Married in Haste

by Christine Rimmer

  He got home at five-thirty and found her matching set of blue suitcases waiting at the door. She rose from a chair by the fireplace and came toward him.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  She stopped about three feet from him, arms at her sides, shoulders back, head high—and eyes moist with unshed tears. “I need some time away, Brett. This whole thing, here with you…” She paused to clear her throat before going on. “It’s not working. I feel awful all the time.”

  Tell her you need to talk. Go ahead. Say it. But somehow, he couldn’t. “And you think you’ll feel better if you move out on me?”

  She cast a put-upon glance at the ceiling—as if there might be answers up there. Then she wiped at her eyes, cleared her throat a second time and said, “I don’t know if I’ll feel better. But I’m pretty darn sure I can’t feel any worse.”

  Talk to me, Angie. Please. “Where will you go?”

  “Where else? My mother’s. They’re not going to be happy to see me, I know it. But I’ll deal with that when I get there.”

  “They don’t know you’re coming?”

  “They will in a few minutes.”

  He pictured them all—her mom, her aunt, Old Tony—shouting at her, telling her what a total fool she was to have left him. He realized he couldn’t stand the thought of all of them getting on her. Even if they were telling her what he wanted her to hear.

  She looked…tired. And kind of pale.

  Funny, he’d been so busy the last week trying not to meet her eyes, he hadn’t really looked at her. “Angie. Are you ill?”

  She gave a tight shrug. “Morning sickness and too much stress, that’s all. I’ll be okay…” She didn’t say it, but the rest was there in her tear-filled eyes: she’d be okay, once she got away from him.

  “Angie…” Damn. How to start? What to say? He had no idea how to even begin…

  How had they come to this?

  Now, when it was probably too late, he felt a grudging admiration for all the times she’d gutted it up and tried to bridge the growing gap between them.

  “It only seemed right,” she said, “to tell you to your face that I was leaving. So I waited until you got home.”

  “Angie…”

  “Goodbye, Brett.”

  He caught her arm as she moved to go around him. “Wait.”

  She looked down at his hand gripping her elbow and then back up at him. A single tear rolled a shining path down her soft cheek. “Let go of me. Please.”

  Somehow, he made himself release her and then he told her flatly, “You’re going nowhere.”

  She stepped back, her pale face flushing, her mouth drawn tight. “You think you can keep me here? Think again.”

  “I’ll go.”

  She gaped. “You’ll…what?”

  “I’ll go. You stay here.”

  “But that’s not right.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Brett. It’s your house.”

  “It’s our house. And you’re not leaving it.”

  “I couldn’t do that, kick you out.”

  “You’re not. I’m volunteering. You need some time away from me, fine. You stay. I’ll go.”

  “Oh, Brett…” She shut her eyes. When she finally looked at him again, she asked in a whisper, “Where would you go?”

  “The Sierra Star. You know Ma. She’s great. Minds her own business.” He didn’t say, “unlike your family.” But he didn’t need to say it.

  She wiped more tears away. “You’re sure?” He could hear the relief in her voice—that she wouldn’t have to throw herself on the mercy of her family, who would all rally ’round, to love her and take care of her—and never shut up until she did things their way.

  He nodded. “Give me ten minutes to get my stuff together and I’m out of here.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next evening, when Angie got home, alone, from the clinic at five-fifteen, the phone was ringing. She rushed to answer—and almost wished she hadn’t.

  It was her mother. “Angela Marie, are you crazy?”

  The gossip mill had ground slowly this time. It had taken a full twenty-four hours for word of Brett’s moving out to reach her family. “Uh, no, Mamma. I’ve got all my marbles and the bag I keep them in.”

  “Don’t talk back to your mother,” Aunt Stella said tightly from the other extension.

  In the background, her great-grandfather hollered, “Angie, what’s happened to you? You were always a good girl!”

