by C. J. Zahner
“You and Sharon wait,” he answered. “I have a case this morning.”
He stood and lingered for a while. He thought about kissing her goodbye, but she’d made her feelings clear on Wednesday. She needed some space. Told him she was going to talk to a priest. Admitted being confused about everything: Catholicism, marriage, Josh, going to hell if she broke her marriage vows—Matt McKinney. She said Giff had no idea of the bizarre thoughts that ran through her head and again accused him of not knowing her. Insisted they were too different. He wouldn’t love her if he knew the truth about her. She had been beyond consoling. He thought it might be over.
He walked out the door without saying more.
****
The call came late in the afternoon. Minnie had dropped the case. Ally stopped by shortly after and brought a bottle of Champagne and five fluted glasses. Ally, Emma, Rebekka, and Sharon extended their arms in the air, clicked glasses, downed the celebratory juice, and refilled.
“It’s over.” Sharon plopped into a leather chair. “Someone get Giff on the phone and ask where he is.”
“Yeah,” Ally said. “Emma, call Giff and tell him to get over here.”
Emma didn’t respond. She turned her back to them, walked to Sharon’s desk, refilled her glass, and sipped the bubbly with her back still turned.
“Emma?” Ally’s face fell.
“Emma,” Sharon repeated, “call Giff.”
Emma filled her glass again, languidly crossed the room, and sat down in a chair opposite Sharon. She said nothing.
“You have got to be kidding.” Sharon stood quickly, spilling some of her Champagne on the floor. “You’re not going to call him?”
“What’s going on?” Ally moved and stood beside Sharon. “Who did you text when the call came in? You texted someone. Not Giff?”
“No, not Giff.” She focused her eyes on Ally, determinedly. “Josh.”
“Oh, shit.” Ally’s voice was low and disgusted. She stomped across the room and grabbed the Champagne to fill her glass. She tipped the bottle and saw there was only a glass or two remaining. “Screw it,” she uttered then raised the bottle to her lips and gulped until the last drop was gone.
Chapter 47
Monday, August 17, 2015
Schism.
She waited for Giff in the courthouse lobby, listening as the bell at the university across the street tolled five. Jurors and witnesses from his courtroom exited. She paced back and forth, her bright pink running shoes and shirt drawing how-inappropriate stares. When she saw him come out, papers peeking out of the top of his brief case, she fought pangs in her stomach. She hated how much she loved his astute yet unorganized ways. He stopped in the doorway when he saw her and stuffed the papers clumsily down inside.
She bit her lip. Hard. She had convinced herself he had never loved her—not the real Emma—and she was there to end their fling. This was a bad place to tell him, but he’d been in court all day, and she needed to get this done. She talked to Father Mike over the weekend, visited her counselor today, and knew what she had to do.
Sometimes you had to stick with your choices.
When he saw her, he knew. There wasn’t going to be any dinner discussion tonight or any other night. They weren’t going to spend any more weekends resting in each other’s arms, tangled up on the couch sipping wine. He had hoped a few days apart would resurrect them. But now he knew. Their love affair was over.
He tugged her by the arm and led her inside a small meeting room so they could talk, but she hardly said a word. Just repeated she was going to give her marriage one last try. And apologized profusely. He begged incessantly, but in the end she left him standing in the room alone, feeling like he would never see her again.
In shock at first, he regrouped and hurried after her. He caught her outside the courthouse and followed her down the steps until she finally stopped.
“Emma, don’t do this.” He grabbed her hand, but she pulled away. “I don’t want to be without you. You have to know how much I love you.”
She lowered her head and annunciated her words precisely. “I’m sorry. I made a promise—a lifetime promise—until death do us part. Please, this is hard. I should never have gone out with you. I wasn’t divorced.”
“You can sign those divorce papers anytime. You have them.”
“I’m not going to sign them. I have to give Josh a second chance.”
“Emma, you don’t love him. You can’t seriously be willing to live with a man you don’t love for the rest of your life.”
