Don't Wait Too Long

by Masters, Cate

  The thunder of small footsteps draws closer. I whirl and throw my arms wide to catch the first few who stampede through the door in my arms. “Let me see you! Hansel, that trail of bread crumbs is fantastic.” I gasp. “Rapunzel! Love that hair.” As each enters, I compliment them. Delight shines in their cherubic faces when they first glimpse me in the fairy tale getup.

  The last to enter is David Henderson. His chin’s tucked to the pressed cotton shirt he wears beneath his suit, and he shuffles in and heads straight to his assigned place at the long table.

  Oh dear. I’d worried this might happen after his parents objected during the last conference. Something about fairy tales filling their boy’s head with nonsense, causing him to believe wishes can come true, and after they’d gone to such lengths to quash his belief in Santa Claus and other mythological figures. At the time, I’d hid my anger behind a professional mask, instead explaining that fairy tales helped them to learn the mechanics of story-telling, not to mention how to outwit opponents. And expect happiness. They’d declared their son would not participate, and hauled their snooty asses away.

  I bend down beside David and offer him an eraser shaped like an apple, one of the many trinkets my students will take home with them. “That’s a very nice suit, David.”

  Without moving, he glances over. “My mom made me wear it.”

  The witch. Maybe I can salvage this. “You know which fairy tale I always liked to read? The Four Clever Brothers. Do you remember that one?”

  The boy shakes his head.

  “Oh, you have to read it. These brothers are amazing. One of them, the tailor, uses his skill to help the other three brothers save the kingdom. Do you remember what a tailor does?”

  “Makes clothes?” he murmurs.

  “Yes.” Definitely as clever as any Grimm boy. “He wore a suit almost as nice as yours.”

  David whips his head up, the gleam of understanding in his eyes. “Oh.”

  I wink, and then rise. “Have fun at the parade today.”

  He jumps up and hugs me tight. “Do I have to go to second grade?”

  I wish none of them had to leave, but then they’d be like Peter Pan, trapped in one stage forever. A sudden lump chokes my words. “You’re going to learn so many cool new things there. And I’ll see you during lunch and recess. And you’re always welcome to stop by and visit me.”

  He nods against my costume, then abruptly releases me and runs to the nearest cluster of kids. After proclaiming himself as one of the Four Clever Brothers, he beams at me.

  Yes, this young prince will do just fine in second grade, and every grade thereafter.

  The tender moment brings my earlier conversation with Trish to mind, the one where I’d claimed my students were enough to fill my heart. With summer stretching out before me, that didn’t ring quite as true. I need more.

  I need a prince of my own. Not to save me. Just to hold my hand while we stroll around the kingdom, maybe play his lute for me.

  Imagining Kip in a feather-festooned puffy hat, a tunic and tights brings a smile. I can’t ask for a better man than Kipling Baldwin. Maybe it’s time for Snow White to whisk Prince Kip to the Big Apple, or some other wondrous land to explore.

  The fairy tale part, I have no interest in. I’d learned not to wait for a happy ever after. Instead, I want to make the most of every day. But I’ll never lay the prince role on anyone. I want someone real to hold onto. Hopefully, that someone will be Kip.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kip and I settle on the patio, cuddling together on a chaise lounge. For three a.m., I’m as wide awake and alert as I normally am in the early morning. But never this early.

  For a long while, we simply lay there staring at the sky.

  Kip strokes my arm. “You’re very quiet.”

  Content. I think the word rather than speak it. I don’t want to break the mood. “Just waiting for the light show to begin.” I snuggle deeper into his side.

  He tugs the blanket higher around me, tucking us in together. “Anything on your mind?”

  “Yes, and no. The end of the school year’s always difficult.” It’s been almost two weeks since the last day, but I can’t shake my funk.

  He makes a sound of acknowledgement. “Bittersweet but exhilarating at the same time.”

  “Exactly.” Of course he understands, being a teacher. “This year was different, though.”

