by Jade Kerrion
He did not take his eyes off her face as he continued speaking. “It’s been awhile since we’ve taken a holiday as a family. Perhaps we can get away for a few days during the summer break when the kids are out of school. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” she breathed, too relieved to be insulted by the image that flashed through her mind, of herself as a troubled child and Gabriel as the school psychologist, tasked with diagnosing the mental state of, and humoring, the hormonal, angst-filled teenager. How could he always make her feel so inadequate even while treating her with the utmost kindness?
“And if you’re still unhappy, you’ll tell me,” he said.
She nodded, fighting obscure feelings of guilt and inadequacy. At least he hadn’t said, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”
To her surprise, Gabriel exhaled visibly, his shoulders slumping. He turned his face away in a surprisingly vulnerable gesture. His eyelids closed in a slow, tired motion. In that moment, he looked sad, even lost. She was still staring at him when he straightened and the impression vanished into the coolly professional image he always projected. “I’m doing all I can, Val, all I thought we agreed mattered to the both of us.”
“I know,” she whispered. He had kept up his part of their bargain. She had no right to be unhappy, except that she was.
Because I changed. Because what I want changed.
She stared at Gabriel, for the first time noting the shadows under his eyes, the faint lines of strain on his brow. He put in sixteen hours or more every day at his job. No one could accuse him of slacking off, of not working toward the dream life they had defined together.
It’s not fair to him, but if it’s not his fault, is it mine?
~*~
Lunch concluded on pleasant terms—superficially pleasant terms, Valeria amended. She strove for easy conversation, including updates on their children’s escapades and on the end-of-year school fair. Gabriel asked all the right questions and commented at all the right times, but the distant look in his eyes told her that his attention had wandered back to his work.
She bid him goodbye and left the cafe after a scarcely consumed lunch. A sick feeling churned in the pit of her stomach. She had taken care in dressing for her lunch date with Gabriel, but he had not paid any attention to her physical appearance—not a single mention of how she looked, not even a lingering glance to suggest that he had noticed.
It would have been easier, she realized, if she did not have high expectations of the man she had married, if she had not had memories of the teenager he had once been. He had loved her deeply once, long ago. Perhaps in his own way, he still loved her. After all, he provided abundantly for her and for their children.
But so much had changed since. She had changed.
If I’m no longer satisfied with my marriage even though Gabriel is still the same man I’d married, is it my fault?
The question plagued her—a question without answers.
Instead of returning home to her quiet, empty house, she headed to the Make A Wish Foundation headquarters where she volunteered as a wish coordinator. The work suited her. It required networking, which she was eminently suited to doing. She tapped as frequently into her New York University contacts as she did into Gabriel’s Harvard Law School networks. Her biggest joy, however, was delivering wishes to sick children, and that morning, the foundation had called her smartphone and left a message about a new wish in the making. She could just as easily have returned the call, but she wanted—needed, in fact—affirming human contact after her soul-crushing lunch with her husband.
She smiled at the receptionist behind the counter as she signed the visitor log. “Hi, Jane. Is Trisha available to see me?”
“Let me check with Trisha.”
“I just need a few minutes. I wanted to get a bit more information on the wish she called me about.”
“Certainly. Would you like to have a seat while you wait?”
Instead of sitting, Valeria wandered along the length of the far wall and read the heartwarming stories of wish recipients. The smiles on the faces of the children focused the attention on their joy instead of the illness reflected in their haggard features and bald heads. It also focused Valeria’s attention on her own blessings—on Diego and Marlena’s excellent health. It reminded her of just how much she had.
Guilt plucked at her. Her unhappiness with Gabriel must surely reek of ingratitude. She had a husband who provided her every material need and provided her children’s every material need. He did not smoke, did not drink, did not swear or curse or hit her.
His one vice was simply that he worked too hard.
How could that even be a vice?
How many women would sell their soul to be in the position I’m in?
She swallowed hard against the obvious reply. Probably just about every single woman out there.
“Ms. Cruz?” a pleasant tenor called her name.
“Yes?” She turned to look into the face of a man in his mid-thirties. He was not as tall as Gabriel, but he sported a lean and muscular build beneath his T-shirt and denim jeans.
“Brett Richardson. I just joined the foundation, and I work with Trisha.”
She extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Valeria Cruz.”
“Trisha raved about your wish-granting capabilities. She says you’re like a fairy godmother who happens to know everybody.”
Valeria laughed. “Fortunately, I have lots of time to keep up with my social networks. So, do you know anything about this latest wish that Trisha called me about?”
“Yes, I do. Trisha is in a meeting, but I’d be happy to discuss it with you. Would you like to come up to my office? We can talk there.”
Brett’s small, windowless office overflowed with paper files and notebooks. He apologized as he moved several folders off a chair. “Please, have a seat.”
“When did you say you joined the foundation?”
“About three months ago.” His eyebrows drew together as he frowned. “Ten weeks, actually, to be precise.”
