“Mick, was there ever a time during our marriage that you were happy?” He watched her eyes.
“Yes,” she answered. “Before the kids started coming, I was happy. Then for a short time after Erica was born. I think it must have been at that point that the fear took hold. I remember feeding her as a baby and you sitting there watching the two of us. You loved us so much, and I felt the same. I loved you and Erica with all my heart.”
“What changed, what made you stop loving me, loving our family?”
“I never stopped loving you, Larry. As for the kids, I think I was just too afraid of losing them to allow myself to fully love them.”
“But you were a perfect mother.”
“Never perfect. I played a part to perfection. There’s a difference.”
Larry sucked down on his top lip. Where had he been all these years? How could all this have gone on without his noticing it?
“I still don’t get it, Mick. Why now? Why this year?”
“Because I got tired of you telling me that I was happy when I wasn’t. And the thought that you were going to force me to take care of our grandchildren for the rest of my life…I couldn’t handle it.”
She stopped and looked at Larry and he gazed back at his wife, knowing whatever she was about to say was the real reason for her leaving.
“There was the promise.” Larry nodded for her to continue. “You made me promise to love you always, to never leave you. I knew why it was so important to you, so I did it. I respected you.”
“But?” Larry supplied.
“But you didn’t give me the same respect. When I gave my promise to an old woman, you ignored it as though it was nothing. I thought you were such a hypocrite.”
Larry cringed. Michelle was right. He’d never looked at it from her point of view before. “I’m sorry, Mick. I just wanted to protect you.”
He watched as she licked her lips then flicked her hands across her face to wipe away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.
“You never objected before when I made the decisions.”
“They never involved me going back on my word before.”
He looked at her thinking of all the fights over the past months, almost a year now.
“If I’d agreed to allow you to see Viola, none of this would have happened?” He waited while a strange look spread across the face of his wife.
“Eventually it would have happened anyway. That’s one of the problems, Larry. We both thought you had a right to give me permission.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Mick. You’re twisting my words.”
He had an urge to tell her she was mistaken, that the way she told the story was not the way it had happened at all. Something in her eyes stopped him. She had a questioning look on her face.
“Can I ask you something, Larry?”
He looked at her suspiciously. He felt a lurch in his heart. He knew she was going to ask about the one taboo they had--his mother.
“Do you remember your mother? I mean, really remember her? How she looked, how she smelled, if she ever hugged you? Do you remember anything?”
He attempted to look away from her, but this time it was Mick who pulled his face back to her. “Mick, why are we talking about this?”
“Because this is the first time I’ve felt you were capable of doing it, of listening without telling me you didn’t want to talk about it.
“You need to face this, Larry. What happened when you were a child has had a huge impact on our family. We both have pasts, and we both came to our marriage with baggage. It’s time for us to let it go.”
“I don’t want to talk about her, Mick. What is there to say? She abandoned me.”
“Did you ever think that maybe she had no choice?”
That surprised Larry. Mick had always hated his mother for what she’d done. Now it sounded as if she was defending her.
“Mick, how can you say that?”
“Because it just occurred to me that I may not be so different from her.”
Larry pulled away, not wanting to hear anymore. “That’s a lie. You were never anything like my mother.
“That’s just the point. We don’t know what she was like. Maybe she was some young girl with no money, no family, and no way to provide for you. Maybe she was doing the best she could.”
For a long moment he glared at her. Was Mick determined to hurt him to the quick? Her fingers caressed his cheeks and she smiled softly at him, making him catch his breath.
“I want you to stop hurting,” she said.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I’ll help you. If there’s one good memory that you have, maybe you can hold onto that. Maybe that will take some of the pain away.”
“Mick, I was five-years-old. How am I supposed to go back and recall all of this? All I can remember is me crying, begging her, telling her that I would be good. And still she left. She didn’t even look back to wave. That’s what I remember, Mick.”
“Have you ever thought, Larry, that maybe she didn’t look back because she couldn’t? Maybe she loved you so much that it was killing her to give you up.
“I don’t know.” Mick continued. “Maybe she was just an awful woman whom we’ve both wasted too much of our lives and our energy on hating. I just think it’s time to let it go, maybe get some help.”
He frowned. She was talking counseling again. Well, he’d started and as far as he could tell, it wasn’t having the least effect.
He saw the familiar flash of light in her eyes that told him she had an idea he wasn’t going to like. Then he knew. She wanted him to talk to Blaine MaDia. Hell no!
She stared at him and he sat mute. He couldn’t do what she asked. He didn’t have any happy memories with which to replace the one that was burned into his heart, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to give some psychic license to poke around in his head.
