Shelter Me

by Juliette Fay

  Then she was reaching out a hand to his chest and another to his face, brushing her fingers over his lips, leaning closer, moving toward him. For a few moments he let her explore him, and then his hands went to her shoulders and up the back of her neck and into her hair.

  She felt her lips parting and the need to taste him. One of her fingers slid inside his mouth, and the feel of the tip of his tongue sent a shock of such intensity through her body she could barely breathe. She took her fingers from his mouth and pressed her lips there, gently at first, taking in his lower lip, then his upper lip, then lower again. He groaned and slid one hand down to the small of her back, pulling her in until her stomach pressed against his. This sound, this primal growl of need for her—she could feel it in her chest and her belly and between her legs. She opened her mouth and his tongue flicked in and she thought she might faint or go blind or melt completely into him.

  Her hand roamed across his chest and down to his waist and up under the soft cotton of his shirt. She felt the swirl of hair at his stomach and he groaned again, louder, more insistently. Her hand continued to explore the landscape of his body and reached up farther until her fingers found the hard little knot of his nipple. “God, Janie,” he breathed. And he was rising up, pushing himself against her, laying her onto her back. He took his shirt off in that way men have of reaching up and over to grab the back of the shoulders and pulling it off over their heads. Janie watched the muscles working in his upper arms, and could only think, I need to touch those.

  He lowered himself back down to her, pushing her shirt up so that his stomach lay warm against hers. And they were kissing and pulling each other closer, and she could feel the press of his erection against her thigh. This is happening, she thought.

  He kissed her chin and throat and breathed in her ear, “Take off your wedding ring.”

  “What?” she said, though she’d heard him.

  “Janie. Please. You have to take it off.” His hands were moving slower now, and he was no longer kissing her.

  “No,” she said.

  He rose up on his elbows above her. His eyes traced over her like the beam of a search light. “Janie. I can’t…”

  “I’m not ready. Can’t we just…”

  “No,” he said, and rolled off her. He sat on the edge of the couch, pulled his T-shirt back on. He brushed his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Tug.”

  He shook his head. “It’s alright,” he said. “I’m going for a walk.” And he left the house.

  JANIE WAITED THERE IN the living room for a long time. The next thing she knew, the house was dark and there was a blanket over her. She felt her way toward the bedrooms, stopping by Tug’s closed door. No sound came from behind it, no snoring or even deep breathing, but she knew he was there. She almost went in.

  But how fair would that be? I’ll seduce you in the living room, but I won’t take off another man’s ring. Then I’ll try to talk to you about it in your bedroom in the dark? No, she’d wait until morning. Maybe she could get up early before the kids. It would be better to consider it all in the light of day.

  But Carly woke with the birds and demanded loudly to be attended to. This roused Dylan who found to his great embarrassment that he’d wet the bed. Janie was instructed to sneak the sheets and wet pajamas down to the washer in the basement before Tug found out. “He won’t care, Dylan. A lot of five-year-olds still have accidents.”

  “Mom, PLEASE.”

  Janie was coming down the hall with the pee-soaked laundry in her arms when Tug’s door opened. Unshaven, pale, and weary around the eyes, he seemed suddenly old to her. The bristle on his chin was gray, not auburn. Her memory flashed to the father of a childhood friend who grew a beard when he was having what Aunt Jude had referred to as “The Crisis.” The beard had come in gray, and the father soon shaved it off again.

  “Morning,” Tug said, and walked past her to the bathroom.

  The lazy placidity of the previous day had been replaced, Janie quickly found, with a strange frenetic energy, as if a joint decision had been made to which everyone had agreed. Dylan was obnoxious, overcompensating for his shame at wetting himself. He poked at Carly, who fell against the dresser and screamed furiously for several minutes. A pink lump arose on her forehead. Janie realized she was short on underwear and had to turn yesterday’s inside out, which made her feel icky and irritable. Tug busied himself with recaulking some chipped grout in the bathroom.

  “I think I’ll take them out,” she said to Tug as he squatted by the shower. He looked at her for the first time that morning. It made Janie feel weak and sad.

  “Mom,” whined Dylan from the other room. “Make her stop!”

  Tug’s face softened. “I’ll be done here in a minute.” He took them to the Hole in One donut shop, which despite the sugar and caffeine involved, had a much-needed calming effect on them all. They sat at a booth by the window. Perched in an industrial plastic highchair, Carly decimated a cruller, half of Janie’s blueberry muffin, and all of Dylan’s scrambled eggs, while Dylan was busy charming the elderly couple in the booth behind him with tales of his fishing prowess.

  Tug leaned back in the booth, calmly eating his bacon and cheese omelet. The color was back in his cheeks, Janie noticed, and he’d shaved. He saw her studying him, took another bite of his eggs, waited.

  “We need to sort this out,” she said.

  “Janie, you need to sort this out.” He put down his fork. “I’m sorted.”

  “Hey,” she said, “if there’s one thing I know from seven years of marriage, it’s that it’s never just one person’s job to sort.”

  “And from twenty-one years of marriage, I know that sometimes people have no idea how much sorting there is to do. You start. I’ll catch up.”

