by Cimms, Karen
The needy part of her wanted nothing more than to tell him all was forgiven. The other part, the newer, stronger part, wouldn’t let her.
“The thing is,” he continued, “after going through all of that, the therapy and learning to control my temper and my weaknesses, I’ve forgiven myself. Holding on to all that guilt did nothing but destroy me, and in turn, I destroyed everyone around me—especially you. Guilt serves no purpose. I’m still sorry for what I did, and I’ll always be sorry for hurting you, but I had to forgive myself or I could never move forward. This past year has shown me that I’m not the horrible sonofabitch I thought I was. I also learned . . .” He swallowed and stared into her eyes. “I learned I can live without you. I’ll survive, and obviously you will too. And that’s a good thing. I don’t want to live the rest of my life without you, but if that’s what you want, I’ll respect that. If you want a divorce, Katie, I won’t fight you.”
His words stung as if he’d slapped her. She’d told Jeff just the other day she was considering a divorce, but to hear Billy say it shook her to her very core.
A seagull swooped down and landed in front of her, looking as if it too was waiting for an answer. She shouldn’t be shocked; she’d even believed when she’d left in December that he had wanted out of their marriage. But that’s not what he was saying. The opposite was true. He just said he didn’t want to live without her, only that he could if he had to. Which left her in almost exactly the same place she’d been for months. What did she want?
She brushed a finger over a patch of yellow lichen clinging to the rock on which they sat. Lichens, she’d read, were one of the toughest organisms on Earth. That’s what she needed, to toughen up. Her heart was leaning toward reconciliation, maybe even more than she was willing to admit, but what if she were wrong? How could she be sure she could trust him again? She didn’t even trust herself to make a decision.
“Would you do something for me?” she asked, her throat dry and her voice raspy.
“If I can.”
“Will you go to the psychiatrist with me?”
He lowered his head until his eyes were level with hers. “Yes. Absolutely.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Other than a brief rain shower the night he’d arrived, the weather had been postcard-perfect. But this morning, the sky was dark and leaden. The wind whipped leaves from the trees and angry whitecaps turned the placid cove outside the window into a boiling cauldron.
A sign of things to come? God, he hoped not.
Billy sat across from Kate in the doctor’s office and pressed his elbows into the tops of his thighs. This had been Katie’s idea, but picking at scabs, even with the help of a professional, was going to be difficult for both of them.
“Are you willing to answer any questions Kate may have, Billy?” the doctor asked. “No matter how painful it is for you or how painful you think it might be for her?”
He tried to gauge what Kate might be thinking, but she was no longer an open book—not to him, anyway. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her any more than she’d already been hurt. But if this was a way for them to heal, he’d do whatever he could.
The only thing he had refused to do was make love to her. Jesus, that had been hard. He burned at the sight of her. To be so close, to graze her arm, to catch a whiff of her hair had been torture. But to give in now would put them both on dangerous ground, maybe even set them up for failure. They could fall back into old, unhealthy habits. They couldn’t go backward if they were to survive. It wasn’t possible.
“Yeah.” He nodded, looking at Kate. “If it’ll help. I just don’t want to make it worse.”
Kate winced.
“That’s a possibility,” the doctor explained. “However, there’s also a good chance that what Kate’s imagined is worse than the reality.”
He hadn’t thought of that. What had happened with Christa was wrong, definitely, and no excuse from him could change what he’d done. But it had meant nothing to him. It had been a stupid, drunken mistake, and he’d never even come close to repeating it, with Christa or anyone else. Since Kate had never permitted him to explain, maybe she really thought there had been some ongoing relationship. He was both nauseated and hopeful.
He brushed a hand across his face, the smooth skin beneath his palm still unexpected. He’d shaved that morning, even his goatee was gone. Kate had always preferred him clean shaven. The act was small, desperate. Look at me, babe. I shaved. Just for you. Will you forgive me now?
Yeah. He was that pathetic.
Dr. Crane—Liz, she had said to call her—settled into a comfortable-looking wing chair. Kate sat on the far end of a leather sofa close to a window that offered a view of the sheltered cove. Billy faced the both of them, forming a lopsided triangle.
“Go ahead,” Liz urged Kate. “You can handle this.”
Kate’s eyes darted between him and Liz. She gnawed on her lower lip and picked at an invisible spot on her jeans.
“How many?” she asked, her voice so low he wasn’t sure he heard, let alone understood.
“I’m sorry, babe. What?”
His easy use of a pet name seemed to cause her some distress. She stared up at the ceiling and repeated her question, louder this time. “How. Many?”
Two seconds into this, and he was already at a loss. He looked to the doctor for guidance. “I don’t understand.”
Then it hit him. Was she fucking kidding?
“Wait? How many women? Is that it? How many women have I been with since we met?”
The idea that not only was this a question she needed to ask but the most important one of all proved that she expected the worst.
“One. And before you ask, once.”
The eyes that pinned him to his chair were cold, hard emeralds.
