Days Like This (41 page)

He was halfway home from the real
estate office, his headlights on low beam because of the snow that drifted
toward him in huge, hypnotic, cottony flakes.  Driving past the cemetery, he
was so mesmerized by those swirling flakes that he almost missed seeing the car
parked beneath the giant elm at the top of the hill.  A pea-green Mitsubishi. 
His wife’s car.  Beside the car stood a slender figure in a black wool coat,
arms folded against the cold, a brisk wind blowing that dark, silky hair around
her face.

The pain hit him low in the
belly.  What in bloody hell was she doing in the cemetery, at dusk, during a
snowstorm?  What could she possibly have to say to Danny that couldn’t wait
until tomorrow?  He automatically hit the brakes, saw the flash of red in his
rear-view mirror.  Then let his foot go limp.  What was the point?  What was
the point to any of it?  What was the point in trying to build them a future
when she kept running back to the past?

The anger rose in him slowly, but
to be truthful, it had been building for some time. He drove home, stomped into
the house in a mood so black and murky that Paige, peeling potatoes at the kitchen
sink, took one look at him, instantly recognized a MacKenzie in high dander,
and spun back around without speaking.  He tore off his jacket, tossed it on a
chair, stalked to the refrigerator and opened it.  Nothing looked any different
than it had two hours ago.  He slammed the door shut, rattling glass jars and
sending a coffee cup, inexplicably left atop the refrigerator, crashing to the
floor.  It broke neatly in two, and he bent and picked up the matching halves
and heaved them into the trash.

Headlight beams flashed across
the room as his wife swung into the driveway, climbed the hill, and parked
beside his Explorer.  He heard her come into the shed, pictured her kicking off
her shoes and hanging her coat.  Precise and fastidious person that she was,
she would never leave her coat tossed on a chair the way he had.  He should
have seen it years ago.  They weren’t compatible, not in any way.  Not when you
analyzed their basic personalities.  She was a goddess, while he was just some
lax, high-functioning slob.  It was amazing that she’d stuck with him this
long.  Of course, with her god lying six feet deep, she could afford to go
slumming.

She came into the kitchen, his
goddess, exquisite in a body-hugging burgundy sweater, snowflakes still on her
hair and eyelashes.  There was a glow to her that he’d never seen there
before.  Even dead, he thought bitterly, Danny still held more sway over her
than he ever would.

“Where the hell have you been?”
he snarled.

Those elegant eyebrows went
sky-high.  “Did I just walk into the wrong house?  Should I go back outside and
try again?”

He squared his jaw.  “Answer the
question, Fiore.  It’s not that hard.  Where the hell have you been?”

With infuriating calm, she said,
“I had an appointment in town.  I already told you that.  What’s this all
about?”

“Don’t lie to me.  Lying doesn’t
look good on you.”

Something in those green eyes of
hers caught fire, some dark fury that set his blood pumping.  Good.  He’d
managed to push the right button.  Now they could get down to it. 

“I am not lying to you,
MacKenzie.  I don’t lie.  You know that.  Not to you, not to anybody.  So I
don’t know what’s gotten your ass into a pucker, but I don’t intend to fight
with you tonight, so you can just back off!”

“I saw you at the cemetery.”

“Oh, for the love of God.  I
stopped there on the way home.  What’s your point?”

“My point?  My
point
is
that it’s time you decided whose wife you are.  His, or mine. 
Because you
can’t be both!
”

“For God’s sake, Rob, how many
times are we going to play this scene?  I can’t believe we’re playing it
again.”

“Yeah?  Well, neither can I,
cupcake.  Do you have any idea what it’s like for me?  Every time you come back
from that place, I feel like I just swallowed ground glass.  But I keep my
mouth shut and hold it in, even though it kills me to see you going back to
him, over and over and over.  The guy’s been dead for four years, but you still
can’t break the umbilical cord.”

“You are a complete and utter idiot! 
And you couldn’t be more wrong!”

“Oh, so I’m the idiot in this
little scenario?  Well, I don’t know.  Let’s examine a few facts and see what
we come up with.  I treat you like a queen.  Hell, if you asked, I’d probably
go flat on the ground and let you walk all over me wearing cleats.  That’s
pretty much what we already do every day anyway.  But that’s not good enough
for you. 
I’m
not good enough for you.  Because you’d rather live in the
past, with your memories of a dead man, than build a life in the present with a
man who’s alive and breathing and would take a bullet for you!”

