Three Days on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel)

by Anna DeStefano

  Now there Brian was, pursuing her still when he should be back at work, while Sam hovered in the hallway to the left of Julia’s front door, out of sight but close enough to hang on every word.

  “She’s resting, Brian,” their friend said, instead of welcoming him in and handing him a glass of sweet tea, the way she once would have. “She’s exhausted from this morning. I helped Kristen talk her into going, and I don’t think—”

  “Get Samantha for me,” Brian interrupted, “or I’ll come in there and find her myself. Sam?” he called, loud enough to be heard throughout the house.

  As if in a trance, she found herself standing in Julia’s immaculately decorated foyer. Her headache suddenly gone, she stepped farther away from the hallway and stared at her husband as if she’d never seen him before. It had been forever since she’d heard him sound anything but accommodating to anyone. He looked younger, too. Rougher. More… vital than he had since their move from New York.

  He looked like the man she’d fallen in love with.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Julia was closing the door as she spoke. “Like I said, Sam’s resting, and everyone needs to stop pushing her to—”

  “I’m never going to stop pushing.” He placed his palm on the door, his gaze locking with Sam’s. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t just about our marriage. It’s about Cade, too. Sam, please…” His voice caught, tugging at Sam’s heart. “Please talk with me.”

  “Is…” She stepped closer, stopping beside Julia. “Is he okay? You’re home early from work. Has something else happened?”

  Brian checked his watch. “The boys’ bus won’t be here for another hour. I wanted to speak with you first, so we can deal with our son together.”

  We…

  Together…

  Instead of relentlessly optimistic, Brian sounded frazzled. Maybe even a little scared.

  “He had such a hard time this morning.” Sam couldn’t stop thinking about it. “He did such a great job with Nate, but there’s so much he’s not letting us know.”

  You’re really something, Mallory had said the morning of the shooting.

  You’ve been a hero for me for twelve years, Kristen Hemmings had gushed.

  Except Sam’s son was hiding his darkest fears from her, as if he didn’t trust her with them. She’d thought she was doing the right thing, staying with Julia and putting some distance between her and Brian and the mistakes they were making. She’d wanted to protect her boys. And look at what had happened instead.

  “I spoke with Kristen after you left,” Brian said. “There are some things we need to tackle together, if we’re going to help Cade through this. Things I… can’t handle on my own. Our son needs you, Sam. I need you.”

  She blinked at the sound of her husband asking for her help, instead of shielding her from whatever problem needed to be dealt with. She glanced behind her, realizing that Julia had found somewhere else to be.

  “Come walk with me.” Brian held out his hand. His fingers were shaking. “We have to do something about Cade before we lose even more of him.”

  Slipping her hand into her husband’s, Sam let herself be drawn from her friend’s house into the warm spring sunlight. She was momentarily blinded by the dazzling day.

  Brian’s car was in the Davises’ driveway instead of their own. He’d driven straight there after doing whatever he’d done to arrange the rest of the day off from the firm that frowned on downtime and family time or any time that wasn’t contributing to their bottom line.

  He tugged her closer as they walked down the lane, heading toward the larger lots and houses where there was less through traffic to deal with. Not that there was much traffic at all this time of day. Mimosa Lane’s adults were often at work well after kids sprinted off their buses at the end of the school day.

  Sam’s mind wouldn’t stop racing, distracted by thoughts about their neighbors and other people’s lives and families. Anything but pushing Brian to talk. She was suddenly certain she didn’t want to hear what he was so determined to say—after months of her desperately wanting his undivided attention.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  No. She was feeling codependent and weak. She’d begged since January for his honesty. And now that she seemed to have it, a part of her wanted to bury herself in his strong arms so he could make reality go away again. When she tried to pull back, he wouldn’t let her go. He sighed. The thumb of his left hand smoothed over hers as they walked through the flickering shadows cast by the tall pines ringing the yards on either side of the street.

  “I know I said all the wrong things at school,” he said. “And this morning, and at the hospital, and every time we’ve talked since the shooting. Even before then. I know you’re hurting and I want to help, but I don’t know how, or maybe I don’t want to know what you really need, because every time I try to make things okay, I only seem to make them worse…”

  Sam caught herself from responding right away. She squeezed his fingers, trying to think of a way to explain what she wasn’t sure he’d ever understand. She let go of his hands and crossed her arms, shivering amidst the warmth surrounding them.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” she said. “Or we’re not going to get very far with this talk, either.”

  It wasn’t an ultimatum. Not really. It was her line in the sand. One she’d marked off months ago at the hospital, and she wouldn’t back down.

  “Anything,” Brian said, so eager and sincere she was dying to believe him.

  “Stop using that word. Okay. Stop saying it, please. When we’re alone, when we’re not in front of the boys or our friends or anyone else, stop asking me to be okay for you.”

  He pulled her to a stop beside him.

