After the Loving

by Gwynne Forster

  “Alone and floating on the clouds. They were together last night, and they definitely did not have a fight. That makes his disappearance even more inexplicable.”

  “Depends on how his mind’s working. He won’t let too much time pass without giving me a call,” Telford said.

  She braced her right elbow on the arm of her chair, took several sips of coffee and studied her husband’s face. “If he’s got his thinking cap on, he’ll call Velma. She’s the one he’s going to have to deal with.”

  At about two o’clock that afternoon, Velma began to pack. Henry, Telford, Alexis and Tara had each found a reason to stay in their room or, at least, to keep out of her sight. She saw nothing that she could kick, slam or throw, and with no outlet for her anger, she decided to leave. Russ had a reason for his behavior, but she didn’t care to know what it was.

  “Mind if I come in?” Alexis asked, already walking through the door. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “Just what it looks like. I’m going home. I don’t need to be here to find out what he’s got to say. I don’t want to hear it, and I’m not going to listen. He owes me better than this. Dammit, he can’t love me out of my senses and then walk off as if I don’t exist. Damn him!”

  “I think you should sit down and calm yourself. Convict him after you let him have his say. And leave anger and self-pride out of it. If he made you so happy, what do you think you did to him? You don’t know what happened to him in that bed with you last night. Until he tells you that, hold your tongue, because saying you’re sorry will be wasted on Russ.”

  Velma put her hands on her hips and glared at her sister. “And his sorry will be wasted on me, too.”

  When Alexis put both arms around her, she had to fight back the tears. “He did a real job on me last night, Sis. I couldn’t forget him if my life depended on it, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept this. I won’t.”

  At the soft knock on the door, both of their heads snapped up, and when Velma didn’t speak, Alexis answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Open the door, please, Velma.”

  Velma sucked in her breath and grabbed her chest as if that would slow down her heartbeat.

  “Good luck,” Alexis said, rushed to the door and opened it. “You’ve got your work cut out for you,” she said to Russ and headed down the hall.

  “Don’t I know it!”

  She stood rooted in the spot as he walked in and closed the door behind him. “I see you’re packing. You have every right to be angry. Yes, and hurt. I didn’t do it deliberately.”

  “How can you say that? Did somebody put a gun in your back?”

  When he didn’t respond to that remark, she braced herself for words that she would probably rather not hear.

  “What we did in this room, in that bed last night knocked the stuffing out of me,” he said without preliminaries. “I’d never had such an experience. Never. You made me king of the world. What I was feeling for you when I stumbled out of this room at four-thirty this morning scared the living hell out of me. I knew I loved you and that you loved me, but I didn’t have a clue as to what that meant until last night.”

  She wasn’t prepared for that, and his confession rocked her, settled deep inside, down in the pit of her where she lived. She had to sit down lest her legs desert her, and she groped toward the edge of the bed, sat there and looked up at him.

  “When I woke up this morning, every atom of my being loved you. I loved the whole world. I cried because I was so happy that I couldn’t contain what I was feeling for you. I wallowed in the bed, kissing and hugging the pillow on which you had laid your head. I kissed the air. I sang in the shower, and I danced until I was exhausted. Then I dressed, went to the breakfast room, sat down, and Henry said, ‘We don’t know where he went.’ It was downhill from there.”

  He walked over to the window that faced the garden, turned and walked back to her. “It may sound trite, but you must know that I’d rather hurt myself than you. I was sitting at the edge of the Patapsco River down near Sykesville trying to deal with…” He threw up his hands. “With us. When I finally got a grip on myself, my first thought was that I’d hurt you, that I’d probably damaged what was most precious to me. If you can’t forgive me, I’ll have to accept it, but I don’t know how I’ll live with it.”

  In her unhappiness, she had considered every scenario except that he was trying to find his way out of the tidal wave of loving that had engulfed them, that he was actually trying to find his way back to her.

  “Are you still scared of what…of your feelings for me?”