  “It’s all over town that you kicked Dr. Brett out of his own house,” her mother accused. “Oh, Angie. What, by all the saints, is the matter with you?”

  “A wife’s sacred duty is to cleave to her husband,” Aunt Stella intoned.

  “Angie!” Old Tony yelled. “Call your husband! Beg him to come home to you!”

  “A good man,” said her mother. “A great man. Your husband is the best there is and—”

  “Mamma.”

  “You were always so happy together.”

  “Mamma.”

  “I just can’t believe that you’ve—”

  “Mamma!”

  A blessed silence on the line, followed by a thoroughly exasperated, “What?”

  “If you’re going to call me up just to yell at me, I’m not going to take your calls.”

  Aunt Stella gasped. Loudly. “Well, I never…”

  Old Tony yelled something really rude in Italian. “Angie, you go to your husband. Get down on your—”

  “I mean it, Mamma. And that goes for Grandpa Tony, too.”

  “Just a minute,” said her mother tartly. The line went mute. Seconds later, her mother spoke again. “Okay. They’re gone.”

  “Aunt Stella?”

  “Both of them. I promise you.” Her mother’s voice was softer now. “I’m sorry, Angela.” She was honestly contrite. “You know how we are. We love you. We want what’s best for you. And sometimes we get carried away.”

  Angie answered gently. “I know, Mamma. It’s okay.”

  “You and Brett, you’ll…work this out?”

  “I hope so…” She felt the tears rising. Again. Lately she was a human waterworks. Her marriage was on the rocks. And she was pregnant. Misery and raging hormones: not a good combination.

  “Oh, Angie…”

  “Mamma, I can’t talk now.” Angrily, she dashed the first tears away. There were more coming. She wouldn’t be able to hold them back for long. “I have to go. I’m sorry….”

  “You should have someone to tell your troubles to.”

  “I’ve got Glory.”

  “Good. And remember. Anytime you need me, I’m here.”

  “Thanks, Mamma. Gotta go…”

  Angie hung up as the tears got away from her and flowed down her cheeks. No, a crying jag never solved anything. But right then, she couldn’t stop herself. It all seemed so sad and hopeless, an endless tunnel of misery, with no light in sight. She dropped to the breakfast nook table and put her head in her hands.

  After five minutes of hard sobbing, she blew her nose and dried her eyes and got up to see about dinner. She might be a crying fool who couldn’t make her marriage work, but for the sake of her unborn baby, she would damn well eat right.

  As she got the ingredients together for meat loaf, she couldn’t help wondering, What would Brett do for dinner? Maybe Chastity would cook for him. Or he’d head over to the Nugget, sit alone in the booth they used to share…

  He’d looked really tired, today, at the clinic.

  She hoped he was okay. She missed him. So much.

  But that was nothing new, really.

  She’d been missing him for months. The only difference now was that he was actually gone….

  Nadine plunked Brett’s dinner in front of him.

  He picked up his steak knife. “’Nother whiskey.”

  “Not that it’s any of my business, but that will be your third.”

  “You’re right. It’s none of your business. Bri
ng me another drink.”

  “What if you get an emergency call?”

  Brett looked down at his steak and then up again at Nadine, who stood over him, showing no inclination to give it up and go away. Whatever happened to the good old days? he wondered. Back when waitresses did what a man told them to do. “Fine, Nadine. Don’t bring me that drink. Just go away. Let me eat my steak in peace.”

  She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, Somebody needs to go back to his wife.

  “Go. Now.”

  “Don’t point that steak knife at me,” she growled. But at least, when she finished grumbling, she left.

  Brett ate. He left the money on the table, including a much larger tip than an interfering waitress such as Nadine deserved. He yearned to go over to the St. Thomas and get seriously snockered.

  But he didn’t. Because Nadine was right. He might get a call and he’d never forgive himself for crapping out when a patient needed him.

  He went back to the Sierra Star and spent the rest of the night wishing Angie would call—and not quite managing to pick up the phone and call her.

