Tempted

by Megan Hart

  It wasn’t as easy to pretend we didn’t know something was wrong with Patricia. Of the four of us she’d always been the best at keeping in touch. Now we had to leave several messages before she’d call us back, even about the plans for the party that was edging ever closer. It wasn’t like her not to be on top of stuff like that. So we did what sisters do. We ganged up on her.

  Mary brought coffee cake. I stopped at the diner and picked up one of their boxes of coffee to go, an ingenious invention that provided hours of hot coffee in a container the size of a box of wine. Claire, typically, didn’t remember to bring the doughnuts she’d said she would, but she had remembered to bring the DVD version of several kids’ classics and a bag of dollar-store markers and coloring books.

  “From your favorite aunt,” she said to Callie when she opened the door to find the three of us standing on the stoop.

  Mary snorted. “Nice.”

  Callie grinned. “Auntie Claire’s our favorite aunt for bringing movies. You’re our favorite aunt for taking us to the park, Auntie Mare.”

  “So diplomatic,” I complimented, holding out my arms for a hug. “What about me?”

  “Oh…” Callie was stumped. “You’re our favorite aunt for hugs.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Where’s your mom?”

  “She’s upstairs in her office, working.” Our niece let us all in. “Me and Tristan are watching cartoons.”

  “I’ll put on Totoro for you.” Claire held it up. “We have to do some stuff with your mom for a while. Can you rug monkeys be quiet? It’s worth a trip to McDonald’s for you, later.”

  That was bribe enough. Claire set off to take care of the kids while Mary and I dropped off our offerings in the kitchen. We found Patricia in her office. She had the photos I’d picked up from our mom spread out on the desk. Paper, scissors and colored pens scattered the surface. An album waited for her creative touch, but she wasn’t writing in it. When we gathered in the doorway, she was hunched over her desk, her face in her hands. She was crying.

  “Pats?” Mary was the first to touch her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  When you love someone, seeing them in pain can be harder than being in pain yourself. At the sight of my sister’s tears, my own throat closed. We all went to her, gathering around her in the small space.

  “You guys didn’t tell me you were coming over!”

  “What’s the matter?” Claire propped herself on the desk. As always, she was the first of us to get right to the point. Maybe the only one of us capable of doing it. “What did he do to you?”

  Patricia looked toward the still open door, and I closed it. Mary rubbed Patricia’s shoulder. Claire crossed her arms and looked stern.

  Patricia looked for a moment like she meant to put on a brave face, or try to detour us with anger. It only lasted a moment before her face crumpled further and she buried her face in her hands.

  “He’s lost all our savings,” she said, each word weighted with shame. “He’s lost almost everything. He says he can win it all back if I just give him time. He says he’s got a good tip on a horse and he only needs a few thousand to cover him, and he’ll win it all back.”

  She looked up, face bleak. “But we don’t have a few thousand. We don’t have anything. He’s going to lose the house, and I don’t know what to do! He’s missed so much work his boss is going to fire him, I know it, and then what will happen? What will I do? How will I go back to work? Who will take care of the kids?”

  She quashed her sobs behind her hands, like weeping was somehow more shameful than what had caused the tears. I knew how she felt. Giving in to tears meant you had to admit something was wrong. That not everything was bright and shiny.

  Mary handed her a box of tissues, which Patricia took. Claire looked fierce. For a few minutes nobody said anything, Claire and Mary giving me small, expectant glances.

  I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to denounce Sean and call him names, but Claire could do that better than I. I wanted to offer my shoulder to cry on, but Mary was more skilled at that. I was somehow expected to be able to make things better, to solve the problems or offer a course of action, but the problem was, I just didn’t know what advice to give.

  “How much in debt are you?” I asked, finally, though talking about finances seemed as personal and invasive as if I’d asked her how often they had sex.

  Patricia wiped her face and sighed. If my question offended her, she didn’t show it. “Between the savings and the bonds he cashed in…twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Hole-ee shit.” Claire’s jaw dropped.

