Then Came You

by Kate Meader

  “I know it’s late, but I wondered if we could talk.”

  “Of course. Come in, chérie.”

  As a child, my mother’s room was off-limits, her sanctuary from the household she was raising without my father. Oh, he was there on the boundaries, but he had an empire to run. My brothers’ cynical take was that Marie-Claire knew what she was getting herself into when she broke up the first marriage of a man like Jeffrey Gates. Two stepsons and a daughter she was forced to adopt were her penance.

  On the TV, people are speaking French with no English subtitles. She mutes it and takes a seat on a love seat near the window, patting the cushion beside her.

  “Is this about Grant?”

  “No, this isn’t about Grant. Tell me what’s going on with Dad.”

  Two spots of color appear high on her cheeks. “He’s going through one of his phases. It’ll pass.”

  “You’re in the middle of a divorce, and neither of you wants to budge. But you’re okay with him bringing his girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. Some phase.” She should have gone ballistic, but that’s just not done in Casa Gates.

  “Aubrey, you don’t understand.”

  “Help me understand, then. Help me figure out why you”—let him steamroll you into raising me as your own—“don’t just take the settlement and run.” I’ve no doubt it’s a good deal, a nice lump sum that would keep her in luxury for the rest of her life.

  “He owes me. For what I had to put up with. The affairs, all of it.”

  The result of his affairs, that’s what she means. I don’t know why I bother.

  “It’s not like you can get more than half. Even a quarter is a fortune. You’ll never want for anything again.”

  “Maybe I want more than money.”

  I close my eyes, amazed at the human capacity for self-delusion. “You want him back. After everything he’s done, you would take him back.”

  “I know he wasn’t the most attentive father, but he had work to do supporting us all with the company. You never wanted for a thing.”

  “That’s not the problem—”

  “You had horse-riding lessons, ballet, parties the envy of every girl on the East Coast. And that’s all because your father spoiled you rotten.”

  “I’m not saying none of that is true, but this isn’t about me. Why are you defending him? He’s always been selfish and distant, with an ego as big as all outdoors. I don’t even remember you sharing a room.”

  “So you’re an expert on marriage now, Aubrey? The girl who chose rashly and now can’t make up her mind about whether her husband is ex or not.”

  I don’t understand it. I’ve never understood their relationship. I always thought it was because I was too young to interpret the nuances, but I should get it by now. I could say the heart wants what it wants, but that assumes Marie-Claire has a working cardiac muscle. Does my mother hold on out of spite? Whatever it is, clearly she has no intention of confiding in me.

  “I’m not claiming to be an expert. Grant and I have had our problems, but we’re working them out. He’s here because he cares about me. Even at our lowest, he never treated me like Dad treated you tonight.”

  But he did start dating. He brought that woman to Max’s party a few months ago. He tried to move on because he…was ready to move on. The conclusion pokes me with the force of a sharp stick.

  Grant’s not here for himself, and he’s certainly not here to win me back. He’s on site to help me move on. My chest warms at the care in that gesture, then chills at the true meaning of it.

  This is a slow burn to the end.

  “You and I have never been close, so I’m not expecting a miracle now,” I offer, “but if you need my help for anything, I’m here.”

  Her eyes widen, and for a brief second, I wonder if she might squeeze out a tear. “I’ve only ever wanted the best for you, Aubrey, so you would never have to worry about whether a man loved you or not. So it wouldn’t be so important.”

  Toughening me up in the name of ensuring my happy man-free independence? Is that a fucking French thing?

  “But love is important, Mom. Unselfish, unconditional love.” The kind that Grant is giving me now, a generosity of spirit I can never hope to emulate. “In fact, it might be the most important thing of all.”

  Chapter 17

  Grant

  As if Max knows I’m alone, with enemies at the gates, he chooses the moment Aubrey goes to talk to her mother to call me.

  “Hey, happy Turkey Day, Lincoln.”

  Still with the last name shtick. He doesn’t realize it, but he got me through these last couple of years.

  “You at your parents’?”

  “Yeah, full-on with all the Hendersons after lunch with Charlie’s folks. Thought I’d better call before it gets too late. How’s it going?”

  “Well, I’m still alive. And so’s the cat.”

  “And Aubrey?”

  “Things are in flux, but we’re talking, which is a start.”

  A lengthy pause ensues while his brain churns. Finally, he says, “You know I never pried because I was in the mindset of ‘of course it failed—that’s what happens.’ ”

  “Except for your parents, the model for marital perfection.”

  “Hell, the two of them are freaks.” He sighs. “What I’m trying to say is that I assumed the reasons behind the failure of my best friends’ marriage were incredibly private and none of my damn business. But sometimes I’d see you hurting, and I didn’t push when I think maybe I should have. Maybe I should have been a nosy fucker after all.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose, wishing away the headache that’s developed behind there.

  “Are you saying you’d like to know now, Max?”

  “Only if you want to share. But if you and Aubs are on the road to somewhere good and you’d rather I just butt out, say that, too.”

