by J. E. Taylor
“Tom, is everything all right?” she asked, closing the living room door behind her and crossing to the window, staring out at the snow-covered front lawn.
“No, Jess. Everythin’s not aw-right.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I been drinkin since you left. I’s da only way I can get through da day.”
Jessica closed her eyes. She felt the sadness in him from three thousand miles away.
“You need to stop drinking.”
He laughed at her. “You have no idea.” He stopped and was silent. Even in his inebriated state he knew better than to let that slip. “I can’t.”
“I won’t come next Friday unless you promise me you’ll be sober,” she said, not really knowing whether it would have any weight with him or not.
Quiet permeated the line followed by a sigh. “I promise I’ll be sober. “Can I ask you sommin?”
Jessica hesitated, afraid of the question. “Sure.”
“Did you ever love me?”
The question shot through Jessica and she stifled a gasp. “Yes, I loved you.”
“I still love you. You’re the love of my life, always were, always will be.”
“Tom, don’t.”
“What wouldda happened if I hung in there instead of sending you away in New York?” he pushed, the words a little clearer but the slow speech giving away just how drunk he was.
Jessica thought about the question. She didn’t want to answer it, not in the state he was in. “I don’t know.”
“Was that an ‘I don’t know’, meanin you don’t want to hurt me or an I don’t know what wouldda happened had we stayed together?”
“Tom, you know as well as I do I would have never made it for the long term with you. Not in California. And if I was on the East Coast anywhere near Chris...” she trailed off.
“You would be with him anyway.” Tom closed his eyes. “So I was doomed from the beginning.”
“I’m sorry.” Jessica didn’t know what else to say. “But honestly, I couldn’t leave him, not again, not after everything that happened.” She closed her eyes. “I just couldn’t.”
“But you never married him either.”
Jessica balked at the slyness of the comment. “I am going to marry him.”
“When?”
“Next Friday.”
“God damn mother fucking son of a bitch,” Tom muttered. “Don’t marry him,” Tom said after the reams of swears ended.
The venom in his voice hardened her heart bringing back the memory of the night he told her to get the hell out of his life. That raw rage with which he forced himself on her, telling her he didn’t want her, didn’t need her, and didn’t love her. “Tom, go back to bed,” she said and went to hang up.
“Don’t hang up!” Tom yelled into the quiet night.
“I’m marrying Chris next Friday, whether you like it or not.”
“But the premiere?”
“We will be there.”
The implications of what she said hit him hard. “You’re getting married and then coming to the premiere?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to be there,” Jessica said, and because I didn’t know that Friday would be my wedding day.
Only Tom’s ragged breathing came over the line.
“Mommy?” CJ stood at the door to the living room.
“CJ, Mommy is on the phone,” Jessica said without turning around. “Go check on Tommy for me, okay?”
“Okay.” The click of the door followed his statement.
* * * *
He heard her utter the name and it was like a knife going through his heart. “Is Tommy my son?” He waited and when she didn’t answer, he asked, “Is CJ?”
“No, CJ isn’t your son,” Jessica answered immediately.
“But Tommy?”
Jessica was silent again.
“Jess, are you still there?” Tom asked, her lack of an answer immediately sobering him up.
“I’m here.”
“Do I have a son?” he asked, sitting up straight.
“Yes, Tom, you have a son,” Jessica admitted. “But the only reason that it happened was because of Chris.”
Tom couldn’t breathe; the emotions gripping him were sudden and overwhelming and the most pronounced was fear. “Oh my fucking god,” he whispered and shot a glance back at the house, the tremors flowing through his entire six-foot-three frame. “She can’t ever find out.”
“Who? Sharon?”
“Yes, Sharon.” You don’t understand. “I have to go.” He flipped the phone shut before he revealed too much to his ex-wife. Sharon would kill both Jessica and his son out of spite because Sharon thought he couldn’t have children.
The phone rang in his hand, shattering the silence of the early morning in Malibu.
Tom flipped open the phone but didn’t say a word.
“What don’t I understand?” She had caught his thoughts and the panic flowing through him before he hung up the phone.
“You don’t understand,” he began and closed his eyes. “If she finds out...” he trailed off and slowly opened his eyes. “If she finds out she will kill him. And she will kill you.”
* * * *
Jessica laughed at first and his silent fear gripped her, killing the laughter in her throat. His absolute panic was greater than just the normal ‘oh crap my wife’s going to kill me’ kind of thing. His words took on the character of truth, enough so that she closed her eyes and sent herself three thousand miles away, the transition pulling her essence through the phone line until she felt the sandy grains under her bare feet.
Tom’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped and he stared at her solid form on the beach before him.
“I’ve only done this with mirrors in the past.” She blinked, taking in his disheveled appearance and the discarded bottle on the sand next to him. The phone slipped out of his hand and landed in his lap but his hand remained next to his ear. She knelt on the sand in front of him.
He blinked a couple of times before speaking. “Are you really here?” He reached out and touched her cheek.
