He closed his eyes, sending mental commandments to his heart to slow its pace. He listened to the sounds of Mick moving around. He heard her going down the stairs to the basement for luggage.
He thought about it being high on the shelf and her not being able to reach it. He almost got up to go to her, to get the luggage down. But that was too damn civilized. Besides, he was nauseous. He had to sit to let it pass.
It seemed to take forever for Mick to pack. And at the same time, it seemed as if she did it in the blink of an eye. It was over. It was really over. How the hell would he ever be able to say goodbye to her?
Larry watched as Mick struggled with the two large pieces of luggage and her bag she kept her samples in. To not help her now would be just plain mean. His heart had finally slowed down. The pain had receded to the feel of only a very heavy adult male sitting on his chest instead of an elephant. He thought he would be able to handle lifting the bags for her.
Without a word, he took the bags from her hands and carried them to her car. He placed them in, turning back to face her with the key to her trunk outstretched in his hand.
She took it from him, her fingertips brushing his, melting away his resolve, his brave front. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from crushing her in his arms. He held onto her for the longest time.
“Oh God, I love you, Mick. I don’t know how to say goodbye to you.”
“Then don’t say good-bye, Larry.”
“Just let me hold you a little longer.”
He resisted the temptation to kiss her. He felt the trembling in her body and knew it wouldn’t take much to change her mind. She would stay if he pressed the commitment. He no longer wanted to use that. Maybe he’d heard her after all.
At last he pulled away. “Take care of yourself, Mick. Remember that I love you. I always have and I always will.”
“I love you too, Larry.”
“Just not enough,” he murmured as he let her go. She was crying and she stopped the car three times to look back at him.
He never would have believed it, but he wished she would just do like his mother had done when she abandoned him. Just leave and never look back. Every time Mick got out of the car, she killed him just a little more.
We were being so polite about everything, about my leaving. Larry took the luggage from my hands, helping me as he always had.
From the first moment Larry had told me he loved me, he’d been there to do things for me, maybe even before that. I looked into his reddened eyes and wondered why I was leaving my husband for loving me too much, for trying to protect me? I had a mouth, I should have spoken up sooner, told him what I wanted. I hadn’t and now here we were. There was no turning back.
Larry held me in his arms. I could feel the heavy pounding of his heart, his ragged breath, his clammy skin. I wanted to hold onto him forever, never leave him, never say another mean word to him again. I wanted to be for him the Michelle I’d promised to be, but I was no longer her.
I caressed my husband’s back and face, kissing his stubble cheeks, breathing in the smell of his aftershave, ingraining the prickly feeling of the coarse hair on his chin.
This man was a part of me, a part of my life. What would I do without him? I pulled away, finally aware that to stay with him would do us both more harm than good. Now we loved each other. We had that.
If I stayed, our love would eventually turn to hate and despair. I didn’t want that. I knew without Larry asking me that he wanted me to stay. I also knew it would kill him for our love to turn completely sour.
As I pulled away from Larry, my heart was breaking for both of us. I knew he thought it was easy for me, that this was what I wanted all along.
I knew he hadn’t believed me when I said I wasn’t leaving him for Chance. I had not spoken to Chance other than to tell him about my seeing Blaine. I had not seen him once since Larry’s return from Arizona. He had no idea I was making this move. This was done on my own and for me.
Easy to leave my husband of twenty-six years, my comfort zone, easy to break another promise? No. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
As it was, I could barely make myself drive away from him, from our home, from our life. I stopped twice maybe three times, I wasn’t sure.
Anyway, each time I stopped, I got out of the car and looked at my husband standing there, pretending that it was alright, that he wasn’t hurting.
The last time I got out of the car, the realization hit me like shock waves rolling through my body. I didn’t want to leave my husband.
As much as I thought I wanted this, needed it in order to save my very life, I didn’t want to leave. I could feel the tears beginning again as Larry and I stared long and hard into each other’s eyes. As much as I didn’t want to leave I knew I had to for both our sakes.
When I was probably two blocks from my home, I pulled the car over to the curb and bawled like a baby. I don’t know how long I stayed there. I was paralyzed by the pain I’d caused Larry and myself.
I was free, free to do whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to hide or pretend, yet I felt more bound to Larry in that moment than I ever had. I didn’t want the last thing we would share to be pain, but I had made the decision.
I drove to the same hotel I’d first gone to with Chance months before. I had a little over a hundred dollars and a couple of charge cards. I hadn’t made concrete plans for my life. I hadn’t thought about the financial aspects.
I thought of Larry. He hadn’t written a check in years. I knew he wasn’t stupid. He was a lawyer, for God’s sake! Still, I worried about him.
I checked in, remembering the pasty look on Larry’s face. I worried about him, his health. I couldn’t stop that. Regardless of my need to leave, Larry was a part of me. If no one but me believed it, it didn’t make it any less true. I loved him.