  “How so?”

  “I can’t really explain it. I’m starting to look at things differently.” Long term rather than day to day.

  “Reassessing? I went through that.”

  “Except I’m reassessing everything. Like this house. I don’t even know if I want to stay here. Sometimes I’d like to demolish it and start over.” Sleep deprivation must be loosening my lips. Things are spilling out too easily. I haven’t mentioned the idea of selling my home to anyone else, not even Trish.

  His arm tightens around me. “If you ever want to talk about your past, I’m here to listen. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t usually talk about it. To anyone.” Avoiding the past seems easier. Dredging up memories sometimes opens old wounds.

  “Discussing an issue can help. And sometimes the simple act of talking about it helps you understand a little better, and leave it behind.”

  I angle my head against his shoulder. “My life’s not an easy thing for others to understand.” So many people offered opinions after the funeral that I wasn’t ready to hear. I may still not be ready.

  He kisses the top of my head. “Everyone’s life is complicated. And messy.”

  “Very messy,” I admit. “And I’m aware that many of my choices make me seem weak.” Some might even question the motives behind those choices, though I’d always tried to do the right thing.

  “I doubt anyone would think of you as weak.”

  He says it with such confidence, it touches me, but I’m concerned that he doesn’t understand.

  But there’s only one way he can understand, so I lean up on one elbow. “I want to be open with you about my life. My marriage. So I’ll give you the CliffNotes version.” And hope he doesn’t pity me after hearing my sad little story, a fairy tale gone awry. “I fell head over heels for Doug in my twenties. He dragged our engagement out for years, but finally married me when I threatened to leave him. I was thirty-one.”

  In the darkness, we might have been in a movie theater, discussing a movie plot. My former life seems that distant from me now. “I wanted so badly to have a child. Doug wanted to wait, so we put it off. So, at thirty-eight, I was overjoyed to learn I was finally pregnant.”

  Kip turns his head toward me. “You had a child?”

  It kills me to shake my head no. “A miscarriage. At the end of my first trimester.”

  He gives me a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry.”

  I fight back the rising tide of emotion. I really want him to know, to hear it all, messy as it may be. “The next two ended the same way.” Three lost babies. I never shared that with anyone but Trish. Doug had brushed off each loss like dust swept under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind, was his philosophy. After each miscarriage, I’d mourned for months, all by myself.

  “Oh, Claire.” The heartbreak in his voice nearly undoes me.

  But I go on. “And then, in one of life’s little twists, Doug became impotent. It wouldn’t have mattered to me. Our sex life was never wild, it was just, normal. Or so I thought. But he refused to be intimate in any way.” Bitterness leaches out like acid, dripping from every word, and I press my lips tight. Why am I revealing all this?

  In the darkness, Kip’s sigh sounds frustrated. “They make drugs for that sort of thing.”

  “Doug refused, he said he’d put his heart at risk.” The irony hits me all over again. “So it left us with one less connection. Our lukewarm marriage turned ice cold. I stayed as long as I could stand it, but it became too much to bear. He rejected me completely. He made me feel like a leper.” Renewed anger c
lenches my jaw tight. Doug’s cold treatment had thoroughly humiliated me, made me feel less than desirable. Less than a woman.

  “He was wrong. You know that, right?”

  “That’s how he made me feel. Worthless and untouchable. But in another twist of fate, the very day I decided to pack my bags and ask him for a divorce, he came home and told me he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer.”

  A sympathetic groan rumble in Kip’s chest. “And you couldn’t leave him. What a cruel twist.”

  “I told myself I’d stay long enough to get him through treatments, but then the cancer spread.” I hear myself talking as if the words flow from someone else. I want them to stop peeling away these protective layers that took me years to build. But I’ve gone this far, so might as well finish. “Watching him suffer so terribly was awful, but the worst part was that he still wouldn’t let me get close. If I wanted to do even the smallest thing to help him, I had to argue with him.” Remembering his stubborn refusal to let me near him, I shake my head. “I think he never knew how to have a real relationship. Never understood what give and take meant.”

