fill out the paperwork in the car and drop it back with her.

“And hurry, if you can,” she added. “I get off work in fifteen minutes and I need to lock up.”

It took me twenty minutes to finish up, but she waited, and I drove away wondering if I could possibly handle finding out that Angel was really Ben’s daughter. I could put the answer to that on hold for the time being. I hadn’t opted for an additional charge for rush results. It would be a couple of weeks, at best. They would mail the information to me when the tests were complete.

A surprise waited on the boat when I finally got back. Derek. He sat relaxed at the helm, two unopened Heinekens sweating on the seat off to the side. Tanned skin played against his dark hair, gave him the look of an island race, something exotic, to be visited—vacationed upon, then
vacated,
in lieu of home. I felt glad to see him.

“Hey,” Derek said as I came alongside on the dock. His smile brought out all the angles in his features. I realized how familiar they had become to me.

“I hope you don’t mind that I waited here,” he said. “I meant to come by yesterday, but I got caught up in things and—”

“It’s okay,” I said, stepping onto my boat. He shifted to give me a clear path into the cockpit.

What the hell? Temporary. Permanent. What did all that mean anyway? After my discovery of the necklace among Benjamin’s things, the entire notion of home had become ridiculous. It was a temporary world. Derek fit right in.

“What’s up?” I asked him, struggling to seem normal after my ordeal at the storage place.

“Why don’t you tell me?” His tone changed. He looked at my face, at my eyes, and his expression took me off guard. It registered genuine concern. “What’s wrong?” he tried again.

I could feel the raw balloonlike quality of my cheeks and skin, and knew, without the benefit of a mirror, that my bout of crying had left me looking like a circus refugee.

“What do you mean?” I stalled.

“You look like hell.”

“You know just what to say.” I tried to joke, but it came out flat. “Now, excuse me while I down a bottle of Drano.”

“Seriously,” he said, undeterred. “Sit down. What happened?”

I sat near him on the Stern Perch, up and away from him. I felt exposed, on display, but I was afraid to get too close to him, afraid of dissolving again into the mess I’d been before. From my higher vantage point I could see the sun setting low over the marsh. It had been the longest day since the funeral.

“I found something,” I told him, too exhausted to lie. “Something in Benjamin’s things.” I stopped. This was where I should have left it, but I didn’t want to stop. Ben didn’t deserve discretion. For the first time, I acknowledged what lay beyond the hurt feelings, the betrayal. Real anger.

“He’d bought a necklace,” I went on, feeling bolder with each word. “A present for somebody else.”

“Jesus,” Derek said, a low muttering—genuine and unguarded. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t want to get into it,” I told him, realizing that in the small world of the marina, somebody would figure things out—who Reese was, who Angel was—and my business would be everywhere. “I just know, that’s all.”

He looked off, toward the marshes. The sun’s fierce slant put his profile in relief, and within the shadow that fell across his features, he was ageless, no resemblance to the near-boy I’d fashioned him to be when we first met. He looked strangely like Ben—a younger version, of course, but unmistakable. I realized for the first time how similar they were. In features, in size and coloring. Was that why I’d given in so easily to Derek in the first place?

“Listen,” he said, breaking the silence with conspicuous resolve, “I didn’t know Ben any more than to speak to him on the docks. But he didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d cheat on you. I know he’d kid around a lot, but even when he was joking with women, he didn’t send out stuff like that.”

“You watched him that closely?”

“I watch people all the time,” he said, again looking off, away from me, as if embarrassed by his admission. “Remember? I plan to make a living at it the way you do. Write for newspapers or magazines. I’ve learned to watch everything, made it a habit to remember what I see. And best I could tell, whenever I saw Ben around, he wasn’t into anything but you.”

His gaze remained on the distant marsh, but the way he said it, his voice getting lower with the last phrase, it sounded like a secret he was telling me. Something just between the two of us.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I really didn’t. And I especially didn’t want to tell him about the DNA tests. Doing it without telling Reese would sound like an invasion of privacy, no matter what kind of spin I tried to put on it.

“I mean it, Gina. I just can’t see it happening.”

I tried to shake off the feelings that stirred as I watched him. I wasn’t sure just what I’d responded to—him, or the things he said. Maybe they were of one piece.

“It’s complicated, Derek.”

Derek thought I was talking about Ben having an affair. That was unthinkable. But then, so was his relationship with Angel.

Derek turned his face toward me, a gesture I hoped would break the spell. But I’d seen him new somehow. I’d seen him as more than a boy, and it scared me a little to think I could actually feel something good again. I moved down to sit beside him, put my hand on his arm. His warm skin felt damp from the heat of the day.

“But I meant it. I don’t want to think about Ben anymore. Not right now.”

When I heard myself say Benjamin’s name, the feelings I’d had while I was sitting in the storage room shot through me without warning. I leaned into Derek, and he put his arm around me, pulled me closer. Instinctively, I rubbed my face, my mouth, against the skin of his neck. He was
real.
He was salty and warm, and kind. And he’d never lied to me.

“Why don’t we go below?” I whispered. “I don’t want to be such a mess out here.” I thought of Reese, couldn’t remember if I knew where she’d gone. She could come back at any time, find me with Derek.