I picked the phone up several times to call my husband, to tell him I was sorry, to tell him I was coming home, to ask him to join me.
I did none of those things. I stripped all of my clothes off and climbed naked into the bed under the covers. Then I cried myself to sleep.
Larry stood outside for several minutes after Michelle drove away. He walked to the curb and saw her when she pulled over. He stood watching her, wondering what she was doing, wanting to run all the way to her car to make sure she was fine, to beg her not to leave.
When the urge to do so became so strong that he’d taken a step toward her, he felt the burning pain once again flaring up in his chest, constricting his diaphragm, making his breathing difficult.
He took a half step forward toward Mick before stopping himself and turning back toward his now empty home and broken dreams. He had to let her go. He had to let it be over.
Utter despair weighed heavily on his shoulders, washing over him in waves, sapping away the little remaining strength he had left. He walked slowly up the drive, into the house, first to Erica’s old room that Mick had taken as her own for the past months.
He took the pillows from the bed, and then he walked up the stairs to his bedroom. He stripped away his clothes and climbed naked beneath the covers. He clutched Mick’s pillows to him. Breathing in her scent, he prayed for death.
Chapter Fourteen
I woke feeling slightly disoriented. Then I remembered. I was not in my bed, not in my home. I was alone in a hotel room a few miles from my house. My marriage was over.
I lay there in bed looking around the room. I had what I wanted, what I had at last demanded. I was free to start my life over again. I felt like hell.
I couldn’t resist knowing if Larry was okay. I dialed the number to my home. It’s not your home any more, Michelle. The words came to me on a gentle breeze from somewhere in the room. I shivered and pulled the covers up around my neck.
The revelation filled me with terror. This was no longer my home I was calling. I wondered which of my children would answer the phone, what I would say to them. I waited with bated breath for someone to answer. I
heard Larry’s voice and let out the moan I hadn’t known I was holding.
“Leave me alone, Erica, I’m fine.”
He hung up. He was hurting, that I had expected, but he was alone. That came as a shock to me. I’d expected all the kids to be hovering around Larry, trying to insulate him from the pain.
It sounded as if he didn’t want them there. That was strange. It had never happened before. Even when I begged Larry to go on a second honeymoon to Hawaii, he had gone behind my back and changed the plans, telling my mother after I’d had to beg her to keep the kids, that it wouldn’t be necessary, that we were taking them with us.
I thought about how happy he’d been on that trip, how happy the kids were. No one had noticed that I spent half the time alone in the room eating and watching television.
I swallowed, wanting to forget, not wanting to place the blame any longer for my unhappiness on Larry or the children.
I thought about all of them. Erica, my eldest and the hardest for me to get along with. It wasn’t her fault that she was a spoiled, obnoxious brat. We were her parents. It had been our job to teach her. Larry had adored her while I ignored her and her behavior.
I thought about the client calls I needed to make. I didn’t want to but I no longer had the luxury of not going in when I didn’t want to. I needed to get my finances in order. I needed to work.
I forced myself to shower, skipping breakfast, but ordering a strong pot of black coffee. I knew I was going to need the caffeine to get me through the morning. I dumped the nearly melted ice from the ice bucket, placed it in a towel and put it over my swollen eyes.
At two P.M. I was parking my car in the Brookfield Zoo parking lot. I had planned on getting there earlier, to be at the gate waiting for Blaine. I didn’t want to have him worrying that I might not show.
Blaine was waiting inside the gate for me. I forced a smile to my lips and marched toward him. He deserved one day not to worry about other people and their problems.
“Hi.”
I kissed him quickly on the cheek, no longer afraid of the visions I saw when I touched him, but not wanting one now.
“Hi,” he answered.
I stopped for a moment, taken aback by the unaccustomed shyness from Blaine. He was definitely uncomfortable. The light-hearted banter that generally existed between us was missing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he smiled at me, “but I know what’s wrong. You left your husband.” He cast his eyes downward. “Listen, I know how hard this has to be for you. We can leave, do this another time.”
“Please believe me, Blaine. There is nowhere in the world I would rather be than here with you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I want this day to be for you. I want to do whatever it is that you dreamed of doing when you were a little boy and wishing for a mother.”
He laughed. “Michelle, you do know I’m thirty-two? You’re looking at me as if you want to diaper me and maybe burp me.”
“You remind me of someone I used to know. You’re an expert at changing the topic when the conversation gets serious.”
“I remind you of yourself, don’t I?”
I reached for his hand and held it, laughing, glad for once that the only thing I felt was the warmth of his skin.
“You do so much worrying about other people you have no idea of how to just relax and not try to take care of people. Believe me, Blaine, you can’t fix my problems. I know. My husband tried to do it. Only I can take care of them.”
