Four Wives (34 page)

A
T FOUR THIRTY THAT
morning, Marie shot up from her bed. It had been nagging at her all night, but with her head filled with worry over the party and Gayle, and Janie Kirk sleeping with Troy, it had simply gone underground. Until just now.

Slipping out of their bed, Marie stepped lightly across the wooden floorboards. Out into the hallway, then down the stairs, the thought was now taking shape. She flicked on the lights in the study and logged on to her computer.

It was the way he’d said it.
Good-bye, Marie.
Not the colloquial sort of
good-bye
that people say as a matter of course. He had said that kind to her every day since he entered her office and turned her life on its head. This
good-bye
had been altogether different, and she didn’t like what it implied.

When the computer was up, she logged into her e-mail. There were twenty-two new messages, half of them disposable spam, the rest work-related. The last one was from Randy. Marie stared at the address, not willing to believe that she was right. But she was usually right, especially when it came to people, and this person she happened to know very well. It was in his tone, the conflicted look in his eyes. He had been prodding her to know, hoping she would see what he was doing and then stop him. But she had been frantic. The Farrell case, the party. There had been too much preoccupation. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to see.

Her heart pounding, Marie clicked to open the message.

Dear Marie,

I saw true love today, and knew I had to leave. I’ll be in touch.

Randy

Marie stared at the words, reading them again and again.
True love.
What did he mean? Carson Farrell’s love for his wife, the kind that blinded him to her illness? He came close to losing his children, leaving them with a woman who was ill in a misguided attempt to spare her further agony. Or did he mean Anthony coming through in the final inning? The last possibility took her breath away. Could he really believe that what passed between
them
was love?
True
love? Randy Matthews didn’t believe in that kind of love. He’d come damned close to making Marie a love skeptic herself. And now he was saying that he’d seen it? That it was the reason he had to leave?

Marie got up from her desk, but she had nowhere to go. The message was there, and despite the cryptic part about love, there was no need to decipher the ending. He was gone, and the thought of it tore through her. Day after day, even before that first kiss, she had looked forward to seeing his face. They’d worked together like hand in glove, read each other’s thoughts before they were spoken. He had infused her with the defiance of her youth, given her back that part of herself who wouldn’t be caught dead in Hunting Ridge attending charity functions. In his presence, she was transformed from a made-for-TV working mom into a competent, intriguing woman. He had been the smile on her face, which had been gone for quite some time.

The thoughts played out in her head. She could call him, tell him not to leave. But if he stayed, what would happen? They both knew. The first kiss had led to a second, and with the second, came an untenable desire’the kind of desire that is not containable, running like water through every opening, filling every space until it is spent. Was that really what she wanted’to be unfaithful to Anthony? She thought of how he’d been tonight, the comfort she’d felt having him beside her. They’d talked for a long time after the party, about Gayle, the corrupting influence of Hunting Ridge, the Farrell case and what lay ahead for her career. Still, who would hang on her every word? Who would study her face to decipher her every worry, then move mountains to take them away?

Returning to the desk, Marie ran her finger across the screen, the last trace of Randy Matthews she had left. She moved the cursor, then clicked delete. It was gone. It had to be. She felt unnerved just the same, lost in the haze of a marriage that had slipped off course and the longing to feel Randy’s hands on her face one more time.

She shut down the computer and pulled her legs onto the chair, resting her head on her knees. She knew what would happen next. Time would pass, life’s distractions would tug at her day after day, keeping her mind occupied. The memories would fade as others were made and stored in front of them, and before long the smell of his skin would be gone, then the feel of his mouth. Step by step she would reinvent herself again, confronting the Farrell situation, rebuilding her career. She would hold Anthony to their agreement, find a way to live with his need to escape on the golf course. And slowly, perhaps, the love would return’the kind of love Marie believed in. And life would be good again. Or at least what it needed to be.

Still, she felt the tears falling on her skin. She had been flying, soaring above her own existence in a whirlwind of anger and excitement and thoughts of change. None of it was real. She lived here on the ground, in a house, with a husband and two children. She had a mortgage to pay, a job to save. She wiped the last tears from her cheeks and got up from the chair. At the kitchen sink, she let the cold water run through her hands, then pressed them onto her burning skin. Against the darkness of night, she could see her reflection staring back at her in the window. In all her years, with all her wisdom, she never would have seen this coming. Was it a well-kept secret, this ability to go back in time, to revisit the passion of the young? Did everyone carry with them this knowledge? She had many friends, good friends who bared their souls to her, and still, no one had ever confessed to knowing. Maybe Janie Kirk knew. Maybe Troy Beck had shown her. All through this town, the wives walked the streets as if they held the key to life’s perfection. Perfect kids, perfect houses, perfect marriages. No. They couldn’t know, or maybe they just didn’t remember how it felt to be so alive. Marie was beginning to envy that kind of ignorance.