  On Friday, at the clinic, he dared to ask his estranged wife how she was feeling.

  “I’m okay.”

  “If you need anything…”

  “No, really, Brett. I’m fine.” And she headed for the nearest exam room to give an injection.

  He stared after her, thinking this had to stop. They needed to work things out.

  But they didn’t. They went on in the same way: she in the house, he at the B and B. Through that night. And Saturday.

  Everyone in town was talking. Some, like Nadine, even said things in front of him. Since nobody knew what was really going on, they made things up. A number of wild stories circulated: that Brett had another woman. That Angie had another guy. That she wanted to leave town and he didn’t. That he was sick and tired of her interfering family and had told her to make a choice—the Dellazolas or him.

  He didn’t let the talk bother him—well, okay. The one about Angie having someone else kind of got to him. But since he knew it wasn’t true, he could ignore it. He’d lived in the Flat long enough to be pretty good at tuning out the gossip mill.

  Sunday he woke to buttery-yellow sunlight pouring in the window of his charming rented room and he didn’t even want to get out of the damn bed. Why get up? Ahead lay a grim stretch of hours to be faced and waded through.

  By nine, lying there doing nothing seemed even worse than getting up and going through the motions of living his life. He showered. Shaved. Hustled downstairs to get some breakfast.

  He was the only one in the dining room. The current group of guests were all early risers. His mother poured his coffee, served him his eggs Benedict and a basket of muffins. He picked up the Bee and was just reading the headlines on the front page, when Chastity reappeared. He saw her from the corner of his eye as she came in from the kitchen. She marched over to him, hauled back a chair and sat down in it—hard.

  Slowly he lowered his paper. “What’s the matter, Ma?”

  “You,” she said. “You’re makin’ me sick.”

  Crap. He didn’t need this—and from Chastity, of all people. One of his mother’s most admirable qualities was how she knew enough to stay out of what didn’t concern her. “Back off,” he said gently. And raised his paper again.

  That was when she grabbed it from his hands, wadded it up and threw it at the sideboard. “Come in the kitchen. I got things to say to you.”

  Sunday, Angie went to early mass. Her mom was there—and Tris, Clarice and Dani, and Aunt Stella, too. They all sat together.

  Afterwards, no one said a word about how Angie had stayed in the pew while the rest of them took communion. Angie appreciated that they kept their mouths shut. Her mom urged her to come up to the house. Angie shook her head and said she had a lot to do at home. It was true. She had the dusting. And she was slowly working her way through the endless big windows upstairs and down, giving each one a good cleaning.

  And then, in the afternoon, she was thinking that maybe she’d go down to Grass Valley and catch a movie. Really, her life was just packed—in a sad and lonely sort of way. She hugged them all: her mom and aunt and sisters. And then she waved goodbye and walked home through the warm, bright morning to the house by the river.

  She made herself breakfast and then cleaned up after, wiping all the counters thoroughly, until they shone. She tackled the dusting.

  Okay, it was kind of pitiful. All this cleaning. But while she cleaned, she could think.

  About what to do next. About how to break this awful stalemate between herself and the man she loved.

  The thing was, she still felt that she’d done all she could. That he, finally, had to come to her, meet her halfway. Or it was no good.

  At least, she felt that way half the time.

  The other half, she blamed herself for causing so much trouble, for demanding things of Brett he just didn’t seem to be capable of giving. Then, all she knew was that she was hurting and hurting bad—that he was hurting, too.

  That she needed to patch things up, to take what he was willing to give of himself, to learn to be happy with what she had.

  Windows next. She got her squeegee and her extension pole and she mixed up a bucket of cleaning solution. Outside on the deck, she hosed off a tall window and started in, sponge side first, going through the motions of the job by rote, her mind on Brett, on how much she missed him, how she couldn’t stand being away from him, wanted to work things out with him….