“We are going to go to counseling.”
“We? So now it’s we?” He felt like a knife sliced his heart in half. “And where has this ‘we’ been for the past six months? During your mom’s illness, the McKinney lawsuit, the late nights when you didn’t think you could go on?” He stopped, stepped back, and spread his arms out. “Who was there? It was us. You and me. Where the hell was Josh?”
“I know he hasn’t been there.”
“You’re damn right he hasn’t been there, and the first sign of any problem, he’ll be gone again.”
“No, he won’t.” She wiped her face. “He left because he wanted to have children and I didn’t.”
“Oh, and now I suppose that’s miraculously fixed because you aren’t a McKinney?”
“Giff, please,” she begged. “Don’t cause a scene.”
“I imagine that’s the reason you’re ending our relationship here on the courthouse steps. You hope I’ll calmly walk away. What do you expect I’ll do? Smile and wish you well?” His voice became theatrical. “Great, Emma, I hope the two of you have a house full of kids and live happily ever after. Is that what you’re waiting for me to say? After I’ve spent day and night with you the last six months?”
“No.” Her hands fell to her sides. “I’m saying everything wrong. I’m sorry. I just can’t walk away from my husband. I’m going to go to counseling. I’m going to make my marriage work, and yes, I’m going to have children someday.”
She stopped and flashed that soft look he loved. “And someday you’re going to be a great husband and a great dad, with someone who deserves you.”
“I thought that someone was you.”
“It isn’t.” She wiped away tears quickly. “You deserve so much more than I can give you.”
“So that’s what this is about.”
“No!”
“Yes, it is, Emma.” He unbuttoned his top button and loosened his tie. “You need help.” He took several steps away from her, looked around, and then rushed back toward her.
“I’m the one who can help you.” His voice became soft. “I’ll stand by you. Never leave you…ever. When you get so low you feel like you can’t get up, I’m the person who will lift you, not Josh. It’s never been him. It’s always been me. Can’t you see that?”
Her tears fell freely. “It’s too late,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.”
She took a step away from him. He couldn’t say more. He slipped his tie from his collar with a long fluid tug and glanced up and down the steps as if just realizing their public exchange. Briefly, he wondered if anyone had seen. She looked, too. But the stairs sat vacant. In the distance, St. Patrick’s Church bells played like background music in a sad film. Toward the park, college students passed between buildings as a light breeze dusted their shoulders, and big shadows from white clouds danced over them. The shadows crawled along the ground until they covered Giff and Emma’s world with shade, too.
There was nothing more to say.
Maybe he had fabricated her feelings for him. She had never once said she loved him. It was possible he’d been deluding himself all this time.
He set his briefcase down and put his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers and looking toward the sky. He had no idea where to go from here. He sighed and let his arms drop to his side. They swayed recklessly, then one hand lifted and he buried his fingers into thick hair. He didn’t know what to say to her. Wish her luck? Say he
was sorry? So he said nothing. Simply picked up his briefcase and backed away, wanting to preserve the little bit of dignity he had left.
A line of people began filing out of the courthouse, another case concluded. Emma and Giff stepped away from each other, wiping their faces and straightening their clothes subconsciously. After they were composed, Giff nodded at her.
Surrender.
She nodded back and started down the street. His feet shuffled in the other direction, laggardly toward the east, away from her.
She turned and called to him. For years afterward, he wouldn’t understand what made her pose such a ridiculous question, but at the last minute, she asked him about grapes. He supposed the reference was some futile attempt at an apology. A let’s-part-friends sort of offering.
“Hey, remember that wine we drank?”
He stopped and turned toward her, tilting his head, confused, but said nothing.
“The sweet one. Made here—from local grapes.”
He waved a hand and sighed. “Sure, what about it?” he said, in a what-does-it-matter tone.
“You said that wine was made from hearty, resilient grapes. The ones that could withstand anything, last through any type of weather, storm, or frost. What was the name of that grape again?”
