by Susan Crosby
After downing the pill, she got under the covers again, although she turned her back to him this time. A few minutes later she felt him pull the blankets over her shoulder, then he turned out the light.
Morning would come, their discussion would continue or not. She wondered what his tolerance level would be for more talk, more questions. She’d given him an ultimatum without saying the words or else. Would he see it that way?
They were both stubborn. Too stubborn?
She felt herself drifting to sleep. But there he was, inches away, warm, solid and, well, protective. Who would’ve thought that would be so important to her? Her last thought was how nice it felt to share her bed with him, how easy, how comfortable. She hadn’t expected that after sleeping alone all these years.
Chapter Fourteen
“You are not going to work,” Michael said the next morning after they left Felicity’s doctor’s office.
“You were sitting right next to me, Michael. She just cleared me. Bump on the head,” Felicity said. “I have none of the symptoms that would keep me resting. My only restriction is that I can’t play sports for a week, so, you know. There goes my baseball tryouts.”
“Don’t joke. I don’t care what you call it, you injured your brain.”
“I injured my head. That’s different.” He’d dug his heels in, and it was starting to get on her nerves. “I have no products to sell. I have to work today. Period. I’ll take it easy. I’ll do simple things. Liz will help. I’ll hire someone to do the dishes and the heavy lifting.”
They reached his car. He opened the door, but before she climbed in, she put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you just go home, Michael? Being here is just agitating you.”
“You want me to leave?”
“I have work to do, don’t you?” She climbed into the car. He didn’t quite slam her door shut. She watched him walk in front of the car, saw how his jaw was set.
“We were just starting over,” he said after he got in and turned the key.
She heard the hurt in his voice. “I don’t have a choice, Michael. I need to work. Surely you understand that.”
“I can’t keep coming and going, Felicity. I can’t keep wondering where I stand.”
Felicity rubbed her face with her hands. Already she felt empty inside. She’d known it was coming. Had allowed him back into her life yesterday, hopeful, too hopeful. “I’ve been as honest as I can be. There’s nothing more I can say.” I love you. Why can’t you love me back?
“All right.” He pulled away from the curb. “I need to pick up my bag from your apartment, then I’ll get out of your life.”
The devastation his words struck caught her off guard. She’d thought she was prepared for his going for good. She’d been planning for it mentally. But emotionally? She couldn’t have planned for what was hitting her now, having never been in love before. He was going to drive away for good. She was making him leave.
Maybe she should accept him on his terms. It was either that or live without him.
No, she was not going to live without hearing words of love, of knowing he was as committed to her as she was to him. She could not do that, no matter how hard it would be to recover. She deserved better.
And if you end up like Liz? No husband ever? No children?
It was unthinkable. She wouldn’t be like her aunt. She would put Michael out of her head and open herself to love again. She would.
They didn’t speak to each other until they were standing in her bedroom. She didn’t know why she followed him up the stairs, and he didn’t stop her. They hadn’t made the bed. Its rumpled sheets taunted her—they’d slept in the same bed together for the last time.
She watched him pack. He folded everything precisely so, although his movements were stiff. She remembered how he’d taken care of her last night, how gentle he’d been, how his hands had soothed and his voice was tender in the middle of the night each time he woke her.
I love you. Don’t go. Fight for me. But the unfair words stuck in her throat.
In the quiet of the room, the clasps on his suitcase sounded like a firing squad.
He didn’t look up for several long seconds. When he did, his eyes were distant, as if already disengaged. She didn’t want him to leave like that. She wanted him to remember what had been good, that he had been loved.
She moved toward him, twined her arms around his neck and brought herself close. He didn’t pull away. She parted her lips, stared at his mouth, saw the moment he gave in. His mouth came down on hers in a long, tender kiss. He dropped his suitcase, slid his arms around her waist, pulled her until their bodies melded.
Her gaze locked with his. “One last time? A final farewell?” she asked.
He almost touched her hair. “Your head.”
“We’ll be careful.” And then she pulled off her blouse.
He laid his hands over her breasts, pressed a kiss to the spot where her bra met in the middle. Her head hurt, but she ignored it. Too much stress, she knew, but not willing to give up this moment.
He pulled her gently to him, tucked her face against his shoulder. “This won’t help, Felicity.”
Then he picked up his suitcase and left without another word.
She knew he was right. Knew it and hated it.
It was just one more reason to love him for the rest of her life.
* * *
The flight from San Antonio seemed to take twelve hours. At first he’d tried to doze, because he’d gotten no rest the night before. None. He’d watched Felicity sleep, was aware of every sound she made, every time she rolled, every fling of her arm, every twitch of her leg.
He’d soothed her through a nightmare, her fingers digging into him, fingernails scraping him. He carried angry red scratches from it. He didn’t care then nor now. Badges of honor.
It wasn’t even noon, but he ordered a bourbon on ice. The flight attendant was one he’d flown with before a couple of times.
“Rough trip?” she asked as she passed him the drink.
He nodded, not wanting to start a conversation. The drink tasted like kerosene. He set it down hard, too hard, on the tray table, and it spilled, running across the tray onto the floor. The man in the window seat next to him passed Michael his napkins until the attendant noticed and brought a towel.
