Soaring (74 page)

“I…but…you…that’s…I don’t know—” I stammered but never finished the thought I didn’t quite get around to having.

Mickey interrupted me, “This market, I could make eight, nine hundred K off my house. That’s not a fifth of this place so I take over utilities so I feel I’m doin’ what I gotta do.”

“How about, when we get there,” I began carefully, “that we share things equitably? What you can do a percentage of what—?”

I stopped that time because his arms gave me a squeeze and his mouth added, “Don’t finish that, Amy.”

I said nothing further.

“Do what I gotta do,” he stated.

“Okay, Mickey,” I agreed but only because he was being so strange and it was scaring me.

“And not tough. Kids love this place. It’s nice. It’s big. You love it. And the tub doesn’t suck.”

That sounded more like Mickey so I again settled in and replied, “All that’s true.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

I fell silent and in doing so, listened to Mickey fall asleep. No brush of the lips. No goodnight.

Nothing.

It took me longer but I fell asleep with him.

Mickey woke me with his mouth on mine, his hands pushing my nightie up my back and his lips saying, “Did a walkthrough. They’re all out.”

Then he kissed me.

Even half asleep, it was a kiss from Mickey so I kissed him back.

And thus commenced Mickey making love to me.

This was a surprise. We had not had any kind of intimacy that wasn’t shared through cell towers for weeks. I thought it would be intense and fast and astounding.

It wasn’t. It was slow and reverent and sweet.

We’d taken our time before. We’d enjoyed each other lengthily and thoroughly. I loved it when Mickey guided it to that, just as much as I loved it when we went at each other like teenagers.

But when he finally let me finish and then I took him there, he tangled us together, murmured “’Night, Amy,” and I again listened to my guy drift off to sleep.

I didn’t sleep myself.

Not a wink.

Because I’d been made love to like that before. Not as good, but Mickey was better with everything.

It had been the night before Conrad left me.

So no, I didn’t sleep.

Not a wink.

* * * * *

“Okay,
what
is your
problem
?”

I jerked out of my reverie at Alyssa’s question.

She, Josie and me were sitting together having lunch at Weatherby’s. It was two days after Christmas. Mickey and his kids were returning the next day. My kids had ended their rift with their father and went to him the afternoon of Christmas day (as was his turn) and with my blessing had been staying with him since.

So I had been suddenly and unusually alone.

Alone enough to finally come to terms with what was happening.

The last real conversation I’d had with my guy, he’d shared that if what we “went the distance” he was moving his family into Cliff Blue with me.

But it bore repeating,
that was the last real conversation I’d had with my guy.

He’d been gone for a week in Phoenix with his kids but even before he left, he had removed himself from me.

And after he left, I heard more from Cillian and Ash than I did from Mickey, not only through their constant communications with my kids via texts and calls, but directly to me (via mostly texts).

All I got from Mickey was such as, “Phoenix is great,” and “Cill kicked it in the flight simulator,” and “Yeah, I know we need to plan our Christmas thing. We’ll talk about it when we get back.”

There were no, “You’d love it here,” or “You should have seen Cill in that flight simulator,” or “Can’t wait to have our thing, baby, love you.”

In fact, there were no “love yous” at all.

I said it when we were disconnecting and his reply would be, “Yeah. Same.”

Yeah. Same.

He was pulling away and I had no idea why.

I focused on Alyssa. “I think Mickey’s gonna break up with me.”

“
What?
” she shrieked and I saw heads turn and this was probably because Josie added her own unusually loud, “Pardon me?”

“Shh,” I hissed, leaning into the table to do it.

Alyssa, across from Josie and me, leaned back and Josie leaned toward me.

“What?” she repeated.

“He’s pulling away from me,” I told them.

“As it might feel, Amelia,” Josie stated. “He’s an entire continent away.”

“He hasn’t said ‘I love you’ in nearly two weeks.”

“Fuck,” Alyssa muttered.

She got it.

Josie didn’t.