  “I wasn’t.” He blocked her, when she would have walked past him. “I’m concerned about you. I have been all day. I was simply—”

  “Asking if I was okay, as if being okay is the goal. And once I get there, we’ll finally be making progress.”

  “No. In fact I came here to…” He raked a hand through his hair. “So let me get this straight. You don’t want me to care about you now? Is that it? Because I came here for Cade, but also to ask what you needed from me, Sam. I’m willing to do whatever it takes, but I don’t know how to stop caring about you getting better.”

  “I love that you care about me.” Except now she was desperate to be back in Julia’s guest room bed, hiding from the love of her life and this moment and how their relationship seemed to be hanging in the balance. “I love you, Brian. But trying to be okay all these years has destroyed too much. And whether it makes sense or not, whether you mean it or not, I need you to stop saying that word. Maybe being messed up is better than being okay. Have you stopped to think about that? Look at what Cade has been hiding from us. Being okay and careful and not falling apart is what our family does, but look at what avoiding the hard things has done. Forget about me. Look at how we’ve taught our son to deal with his problems!”

  She was shouting, loud enough that anyone outside for blocks—or inside with their windows open, enjoying the beautiful spring day—could hear. But was it loud enough to finally get through to the man she’d built her life around?

  Brian looked ready to yell himself. Then his features became a battle for control, as if he didn’t know what to feel or say or be. The stranger staring down at her was nothing like the confident, carefree man she’d fallen for the first night they’d met.

  After a childhood spent loving and trying to live up to the expectations of perfect parents who’d valued above everything else their perfect home and perfect social connections in an upscale, moneyed Connecticut suburb, Sam had escaped to NYU with a full-ride scholarship for her undergraduate and master’s degrees. She’d been living a life that felt on the cusp of being what she’d always imagined the real world would feel like. Brian had stumbled into that reality as the buddy of one of her male friends, at a dinner party Sam was hosting—if offering cheap wi
ne, boiling pasta, and heating Ragú counted as dinner.

  The eclectic mix of guests had been perfect, the conversation had been lively. Brian had been the last one to leave her apartment that night… because, he’d said right then and there, he’d wanted to get to know Sam better, more than any other woman he’d met.

  They’d walked to a nearby diner and talked all night: about their equally disconnected families, their degrees, their dreams, and their determination to make a difference in the world. He hadn’t laughed, as her parents had, at her insistence that even though teachers were underpaid and overworked, it had to be the greatest job of all, feeling every day as if you were making a difference, changing the world one eager mind at a time. He was aiming for the same things with his architecture—wanting to specialize in designing and constructing green homes and communities and even corporate spaces. Making a difference by making where people worked and lived and played both beautiful and environmentally responsible.

  He’d pursued his passion after they’d graduated, gotten married, and begun their careers. They both had. And they’d still stay up all night as often as their busy schedules allowed, talking and loving each other and drinking wine that wasn’t so cheap anymore, and believing that they had the secrets to this life licked. They’d been a team once. A perfect fit. Then their rarefied world had exploded around them, literally, and the differences between them had begun to stack up, higher and higher until ignoring them had been the only way to stay together.

  Starting with their move to Chandlerville, when rough-around-the-edges Brian had flawlessly adapted to Mimosa Lane’s upscale, suburban culture—for her. And Sam had morphed, she was very much afraid, into a neurotic replica of the nervous, needy woman who’d raised him. And now she was making him second-guess himself and everything they’d ever had.

  “I wish I could tell you I was okay,” she said, “and really mean it.” He was staring down at her with a blank expression on his face, as if her honesty were crushing him. “I wish we were still like we were when we first met, when we were kids, before we had kids of our own. Free and confident and invincible, instead of so very careful. But we have to accept that big parts of those people are gone, Brian. We need to figure out how to handle who we are now, what we’ve become, even if this isn’t where we thought moving to Atlanta would get us.”

  It was everything she’d meant to say that day in the hospital. It hadn’t been a conscious choice, asking him for a separation. It had been a reflex, a panicked attempt to get him to see her, really see her for the first time in years. For days afterward, she’d waited for him to get angry, to talk her out of it, to shake her and fight for her, and listen to her, mess and all, never dreaming that it would take them three months to get here.

  Brian reached for her now, tugging her closer. Their foreheads touched in the sweet way they’d once greeted each other—and said good-bye—every day.

  “I don’t know what I can handle anymore, Samantha.” Her full name sounded like heaven tumbling from his mouth. It had shortened over the years to Sam, the name everyone else but her parents had always called her. But with Brian, at first, it had always been Samantha. And he’d always made it, and her, sound so special, so beautiful, every time he said it.

  “You don’t have to know,” she insisted, desperate for him to believe her. “I get it. I’m driving you and the boys crazy. I know I haven’t been there for Cade, not the way he’s needed me. I don’t blame him for not talking to me.”

