The Last to See Her

by Courtney Evan Tate

  He reached for her. She pulled back.

  “Not yet,” she said with a smile.

  He smiled, too, because he still thought it was temporary.

  They had more wine, more cheese, more teasing.

  He slid his hand up her thigh, she twisted and laughed, and he smiled.

  “I haven’t seen this Gen in a long time,” he said, and he was mesmerized by her tonight.

  “Was it worth the wait?” she practically purred, her hand rubbing his back. He nodded and pulled her closer.

  She kissed his neck, skimming her lips along the arch, and then pulled away.

  “I just had an idea,” she announced, as though it had just come to her. Thad seemed excited, waiting for what he assumed would be a particularly naughty fantasy. She was happy to disappoint him.

  “We’ll wait,” she said, and she stood up, hovering above him. Her nightgown blew around her legs, like Marilyn Monroe over the street grate.

  “What?” he asked, confused. His eyes were glazed over with desire, and he couldn’t quite shake it enough to understand.

  “We just worked ourselves up to the edge,” she explained, like she was talking to a child. “Now, we’ll stop. When we do it next time, our orgasms should be amazing! It’s called edging. It’s a real thing.”

  She laughed at the look on his face. He was crushed, just as she’d wanted.

  “I don’t want to wait,” he growled, reaching for her, but she was insistent, and ultimately, she had the say.

  He couldn’t have sex with her if she didn’t want to.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he grumbled, as he helped her pick up the picnic and carry the things to the kitchen.

  “I’ve read that it makes your orgasms out of this world,” she told him, scraping food into the trash.

  “That doesn’t help me tonight,” he said, and she laughed.

  “Honey, we’ve been married a million years. How many nights do you go without sex at a time? I think you’ll live,” she said, and she looked to see if his lies would show on his face.

  He never went a night without sex—it just wasn’t usually with her.

  His face didn’t betray him. He just laughed and rolled his eyes.

  “You’re right,” he replied. “I haven’t died yet.”

  Gen smiled.

  Ten minutes later, he tried to tell her that he really needed to go back to the office, that he had to work on closing arguments, that it was dire.

  She was staunch in saying no.

  “No. I want to spend time with you,” she told him. “I want to hold your hand. I want to snuggle on the couch. It’s been so long, Thad.”

  He stayed with her on the couch all night. Gen pretended not to notice his phone continually buzzing in his pocket. She knew that it was Meg or Angie, or maybe both. She also knew that once a man started blowing off a woman for any reason, the woman on the other end started questioning his devotion.

  She wondered how long before Meg left him... How many weekends of Gen’s time it would take to find out. Then she wondered if it was worth it.

  33

  Meg, Now

  LaGuardia was busy, even at midnight.

  “God, I hate late flights,” Meg complained as they walked through security.

  “Suck it up, Doc,” Hawk answered. Meg smiled at the name and put her purse on the scanner belt.

  “Do you sleep on flights?” she asked him. “Because that’s annoying.”

  “Sleeping is annoying?” he asked. He picked her purse up and handed it to her.

  “No. Sleeping on a plane is annoying. You probably snore.”

  “I do,” he answered cheerfully. “You probably do, too.”

  Meg glared at him. “Then you will pretend not to notice. It’s the gentlemanlike thing to do.”

  “What if I’m not a gentleman?” he asked, with a grin.

  “You are,” she answered. “I can tell.”

  He seemed pleased with that, though she didn’t know why. They waited for the flight to be called, and while they did, she glanced through a magazine. The overhead lights were unflattering, but weren’t they in all airports? She bounced her foot on the floor, something she always did. Hawk stared at it.

  “You’re a nervous person,” he remarked. “I wouldn’t have thought that.”

  “I just have restless energy,” she replied. “Always have. I don’t like to sit still.”

  “I see that. But you decided to be confined in an airplane with me,” he pointed out.

  “My sister has a secret apartment there,” she answered. “Of course I’m on a flight with you. I just keep wondering about it. Why does she have it? Does she have a secret family, too? I’m just stymied.”

  “That’s an interesting word choice,” he said. “Kinda snobbish.”

  “Snobbish? Because I used an unusual word?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes, it’s like you try to wear your education like a garment,” he observed. “You want people to know you are intelligent, sometimes at the cost of their pride, even.”

  “Why? Did you not know what it meant?” She lifted an eyebrow.

  “No. I just wouldn’t want to ever purposely make someone feel dumb. Life is good enough at that. We don’t have to help.”

  Meg was a bit stunned. She’d never considered herself an intellectual snob, but then she remembered how she always judged Joe’s simplistic word choices, and how she always pointed it out when he used a better word. It had never occurred to her that it made him feel dumb, or annoyed him.

  “I don’t mean to make people feel dumb,” she said honestly.

  “I know,” he agreed. “I can tell. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t. Just be more understanding that some people don’t like to sound stiff.”

  “You think I sound stiff now? Yikes, I’m sounding pretty bad right about now.”