“Stop it!” she said, and glanced
warily at Paige.  He followed her gaze, saw his daughter standing by the sink,
her face bone-white.

“Go to your room,” he told her.

“But—”

“You heard me.  This is between
my wife and me.  Go to your goddamn room!”

The kid looked stricken.  She glanced
at Casey, who gave her a brief nod, then back at him.  Said to him, “I hate
you!”  And fled to her room, slamming the door behind her.

“Nice,” Casey said.  “You must be
really proud of yourself.”

“He was a shitty husband, you
know.  You never could see it, but it was obvious to everyone else.”

“This isn’t about Danny.  This is
about—”

“Like hell it isn’t!”

“—you and your goddamn
insecurities!”

“Fuck insecurities!  He was a
selfish bastard who was too much in love with himself to even notice you were
alive!”

“Maybe you should try
psychotherapy.  I hear it works wonders.  And that’s utter bullshit.  He loved
me!”

“Not as much as he loved
himself!”

“You are full of shit,
MacKenzie!”

“You think so?  Maybe I can refresh
your memory.  Who was it that kept you from starving when Danny had his head so
far up his ass he couldn’t see that the cupboards were bare?  Who was it that
saved you when you were drowning in your pathetic little life in that dinky
apartment on Beacon Hill, and Danny was too wrapped up in his career to see how
miserable you were?  I threw you a lifeline and saved your ass.  I gave you the
music.  I sat with you, day after day, month after month, and spoon fed it to
you until you could carry your own weight.  Where was Danny when I arranged
that abortion for you?  He wasn’t the one who went with you to that hideous rathole
of a doctor’s office, was he?  And he wasn’t the one who held your hand and
cried with you when you couldn’t go through with it!”

“I don’t understand.  Why are you
rehashing all this now?  It’s ancient history!”

“You really don’t understand, do
you?  That just proves my point.  I’ve loved you for two fucking decades, and
you still don’t get it!  When you lost his baby, sitting in a puddle of blood
on the kitchen floor, I was the one who picked up the phone and called for
help.  And when they hauled you off to the hospital, and Danny went with you in
the ambulance, it was me who got left behind to mop up all that blood.  So damn
much of it that I was terrified you wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time.”

“Oh, Flash.”

“And when Katie was born, and
Danny was six thousand miles away?  I talked my way onto that private maternity
ward.  I was the first person, outside of hospital staff, to hold your baby.  And
five years later, when she was lying in that bed, fighting for her life—”

“Stop.  Please.”

“I was there for you.  But you
sent me away.  Why the hell did you do that?  Even after what happened in
Nassau, when we both knew we could’ve had something amazing if only you’d
opened your eyes and actually seen me, you chose him!  You left me on my ass in
the dust, and you went back to
him
!” 

His voice broke, shaming him, but
he couldn’t stop now if he tried.  “And when Mister Wonderful died, I cooked
your meals and vacuumed your floors and reminded you to eat and sleep and
bathe.  I held your goddamn hand until you could walk upright by yourself again. 
And what did I get in return?  You sent me away.  Again.  You always sent me
away!”

His wife was on the verge of
tears now.  He could see them glistening in her eyes, but he wasn’t ready to
stop.  He had to finish what he needed to say.  Had to get all the poison out
of his system.  “You stopped writing with me.  I think that’s the most hurtful
thing.  I’ve been so lost, trying to work without you.  My partner, my
collaborator, the other half of me.  I told myself it was because Danny wasn’t
around anymore.  That you’d just given up on the music.  That I was a big boy,
and I could handle it on my own.  But I’ve been struggling, trying to reinvent
the wheel, because writing without you is a whole different animal.  Then I
come home from tour, and I find out you’ve been writing with Paige.  How the
hell do you think that makes me feel?”

“Be serious, Rob.  You know it
wasn’t—”

“I don’t think I can do this
anymore.  This marriage is killing me.  I feel like some emotional ping-pong
ball, being bounced from one corner to the next.  I’ve given everything I have
to you, and it just doesn’t seem to be enough.  Well, you know what?  There’s
this thing called self-preservation.  I think it’s time I took advantage of
it.”