“I mean it!” His voice was loud and shaky. “Once. It was just Chr—” He didn’t want to say her name. He didn’t want to breathe life into her or bring her anywhere near either of them. “You know who. And it was the one time.”
“Let’s not assume Kate does or doesn’t know something,” Liz said. “This way, it’s all out in the open. I think that’s what she wants.”
“Thank you,” Kate mumbled.
He huffed loudly. “Fine. Christa Dunphy, and it was one time. If that.”
The silence filling the room was uncomfortable.
“One time.” Kate glared at him. “You want me to believe in twenty-some years, you only cheated on me one time?”
He stared right back. “Why? How many times have you cheated on me in twenty-some years?”
She reared back. “Never!”
“Am I supposed to believe that?”
Her mouth dropped open, and her gaze flicked from him to Liz and back.
“Yes, once.” He lowered his voice. “And I believe you. Why can’t you believe me?”
“Okay,” she said, humoring him. “It was just once. Why? Why that one time? What did I do to make you go running to her?”
It was the same question he’d asked himself a thousand times. “It wasn’t like that. You didn’t do anything. You’re not to blame at all.”
She turned away, but not before he saw a tear run down her cheek.
He threw his hands up. “I can’t hurt her like this. I don’t see the point.”
“Kate, do you want to continue?” Liz asked.
A few quiet seconds ticked by. Kate cleared her throat. “I know this is hard for you too, Billy, but I can’t see past this right now. This . . . this boulder is standing between us, and there’s no hope of moving forward together unless we move it out of the way, and even then . . .”
Billy twisted the rubber band around his wrist and tugged. He needed to find his center, needed something to focus on; he was unraveling fast. He kept twisting until he’d practically cut off his circulation, then he eased off slowly.
“What do you want to hear?” he asked quietly. “You know who. What else? You tell me what you want to know, and I’
ll tell you, if you really believe this will help us.”
He searched her eyes to gauge if what she was asking was what she really wanted. He wished he could still see through to her soul, but that door was slammed shut and locked tight. It was a cruel reminder of the damage she had suffered.
“All of it.” Kate lifted her chin. “All of it, until I tell you to stop.”
He could be stubborn too. “Okay, but when I’m done, you need to listen to what I have to say about it.”
She seemed about to argue, but Liz cut her off. “Can you agree with that, Kate?”
“I don’t know that making excuses for your behavior is going to help what we’re—”
“I never said anything about making excuses. That’s not what I mean. I just want to try to explain some things. I mean, if we’re putting it all out on the table.”
She mulled over his request and shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“It was the night of the Grammys, the night Devin was born.”
Her painful whimper was like a knife in his chest, and the look on her face broke his heart. He glanced at Liz, and she nodded for him to continue. He did without looking at Kate. He couldn’t.
“You’d been complaining all week that you didn’t want to go. You thought you looked fat, said I should be embarrassed to be seen with you.” He looked at the doctor. “It wasn’t true. She was as beautiful as ever. She had this dress that matched her eyes. Jade green velvet.”
He rubbed his thumb over the ridges of his black titanium wedding band.
“Anyway, Devin was a big baby, and she was carrying him much bigger and lower than she did Rhiannon, but she wasn’t fat.” He could see her as clearly as if it were yesterday. “She looked ripe like an apricot, and she was just as beautiful as the day we met. She still is.”
Kate seemed to have zoned out. It was hard to tell if she was even listening.
“So that morning, she starts making excuses about not going—”
Her head jerked up. “I was in labor.”
What the hell? He glared right back at her. “And you know I didn’t know. You said you had a headache. Then you said you thought you were going to throw up. It all sounded like excuses. Why didn’t you just tell me you thought you were in labor? Why weren’t you honest with me?”
She slammed the pillow she’d been holding against the back of the couch and leaned forward. “Two reasons. First, I thought you wouldn’t go if I said there was a chance I was in labor, and I’d feel guilty that I caused you to miss the most important night of your life. And second . . .” Her voice dropped. “Because I was afraid you might go even if I was in labor. I didn’t want to be hurt if you didn’t choose me.”
Twenty years later, and the words still stung.
He licked his lips. “You’re right about one thing. I wouldn’t have gone. But I would’ve never made you feel guilty for missing that and being there for the birth of my son. And it was never the most important night of my life. Not without you there.”
The corners of her mouth drooped along with her shoulders. The room grew silent.
“Go on,” Liz said.
“I thought she was looking for an excuse not to go. Then she tells me Joey was coming over to hang out with her. To my overly inflated ego, it seemed like she’d rather spend the evening with him than go with me. So yeah, I had my nose out of joint. I’m not proud of it, but I was feeling sorry for myself.”
“So you slept with another woman to make up for it?” Kate’s face may have been unreadable, but the anguish in her voice was clear.
He shook his head. “That’s not what happened.”
“So now you’re saying you never slept with her?”