“He may be in company and not desirous of sharing this depth of emotion in front of his friends. You
did
say they were staying with someone he grew up with, a man who’s a fighter pilot in the armed services, thus a man’s man and with both, his friend might tease him about such things. Perhaps he feels private sentiments should remain private and he hasn’t had a chance to gain that privacy.”

“That would include
before
he was with his friend Chopper and his family,” I told her.

Her eyes slid to Alyssa, which meant she had no reply to that.

“We talk…about everything,” I shared. “We call each other all the time. We touch base. We keep in the know. He’s hardly calling me at all.”

Josie looked back to me. “He
is
on vacation, honey.”

“That isn’t Mickey,” I whispered.

She sat back and her pretty blue eyes turned worried.

I pressed my lips together to stop myself from crying.

When I succeeded in this endeavor, I told them, “No matter what, for months, we talk before we go to sleep. We haven’t done that since he left. I asked him about it, him being away, and he says it’s the time difference.”

“They are hours behind us,” Josie said gently. “They could be busy.”

“You love a bitch, you find the time,” Alyssa snapped.

I looked at her.

Oh yes. She got it.

“I don’t know what happened,” I said.

“I don’t either,” Alyssa returned. “But you should call his ass on it and set up a meet to find out what’s
up
his ass the minute he gets back.”

Confronting Mickey Donovan. Not high on the things I found exciting.

No, I did find it exciting because that was our thing.

I just didn’t find it exciting now if, in doing it, he broke up with me.

“If he’s done, he’s going to be done,” I said, sitting back, shoulders slumping. “He’s Mickey.”

“He owes you an explanation,” Alyssa retorted.

He did.

I just wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.

My eyes drifted to the salad I’d barely touched.

Since we got together, nothing, not anything, not in all that had happened gave indication that this wasn’t heading to something real. Something permanent. Something
forever
.

Mickey giving me a happy life and more importantly, me having the opportunity to give the same to Mickey.

There had been extreme craziness, the kind that could tear people apart, and it had all ironed out. Alcoholic ex-wives. Dirtbag ex-husbands. Troubled kids. Crappy jobs.

Heck, Mickey’s business was all set to go. He had two big jobs lined up to start on his return (contracting work, which was more money) and he was quitting Ralph his first day back to work.

I couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong.

Except in all that goodness, I was still me.

Boring Amelia Hathaway, no job, no drive, no ambition, spending her time baking and decorating and volunteering at an old folks’ home.

“Amelia,” Josie called.

I glanced her way, mumbling, “I’m not hungry. Do you mind if I take off?”

“Think you should stick with your girls, baby,” Alyssa told me gently.

I looked to her. “You have to get back to work and so does Josie.”

I, however, did not. It was one of the few days I didn’t go to Dove House.

With my kids at Conrad’s, I had exactly nothing to do.

“I’ll juggle an appointment,” Alyssa offered.

“I make my own hours, Amelia,” Josie reminded me.

I shook my head, digging in my purse at my side to pull out some bills. I took out a lot of them and threw them on the table.

“Lunch on me,” I said, not looking at either of them and sliding out of the booth.

“Amelia, stay,” Josie cajoled as I grabbed my jacket off the hook that was on a high bar that led up from the end of each booth.

I looked to her. “Really, I just need some alone time to think.”

“Babe, you should—” Alyssa started.

“Later,” I interrupted her, and pulling on my coat while juggling my bag, I made my escape.

I went to my house, walked in from the garage and stopped by the glorious dining room table on top of which, weeks before, Mickey had fucked me.

Then right there, he’d told me he loved me.

There were no used pop cans or cake plates with crumbs or cookie tins with the top askew along with no kids at my bar.

There
was
a fabulous chaise lounge with standing lamp and a table on a magnificent rug on the landing by the windows, this courtesy of a good find by Josie’s interior designer.

The space was huge.

Huge and beautiful.

Huge and cold and empty.

And I found myself standing there, staring at the beauty I created, thinking that I hoped when my kids went to college that they did it far away and never came back to Magdalene.