Valeria laughed. “Well, they’ve certainly kept you busy.” She sat down and crossed her legs.
She was suddenly aware that Brett’s gaze had followed the movement of her legs. The pleasure of being noticed and admired went a long way toward dispelling the chill of her husband’s reaction to her. “You were going to tell me about this wish that Trisha wants me to help out on?”
“Oh yes, of course.” The pointed reminder recalled Brett to the present. He searched his cluttered desk and located the folder. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he sat on the edge of his table right next to her. “The recipient is Peter Brown. He lives in Brooklyn. Ten years old, and he wants to be a judge.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Brett chuckled. “Most kids don’t know that they have to get through lawyer before becoming a judge. At any rate, Trisha said you might be able to help us out with this. Something about your husband being a lawyer?”
Valeria nodded. “He probably knows a few judges.”
Brett frowned. “Trisha also made a note in the file. No one has spoken to Peter in detail about the wish. You might want to make Peter your first stop so that you can narrow down the search before your husband gets involved. I’m sure he’s very busy.”
“Not too busy to help,” Valeria said, her response instinctive. It was not, she was certain, the answer Gabriel would have given. “I’ll talk to Peter, and then I can point Gabriel in the right direction. Can I get Peter’s contact information?”
“Absolutely. Let me copy it down for you.” Brett’s frantic search came up with a notebook and pen. He scribbled down an address and phone number in nearly illegible handwriting, and handed it to Valeria. “We really appreciate this,” he said. “We’re swamped right now. Summer appears to be prime wish-fulfilling time, and it’s good knowing a wish is in your safe hands.”
“I’m on it,” she assured him as she pushed to her feet.
> Brett stood too, his lean body unfolding with athletic grace. The scent of his aftershave filled her lungs.
Too close, she thought, but she chose to hold her ground and not step back.
The corner of Brett’s mouth tugged into a smile. He held out his hand. “Well, thank you, again. I look forward to seeing you around. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask Trisha if I can be the foundation contact for this wish. It’s an interesting one; certainly a change from the usual Disney World request.”
She took his hand. The contact of skin against skin sizzled through her. She had not been so long married that she could not identify the spark of mutual interest, and it was most welcome, especially in light of Gabriel’s physical and sexual disinterest. She held on to Brett’s hand longer than was polite, but to hell with society’s polite conventions. Sometimes, she just needed to be told that she was attractive, and Brett, without actually speaking the words, had expressed as much.
A dimple danced in her cheek as she offered the first real smile she had felt all day. “I’ll be in touch.”
~*~
Valeria called Cherish as soon as she returned home.
“Twice in one day?” Cherish feigned surprise. “Did something happen?”
Valeria sighed. “After we spoke, Gabriel called me, and we met for lunch.”
“Oh, that’s good, right? Got a reaction out of him.”
“I suppose. I just don’t know if it was the right one.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was kind.”
“Kind?” Incredulity rang through Cherish voice. “He didn’t flip out on you?”
“No, he didn’t. He was calm and logical. Tried to figure out what was wrong.”
Cherish snorted. “And did he?”
“How could he? If we couldn’t figure it out in seven months of girl talk, how could he possibly in the hour we had for lunch?”
“You stuck to your guns, right? Demanded the divorce?”
Shame pricked at Valeria. She took the card out of her handbag and dropped it into the trash can. “No, I didn’t.”
“But why not?”
“He…said we could get away together, as a family.”
“He what?” Cherish screeched. “You want a divorce. He offers you a vacation instead, and you meekly said yes?”
Damn. Valeria bit her lower lip. “He was trying hard—I know he was. He doesn’t want this—”
“Of course he doesn’t want this. His life is set. A wife who perfectly handles everything on the home front, including his two kids whom he never sees, while he climbs the corporate ladder at his firm. What’s not to like? This isn’t just about what he wants. Marriage is about compromise, and for years now, it’s been about him getting what he wants. You matter too. What you want matters.”
“I know.” But I don’t know what I want.
Cherish sighed. “We saw this coming; I told you it would happen. He’s a divorce lawyer, for God’s sake. He handles conversations like this every day with his clients. He’s prepared for these situations; you’re not.”
“I know.” Valeria was starting to feel like a broken record.
“You can’t listen to him.”
“He’s my husband.”
“He’s a lawyer. Slime of the Earth.” Cherish huffed. “Don’t give him a chance to talk you out of what you want...what you need. Don’t face him alone, or you’ll find him buying you off with a diamond necklace or a sapphire tennis bracelet.”
Valeria frowned. Cherish was right. Gabriel had offered her more jewelry, even a car. “But what if he wants a reconciliation?”
“Hah! Talk is cheap. Even gifts, for him, are cheap. Remember, you’re the one who has sacrificed everything so that he could become a big-time lawyer. What do you want in return?”
“I don’t know.”
Cherish made a grunting sound. “What do you know?”
What did Valeria know?
She knew she didn’t want to be her mother.
