Never Too Late (24 page)

***

Andrea and
Jerry made their way up the gangway together, but once they stepped onto the
ship, they went to their individual staterooms. Andrea wondered if Val had
learned about what happened to Alessandro from some other source—Val seemed to
be in the jet-set loop—or if she'd at least wonder why he never returned to the
ship. Other passengers could also start asking questions. But until she learned
just how much they knew, Andrea decided she'd pass off the incident on Andros
island as food poisoning, a day in the medical clinic, and a couple of days to
recover and enjoy the island before rejoining the cruise.

As she
approached the stateroom, she hoped Val wouldn't be there. She wanted time
alone to settle in before going into the lengthy explanation she was certain
Val would expect, even it if was details of her stay at the medical clinic, and
why Jerry had been with her. But to her dismay, she found Val standing in front
of the long mirror while admiring an Armani outfit Andrea almost bought
herself
, but passed on because it was so ridiculously
expensive. "That Armani's stunning," she said to Val as she walked
in, "but you could not possibly have paid for it with what you saved by
sharing this stateroom with me."

Val turned to
her, and exclaimed,
"You're back!
When neither you nor Alessandro returned to the ship, I thought you'd flown off
to Italy with him. Then the word went around that you had food poisoning, but
no one knew for sure."

"It was
food poisoning," Andrea affirmed. "Something I ate at the little
disgusting restaurant Alessandro took me to."

"The place
for lovers?"

That term again
. "More
appropriately, a dive for lovers."

"But
Alessandro stayed there with you then?"

"No,"
Andrea replied, realizing Val knew nothing about the fate of Alessandro
Cavallaro. Deciding to keep things vague, she said, "Alessandro was called
away on business before I got sick, and it happened Jerry was at the restaurant
and he made sure I got to the medical clinic."

Val expanded
her chest, smoothed her hands down her ample bosom, and looked at herself in
the mirror. "Well, I wondered where he was too," she said,
unfastening the top four buttons of the Armani jacket to reveal her cleavage.
"Not that it mattered. He and I were already, well... finished. He was a
nice hunky guy but he's still too hung up on his wife, though I don't know why.
From what he told me that first day she was pretty hard to get along with. But
I think he liked you too. I noticed him staring at you a lot, but don't get
your hopes up for anything more because, like I said, he's still hung up on his
wife. The one time I tried to get it on with him he was primed and ready, but
before I got in bed, it died. Right after that he started talking about his
wife and daughters. I knew then he was a loss cause as a sugar daddy. But
that's okay because I have a real sugar daddy now and his name is Albert. He's
kind of old, but really sweet. And rich as all get out."

"How
old?"

"Fifty-one."

"That's only
three years older than Jerry," Andrea said, "and you didn't think he
was old."

"That's
because Jerry's put together right. He doesn't look like any
forty-eight-year-old male I've ever met. But Albert's kind and considerate and
a
widower,
and he likes buying me things." She
smoothed her hands down her hips, turned sideways to the mirror and smiled.
"Once I get him working out at the gym he might get rid of that little pot
belly of his and firm up some. But the rest of him’s in pretty good working
order. I suspect our relationship won't be just about bed games though, and
that's all right. As long as he keeps me in new cars and Armani outfits I'm
fine with that." She turned her back to the mirror and peered over her
shoulder. "He's taking me out to get a new caddy when we get back. I told
him I wanted pink, and he laughed and said I could get any color I
wanted."

"What did
Jerry tell you about his wife?" Andrea asked, and saw at once the puzzled
expression on Val's face.

Val shrugged
"That he'd never been interested in any other woman since he married her
and the idea of having sex with anyone else turned him off. He was embarrassed
about the whole thing. But I can tell you this much. He's definitely not a
peanut and grape man. He'd fill a thong nicely. Why do you ask? Are you
interested?"

"I could
be," Andrea said.

"Then
you've given up on Alessandro?" Val asked.

"No,"
Andrea replied. "I just haven't given up on my husband."

