This Matter Of Marriage (15 page)

Steve stood and slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table.

Frowning slightly, Todd looked up. “You're leaving?”

“Yeah.” He reached for and drained his mug.

“Where you headed?”

“Where else? To talk to Mary Lynn.” As he turned away, he thought he heard Todd groan. He left the tavern to the accompaniment of Garth Brooks belting out something about friends in low places. Kind of fit Mary Lynn's image of him, he told himself sourly.

The tires on his truck churned up gravel as he sped out of the parking lot. He drove around for an hour or so, clearing his head. Then he stopped for some take-out food and spent a while figuring out exactly what he wanted to say to Mary Lynn. But he waited until he knew the kids would be down for the night before he approached the house. No need to involve them.

He never could get used to knocking on the door of the place he'd bought and paid for himself. Legally it was Mary Lynn's house now, but still…

Mary Lynn answered the door, obviously surprised to see him. “Steve. What are you doing here?”

“Have you got a few minutes?” he asked. He was struck again by her beauty, her delicate features and dark glossy hair. He'd missed her in so many ways; perhaps what he missed most of all, what he most wanted to recover, was the companionship of their early years together. He'd made a lot of mistakes in his marriage, but then so had she. It was time for them to admit that and try again. He couldn't understand why Mary Lynn seemed so unwilling to agree.

She hesitated, then joined him on the porch, quietly closing the door behind her. They used to sit on this very porch and gaze at the stars, but that had been years ago. The porch light was off and the stars smiled down from the heavens, the same way they had back then, on fine summer nights. To Steve it was a good sign. He needed one.

Mary Lynn sat on the top step, and he sat beside her. He was glad he'd followed his instincts, instead of waiting until Mary Lynn came to her senses. This conversation was already long overdue.

“What's on your mind?” she asked.

“Everything's okay with the kids, isn't it? They aren't having any problems in school, right?”

“No, of course not. What makes you ask?”

“Nothing,” he assured her. “You're doing a good job with them, Mary Lynn.”

“Thanks, but I'm sure you didn't come all this way to compliment me.”

He hesitated. “You did a fine job being my wife, too.”

She lowered her head so she wouldn't have to look at him. “That was a long time ago.”

“Not that long ago. I remember everything about us, especially how good you felt in my arms and how we used to—”

“Steve,” she said abruptly, cutting him off. “Don't say any more.”

“Why not?” He'd thought very seriously about what he wanted to tell her. He'd planned to remind her of good times in the past, talk about how the kids needed an intact family, promise to be the kind of husband she wanted. She had to know he'd do damn near anything to get his family back.

“It's over, Steve. It has been for years.”

“Not for me it hasn't.”

“Then maybe it's time you faced facts.” She stood and he reached for her wrist, stopping her.

“Don't go,” he asked gently, and because this was important, he added, “Please.”

Sighing, she sat back down on the step. He placed his arm around her shoulders. She held herself stiff and unyielding against him, but gradually she relaxed as he nuzzled her neck, stroked her hair. “Remember how we used to sit out here and watch the stars?”

“That was years ago.”

“You sure? Seems like yesterday.” She smelled so good it was all he could do to keep from burying his face in her hair and inhaling her sweet perfumed scent. He planted soft moist kisses along the side of her neck, working his way toward her ear. He felt some of her resistance melt away when he caught her lobe gently between his teeth.

It'd been so damn long since they'd last made love that he was already hard. His hands fumbled with the opening of her blouse.

“I don't think this is a good idea,” she whispered, but he noticed she wasn't actually stopping him.

“On the contrary I think it's one of the best ideas I've had in months.”

Her hand closed tightly over his. “Don't.”

He dropped his hand, but continued kissing her neck, knowing if she allowed this, his chances of getting her in bed would increase a hundredfold. That was where he wanted her, soft and pliant beneath him, reaching up to him with her arms, drawing him down. Loving him, taking away the ache of his loneliness. Afterward they would talk….

“Let me kiss you,” he said, his voice husky with need. He wasn't someone who pleaded often, but he did now, feeling like a man who was about to let something of great value slip out of his grasp. He loved Mary Lynn. Needed her and their family.

“I…have to get back inside.”

