Tempted

by Megan Hart

  My mother sighed. “Claire, for God’s sake. The language. Don’t talk to your sister that way.”

  But Claire and I were laughing and giving each other obscene hand gestures. My mother, outnumbered, could only shake her head and toss up her hands in defeat.

  “You’re a perfect bunch of pains in the ass,” my mother said.

  That was good enough for me.

  Everything was working out for my sister, thanks to James’s help and Alex’s money. Fixing Patricia’s problem, however, had created one for us. I’d promised honesty, and he’d given me lies.

  Lies of omission, true, but I’d taken as much responsibility for mine as if I’d out and out told him an untruth. He’d let me believe Alex was gone. Out of our lives. Well, he’d been out of mine, all right. Just not my husband’s.

  The thunderstorms that had threatened all weekend hovered all day Monday, too. I stood on the deck, watching the lake grow choppy and the clouds get darker. A breeze whipped the ends of my hair, tangling it, but I didn’t tie it back.

  I wanted to be a warrior.

  James came home from work as the first drops of water splattered on the wood at my bare feet. I didn’t turn to greet him. I pulled the sleeves of my oversize sweatshirt down over my hands and tucked them close to my body. The rain made dark circles on my jeans.

  “You should have told me” was all I said when I heard his footfalls in the doorway.

  “You told me you’d made him go. I didn’t know you’d care. I thought you wanted him gone.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No,” said James. “I guess I didn’t. If I thought you could handle him being around, just not the whole sex thing, I’d have told you.”

  I whirled. “Fuck you!”

  He recoiled. “Anne—”

  I stabbed my finger at him. “No. Shut up. Fuck you, James. You say that like it was something silly. ‘The sex thing.’ Like it was some stupid game or something.”

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  “Then what did you mean? Oh, silly Anne, she got all tangled up with Alex because of ‘the sex thing.’ And then she couldn’t deal with it, so she tossed him out and made him leave, but you just didn’t think that was important, did you? So you kept seeing him? Behind my back? What did you boys do together, James? Get high and play video games? Did you look at porn and jerk off together? Oh, wait. I forgot. You’re not queer.” I sneered the last.

  Rain spattered harder, still individual droplets and not a downpour. Each was cold and stung my skin. They beaded on the deck, beginning to make puddles.

  “I didn’t want to upset you, that’s all!”

  I wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled. I wanted to scream. I wanted to fill my mouth with rain so I never had to talk to him again.

  “He came into our house and into our bed and he fucked with our marriage—”

  “Alex didn’t fuck with our marriage.”

  “You are absolutely right,” I said. “That was you.”

  He lifted a finger to point, accusing, but dropped his hand. “You’ve already judged me. There’s nothing I can say that will change your mind, so I’m not going to bother.”

  The wind, cold, ripped through me. I bit down to stop my teeth from chattering, and said through a clenched jaw, “You did this, James. You did it.”

  “And you wanted it,” he snapped back. “I saw it the first time you looked at him. Like you wanted him to strip you down right there. I’m not fucking blind, you know.”

  “So what? You gave me to him so he wouldn’t take me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I wasn’t yours to give!” I shouted, advancing on him. “I wasn’t some princess in one of your goddamned video games, James!”

  “But you wanted it!” he shouted. “Dammit, Anne, you wanted it! You wanted him!”

  “But what did you want?” I asked. “Why did you want it, really?”

  James turned and braced himself on the railing, his head down. A few drops of rain splattered on the back of his neck, which looked vulnerable above the collar of his denim jacket. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “Just tell me the truth.”

  We were at a standoff, both furious. I drew in breath after breath of stormy air, but it did nothing but left me feeling like I was suffocating. James stood up to face me. Rain slipped down his face and dripped from his chin.

  “I should have told you I was still seeing him,” he said, finally. “But hell, Anne, it’s not like I was fucking him or anything. We just drank a few beers every once in a while. We shot some pool. We’re friends, you know. It’s what we do.”

  “So why didn’t you just tell me, then? Why let me think he was gone?”

  “You never talked about him. I thought you didn’t want to. You never asked me if I saw him.”

  “I didn’t know I had to ask,” I said.

  James gave me a helpless look. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

  I couldn’t be surprised he might have thought such a thing. It seemed he knew me better than I’d thought he did. “I didn’t ask him to leave.”

  He stopped. Stared. “What?”

  “I didn’t ask him to leave,” I said. “I wanted him to stay. I asked him to stay.”

  James shook his head. He put a hand on the doorframe. More rain slapped us. “But you said—”

  “I wanted you to think it was me that ended it. But it was him. He left. I wanted him to stay, but he left, anyway. But that doesn’t really matter, does it? Because you should have told me you were seeing him.”

  “Yeah, because you’ve been nothing but balls-up honest with me the past few months,” he said. “You should’ve told me that you were still on the shots, Anne. It might’ve made a big difference.”

  The second the words came out of his mouth, he clamped his lips shut. It was too late. I swiped water from my eyes, certain I wanted to see every nuance of his expression when he answered my question.

  “What kind of difference?”

  “Never mind. Forget it. It’s done. We both fucked up.”