As she turned out the kitchen light and headed for the stairs, she felt herself returning to calm. Already her thoughts were running away from her to her sleeping girls and the plans for the day that was almost upon her. She stopped to look in on Olivia, then Suzanne, and it was their sleeping, peaceful faces that she saw before her as she crawled quietly under her own covers. Olivia with her Powerpuff Girls pajamas, unruly hair, and cherry-red cheeks. Suzanne coiled up like a little doll, her pink nail polish now worn and chipped around the edges. As she closed her eyes, she heard Randy’s words in her head and she smiled to herself.
Yes,
she thought. That’s what he had seen in her. The mother, above all else. That was why he had left. It was the one thing they both believed in. That was the
true love.

Marie opened her eyes and sat up to look at her husband. Anthony was snoring, his stomach bulging beneath the blankets. Reaching across the bed she pressed her hand against his chest.

“Wake up,” she whispered. But he didn’t move.

“Tony’wake up,” she said, louder this time.

His eyes shot open, startling her. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, his face flushed with alarm.

Marie didn’t waste any time. “We’re leaving this place.”

Anthony sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the palms of his hands. “What are you talking about?”

“We have to leave this place. I can see that now.”

He studied her face. She was serious. Reaching across to the night table for his glasses, he let out a sigh of resignation. There was going to be a conversation.

“All right. Let’s go downstairs and make some coffee.”

T
HE ROOM WAS STIFLING.
It was cool outside and the heat had turned on. Janie thought of opening a window, but couldn’t muster the will to remove herself from her bed. Through the sheer curtains, the moonlight sifted in and this was as unwelcome as the heat. She lay on top of the covers next to her sleeping husband, her mind and body exhausted. Spent. She closed her eyes and saw Gayle and the look on her face as she made sense of her husband with another woman. With
her.
She opened her eyes and saw Daniel, unaware, but now vulnerable to the same sting of betrayal she had inflicted upon Gayle. The kind of sting that doesn’t go away. Ever.

She would not see Troy Beck again. She didn’t want to, and in any case, it would hardly be possible now. She could see down that road. He would come to her unencumbered, and the lack of deviance would kill the excitement for him. An awkward, unspoken expectation would crawl into bed with them, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing they could do to get rid of it. There could be, at most, a few more encounters before they finally put it out of its misery. Even if she woke up tomorrow and somehow felt the need after everything that had happened, Troy Beck would no longer satisfy it.

She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and thought about what lay ahead. Wanting Troy Beck again did not concern her. Nor did wanting any man. This had not been about sex, she could see that now. Not about the bad sex with Daniel. Not about the great sex with Troy. She was missing a connection with another human being, and she hadn’t found that with either man.

She could feel the shift inside her’as if someone had pulled a switch. She was retreating back to that underground place where she walked half-dead among the living, speaking with words that were well-rehearsed and known to be acceptable. Attending parties and luncheons and school fairs. Smiling, smiling. Caring for her children. Servicing her husband. Smiling some more. She would impose upon herself a penance. She would be a more perfect, doting wife. She would devote herself to her home and she would not want more.

She thought about the four children down the hall. There was comfort there. She loved them, and they loved her back. It was uncomplicated’ caring for them, pouring her love into them, would be her escape. She would remind herself that staying with Daniel, keeping the family together, was a gift for her children. And this thought, too, brought some comfort.

Still, as she lay in bed next to her husband, she felt pieces of herself falling from her being. Withering in the harsh light of her perfect life.

G
AYLE SAT ALONE AT
the kitchen counter savoring a cup of black coffee. It was barely past six and the sky was light. Morning had finally, mercifully, arrived.

The adrenaline had been relentless, chasing away any possibility of sleep as she lay in her bed through the remainder of the night. Now her head was pounding, her nerves frayed. A strange mixture of emotions’ fear, excitement, anger, sadness’churned inside her, pushing and pulling her toward thoughts she had never had in her life. They were the thoughts of independence, and they were terrifying. She had kicked her husband out of her house. Now she would have to plan the follow-through. He would come back, she was certain, sometime today. There would be a confrontation and she would have to face it head-on. She’d thought of running. She could take Oliver, pack some things, and drive off. She could leave a note on the door and hope Troy would concede the battle. But that kind of fantasy required a depth of denial that she could no longer afford to embrace.

