Tempted

by Megan Hart

  He hugged me close and stroked my hair. He said nothing for a long time, and though his embrace was strong and unfaltering, I thought he might be struggling with what he meant to say. When he finally spoke, though, he didn’t sound uncertain. He was James, sure of himself and of me.

  “You don’t have to be perfect, Anne. I never expected you to be. I don’t want you to be. I want you to be happy, with me. With our life, the way it is.”

  “I’m afraid of being happy,” I told him. “Because I’m afraid that it will all just…go away.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he told me.

  I believed him.

  Neither of us intended to wake up early the next day, but the phone demanded it of us. James groaned and put the pillow over his head. I looked with bleary eyes at the caller ID box. Patricia. I made a disgusted noise and followed James’s example.

  I heard the machine click on in the kitchen. She didn’t leave a message. I started dozing again, but within one minute the phone rang again. This time I let out a string of muttered curses that James laughed at from beneath his shield of cotton and down.

  “This had better be good,” I growled into the receiver.

  “Anne?” Patricia’s tremulous voice at first annoyed me.

  “Pats, it’s godawful early. What?”

  “It’s…” She broke down.

  I sat up at once. “Pats, what’s wrong? I can’t understand you. Calm down and tell me what happened.”

  “Anne, it’s Sean,” she managed to say, her voice a horrible croak. “He’s been arrested.”

  Chapter 18

  We gathered at Patricia’s house so she wouldn’t have to worry about what to do with the kids. My mom and Mary had taken over the chores of making coffee and sandwiches nobody wanted to eat so early in the day. Claire, who’d kept up a steady stream of insults and invectives about Sean and his latest antics, had been banished to the upstairs bonus room to keep Callie and Tristan entertained and out of the way. My dad paced uncomfortably around the kitchen, getting in everyone’s way. James and I shared the table with Patricia, who looked shell-shocked.

  “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was this bad.” Patricia sifted through piles of bills and credit card notices, though she’d gone over them all so many times she must have had them memorized. “I didn’t even know…. I feel so stupid.”

  She put her face in her hands. I took the scraps of paper away from her, which made her look up. I thought she was going to grab them back, but despair settled in the lines of her face. She put her hands back over her eyes.

  “Oh God, what am I going to do?”

  My mom slid a cup of coffee in front of her. “Drink this.”

  Patricia shook her head. “No. I feel sick to my stomach.”

  Mary gave her a ginger ale, already poured into a glass of ice. “Sip this.”

  Patricia sipped weakly. “He’s got four credit cards I didn’t know about. They’re all maxed. It’s only another twenty thousand…but that’s not all of it….”

  “Take a deep breath,” I told her when her voice shook again. “This is all going to work out.”

  Sean had been arrested for drug trafficking, of all things. So deeply in debt from his gambling habit he couldn’t get out, he’d turned to a “friend” he’d met at the racetrack to help him get some easy cash. The friend had turned out to be the sort of idiot who talks big and takes risks with other people’s lives. He’d hooked Sean up with a man who needed some packages delivered. Sean, in turn, drooling at the promise of an easy couple hundred bucks he intended to turn into thousands at the track, was caught carrying forty Baggies of premium marijuana, enough to put him behind bars at once.

  This was his version of the story, filtered through an almost-hysterical Patricia. What he’d failed to tell her was that not only had he wasted their savings on the ponies, he’d also been failing to make their mortgage payment for the past six months. He’d had the statements forwarded to him at work so she didn’t see them. He’d also taken large withdrawals from their household credit card. She hadn’t discovered the four cards he’d opened only in his name until she’d been searching through his briefcase for the password to his computer.

  “He told me it was all fine,” she said now. “He told me he was getting help. He was seeing a counselor. The bills were being paid. I checked them online! They were being paid!”

  She deteriorated into sobs again. My dad paced and opened the fridge, rooting around inside and pulling out a can of beer. We all looked at him, but only for a moment. Patricia was taking up our attention.

  “He was using the credit cards to pay off the bills, just trading balances and opening up new accounts when he maxed out the old ones. Who are these goddamned morons that kept sending him credit cards?” she cried.

  I was happier to see her angry than despairing. “We will work this out, Pats. First things first, okay? First we have to find out how much bail’s been set at.”

  “Or leave him in jail to rot,” said Mary.

  It was a very Claire thing to say, and my mother tutted. Patricia groaned and slumped into her hands again. James looked like he was biting his tongue, but said nothing.

  “The bank wants fifteen hundred dollars to start,” came Patricia’s muffled answer. “They told me that right away. So I went to the checking account, but I knew we had nothing in there. We were slowly building it back up now that he’d stopped gambling. So I thought. I mean, every paycheck we’d add a bit more back in.”

  On the surface, anyway. In the meantime Sean had been throwing money hand over fist into other places. I looked at the pile of statements in my hand. At least the morons who’d given him new credit cards had capped his limit at five thousand.