“We'll both go in,” he whispered. Taking her face between his hands, he directed her mouth to his. Her resistance was weak, a token effort, and that gave him hope. She might not say it, but she damn well wanted him as much as he wanted her.

The kiss was almost brutal with sexual energy. Soon he had his tongue entwined with hers and she was crawling all over him. The only reason they ended the kiss was to breathe, and even then it was with reluctance.

“Don't you remember how good it is with us?” Steve whispered. “Let's go inside,” he urged with a groan.

Mary Lynn buried her face in his shoulder, breathing hard.

Steve got to his feet, pulling her with him. He was halfway to the door when she stopped him.

“We can't go in there.”

“Why not?” If the kids were awake, they'd hurry them off to bed and then head in that direction themselves.

Mary Lynn didn't answer.

Steve advanced another step.

“No,” she cried, breaking away from him.

“Why not?”

She squared her shoulders and whispered, “Kip's here. He fell asleep in front of the television. I had him over for dinner.”

Steve couldn't believe his ears. Mary Lynn had sat on the porch making love with him while another man waited for her inside the house?

“You shouldn't have come,” she whispered angrily. “Don't do it again, Steve. We're divorced. I wish to God you'd remember that.”

S
he was insane, Hallie told herself. Because only an insane woman would have agreed to look after a six-month-old infant for two days while her sister and brother-in-law spent the weekend camping on the Oregon coast. Lucille McCarthy had originally agreed to watch Ellen, but she'd come down with a bad cold she was afraid of passing on to the baby.

Julie had phoned Hallie in tears, distraught because she'd have to cancel this long-awaited retreat with Jason. Caught off guard, Hallie had offered to take Ellen for the weekend. Just how much trouble could a six-month-old baby be? she asked herself with bravado. Infants that age slept twenty hours out of twenty-four. Didn't they?

Hallie's first doubts had surfaced the moment she'd hung up the phone. Though she loved kids, she hadn't done much baby-sitting as a teenager. Well, maybe as an adult she'd do all right. And this time with Ellen would be a bonding experience. Two minutes later she called Steve to make sure Meagan was going to be around.

The next day, when Julie arrived with enough paraphernalia to fill a moving van—including a portable crib, a mammoth diaper bag, a miniature plastic bathtub, and more—Hallie was once again gripped by the anxiety of those who know they're in way, way over their heads.

“Ellen's a good baby,” Julie assured her. “You've got nothing to worry about.”

“All right.” Besides, her mother lived little more than an hour away. Not so far that Hallie couldn't leap in the car and drive to the Kitsap Peninsula if she got desperate. “And,” she told her sister cheerfully, “there's always Mom. She must be getting over her cold by now.”

Julie and Jason glanced at each other as if silently debating which one should tell her.

“Mom's gone away for the weekend,” Julie finally said.

“Away?” Hallie said, her throat closing up on her.

“She felt a lot better yesterday, and then this morning a friend invited her to Vegas for the weekend. Jason and I told her she should go.”

Jeez, no one had asked
her,
Hallie thought. And her mother's defection left her without parental support—her ace in the hole, if things went wrong. Now that Lucille was hanging out with Wayne Newton and Hallie had no way of contacting Julie and Jason—except through Smokey the Bear—she was on her own. With maybe a bit of help from next door.

Hallie's fears exploded to life even before the fumes from Jason's car had disappeared.

Ten minutes later Ellen woke up.

The kid, even at six months, was no fool. She knew immediately that the woman holding her wasn't her mother or grandmother. She took one look at Hallie and let out a scream a horror-movie starlet might envy.

Hallie cuddled the baby. “It's Auntie Hallie,” she said, a little desperately. “Remember me?” Apparently not, but really, who could blame Ellen? She'd only seen Hallie a handful of times, and then it had been at family gatherings when she was surrounded by familiar faces. Now there were only the two of them, and Ellen didn't like it.

“Hey, McCarthy, you said you wanted to be a mother.” Hallie tried again, this time with a bit of self-talk. If she couldn't comfort Ellen, she'd work on reassuring herself. “This is where the rubber meets the road.”

Motherhood wouldn't be all baby powder and gurgles. What she was experiencing was the real nitty-gritty of being a parent. This was what she wanted for herself, so she might as well practice now.