Because after Mickey ended it with me, once they were gone, I was moving from my show home across the street from the Donovans.

I didn’t know where I’d go. I didn’t even know if I’d survive those years living across from Mickey and his kids.

I just knew I’d be gone.

* * * * *

I was on my chaise lounge under an afghan with my book, and I was taking a sip from a glass of wine when my phone rang that evening.

I looked down at it on the table beside me, saw who was calling, set aside my wine and took the call.

“Mickey,” I greeted.

There was a pause before he said, “Hey.”

I said nothing.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Perfect,” I lied.

“The kids with you?” he went on.

“No,” I told him.

He fell silent.

I didn’t jump in.

He ended the silence with, “We’re back tomorrow.”

“I remember.”

“Early flight here, get back late there.”

“Yes.”

A pause before he asked, “You sure you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You don’t sound right.”

I wasn’t.

I was head over heels in love with a man who no longer wanted me for no reason at all.

“I’m fine,” I lied again.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Well, I am.”

“Amy, what the fuck? Talk to me,” he ordered.

Now, after weeks of me gently trying to get him to talk,
he
wanted
me
to talk to
him
?

“About what?” I asked.

“What’s up your ass,” he answered irately.

I would not rise to the bait. I couldn’t imagine why he wanted a reaction from me, but he couldn’t have it because I didn’t have it in me.

“Nothing’s up my ass, Mickey. I was having a glass of wine and reading when you phoned. And it isn’t exactly early here.”

“It’s nine thirty,” he stated.

“Yes. And I’m relaxed and was into a book. I had lunch with the girls today. No Dove House. Not a big day. Nothing to report. I’m mellowed out and am probably going to go to bed soon except I’m into this book so it might keep me up reading.”

He took a moment as if to digest that while assessing its veracity (and there was absolutely no veracity) before he said, “Then I’ll let you get back to your book. But I gotta ask you somethin’ tough and that is, keep your kids at your ex’s tomorrow. Once I get us home and the kids settled in, I’m comin’ over. We gotta talk.”

So he wasn’t wasting time.

“Text me when you’re on your way over,” I told him.

“Will do. Now I’ll let you go.”

“Okay. Enjoy your last few hours of cactus and sunshine.”

“Sun went down already, baby.”

There was humor in his tone. I hadn’t heard that in over a week.

It pained me.

“Then enjoy your last few hours of cactus and warmth.”

“Will do that too. Later, Amy.”

“Good-bye, Mickey.”

I didn’t hang up.

He didn’t either.

“Babe?” he called.

“Yes,” I answered.

“That it?”

What could he possibly want?

“Sorry, was juggling wine, didn’t hit the button,” I lied. “Anyway, ’bye again, Mickey. See you tomorrow.”

Then I hit the button and set the phone down.

I stared at it. I did this a long time.

It didn’t ring.

So that was it. I knew it then.

Mickey didn’t call me back.

He should have because I disconnected without telling him I loved him.

But he didn’t care because it was over between him and me.

Why, I had no clue.

Except I was me and when shit like this happened, I’d learned there didn’t really need to be a reason.

* * * * *

The next evening after eight, my phone chimed.

I looked to it and saw it was Mickey.

On my way.

Swiftly, I snatched it up and replied,
Door is open.

I was in the kitchen making tea.

As he lived right across the street, my torture in waiting for him didn’t last long.

The door opened.

Jeans. Sweater. Boots. He looked tired around his eyes from all the travelling but he still looked all Mickey.

The weight I was carrying pressed down further.

“Hey,” I called, opening the paper around my teabag.

“Hey back,” he replied, closing the door and moving toward me.

“Want tea?” I asked the mug I was putting the bag in.

“Babe, you know I don’t drink tea.”

I looked to him. “A beer?”

He stopped at the end of the counter.

God, not even getting in my space.

I looked away, crumpling up the paper from the teabag and frantically trying to think of something I could do to keep my hands busy.