  Aubrey could be back any minute, and who knows if this needs to come out now. But I’m tired of holding it in, how taut my muscles feel all the time, how sensitive my feet feel dancing over those eggshells. I head into the en suite bathroom, shut the door, and sit on the toilet. The cat scratches at the door, so I let him in.

  “M&*#%!”

  Settling him into my lap, I close my eyes, dreading the shape of the words. “We lost a baby, Max. A miscarriage.”

  Silence for a long beat, then, “Fuck.”

  Yeah. Fuck.

  I begin the process of laying my internal organs bare to my closest friend, the memory as sharp now as the day it happened.

  I’d just come home from work and needed to change for dinner with Max and this girl he was dating. As Max rarely took a woman out a second time, I suspected this would be an incredible waste of everyone’s time.

  I let out a low whistle.

  “What?” Aubrey waved a hand from neck to hip, taking in a ruby red dress she knew I adored for the wondrous silhouette it gave to her body. “This old thing.”

  “Don’t want to go,” I muttered. “Don’t want to see stupid Max, who I work with and just saw an hour ago, hamming it up with some girl he’s going to bang once and never see again.” In a mini-tantrum, I ripped off my tie and threw it onto the floor. My shirt was next.

  Aubrey picked it up because she was a bit of a neat freak. Not that I minded. The woman had quirks—potato chip sandwiches, for one—and every day I marveled at my luck in landing her.

  She stepped forward and unbuckled my belt, her cool gray eyes on mine. Heels brought her up to my chin—almost. “I haven’t seen him in a while, and he was my friend before he was yours.” She palmed my erection, gave it a gentle squeeze that drew my groan.

  “Bean. You’re killin’ me.”

  She unpacked me, her eyes lighting up at what s
he found. Like I was a gift she’d requested from Santa. I was big, and fitting her body used to be one of my major concerns.

  “I need to change.”

  “In a minute, Georgia.” One-handed, she reached under her sexy dress and pulled down black satin panties, a feminine skill I particularly enjoyed. Faster than you could say “sex in heels,” I was flat on the bed with my beautiful wife straddling me. Did I mention how lucky I was?

  “With my pants on?”

  “Got to make it quick,” she panted, her voice already raspy with desire. “Need—need you so bad,” and then she was taking me inside her wet, wet heat, and I was trying, desperately, not so desperately, to hold back, to not be my usual beast self because she was carrying my baby.

  I pushed up her dress and spanned my hands across her still-flat stomach, love and disbelief churning inside me. The changes about to be wrought on this beautiful body were a testament to how much we loved each other.

  But sometimes she needed more. She needed promises. “Tell me it’ll always be like this.”

  It was easy to say yes, to say always, to say forever. I believed it wholeheartedly with my foggy head and my full heart and my rampant cock. I’d won the girl of my dreams, and nothing could break us.

  “Always, Bean. Only you.”

  She liked me to take charge, so I did. I rolled her over and filled her to the hilt, my care for her situation muffled by my unstinting need. And when we came in quick succession, it felt like something new was created yet again. Each time with her was a revelation.

  Thirty minutes later, at every traffic light and stop sign, I couldn’t help myself. I had to touch her belly, the swell of life we’d created.

  “Grant, she’s not going to kick yet. It’s much too early.”

  “I don’t want to miss his first punch.”

  We didn’t agree on the gender of the baby and wouldn’t find out for six more weeks, at least. She wanted a girl. I didn’t mind either way, as long as the little bundle was healthy, but I’d say he or his to be contrary. Aubrey needed to be challenged at every opportunity, even if it was about something as silly as the predetermined sex of our baby. From the moment we met, arguing was our foreplay.

  The sideswipe came out of nowhere, barely a tap, but enough to make me hit the brakes and curse the fucker who had driven on blithely without stopping. To this day, I don’t think the violent kiss of one piece of metal against another was the reason for what followed. But during long, lonely nights it crosses my mind while I look for someone, anything to blame.

  Because it couldn’t be my constant need to touch her. Or the fact I’d slipped my body inside her before we left for dinner, the sight of her in that red dress too much for my weak resistance. My uncontrollable lust for my wife couldn’t be the reason I’m not a father.

  “Prick. I ought to hunt him down, but I’m starved.” I gripped the handle. “Better check the damage.”

  “Grant, I—shit.”

  My head whipped around to the sound of her voice, its tone unrecognizable and so un-Aubrey: fear. Her fingers were on the hem of her dress—that stunning red dress—and the color slashed in a muddy streak over her thighs. Aubrey doubled over, her hand covered in blood. Covered in those cells that hadn’t had a chance to become whole yet.

  “Fuck.” I cupped her face. “Hold on, Bean. I’ll get us to the hospital.”

  The images from that night should be etched on my brain, but after the sideswipe, they’re patchy. I remember this:

  Carrying her into the emergency room as she tried to hold her thighs together.

  The doctor, who looked no more than twelve, telling me she was okay, she would be okay.

  But.

  Aubrey looking so helpless in a hospital gown five sizes too big for her.

  My stupidity as I said the one thing I shouldn’t: We’ll try again.

  We wouldn’t. We couldn’t. Aubrey turned in on herself. My job had always been to coax her out of that brittle shell.