  “Jesus, Tug! That’s a hell of a—”

  He gave her a fierce look and tipped his chin toward Dylan, who had stopped talking all of a sudden. After a moment, he started again.

  Tug’s voice was low, almost subsonic. “Janie, I can’t do this one. I can be patient, like you asked, but I can’t be the one to help you figure out if you’re still completely in love with your husband.”

  IT WAS OVERCAST AND windy, and the house felt too small. They packed up around noon and drove home. When they got back to his house, he helped her transfer the bags and port-a-crib to her car. He hugged the kids and strapped them into their car seats. It was a bigger good-bye than Janie had bargained for. “I don’t like this,” she said as she stood by the car.

  “Me either.”

  “Are you coming for lunch on Tuesday?”

  He squinted out across the lake. “I want to. But I don’t know. I think I have to play it by ear.”

  “So you’re leaving me hanging.”

  “We’re leaving each other hanging.”

  She slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his collarbone. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her tight. When they let go of each other, Janie felt she might float out over the lake. She got into the car and buckled her seat belt.

  21

  WHEN JANIE CHECKED HER voice mail that night, there was only one message, and it was from Thanksgiving Day. She remembered having ignored the indicator before she left for Cape Cod. “It’s Mike. Uh…Happy Thanksgiving…Just thinking about…you, I guess…Happy Thanksgiving.”

  It was shocking. Her brother hated the phone. For several years he didn’t actually have a phone. Then he burned himself badly with a blowtorch one day and had to stumble down the road to the neighbors to call an ambulance. So, now he had a phone, but he never used it, didn’t even know his own number. If it rang, he didn’t answer. His studio assistant checked messages occasionally.

  Janie had once happened to read a magazine article about Asperger’s syndrome. It was described as a mild form of autism often characterized by weak social skills, tendency to hyperfocus on a particular area of interest, sensory issues like hypersensitivity to touch or sound, and excellent
spatial skills. Hello, Mike, she had thought. The article went on to say there were likely many adults with Asperger’s who had never been diagnosed. “Think of that kid in high school who would rather study geometry than go to a party, who wouldn’t eat in the cafeteria because it was too noisy, who never looked anyone in the eye,” it had said. Janie didn’t have to look too far.

  Mike had excelled at two things in high school: art and track. He did passing well in math and science—brilliantly if it were something that grabbed his attention, like physics or graphing, terribly with algebra and earth science. He all but flunked English and history. His two passions were sculpture and long-distance running. He once confided to Janie that while he ran he liked to think about the patterns his footsteps were creating all over town.

  “What else do you think about when you run?” she’d asked.

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  Robby had had the brilliant idea to get the family to pitch in for a watch-band-sized GPS system for Mike’s birthday one year. Mike could talk of nothing else the next time he visited. Robby had had an affinity for mathematical constructs, especially number patterns, and he and Mike could sit together for hours and discuss them. Robby was patient with Mike’s eccentricities in a way that most people, including Janie herself at times, often weren’t.

  Mike had come home for the funeral (after his assistant had been tracked down to give him the message about Robby’s death). He had said almost nothing for the four days he was in Pelham. Janie had not heard from him since then. Not that she expected to.

  “Hi…uh…is Mike there?” she now asked when a woman answered his phone. It never occurred to her that someone might pick up.

  “Mr. Dwyer is working. If you’d like to leave your name and number I’ll give him the message.”

  “It’s his sister,” she said, then added, “Janie.” There was the underwater sound of a palm being place over the mouthpiece, and distant undulating noises.

  The palm was released. “Janie. It’s me.”

  “Mike! I got your message. How are you? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I just…you know…wanted to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. How was it? Sad?”

  “Uh, not too bad. It was at Aunt Jude’s.”

  “In the living room?”

  “Yeah. How was yours?”

  “Good.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Went to a friend’s house.”

  “Sounds nice. What’s his name?”

  Mike didn’t respond. This, too, was typical. He talked about what he thought about, and he wasn’t thinking about his friend’s name. “I just couldn’t stop imagining you having Thanksgiving without Robby,” he said, finally. “It was all over my brain. How could he not be there, you know?”

  “Yeah.” But it hadn’t been all over her brain. In fact, she realized, Thanksgiving was the first family gathering of any kind where she hadn’t completely freaked out about Robby’s absence. How did that happen?

  “He was such a great guy, Janie. He was so…you know. Just…so…”

  “He was. He was amazing. He really loved you, Mike.”

  “I could always talk to him. He was such a good…” Janie could hear the crackle in Mike’s voice, the closest he usually ever came to crying. It occurred to her that maybe Robby hadn’t really died for Mike until then. He’d been emotionless at the funeral, responded appropriately when asked, but never made any spontaneous acknowledgment of Robby’s passing. “Janie,” he whispered desperately. “How can you do it? How can you not have him?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, the familiar ache starting behind her eyes. She pinched the back of her hand. “What choice do I have?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mike said. He was crying now. “Janie, I am so sorry for all of us.”

  Tears rolled down Janie’s cheeks. She pulled her sleeve down over her fist and wiped her chin. There was a murmuring in the background on Mike’s end, to which he responded, “Thanks.” He gave his nose a quick blow. “How are Dylan and the baby?” he asked.