  Mary made a small noise. My stomach lurched. “That’s a lot of money.”

  Patricia pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I know.”

  “How’d this happen? I mean…how long has he been…?” Mary trailed off.

  “I just found out about four months ago. I started bouncing checks and couldn’t figure out why. I checked our statement online. He’d made a few large withdrawals. I asked him about them and he said he was making investments.”

  Patricia’s laugh was so bitter I could taste it, sour like milk gone rotten. “Investments. I thought he meant for the kids’ education. For retirement. Something. I didn’t know he was down at the track when he was supposed to be working late.”

  Her next laugh lurched into a sob. “I thought he was having an affair. Late nights, lame excuses. He came home smelling of smoke and beer when he said he was having meetings with the sales team. I found receipts in his pockets. He started bringing me presents. Flowers and jewelry, mostly. I thought he was trying to keep me from suspecting something, and he was, but it wasn’t another woman he was fucking. It was our bank account.”

  Claire scowled. “Fuck. What an asshole.”

  Patricia, for once, didn’t defend him. “What do I do? I’d divorce him but it costs money, all of which he’s lost. The kids need new clothes and they want to go to the Point, and I had to tell them we couldn’t get season’s passes this year…. What am I going to do about my kids?”

  She looked up at us. “If we lose the house, what will we do?”

  That was the worst of it for her. The effect this would have on her children. I grabbed her hand and held it, tight.

  “You’ve got us.” I said this without a doubt. “You know you have us, Pats.”

  I think we all started crying then, four grown women sobbing like toddlers. But it cleared the air, because we cried and laughed at ourselves for crying and shared the box of tissues all around so we could wipe our eyes and blow our noses. Patricia gestured at the scrapbooking supplies spread out on the table.

  “I could sell this stuff,” she said. “God knows it’s worth a ton of money. Or I could get a job as a consultant, if I had to.”

  “Selling this crap?” Claire lifted a package of paper cut into the shape of balloons. She looked at the small price tag on the back. “Holy shit, Pats. People pay that price for this stuff?”

  Patricia snagged the package back from Claire. “Yes. And consultants can make good money. It’s just the time I’d have to spend doing parties. Someone has to watch the kids. And even if I managed to book two or three parties a week, it’s not enough to cover the money Sean’s lost.”

  She let out a small, helpless groan but didn’t start crying again. “Twenty thousand dollars. Oh, God. It’s more than our first car cost. How could he lose twenty thousand dollars without me knowing? I feel so stupid!”

  “Don’t feel stupid. You’re not the one out there doing it. Put the blame where it belongs,” Mary said firmly. “And if you want a divorce, you can get one.”

  “Ms. Law School would know.” Claire waggled her eyebrows. “Too bad you’re not done with school, Mare, you could take her case Sonny Bono.”

  “That’s pro bono, you moron.” Mary rolled her eyes.

  “Duh,” said Claire. “I know. I’m just trying to make Pats laugh.”

  Patricia smiled, a small one but a smile nonethe
less. “Thanks, you guys.”

  “You should have told us, Pats. We’d have helped you out.”

  She looked at me with a more familiar Patricia-look on her face. “What could you have done? By the time I figured it out, he’d already done the damage. I thought he really could make it up. I wanted to believe it, you know? That he’d somehow win the lottery, or pick the winning horse like he said he was going to. I wanted to imagine this fairy-tale ending where we ended up millionaires or something. I couldn’t face the truth, that we’re broke. Worse than broke. We owe so much money….”

  “Stop,” said Mary. “We’ll get you through this. First you should see a debt counselor. And a marriage counselor, too. Anne, you must know someone.”

  “I have some friends who specialized in addiction counseling,” I said. “I’ll find out from them what they suggest, okay?”

  Patricia groaned again, hiding her face. “People are going to know. Oh, God, the neighbors will know. Everyone’s going to know!”

