Double Trouble

by Deborah Cooke

  But James caught my hand in his, his words hoarse. “Tell me.”

  “You said I was afraid,” I whispered. “And I am. But it’s not all about taking a chance. Mostly I’m afraid of letting you down.”

  “Maralys!”

  “No, it’s true. I don’t know how to do this family stuff. I’m afraid that I’ll miss a cue, that I’ll screw it up and the boys will be scarred forever.”

  The strength of his fingers was in my hair, cupping my nape and drawing me closer. “We all make mistakes, Maralys,” he whispered, his breath fanning my lips. My eyes were getting used to the darkness and I could see more of him with every passing moment. He was so intent upon this and I wanted so much to believe him. He smiled slightly. “But you’re the most reliable person I know. You’ll do fine.”

  “I don’t know…” I started to argue, wanting to make sure that he understood.

  James’ thumb slid over my lips. “No, but even when you don’t know or you don’t understand, you try so much harder than anyone else.”

  “I want to try.”

  “It’s all any of us can do.”

  “Even if it’s not enough?”

  “We’ll make it be enough, Maralys. We’ll do it together.” He was watching me, waiting for my agreement.

  I smiled at him and slipped my arms around his neck. “Now, can we get to the celebrating part?”

  James grinned and swooped down for a kiss. “You’re going to love this bed,” he whispered. I was happy enough to let him deliver on that threat.

  It was a huge concession, you know.

  * * *

  We awoke to a day bursting with the promise of spring. Birds were singing and the sun was just peeping over the horizon. The sky was devoid of clouds and it was going to be gorgeous. The last of the snow was already receding, as I saw when I opened the shade. James stretched, looking like a big contented lion, the way he smiled when he saw me just adding to the analogy.

  “Where are you going?” He whispered and so did I.

  “Down to the couch, while there’s still time.”

  He sat up but quick then. “I’m not going to hide the truth from the kids, Maralys.”

  “Well, I fully intend to hide it from my dad.”

  “You can’t be serious. If anyone in this house is going to figure out exactly what’s going on, it’ll be your father.”

  “Wrong-o.”

  James rolled out of bed and came after me. We argued in tense whispers as I tugged on my undies and sweater. “Maralys, you’re not a little girl any more. Your father has probably noticed.”

  “No, but I am the eternal virgin.”

  “What? You were married!”

  “Oh, now here’s a boy who doesn’t know his doctrine. There are three reasons to get divorced in the eyes of the church.” I held up my thumb. “One is consanguinity.”

  “You and Neil were not cousins.”

  “Clearly.” I held up my finger. “The second is that you were never really married in the first place. It never happened.”

  “A legal technicality.”

  “Right. But my father was in that church and he saw me get married. He knows it happened - he paid for the reception. He saw the legal paperwork being done, so he knows that I was hitched without a hitch.”

  “So to speak.”

  I held up my second finger and wiggled it. “You know the third possible reason?”

  James shook his head.

  “That the marriage was never consummated.”

  I got a skeptical look for that.

  “Oh yeah, my father knows it was, but he prefers to think that it wasn’t. The alternative - that I am sexually active although unmarried - just isn’t thinkable. We both participate in this charade and trust me, you don’t want to mess with this particular cornerstone.”

  “Then you’d better move it,” James said, a wicked gleam in his eye. “I go running at six and Johnny sometimes goes with me.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Not yet, but I keep asking.”

  It was five to six. Yikes. I gathered my stuff but quick and made to head out, but found James in my way when I got to the door. “You are not going to sleep on the couch until we’re married,” he muttered.

  I grimaced. “Don’t even say that m-word.”

  “The whole enchilada, Maralys.” I got the steely-eyed look and knew I wasn’t going to win this one. “You know that.”

  “Let me ease into this. Please.” I stretched up and kissed him, an entreaty if ever there was one.

  “You’re lucky you’re so cute,” James growled at me. “I’d never let another woman take advantage of me like this.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  He grinned.

  His kiss was reassuring, as it was probably supposed to be, and I leaned into it. I considered coaxing him back to bed, but then, Johnny might be coming around to check on his dad. I had to get used to having small adults more or less constantly underfoot.

  Well, I didn’t have to get used to it, strictly speaking. I could just walk out the door and leave them all behind.

  As if. I kissed James back, hoping to tell him by touch that he was stuck with me. I’d get the words out sooner or later.

  I left before things got so interesting that we forgot pertinent details. I tiptoed past the boys’ rooms and scurried down the stairs, sticking to the edge of each step so the wood creaked less.

  I had no sooner settled onto the couch in the same pose as the night before and hauled up the afghan, than James noisily erupted from the bedroom upstairs.

  “Johnny? You with me this morning?” I heard James rap on the door, then a mumbled answer that I assumed was a no. “Jimmy?” Another rap and another mumble. “Then, don’t make your grandfather crazy. I’ll be back in an hour. I’ve got the cell.”

  Then James was pounding down the stairs. He burst into the living room and I opened one eye, surprised despite myself to see him not only in his sweats but looking wide awake.