  “Not as much as I was, but I won’t lie. I’m just learning what it means to be a part of another person, to give up my aloneness and to accept that I need another person as much as I need to breathe. Can you understand that?”

  She wanted to hold on to her anger and hurt, but her heart wouldn’t let her. “I think so, but the next time you feel undone, at least tell me you’re going for a spin, and make it a short one. If you had walked into this house half an hour later, I’d have been on my way home.”

  He hunkered before her and rested his hands on her knees. “I doubt I can ever feel that way again. I don’t see how it can happen twice, but I promise to share my feelings with you as best I can. I’m not used to this level of sharing, but I’m going to try.”

  His hands moved up from her knees to her bare thighs, ignoring the dress that covered them. But she knew the difference between seduction and possessiveness, and he was—consciously or not—telling her that she belonged to him. She kept her mind on the importance of the issue at hand. She had to.

  “But you’ve always claimed that I don’t share things with you,” she said.

  “I know, and I realize now that I’ve been thinking of incidents and situations in our pasts, telling each other about that, and about our attitudes, people and things, things outside of us that affect us. Giving assurance that we loved and cared for each other. Telling each other such things was my idea of sharing.” He shook his head as though rejecting the thought. “Last night and this morning, I found out what sharing is, what it means to share…to give oneself, holding back nothing. I may have more to learn about that than you have.”

  “Maybe it’s all those things you mentioned. You and I are alike in a lot of ways, but it’s too bad we both have a hard time revealing our deepest feelings. I’m going to try, too, Russ.”

  His gaze locked on hers, and his finger slid farther up her thighs. For a moment, she held her breath, mesmerized by his darkened eyes, their turbulence telling her that he knew her, knew what she could give him and that he wanted it.

  She shook herself out of the trance. “Honey, we don’t want Telford or Alexis to come down here thinking we were both so angry that one of us might have killed the other, only to find us locked together in this bed. I’d never get over that.”

  The thought of it made her laugh, a nervous tension-relieving laugh perhaps, but it brought a smile from him. A smile that dissolved into a grin. When she opened her arms to him, he pushed her backward and rolled with her on the bed. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he hugged and kissed her, whispering “I love you” over and over. She thought her heart would bounce out of her chest.

  “I love you, too, but I’m hungry,” she said, hoping to stave off the throttling grip of passion in an attempt at levity. “Did you eat lunch?”

  “Lunch?” He rolled her over on her back and sat up. “I haven’t even had breakfast.” He looked at his watch. “Two-forty. I hope Henry’s gone to his house by now. I don’t feel like fending off his meddlesome comments. Come on.”

  They walked hand in hand to the kitchen. “Well what do you know?” Russ said. “Henry left us some food.” He took the plate of ham and chicken sandwiches and the string beans and tomato salad over to the table in the corner.

  “What’ll we drink?” he asked, more to himself than to her. He returned to the table with a bottle of ginger ale for her and a glass of milk f
or himself.

  Telford walked in, joined them at the table and began speaking as if the day had not been one of unusual events. “Think you can give me an hour or so before dinner, Russ? I’d like us to check inventory, if you can spare the time.” Russ looked at her, not for permission she well knew, but for understanding.

  “If you need an extra hand, I don’t have anything more important to do,” she hastened to say.

  “Great,” Telford said. “I appreciate this, Velma.” He looked at Russ. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Russ got a pair of pliers and began removing the industrial-weight staples on the wooden boxes. He’d bet they had lost thousands of dollars because of that scheme. Every carton was short at least one box.

  “You two want to work on those last three cases together while I check the accountant’s audit?” Telford asked Russ.

  “No,” Velma said, and Russ’s head jerked around. “This requires concentration,” she explained before he could ask why.

  Telford looked at her, his eyes sparkling with devilment and, Russ realized, happiness. “I’ve been thinking in terms of Brighton power. Are you suggesting there might be such a thing as Harrington power?”

  He couldn’t believe it. Velma lowered her lashes and let her gaze sweep Telford at snail speed from his shoes to his head. “If you don’t know it, won’t do you a bit of good for me to tell you. You know? I once had a puppy that used to sit and stare at himself in the mirror, sitting there and thumping his tail. He was one happy little puppy.”

