All I'll Ever Need

by Harry Kraus

  “I can’t. Not tonight.” He took a deep breath. Why did she have to be so gorgeous? “Claire is coming over.”

  “When?”

  He shrugged. “Anytime now.”

  She stood. “I need to leave.”

  He felt bad. She looked like a lost child. “Maybe next week.”

  The corner of her mouth hinted at a smile. “Soon?” She stepped to the edge of the gazebo. “My real father is being released from prison.”

  “Perhaps he knows about cars.”

  “I wouldn’t ask that man for anything. He scares me.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  She shook her head. “I just wanted you to know. So if I seem, well, distracted at work. . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s very jealous of my friendships.” She turned and stepped down into the backyard. “Especially men who pay attention to me. We may have to keep our relationship quiet.”

  She walked away before he could reply.

  “Ami!” he called.

  She waved her hand above her head as she headed across the yard. “See you Monday.”

  Claire found him sitting in the backyard gazebo. Thanks to her mobile phone, she’d already unloaded the newest twist in her professional life. He had listened and promised to pray. With that out of the way, she could run straight for the hug she needed.

  He lifted his arms at her approach. “Hi, baby.”

  She met his lips with hers and laid her head on his shoulder, wanting nothing more than to run away with John to some exotic land, somewhere with white sand and warm breezes and no hint of life’s pain.

  Taking a deep breath, she felt the tension of the week begin to melt away. She stretched out on the bench with her head in his lap and closed her eyes. He stroked her face as the minutes passed in blissful silence.

  “I do have some good news,” she said, sitting up. “Margo called me this morning.” She paused. “Well, it’s good and bad news.”

  He smiled. “Of course. Bad news first.”

  “Okay. Someone mowed her yard.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Like yours?”

  She nodded. “Just like Mom’s. John, it has to be Tyler. He’s just trying to freak us out.”

  “Is it working?”

  She frowned. “I guess. Mom has agreed to put in an alarm system. And Deputy Jensen promised that the sheriff’s department is doing everything they can. They’ve put a patrol at our house every night.”

  He nodded. “So what’s the good news?”

  She felt her heart quicken. “With all the pressure, Margo is starting to ask questions about faith.”

  “That’s awesome.” He leaned forward. “Why now?”

  “You mean, finally?” She shrugged. “She’s been chasing happiness for a long time, John. And she’s tasted a little with her gorgeous home, her husband, and her daughters, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “She told me everything is falling apart. Kyle can’t seem to forgive himself for his affair. Their finances are shaky. Kyle has started bringing up hurt from long, long ago. She thinks he’s depressed. He’s started joking about Daddy dying so they can get some inheritance.”

  He nodded. “He was irritable at the reunion.”

  She smiled. “But in the midst of this, Margo sounded as peaceful as ever. She’s finally given up the idea that she needs to control her own happiness,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder.

  They were quiet for a moment before John turned his face to hers, letting their lips brush. Then he kissed again, harder, more deliberate, and she felt a longing begin to stir. She lifted her chin as he dropped his mouth to her neck, caressing, searching.

  A fleeting memory danced across her mind, shutting down desire. Someone groping her in the darkness. Tyler? Was this a flashback from his attempted rape? Or something darker from her past, something long buried, a night she’d pushed away unable to sort or categorize? Was this a hint into a night of alcohol-related oblivion?

  She pushed John away, her breath quick and short.

  “Claire,” he said. “I just want to kiss. I won’t go farther.”

  “It’s not that.”

  His eyes widened. “You’re afraid. I see it in your face.”

  She looked away.

  “Claire, what is it?”

  She shook her head, willing the thoughts away. “Nothing.”

  “Claire.”

  “Old memories. Someone touching me who wasn’t welcome.”

  John lifted his arm from around her shoulder and placed it in his lap. She read the disappointment on his face.

  “John, I’m sorry.”

  He took a deep breath. “Me too.”

  “Don’t be angry.”

  “I’m not.” He struggled for the right word. “Frustrated,” he said. “I want you to move on.”

  “Me too.”

  His eyes bore in on hers. “Before the wedding.” He reached for her hand. “How’s the counseling?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. I get mixed up. Joanne wants me to rehash my relationship with my father. She wants me to confront the past, confront my father about what may have happened.” She shook her head. “Wally wouldn’t remember what he did in an alcoholic haze.”

  “You’re sure he touched you?”

  She looked at the ground and nodded. “I remember enough.”

  “Claire, do what the counselor wants. Confront the past. I want you to do whatever it takes to heal.”

  “She’s talking about a ‘mock confrontation,’ ” she said, framing the last two words in finger quotation marks. “It all seems so silly.” Claire looked back at John. “I don’t really jibe with my counselor. It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Digging through past hurts can’t feel good, honey.”

  “That’s exactly what Dr. Jenkins said. He seems to have a lot of faith in this counselor. She’s helped him with patients in the past.”

  John took her hand in hers. “Then do what she wants, Claire. So we can move forward. Together.”