  “But you stayed with him.”

  The way he speaks with hushed awe makes me ashamed rather than proud. “I was forty nine when he died.” I will not let myself cry, not now. I need Kip to know why I act the way I do, often without meaning to. “During the year since, I have learned to be self-sufficient. Independent. To be comfortable with my own company. All the things I should have done before getting married, I suppose.”

  “You’re an amazing woman, Claire Sims.”

  Disgust and embarrassment fill me. “I’m probably the most fearful, timid, weak woman you’ll ever meet.”

  “I don’t believe it. You might be frightened to try something, but you do it anyway. That’s the mark of real courage.”

  “I wasted most of my life on a man who couldn’t love me,” I argue.

  “I’m sorry he treated you that way. But we’re here together now. We’ve had very different experiences, and we were both devastated by loss. I like to think fate isn’t always cruel. Sometimes it rewards people by letting them find someone else to make them happy.”

  I inhale a sharp breath, then settle against him again. “You were right. It felt good to let it out. A release.” But I tense despite myself.

  “What is it?”

  Amazing he reads me so closely. He notices the smallest movements. I might never get used to it. Or might come to depend on it too much. “I just…”

  “Don’t tell me if you’re uncomfortable saying any more. But just know that I won’t reveal your secrets to anyone. Not even if they torture me.” He’s making light of it to put me at ease.

  God, it’s so easy to talk to him. Too easy. “I’ve never told anyone these things before. But that’s my story, pathetic as it is boring.”

  “Not pathetic. Lovely.” He draws me close against him. “And you could never be boring.”

  “You’re too sweet.” But I can’t listen to compliments I don’t deserve. “Let’s change the subject to something happier. Tell me how you met your wife.”

  Staring out at the night, he seems to withdraw inside himself. I’m about to tell him never mind, I don’t mean to intrude, when he smiles at some private memory.

  “We were fourteen. Justine came to my band’s gig one night.”

  “Fourteen? You were babies.” Hardly older than my kindergarten students.

  “Now that I’m ancient, it seems that way.” His chuckle gives over to a nostalgic sigh. “When she danced and actually cheered for us that first night, well, I was smitten. I invited her to the next gig, and the next. Pretty soon, we were inseparable.”

  “How sweet. And amazing that your relationship lasted through your formative years.” All that time, and he obviously loved her deeply.

  “She was like no one I’d met before, and the more people I met, the more I realized how unique she was.”

  “That’s lovely.” So different from the story of my life.

  “We were lucky.”

  Lucky in love, what a nice concept. Or did they try harder than other couples to keep their connection alive, to keep that spark between them lit?

  A flash of light catches my attention, and I sit up. “There’s one.” A falling star.

  “Ahh, nice. And another.” He points.

  I ease against him. “Beautiful.”

  We take turns pointing out the streaks of light to each another. Sharing the vision seems an intimate act, and leaves me so exhilarated I’m certain I won’t be able to sleep.

  We snuggle back on the chaise beneath a blanket, the brilliant stars winking as if in conspiracy.

  ****

  Awakening to loud birdsong, I blink at the bright sunshine. I’m surprised to find I’m still snuggling against Kip. We’re outside. The thought acts like a Taser to my nervous system. I clamber from the chaise.

  Drowsy, Kip squints up at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I push my hair back from my face, hoping it doesn’t reveal my embarrassment. I straighten my shirt and smooth my features as well.

  He lifts himself onto his elbows. “Okay, good. I worried maybe a bee had stung you.”

  “No.” I lower my voice. “I didn’t want the neighbors to see us.”

  He swings his legs around, sets his feet on the ground and yawns. “Are they particularly nosy?”

  “No, but…” I have no real excuse. I keep him at arm’s length because that’s how I’ve been treated for years. Even though I’d rather jump into his arms and drown in his warmth. “As you said before, we’re teachers.” I internally grimace at the flimsy excuse.