She had watched her mother endure a loveless marriage for forty-nine years. Her father, a long-haul truck driver, had rarely been home, and when he was, he might as well have been a stranger passing through. The silence between her parents was broken only by perfunctory one-sided chatter from her mother and absentminded grunts from her father.
She knew her once-vivacious mother had wilted and eventually died from a marriage that did nothing to nourish her spirit.
What a far cry Valeria’s home had been from Gabriel’s childhood home. On those rare occasions, when she had visited him, Gabriel had quietly deflected her request to come in. His face an expressionless mask, Gabriel had shut the door on his home and on the two people screaming at each other from behind the closed door of the master bedroom. She sensed that he was ashamed of his parents, although she never understood why. At least his parents had cared enough about each other to argue. Hers hadn’t even cared enough to talk to each other.
Valeria’s shoulders sagged on a sigh. Was it ironic that her own marriage resembled that of her parents? Why couldn’t it have looked more like Gabriel’s parents’ marriage instead?
Cherish repeated her question. “What do you know?”
Valeria said nothing to Cherish, but she had an answer in her heart. I want to know if Gabriel loves me as much as I love him.
Failing that, I want out.
CHAPTER TWO
The orange glow of dusk flooded through the glass windows of Gabriel’s office on the fortieth floor. His eyes burning from the strain of focusing on legal documents, Gabriel raised his head. His gaze swept, unseeing, over the unparalleled view of Central Park to focus on the clock on the far wall.
Seven thirty.
Where the hell had his day gone?
He returned his attention to the Campbell brief he had been preparing. The work should have been easy—it was just another normal day in the lucrative family law practice of Brickstein and Felder—but he could not focus. The words on the page grayed into an incomprehensible blur. Valeria’s face was the only thing he could see—her eyes shadowed with emotions more profound yet less defined than grief.
Happy anniversary. I want a divorce.
The words, written in her familiar flowing script, had punched the air out of his lungs when he had read it the prior night. His first instinct had been to charge into their bedroom and demand to know why, but he did not. He could not.
Memories he thought he had left behind rushed over him—memories of his father’s hands curling into fists, pounding, smashing; memories of his mother’s bruised and bleeding face as she cowed from his father’s anger. Most of the time, his father hadn’t even been drunk. He had just been angry, his temper fueled by low-paying temporary jobs on construction sites where bullying was not just rampant—it was the way life just was.
His father, driven by his violent emotions, had eventually killed his mother—not physically, not immediately—but he had killed her all the same. Over the years, Gabriel had seen his mother’s gentle spirit wither, her compassion and love crushed, until she could no longer extend affection to the children she had borne to the monster of her husband.
She had pushed Gabriel away, physically and emotionally. She had stared at him and seen a boy who could grow up to become like his father.
And that was why he couldn’t confront Valeria, not immediately upon reading her note. His emotions were too volatile, too shattered. He did not trust himself to be careful with his thoughts or his words. He did not trust himself to not be like his father. If he confronted her, he could have escalated the situation beyond salvage.
No, he had to be careful with Valeria. She was too precious, too priceless, to be handled with anything other than the utmost care. On the other hand, he could not give her what she wanted—a divorce. He could not let her go.
The only acceptable outcome was to fix the problem. He had spent the night pacing in his study, strategizing his approach in much the same way he developed his plan of attack in his c
lient cases. In the end, however, there were still two things he could not fully account for or control—how she felt, and how he felt about how she felt.
She’s so unhappy.
He had mentally braced for it. Even so, he had not been ready for the full impact of her emotions. When he saw her, the unhappiness etched into the subtle slump of her shoulders and the listlessness of her eyes made his breath catch. He had to fight the compulsion to reach for her hand. Hell, he had to grip his chair to stop himself from rushing around to her side of the table to hold her. She was always so poised and self-controlled in public. He would have embarrassed her if he made a scene.
He had to focus on the solution, ask the right questions, and isolate the problem.
It’s hard to explain…
She could not articulate the issue.
All right. Plan B. He had to probe deeper and push the right buttons. Impatience was a trigger that had always worked on Valeria; it made her feel insecure and anxious. He had to evoke her emotional response.
I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have the fancy words.
When she snapped at him, only his professional training and his practiced façade allowed him to keep the pressure on her. Everything else in him wanted to back off—to stop hurting her. He could not endure her pain.
Why is it wrong to want more?
There it was. The answer.
The pressure against his chest eased.
She wanted more. He could do that. He could give her more; he would give her anything she wanted. But no… The expression on her face warned him that she was shutting down emotionally.
Not things. She wasn’t looking for more things. Something else. What could it be?
Think, you idiot. Think!
What about time together? A vacation.
At his words, relief flickered over her face. Yes, he was on the right track. The erratic pounding of Gabriel’s heart steadied. He had a solution. He could fix the problem now, couldn’t he?
He had never lacked self-confidence, not professionally, but with Valeria, he had always felt the need to prove something. He needed her to know that she had not thrown her life away by giving her trust and her love to a kid who had brashly promised to build their future together on the crapped out remains of his childhood.