  “James,” I said, and my voice was a warrior’s voice, one without mercy. “If you knew I was on birth control and couldn’t get pregnant, would you have changed the rules?”

  He pushed me away with his hands, pushing at air, not touching me. I didn’t move. Rain made tracks down my spine.

  “Would you have said he could fuck me?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “James! Would you have let him fuck me if you’d known?”

  “I don’t know!” he shouted. “How do I know you never did? I know you did things when I wasn’t around! How do I know you weren’t fucking him every day?”

  “Because we love you!” I cried. The wind came up and whipped away my words. “Because you said it was the one thing we couldn’t do, and we both love you too much to hurt you like that! Why do you think he left? Why do you think I let him? Because we love you, both of us, and I love him, too, and it’s nothing but the biggest mess I’ve ever known!”

  It was a mess, but I had chosen it. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I fled, down the deck and across the yard. I slipped on the wet grass and went down on my knee for a moment before I got up and ran to the sand and the water eating at it. Lightning lit the sky. Thunder, far away but coming closer, rumbled.

  I waded into the lake. Water too frigid for August lapped at my knees. I bent and splashed it on my face, trying to wash away the tears.

  I thought of my dad, threatening to fill his pockets with rocks and wade out into the lake. As a child the threat had frightened me to the point of nightmares. I’d imagined my dad, hair floating like seaweed, face nibbled away by the fish, pockets bulging with stones. Sometimes it hadn’t been my father, but me. As an adult I’d recognized it for the melodramatic, manipulative play for attention it was, but I still dreamed of the weight of stones holding me beneath the water.

  Of how i
t would feel to drown.

  “Anne!” The wind whipped James’s voice away from me, but I still heard it.

  I didn’t turn. He shouted again. I lifted my face to the rain pouring down over me. Cold water from above and cold water from below.

  “Anne! Get out of there!”

  Lightning. Thunder. I wasn’t in danger of drowning, not in knee-high water, but it was foolish to be standing outside during an electrical storm. I turned to look at him, silhouetted against the house.

  I had never loved James desperately. Never without reserve. Afraid of losing him, I’d never let myself get lost in him.

  He jumped off the deck, ran across the yard, down to our small strip of beach. Water splashed around me, and I winced, though my face was already wet. He grabbed me.

  “Get out of there! What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  “No,” I said, but because I wasn’t shouting he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the rain and thunder.

  James pulled me toward the shore. “C’mon, let’s get inside!”

  I moved, but slowly, my feet numb. Everything felt numb. I stumbled, and the lake lapped at me like a friendly dog. James hauled me upright just as another blue-white flash lit the sky. Thunder rattled the ground within seconds. Electricity crackled in the air all around us. My teeth hummed. My tongue tasted like I’d licked a battery.

  James yanked me upright and we stumbled out of the water. The sand, wet and cold, grated against my bare toes. The grass was slicker. More lightning lit the world around us. Though I was soaking wet, it felt like every hair on my body rose, straining toward the sky. The thunder was so loud my ears rang, and even after it faded it left the sound of the rain muted.

  We made it into the house to the accompaniment of another round of thunder and lightning. James slammed the door behind us. We dripped in silence, staring at each other.

  I wrapped my arms around myself to combat the chill. My teeth struggled to chatter. I gave up trying to stop them. The sound was loud.

  The power went off, then flickered back. A second later it went off and didn’t come back on. The next flash of lightning lit the kitchen, but neither of us had moved.

  There are so few times any longer when we are fully in the dark. Even on nights without the moon, the light from the microwave or alarm clock is enough to give our eyes something to open to. Now there was nothing. The familiar landscape of my house had become a minefield, ready to stub toes and snag elbows.

  I heard the slide of a drawer opening. James had found our flashlight, the one that recharged by winding a small handle and never needed batteries. I flung up a hand against the glare, which rivaled the lightning outside.

  “Let’s get dried off.” He reached for my hand. “Follow me.”

  In our bedroom the patter of rain on the roof sounded louder than it had in the kitchen. It was just as dark, though, and James settled the flashlight on the dresser to illuminate the room. I lit a candle on the dresser. The scent of lilac began filling the space between us.

  I pulled my shirt off and tossed it into a soggy pile, followed by my shorts and underwear. Naked, I actually felt warmer. My teeth stopped chattering. My nipples pebbled, but the gooseflesh that had humped my arms receded. I found some towels in the bathroom and used one, tossing the other to James.

  I rubbed my hair as dry as I could make it, then finger-combed it. It would need a healthy dose of conditioner before I could do more than that. I liked the way it felt hanging down over my shoulders and tickling my back. I wrapped the towel around my body, tucking it under my armpit. It provided only scant coverage, hanging to just below the fluff of my pubic curls, but the plush material felt good on my skin.

  “Are you going to leave me?”

  The words came from behind me. I wished they’d been said in the dark, so there could be no way I’d be able to see his face. I didn’t want to turn, but when he said my name I had to.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Should I?”

  “If you don’t love me anymore. Yes.”

  “Oh, James,” I said, my voice more tender than I’d imagined I could be. “I still love you.”