  “We were sleeping, not having an orgy,” he mumbles grumpily, then pauses to glance up with an apologetic grin.

  Does he regret merely sleeping together? I must look a fright. Heat climbs up my cheeks. “I’ll start the coffee.” I rush inside.

  He follows more slowly. “What’s going on, really?”

  “Nothing.” I keep my back turned to him so he won’t see my confusion.

  He expels a strained breath. “Why do you keep holding back? Isn’t this enough, what we have together?”

  Good question. I could ask him the same thing. When I face him, my mouth pinches tight. He rakes his fingers through his hair. His other hand rests on his hip. He looks ready to smash something.

  “It’s more than enough. Almost too much.” How much more truth can he handle? I’m trying hard to repair the damage Doug wrought, but sometimes the task overwhelms me. “How can I be sure about us?”

  Mouth open, he seems to grasp for something to say, then flings a hand open. “You can’t. I can’t. No one can ever be absolutely certain.”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t go through this again.” I turn to the counter, my movements more exaggerated than necessary as I finish preparing the coffee. My breaths are shallow, as if invisible hands are squeezing the life from me.

  “Go through what? Please tell me. Let me in.” He walks up behind me and slides his arms around my waist.

  I stiffen, but don’t resist when he pulls me close, strokes my hair. My breaths slow, and my nerves unwind enough to calm my thoughts. He’s right. I should share my reservations with him so he’ll understand. “Before I married Doug, we were crazy in love. I felt like we’d built our own perfect little world for two.” The first mistake, not widening our circles.

  Kip doesn’t jerk away from my abrupt segue. “That’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?”

  Still in his embrace, I twist around to face him. “Yes, but everything’s not supposed to change just because you say ‘I do’.”

  Confusion breaks with a grin. “It doesn’t.”

  Of course, not for him. God, how can he ever understand the horror of my daily experience when his marriage had been so wonderful?

  “But it did, for Doug and me. And it killed me inside.” Why do I have to keep bringing up Doug? Now that I opened that door, I can�
�t seem to close it again. “Before our wedding, he used to stare at me all night. Like I was the most wondrous thing he’d ever seen, and couldn’t tear his eyes from me. We spent every spare moment together. Then we had a big wedding and expensive reception, none of which I even wanted, and all that wonderful closeness ended. I felt abandoned even though he was right next to me. I’ve never been so lonely. Not even after he died and I was alone in the house. It’s the worst feeling of loneliness, to sit beside the person you love, and he acts like you’re invisible.” Emotions long forgotten burble up. Unstoppable. Anger. Resentment. Yearning. The hurt of his betrayal. “But whenever I tried to talk to him, he’d pretend I was being silly. He convinced me it meant nothing.”

  “He didn’t even validate your feelings.” He gives me a little squeeze.

  I’m beyond reassurance. “Exactly. He was never one to discuss feelings, and I accepted it. But he always let things get worse until we reached a crisis point. I’d tell him I couldn’t stand it anymore, that I was thinking of leaving. Then he’d beg me not to leave, though he clearly had no idea how to be one half of a couple.”

  “And you’d stay.”

  I sigh. “And I’d stay. Every time. I’d believe our relationship could magically return to what it was before.”

  “But it never did.” He’s saying all the right things to prompt me to continue.

  So I do. Maybe to prove that I can open up, maybe so I won’t entertain the possibility he could be anything like Doug. “Because he wanted that distance. He preferred the coldness between us. So I thought I should be all right with it, too. And then the miscarriages happened, and I crumbled inside. It took all my strength to hold myself together.”

  He pulls me closer and kisses the top of my head. A wordless gesture but so caring, it touches me more than I can say. And unlocks a flood gate of tears I’ve held in for years. I can’t stop crying. “I’m sorry.” I bury my face into his shirt and shake my head.