What the hell did I care? My husband was dead, and for all I knew, it was worse than just a child’s necklace. Maybe Derek was wrong. Maybe Ben had been paying attention to Reese too. It seemed impossible that Ben would screw around, but, then again, I’d never have thought he would lie about Angel either. It was the first time the real possibility of infidelity had formed fully in my head, but pieces of it had been there since the day Reese showed up. Why had she come back? To see Ben. The three of them, a happy family.

Once in the cabin, Derek was kissing me, running his lips down my cheek, my collarbone. I felt his breath, warmer than the air, on my skin, and I bent my head slightly to find his mouth. His open hands, fingers spread wide, traveled just under the hem of my T-shirt, up my sides. The feelings overtook my thoughts of Ben, and relief came with the momentary absence of pain. It had happened before when I was with him, but never more acutely. Never more welcomed.

I opened my eyes, aware of a shift in his posture, a shift in the air itself, almost. Lane stood at the cabin door, looking lost. In her hands she held a Tupperware container full of something; but the three of us had been rendered mute. We stayed frozen in our respective poses. The irony was that Derek’s position left him with his hands slightly under my clothing, his fingers light against my lower ribs. I pulled away from him with as easy a motion as I could manage. No need to look panicked.

“Hey,” I said with a ridiculous cheer.

“I fed Reese and Angel some pasta for an early supper,” Lane said by way of explanation—as if she needed a reason to drop by my boat early on a Monday evening. “You were gone so long, I thought I’d bring you dinner and check on you.”

“Come on in,” I said, motioning for her to join us in the cabin. Derek and I maintained a few inches of daylight between us, but I could feel him. Phantom hands lingered on my skin.

“I’ll leave this for you,” she said, bending down to hand me the plastic container. “Whenever you’re ready to eat. There’s enough for both of you.”

“Lane . . .” I began as she turned to walk away. Derek had yet to make a sound.

“Gina.” She looked at me. Smiled. “I’m glad you’re heading back toward normal life again. I was a little surprised, that’s all. But I shouldn’t have been. I’ll talk with you tomorrow, okay?”

I felt myself breathe again, could do little more than nod in response.

“Reese is asleep at my house,” she offered, as an afterthought. “She wasn’t feeling well when she came in, so I told her to lie down. Oh, that reminds me, I should probably get her stuff and take it to my place. I imagine she’s there for the night.”

The implication brought new heat to my cheeks, and I hoped the abuse of my face, from August sun and recent crying, masked the color of my embarrassment. I reached in the quarter berth and got Reese’s duffel. All of her stuff seemed to be inside, but I didn’t want to take too much time to search around. Every minute became more awkward than the one before.

“Okay,” I said, handing the duffel up to Lane. She was gone before I had to say more.

“That was weird,” I said.

Derek grinned, looked every bit himself again. “I guess we’re
out.
”

An awkward silence settled and I wondered if we could make our way back to where we’d been, or even if we should try to get there. I wanted more than anything to overwhelm the images of the necklace, the images of Ben with Angel, or worse, Ben with Reese. But being with Derek, I realized for the first time, should be its own destination, not a diversionary stop.

“Derek,” I said. “We shouldn’t, I don’t know . . .”

“I know.” He stepped back. “Listen, Gina. I’m as into you as I can possibly be—”

“It’s okay.” I cut him off. I didn’t want to hear the apology that followed a rejection. He was backing off, and I wanted to spare both of us the explanations.

“No, listen to me.” He pressed on, put his hand on my arm for emphasis. “After what you’ve been through today . . . Gina, I don’t want to be the guy you screw around with because you’re pissed off at your husband . . . I mean, your former husband . . .”

There was no easy way around the word
dead.

“I know what you mean, Derek.” I wanted to pull back, to protect the small amount of strength I had left to call on.

“No, you don’t.” His voice went firm. “I
want
to be with you. You don’t know how much, really. I wouldn’t have waited here half the afternoon if I didn’t. But I don’t want this to happen just because of how you’re feeling about someone else. It’s not . . .” He stopped, stared at me, shook his head as if the words had taken flight, leaving him stranded.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “My feelings are all over the place.” I reached over, laid my hand on his arm, and I felt him give slightly. I put my fingers lightly on his neck. His pulse moved fast under his skin. Maybe he wasn’t looking for a way out. God, maybe he
did
feel as conflicted as I’d been feeling. “But as far as thinking that I’m just reacting . . . Derek, there’s more to us than that.”

“I know.” He voice was low, slightly hoarse. He leaned toward me. “I knew that before you did.”

He was right. He had known. I was just figuring it out, and I had nearly dismissed him. Because he was young, I thought he couldn’t be serious about what we were doing, but I was wrong.

“I’m older than you are.” I stated the obvious. “As long as we’re getting it all out there.”

“So was the last woman I dated seriously.”

Reference to the old girlfriend. A bad sign. “Is that why you broke up?”

He shook his head “She decided she liked girls.”

“That’ll do it.” I stopped, didn’t know what else to say. “Listen. How about I put this in the fridge and we go get some barbecue?” I held up Lane’s Tupperware. “Or we can get burgers, fish, whatever you want. I just want to go somewhere.”

“Whoa!” he said. “You mean actually go on a date?” He was smiling, back in his comfort zone.

“It could work. Give me a second to brush through my hair.”

“Sounds good. I need to pick up my keys at the marina and I’ll be ready to go. I’ll take you to a place where they serve alligator.”

It was something Ben would have suggested. The notion stopped me and I almost bailed on our plans. Instead, I forced my mind to move on, went below to see if I could resurrect my splotchy face for a decent night out.