“Yes and no,” Jessica said and pulled away from his touch. He looked like hell and her heart broke. “Why would your wife kill your child?”
Tom closed his mouth and looked at her. “Please don’t refer to that bitch as my wife.” Hatred radiated from him.
“Tom, why did you marry her if you hate her so much?”
He shook his head and looked at her. He didn’t want to say the words, not aloud, so he framed them in thought knowing Jessica would hear him. Blackmail, Jess. She has an open-ended contract on your life and if I do anything she doesn’t like, she’ll put it into effect just to spite me.
Being hit by a car would have been more pleasant than the shock and pain accompanying his thoughts and her eyes misted. A mini-movie of his life, highlighting the worst of the past five years rolled through her mind, a silent recounting just for her, including the fact he got a vasectomy and his subsequent lie to cover it up.
Jessica covered her mouth with her hand and looked up at the house. “You gave up your life for me?”
Tom nodded.
“And you gave up the option of having children, because of me?”
“No, that was my choice. I would never bring a child into this world with that bitch.”
“I’m so sorry.” Fury and sorrow alternated for dominance and she couldn’t blink the tears away fast enough.
“Jessie.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, his hands balling into tight fists for an instant before he relaxed them and opened his eyes. “At least you’re safe. That’s all that really matters to me.”
Jessica hung her head and the tears brimmed, creating hot wet paths down her cheeks.
Tom moved toward her and tilted her face up to him. “Please don’t cry,” he said and his own tears fell from his bright blue eyes. “Please,” he whispered and leaned in to kiss her.
The soft warmness of his lips on hers sent a pulse through her frame and she pulled back. The transition yanking her breath from her lungs and she opened her eyes back in her living room. His sobs filtered through the phone line.
“Jessie,” he gasped.
“Tom, I will make it right.”
“You can’t. Not without placing yourself in danger and I won’t allow that,” he said and sniffled, his voice raspy but under control. “And now that I know I have a child, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep him safe. I’m sure Ty feels the same.”
“He does and he loves both of them equally,” Jessica said and looked over her shoulder. “The same way he loves Eric and Emily. They are all pieces of me and he places them on the same pedestal.”
* * * *
“I’m counting on that,” Tom said. “I’m counting on him to keep you all safe.” He drew a long breath. “Because I’m not sure how much longer I will last before I kill her.”
“Don’t. You will never be able to live with yourself.”
“You would be surprised what I can live with, Jess,” he said and looked back at the house. The bedroom light switched on. “Very surprised. I have to go. I’ll see you next Friday.”
He stood and flipped the phone closed, erasing the history as he walked to the water line. Her footsteps and disgusted mumbling reached his ears and he took a deep breath, controlling the onslaught of rage.
“Come back inside Tom,” Sharon ordered.
“Go to hell.”
When her hand touched his arm, he brushed it away. “Don’t touch me,” he growled, his tone as ferocious and deadly as the glare he sent her way.
She stepped back, her chin dangling in shock.
“Never again, Sharon.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I am never touching you again, do you understand?” He turned and took a step toward her, looking like the predator he played in the film that was coming out next Friday. “Ever.”
“Then she dies,” Sharon said and turned toward the house.
Tom grabbed her and swung her toward him, placing his hand in a death grip around her neck. “You don’t seem to understand at all.” He pulled her so she was close to his face. “If I touch you again it will be to squeeze the life out of you.” He threw her away from him and stormed in to the house, picking up the empty bottle on the way.
He dropped both onto the family room table and headed into the farthest guest room - the only room in his house that didn’t hold bad memories and he crawled into bed wondering if he had truly lost it or not. Did that really happen or was it just a hallucination brought on by downing a whole bottle of scotch?
“Dear God,” he whispered.
He had a son.
Chapter 11
Jessica hung up the phone and closed her eyes.
“Sweet Jesus.”
Was Sharon really that insane?
“I did break the bitch’s nose.” She chuckled at the memory of bones crushing under the power of her fist, but even that wasn’t something that warranted a death sentence.
She opened the doors to the living room, crossing to the stairs and stopped. The conversation slammed into her again, the truth in his fear, the look in his inebriated eyes when she materialized in front of him. Tom wouldn’t lie, not to her, and her legs lost strength. She grabbed for the banister and gasped. He gave up his freedom to keep her safe and if he doesn’t do what Sharon demands of him, a dead body will be delivered to his door. Her dead body to be exact and now, if Sharon finds out Tom has a son, her son would be in danger.
The delicate tendrils of fear wrapped through her and she shuddered.
CJ stepped into full view at the top of the stairs. “Mommy, I won’t let anything happen to my brother,” he assured her and turned to walk away.
“CJ,” Jessica said sharper than she meant to and he turned back. The look on his face reminded her of his father’s expression, fierce and determined.
“Come here,” she whispered.
CJ obediently came down the stairs and stood in front of her.
Jessica knelt down so she was face to face with him and took his little hands in hers. “Baby, how much of that conversation did you hear?”