“Another drink?” she asked.
“No, thanks.”
He closed his eyes, but that didn’t help at all. He grabbed the in-flight magazine, flipped through the articles without reading anything.
“Woman trouble?” his seatmate asked.
He did not want to talk to anyone. He didn’t even want to be polite about it.
“Me, too,” the man said, coming to his own conclusion. He held out a hand. “Name’s Henry. I just signed divorce papers yesterday.” He lifted his glass toward Michael. “She cleaned me out. Left me with a one-bedroom apartment and the kids every other weekend. Not what I expected when I married her.” He downed his drink and held up the glass to the flight attendant.
“Did you love her?” The words spilled out of Michael.
“Hell, yeah. At first,” Henry added as he was given his second drink. “It gets old in a hurry. You get stuck in a routine. She quit her job when I got transferred, and now, ten years later, she tells me she feels unfulfilled. I thought raising kids was supposed to be the hardest but best job in the world. That’s what the women’s magazines all say anyway.”
Michael didn’t want to hear any more. He closed his eyes, ending the conversation. At some point he fell asleep because Henry elbowed him that they were landing.
“Hey, don’t listen to me,” Henry said. “It’s all new and painful. I expect I’ll fall in love and get married again. Life goes on, right?”
Which didn’t make Michael feel any better.
It was early enough to go to the office, but he went home instead. Everything was closed up. The condo was dark. He didn’t turn on any lights nor did he open the blinds. He carried his
suitcase into his bedroom and set it on his bed.
He looked around. Like the rest of his place, it was elegantly furnished, with good art he’d picked up himself in his travels, but he couldn’t picture Felicity there, not after seeing her bedroom and the kinds of things she surrounded herself with. He opened his suitcase, unpacked by rote, putting his clothes in a laundry bag to be dropped off at the concierge desk. He checked his travel toiletries, refilled his shampoo, put a new blade in his razor, then he stowed the carry-on with his shaving kit in the closet, ready for the next trip.
He changed into workout gear. An hour or two at the gym would take him out of his head. Maybe a massage after, then a power nap.
He pulled open his nightstand drawer to get the key card to the gym. His hand hovered over the open drawer. One of her chocolate mints, the only one he had left, lay there in its True Confections wrapper, daring him to eat it or throw it out.
Michael sat on the side of the bed, never taking his eyes off it. Finally he picked it up and brought it to his nose. He closed his eyes against a rising ache, but saw only images of Felicity—laughing, teasing, concentrating, making love. Lying on the bowling alley floor, not waking up, no matter how many times he shouted her name. Seventy-two seconds, seventy-two years. It seemed the same. He remembered her fighting demons in a nightmare. Asking him for one last time...
He stretched out on his bed, continued to hold the mint under his nose, careful to hang on by its twisted wrapper end. He’d never known a woman like her existed except in the movies, where they were all so perfect.
But she didn’t fit here, not in his condo, nor in Atlanta, nor in the life he’d created here. His father had dangled the most tempting carrot of his career, creative control, autonomy, the chance to really lead. He could end up working even longer hours. How could he bring her to that life?
On the other hand, how could he fit in hers?
The ultimate impasse, he thought. There were no answers.
Or were there? Maybe all he had to do was take a page out of Estelle’s book and ask. He was done guessing.
Twenty minutes later he rang the bell at his parents’ house, knowing his father would be at the office.
“Well, twice in a month. Come in, Michael,” his mother said, looking delighted. “May I fix you a drink?”
“I don’t want anything, Mom, thanks. I have some questions I’d like to ask. They’re personal, but I hope you’ll answer them.”
“Of course, darling.” They went into the sitting room, her room, a light, airy, yellow space she retreated to in the morning. “I’m all ears.”
“Do you love Dad?”
He could see she hadn’t expected anything like that, and it felt strange asking, but he’d begun to see he was damaged emotionally, and he wanted to know whether he’d caused it himself or learned it at home.
“I do. Very much.”
“Does he love you?”
“Of course he does.”
“Does he say so?”
She sat a little straighter, if that was possible. “Not as often as he used to, but that’s the way it is after so many years.”
“Does it bother you that he doesn’t say the words?”
“I can’t give you a definitive answer, Michael. Would I like to hear it more often? Yes. But do I think he doesn’t love me because he doesn’t say it much? No.”
Michael leaned toward her, held her gaze. “He’s never seemed to treat you...I don’t know how to phrase this, but lovingly is the word I want to use. I’ve rarely seen you touch each other or kiss or sit close together on the sofa. The other day in his office I saw you give him a loving look. It took me by surprise because I can’t remember seeing it before.”
“Maybe you just weren’t looking before. Maybe right now you have a particular reason why you’re noticing such things. You implied in your father’s office that same day that you were having a problem in your relationship with Felicity, but that it was nothing you couldn’t handle. I suspect these questions of yours have more to do with you and her than your father and me. Are you looking for someone to blame for your not being, what, emotionally available—isn’t that the current phrase being bandied about?”