He put a hand in a pocket. “Concord.”
“Concord grapes.” She turned, began down the steps again, then stopped and turned back one last time.
“I lied,” she said.
He shrugged.
“I didn’t like that wine.”
He said nothing. He didn’t understand. She was breaking his heart and now, after he spent months corking and sharing bottles of the sweet Concord wine with her, now she admitted she didn’t like it?
He shook his head, indifferently.
“I loved that wine,” she said.
She turned to walk away, slowly at first. But her legs turned over faster and faster until she was jogging, then running, running away from him. Tears spilled down her face as she picked up her pace and allowed an outright sprint to carry her farther away from him. She thought of Peeta and Sam and Rene McKinney, and then she thought of nothing at all. Just kept running faster and crying harder until he was long behind her. She never looked back.
Epilogue
Chapter 48
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Fifteen Months after the Death.
Emma sat smiling brilliantly amid the monitors and screens. She was happier than she had ever been in her life. Today she would decide her baby’s name. Her sonogram was scheduled for 10:45 a.m., and it was 10:44. She would go directly to Lowe’s and pick out paint after her appointment: cream-puff pink or intuition blue.
“Hello, Emma.” Doctor Brown hurried through the door with her iPad, set it on the desk top, and sat down on the stool beside Emma. “Where’s your husband? Shall we wait?”
“He’s on his way. Should be here any second.” Emma leaned back on her hands, crossed her dangling feet, and widened her smile. “He is so excited he’s beside himself. We were up half the night talking names.”
“And the verdict?”
“Heidi Mae, after my mom, if it is a girl, and Michael John, after his father, if it is a boy.”
“I love it.” The doctor rose, washed her hands in the sink, and sat down on the rolling stool again. “Let’s get started. I hear you put on a few extra pounds since your last appointment.”
“We took a short vacation.” Emma breathed deeply, laughed, and shifted the weight of her lean from arm to arm. “I overate.”
“Well, you’re allowed once in a while.” Doctor Brown patted the examination bed behind her. “Lie down and let’s determine that name.”
Emma laid back, and Doctor Brown spread the cold gel on her stomach. She smoothed it into a thin transparent layer on her belly with the wand just as the nurse opened the door and stepped inside.
“Mrs. Johnson? Your husband is here.”
Giff strode through the door with two pink roses behind his back. He went directly to Emma and handed her one as he bent down and kissed her. He handed the other to Doctor Brown. Then he took Emma’s hand in his. His mouth could not manage a wider smile.
“Why thank you, Giff, that’s the first time anyone’s come through that door with a flower for me,” Doctor Brown said, graciously.
“Well, this is a big day, Doctor Brown. Emma had me clear my schedule, so I could paint all weekend,” he said, then winked and whispered. “Honestly, as long as this baby gets Emma’s good looks and my smarts, I don’t care if it is a boy or girl.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Emma hollered.
“Okay, no need to get miffed, your smarts, too,” he said then whispered out the side of his mouth to Doctor Brown. “She’s a little edgy lately.”
“I can hear you,” Emma said, laughing.
“Hormones,” Doctor Brown whispered to Giff, then bent toward Emma, motioning toward him with her head and uttering barely audible words, “He’s a keeper.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.” Giff stood back and stretched his arms out as if Doctor Brown was a witness who just revealed a murderess to the judge and jury, and he had sealed the case. “Do you know how long I’ve been telling her that?”
“All right, I’ll admit one time you are the best thing that ever happened to me, but we are still painting tomorrow.” Emma laughed and then smiled. Almost nothing could change her mood today. “Thanks for the rose. You are too good to me. Ready?”
He reached for her hand again.
“Ready. What will it be, Doc, pink or blue paint?” Giff asked, leaning on the bed with his elbows and cupping Emma’s hand in his.
“Don’t know yet,” Doctor Brown answered. “Just getting started. Your wife gained a little more weight than expected this month, but blood pressure, iron, everything else looks good.”
