Holding Hands

by Judith Arnold

  There it was, a white lamp glaring above the entrance. Two other cars were parked in the lot. Meredith steered into the spot between them. “Let me make sure the door is open before you pick him up,” she said.

  Five minutes later, the dog was in an examining room with Dr. Burnham, a petite woman in scrubs, her ash-blond hair frizzy from the humidity and her eyes framed by thick glasses. “Let’s have a look at this fellow,” she said as Scott carried lowered the dog onto the examining table. “You say you found him outside your door? Was he out in the street?”

  “We’re just visitors,” Meredith explained. “We rented a cabin for the weekend.”

  “I’m wondering if he was hit by a car.” The dog didn’t complain as she peeled back the towel and prodded his neck gently. “I don’t feel a chip,” she said. “I’ll run a scan, but I don’t think he’s been tagged. Lucy!” she hollered, then smiled at Meredith and Scott. “Lucy’s my assistant. She was just doing a final bed check before closing up for the night.” A slim, waif-like girl, her hair pulled into a pigtail, entered the examining room. “Lucy, give the police a call and see if anyone’s reported a missing pet. That’s where we’ll start,” the veterinarian explained. “Then we’ll see what we can do for this pooch. How are you doing?” she cooed to the dog, stroking him with the towel, simultaneously soothing and drying him. “Why don’t you sit in the waiting room?” she suggested to Meredith and Scott. “I’ll let you know when we’ve figured things out.”

  Scott’s lips moved, but he refrained from cursing, for which Meredith was grateful. They exited the examining room and settled on a vinyl-covered sofa in the small waiting room. After the gloom of the cabin, she savored the bright fluorescent lights illuminating the walls, which were decorated with paintings of adorable, cartoonish animals. Unbearably cute puppies and kittens, a vibrantly colored tropical bird, a sweet little bunny, a snake that appeared to be smiling.

  Behind the reception desk, Lucy busied herself with the telephone. After a murmured conversation, she hung up. “No missing dogs reported,” she told Meredith and Scott before returning to the examining room.

  Scott shot Meredith a look. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  ‘What ideas?” she asked innocently.

  “We already have a dog.”

  “I never said I wanted to adopt this dog. But we couldn’t just leave him suffering in the rain, could we?”

  “Apparently we couldn’t.” Scott slouched on the sofa next to her, his knees spread and his hands folded over his abdomen. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

  She gazed at the face she’d fallen in love with so many years ago. He was still unconscionably handsome, his jaw line sharp, his cheeks hollow, his nose decisively straight, the unruly waves of his hair glistening with raindrops. It didn’t seem fair that in the twenty-five years they’d been married, his face had gotten more interesting while hers had only gotten old.

  It also didn’t seem fair that he could fall asleep sitting on a stiff couch in a brightly lit waiting room.

  Her gaze journeyed down his body, lean and supple despite the fact that he ate pizza whenever he wanted, and came to rest on his hands. He had long, strong fingers, and she felt the profound urge to take one of his hands and fold those fingers around her own. When was the last time they’d held hands? She wanted to be holding hands now. Holding his hand. Even if he was royally ticked off. Even if he was dozing.

  He wasn’t. Without opening his eyes, he said, “Your mother is dating someone?”

  At least he’d been listening to her tonight. “Dating might be an exaggeration. They eat dinner together. They go to events together.” She eyed Scott’s hands again. “They hold hands at the movies.”

  “Not exactly the affair of the century,” he said.

  “It makes her happy. She was lonely.” Like me, she almost added.

  “How can she be lonely? She’s got all those neighbors, all those activities. And she phones you every freaking night.”

  Even when we’re on a romantic getaway. Meredith circled the waiting room with her gaze. She inhaled the antiseptic scent hovering in the air. All right, maybe romantic wasn’t quite accurate.

  His eyes still closed, he kept talking. “I’ve got to warn you, if we still don’t have power tomorrow, I may have to find a web café. I need to get some work done.”