  “Maralys!” he declared in apparent astonishment. He looked on the verge of laughter, as well as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I could have swatted him. Why did sex leave him looking like Tigger and me feeling like Garfield? I’m going to have to talk to Lydia about refining that theory. “I didn’t know you stayed over.”

  I sat up, and felt decidedly rumpled in comparison to his crisp look. I treated him to a skeptical survey. “Do you iron your sweats?”

  “No, why?”

  “There’s something unnatural about looking so good so early in the morning.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Don’t push your luck,” I muttered. “I’m not a morning person and you know it. It’s vulgar to flaunt your advantage.” I lowered my voice. “I think we should go back to bed and wake up the old-fashioned way.” I winked at him and he smiled, but didn’t take the bait.

  “Come running with me,” James said instead, as if he would challenge me. “It’ll be good for you.”

  “Fiber is good for me.” I thumped the pillow and collapsed on the couch again. “I’ll have a bran muffin instead.”

  “Come on, Maralys. It’s a perfect day.” He dropped and did a dozen push-ups, just too damn energetic to be believed.

  I snuggled back down and closed my eyes. “Wake me up when the coffee’s ready.”

  I felt him lean closer and knew he was just a couple of inches away. “We don’t usually make coffee in the morning,” he whispered, pure devilry in his tone. I kept my eyes squeezed shut. “But I have a secret stash.”

  My ears perked up.

  “Jamaican Blue Mountain, dark roast.”

  I opened one eye. “Beans or already ground?”

  James scoffed. “What kind of heathen do you take me for? We were yuppies, Maralys - we had a German-made electric coffee bean grinder before anyone else even knew what one was.” He did some stretches. “They’re really oily beans. Fresh. Perfect.”

  I sat up. “I’ll find them whil
e you’re gone.”

  James smiled. “Good luck.” He bent and checked his laces, then turned to go.

  “You wouldn’t leave me here, fantasizing about coffee. That would be too cruel.”

  “Watch me.” He was in the hall in the twinkling of an eye. I heard the door open and James take a deep breath of the morning air.

  Damn him!

  “I’ve got nothing to wear!” I wailed, the lament of women everywhere when faced with men making impulsive, intriguing invitations.

  James ducked back into the doorway and grinned. “I’ll lend you some sweats.”

  “Shoes. I need shoes.”

  He pointed to a Rubbermaid tub in the corner. “The last dregs for Goodwill. I think there’s a pair of tennis shoes in there that I found in the crawlspace on moving day. Get a move on, Maralys, daylight’s wasting.”

  * * *

  And so it was that we were running, at 6:05 a.m. on a perfect Monday morning. It was still chilly, and our breath made little white puffs in the air. The streets were quiet, the sun just thinking about rising. (Kind of like I would have been, without the kindly encouragement of my running mate.)

  The sky was brightening, the lights in the city towers standing out like stars against the sky. There were a few people walking their dogs, all bundled up against the chill, and a few diehards heading off to work already.

  Even in the evil city, people are more friendly in the morning. Other runners nod, dogwalkers say good morning. We acknowledge each other as neighbors in a way that we don’t once the city really gets rolling.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I like running. There was a time when I used to run every morning, when I used to take an hour to myself before school and work etc. That was B.N.: Before Neil. Before I joined the geek culture and became a software nerd, just like all the other boys. Before I inverted my life and went vampiric, burning the midnight oil every night and sleeping while the sun doth shine.

  Thank God I never went for the diet - that is, nothing that doesn’t come out of a vending machine is worth eating. Neil was a health food freak - because he was impossibly vain - so I have him to thank for my affection for whole grains and obsession with whole foods.

  I’ve always loved to run, although it’s hell to get started. You go for the moment, that transcending moment when running changes from something to be endured to something magical. You hear your blood pumping and feel your muscles flexing, you become more aware of yourself and your place in the world. You feel the air on your face and smell the city and hear the pound of your feet on the sidewalk and you know that you could run forever like this.

  I ran beside James, following what was obviously his established route. We didn’t talk, just the beat of our shoes and the puff of our breath enough. Of course, his neighborhood now was the one I had grown up in, so it was a tour for me that brought back a lot of memories.

  I noticed where buildings had been demolished and new ones built, shops that had morphed into restaurants, parks that had disappeared, trees that had grown. When you run - or when you walk - in a city, you’re closer to it than when you zip through it in a car, or zip under it in a subway. A great part of Boston is still built on a very human scale: its streets and townhouses are proportionate to people, approachable, appreciable.

  I ran and appreciated.

  “I didn’t know you ran in the morning,” I said finally.

  “I used to go to the gym.” James smiled. “Not so long ago, I’d be at the office by now, catching up on my paperwork. I was out the door before the boys were even up.”

  I watched him. “You seem amazed by that.”

  “I did it for years. I’m amazed that I could have been so fixed on one goal to the exclusion of everything else. I remember coming home, finding the boys in bed, and sitting on the edge of their beds to watch them sleep. I remember being astounded that they had grown so big. It seemed only yesterday that they had been born.”