Hallie continued to hold and rock Ellen until the screams gradually eased to pitiful sobs.

When Meagan appeared at the kitchen door, Hallie could have kissed her.

“This is your niece?” Meagan asked.

“She isn't all that familiar with me yet.” Hallie felt she had to explain Ellen's discontent.

“Is her diaper wet?”

Her diaper. Hallie hadn't given it a thought. “Poor, poor baby,” she cooed, reaching for the diaper bag Julie had left behind. The
big
diaper bag. Hallie extracted baby food jars, bottles, blankets, rattles, teething rings, a squeezable yellow duck, a pacifier, comb, brush, socks, three different pairs of shoes. But no diapers.

“I think they might be in the side,” Meagan said.

Sure enough, there was the storehouse of disposable diapers. Plenty of those, along with wipes, powder, diaper-rash ointment and a furry blue bear. No instruction manual, though.

Ready to prove she was capable of such an undertaking, Hallie spread a flannel blanket on the carpet and placed a squirming Ellen in the center. She smiled proudly over at Meagan. “This isn't so bad.”

She promptly revised her opinion when it became apparent Ellen wasn't going to make this easy. The only other diapers Hallie could remember changing had been on childhood dolls. The ones she'd owned had talked and cried and wet their pants. But none had kicked and fussed, twisted and turned, making the task damn near impossible.

By the time she'd finished, Hallie was exhausted.

“You did great,” Meagan congratulated her.

A glance at her watch showed that Julie and Jason had been gone less than an hour. Only thirty-five more to go. Piece of cake, Hallie mumbled under her breath.

“Dad's taking Kenny to softball practice, but I can stay and help you, if you want.”

If you want…
Hallie all but grabbed the girl's shoulders and hugged her, she was that grateful.

With Meagan's help, Hallie made it through the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon. When Ellen went down for a nap, Hallie did, too. No one had bothered to tell her about the energy required to entertain a six-month-old.

The afternoon passed quickly, and at suppertime she said goodbye to Meagan, feeling confident now that she could manage. It seemed that Ellen had become accustomed to her. Hallie felt ecstatic; she wasn't as inadequate at this motherhood business as she'd feared. Yes! She could do this.

She changed her mind shortly after midnight. Ellen woke her out of a sound sleep, screaming so loudly that Hallie hurled herself out of bed and stubbed her toe while madly searching for the light switch. She'd completely forgotten about the lamp on her nightstand.

If Ellen had felt comfortable with Hallie earlier, she wanted nothing to do with her now. In fact, the infant had taken a sudden and apparently irreversible dislike to her aunt.

Babe in arms, Hallie walked until one of her slippers formed a blister on her big toe. It did no good; Ellen was in no mood to be comforted. Even a rerun of “The Andy Griffith Show” didn't interest the kid.

“You're a hard sell,” she muttered.

After two hours, Hallie was at her wits' end. She'd done everything she could think of. Ellen's forehead was warm to the touch, but Hallie couldn't be sure if that was due to hours of nonstop screaming or a raging fever.

Maybe Ellen was seriously ill and needed a doctor. Maybe she'd eaten or swallowed something while Hallie wasn't looking. Maybe Hallie had done something wrong.

Just as the thought of calling 911 entered her mind, she happened to notice a light on in Steve's kitchen. Hallie raced to the phone.

“What's wrong?” Steve asked groggily.

“If I knew that, I wouldn't be phoning you,” Hallie snapped. “What are you doing up at this time of night, anyway?” Whatever the reason, Hallie felt only gratitude. Steve was a father; he'd been through all this and survived. He'd know what to do.

He made all the practical suggestions.

“Do you take me for an idiot?” Hallie cried, close to breaking into sobs herself. “Of course I changed her diaper! Ten times or more.”

“How long has she been crying?”

“Three lifetimes,” Hallie said. “Listen, big boy, I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can get her back to sleep.”

That shut him up. “You're kidding.”

“Do I sound like this is a joke?” She was forced to yell as Ellen increased the volume of her cries.

“Give me five minutes.”

It took him three. “Come on,” he said, standing in the doorway, dressed in wrinkled gray sweats.