  She had no idea she wasn’t alone until a hulking figure loomed behind her, reflected darkly in the window glass, and a rough voice, a voice from her worst real-life nightmare, said much too quietly, “Hey, babe. Lookin’ good.”

  Jody.

  Angie froze, arm extended, the squeegee high against the window. Her mouth went all coppery, her stomach rolled and the muscles on the back of her neck twitched and knotted. Cold sweat broke out on her upper lip. She clutched the extension pole in a stranglehold. If she turned fast enough, if she hit him with the pole…

  “Don’t even think about it.” He laughed, a low, mean sound that scraped along her nerves like a shard of broken glass. “No sudden moves, now. You and me, we need to talk.” She felt the cold kiss of something metal at the small of her back—a gun. Oh, sweet Lord. He had a gun. “Drop the pole.” He dug that gun into her spine. “Now.”

  She let it go. It bounced on the end of the handle and then slowly tipped over, clattering down, the squeegee end landing across the railing, at a forty-five degree angle. It rolled back and forth and then stopped, the handle on the deck, the other end sticking out over the railing.

  “Good,” Jody said. “Now turn around, baby. Turn around real slow.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Against his own better judgment, Brett rose and followed his mother as she headed for the kitchen.

  Once they got there, she shut the door and flung out a hand in the direction of the table. “Sit,” she commanded, as if he was an ill-behaved dog.

  Really, she was kind of scaring him. Acting so unlike herself, all het up and ready to kick some serious butt—his, apparently.

  He sat. “Okay. What? Spit it out.”

  She did, in a rush of angry words. “You are too damn proud, Brett Bravo. Too proud for you own good. And I’ve always worried for you—and for Brand. I worry for you two more than I ever did for Buck or even Bowie. Buck and Bowie, they get it right out there. They’re not afraid to love with all their crazy hearts. They mess up and mess up bad, but they keep goin’. They keep trying. You and Brand, you hold yourselves away from life—and from love. You took a lesson from your awful daddy, from my pitiful refusal to see him as he really was. It wasn’t a good lesson. You think love—real love, true love—is a bad thing. You fear it, you fear it deep down in your soul. You hide from it—Brand, from his love for Charlene. You, from lovin’ that sweet wife of yours the way she deserves to be loved.” />
  He opened his mouth to deny what she said.

  She cut him off before he could get a word out. “No,” she commanded. “Wait. Don’t you start spouting any scientific mumbojumbo at me. Don’t you use that big brain of yours on me to shut me up. You hear me out.” She glared, daring him to interrupt. He didn’t. She continued. “I was so happy, when you finally admitted that Angie was the one for you, when you two ran off and got married. I actually believed you’d figured it out—gotten past your own fear of loving, of trusting. That at last you understood. It was never lovin’ itself that was to blame. It’s who you love that matters, that you have the sense to choose a worthy heart to give your love to. I chose wrong. And then, for too many years, I refused to see my choice for the disaster it was. I was a bad mother. And for that, my children have had to pay.”

  In spite of the way the things she said made his gut churn and his blood run hot and fast, she was his mother. And she’d done her best. He jumped to her defense. “Ma, don’t say that. You did okay. You—”

  She silenced him with her strong hand on his shoulder, her fingers digging in. “No. Don’t make excuses for me. I don’t want them. Or need them. What I want is for you to stop being so afraid of loving Angie. What I want is for you to go to her and tell her you’re ready to stand up beside her, you’re ready to stop running away from the love that you have for her.”

  The denials rose up in him again. But this time, he swallowed them down.

  Damn it. She was right.

  His mother had him pegged.

  Funny, but as soon as he admitted that, the knot in his stomach eased and his racing heartbeat slowed.

  He hung his head and confessed, “I’ve been telling myself it would run its course, that it was only a biological urge, that all I had to do was wait it out.”

  Chastity made a snorting sound. “I loved your father for thirty years. Are you prepared to wait that long, to make yourself and Angie miserable for three decades—or more?”