  She kissed him again, pressing herself against him one more time.

  This time, he pulled away, looking down and reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt. He wore an expression of surprise as he pulled out a little piece of jewelry. She watched as he opened his hand to inspect a pearl earring.

  She smiled. “For me?”

  He closed his fist around it. “N – no. It isn’t yours.” He turned his face away, suddenly sober. “It must be Ami’s.” His hand touched his mouth as if to keep back the soft words which escaped his lips.

  The first hint of alarm rose within her. “Ami? Who’s this Ami?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody. My secretary. She stopped by before you came over. She wanted advice on a car she wants to buy.”

  John rolled the pearl around in his hand before shoving it into his pants pocket. With his face tensed, he looked like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “Talk to me, John. What was her earring doing in your pocket?”

  He feigned nonchalance. “It must have dropped into my pocket,” he said, as redness touched his cheeks. “She hugged me, Claire. She’s like that. You know, expressive.”

  Her eyes traveled over his collar. She leaned forward and touched his cheek with her hands. There, at the jawline, she smeared away a pink smudge.

  He pulled away. “What?”

  She inspected the greasy gloss between her fingers. “Expressive? She kissed you?”

  He backpedaled. “A greeting, Claire.” He hesitated. “It was nothing.” His eyes met hers. She was not about to break away.

  “Claire,” he pleaded. “I told her she shouldn’t have kissed me. Honest.” He sighed. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about her. She’s a flirt. She comes on to me at the office. I’m not responding to her, Claire, but she doesn’t get the message.”

  She felt her jaw tighten. “Tell me her name.”

  “Ami.”

>   She spoke through her teeth. “Her full name.”

  “Ami Grandle.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Claire gasped as if she’d been punched. “No.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No,” she repeated, standing to pace in the little gazebo.

  After two laps, she looked down at John, his brow furrowed, his mouth agape. “You don’t know, do you?” she said.

  He opened his hands. “What?”

  “Ami Grandle is the daughter of Richard Childress. She’s the one who reported me to the state board.”

  “No way.”

  Her eyes bore in on John, still seated on the white bench. “How well do you know this girl?”

  He shrugged. “She seems nice enough. I mean, probably not very well. I just see her at work. Well, I did see her at a ballgame once, but that was the team from work and, well, once at a restaurant, but that was with guys from work too.”

  “Slow down, Cerelli. You’re not on trial here.” She stopped pacing and put her hands on her hips, standing over him. “What’s with the blushing? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He looked up, shifting in his seat. After a moment he began. “Look, Claire, it’s not like — ” He halted and then began again. “She’s just — ” He paused again. “I would have told you if there was anything — ” He shook his head and sighed.

  “Spit it out, Cerelli.”

  He looked at his hands. “She has a crush on me, Claire. I’ve told her I’m engaged. I haven’t encouraged her. Honest.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’ve started to a dozen times. But the conversation always turns to something else, some new catastrophe,” he said, waving his hands in the air. He shrugged. “I didn’t want you to worry. You have enough to worry about.”

  Claire’s stance was frozen, her hands on her hips. She thought back to a call John received that day at her office. “Does she call you?”

  He shrugged. “She’s my secretary, Claire. Business.”

  “At home?”

  He winced. His silence was answer enough.

  “E-mail?”

  He looked down, shaking his head. “How do you know these things?”

  “I’m a woman, John. This is how the relationship game is played in modern times. You like someone; you send e-mails. It’s innocent enough. Not as threatening as face-to-face.”

  “Ami’s the one who accused you of euthanizing her stepfather?”

  Claire nodded. “Answer the e-mail question, John.”

  “She e-mails me.” He took a deep breath. “Pretty much every day.”

  “How often?”

  He winced again. “Three or four times. Maybe six.”

  “Every day?”

  He nodded silently.

  “She thinks you like her.”

  “I haven’t tried to make her think that.”

  “But she believes it.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s stalking you, John. You need to fire her.”

  John straightened. “Fire her?”

  “I’m not kidding, John.” She bit her lip, knowing she couldn’t reveal anything from Ami’s office chart. “I can’t say any more.”

  “I’ll talk to her. I’ll make boundaries.”

  “You’ll fire her, John.”

  Their eyes locked. “That will be hard.”

  “You said she’s your secretary.”

  “She’s an assistant to the whole sales force.”

  Claire sat down again. “I don’t like this. This girl works for you. In fact, she has a crush on you.” Claire tapped her fingers against the bench. “Maybe this is exactly why she is trying to make my life miserable. I represent the competition.”

  “Are you jealous?”

  “Maybe.” She looked away. “She’s stalking you. This is classic, John.”

  “Stalking me?” He shook his head. “It’s just a crush. She’s young.”

  “Does she think you like her?”

  “She might think it, but it’s not true.”

  “She’s an erotomanic stalker.”

  “And you have the expertise and detachment to make such a judgment without meeting her?”