  He laughed. “Don’t fish for compliments. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Really?” Meg sat back in her seat, folding her magazine. “What does suit me?”

  Hawk didn’t hesitate. “Well, you like to feel smarter than everyone, as we’ve established. But, you also are very kind. You notice the things around you, and you help those you can help.”

  “That sounds better,” she acknowledged. “Thank you.”

  “But I also sense a mean streak in you, when you’re provoked,” he added. She stared at him.

  “Why do you say that?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have proof. I just feel it in my gut. That’s why I’m good at my job.”

  “You know, that could just be your stomach growling or something,” she offered. He rolled his eyes.

  “Keep laughing,” he advised. “I’ll find out all of your secrets soon enough.” He laughed since he was joking, but she didn’t, in case he was right.

  “Speaking of secrets,” he said a few minutes later. “What do you know about Thad’s past?”

  Meg shrugged. “Not much. He never did like to talk about it. His parents have been dead for a long time, and it was always painful for him. Gen never pushed.”

  “So Gen didn’t know a lot about it, either?”

  Meg shook her head. “No. They always just said they were focusing on the present, not the past.”

  “So Gen didn’t know that Thad was driving the car that killed his parents?”

  Meg froze. “That’s impossible. He was like twelve when they died.”

  “They were apparently drunk, and had asked him to drive home. They were just a mile from home. They didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Hawk blinked. “It’s my job.”

  “So he essentially killed his parents? He was in the car,” she repeated.

  “Yes. And so was his sister.”
<
br />   Meg’s head snapped up at that. “He had a sister?”

  “Has a sister. She sustained brain damage in the accident. She’ll never be able to support herself.”

  “Wait. You’re telling me that Thad has a sister,” Meg repeated, stunned.

  “Yes. I’m going to assume from your tone that Gen didn’t know?”

  Meg shook her head. “None of us knew. Are they estranged?”

  “No. He pays her bills. She lives in an apartment near his law office.”

  “What?” Meg was beyond shocked. “She lives in Chicago?”

  “Yes. I plan to pay a visit to her while we’re there.”

  Meg leaned back in her seat, trying to absorb everything. “When you said her brain was damaged... How bad?”

  Hawk shrugged. “Bad enough that she’ll never be able to work, but she is able to live alone, with supervision. She has the mentality of a ten-year-old.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Jody.”

  Meg remained stunned for the rest of the two-hour flight, and after forty minutes, she discovered she’d been wrong. Hawk didn’t snore. At least, not on airplanes. She let him sleep, and only woke him when the plane landed.

  “That was a nice flight,” Hawk remarked as they deplaned. She rolled her eyes.

  “Want to share a cab?” she asked.

  He nodded, then hailed one, and she inhaled her adopted city.

  “It’s good to be home,” she said, breathing in the night air.

  “Your family will be happy to see you,” he said.

  She smiled. “I can’t wait to see my son.”

  They climbed into the cab, and as they rode toward downtown, Hawk eyed her.

  “What is going on with you and your husband?” he asked curiously. “Have you grown apart?”

  She thought on that. “Maybe so. I just think maybe we aren’t suited to each other. I love him, but he feels like a friend. I wonder if it’s the same for him.”

  “Do you have a good sex life?” Hawk asked simply.

  Meg eyed him sharply.

  “What?” he defended. “I wasn’t being smarmy. I was just pointing out that if you have a good sex life, he probably doesn’t think of himself as your friend.”

  “Smarmy is a good word,” she said.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  She smiled.

  “What will you do, then?” Hawk asked. “Will you ride it out, living a perfectly acceptable life in a marriage of mediocrity?”

  “Or will I get divorced?” she added for him. “I don’t know. I wonder if everyone just settles into mediocrity. I mean, I could get remarried, and have it be a firecracker at the beginning, but settle into kindling after a few years. Maybe it’s just the way it works.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hawk argued. “I’ve seen people have stellar marriages. I, for one, won’t settle.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “I won’t settle for mediocrity, and I will never cheat. It’s the most cruel thing you could do to someone. You marry them, and think you can trust them, and then they cut you off at the knees. A spouse is someone who is supposed to protect your heart, not destroy it.”

  Meg was astounded that he was being so open, so vulnerable about this, and it showed. Hawk laughed softly.

  “I guess I get introspective on flights.”

  “Your wife did a number on you,” Meg said quietly.

  Hawk didn’t answer, so she knew it was true.

  “Who was it?” she asked. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “My partner,” he said, and his voice was cold. “When I was still a beat cop.”

  “Jesus,” she breathed, appalled.

  She immediately recognized the irony, however. She was appalled at his partner betraying him when she had betrayed her own sister. She swallowed hard.

  Hawk nodded. “Yep. So, needless to say, I won’t be going through that again. I’ve made sure of it.”

  “Well, for one thing, you don’t have a partner anymore,” Meg pointed out, trying to lighten the mood, and he shook his head.

  She laughed. He didn’t.

  “So this is your city,” he said, turning his attention to the scenery. They were passing over a bridge, looking at industrial smokestacks. “It’s charming. Kinda small, though.”