  “This is a vacation,” she reminded him.

  “Some vacation.” He sighed. “It’s raining, we’re staying in a shack that has no power and I’m buried in work. I was hoping to get the damn book finished over the summer, but I didn’t. My editor’s breathing down my neck.”

  He was lucky he had an editor. College faculty members were under enormous pressure to keep publishing their research. She tried to recall what his book was about but drew a blank. His previous two books were about regional voting patterns or some such thing. Statistical analysis combined with political theory. The last one had been reviewed favorably in the New York Times. The one before that had won him tenure.

  Editor or no, she didn’t want him working all weekend. She wanted to be the one breathing down his neck, or blowing in his ear, or nibbling on his lower lip. She was more important than his damned editor, wasn’t she?

  Dr. Burnham emerged from the examining room, peeling blue latex gloves off her hands and smiling. “We’re dealing with a simple fracture of his left rear leg,” she reported briskly. “No other injuries. I’ve got his leg splinted and I’m dosing him with antibiotics. He’s pretty hungry, too, for a dog in pain. I’m sure he’s got an owner somewhere, given that he’s wearing a collar, but I’m guessing he hasn’t eaten in a couple of days. You’d think if he’d been lost for more than a day or two, his owner would have contacted the police or the animal warden. Or the local shelters, all of which would have contacted the police, too.”

  “Maybe he belonged to someone who was just here on a vacation,” Meredith suggested.

  Dr. Burnham looked from Meredith to Scott and back again. “It isn’t exactly tourist season here on the Cape.”

  “No kidding,” Scott muttered.

  “Well, here’s where we are,” Dr. Burnham continued. “I want to keep him overnight and make sure there are no complications. But assuming all goes well, he should be free to leave tomorrow. If we don’t find his owner, I’m going to have to send him to a shelter.”

  “A no-kill shelter?” Meredith asked.

  Dr. Burnham’s smile grew tentative. “I can’t guarantee that. Obviously, we’ll hope the dog’s owner steps forward.” She rolled the gloves into a tight ball. “In the meantime, not to be crass, but...an emergency call, X-rays, setting and splinting his leg, overnight care...”

  “We’ll pay,” Meredith said before Scott could object.

  Not that he would. He might not be as soft-hearted as she was when it came to animals, but she’d seen the way he’d swaddled the dog in a towel and cradled him in his arms. He’d been the one to announce that he’d sit in the back seat of the car with the dog, rather than in the more comfortable front seat with Meredith, when they drove to the clinic. And he would never deny a professional the compensation she deserved.

  “I accept all major credit cards,” Dr. Burnham said.

  Chapter Five

  “ALL I’M SAYING IS, don’t get any ideas,” Scott said as they drove back to the cabin.

  “Ideas about what?”

  “About adopting that dog. One animal is enough.”

  She might have argued. But that would only upset her, and she was desperately tired. She wanted to sleep. Fighting could wait for tomorrow.

  Still no electricity when they got back to cabin. Even though she sensed a major explosion brewing between her and Scott—whether over the dog or something else, she couldn’t say—she wanted to hold his hand on the dark, pine-needle-strewn path back to their dark cabin. But Scott remained one step ahead, shining the flashlight’s beam down and slightly to his left to help guide her to their door. She supposed
he deserved a point for that, but...

  She understood her mother’s yearning to hold a man’s hand.

  She wondered if Emily was holding her really hot guy’s hand. Or doing much more than holding his hand. Who knew? As of yesterday, the last time Meredith had spoken to Emily, she was still gushing over the guy, but by today she might have found someone new. She was eighteen, awash in hormones and romantic notions.

  Meredith and Scott stumbled into the cabin, peeled off their jeans and collapsed onto the bed. Meredith assumed a clock existed somewhere in the room, but it was probably electric and therefore not working. She could have used the flashlight to read her watch, but she didn’t want to waste the battery. Her phone was buried inside her purse, and she didn’t want to waste its battery, either.

