THE AFFAIR (42 page)

Larry blinked twice. His wife had a huge smile pasted on her face while he felt like crap for admitting that his daughter’s behavior annoyed him. He was speechless.

“Then why do you let her and the others get away with so much? When I’ve asked for your help in saying no, in setting rules, why did you always say for me to let it go?”

“Because…Mick…because…”

“Because what?”

“Because I made a promise to each of the kids that I would never abandon them, never let them down. I promised I would be there for them always.”

“You’ve kept your promise, Larry.”

“That’s just it, Mick, I don’t know if I have. I’ve wanted to say no, but I couldn’t. The only time I’ve ever not wanted them around was the night you left me.”

She reached for his hand, holding it tightly in hers. “I never wanted you to make a choice between me and the children. I just didn’t want to come in sixth all of the time.”

Larry thought for a minute. “Can you tell me then why all the animosity between you and Erica?”

“Think about it, Larry. She’s spoiled, they all are, but Erica thinks it’s her right to use us. She drops her kids off on us whenever she chooses. She allows them to destroy our home, our possessions.”

She moaned then and he knew she was remembering her broken figurine. He couldn’t stop the inward wince of pain. He remembered also. In fact, he would never forget.

Mick was eyeing him strangely. “Doesn’t it ever upset you that Erica borrows thousands of dollars from us on a whim and never pays it back?”

“It may have seemed like that, but after Erica was born, I began to feel like this giant uterus that had no other function. You had your mystical perfect family. You all knew your roles. I didn’t fit. And part of the reason I didn’t fit was nothing you could have helped. I carried a grief constantly inside of me and I mourned the loss of my son from my dreams. Only I couldn’t really express that grief not even with you. Whenever I tried to tell you about my son you wanted me to be quiet, you told me always that Derrick was my only son, that he was well. Until I met Blaine I had no proof that you weren’t right, that I wasn’t perhaps a little bit crazy. But it didn’t matter, I still felt the grief, and that you couldn’t have helped me with.”

I closed my eyes feeling the need to swallow before continuing. “That wasn’t your fault. I just didn’t know how to live, how to be happy not knowing what happened to the family in my dreams. And I had no one to talk to about this. I loved you so much, Larry, and sometimes I thought all you wanted me for was to be a mother to our kids.”

Larry swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the loud beeping of the monitor. From what Mick and the doctor had said he didn’t need the damn thing anyway. He gathered his wife in his arms, pulling her close to him.

“You were never that to me, Mick. I loved you so much that I guess I just forgot to tell you as much as I should have. I always thought you knew.”

She was holding him, her words spoken between broken sobs. “I really wasn’t jealous, Larry, at least I don’t think so, but some time alone would have been nice. We haven’t gone any place alone in the last twenty years. The vacations were always with the kids. Now that they’re gone our only vacations have been to see the kids.”

“I thought you enjoyed it.”

“I told you I didn’t.”

For the first time since they’d started talking a memory brought him up short. He remembered her begging him to go away, just the two of them.

He could hear her voice saying she didn’t want to visit the kids. He had never thought of that when she began making excuses, not going, doing anything else. He wondered if she had been with Chance during those times.

Before she could answer the door burst open and Erica all but ran into the room. Larry watched as his daughter glared at her mother. Mick pulled back to allow Erica to embrace him. He wanted nothing more than to continue holding Mick in his arms.

By the look of things, that wasn’t going to happen. The room became abuzz with people, nurses, and doctors. He had no idea why they were even there.

Apparently they all wanted to see him, the freak, the miracle patient. The man whose body had had a heart attack with no evidence it had ever happened.

He glanced over Erica’s head toward the door where Mick waited, seemingly pushed farther back into the corner as one after the other of their children arrived.

He noticed that all but Derrick hugged Mick timidly. Derrick was the only one who held his mother as if he meant it. The others looked at the glare on Erica’s face and backed away.

For the first time since marrying Mick, Larry asked God for something. For twenty-six years he’d begun his day giving thanks and ended his nights the same way. Now he prayed for a way to make it up to his wife.