“We're going somewhere?” So he felt Ellen needed to go to the emergency room, too. Relieved, Hallie reached for a thigh-length sweater and slipped it over her pajamas.

While she wrapped Ellen in an extra blanket, Steve carried the car seat out to his truck, positioning it in the middle of the seat. At the last minute Hallie remembered her purse and grabbed that, locking the front door on her way out to Steve's monster truck.

He skillfully took the baby out of her arms and placed Ellen in the car seat, then helped Hallie climb inside. “What hospital are we going to?” she asked, locking her seat belt. Luckily Julie had given her a signed permission slip before she left, in the event of something like this.

“We aren't.” He had to speak loudly to be heard over Ellen's fevered cries. Hallie had to give the kid credit; Ellen had one fine pair of lungs.

They hadn't gone more than two blocks before silence reigned. At first, Hallie waited, tense, expecting the noise to start again any second. Gradually she relaxed as the silence continued. She'd never heard anything more blissful in her life.

“My guess is she's teething,” Steve said.

“So soon?” Hallie assumed kids didn't get teeth until much later. Not that she'd really thought about it.

“Sure.” He glanced over at her and nodded for emphasis.

Well, Steve should know.

“My kids fell asleep the minute I turned the engine on. My car's in the shop so I've got the truck tonight, but I figured it'd work just as well. Based on experience, I'd say that if there's nothing seriously wrong, Ellen should fall asleep within six blocks. How're you holding up, Aunt Hallie?”

“Good,” she said, lying through her teeth.

He drove along the Green River where there were few streetlights, and the rumble of the engine and the twisting road lulled Ellen into a deep slumber. But it wasn't only Ellen who fell asleep. Hallie discovered her own eyes drifting shut, and she struggled to stay awake.

She must have dozed off because the next thing she knew they were parked outside her condo. She jerked her head up and discovered Steve lifting Ellen, car seat and all, out of the truck. “Sorry to wake you, Sleeping Beauty,” he whispered.

Hallie opened the passenger door and climbed awkwardly out of the truck. Turning around, she slid off the seat on her stomach, inching her feet toward the ground.

Her house was dark and still when she unlatched the dead bolt.

Gently Steve removed Ellen from the car seat and placed her in her little crib. They both waited, fearing the worst. After a few minutes it became apparent that Ellen wasn't going to stir, and they tiptoed out of the room.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Think nothing of it,” Steve returned. “Just don't forget you owe me a thousand bucks.”

Hallie opened her mouth, then closed it with a groan. She'd forgotten their ridiculous bargain.

Steve grinned. “Hey, not to worry. I take VISA.” Having said that, he kissed her on the forehead and let himself out.

 

Hallie had decided long ago that shopping was therapeutic, and the weekend after playing the role of Aunt Hallie she decided to treat herself. Donnalee agreed to come with her. They were both in need of a little self-indulgence, and the solution was a shopping spree. Not the normal half-off sale in some local department store, either. Oh, no, Donnalee declared that their current depressed state called for a full-fledged bout of conspicuous consumption. Something that included a passport, a facial and cheesecake.

“I'll have you know I emptied my entire Christmas savings account for this,” Hallie grumbled as they neared the Canadian border.

“Not to worry,” Donnalee said as she eased her vehicle into the long line of cars waiting to clear customs. “By Christmas you'll be married and your rich husband will foot the bills.”

Husband.
So many of her thoughts and plans in the past few months had focused on that word.
Husband. Marriage. Family.
Recently Hallie had come to a deeper understanding of what had brought her to this stage in her life.

“Hey,” Donnalee said, taking her eyes from the road long enough to glance at Hallie. “You look awfully serious all of a sudden.”

Hallie forced a smile, then decided that if she couldn't tell Donnalee about the emotional crisis she'd endured all week, she'd never be able to tell anyone.

“What's up?” Donnalee prodded gently.

“It's been a year now since my dad died, and I don't think I've ever missed him more.” Her voice broke and tears filled her eyes, embarrassing her. She ran the back of her hand under her nose and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she laughed. “I apologize. I didn't realize I was going to do this.”

“Hallie, it's me—Donnalee, your best friend—remember?”