  Not surprisingly, Scott fell asleep almost instantly. Meredith lay beside him, her body absorbing the warmth of his, her mind churning far too rapidly for sleep to take hold. She thought about the dog, about how tenderly Scott had carried it, how coldly he’d announced that she shouldn’t consider adopting it. She thought about how attractive she found him even when he was being a bastard, and how infuriating that was.

  When she finally did drift off to sleep, she dreamed about taking long evening walks with him back home. In her dream she held Skippy’s leash in her left hand, and in his right hand Scott held a leash at the end of which was the dog they’d found on their cabin’s threshold, his leg fully healed and his eyes as bright as Skippy’s, knowing he was wanted and loved. In the dream, she and Scott held hands—her right, his left, their fingers intertwined, their palms pressed together, warm and comforting.

  She woke to a cabin filled with sunlight. A surprisingly charming cabin, now that she could see it. Its rustic paneled walls held framed watercolors of seascapes and beach scenes. The dresser was sturdy oak; it looked like an antique. The bed on which she lay featured an elaborately wrought brass headboard, and the cover spread over her was a delicately stitched quilt. Tulle curtains fluttered at the windows, and the braided rug she’d felt beneath her feet last night was in fact an intricately woven floor covering. The chairs where she and Scott had eaten their too-late supper last night were as drab as she remembered, but everything else in the room was much prettier than she’d imagined.

  Scott was seated in one of the chairs, sunlight pouring over his shoulder as his fingers danced across the keyboard of his laptop. His hair was as damp as it had been last night, but the faint, spicy scent of his shampoo hung in the room. He had on faded jeans and a navy blue T-shirt that showed off his lean torso. His feet were bare.

  She tried to remember what she’d been so angry about last night. The dog. The fact that she’d swept Scott away for this intimate escape and he was using it to catch up on his work. The fact that they’d driven through wretched traffic and flooded roads and wound up taking up residence in what had seemed, in last night’s stormy gloom, to be a dreary little hovel. The fact that she felt as if her husband and her marriage were slipping away like the tide, tugging her down in a deadly undertow.

  The fact that her mother and her daughter had better love lives than she did.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  Scott peered up. A tentative smile flickered across his face. “We’ve got power.”

  She pushed herself to sit and saw the alarm clock on the nightstand on his side of the bed. The digits glowed red: 7:50. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d slept that late. “You showered?”

  “We’ve got hot water, too,” he reported. “Lights. And a hair drier, if you want one.”

  She wanted one. She also wanted to see that sweet, hesitant smile brighten his face again. “I’ll go wash, and then we can have breakfast.” The rabbit-food she’d called dinner hadn’t filled her up very well.

  She carried her bag into the bathroom with her and shut the door. The lights flanking the oval mirror above the pedestal sink glared. Her complexion was imprinted with faint lines from wrinkles in the pillow case. At least she hoped it was the pillow and not her age that had caused those lines.

  The shower felt heavenly. She lathered her hair, replacing the scent of Scott’s shampoo with the lush floral scent of hers. Then she dried herself off, brushed her teeth and made use of the hair drier hanging from a wall bracket beside the mirror. Ah, the luxuries of modern living, she thought as her hair dried beneath the hot gust blasting through the nozzle. Thank God for electricity.

  Her hair done, she plucked some underwear from her bag. Her gaze caught on the teddy, neatly folded and tucked into a corner, and she pulled it out.

  Breakfast could wait. So could arguing.

  She donned the lacy, tempting garment and shivered. She felt colder wearing it than she’d felt completely naked after her shower. What if Scott thought she was nuts? What if he looked at her and said, “Why aren’t you dressed?”

  If he did, she’d get dressed. And grab her keys and drive to the veterinary clinic to spend the day with a creature who appreciated her.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and opened the door, feeling even more chilled as the cooler air outside the bathroom wrapped around her.

