Remember the Time

by Annette Reynolds

  “You are home!” She had started back around the side of the house, and now stood at the corner looking at him.

  “Do you know what time it is?” But his question didn’t invite an answer, and he went on. “God, it’s about twelve degrees out here! What are you standing there for?”

  Glaring at him as she strode into the kitchen, she sarcastically said, “So sorry.”

  Pushing the door closed, it all came back to him. Matt. Paul. Sheryl. He wasn’t ready for this. Not now. Not with Kate sleeping upstairs. But he couldn’t think of any way to sidestep it.

  Sheryl, her eyes narrowed, her voice shrill, said, “You couldn’t call to let me know you were back? And where the hell were you?”

  Mike sighed deeply and walked toward the counter. “Want some coffee?”

  Sheryl was pulling off gloves, her muffler, her coat, with vicious tugging motions. She didn’t hear his question. “Matt didn’t come home last night.”

  Scooping coffee into the filter, Mike said, “He’s a big boy, Sheryl. I’m sure he’ll find his way home.” The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Turning to apologize, he watched his sister dissolve into tears.

  “You don’t understand, Mike. There’s something I have to tell you.”

  His voice softened just a little. “I already know.”

  It took her a moment to realize what he’d said. She’d been using a paper napkin to wipe her eyes and now she stared at him. “You can’t know. How could you? Nobody knows except Dan.” She took a step forward. “Is Matt here? Have you seen him?”

  Shaking his head, he answered. “I haven’t seen him, Sherry. Honest.” He didn’t want to have to explain how he knew, but Mike could see an explanation wouldn’t be necessary. Looking over Sheryl’s head, he saw Kate coming down the hallway, wearing his shirt and nothing else, and he winced. There was no way to warn her to go back upstairs.

  Sheryl had seen the pained expression on his face and, in an accusatory tone, asked, “Are you lying to me?”

  Kate heard Sheryl’s voice at the same moment Sheryl heard the floorboards creak behind her. She whirled around, expecting her son, and was startled into silence. Her face, pinched white with worry, suddenly flushed pink. A quiet descended over the room as both women recalled words spoken and deeds done.

  Kate could feel herself becoming hot with anger as she stared at Sheryl’s surprised face. Quickly, before any ugly words could escape her lips, she moved her eyes to Mike’s for an instant. Her guileless face told him what was happening to her, and he helplessly watched as she turned away from them both and rigidly walked back down the hallway.

  When the sound of the bedroom door closing reached them, Sheryl turned to Mike. “You should’ve told me she was here.”

  “What difference does it make, Sheryl?” he said, his voice hard again.

  “She’s the one who told you, then.”

  “Yeah. Imagine my delight,” he said sarcastically. “What, exactly, were you thinking all those years ago? I don’t get it, Sheryl.”

  Defensive, embarrassed, she stated, “It wasn’t just me. Paul was there, too. Nobody was married yet.”

  “Christ! Listen to yourself! What about Dan! Didn’t he matter?”

  “It just happened. Choices were made, okay? Maybe they were wrong—”

  “Maybe?”

  “All right! They were wrong.” Sheryl’s hand came up in a sweeping gesture. “But she made a choice, too. She chose not to sleep with him until after they were married. And everyone knew it.”

  “So, that makes it okay?” He was enraged and he could feel himself slipping out of control.

  Sheryl took a step back. “No! I’m just telling you there were—reasons—it happened. Too much booze. Too much grass. They’d had another argument. You were the one who took her home that night.”

  “So what? Now it’s my fault?” He snorted, shaking his head.

  “No! You’re turning this all around.”

  They stood in the middle of the kitchen. Two equally stubborn prizefighters who knew their blows were ineffective, but were trained to keep going until only one was left standing.

  “No, I think you are. What you did was wrong. From the minute you said yes to Paul, you were wrong!” Mike shouted.

  “We didn’t think we were hurting anyone. I didn’t expect to get pregnant. I didn’t know she wouldn’t be able to have kids.”