Val looked at
her then, and it was as if a light had just gone on in her head. "Jerry
Porter," she mused. "And Andrea Porter. Is there possibly a
connection here?"

Andrea nodded.

After filling
Val in on how things really were, Val said, "Honey, you've got a man worth
keeping. Jerry still has the hots for you. If you're turned off to sex I'll
give you a few pointers on how to get things up and running again, starting
with buying yourself some sexy lingerie and maybe a few sex toys from the
novelty shop on C deck. I picked up one that would turn any woman on when
applied by the right man. I got it more for Albert than for me, but we'll both
work up a lather when he uses it on me."

"That's
not the problem," Andrea said, refraining from telling Val that Jerry was
the only sex toy she needed, a state of the art sex machine in fact.
"Things were definitely up and running on the beach after we went
snorkeling, for both of us," she added.

"Then why
are you back sharing a stateroom with me when you could be in bed with that
hunk you're married to?"

"That's
not the problem with us now," Andrea said. "Our failing marriage is
more complicated than just what goes on in bed. We had a long dry spell for a
while, which we broke on the beach, but it's not enough to want each other just
for sex. After it's over, there's nothing. We argue and fight and bicker, and
that goes on until we're so angry with each other, we release it with sex. Then
the cycle starts again."

"But you
still love him, and he loves you," Val said, a perplexed frown on her
brow. "With that as a base, what else do you need?"

"I don't
know," Andrea said. "It's too complicated to figure out."

...because it's about losing a son, and
casting blame, and being on a cogwheel neither can get off...

But they also
had three daughters who were expecting them to read three letters written to
their dead brother, and for that reason only, Andrea intended go to Jerry so
they could at least share what the girls had to say.

Maybe, by some
miracle, what their daughters had written in those letters would be the answer
both their parents were searching for, and neither could find.

Andrea stared
at the envelope sitting on the table. She and Jerry had managed to tippy-toe
around the occasion the entire day. No talking about Scott. No acknowledging
this would have been his birthday. Two people trapped in their own private
worlds of grief and remorse. Unable to talk. Unable to express feelings. Unable
to communicate on the most basic level. Just ignore the issue and hope it would
go away. And if they waited long enough, it would be midnight, and Scott's eighteenth
birthday would have come and gone. Unnoticed. But that wasn't going to happen, she
vowed. Scott would not just be shoved back into the dark recesses of their
individual minds, never to surface because his parents couldn't talk about him.

Lifting the
envelope from the table, she left the stateroom and made her way down the
passageway toward Jerry's stateroom. She didn't know if he'd be there, but if
he wasn't, she'd wait until he returned. When she approached his quarters,
however, she saw under the door that the lights were on and assumed he was in.
She rapped lightly. At first there was no response, then she heard Jerry say in
a gruff voice, "Come on in."

She walked in
and found him sitting on the bed with a glass in his hand and a bottle of whiskey
on the bedstand, staring off, looking morose. Next to the bottle was Jerry's
wallet, spread open and face down, and beside the wallet, a plastic photo
folder lay open to a wallet-size picture of Scott's car after the accident.
"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Trying to
get drunk," Jerry replied. Raising the glass to his lips, he took a swig
of whiskey and plunked the glass on the table beside the plastic folder.

Andrea picked
up the folder and stared at the skeletal, burned out frame of Scott's car. She
flipped the plastic pockets and saw photos of each of the girls, along with one
of Sammie that Bailey had just given Jerry. There were even a couple of
pictures of
herself
. But all Jerry carried in his
wallet to remember Scott by was the twisted remains of a fiery crash. "Why
do you keep this?" she asked, flipping back to the photo of Scott's car.

"To remind
me that I'm here, and he's not." Jerry took another swig of whiskey and
held the glass cradled between his hands. "Your father was right," he
said in a flat, sullen voice. "I might as well have put a gun to Scott's
head and pulled the trigger."