  Scott finished typing something on his computer, then glanced up. And gaped.

  She stood frozen on the textured rug, waiting, her nerves stringing tighter and tighter in the silence that stretched between them. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Say something.”

  “Wow,” he said.

  She stopped shivering and took a step toward him. He practically hurled the laptop onto the table beside him and sprang from the chair. When he was less than a foot away from her, he halted.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Take it off,” he said, then yanked his T-shirt over his head.

  She wanted to laugh, but he looked so serious, so intent. Maybe he was comparing her to his students, those gorgeous young things with smooth, glowing skin and no creases marking their faces. Maybe he wanted to see how she measured up, whether she could hold his attention when they were both wide awake and no one better was around.

  Then he hauled her into his arms and kissed her, and she stopped thinking.

  His chest was warm and solid against her. His mouth was hot and firm. He held her so tightly she couldn’t remove the teddy, but he accomplished that task for her, drawing the delicate straps off her shoulders and down her arms, breaking the kiss only to nuzzle her throat, to lean back and shove the teddy further down her body. She slid her hands over the smooth skin of his back, down to his butt, and he groaned.

  He spun her around, lifted her off her feet, tossed her onto the bed with as much energy as he’d tossed aside his laptop a moment ago. Then he dove onto the mattress beside her, kicking the quilt aside and letting the soft linen sheets cradle them. He eased the teddy over her hips and away. She slid open his fly and shoved his jeans down his legs.

  No, he didn’t need Viagra.

  The air in the cabin shimmered with their quiet moans, the rustle of linen, the whisper of skin against skin. He tangled his fingers through the hair she’d so carefully blow-dried and styled. He grazed her collarbones, claimed her breasts with kisses, moved against her until her want for him grew into an exquisite ache. And then he took her.

  Maybe he didn’t look at her anymore. Maybe he didn’t listen to her. But right now, for this one precious moment, he wanted her. They were fully alive again, husband and wife, partners, lovers. He wanted her.

  It was over quickly, both of them shuddering as they came, their bodies pulsing together. For that brief moment they were a single living, throbbing force, joined so completely Meredith could not imagine them ever separating back into two distinct people. But the moment passed and their bodies relaxed. Their heartbeats slowed. They breathed.

  Scott rolled onto his back beside her, one arm looped around her. He stared at the ceiling. She did, too. A quaint brass chandelier, the bulb holders shaped like daffodil blossoms, hung above the bed. She hadn’t noti
ced that before.

  Once again she waited for him to speak. He didn’t, so she broke the silence. “I guess you liked the teddy.”

  “That thing?” He gestured toward a tangled mound of sheets near the foot of the bed. “Yeah, I liked it. Maybe you can model it for me later.”

  She laughed softly, but her anxieties were returning, nipping at the outer edges of her soul, threatening to devour her. “Scott. I tried so hard to lose weight so I’d look good for you. And you never even noticed.”

  He rose slightly, propped on one elbow, and peered down at her. “Of course I noticed.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “I never said anything when you gained weight, either.”

  That was true. He’d never criticized her, never nagged her, never pointed out the difference between the slender young woman he’d married and the chubby wife he’d wound up with.

  But he’d also grown distant over the years, less attentive. He hadn’t complimented her. He hadn’t swooped her off her feet the way he had just minutes ago. He hadn’t been wild with passion for her.

  “Maybe you should have said something,” she murmured. “If you no longer found me attractive...”

  “Why do you think that? I mean, yes, you look better now than you did then. But you’re my wife. We’ve been married twenty-five years. It’s not as if I see you. Wait, that didn’t sound right,” he conceded when she flinched. “What I mean is, when you’re with someone a long time, you don’t do an objective assessment of their physical appearance every time they enter a room. What you see when you look at them is how you feel about them, not whether they’re wearing a red shirt or mismatched socks, or...or that thing.” He gestured toward the mound of linens again. “What’s it called again?”