  “They’re…” Janie had to think a moment. They’re fatherless, she almost said. But it would have been too cruel. “They’re okay. It’s hard sometimes. We really missed him on Dylan’s birthday. In August,” she reminded him. She had to switch to the other sleeve. Mike blew his nose again, too.

  “I got Cormac’s invitation,” he said miserably. “How can he get married when everything’s so awful?”

  “Well, people have to keep living.”

  “Do I have to go?”

  “I think you should. You’ll be home for Christmas, anyway, right? Just stay for New Year’s.”

  “I hate weddings.”

  “You hate anything with more than three people in a room.”

  He laughed a little. “That’s the truth.”

  “You’ll come, right? Don’t bail on me, Mike. I mean it.”

  “Yeah, alright.”

  Janie cried for a long time after she hung up the phone. She took The Kiss out of her closet and cried some more. She lay in their bed missing Robby so hard she thought she’d never be right again. We need you, she kept thinking. We all need you.

  MONDAY WAS A TRUDGING, colorless, desiccated day. Janie drove Dylan to school, picked up milk at the grocery store, forgot to get cheese and bread, took Carly to the tot lot, sat on the bench, and stared into the pine boughs. Christmas and a wedding and New Year’s Eve, she thought. A perfect storm of reminders, all in one week. Carly crawled through the big red plastic tube and over to the sandbox. She picked up handfuls of sand and studied the grains as they trickled through her fingers.

  Rice Krispies for dinner, and early to bed. She was exhausted, and the kids were correspondingly cranky. She didn’t sleep well. Kept waking up gripping handfuls of sheets. Kept dreaming of seeing Robby at a distance, but when she ran to him, he’d disappeared.

  IN THE MORNING, THERE was a kind of relief. Not actual relief, but the anticipation of it. It was Tuesday. Tug would be there. It took Janie a few moments to remember he’d said he wasn’t sure if he would come, but she guessed that he would. He always seemed to know when she needed him. Not that she could actually talk with him about how badly she’d been missing Robby since Mike’s call. He had made it clear that he couldn’t help her with that, and she knew it was fair. It’ll be enough just to see him, she told herself.

  Normally Tug rapped lightly, in case Carly was asleep, and let himself in. Today he waited for her to open the door. His hands were empty. No cooler, no little toy or designer coffee drink. “Hi,” he said.

  “You’re here.” The anticipation ended; the relief was real.

  “Yeah.”

  “You said you weren’t sure.”

  “I decided about ten minutes ago.”

  “Are you hungry?” She wished she’d remembered the cheese and the bread at the market.

  “No.” They went into the kitchen and she made him chocolate milk, anyway. The coffee had gone cold in the pot, so she just filled a glass with water for herself. She asked him about the Pelham Heights house. He gave very brief answers. For a while, they just sat in silence.

  Finally she said, “I can’t take off the ring.”

  He inhaled, exhaled. “Ever?”

  “Not right now. Not for a while.”

  “Okay,” he said. He pushed back from the table and stood up.

  “Tug.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it for now, I guess.” He tried to keep his voice even, but the clenching of his jaw and the shoving of his fists deep into his pockets gave him up.

  Guilt spread over her like a rash. “I led you on,” she told him. “I let myself get way too carried away. It’s all on me.”

  “Am I too old for you?” he asked quickly. “Too much of a working stiff? He was a banker, right?”

  “God, Tug! It’s not you!”

  “I’m just trying to figure this out, because, for the life
of me, I can’t make any sense of it.”

  “It’s too soon—it hasn’t even been a year!” she was feeling defensive now. She’d taken the blame; why did he have to make her feel worse?

  “Okay, so let me get this. He died on January fourteenth, right? So on the fifteenth, you’re good to go? Is that how it works?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know!” She crossed her arms, chewed at the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know!”

  “You do know.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know how you feel, and you act on how you feel, and then you feel bad, so you consult some imaginary manual that tells you the rule is One Fucking Year!”

  Janie stood up. “You know what? I don’t have to listen to this. If this is how you think you can treat me, go find someone else to abuse!”

  His mouth dropped open and his eyes went wild. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go right out and do that. You know how many times a week people are trying to fix me up with their sister or their hair dresser or their kid’s teacher? Hell, one guy’s been trying to get me to go out with his ex-wife because he says I’ll treat her better than he did!”

  He let out a breath that it seemed he’d been holding for a long time. He shook his head, looked out the big bay window that he himself had installed. Then the fists unclenched in his pockets. “I love you,” he said. “I’m so in love with you I can’t even think straight. I have to keep myself from thinking about you at work because if I do I make mistakes. One of these days I’m going to put in a home theater where the master bath is supposed to go.”

  The urge to go over and put her arms around him was so strong she almost took a step. He loved her—no great surprise, although there was something startling and thrilling and also frightening about hearing him say the words. But it was causing him pain. She was hurting this good man, who, no doubt, would treat any ex-wife better than she’d ever been treated. Janie had to protect him from her confusion, and all she could think of at the moment was to stay put.