  “Stop it.” Brian shook her. Staring down at her now was that young crusader she’d first met. “None of this is your fault. We both did this. And Cade is talking to you. You got him to open up today. I never could have done that. He blames himself for what happened to Bubba and to Troy—and to Nate. I’ve been living with him for three months, and I didn’t see it. I was too absorbed with our problems, and I wanted to believe he was doing fine. Or maybe I couldn’t think straight about anything anymore, not with you gone. You’re… everything for us, Sam. It’s all wrapped up in you. Can’t you see that? Without you, none of the rest of this makes any damn sense.”

  They were locked in a bone-crushing embrace before she could think what to say, kissing each other like their first kiss outside that all-night diner in Manhattan.

  She’d never remember who reached for whom first. But she’d also never forget the perfect feel of this moment that a part of her had worried they’d never find. They were together again. One. Connected on so many levels that each brush of their lips and tongues and hands as they roamed the other’s body was a physical representation of the love coursing through them, between them, from one of them to the other and back.

  This. This was what it had always been like, as if long before they’d ever met, they’d been destined to fit perfectly with each other. As if they’d searched their whole lives until that moment at her shabby dinner party, when something had clicked and everything they should have been had suddenly seemed possible. Because they were no longer alone, and the someone they’d been put on this earth to share their lives with was finally there.

  And that someone was holding her again as if he’d never let her go. The same man who’d let her drift away for years was molding her pliant body into his harder one. He was wanting her with a fierce, desperate need. As if he couldn’t help but curve his hand down her spine and then her bottom, lifting and pulling her against him until they both gasped at the electricity that was building, arcing.

  “God…” Brian whispered against her ear, sending goose bumps everywhere. “Samantha…”

  “I love you,” she whispered back, while she slowly, determinedly began to create space between them. Air. She needed air and enough distance for her to think.

  Breathing hard just like she was, her husband was staring at her lips. His gaze rose to meet hers.

  “You love me,” he said, “but you’re still not coming home, are you?”

  She shook her head, resolved.

  She thought of Julia, who was still hoping that Walter would come around on his own without her having to take a stand. Walter, who loved his wife more than life itself. Only he’d let drinking to escape the horror of what had happened at Chandler become a threat to them both. They needed to talk about some difficult things, but they were both too afraid to. Maybe Julia and Walter were too close to the pain they were feeling to be able to find their way through this together. Maybe Sam and Brian had been, too, until she’d stepped away from the wandering path they’d been locked into.

  All she knew was that she couldn’t move back home. Not until she was certain they’d found enough of themselves again, individually, to make being together really work.

  “Because I use the wrong word when I try to tell you how worried I am about you, and how much I care?” Brian was flashfire furious. His hands balled into fists at his sides. “Damn it, Sam. I’m doing the best I can, and I know it’s not good enough. But I don’t have anything left. I’ve been fighting this for so long, trying to figure out what to do to make everything o—” He stopped himself from saying that hated word. He took a deep breath before continuing. “I can’t remember when I wasn’t trying to figure out how to make things better for all of us. And I know I’ve done too much of that on my own. I know we need to communicate better, and I need to listen more. So, talk. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”

  She took one of his fists and rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. She smiled up at him, hope filling her heart.

  “This,” she said, tears shimmering across her vision until Brian became a kaleidoscope image, sunlit, of everything she’d always known he could be. “Honesty. Acceptance. And, yes, anger and failure. We’re both failing at this, honey. I need you to accept that, too, or we’re going to keep making the same mistakes and one day…”

  “One day you’re going to turn this time you said you needed into a permanent separation.”

  He pulled away.

  She didn’t tell him she’d never meant to say th
ose words, or that being away from him was the last thing she wanted, ever, when he and the boys would always be her home.

  “I can’t go back to the way things were,” she insisted.

  “And I’m not asking you to. But our family needs you now, Sam. I need you.”

  “I was disappearing, Brian. Most days I feel like I still am.” She didn’t know who she was anymore. Who they were. “And I’m no good for you or the boys like this. When I woke up in the hospital, the first instinct that came to me when I saw my husband standing beside my bed, trying to console me, was to get away from you. I have to figure that out. We have to figure that out, or I’ll just keep hurting everyone.”

  Instead of growing angrier, he took her hand in his. Seconds passed. Minutes. Until every emotion dragging at Sam faded, except the need to keep feeling her husband like this, peaceful and accepting beside her.

  “You said we needed to talk about Cade?” she asked. “Is it about what he said to me this morning, when we were talking with Nate?”

  Brian shook his head. He tugged her to his side and started walking again. They were almost at the park now, where things had gotten so ugly between them so early that morning. A breeze kicked up, rosy and fresh and new, like spring itself.

  “He’s been skipping school,” Brian said softly.

  “What?” Dread filled Sam. Neither of their kids had ever needed the kind of supervision that was required with children who didn’t want to learn. Both Cade and Joshua had loved school from their very first day of kindergarten.

  “He’s been forging notes from home, complete with my signature, saying that he’s not doing well and needs time away from class.”

  “Brian…” Sam stumbled.