“What the hell are you saying?  That
you’re planning to leave me?”

He closed his eyes, took a deep
breath, and told her the biggest whopper that had ever come out of his mouth. 
“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you!”

The fury returned.  “Yeah?  Well,
watch me!”  He strode across the room, picked up his coat, shoved his arms into
it, and headed for the door.

“Stop it!” she said.  “This is
ridiculous!  You’re not going anywhere.”

“You’re not big enough to stop
me.”  He crossed the shed, flung open the door and plunged out into the cold.

“It’s a snowstorm, for God’s sake. 
Rob!
”

He squared his jaw and stalked
toward the Explorer.  “Leave me the hell alone.”

“This won’t solve anything.  Damn
it, we need to talk.  You need to listen to me—”  She caught him by the arm, stumbled
along behind him as he slogged through heavy, wet snow.

Bitterly he said, “That’s the
problem.  All I do is listen to you.  But you don’t listen to me.”  He reached
the Explorer, opened the door, and turned on her.  “I’m done listening!”

Behind Casey, his daughter stood
in the open doorway of the house, silently watching them.  “Let go of me,” he
said.

“No!  I love you, you moron! 
You’re a total jackass, but I love you.”

She was shivering in the sweater
and jeans.  He could see it.  Could feel it.  Freeing his arm, he said, “Go
back in the house, Fiore.  You’ll end up with pneumonia.  Jesus Christ, you’re
not even wearing shoes!”

“Damn it, MacKenzie, you come
back here!”

Ignoring her, he climbed into the
Explorer, fitted the key into the ignition, and shut the door in her face.  He
adjusted his seat belt, cranked the engine, and rolled the window down.  She stood
beside the car, arms crossed, visibly shuddering, snow falling all around her
while a single tear tracked down her cheek.  That tear was nearly his undoing. 
But he couldn’t back down now.  He’d taken this too far.  He had to carry it
through to some kind of conclusion. 

Suddenly drained, he said again,
“Go back in the house.”

“Where the hell are you going?”

He had to escape, before his own
tears started falling and he humiliated himself more than he already had. 
“Right now?  As far away from you as I can get.”  He rolled the window back up
and crammed the car into gear.  Halfway down the driveway, he glanced into the
rear-view mirror.

His wife was still standing
there, barefoot in the snow, watching him drive away.

What the hell had just happened?

She stood in a blinding
snowstorm, barefoot and freezing, watching as his tail lights gradually
disappeared from sight.  Feeling a hand on her arm, she turned to see Paige
standing behind her. 

“Come inside,” her stepdaughter
said.  “You’ll end up with hypothermia.”

Like an obedient child, she accompanied
the girl into the house.  “Sit,” Paige said, and pushed her gently into a
kitchen chair.  “You stay there.  I’ll be right back.”

Fingers stiff with the cold, she
buried her face in her trembling palms.  Paige returned with a blanket and
tossed it over her shoulders.  Teeth chattering, Casey clutched the edges of
the blanket and closed it around her while her stepdaughter knelt in front of her,
peeled off her sopping wet socks, and began rubbing her feet with a towel.

Casey reached out a hand to touch
the girl’s hair.  Paige glanced up, met her eyes, then returned to her task.

He’d be back.  Rob MacKenzie was generally
an easygoing guy, the sweetest man she’d ever known.  But every so often, he
had an epic meltdown.  This wasn’t the first one she’d witnessed.  Despite what
he’d said, he would come back.  No matter how mad they got at each other, he
always came back. 

Paige continued rubbing, while
Casey desperately searched her mind for something that would explain her
husband’s behavior.  What could have pushed him over the edge?  Obviously, her
visit to the cemetery.  Correction:  her ongoing visits to the cemetery.  But were
those enough to trigger a meltdown of this magnitude?  There’d been the
cufflink.  That had really stuck in his craw.  And apparently he was royally
pissed because she’d been writing with Paige.  She had honestly believed he
would be happy to know she’d finally broken past that wall of silence.

But judging by the vitriol he’d
spewed, the anger and frustration had been festering inside him for some time. 
He’d made some serious accusations.  How much truth was there to his words? 
Had she been remiss in her wifely duties?  Had she taken him for granted?  Had
she been so self-involved that she’d simply ignored his wants and needs?