  This wasn’t quite as bad as how it would damage her children, but I knew it had to be a close second. Worse than the actual gambling, worse than the debt and the lies. Worse than the problem itself was having people know.

  I squeezed her hand. “Nobody has to know. Besides, you can’t tell me none of them are up to their eyeballs in debt, too.”

  It wouldn’t be much consolation, but I was trying. Patricia squeezed my fingers and nodded. “You’re right. It’s just…not the same.”

  I knew it wasn’t. We all did. It was the difference between our friends’ fathers’ chug-a-lugging a few brews while grilling up burgers in the backyard and the sort of drinking our dad did. It was the same, maybe, on the surface, but not underneath, where it counted.

  “Sex toys,” Claire said. We all looked at her. “You should sell sex toys and lingerie. Now that would make you a shitload of money.”

  “How much is a shitload, exactly?” asked Mary wryly.

  Patricia sighed. “I’m sure it’s not twenty thousand dollars.”

  “No. But it’s something. I could be your demonstrator.” Again, Claire wiggled her brows. “Now, ladies, this little baby’s called the Humdinger. Runs on a car battery or plugs right into the wall for a never-fail buzz that’s guaranteed to keep you humming all day long!”

  The first giggle slipped from Patricia’s lips like a teenager sneaking home past midnight. The second followed a moment after it. When Mary laughed, Claire laughed, too, and soon we’d all burst into relieved guffaws.

  “It will all work out, Pats.” I wanted to make her believe it.

  “One way or another.” She nodded. “I know. I just can’t believe he’d do this. I can’t…I can’t believe I married a man who can’t control himself.”

  Silence fell between us at her words. Not awkward, not exactly. It felt more like we were all standing outside a door, listening as we waited for it to open.

  Patricia looked around at each one of us. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t marry anyone who couldn’t control himself. I couldn’t understand how any woman could stand to be with a guy who didn’t know when to stop. How any mother could let someone do that to her kids, you know? Let them down again and again? But here I am. And part of me just wants to serve him with papers and walk out of his life. But then I see him with the kids. He’s a good dad. A great dad. He’s there for them. He listens to them, he loves them. He doesn’t ever push them away. But now I’ll always be waiting for him to start. For him to miss a birthday because he’s got to go to the track. Or forget about taking Tristan to Boy Scouts.”

  “Has he done any of those things?” I asked.

  “No. Not yet. But I’m waiting for him to do it. I’m waiting for him to let us down.”

  I knew what she meant. So did my other sisters. We all knew what it was like to be let down, over and over, until it became the expectation instead of the exception.

  “Divorce the fucker.” Claire’s no-nonsense answer made Patricia shake her head.

  Mary gave Claire a mean look before turning back to Patricia. “She loves him, Claire.”

  “I don’t know. I kinda sorta think that a dude who put me twenty grand into debt and is lying to me about it might make me stop loving him pretty damn fast.”

  Her sarcastic tone wasn’t abnormal, but it irritated me just then. “And we all know how much experience you have with love. Oh, excuse me. That would be that you have more experience than all of us with sex. There’s a big difference, Claire.”

  I’d meant to sting her a little, out of sympathy for Patricia, who didn’t need Claire’s forthright assessment of her marriage. Claire didn’t flinch. She turned a mocking gaze on me.

  “Nope, big sissy, I’d say you’ve got me trumped on that, now.”

  “We’re talking about Patricia, here. Rein it in, Claire, for God’s sake. They’re married, she loves him, getting a divorce isn’t as easy as closing a bank account.”

  “I don’t know. I had a fuckall hard time closing my bank account.”

  “Mary’s right,” I said. “Pats, you know I’ll help you find a good counselor, if that’s what you want.”

  Claire hopped down from the desk and put her hands on her hips. “Sure, so she can work on their problems together, which are really his problems? So he can cry and beg her to forgive him and give him another chance, until the next time the track calls his name and he goes and blows his load? How many times does he have to bend her over a chair and fuck her up the ass with this before it’s okay for her to cut her losses and just get out?”

