Slow Moon Rising (20 page)

He paused. “You too. And me too.”

“You too what?”

He chuckled again. Strained. Uncomfortable. “You know. Hey, I gotta go. Break's over and I'm the boss. So. You know.”

“Well, if you can't say it, I'll just have to make you
prove
it later.”

He chuckled a final time. “Bye-bye now.”

He ended the call. I did too. Looked at my sister, who seemed paler than usual. “Come on,” I said, heading for the door.

I left the room with my sister trailing behind me. We returned to the kitchen. I placed my finger under the main number for the Peabody, dialed, and waited.

“The Peabody Hotel on International Drive. This is Claire. How may I direct your call?”

I cleared my throat. “Yes. Um . . .” I blinked. “Can you put me through to a guest's room, please?”

“Name of the guest?”

I swallowed hard. Did I really want to know this? “Charlie. Tucker.”

“Would that be Charles Tucker?”

“Yes.”

“Hold for a moment, please.”

The phone rang. And was answered on the third ring. By my husband. Who sounded more than a little frustrated. And winded. “Yeah,” he said.

I squeezed my eyes shut, so much so they hurt. Colors burst from behind them.

“Hello?”

“Will you say it now, Charlie Tucker? Will you tell me you love me . . . now?”

Charlie returned home within the hour. By this point, Heather had gotten the boys up. She helped them pack and whisked them away for breakfast at McDonald's. From there she was taking them home. Or to Dad's.

She wasn't sure which.

I begged her
not
to take them to Dad's but knew she would anyway.

Charlie walked in the door leading from the garage to the kitchen, looking completely defensive. I had been waiting for him at the kitchen table, the same table where Heather had given me the news that changed my day.

My life.

He tossed his keys onto the countertop. Rested his hip against it. Crossed his arms. “Where are my sons?” he asked.

Your sons? “They're with Heather.”

He nodded. “Is she the one who told you?”

“Yes.”

“And she found out . . . ?”

“A friend of
your
friend. You know, Bunni? The girl who is just the hardworking mother who needed a job?”

“Stop it, Kim.”

I stood. Took deliberate steps toward him. Stopped just inches from his imposing form. “Stop it? Stop it? That's all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

My fists hit him squarely in the chest. I pounded against him until he grabbed my wrists and held me at bay.

“Don't you
dare
touch me,” I screamed.

“Kim!”

I felt my knees buckle, my weight give way. Charlie caught me, scooped me into his arms, and headed for the family room. I struggled against him. “Put me down,” I said ridiculously.

He dropped me unceremoniously onto the sofa. Then he sat beside me, blocking me at the hip between his body and the back of the couch. “You need to listen.”

“No. The last time you told me to listen, you lied to me.” I started to cry. I'd been crying since Heather had left. I was sure I looked a fright. A far cry from the woman he'd just left behind at one of the swankiest hotels in Central Florida.

I tried to force myself up from where he had me pinned. He held on all the more.

“You need to calm down.”

I placed my hands over my face. “Go away, Charlie. Go away and let me think.”

Charlie stood. Adjusted his waistband. “Fine. You're not going to listen to a thing I have to say anyway. You never have.” Then, “Look,” he said. “It's not that I meant to hurt you. You or the boys. It's just that . . . you expect too much and I . . .”

I gave him my best “you've got to be kidding me” look.

“I can't breathe, Kim. I love my sons, but I can't breathe.”

“
You
can't breathe,” I repeated.

“No. I can't.”

I waved him away. “Go away, Charlie. I can't even look at you right now.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “All right then. If you need me, I'll be upstairs.”

I didn't want him upstairs. I didn't want him in the house. But I didn't want him to leave either. If he left, he might never come back, and I couldn't honestly say I wanted that either.

There was more than just me to consider. More than our years together. More than the fact that he was the only man—excluding Steven, who had been nothing but a boy thinking he was a man—I had ever loved.

There were, of course, the children. Our sons. They loved their father. Adored him. Idolized him. They'd set him on a pedestal; if they saw him fall, what would it mean to their little psyches?

I had no clue what to do. I was stuck. Or was I?

The ringing of my cell phone from in the kitchen forced me off the sofa. I stumbled into the breakfast nook. Picked up the phone from the table.

Dad.

I wrestled with my choices. Not answer and hope this was just a random call. Not answer and find out later that he knew the truth and was calling out of concern. Answer and find out the call was just to check on me. Answer and find out that he knew. That he wanted to talk about it.

And I just couldn't . . .

“Hello?”

“Boo?”

“Hey, Dad.” I didn't mean for it to happen, but the tears began. Gulping my words, I said, “I guess you've talked to Heather.”

“Honey . . .” he said, the endearment trailing. “I'll be right there.”

“No, Dad. Charlie is here and it might not . . . be . . . a good idea for . . .”

“What does he say, Boo? Have you asked him if it's true?”

“Dad. I caught him. I called the hotel and he answered. He told me he was . . . was working. He told me he was taking a break. And drinking water.” The tears returned. Fresh and hot.

“Oh, Boo . . .”

“I don't know what to do, Dad. The boys . . .”

Momentary silence was followed by, “Meet me at my office, Kim.”

“When?”

“How soon can you get there?”

“Fifteen minutes?”

“I'll see you then.”

I didn't tell Charlie I was leaving. I figured it would do him good, so to speak, to hear the garage door open. To see me driving away. To wonder.

Sure enough, when I got to the edge of the driveway, he called. I didn't answer. It was a stupid mind game, I knew, but I felt vindicated by it. Almost.

The ringing stopped. Started again. After his third attempt, I turned my phone off. Let it go directly to voice mail, I thought. Let's see if you leave a message.