  Russ threw his head back and let the laughter pour out of him, good cleansing and stress-releasing laughter. “Don’t look at me,” he said to his brother when Telford stared at him, his whole demeanor a question mark. “She can swap wit with the best of them.”

  “Yeah. And I can see why you laugh so much these days.”

  They worked at their separate tasks for over an hour before Russ called to Telford. “Case number A-39002 from Worth Tool Company. Packer 33. Four cartons missing from an unopened case. What’s in the audit?”

  After a minute during which he assumed Telford was doing a computer search, he heard the words that would lead them to the answer they sought.

  “Sixty-four cartons. Weight: three hundred and twenty pounds, same as the other cases in this series. The auditor didn’t open the case, but he certainly supervised the weighing of those boxes.”

  Russ walked over to Telford and looked at the computer screen. “Maybe the accountant put it on the spreadsheet and the auditor was too lazy to check.”

  “I don’t think so,” Telford said. “We changed that. Remember, the accountant merely logs in what he sees on the invoice after checking to see that there’s a package or case that matches the invoice.”

  “You’re right. So we go after Packer 33 and the auditor.”

  “Is the packer’s ID on all of these cases?” Velma asked them.

  “Sometimes it’s on a slip inside, and we haven’t been too careful about examining it. But that’s all in the past. Let’s see what else we can find.”

  “All the ones I have from Worth Tool have a carton or two missing, and they all have Packer 33 stamped on them.”

  Russ sat on the floor and wrapped his hands around his knees. “Let’s quit for the day. No one man packed all of these cases. In fact, Worth probably doesn’t have a packer with that number. We need a lawyer. How about Schyler Henderson or Wade Maloy?”

  Telford signed off the computer and covered the screen as protection against dust. “Henderson is in nearby Baltimore, and contact’s much easier. What do you say?”

  “Works for me,” Russ said.

  “Are you going to sue the company?” Velma asked.

  “With a vengeance. And they’ll pay,” Russ said. “If this is their practice, they won’t want every one of their customers to bring suit and put them out of business. I doubt the case will go to trial.”

  “Telephone call for you, Russ,” Henry said as they walked into the house. “It’s a woman, and if I ain’t mistaken, I’ve heard that voice before.”

  He didn’t like the sound of it. Hoping to avoid a misunderstanding, he took Velma’s hand, walked to the hall table and lifted the receiver. “Russ Harrington speaking.”

  “I need to see you, Russ, please. It’s terribly important.”

  The expression on his face must have been worth a good laugh. He closed his mouth and let the wall take his weight. “What? What do you want from me? The court sent you the results of the DNA tests, although you knew all the time what the tests would show. You didn’t succeed in tricking me into supporting you and your child, so what do you want now? I have no intention of being your fairy godfather.”

  “I’m about to be dispossessed, and I don’t have anyone to turn to. My folks are dirt poor, and besides my father isn’t going to forgive me for having an OW.”

  He ran his hand over his hair. “If you had come to me like an honest person and told me your plight, I might have been inclined to help you, but you didn’t do that. No woman will ever accuse me of impregnating her and not offering to marry her before the child is born, that is, if she intends to give birth to it. I wish you luck.”

  He hung up, but the thought of a five- or six-month-old baby on the street, homeless, didn’t sit well with him. “That’s one experience I wish I’d never had,” he said to Velma, who looked at him without expression.

  “What does she want now? Money?”

  His shrug belied his concern. “I suppose so. She’s about to be dispossessed. It isn’t that I don’t want to help a human being in trouble. I just don’t want any involvement with her.”

  “It would be good to have the name of a social agency that you can refer her to if she calls you again.”

  “Yeah. But I hope she doesn’t call.” In one day, he’d gone from euphoria to the depths, back up and down again. He let out a long breath. At least they knew how they were being cheated of their building supplies.

  “Do you want to eat dinner here, or would you like to drive into Frederick?”