“Let’s change the subject…just for now. Okay?” he added gently. He watched as she bit down on her lip and knew that he wouldn’t like her next question any more than he had her last one.
“That’s fine.” Mick answered him. She paused for a fraction of a second. “Larry, don’t you ever find Erica’s behavior rude and condescending? Don’t you ever mind that she treats us both like her personal servants?”
He looked at Mick and found himself speaking words he thought he’d never say. “Perhaps I tolerate Erica’s shenanigans just a tiny bit more because she looks so much like you. And her birth made us a family. I love her, I love all the kids. I’m their father.”
“I didn’t ask if you love Erica or any of the kids. That goes without question. I just want to know…can’t you see how she behaves? Are you blind to that?”
Mick was looking at him once again with pity. He didn’t like it. Why should he be on trial here for being a good father?
“No, I’m not blind,” he answered. “And yes, sometimes her attitude does annoy me.”
“Thank God.”
Larry blinked twice. His wife had a huge smile pasted on her face while he felt like crap for admitting that his daughter’s behavior annoyed him. He was speechless.
“Then why do you let her and the others get away with so much? When I’ve asked for your help in saying no, in setting rules, why did you always say for me to let it go?”
“Because…Mick…because…”
“Because what?”
“Because I made a promise to each of the kids that I would never abandon them, never let them down. I promised I would be there for them always.”
“You’ve kept your promise, Larry.”
“That’s just it, Mick, I don’t know if I have. I’ve wanted to say no, but I couldn’t. The only time I’ve ever not wanted them around was the night you left me.”
She reached for his hand, holding it tightly in hers. “I never wanted you to make a choice between me and the children. I just didn’t want to come in sixth all of the time.”
Larry though
t for a minute. “Can you tell me then why all the animosity between you and Erica?”
“Think about it, Larry. She’s spoiled, they all are, but Erica thinks it’s her right to use us. She drops her kids off on us whenever she chooses. She allows them to destroy our home, our possessions.”
She moaned then and he knew she was remembering her broken figurine. He couldn’t stop the inward wince of pain. He remembered also. In fact, he would never forget.
Mick was eyeing him strangely. “Doesn’t it ever upset you that Erica borrows thousands of dollars from us on a whim and never pays it back?”
“That’s what parents are for.” His voice was low. He wasn’t so sure anymore. “I just thought you were…you know…a little…”
“I know,” Mick answered him. “You thought I was jealous.”
“Were you?”
“It may have seemed like that, but after Erica was born, I began to feel like this giant uterus that had no other function. You had your mystical perfect family. You all knew your roles. I didn’t fit. And part of the reason I didn’t fit was nothing you could have helped. I carried a grief constantly inside of me and I mourned the loss of my son from my dreams. Only I couldn’t really express that grief not even with you. Whenever I tried to tell you about my son you wanted me to be quiet, you told me always that Derrick was my only son, that he was well. Until I met Blaine I had no proof that you weren’t right, that I wasn’t perhaps a little bit crazy. But it didn’t matter, I still felt the grief, and that you couldn’t have helped me with.”
I closed my eyes feeling the need to swallow before continuing. “That wasn’t your fault. I just didn’t know how to live, how to be happy not knowing what happened to the family in my dreams. And I had no one to talk to about this. I loved you so much, Larry, and sometimes I thought all you wanted me for was to be a mother to our kids.”
Larry swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the loud beeping of the monitor. From what Mick and the doctor had said he didn’t need the damn thing anyway. He gathered his wife in his arms, pulling her close to him.
“You were never that to me, Mick. I loved you so much that I guess I just forgot to tell you as much as I should have. I always thought you knew.”
She was holding him, her words spoken between broken sobs. “I really wasn’t jealous, Larry, at least I don’t think so, but some time alone would have been nice. We haven’t gone any place alone in the last twenty years. The vacations were always with the kids. Now that they’re gone our only vacations have been to see the kids.”
“I thought you enjoyed it.”
“I told you I didn’t.”
For the first time since they’d started talking a memory brought him up short. He remembered her begging him to go away, just the two of them.
He could hear her voice saying she didn’t want to visit the kids. He had never thought of that when she began making excuses, not going, doing anything else. He wondered if she had been with Chance during those times.
“Mick,” he spoke into her hair. “Are you telling me the truth about Dr. Morgan? Did this only begin a few months ago?”
“Yes,” she whispered into his ear.
“You didn’t really meet him in a parking lot, did you?”
“I did.”
“You must have really been hurting.”