  Mike’s voice lowered with suppressed fury. “Say her name, God damn it!”

  Sheryl looked away.

  “Say it! Say ‘I didn’t think Kate wouldn’t be able to have kids.’ She’s not some abstract object that happened to be in the way. She was—is—your friend! Kate was the girl Paul loved. Kate is the woman I love.”

  “Stop it!” Kate’s shout, unexpected, brought Sheryl and Mike up short. “Stop it, both of you! Enough!” She stood in the doorway, wearing her own clothes, her face white with anger. “Aren’t you both forgetting someone else in all this?”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-SIX

  Kate swept past Sheryl and Mike, leaving a wake of hurt and anger that was palpable. She grabbed her coat on the way out the back door. It slammed behind her with resounding finality. She took deep breaths as she strode across the street. The icy air burned her nostrils and stung her eyes. She could hear Mike shouting for her, but she didn’t look back.

  The house felt cold when she entered. Chilly and silent. So different from Mike’s warm bedroom. She had hated to leave its sanctuary, but after the scene with Sheryl she had to get out.

  Kate dropped her coat on a kitchen chair and opened the back door to let Homer out. It was then she saw the footsteps in the snow. They led across the backyard to the gate, and Kate knew Matt had been in the house. She turned to the telephone and had actually dialed Mike’s first three numbers when she slowly replaced the receiver. Matt didn’t want to be found yet. That was obvious. And she understood completely how he felt.

  The mess in the tower room was further evidence of Matt’s pain. It hit her hard, seeing Paul’s things strewn across the room. Kate knelt to pick up the pieces of the carved box when her eyes caught the glint of a gold chain that had slithered into a crack in the floorboards. She picked it out with a paper clip and held it a moment, hesitated, then slipped it over her head. The box was a lost cause. She tried to fit it back together. Impossible. It would never be the same.

  Their rehearsal dinner has ended an hour earlier. Paul and Kate sit across the table from one another holding hands, sipping wine. The restaurant is empty. Occasionally the maitre’d or a waiter passes through the small room, but they leave the couple alone.

  “I’ve got to leave soon,” Kate says. “It’s almost midnight.”

  “Gonna turn into a pumpkin?” Paul grins.

  “The groom isn’t supposed to see the bride on their wedding day. Not until she walks down the aisle.”

  “Why?”

  Kate shrugs. “Bad luck, I guess.”

  Paul moves his chair closer and leans into her. “Fifteen more hours, Katie,” he whispers.

  In a perplexed voice, she says, “What do you mean? The wedding’s at eleven.”

  He grins slowly—seductively. “And four hours after that you’ll be naked and in my arms.”

  A wave of heat passes through her body. He brings her hand to his lips, then traces a slow circle around her palm with his tongue. Kate’s eyes flutter closed at his touch and it takes all her willpower to open them again. “I—I have to go, Paul.” She hastily stands and her foot kicks a box under the table. She’s forgotten it and bends to retrieve it. She holds it out to Paul.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  “Your wedding present from me.” He takes it from her. He seems embarrassed. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  “Katie, I don’t have anything for you. I didn’t know …”

  “It’s okay,” she says, smiling. The truth is, it isn’t okay. She is the tiniest bit disappointed that he hasn’t thought
to give her something. It didn’t have to be something big. Just a little remembrance. But she repeats, “It’s all right, Paul. Come on. Open it.”

  He lifts the intricately carved walnut box out of its wrapping. “It’s beautiful, Kate.” He stands and takes her in his arms, kissing her deeply.

  She forgets her disappointment and they walk out of the restaurant together. Paul waits for her to get settled in her car before going to his own. When the dashboard lights come on Kate’s mind registers the time automatically. It is twelve-thirty.

  Had there been a wedding? She can’t even remember. The morning had gone by in an instant. The feel of her father’s sturdy arm and the look on Paul’s face as she walked down the aisle are the only recollections she has. The photographs have been taken, the reception is behind them, and now Paul waits in her parents’ living room while she changes out of her wedding dress.