  “I’ll be happy eating here,” she said, “but if you want to get away—”

  “Oh, no. I’d rather eat here, but I wanted to give you your choice. I’ll be in my room.” He kissed her on the mouth and dashed up the stairs.

  What a roller coaster! He showered, put on a robe, lay down on his belly and wrapped his arms around his pillow. Every muscle in his body reminded him that he had stayed in that bed less than an hour and a half the night before, and without intending to, he dozed off to sleep.

  An insistent knock on his door awakened him. He opened the door, looked straight ahead and then let his gaze drop until it fixed on Tara. “Gee, Uncle Russ, were you sleeping? It’s almost seven o’clock, and I didn’t see you anywhere. My mummy, my dad and Mr. Henry were worried ’cause you didn’t come to breakfast and nobody knew where you went. I didn’t want you to get into trouble ’cause you didn’t come to dinner on time.”

  He picked her up and hugged her. “I’m glad you knocked, because I was sound asleep.” He looked at his watch. “A quarter of seven. Thanks a lot. Say, I didn’t know you could tell time.”

  Her smile, so warm and sweet, blessed him. “I been telling time since I was in church school. My mummy and my dad taught me how.” A frown marred her face. “Uncle Russ, did you make it up with Aunt Velma? Was she still mad at you?”

  If you wanted anything broadcast, let Tara know about it. “Your Aunt Velma and I are not angry with each other. We’re friends.”

  Her frown deepened. “When I get mad at Grant, I stay mad a long time.”

  He worked hard at controlling the laugh that wanted to spill out of him. “How long does it take you to stop being mad?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes it takes a whole hour. Grant’s mother told Mr. Adam that I’m very femi…fem—”

  “Feminine.” He could attest to that. “But you do forgive Grant. Right?”

  She nodded. “He’s my friend, but you
’re my best friend.”

  He put her down. “If your best friend doesn’t hurry, he’ll be late for dinner.”

  She kissed his cheek. “I’ll go tell Aunt Velma you’re her friend.”

  He stood at the door and watched her scoot down the stairs. What he wouldn’t give for several children of his own with her intelligence, joy and love for everyone around her!

  As he started down the stairs, his cell phone rang, and he started to let it ring, but he thought better of it and answered. “Russ Harrington. What can I do for you?”

  “Russ, buddy, this is Sam Jenkins.”

  “Well what do you know. This is a surprise, and a pleasant one. What’s up?”

  “Got a minute?”

  “Actually, no. Dinner will be served in two minutes.”

  “Then I’ll make it brief. You told me that whenever I’m ready to stretch myself and build a building for my gym business, you’d draw up the plans. I’m calling you on it.”

  “Where do you intend to open the gym?”

  “In Baltimore. I’m looking for the right piece of property, and I’ll need an architect to redesign the interior.”

  “My word is my bond, brother. I’ll get back to you Monday.”

  He hung up and headed for the breakfast room. “I told everybody you were on your way, Uncle Russ,” Tara said, and he didn’t think he had ever seen her so pleased with herself.

  “When will you be six, Tara?” he asked her after Telford said the grace.

  “In May, when my dad has a birthday. Grant’s already six, and he thinks he knows more than me.”

  “More than I. He may know more than you about some things,” Telford said, “but I am sure that you know more than he does about some other things. Next time, remind him that when it comes to playing the piano, he’s no match for you.”

  She clapped her hands. “Oh, goody, I will. Mummy, can I—”

  “No, Tara, you may not leave the table to call Grant.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Russ wondered how he’d lived over thirty years without seeing the love and warmth all around him. He loved his brothers and Henry, but he hadn’t realized what he drew from the love they gave him. It struck him forcibly that he needed them all in his life; his brothers, Alexis, Henry and Tara. Yes, and Velma. Maybe that explained his angst early that morning. The word, need, and what it meant still made him uneasy, but he could live with it. Hadn’t Tara awakened him because she needed to know that he wouldn’t suffer what she considered the embarrassment of being late for dinner? Yes, he needed them.