Yesterday, she had been a married woman, a Haywood. She had suffered from depression, and anxiety, and delusion. She’d been medicated, sometimes sedated. And she’d lived in a secret world that, in the end, had become unsustainable. So much had happened to that woman of yesterday that it might as well have been a lifetime that had passed rather than one night.

The sound of the doorbell sent a fierce panic through her. Could he really be back this early? She rushed to a place out of sight from the window. She would pretend to be asleep. She would not answer. A voice called from outside the door and she recognized it instantly. It was Janie Kirk.

“I told Daniel I forgot my purse,” Janie said when Gayle finally appeared.

Gayle stood in the doorway. “I’m sure he believed you.”

Janie hung her head, accepting the retort. “Can I come in?”

Stepping out of the way, Gayle let her pass, and they walked in an awkward silence to the kitchen.

“Coffee?” Gayle asked, though she had no idea why. She should hate this woman. They should not be sitting and chatting over coffee as though they were still friends’as though she hadn’t heard Janie Kirk laughing as her husband ran his hands across her bare skin.

“No, thank you.” Janie was as surprised as Gayle. Still, she took a seat next to her at the island counter. Then she pulled a letter from her purse.

“I’m resigning from the board. I’ll send copies to everyone.”

Janie paused as Gayle scanned the short explanation.
Personal reasons … my husband’s illness … etc.

Gayle looked up when she was through. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do. You’ve worked hard for the clinic. You don’t need to see my face all the time,” Janie said, interrupting her.

Nodding with understanding, Gayle accepted the gesture. “You could have mailed it,” she said.

“I know. That’s not the only reason I came.” She drew a long breath and held back the shame from what she had done. “I don’t think it’s even appropriate to try to apologize. But I thought I could explain. I suppose that’s what I would want if I were in your position.”

Gayle thought about this.
An explanation.
Would that make any difference now? Her husband’s affair was a cupful of water in the ocean of their troubles. Still, she did have questions.

“OK,” Gayle said. Then she listened as Janie confessed the details of the affair, the reasons she’d done it, and the many times she’d tried to make it stop. Speaking of the bone-deep discontentment, confusion, and now remorse, Janie pleaded’not for forgiveness, but for discretion.

“I’m not sure what happened with Daniel. Maybe I’m beginning to understand it. I don’t know …”

“Do you still love him?” Gayle asked, though she knew life was more complicated than that.

Janie thought of what she should say. But there wasn’t much point of hiding now. “No, I don’t. But I have four children.”

Gayle nodded with understanding.

“I’m going to try. This is not going to happen again. I know what I’ve done. And I know it wasn’t the answer.” She looked away, holding back the tears of her desperation. “Not even close.”

She vowed then to seek happiness in the little things’reading to her kids, seeing her friends. But she couldn’t do it without Gayle’s promise to bury what she had seen. And though Gayle was not entirely sure of her sincerity, she knew she could never be the reason the Kirk children lost their father.

“It’s not my place to ruin your family. And just so you know, you weren’t the only thing that ruined mine.”

Janie looked at her with a strange expression, wondering what she was not seeing. Had Troy strayed before? It wouldn’t have surprised her.

“I should go,” Janie said, getting up to leave.

But Gayle stopped her. She had one more question.

“What kind of man is he with you?”

Janie blushed with embarrassment. Had she not known Gayle the way she did, she might have found this an attempt to humiliate her. But she did know Gayle, and she owed her an honest answer.

“He was selfish, I suppose. He was a little childish, and not particularly remorseful. He had a cynical view of marriage’of life.”

Janie was expecting Gayle to be hurt, insulted perhaps to hear these things about her husband. But she didn’t seem to care about any of that.

“But was he …” Gayle couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.

Janie studied her face and for the first time in four years saw the signs of pain that Gayle hid so carefully. She was beginning to understand what this was about.

“He was fine,” she said as gently as she could. And Gayle nodded as though hearing this description of her husband’how he was with another woman’explained everything.

They walked to the door then, and as Janie left she spoke the most obvious words.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

And though Gayle believed in that moment that she knew the extent of their meaning, it wouldn’t hit her until hours later, when she reflected on the odd mix of sympathy and regret that hung on those words, that Janie Kirk was sorry for more than what she had done.