  The lights of the vast cityscape were blinding, and Meg laughed.

  “Yeah, it’s cramped.”

  “All I’m saying as a New Yorker is...mine is bigger than yours.”

  “I should hope,” Meg laughed. She liked this side of him, hadn’t even known it existed. It was so witty, so soft, so genuine. She had a sense that few got to see it.

  They were pulling up to the hotel now, and Meg surprised him by getting out, too.

  “Aren’t you going home?”

  Meg looked at her watch. “It’s one thirty. I know you don’t have children, but trust me, if I woke Joey up at this hour, we’d be hating life tomorrow.”

  “Ah, understood,” he said, although he couldn’t possibly.

  “So I’ll just get a room here, and go look at the apartment with you in the morning, then go home.”

  She booked a room and he checked into his, and as they rode the elevator up, Meg found she wasn’t tired despite the late hour. She wanted to ask him to have a drink with her, to talk more about Thad’s past, but the bar was closed. She could invite him in and raid the minibar, but she knew he wouldn’t accept her invite. He was too professional to come into her hotel room.

  Their rooms were side by side, and they awkwardly said good-night.

  As Meg lay in her bed, she envisioned Hawk on the other side of the wall.

  Did he sleep in underwear, or did he sleep naked? Did he sleep with the covers, or did he sleep exposed?

  Why was she wondering this at all?

  She tossed and turned.

  What she didn’t know was that on the other side of the wall, Hawk was doing the same thing.

  34

  Gen, Then

  Gen wanted to do something so outrageous that she forgot about her life. It was such a mess that it deserved to be forgotten. She wanted to set sail for a tropical island, sailing until she didn’t remember.

  But her current life wasn’t one easily forgotten.

  She sat in her sister’s home, watching Finding Nemo with Joey. His hair was snuggled beneath her chin, and he smelled like puppies and sunshine.

  “Look, Aunt Nini.” He pointed. “His fin is different.”

  “Yeah, it is,” she agreed. “But he didn’t let that get to him, did he?”

  Joey shook his head, and she glanced at the clock. Eight thirty, and Meg still wasn’t home. She knew that Thad actually was. He’d texted her and wondered why she wasn’t. If her sister wasn’t with him, was she really at work?

  Did normal people have to wonder so much?

  Joe yawned from his chair across the room. His hands were long and slender, and although some of his fingers were calloused, she still thought he had good hands. Good manly hands.

  “Listen, kiddo.” He stood up and stretched. “You gotta go to bed. You know how this one ends.”

  “Does Nemo find his dad?” Gen asked, helping Joey stand up. Joey looked up at her.

  “Yes, Aunt Nini. Parents always find their kids.” He was so serious that she smiled. His babyish cheeks were adorable, and she kissed one of them.

  “Get to bed, babycakes,” she told him. He took off running.

  “He has two speeds,” Joe told her. “Full-throttle and off.”

  Gen laughed, because it was true.

  “You want some wine?” he asked, and she swiveled her head.

  “You’ve got wine? Since when?”

  He laughed. “
Since Meg mentioned that you liked it. You’ve been coming over, so I thought it was only fair.”

  “Awwww, Joe! You bought wine just for me? I’m touched!” And she was.

  He got her a glass and poured it halfway full, but she waved him on.

  “Fill it up, bartender,” she chanted. She took a gulp and then accompanied him to Joey’s room. He read him a story, then she did.

  “You do the voices better,” Joey told her.

  She looked at Joe triumphantly, and he laughed.

  They turned off Joey’s light and cracked his door, then went back to sit in the living room.

  Gen sipped at her wine, and Joe got a beer.

  “You’re not really like your sister,” he told her. “Maybe a little, but not in the big ways.”

  “Oh? What makes you say that?” Gen wasn’t surprised. She’d purposely been trying to draw subtle parallels for the past two weeks.

  “You enjoy family. Your sister feels trapped by it.” Joe sounded so miserable in the moment that Gen’s heart pinched.

  “Oh, Joe. That’s not true. She’s just blinded by her own ambition right now.”

  “I used to think so. But sometimes, the way she looks at us... It’s not right,” he said, so very quiet now. Gen studied him. His eyes, crinkled by laugh lines, were solemn and tired. “I don’t think I’m enough for her.”

  “You are, too. Of course you are,” she replied, because he seemed so very wounded.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” he asked and she immediately obliged. He took a deep breath.

  “The other day at the park, we met a really nice mom and daughter. She was so interested in me... She listened to me talk, she made jokes. She asked me out for coffee, and I almost went.”

  He held his breath and waited.

  Gen stared at him.

  Kennedy.

  She needed to act surprised, so she tried to feign it, but then she wanted to comfort him, too. Because he deserved it.

  “Joe, you’re a very good man,” she told him. “You are neglected. Yes, I’m saying this. Yes, I’m Meghan’s sister. But I’m not blind, and I see what is happening. She’s taking you for granted, and she’s going to lose everything if she doesn’t watch herself.”