  He let out a low, strangled sob and went to his knees in front of me. He pressed his face to my stomach. I touched his hair, lightly.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “For all of it. Everything. Please forgive me, Anne.”

  I’d never seen James cry. His shoulders heaved, and he grasped me around the thighs with such force I feared I might lose my balance. He wept like it hurt him. It probably did.

  I couldn’t stand towering over him this way. I pushed him back, but gently, and knelt in front of him. I pulled him close, and we embraced. His face fit just right against the side of my neck. I smelled rain on him, and the tang of the storm, and underneath it the same solid, clean scent that was uniquely his. He held me so tightly I couldn’t breathe, but only for a moment before his grip eased. We stayed like that as the storm continued to rage outside.

  “I love you.” His face against mine was hot and moist. “God, I love you so much I don’t know what I’d do without you. Please don’t leave me, Anne. Please tell me what I can do to make all of this better.”

  I sat back to save my aching knees. He took my hands, lacing our fingers snugly so I couldn’t pull too far away. I didn’t want to pull away, but I wanted to put some distance between us.

  “I’m not going to leave you, James.”

  I couldn’t imagine leaving him. I’d spent a lot of time anticipating that one day our love would fade, our marriage end, but I’d never been able to imagine what life would be like if that happened. I couldn’t think of a life without James in it.

  “If you want me to stop seeing him, I will.” His thumbs passed back and forth over the backs of my hands. “Or…if you want him to come back.”

  That option made me shiver. “No.”

  James sighed, his head drooping so shadows hid his face for a moment. “He told me the same thing you did. That you ended it.”

  “I should have.”

  “Do you love him?” He looked into my eyes like he was ready for the answer, no matter what it was. “Would you rather be with him than me?”

  I looked around our bedroom, smelling of lilac and thunderstorms and lit by flickering golden light as well as the harsh bright glare of the flashlight. I looked at our bed, our dresser, the desk that had once belonged to his grandmother. This was my house and home. The life we’d made for ourselves. It was perhaps not a perfect life, but it was a damned good one.

  “I don’t think so, James.”

  His laugh sounded more like a groan than a chuckle. “You don’t think so? You’re not sure?”

  I replied without quite answering. “I’m not the same person with him that I am with you.”

  He let go of my hands. I reached to take them back. I lifted each to my lips, kissing the familiar fingers. I pressed one to my cheek.

  “I love you,” I told him. “And all of this, our life, is everything I wished to have but wasn’t sure I could keep. I never felt like that with Alex, James. I always knew that what we shared wouldn’t last. He never belonged to me. Not the way you do.”

  It was a time for tears, but I didn’t weep. I kissed him, instead, and held him close to me. Outside, the storm passed.

  Inside, it had passed, too.

  Chapter 19

  It was time for all the pieces to fall miraculously into place. For Evelyn to declare she’d been wrong after all and beg my forgiveness. For my father to give up drinking and melodrama. For my mother and sisters to fix their lives. For Alex to disappear forever, and James and I to live happily ever after with our white picket fence, our dog and two point five children.

  Of course, none of that happened.

  Something did change, though, inside myself. I stopped believing I could somehow fix it all. I didn’t have to be the one to make it all better. I didn’t have to be in charge. And somehow, they all managed.

 
; The summer that had seemed so long and bright with possibility just four months ago had passed into fall. Too early for the trees to begin changing, the weather turned cool and cloudy. My yard and its lack of landscaping mocked me as a constant reminder of all the plans I’d failed to complete. I compensated by buying bags of bulbs and a special new tool designed to pull out plugs of earth just the right size for them. I bought gardening gloves, too, and special soil additives, and a watering can and a sun hat that tied beneath my chin but hung forgotten on the back of the kitchen door.

  The significance of my efforts wasn’t lost on me. We’d spent the summer rooting things up, James and I. Now was the time to see if we could make things grow.

  “I got a call from Mary.” Claire handed me another daffodil bulb. Six months along, her belly and breasts rounded like melons, she refused to bend over to help me plant but was perfectly satisfied to sit in the cool fall sunshine and watch me work. Or assist, she called it, which was to comment on my choices and hand me an occasional bulb.

  I’d also had a call from Mary. No surprise, considering how attached she was to her cell phone. I made a noncommittal noise and concentrating on raking up another patch of earth with my garden trident.

  “She’s fine,” said Claire, like I couldn’t guess. “She said school’s great so far.”

  “That’s good.” I swiped a hand across my forehead. The air might be cool but the work wasn’t made easier for it. “How’s Betts?”

  “Fine. They’re going to her house for Thanksgiving this year. Can’t wait to see how that goes over.”

  “Thanksgiving.” I sat back on my heels. “I think I’ll cook this year. Want to come here?”

  Claire rubbed a hand over her stomach. “You’re not going to the Kinneys’?”

  “No.”

  “You inviting them here?”

  “I don’t think so. No.” I smiled.

  “Then I’m here, baby. Last thing I need is the third degree from Mrs. Kinney about what I plan to do about the baby.”

  I reached for my bottle of water and took a long swig. “What do you plan to do about the baby?”

  Claire took her time answering. “I’m keeping him.”