  “Ten years is a lot of yesterdays.”

  “Yes, it is. I was a lousy father.”

  We turned into a park, our footsteps crunching on the gravel pathway. “That’s a pretty tough call.”

  “It’s true. I worked all the time. And when I wasn’t working, I was ensuring that I’d be able to work again. I went to the gym. I networked. I ate. I slept.” James’ eyes narrowed and it wasn’t because of the sun. “Marcia was right. It wasn’t sustainable. I was on the fast track to dying young or burning out.”

  He cast me a sidelong smile. “And you know, no one would have missed me. In all my effort to make a mark, I wasn’t making one that counted at all. I was so intent on succeeding and getting the trapping of success that I failed in the most fundamental ways.”

  I didn’t say anything, because he seemed to have plenty to say himself. We ran a bit more before he continued.

  “Marcia threw me back, for being a lousy father and a lousy husband, and she was right.”

  “Helluva wake-up call.”

  “It was the only one that would have worked.”

  “You don’t sound so bitter about her leaving.”

  “Well, I guess I’m not. I guess she did what she had to do and I have to respect her for making a tough choice.”

  “You’re getting soft in your dotage.”

  He smiled again. “The boys are Marcia’s kids, too. Although the primal urge is to keep them from her, as a kind of punishment, that would be my father’s solution.”

  “And yours?”

  James frowned. “They need her. She’s their mom. Nothing is ever going to change that. There are things that Marcia knows and Marcia does for them that I can’t. There’s a reason why parents come in teams. We can better offset each other’s weaknesses that way.”

  “Are you going to teach me the words to Kum Ba Ya?”

  James chuckled, then shook his head. “The thing about running like this is that you have time to think.”

  “Running away?”

  “Running through. Working through. Sorting out.”

  “Unemployment is good for that, too. Great time generator.”

  He nodded in acknowledgement. “I’ve been thinking, a lot. I owe Marcia for this. She had the guts to take a stand. She had the guts to get off the roller coaster. I didn’t. I was ready to keep on going for another twenty years, to hell with the consequences.”

  “You wouldn’t have lasted that long.”

  “I couldn’t see it then, though I see that now. Our marriage stunk, but I helped with that. I didn’t listen to Marcia. I didn’t talk to her. I didn’t invest in the relationship the way I should have. It’s no wonder there was nothing left, or even anything in the first place. One person can’t make a marriage work.”

  I was not at all convinced that my sister had been trying so hard either. “I don’t think it’s all your fault…”

  “No, but it’s not all Marcia’s either. I may not have been the architect of my misfortune but I was certainly one of the major contractors. I owe her for setting me straight. I owe her for doing the only thing that could have made me pay attention to what she was saying.”

  He paused, then continued more softly. “I owe her for what’s happening between me and the boys. This is new stuff for me and although some of it is tougher than I imagined, most of it is more rewarding than I imagined parenting could be.”

  “You’re doing pretty well.”

  “But it wouldn’t have happened without Marcia giving me a shove.”

  Well, that was probably true. I wasn’t so sure that my sister’s motives were that altruistic, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. What did I know?

  “What about you?” he asked and I looked at him in surprise.

  “Me?”

  “You and Neil. What came out of that for you?”

  “Debt.” I grimaced. “Credit purgatory. Healthy skepticism. A long-standing immunity to men and their sweet talk.”

  “No, really, Maralys.”

  “No, really, he left me in a
hole. More like a gaping pit with no discernible means of escape. I really do have a friend at the IRS.”

  “No one is arguing that Neil pulled a fast one in making his escape to Mexico. But you must have had a role in what happened - nothing is ever one partner’s fault entirely. And you must have learned something from it, something maybe about yourself.”

  “Like I’m a sucker for a great butt?”

  James gave me a cutting-to-the-chase look. “Would you have started your own business, if you hadn’t had one with Neil first?”

  I had to think about that for two blocks. It was a good question. “No. I never would have. You’re right. I didn’t agree with the way he ran his business, but I would never have had the audacity to go out on my own. I saw him do it and screw it up, and that was when I knew I could do better. Before that, I thought that only the truly brilliant could make a business work.”

  “Why’d you pay his bills?”

  “Well, we were partners, so technically they were also my bills. And I didn’t pay any attention to them. I was so busy writing code and having a blast with that, that I assumed the nitty gritty business stuff would take care of itself. I signed where I was told to sign and went right back to work.”

  “You’re giving me hives here, you know.”

  I laughed. “Another joke. I’m going to have to reassess my opinion of you, Mr. Coxwell.”

  We smiled at each other, though my thoughts were still whirling around the axis of Neil. “I guess I figured it was partly my fault for not asking questions or even listening.”

  “What happened to the code you wrote? Surely there was value in that?”

  “Well, yes and no. It was operating system stuff, a very neat concept at the time which has now been completely eclipsed by other developments. It might have been worth something, if it had ever worked completely. Now it’s virtual dust in the wind and nothing more than a learning experience for me.”

  “What about the marriage? Do you still think that failed just because of Neil?”