“I never said I slept with her.” He chose his words carefully. “I never slept with her. Actually, I didn’t do anything.” His voice was barely a whisper. “But I didn’t stop her, either.”
It took about two seconds for Kate to figure out what he was implying. The look on her face was one of pure disappointment. “I think you need to back up, unless you expect me to believe she went down on you in the middle of Radio City Music Hall.”
She spoke with such malice that it was his turn to wince. He steadied himself and addressed his comments to Liz, which somehow made what he was about to say slightly easier.
“Christa found out from Joey that Katie wasn’t going, so she offered to sit with me so it wouldn’t look like I was alone. I was okay with that because I didn’t want to be alone. Christa said Joey had told her Kate didn’t want to go to the ceremony, and he was just going to hang out with her instead. I realize now she was probably yanking my chain, but at the time, it sounded plausible. The more I thought about Kate’s excuses, the angrier I got.” He shrugged. “I know that was stupid, even if she just didn’t want to go, but I wasn’t thinking. Or I was only thinking about myself, which I was always good at.”
“Address your comments to Kate, Billy,” Liz said with a gentle gesture toward the couch. “You’re telling her what happened. I’m just an objective listener.”
He glanced at Kate. Legs crossed, her arms folded tightly, she stared at the toe of her sneaker. She wasn’t saying much, but her body language was speaking volumes.
“When I won and they called my name, my first thought was how sorry I was that you weren’t with me. You were the only person I wanted to share that with, and you weren’t there. And then I really screwed up. I hadn’t written anything down because I didn’t expect to win, and when I got up there, I was just winging it. I’m looking out at just about every music legend I’ve ever worshiped, all staring back at me, and I couldn’t even remember my own fucking name, let alone anyone else’s. I remembered to thank Joey. I mean, the whole album was his idea. And then I was just stumbling over my words, and I saw Christa, and I thanked her.” He glanced at Liz. “Christa was my agent at the time.”
Kate was fully watching him now.
“And I forgot you. I still don’t know how I could’ve done that. You’re always right here.” He pressed his fist to the spot over his heart. “I realized it as soon as I stepped away from the mic, but when I turned to go back, it was too late. I couldn’t believe I’d been that stupid. I tried to call you as soon as I could, although honestly, I was afraid because I figured you’d be hurt. And I didn’t blame you. Anyway, there were pictures and interviews. I didn’t finish backstage for about a half an hour. I went to the phones and tried to call, but the line was busy. The only person you ever talked to that late was Joey, and he was with you.” He tugged his hand through his hair. “So I assumed you were mad and had taken the phone off the hook.”
Her hand had started doing that nervous thing again, rubbing up and down her thigh. “Does that sound like something I’d do?”
He shook his head. “No. That’s what makes it worse. You might have been hurt, and rightfully so, but I know you wouldn’t have done that. I wasn’t thinking.”
He glanced over at Liz. “Turns out she never saw it, anyway.”
“I saw it,” Kate said, her voice dull.
“Joey said you didn’t. He said the doctors and nurses were in the room and everything was going downhill—”
“I didn’t see it that night, but my mother did.” She arched an eyebrow. “She found someone who had recorded it and had a copy made and sent it to me. She didn’t want me to miss your big night.”
It just got worse and worse. “You never told me.”
“Why? I assumed you already felt bad.” She pushed herself from the sofa and moved over to the window.
Fair enough. It would be a lot easier talking to her back, anyway.
“Well, I thought you were mad at me. Using that as a lame excuse, and combined with still being bent out of shape that you hadn’t come with me, I went to a party with Christa at some record exec’s place. I was going to have one drink and then go home, but as I’ve proven too many times over the years, I don’t know when to stop. I was drinking, and there was a lot of coke and all kinds of shit, I
can’t remember what else, but I was wasted. And then . . . it just . . .” He didn’t want to continue. “It happened. Okay?”
He threw his hands up in the air as if that would put an end to the conversation and glared at Liz as if he could transfer ownership of this nightmare to her. She was irrationally calm, as far as he was concerned.
And then she motioned for him to continue.
“It’s just going to make things worse,” he said frantically.
“It might,” she said. “But whatever you have to say, Kate can handle it.”
Kate hadn’t moved from the window. Her body was so stiff that he couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
He kept his voice low, as if that might make it easier. “Christa had been coming on to me all night. Actually, for years. It started soon as I met her, but nothing ever happened. Not even close.”
“She’s a beautiful, sexy woman,” Kate said to the window. “She still is.”
“She’s a slut and a bitch.” He was practically snarling.
Liz looked surprised. “You still see her?”
“Not if I can help it.” He gripped the arms of the chair. “She was at Joey’s funeral. She was one of his clients.”
“You were talking with her.” Kate spun around. “I saw you. You two looked pretty cozy.”
He shook his head. “She was trying to start something, and I put her in her place. So she had to throw her digs in about my failed career, which she’s played a big part in over the years.”
“I think we’re getting a little off topic,” Liz interrupted. “Kate, do you want him to continue?”