  Kate’s mother stands behind her, undoing the first of forty buttons on the dress. As Kate steps out of the yardage and turns to pick up the skirt on her bed, her mother comments, “That may have been a present from Paul, but I think a little selfishness was involved.”

  Kate blushes. Not because of the white lace merry widow she wears, but because of the lie she has told her mother—that Paul had given it to her as a wedding gift. Now she answers, “Well, he does get to unwrap it, doesn’t he?”

  Her mother chuckles and leaves the room to answer the phone.

  Kate is about to step into the skirt when she discovers a run in one of her stockings. She has just snapped the garter into place when a voice outside her bedroom door asks, “Are you decent?”

  She smiles at Paul’s choice of words, and answers, “Never. Come on in.”

  The door opens and there is a moment of stunned silence. Then Mike swiftly turns around, saying, “Christ, Kate! Is that your idea of decent?” And Kate grabs for her robe, saying, “God, Mike! I thought you were Paul!”

  As Kate belts the robe into place, she giggles. “From the look on your face, I guess this has the desired effect.”

  Mike makes a strangled noise.

  “You can turn around now.” She grins as his reddened face comes into view. “I’m sorry, Mike. I really did think you were Paul. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Excuse me while I catch my breath.”

  “Oh, come on, Mike. It isn’t anything you haven’t already seen in those Playboys you and Paul keep hidden in that tower room.”

  “How did you know about those?”

  She laughs. “Good guess, huh? Now, why are you here?”

  “I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  Her smile softens. “You look so sad.”

  “I’ll miss you. And Paul.”

  “We’ll come back here in the winter. Maybe you can come out to see us in San Francisco. That’d be fun, having you as my architectural tour guide.” Kate puts her arms around his waist and hugs him closely. “Who do I feel like there’s something else you want to say?” She can feel his chest expand as he takes a deep breath.

  “Ever wonder what ‘best man’ really means, Kate?”

  “Nope, but I know you were a gorgeous one.”

  He pushes her away and she smiles at him. Mike reaches out to stroke her cheek. “I can’t believe you’re a married lady now. I hope you’ll be happy.”

  Before she can thank him, Paul’s shout from downstairs interrupts her.

  “Hey! You’re holding up the honeymoon!”

  Kate cocks her head and gives him a little shrug. “Gotta go, Mike. My husband awaits.”

  He nods and turns toward the door, but he is suddenly holding her again, and he says, “I just feel like nothing will ever be the same again.”

  “Mike. Sweetheart. You’re scaring me. Of course things’ll be the same. You’ll always be my best friend.” Now she is pushing him away. “Go on. Tell Paul I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “Take care of yourself, darlin’.”

  Kate watches his retreating back for a moment. Smiling to herself she thinks, Things won’t be the same … they’ll be better.

  Kate stood and moved to the tower window. Sheryl’s car was gone. She absently fingered the chain and watched as Mike came out his back door. He stopped to look at her house then raised his head. Shading his eyes with one hand, he peered up at the place where she stood. Kate smiled wistfully. He knew her so well. Had they really made love last night? Would they ever be the same?

  Mike let his hand drop and headed for his truck. Kate took one last look around the room—at her past—before walking out. She didn’t bother to lock the door. It didn’t matter anymore. The past, locked away in her heart, stood at the cage’s open door waiting to take wing. She knew what she had to do to set it free.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Matt counted the last of his money as he ate breakfast in the dingy coffee shop on the outskirts of town. Three dollars and seventy-eight cents. Sixty cents of that had come from under the car seat. He’d have to go home for the cash he kept in an old cigar box, but he didn’t want to risk being seen by his mother. He wanted to see Kate, but knew he couldn’t go to her house. Someone was bound to recognize his car. Downing his third cup of coffee, he finally stood.

  Leaving the MG parked nearby, Matt walked the two blocks to the bus stop. He waited an interminable twenty minutes on the cold bench. The seventy-five cents he dropped into the driver’s box would take him to the end of the line, wherever that was. The brightly lit interior of the bus contrasted with its stuffy warmth and, with no plan, he soon nodded off in the rear seat he’d taken.