Outside the room and down the hall, Blaine and Chance kept vigil. Chance was not leaving until the oncoming cardiologist arrived. No one would be able to blast him out.

Chapter Nineteen

Larry’s eyes narrowed as he zeroed in on Mick. She seemed to be shrinking into the background. He blinked before looking away from his children. Something was wrong.

He felt a coldness gripping his heart. How had the woman who was at the very center of his life been relegated to the outer fringes?

He smiled at her, hoping to convey that he was now aware of what was happening. He watched his wife’s face. She tilted her head a slight bit toward their children, and slowly a tiny smile appeared at the corners of her lips.

Erica’s frowning face caught his eyes as she turned toward the back of the room to glare at her mother. He watched in silence as she shifted position to block Mick from his view.

His mouth fell open. He stared at his eldest, his firstborn, the child who had made them a family. Larry cringed inwardly. This was the child who looked so much like Mick that he had literally imbued her with Mick’s generous, loving spirit.

How in hell had he missed it? His daughter was nothing like his wife. His gaze fell on his other children. None of them were anything like Mick. If he had to hazard a guess, Derrick came closest.

He stared at his son for a long moment. He too played the role of peacemaker. He wondered if his son was happy in his marriage or unhappy the way his mother had been.

Larry closed his eyes as shiver after shiver overtook him. He almost wished for the squeezing pain he’d had around his heart. That would have been preferable to knowing he’d played a part in his wife’s misery.

She was right. He’d been blinded by love, rendered sightless, unable to see what was happening in his family, loving them all so much, that in his eyes they could do no wrong. Oh God, what had he done?

“Dad, are you sleeping? I’m talking to you.”

He heard the harsh tone of Erica’s voice and felt her hand tugging on his arm. He opened his eyes slowly. “Mick,” he called to his wife, feeling Erica’s glare hit him with the force of an atomic bomb.

One by one, he began pulling away the sticky round disks on his chest, ignoring the cardiac monitor going crazy, ignoring the nurses telling him to lie still. He ordered them out of the room, reminding them he was the miracle patient, that he’d not really had a heart attack.

“Because I love her, Erica, and she’s my wife.” Larry’s voice softened as he reached out to touch his daughter’s cheek. “When did you turn into this nasty, disrespectful shrew? I always thought because you looked so much like your mother, that you had her sweetness.”

He shook his head in sadness. “You’re nothing like your mother.”

“I don’t want to be,” she retorted.

“That’s too bad. It’s too bad for you, the kids, and for Roy. You’re cruel, Erica,” he said at last, an awareness suddenly filling him. “You’re cruel and you’re selfish.”

“First, that’s none of your business. I’m married to your mother, not you. Second, I don’t blame her. If it had been me, I would have tossed me out on my ass years ago for subjecting her to this kind of behavior.”

His daughter was glaring daggers at him as well as looking over his shoulder at her mother. “Where did you learn to be this way?”

Erica started crying, covering her face with her hands, a move that for over twenty-three years had always managed to bring him to his knees. “It won’t work this time, Erica.”

Instantly the tears stopped. Larry felt the touch of Mick’s fingers on his back, urging him to return to the bed.

“Don’t, Larry, don’t worry about it. It’s not worth it to get you this worked up.”

He turned from Erica to face Mick. “It’s worth it. If I die in the next moment it’s worth it. I should have done this a long time ago.” He looked at Mick, then at the hospital bed.

“I can’t believe I never saw it. This is what it took to open my eyes?” he whispered in amazement. “I’m sorry, Mick.”

“Why are you apologizing to her? What about me? You asked me to leave. Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry, Daddy?” Erica wailed as though she were still a child.

“No,” Larry said forcefully. “I meant every word. Go home all of you, to your own homes. And if you can’t give your mother the respect she deserves, don’t bother coming back.”

Larry watched the two of them. The doctor evidently thought Mick was in some danger. His movements quickly took him to her side.

He glared at everyone in the room with the exception of Mick. When his eyes came to rest on Larry this time there was no guilt. There was only anger.

“She loves you, you know,” he said to Larry between clenched teeth, before turning directly to Mick and ignoring the fact that his staff was watching him, as well as Larry and his entire family.