  “So I went to see if I could use one of those checks the credit cards are always sending. But when I called to find out how to get some, they told me if I used one, I’d be over our limit. They offered to raise it for me!” She laughed, incredulous. “Because we were such good customers! Can you believe it? We’ve been carrying a near-maximum balance for the past year and paying the minimum payment, and they wanted to raise our limit!”

  “Anything to get you to spend money,” my mother said. “They don’t care if you don’t pay it all off. They can charge you interest then.”

  “Well, at that point I knew we couldn’t afford to be defaulting on our credit card,” Patricia said. She sipped more ginger ale. Some color seeped back into her cheeks. “What an idiot!”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant Sean, or herself. “You can’t blame yourself for this, Patricia. Sean was lying to you.”

  “I knew there was a problem. I just didn’t want to see it was so bad. I wanted to believe him,” Patricia said. “I wanted to trust him.”

  Mary rubbed Patricia’s shoulders a little. “Of course you did. Nobody knew he was in this deep.”

  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do!” Patricia wailed.

  As we clustered around her, trying to find ways to make her feel better and offer our support, my dad still paced restlessly. Finally, he grabbed up his car keys from the table. My mom looked up, leaving Patricia’s side to follow him to the front door. I went, too.

  “Where are you going?” I demanded.

  They both turned.

  “I’m going out for a while. I’ll be back.”

  My mother nodded, lifting her face for a kiss, but I scowled. “Dad, Patricia needs you to be here.”

  “She doesn’t need me,” my dad said.

  “It would be nice if you were here to offer her support,” I said evenly, “instead of going out to get hammered so we all have to worry about where you are and when you’ll be home.”

  My parents both went straight and stiff. My mom’s expression folded in on itself. My dad looked like he couldn’t believe I’d just said that. I couldn’t believe it, either.

  “What a thing to say. How could you say a thing like that to me?”

  “Because it’s true,
Dad,” I said. “Because it’s always true.”

  I turned on my heel and left them at the front door. I didn’t have the energy to take back what I’d said. I didn’t want to see his face as he decided to leave, anyway.

  Mary and Patricia didn’t look at me when I came back into the kitchen, but James did. He reached for my hand. I’ve never been so grateful to have him as I was just then.

  “How much money do you owe, with everything?” James asked my sister, breaking the silence that threatened to undo us.

  “Just over seventy thousand dollars. Seventy. Thousand. Dollars.” She mouthed each word like saying them that way would make them less real. Or more.

  “Holy cow,” whispered Mary.

  Patricia’s mouth twisted. “He doesn’t even make seventy thousand dollars a year! And he told me over and over I shouldn’t get a job. No, I shouldn’t work.”

  “You work. You take care of this house and your kids. That’s plenty of work,” I said. “And even if you’d had a job that paid money, you couldn’t have stopped him from doing all of this.”

  “What am I going to do?” Patricia whispered, sounding sick.

  Mom returned to the kitchen and helped herself to a cup of coffee without speaking to us. We didn’t look at her, though glances flew between the four of us at the table. Patricia picked up her glass but put it down without drinking.

  “I can get you the money,” James said.

  We all looked at him. Pride filled me, first at his willingness to help my sister. Uncertainty followed. Kinney Designs was profiting, but slowly. Most of our assets were tied up in the business, and even if we’d liquidated everything immediately, I doubted we’d come up with that sort of cash.

  “We don’t have that kind of money.”

  He shook his head. “No. But I can get it.”

  Patricia grabbed his hand. “We’ll pay it all back, James. You know we will. No matter how long it takes.”

  He patted her fingers. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure that out later.”

  I could only think of one place James could find that sort of money. One person who would be able to make a loan like that. “But how will you—”

  “I know where he’s staying.”

  “Who?” Patricia asked.

  I answered for James. “His friend. Alex.”

  “Really? He’s got that kind of money? And he’ll loan it to me?” For the first time since her phone call had woken us, Patricia sounded hopeful.

  “He’ll do anything for Jamie,” I said, knowing it was true.

  When James got up to leave, he bent to kiss me goodbye. I turned my face at the last minute, giving him my cheek instead of my mouth. I pretended it was because I was giving my attention to my sister. I didn’t fool James, or myself.

  My dad didn’t come back. James came back briefly to give Patricia a check for enough to cover Sean’s bail and assurances that as soon as the banks opened on Monday she’d have another to cover the rest of his debt. I think he was relieved to escape with her to go pick up her husband. All the tears and hugging discomfited him.

  The kids were packed off to bed before Patricia returned with Sean and James. My mother put out the sandwiches nobody had wanted before. Claire had sacked out on the couch, a victim of pregnancy hormones, and Mary’s phone had lured her out to the backyard for private conversation.

  I wasn’t hungry, but picked at the food anyway. My mother nibbled some pretzels and drank coffee, glancing at the clock every other minute. I rolled a pretzel stick in my fingers like a cigarette, then drew an imaginary puff of smoke on it.

  “I’ll give you a ride home, Mom.”

  “Your dad will be back to pick me up.”

  “Then Claire can drive you both home.” My pseudo cigarette was stale. I bit the end anyway.

  “I think Claire’s going to stay here for a few days,” my mother said. “To help with the kids.”