Dad's car was already in the parking lot; I wondered if he'd called me from the office. As soon as I pulled my Honda in beside his car, he appeared in the back doorway. His shoulders seemed to sag under the burden of my heartache. I understood this. All too well. When our children hurt, we hurt.

I once heard it said that parents can only be as happy as their saddest child. I had yet to learn just how true that statement was, but I felt I'd soon find out.

Dad had been through so much. Mom's illness. Her death. Heather's manic shopping holiday, which he practically bailed her out of. Jayme-Leigh's marriage to Isaac—whom we all love but were equally as concerned about the differences in beliefs. Then there was Ami's move to Atlanta. Not that it came as a surprise, but she'd hardly come home since she'd left. Barely called, Dad told me. I knew there had been a rift between her and Heather; this bothered Dad greatly. I had often thought how I would feel if Chase and Cody—as adults—were fighting. Not speaking. I would be heartbroken.

And now this thing with me. With Charlie.

Dad had always been crazy about Charlie. Thought of him—as he did Andre and Isaac—as the sons he never had. Knowing that Charlie had been unfaithful to the vows of our marriage would cut him at the deepest part of himself.

I got out of the car, ran to my father. His arms opened wide and I practically fell into his embrace. “Daddy,” I cried, using a name by which I'd not called him since I was ten.

“It's okay, Boo. I've got you. We'll talk this out. We'll figure out what to do.”

Dad's office smelled like rubbing alcohol and fresh-brewed coffee. We went directly to the break room, where he had already poured me a cup—had it sitting on the table with a neatly folded napkin beneath it. I wished he hadn't gone to the trouble. I didn't want it. Couldn't stomach it. I thanked him but didn't drink anything.

We sat across from each other at the little table where his and Jayme-Leigh's employees ate their lunches or nibbled snacks. Unlike the rest of the office—decorated in classic Pooh—this room had Mom's decorative touch. She'd made it warm. Inviting. A person with a workload like those who worked for Dad could come in for fifteen or thirty minutes or even an hour and find themselves completely relaxed. I only wished it could have that effect on me right then.

“Tell me,” Dad said.

I spilled the story. I told him about my previous concerns and how Charlie had convinced me otherwise. I told him about Bunni. About the soccer game and the kiss. I told him about what had transpired in the last few hours.

“Why, Dad?” I asked with a blow of my nose into a paper towel, the only “tissue” I could find in the room. “Why do men do it?” I tossed the towel into the nearby trash can. Wiped at my eyes with my fingers before thinking better of it.

I heard my father inhale. Exhale. So slowly that had the room and everything around us not been so quiet, I would have missed it. “Boo, I can't speak for my sex in general. And I don't think that's what you need to concentrate on.”

I looked up from mascara-smeared hands. “What then?”

Dad looked as though he were hurting as much as I. “What you need to concentrate on is not why
men
do things like this but why
Charlie
did it.”

I felt myself go stiff. “Are you saying it's my fault?”
Maybe it is . . . Is it?

Dad patted my hand. “No, Boo. Not in a million years. You are a good wife. A good mother. A good person. And with all that, Charlie still strayed. You have to ask yourself why
he
did it, not why
men—
or women for that matter—do it.”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes. That's what I want to know.”

Dad flexed his shoulders, rested his forearms against the edge of the table. His hands came together naturally, each finger folding between the corresponding finger of the other hand. “Boo, what do you want to do now? From here?”

I started to cry again. “I don't know, Dad.” My words came between sobs. “I am so angry. And I'm
so
hurt.”

Dad stood. “I'll be right back,” he said.

I watched him leave, my tears stifled long enough for him to walk down the hall and then return with a clean handkerchief in his hand. “I just got this as a gift from one of my patients.” He showed me the dark blue monogram stitched in one corner. “A set of them, actually.” I took it from his hand. “Good thing I didn't take them home just yet.”

He returned to his seat while I returned to my sobbing. I raised my head at one point, thanked him for allowing me to just cry, and he nodded. When I was thoroughly wrung out, when I couldn't bring any new pictures of Charlie and Bunni to my mind, when I could no longer envision myself beating them both like piñatas at a birthday party, I stopped crying.

I twisted Dad's handkerchief with my hands, staring at the rings on my left hand. Watching them taunt me. What difference had it made that we'd spoken vows? Made a covenant with each other? Why had we even bothered?

Dad cleared his throat. “Do you love him?”

My head jerked up. I shook my head back and forth. I had no energy for such a question as that, either. “I don't know anymore. I don't know.”

“Well, now. That's not a no.”

I shook my head some more. “It's not a yes, either.”

“Boo, you have two boys to think about. Two sons. Now I'm not overly happy with Charlie right now, but he's the father of my grandsons and he always will be. That will never, ever change.”

“I know, Dad,” I said, sounding more like a thirteen-year-old than a grown woman.

“If you decide you cannot work this out with him, if you decide to get a divorce, you'll not be rid of him, you know. You'll have to deal with him in ways you never imagined. Visitation. Support. He will date other women.”

I nearly gagged at the thought.

“Trust me. He will. Bunni Berno is fooling herself if she thinks Charlie is going to leave you and marry her. That much I'm sure of.”

“Are you?”

He nodded. “But that doesn't mean he won't get married again, someday, and your sons will then have a stepmother. She may be as good as gold or she may become your worst enemy.” I groaned; my head felt like it was going to explode. “The question you have to ask yourself at this point is whether
or not you think the marriage is worth fighting for. Or, if not, giving up and dealing with what comes next.”

I pressed my forehead into the pad of my palms. Pressed against the agony. “Dad. Either way, I'm in the worst situation. I didn't do anything wrong and yet
I'm
the one who has to make this decision?”