“Is that why you left him, because he wanted to take care of you, or is there some other reason?”
“You think I left because of Chance, don’t you?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Are you so sure that you didn’t? I know how much you love him.”
“I never said I didn’t love him. I said I didn’t leave my husband for Chance.”
“No, that wasn’t exactly what you said. You said you didn’t leave because of Chance. There is a difference.”
We were heading toward the monkey cage. I stopped without warning, almost causing a group of school children probably there on a field trip to collide with me. Blaine pulled me to the side and over to a bench.
“Blaine, didn’t you hear me? I said I didn’t want to talk about this.”
I huffed and attempted a frown, wanting to make him believe I was annoyed. The problem was that Blaine didn’t annoy me. I realized that there might be some truth in what he’d said.
“Michelle, just a couple of questions and I’ll let it go. Why are you so hesitant to accept the help of a friend?”
I thought about it seriously. “Well,” I said to him. “I’ve always been the person doing the helping. I guess I just don’t know how to do it any other way.”
“How old are you, forty-one, forty-two?”
“A tad older,” I laughed. “Why?”
“I was just wondering, in all that time, no one ever helped you?”
Blaine was stubborn, I gave him that. “My husband, sometimes too much. Blaine, I want to find out about you, how you became a professional psychic, find out about your life. I don’t want to heap my problems on you.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t we compromise?” Blaine offered. “You ask me a question, then I ask you one.”
I contemplated what Blaine had in mind, not sure how he was going to do it, but sure that he was going to get more information out of me than I wanted him to have.
“Have you ever heard of astral travel?”
I shook my head and got off the bench, heading in the direction of the peanut stand. I glanced back at Blaine. He had a huge smile on his face.
“I thought you were going to ask me something else. Why that question?”
“Michelle, I can see you haven’t played this game very often. I get to ask a question and you have to answer it. You can’t ask me a question until you do.”
He was looking at me in an odd manner. He had me wondering why he had skipped to this particular subject.
“Yes, I’ve heard of it.” I stopped there. I wasn’t giving more information than he asked for. Two could play this game. “Why are you asking?”
“Very good.” He smiled at me. “I’m just curious. I want to know if you believe in it. And this, Michelle, is a two part question. Do you believe you’ve ever done it?”
“Easy,” I retorted, “no to both.”
He stopped walking to look at me. “You’re really good at shoving things to the back of your mind, aren’t you?” He caught himself and put up his hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that. That’s not my question.”
“Then what is your question?”
He tilted his head to the side, giving me an ‘it’s not your turn look.’
“Has Chance ever told you why he began the search for you?”
I should have known the talk would eventually lead to Chance. I didn’t want to talk about him, not right then. “Blaine, ask me something else.”
I shelled a peanut and popped it into my mouth, offering the bag to him.
“Why don’t you want to talk about him?”
“It seems inappropriate. I just left my husband. I shouldn’t be here discussing another man with you the day after.”
“I’m sorry.” Blaine handed the bag back to me. “I didn’t realize there were rules of conduct as to what one should talk about after separating from their spouse.”
He went and stood near the bars, looking in at the baboons. Oh, he was good, he was very good. I walked over to him, tugged on his sleeve and watched as he ignored the sign not to feed the animals and tossed several peanuts into the area, watching the baboons fight over the bounty.
“Okay, lets have this conversation and get it over with. I haven’t seen Chance in months and I’ve talked to him only once.
“In answer to your earlier question, no, he wanted to tell me why he began searchi
ng for me, but I didn’t want to hear it.” I stopped.
“Why?” Blaine asked.
“Just having the information that I did was almost more than I could handle. I couldn’t accept any more knowing. I guess Larry has rubbed off on me. I thought I was crazy to accept all of this without proof.”
Blaine was shaking his head and smiling as if he knew something that I didn’t. It was obvious he wasn’t about to volunteer the information. He forced me to ask.
“Okay, Blaine, do you know why Chance got divorced and started looking for me?”
“Yes.”
“And are you going to tell me?”
“No. That’s something I think he should tell you himself.”
Ahh, so that was his plan. He wanted as I had suspected to see me reunited with Chance, his father.
“This isn’t going to work. I’m not going to go running to Chance.”
“You don’t have to run. All you have to do is make one call and he would come running to you.”
“You know, you sound much more like a matchmaker than a psychic. It also sounds as if the two of you have been discussing me in great detail.”
I watched as Blaine forced himself to turn from the bars to peer at me. “Not as much as you might think. It seems you haven’t shared very much of yourself with either of us. Why?”
I smiled into his eyes, amazed that not long ago all I wanted was to stay as far away from him as possible. Now I found myself wanting to touch him, to remember what I wasn’t supposed to. I ran my hand down the curve of his wrist, feeling the familiar tingle. I stopped. This wasn’t a game.
THE AFFAIR Page 22