  The venom in her tone sucked the air from the room and left us breathless. It wasn’t that what she said didn’t make sense. Nor was it unexpected, not coming from Claire. But it brought back too many memories to be pleasant.

  “What would you know about it?” said Patricia in a slightly strangled voice. “We’ve been married ten years. We have two children together. It’s not that easy to just walk away, Claire. You’d think it would be, but it’s not. And unless you’re in the situation yourself, you just don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” Claire shot back. “That you’re going to let him keep screwing up your life because he has a little ‘pwobwem’?” Her voice sunk into mockery.

  “Patricia needs our support right now. If you can’t give it, maybe you should leave.” I could have given the same lecture. I felt the same way. But it wasn’t what Patricia needed to hear, not then.

  “You said it yourself, Pats. You never wanted to be with a man who couldn’t control himself. You didn’t want to do that to your kids. Well, you’re doing it,” Claire said. “And unless you want to end up like Mom, I think you should kick his ass out and hire yourself a good lawyer.”

  Patricia didn’t say anything, just stared. Mary and I looked at each other. I couldn’t take sides because I saw both of them. And I liked Sean, but liking a person and not liking the way they behave are two separate issues.

  “Hate the sin and love the sinner,” said Mary after a moment. “I think she should help him get help, first. You don’t just stop loving someone because they’ve fucked up.”

  “Good one, Mare.” Claire made a checkmark in her palm with a fingertip. “So how long should he fuck up before she should give up on him?”

  Mary hesitated.

  “That’s for Patricia to decide. Not us.” I squeezed Patricia’s hand once more, but she pulled it away.

  “Claire’s right,” Patricia said. “She is right. But I just can’t up and leave him. I can’t.”

  “I know,” I told her. “We all know it. Claire knows it, too.”

  She’d have had to be endowed with superpowers to stand up to the combined force of three sisterly glares. Claire sighed and hung her head for a minute, then tossed up her hands in defeat.

  “Fine. But when I’m the goddamned voice of reason, there is some serious shit going wrong. Some serious shit.”

  Patricia sighed, looking around. “I won’t be able to do my share for th
e party. Just the scrapbook. All this stuff’s already paid for.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  Mary nodded. “Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

  Claire also sighed and chimed in to the feel-good moment. She leaned over, looking at the album. “You’re doing a good job, Pats. This is really nice.”

  It wasn’t all fixed, but Patricia gave her a small smile. “Thanks.”

  The squabble of raised voices in the hall dispersed us. Claire went to referee the argument over who got the red marker. Mary’s phone beeped and she left for privacy to take the call. Patricia and I looked at each other.

  “Tell me I’m not like Mom, Anne.”

  “You’re not. It’s not the same.”

  But we both knew it really was.

  James was once again not home when I got there, though the soft sound of music and smells of good cooking greeted me. Spaghetti sauce bubbled on the stove, and garlic bread tempted me to break off a piece, though I wasn’t really hungry. I grabbed a glass of iced tea and sipped it as I shucked off my shoes and found a hair band in the junk drawer to pull my hair off my neck.

  “Hey.” Alex appeared in the doorway. “Jamie’s going to be late. I guess they got caught on some job with some cement or something…something like that.”

  I smiled. “Sounds familiar. You made dinner again?”

  He grinned. “I have to make sure you don’t mind having me around.”

  I studied him over the rim of my glass. “Uh-huh.”

  He moved closer. “It’s not working?”

  I pretended to think about it. “How are you with cleaning toilets?”

  He leaned closer. Sweet tension flared, but he didn’t move to kiss me. “Give me a thong and I’ll do what I can.”

  I needed to laugh after the afternoon with my sisters. Patricia’s situation had done more than make me sad for her, it had called up a whole mess of garbage we usually kept locked away. I looked into his dark gray eyes.