  “I read about this after my encounter with Brett Daniels. Remember him?”

  “Of course.”

  “He didn’t fit the definition, but it sounds as if this Ami might. She stalks a person, whom she thinks returns all of her love. She e-mails, she watches. She dreams. It can be with a coworker, maybe someone else who has rejected her in some way.” She didn’t mention it, but she remembered a link between psychopathology such as schizophrenia and stalking behavior.

  He nodded. “Sounds like Ami. I’ll talk to the team about letting her go.” He held out his hand toward her. “I’m sorry, Claire.”

  She stepped back, shaking her head. “It’s not you, John. If I were her, I’d have a crush on you too.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad. I’m — ” She looked at her hands and closed her fist to disguise her trembling fingers. She sank to the bench. “I’m just tired, John.”

  She sat quietly feeling the weight of his eyes.

  “Talk to me,” he whispered. “I love you.”

  She felt her throat tighten. “What else can go wrong?” She sniffed. “I give up my dream of surgery to devote time to my father, hoping to recapture a meaningful relationship. Just when I think I’ve begun to understand him, to understand how HD may have been affecting him all those years — ” She halted, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “I was on the verge of really coming to grips with forgiveness when I began to remember . . . abuse.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “But I cope, John. You know how?” She searched his eyes. “I bury myself in helping everyone else.” She hesitated. “Or I focus on you and our future together.”

  “Those are good things, Claire.”

  “That’s not the point. I’m not bragging. The point is that everything I’m tempted to define my life by seems to be taken from me. Or at least tested to see what I’m trusting.”

  He slid closer and placed his arm around her shoulders.

  “First it was my career in surgery. So I adapt, take a job here in family medicine. But now, thanks to this Ami, even that is threatened.”

  “Her accusation is groundless. You said yourself that the police investigation is unlikely to get past an interview with her mother.”

  “That doesn’t matter. If this gets to the public, it’s the perception that can ruin a medical practice.” She reached up and ran her finger along the line of his jaw. But even as she delighted in her love for him, an anxiety bubbled up from within her soul. “I think I can take it if God chooses to take medicine from me.” She paused. “But I’m not sure I can handle losing you again.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Claire.”

  She closed her eyes, willing back the tears. She wanted to believe that John would be the solid rock in the stream of her turmoil. But she knew that forces were in play to erode the edges of her reliance upon him. Memories of childhood abuse threatened to surface each time she surrendered to his touch. And now this Ami had insinuated herself into his life. Young, full of vigor enough to e-mail, call, and even kiss the one that Claire loved.

  She laid her head against his shoulder. She wanted to wrap herself in the comfort of his reassurance and rest. He says he doesn’t return her affection. So why does he blush at the mention of her name?

  On Sunday morning, Margo nudged the shoulder of her husband’s sleeping form. At least he was pretending to be sleeping. It was nine o’clock and past time of rising and shining if they were going to make it to church on time.

  “Come on. Get up. We’re going to be late.”

  Kyle groaned. “Go without me.”

  Margo sighed. “You promised.”

  He rolled over to face her. “I can’t.”

  “The girls are all
ready. They want you to go.”

  He rubbed his unshaven chin and shook his head. “I tried, Margo. I just feel like a hypocrite if I go.”

  “You won’t be alone.”

  He stared at her, unmoving.

  “Maybe you should just do it for me.”

  A blank stare.

  “Or your girls.”

  He yawned. “I’m going into work. I’ve got to get our ledger to the accountant tomorrow.”

  “Fine.” She said the word with sarcasm. It wasn’t fine. It was far from fine.

  She stood and stomped her way to the doorway before turning again. “Is that the mistress I’m competing with now?”

  He threw up his hands. “Mistress?”

  “Your work. Is it stealing you away from me?”

  He rolled his eyes. “If I get this done this morning, I can spend a little time with you and the girls this afternoon.”

  “Or you could spend time with us in church this morning and work this afternoon.”

  He tossed back the sheets and stood up. “I said I’m not going.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Afraid? I’m not afraid.” He plodded toward the bathroom. “Unless I’m afraid of being a fake. That cheery gospel message may be good for you, but it’s a little too good to be true for me.”

  He shut the door to the bathroom, leaving her alone. She stood listening to the sound of his electric razor, and then water splashing against the sink. Brushing a tear from the corner of her eye, she turned to round up her daughters.

  First thing Monday morning, John walked into Carol Dawson’s office, brushing past Ami, who exited with an armload of files. Puzzled at Carol’s sober expression, he shut the door. “I’ve got a problem.”

  Carol lifted her hand toward a chair. “Morning, John.”

  John sat and took a deep breath. “I’m having some trouble with Ami.”

  Carol pushed a strand of gray hair behind her ear. “Trouble?”

  “She keeps coming on to me. Flirting. Not respecting professional boundaries. She e-mails me constantly, even stops by my house.”

  He watched as Carol’s demeanor shifted. “She’s coming on to you?” The inflection of her voice reflected her disbelief.