His brow knit and he cocked his head. “Everything Mommy, even when you weren’t here anymore.”
Jessica closed her eyes.
“That man called Daddy, Ty.”
Jessica opened her eyes, locking her gaze with her four-year-old son. She didn’t know what to say.
“That man is Tommy’s daddy?”
“No, your father is Tommy’s daddy and always will be. That man just helped me make Tommy. But it was your father that made you and Tommy possible.”
“Did that man help make me?”
“No honey, your father helped me make you. You are definitely your father’s son.”
“That man is very angry but not at you. He loves you like daddy loves you.”
Jessica exhaled. “I suppose he does. His name is Tom and he’s a movie star and I was married to him before I met your father,” she explained.
“You were married before?”
Jessica nodded. “Twice.”
CJ raised his eyebrows. “Twice?”
“To Uncle Danny and to Tom. Emily and Eric are the children I had when Uncle Danny and I were married a long time ago.”
CJ nodded. He had seen some pictures that Eric brought once when he explained how they were brothers. “I knew about Uncle Danny,” he started, “but I didn’t know about the other man.”
Jessica thought about how to explain Tom to her son. “He was there when I was hurt and helped keep me safe. He knew Ty too.”
“He knew Daddy?”
“No, not really,” Jessica said because it was true. Tom didn’t know Chris; he only knew what he saw down in the complex and the limited exposure to him five years ago. He didn’t know what a really wonderful, compassionate and loving man Chris really was.
“Oh,” CJ said, the crease deepening between his eyes and he looked at his feet, chewing on his lower lip like Chris did when he was mulling something over. “But I thought Daddy was Ty.”
“No honey, I told you, Ty died,” Jessica said and this time she met CJ’s gaze.
CJ kept her gaze tempted to just barrel in her mind and pull out the truth, but the frankness in her gaze made him partially believe her. Although, there was something underneath deep inside her when she said the name, something powerfully strong and pure in her and very dark and cold when his father said the name the other day and together they balanced. His eyes widened. “You balance each other.”
“What?” Jessica recoiled.
“You and Dad balance each other.”
Jessica smiled. “Yes. Daddy and I balance each other.”
“Eric told me you and Daddy were meant to be together.” CJ smiled. “He said it was written in the stars.”
Jessica laughed. It would be like her oldest son to say that. “I don’t know about it being written in the stars, but I do think we were meant to be together.”
“Mommy?” Tommy interrupted their conversation. “I’m hungry.”
“Mommy made me pancakes,” CJ bragged.
“Can I have some?” Tommy’s big blue eyes looked so much like his father’s had minutes before on a beach in California.
Chapter 12
Jessica wrapped up her workout and showered while the boys played in their room and then she corralled them for a trip to the mall. Usually, they were a handful at the stores, but today they were on their best behavior and that thrilled her.
At the jewelers, they pointed out all sorts of gaudy bling for Daddy, but she ended up deciding on a simple eighteen-inch gold chain and a gold and platinum Rolex watch with diamond chips as wedding gifts. She let the boys choose one of the less conservative pieces—a sterling silver Celtic cross on a thick braided chain that would be at home around Rick Ross’s neck. The jeweler wrapped them at her re
quest and handed them over with a smile.
“How long would it take to have a ring engraved?” Jessica inquired.
“That wouldn’t take long, just a couple of hours.”
Jessica produced the wedding band that Chris bought and wrote down what she wanted engraved, handing both to the jeweler.
“No problem. I’ll have it for you by noon.”
“Thank you.” She smiled and walked out of the store. “Okay boys, we have a couple of hours to kill here, what do you want to do?” she asked, knowing full well they were going to insist on going to the Discovery Zone.
“Discovery Zone!” they both yelled out at the same time.
“Let’s go.” She led them to the giant playscape within the mall with huge oversized tunnels, ladders, slides, ball pits and trampolines galore. The children were in their glory, jumping, sliding, crawling and running through three stories of the plastic wonderland while Jessica watched from the sidelines.
After close to an hour and a half, she called the boys and they headed to the food court for a bite to eat before heading back to the jewelers.
Jessica took the ring and read the inscription that covered most of the real estate inside.
Ty, a million years isn’t long enough. Yours forever, Jessica.
Chris would love it. She smiled and handed over the money to the jeweler, replacing the ring in the box. It would have been in poor taste for him to put that phrase in her ring, but she thought it was absolutely appropriate for her to put it on his. “Thank you.” She grinned and left the store.
Jessica put the packages in her shoulder bag, took the hand of each boy in hers, and headed out of the mall. Walking through the Norstrom Department Store, she ran smack into Chris.
“Daddy!” both boys exclaimed and tore their hands out of their mother’s grip.
“What are you doing here?” He smiled and raked the boys to him in a big bear hug.
“Picking up some things,” she replied.
Chris tilted his head a little. “You got the ring inscribed?”
“Among other things. Will I ever be able to surprise you?”
Chris let out a laugh. “Afraid not, babe.”