  Go on a date with me.

  Stay in Chicago with me.

  Be mine forever.

  Faced with Aubrey’s pain, I packed away my own in service to managing hers. There was no reason why we couldn’t conceive again. No reason why we couldn’t give it another shot after an appropriate time of mourning. No reason why we couldn’t find our way back to each other, except the biggest reason in the world.

  It takes two.

  And when I realized I had only so much strength, and that my partner, my love, my Aubrey couldn’t meet me even ten percent of the way, I had to bail.

  Yeah, I was a coward.

  But I can’t say that. I can’t confess to her that I’m as much to blame.

  Of course I don’t tell all of this to Max. I don’t tell him that it was the night we canceled dinner with him. I don’t tell him that I made love to my beautiful wife just before it happened. But I do I tell him enough to understand the broad brushstrokes of a marriage that failed.

  “We tried to get back to us, but it didn’t work. You’d think in our business we’d know all the tricks—talking, counseling, the healing power of time—but it was like we couldn’t apply any of this BS we’re always telling clients to ourselves.”

  “You’re in the middle of it, man. The playbook goes out the window.”

  “I know I should have told you, but—”

  “Aubrey wouldn’t want anyone to pity her.” Max knows her pretty well. “I totally get it.”

  “She’s obsessed with perfection, or the illusion of it. Failure isn’t an option with that girl.”

  “Never helped you didn’t need to crack open a book. Always pissed her off.”

  My laugh is mirthless. “That’s what she said. But she’s been applying that comparison to everything. Like I’m able to grieve more easily than her or somehow figure it all out in a way that makes sense. I’m not and I can’t.” She doesn’t even know about my possible part in it—how my rough handling of her might have contributed to the loss. I’ve never wanted to complicate the healing by adding that wrench to the mix. “But this week has opened things up between us, and we’re talking now.”

  “So the next step is what? You two back together?”

  He sounds as skeptical as I feel. A few turns in the sack and a little pillow talk do not fix a marriage’s problems.

  “She’s pretty fragile right now, and being around her family is doubly raw. I’m conscious that decisions made in this kind of pressure cooker might not stick. For now, I just want to support her while she comes to terms with it.”

  A sound from the other room alerts me to Aubrey’s return. “Gotta go. See you when I get back.”

  “Sure, and Grant?”

  “Yep?”

  “I understand that this might seem more personal to Aubrey because she physically carried the baby, but it’s okay to acknowledge your own hurt as well. Don’t try to bury that while you’re trying to fix her.”

  Instead of acknowledging the advice, I latch onto the part that pisses me off. “I’m not trying to fix her.”

  “Sure thing, white knight. It’s been your mission since the day you met her.”

  I have no response to that, and Aubrey working the handle means I have to ring off with a muffled “thanks.” I open the door to find Aubrey frowning.

  “Sorry, I thought maybe you’d left,” she says, as if I have someplace else I want to be.

  “No, Max called to wish us happy Thanksgiving.”

  She nods, distracted. “I don’t understand my mother. She’s making all sorts of excuses for my dickwad of a dad. After the stunt he pulled tonight.”

  “And you thought she’d want what? To talk it out like besties?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know!” She paces the room, hands on hips
. “She has to be hurting, and if anyone knows how it stings to be neglected by my father, it’s me. I have all this insider knowledge, and we could be bitching together.”

  “And while she’s bitching about him, you two might be getting a little closer?” I put my hands on her shoulders and kiss her forehead. “I love that you’re trying with her, but damn, she’s a piece of work. She got you all twisted up for years, and I hate to see you wasting precious goodwill on someone who doesn’t deserve it.” I’m a firm believer in surrounding yourself with people who love you and cutting out negativity. I understand it’s not so easy when it comes to family, but Aubrey needs to start looking after herself better.

  “But it might make me feel better. Or help me understand some of the decisions she made as a mother. She’s always been such an enigma.” She smiles up at me. “My whole family’s weird. Bet you wish you’d never bothered.”

  “I dunno. Perks are okay.”

  “You mean, mashed potatoes and onion gravy, which I’m totally craving. Want to raid the kitchen with me, inhale a vat of rum-spiked eggnog, then fuck each other until we pass out?”

  “Yes, yes, and hell, yes.” I kiss her softly to let her know I’m in her corner. I will always be on her side, and she sure as hell doesn’t need the Gateses to make her whole.

  Chapter 18

  Aubrey

  I awake rested but alone. Within seconds, a bolt of panic streaks through me.

  Where is he? And how annoying is it that I care?

  Blinking to full consciousness, I focus my eyes and spot the Post-it on the pillow, right in the depression where Grant’s head lay last night.

  I’d just reached a point where I was doing okay alone, and now I’m twisting and turning with lust and affection. Those two together equal something I don’t want to acknowledge: I never stopped loving my ex-husband. And while I don’t doubt his affection for me, I suspect it’s more kindness than a true intention to win me back. Grant needs to fix me before he can move on with his life. I’m the mission he failed, and leaving it incomplete—me incomplete—offends his good nature.