"You can't
mean that," Andrea replied, even though she'd shared her father's view at
times, but never voiced it. But her message got out in other ways. "It was
an accident."

"Hell,
Andrea, the kid was out of control. He shouldn't even have had a car. And I
shouldn't have had a son." He drained the glass. "And those damn
Barbies—" he plunked the glass down "—finding Scott playing with
them... I was so afraid he was one of
them
I made certain he wasn't, made sure he was all boy from that time on. Never
cry. Boys don't cry. Stand up and take your knocks. Don't let anyone walk over
you. Be tough. Be a man. A real man..."

He tipped the
bottle toward his glass, and when no more than a dribble of whiskey ran out, he
said, "Shit! I can't even get drunk." He looked at Andrea then. His
face drawn. And tired. So very, very tired. The spark of life she'd once seen
in his eyes, gone. She had been living her own hell, blaming him for Scott's
death, trying to shove aside her part in it. And still, no one talked...

"Getting
drunk won't solve things, but talking might." She sat on the bed beside
him, not touching, but feeling the warmth of his shoulder, as she said,
"For the past two years we've been living with this elephant in the living
room. We walk around it, and talk around it, and try to pretend it's not there,
but it won't go away. We need to talk about Scott. We need to say the things
we've been holding inside for two years."

Jerry stared at
the glass in his hand. "Fine then, I'll tell you about when Scott was
fifteen and I taught him how to be a man. A great father I was." His words
were drenched in sarcasm, but Andrea didn't say anything, because at least they
were finally talking about Scott.

"You were
helping Bailey with the new baby," Jerry continued, "and Scott and I
were home alone. I gave him a tiny mug of beer, and we sat on the sofa, like
buddies... Scott and me, sipping beer, having a father-son night together,
watching a Clint Eastwood movie, Eastwood getting it on with a woman, like real
men do. The good guys chasing the bad guys, sending them flying off the road in
a fiery crash. Exciting stuff. Tough guys. Real men. And Scott and I sipped
beer, and watched car chases and sex scenes, and made cracks about how cool
Eastwood was in bed. Real men were always cool in bed."

Andrea found
herself rubbing Jerry's back as Jerry sat hunched over, his glass in his hands.
She didn't know when she'd made the gesture, but it felt right. She said
nothing, just rubbed Jerry's back and let him talk. And listened...

Jerry picked up
the folder with the photo of Scott's car, and while he stared at it, he said,
"He wanted the car... something he and I could work on together, he told
me. Like buddies. Father and son, fixing up the car. So I let him get the
thing. I knew he didn't want it so he could spend time with his old man. I knew
it, yet I let him buy the damn car. And it killed him. And you're right. I
should have been home that night. I was still bigger than he was. I could have
stopped him. But I wasn't there... And he died."

Andrea stared
at
Jerry,
his heart laid bare, taking complete blame
for Scott's death. His part in the whole violent ending of a young life had
been festering inside of him for two long, unspeakably horrible years. But
there was no way Jerry could carry the full burden of Scott's death. True, he
bought the car. And yes, Scott was killed in it. But the path leading to the
fiery ending to Scott's life started long before the night he was killed...

...Charlie and I vowed when I got pregnant
that no matter how much we might disagree on how to handle our child, we would
always present a united front...

Andrea placed
her hand on Jerry's arm and slid it down to curve around his hand.
"Honey," she said, "Scott was a challenge from the start, and
you never had a man in your life to show you how to raise a boy. And when you
married me, instead of getting the father you never had, you got Carter Ellison
III, a man as strong-willed as you. And although I hate to admit it, he's also
the man responsible for my stubborn, inflexible ways. If I hadn't had to be
right so many times when we were raising Scott, we might have come together
with what to do with him. I was wrong about what to do with him as many times
as you were right, if that makes any sense. And we weren't bad parents. We just
didn't know what to do."

Jerry slipped
his hand from hers and held his head in his palms. "It would have been his
eighteenth birthday and I feel like I have a hole in my heart."