  A voice saying, “This is it, son,” woke him from a dream that left him foggily wondering where he was. Matt looked up into the face of the driver and blinked. “End of the line. You’ll have to get off,” the driver said impatiently as he strode to the front of the bus.

  Matt found himself at the entrance to Gypsy Hill Park. Indecision plagued him. He was close enough to Kate’s to go there, but that also meant he was close enough to Mike’s. He had to get moving, though. It was too cold to just stand around.

  The back streets took him to the rear of Kate’s house. He was relieved to see Mike’s truck gone, but so was Kate’s car and he kept going, disappointed. The sun glinting off the snow blinded him as he slowly wandered back to the park. He was making his way along Thornrose when he saw a car that looked like Kate’s turn into the cemetery gates. Matt picked up his pace and followed, but when he got to the entrance the car had disappeared. He stood quietly for a moment, then entered the hushed grounds. He knew where Paul’s grave was.

  The groundskeeper was running the snowblower near Paul’s headstone. When he saw Kate park across the narrow road, he knew it was time to move on.

  It had become an unwritten rule in the cemetery that Kate Armstrong was given complete privacy when she came to visit her husband’s grave. He remembered the first time she had come, her beauty somehow enhanced by her sorrow. She had moved slowly across the lawn to the beech tree that hung over the Armstrong plot. He was sure she’d seen him standing a few yards away, but she began speaking anyway. Her voice had been low—a mere murmur across the windy, hilly cemetery—and he couldn’t understand what she was saying, but he’d quickly left her alone. He’d seen a lot of loneliness and grief in his fifteen years at Thornrose, but Kate Armstrong’s was too much even for him to bear. He’d related the incident to the rest of the crew the next day. That had been nearly three years ago and when any one of them saw her they moved their work to some other part of the cemetery.

  Now, Kate stepped out of her car, seemingly oblivious to the cold wind that gusted around her. The groundskeeper watched her walk toward her husband’s marker. As he stowed the snowblower into the back of his electric cart, he noticed something different about her. There was a determined strength to her stride that had never been there before. He wasn’t sure why, but it made him happy.

  Matt had just crested the small hill when the car
t drove away. Kate stood in front of Paul’s headstone, and as Matt drew closer he could hear her voice. He stepped behind a tree. She was talking loudly and the wind blew her words his way.

  “I’ve wanted you back—alive—for so many reasons, but right now I wish to God you were alive so I could tell you this to your face. I put up with your cheating and your lying. I told myself it was all right as long as we were still together. When you died, I let part of me die, too. I wouldn’t let myself see the people who really loved me. I was a fool.” She clenched her fists. “I was afraid to tell you about what happened between me and Matt. I was even more afraid to tell you about Mike. He loves me … but you already knew that. You knew that! The things you did to me closed me up to the point that I can’t even trust anymore.” She paced back and forth, her voice growing louder. “But now I’ve found out your secret. How cruel! To have a son and to hide it from everyone! I almost slept with your son, you bastard! Can you imagine how I felt when I found out? God! You’ve hurt so many people. Matt most of all.”

  She stopped for a moment, drawing in her breath, trying to hold back her tears. “But you are not going to hurt anyone anymore. I am not going to cry over you anymore. I’m finally going to live my life. I just hope you haven’t destroyed any chance I might have at that. And I hope you haven’t destroyed an entire family with your lies.”

  Kate suddenly dropped to her knees, her voice a plea. “Did you ever really love me? Did you ever love anyone but yourself?”

  Matt couldn’t take it anymore, and he moved away from the shelter of the tree. “Kate?”

  Her head whipped around, a look of pure fright on her face. Seeing Matt there was like seeing a ghost.

  “I’m sorry,” Matt said as he walked toward her. “I didn’t really mean to listen in.”

  She closed her eyes, willing her heart to slow down. When he knelt beside her and took her hand, her eyes opened and she quietly asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know you were in my house last night.”