  “Then Mary or I or James will drive you,” I said firmly. “But you’re not getting in a car with Dad.”

  “Anne,” said my mother sharply, “I think I can decide that for myself.”

  “Not if you’re going to be stupid about it!” I snapped. “You’re lucky he hasn’t killed you both or someone else already!”

  “You should watch your mouth.”

  “I’m an adult, Mother,” I said. “And you know I’m right.”

  She didn’t say anything at first, just looked down into her coffee cup. “Your dad’s fine.”

  “Look. I don’t care what he does at home or at the bar. But getting behind the wheel of a car when he’s been drinking is not only stupid, it’s selfish and irresponsible. If he wants to screw up his body with booze, that’s his business. But when he puts other people in danger, I’m not just going to sit back and be quiet about it anymore. He’s careless when he’s been drinking, and he takes chances, and the worst part of it is, he never admits when he’s had too much. He could get as wasted as he wants to, but he should have the goddamn balls to admit it.”

  My mother’s face went hard and tight. “Your dad—”

  I held up my hand, no longer in the mood for denial. “Mom. Save me the bullshit stories, okay? If you want to pretend that what I said isn’t true, fine. I’ve had too many nightmares about drowning to listen.”

  “About drowning? What does that mean?”

  I gave a heavy, heavy sigh. And, much like I’d told James everything I never had before, I told my mom about the day out on the water. She listened, her hands going tighter around the coffee cup.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. “I never knew it was so…”

  “Bad?” I shrugged. “Well. It was.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “Because you were gone. And when you came back, well, he got better again. Didn’t he? Aside from the drinking and the bouts of depression and the times he just didn’t show up for things like dance recitals or birthday parties. The times when we counted on him and he just wasn’t there. Things got better. Didn’t they?”

  “Oh, Annie,” my mother said.

  I knew I’d sounded bitter, but I didn’t bend even when guilt threatened to throttle me with its bony fingers.

  “I hope it was worth it, Mom.”

  “Anne, you don’t know—”

  “Claire told me you were with another man that summer. Is that true?”

  My mother lifted her chin. “Claire needs to learn to keep her mouth closed.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed, my head drooping. “I thought if I’d told you about Dad and the boat, you’d have stayed. But you wouldn’t have, would you?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I might have…”

  She trailed off. I looked at her and saw myself in another twenty years. I hoped I wouldn’t have to look so sad.

  “I was in love with another man,” she said. “I don’t have to explain myself to you, but I will. Your father was always difficult to live with. He was a good provider, but he was moody. Up and down, all the time. He was possessive and jealous, too. He was convinced I was having an affair on our honeymoon.”

  I stopped myself from asking if she was.

  “So I decided to prove him wrong. I just wanted him to stop berating me all the time for something I wasn’t doing. I met Barry at the bowling alley. He started giving me lessons. He was your dad’s friend, and interestingly enough, the only man your dad didn’t accuse me of sleeping with.”

  “So you had an affair with him?”

  “We didn’t mean for it to happen, Anne. It just did.” My mother sipped her coffee, which must have gone cold long before. “And I fell in love with him.”

  “So…you went with him. You left us behind.”

  “I didn’t know if things were going to work with Barry. I didn’t want to drag you kids back and forth. I needed a while to sort myself out. Being a mother doesn’t mean you’re perfect,” my mother said. “I made mistakes. Barry and I didn’t work like I thought
. I loved your dad too much to leave him behind. Should I have dragged you kids out of your house, away from your dad and introduced you to some other man, all when I wasn’t sure he was the right choice for me to make?”

  “You left us!” I cried. “And he drank, all summer long! And he told us about how he was going to put rocks in his pockets and go out in the middle of the lake, or how he was going to take a gun and shoot himself in the head!”

  “I’m sorry,” my mother said, her fingers spread like she sought absolution. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know. And all I can do now is be sorry I didn’t.”

  She was right, of course. All she could do was be sorry. She couldn’t make any of it better, or take it away, or change the past.

  “Why’d you choose Dad?” I asked her. “Did you really not love Barry, after all?”

  “No. I did. As much as I loved your dad, but in a different way. I was a different person with Barry. But that person was a woman who didn’t have four daughters and a history. He let me be someone new, but in the end…it wasn’t being new that I wanted.”

  I had never given my mother credit for being able to express herself with such eloquence. I felt bad for dismissing her all these years. “Do you ever regret the choice you made? Do you ever think about what might have been different?”

  “Of course I do. But I don’t let it hold me back.”

  I nodded, looking down at the table. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  She made a small, surprised noise. “For what?”

  “For not being a better daughter.”

  “Oh, Anne,” my mother said with a laugh. “Don’t you know that to me you’re perfect? Each of you is perfect?”

  She hugged me then, and we cried some more. We must have been loud enough to wake Claire, who padded into the kitchen rubbing at her eyes. She put a hand on her hip.

  “What the hell’s going on in here?”

  “Mom thinks I’m perfect.”

  “Screw you, bitch,” said Claire. “I’m the perfect one.”