“Not someone to blame, but a way to open myself up. It’s the only way she’ll keep me.” He realized that sounded pathetic.
“If she’s making you work that hard at the relationship, maybe it isn’t the right one for you.”
“You’re prejudiced in my favor.”
“Of course I am, darling.”
“You would love her.” The words came without thought. Why would he think his mother would love Felicity but he couldn’t? Awareness started to bring light into his thoughts.
“If you do, I imagine I would, too. Do you love her?”
Michael rolled the words around in his head, as he’d been doing since their wedding night when she’d said the words to him. The light got a little brighter.
He stood. “You’ve been a big help, Mom.”
Looking startled, she stood as well. “I’m always here for you, Michael. I love you very much.”
That was it. The key. Apparently some people thought the only way to know for sure that you were loved was if you heard the words. He couldn’t remember the last time his mother had told him she loved him. Hearing those words now made him feel like a boy again, safe and secure.
They were just words, but they were the most important words in the human language. As epiphanies went, this was a big one.
* * *
Felicity couldn’t hide her tears as Sarah-Jane swept into the kitchen at True Confections several days later, then stopped dead in her tracks. “I hate Michael Fortune,” Sarah-Jane uttered coldly.
Felicity shook her head again and again. “I was a fool,” she said, close to sobbing. “An idiot. An unappreciative dweeb.”
“Dweeb?” Sarah-Jane repeated, inching closer to where Felicity rested her elbows against the worktable, her face pressed into her arms. “I don’t think dweeb would accurately describe—”
“Whatever. Womankind should be ashamed of me.”
Sarah-Jane pulled up another stool. “What’s going on? Did he call?”
“No,” Felicity bawled.
“Okay, you’re scaring me here, sweetie. What gives?”
“I let him go.” She sat up, brushed at her wet cheeks. “He promised me he’d be with me forever, and I told him it wasn’t enough. I wanted him to say the words. To tell me he loved me.”
“A reasonable expectation.”
“But he couldn’t do it. He doesn’t believe in love. Except that everything he did screamed it to the hills. He was always doing something for me.” She began gesturing wildly enough that Sarah-Jane had to pull back. “How many dates did he dream up? Good ones, too. Memorable. Things I’d never done before. He pitched in around here when I needed him—when I didn’t even know I needed him.”
“Did you thank him?”
“Well, of course I thanked him. But it was above and beyond. I should’ve done more for him. He would’ve done more for me. And that night I got hurt at the bowling alley?” She grabbed a fistful of tissues from the box Sarah-Jane offered. “He stayed up all night taking care of me, making sure I was okay. No matter how much I objected to his help, he just kept trying and doing. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
“Sounds about right to me.”
Felicity went silent for a few seconds. “I have to go see him,” she said. “Do you think it’s too late? I have to tell him it’s okay. I don’t need the words, not as long as he keeps on showing me he loves me.”
She didn’t wait for Sarah-Jane’s answer. “My suitcase is already packed because I was going to visit my parents. I’ll just drive to Atlanta instead. I could be there tomorrow morning. Camp out on his doorstep, if I have to.”
“Slow down there, dweeb. You can’t drive straight through. You’ll have to spend the night along the way. Or take along another driver to share. I’ll
go with you.”
That started a new set of tears, grateful ones. “You’re such a great friend.” She threw herself into Sarah-Jane’s arms.
“Pull yourself together while I go home and pack. Finish up what you’re doing, then pick me up.” Sarah-Jane looked toward the ceiling and frowned. “That’s the second time that plane has flown by so low.”
“Probably a crop duster,” Felicity said, dabbing her eyes. “It’s that time of year.”
“Dusting the town? When did we become crops? I’m putting on a gas mask.” Instead she went into the coffee shop. A minute later she came back, her eyes wide.
“You need to see this,” she said.
“See what? I’ve got two dozen more pretzels to dip. I can’t stop now.”
“Yeah, you can. Wash your hands. Come with me.”
The plane flew overhead again as Felicity rushed to clean herself up.
A crowd had already gathered on Main Street. The coffee shop had emptied of customers, but people stood in front of every place of business, looking at the sky, holding a hand up to block the sun or just pointing.
“Look,” said Sarah-Jane.
The plane came into sight, towing a banner that read, “I Love You. Will You Marry Me?”
Her heart beat loud and fast. “That can’t be for me,” she said, her throat almost closed. “We’re already married. And look, it says I Love You.”
“Not many people around here could afford a gesture like that. That’s a Fortune scheme. And you know darn well which Fortune.”
Felicity looked up and down the street. If it was Michael, he had to be there somewhere—
“Right behind you, Champ.”
She whirled around. He looked scared. He looked like he’d slept as little as she had. But his eyes shone with love. Why hadn’t she seen that before?
“Felicity Thomas, I lo—”
She put a hand over his mouth. “You don’t have to say the words. I know. I know. Oh, I have so much to tell you.”
He smiled, then got down on one knee and held up a jeweler’s box with a diamond engagement ring nestled in it, the stone not ostentatious at all. He knew her well.