“I told her about our vacation.” Emma’s lips dipped on end, flashed an I-ate-too-much frown.
“You can’t blame her.” He kissed Emma’s hand. “I took her on a four-day cruise for our one-year anniversary.”
“You’ve been married a year already?”
“No,” he said, laughing. “It was one year to the day that she told me she never wanted to see me again.”
“That isn’t how I put it.” Emma’s eyes widened, and she raised her eyebrows at him.
“Not exactly,” he agreed, tightening his fingers around hers. “But for that little Concord grape grown locally here in North East, I wouldn’t have followed her across town and begged her to spend the rest of her life with me.”
“What? Concord grapes?” The doctor sat back, confused. Emma and Giff laughed.
“Long story. The shortened version is I wouldn’t leave her side until she agreed not to break up with me. It took me months to convince her I was worth marrying. Imagine that? Her trying to argue with a trial attorney.”
“And one that brings flowers.” The doctor raised her eyebrows, peeked over her glasses, laughed, and went back to work.
“Six months later he convinced me to marry him, in a church. I must have been out of my mind.” Emma lifted her free hand up and tucked it beneath her head, working hard to conceal her smile.
“It was tough, had to promise my life away, but I got her to say ‘I do,’ ” he joked.
“Now here I am as huge as a sumo wrestler,” Emma said, her smile forced helplessly out.
“Well, I wouldn’t expect a small baby from a five-foot-nine mom with a, what, six-foot-two husband?” Doctor Brown said pensively, concentrating on rolling the wand back and forth and snapping pictures. “I wouldn’t call you huge, just a little bigger than expected.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that is there?” Giff’s smile slid down his face a little.
“Nope,” she uttered. “She’s out of the first trimester so it won’t increase the risk of gestational diabetes. You don’t know if it runs in your family, do you, Emma?”
“No, I’m no
t sure.” Emma could never get away from them—genes. They haunted her.
“Fine. You don’t have any risk factors. We’ll keep an eye on you,” she said, turning and twisting her wrist with the wand over Emma’s stomach. “There we go. There’s the heartbeat. It’s beating fine, strong. See it here?”
She pointed to the monitor, and both Giff and Emma marveled at the little heart pulsating in rapid beats.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Emma uttered.
“Well, let’s see.” Doctor Brown moved the wand back and forth and images blurred across the screen. She remained quiet as she snapped more pictures, and Emma and Giff waited patiently. When a minute lapsed without her saying more, their smiles faded.
“What’s wrong?” Emma’s voice quivered.
Doctor Brown snapped more pictures.
“Just wrapping up the sex.” She removed the wand and pushed the ground with her feet. Her stool rolled across the floor to the little metal desk that folded out from the wall. She made a note on her iPad and then rolled back toward them.
“Now I want you both to take a deep breath,” she said. “Everything is fine. More than fine. See the head, the chest, and now see this little heartbeat right here?”
Yes, they could see the heart pulsating.
“Now look down here.” Doctor Brown moved the wand over Emma’s stomach, settled it, and then smiled at them. “There is a second heartbeat. Do twins run in either of your families by chance? Emma, Giff, you’re having twins.”
The room blurred and swirled and Emma scrambled to sit up. She let go of Giff’s hand, pushed the wand aside, and stepped off the table, heading for the attached bathroom where her clothes and shoes set neatly on a little bench. She bypassed them completely and headed straight for the toilet. Giff followed her and held her hair back as she threw up, violently at first, and then minimally after a minute.
Doctor Brown still chattered from the other room, but Emma hollered she did not want to know the sex of the babies. She leaned down and threw up again.
Everything happened quickly after that. She could hear Doctor Brown and the nurse talking to Giff, but their words, “She’s fine,” “It can be a shock,” were garbled and echoed as if they were over a worn intercom. Someone placed a cool rag on her forehead. Giff helped her dress. The receptionist gave her hard candy to suck on, and before she knew it, she was outside. Walking.