Before she could answer the door burst open and Erica all but ran into the room. Larry watched as his daughter glared at her mother. Mick pulled back to allow Erica to embrace him. He wanted nothing more than to continue holding Mick in his arms.
By the look of things, that wasn’t going to happen. The room became abuzz with people, nurses, and doctors. He had no idea why they were even there.
Apparently they all wanted to see him, the freak, the miracle patient. The man whose body had had a heart attack with no evidence it had ever happened.
He glanced over Erica’s head toward the door where Mick waited, seemingly pushed farther back into the corner as one after the other of their children arrived.
He noticed that all but Derrick hugged Mick timidly. Derrick was the only one who held his mother as if he meant it. The others looked at the glare on Erica’s face and backed away.
For the first time since marrying Mick, Larry asked God for something. For twenty-six years he’d begun his day giving thanks and ended his nights the same way. Now he prayed for a way to make it up to his wife.
Outside the room and down the hall, Blaine and Chance kept vigil. Chance was not leaving until the oncoming cardiologist arrived. No one would be able to blast him out.
Chapter Nineteen
Larry’s eyes narrowed as he zeroed in on Mick. She seemed to be shrinking into the background. He blinked before looking away from his children. Something was wrong.
He felt a coldness gripping his heart. How had the woman who was at the very center of his life been relegated to the outer fringes?
He smiled at her, hoping to convey that he was now aware of what was happening. He watched his wife’s face. She tilted her head a slight bit toward their children, and slowly a tiny smile appeared at the corners of her lips.
Erica’s frowning face caught his eyes as she turned toward the back of the room to glare at her mother. He watched in silence as she shifted position to block Mick from his view.
His mouth fell open. He stared at his eldest, his firstborn, the child who had made them a family. Larry cringed inwardly. This was the child who looked so much like Mick that he had literally imbued her with Mick’s generous, loving spirit.
How in hell had he missed it? His daughter was nothing like his wife. His gaze fell on his other children. None of them were anything like Mick. If he had to hazard a guess, Derrick came closest.
He stared at his son for a long moment. He too played the role of peacemaker. He wondered if his son was happy in his marriage or unhappy the way his mother had been.
Larry closed his eyes as shiver after shiver overtook him. He almost wished for the squeezing pain he’d had around his heart. That would have been preferable to knowing he’d played a part in his wife’s misery.
She was right. He’d been blinded by love, rendered sightless, unable to see what was happening in his family, loving them all so much, that in his eyes they could do no wrong. Oh God, what had he done?
“Dad, are you sleeping? I’m talking to you.”
He heard the harsh tone of Erica’s voice and felt her hand tugging on his arm. He opened his eyes slowly. “Mick,” he called to his wife, feeling Erica’s glare hit him with the force of an atomic bomb.
His eyes settled on his wife a moment before all hell broke loose.
“Why is she here anyway?”
Larry watched in disbelief as Erica rose from the side of the bed to stop Mick’s approach toward him.
“It’s your fault, Mother, that my father’s in here. You’ve put way too much stress on him.”
Larry looked from Mick to Erica. Did his daughter really think her mother was the source of stress now?
He watched as Mick came toward him, reaching Erica and gently but firmly pushing her aside to stand at Larry’s side.
“You don’t belong here, Mother.”
“I have every right—” Mick started to say.
Larry gave her hand a quick squeeze. “I’ve got it this time.”
One by one, he began pulling away the sticky round disks on his chest, ignoring the cardiac monitor going crazy, ignoring the nurses telling him to lie still. He ordered them out of the room, reminding them he was the miracle patient, that he’d not really had a heart attack.
Larry stood and went straight to his eldest child, the one he’d showered with so much love he’d become blind to her rudeness.
“Don’t you dare ever talk to your mother like that again.” He lifted his daughter’s face so her eyes were glaring into his.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Erica screamed at him.
“She’s my wife.”
“She left
you, Dad. Did you forget that? She had an affair. Why would you want her here?”
“Because I love her, Erica, and she’s my wife.” Larry’s voice softened as he reached out to touch his daughter’s cheek. “When did you turn into this nasty, disrespectful shrew? I always thought because you looked so much like your mother, that you had her sweetness.”
He shook his head in sadness. “You’re nothing like your mother.”
“I don’t want to be,” she retorted.
“That’s too bad. It’s too bad for you, the kids, and for Roy. You’re cruel, Erica,” he said at last, an awareness suddenly filling him. “You’re cruel and you’re selfish.”
“If I was selfish, I wouldn’t be here now,” she answered haughtily.
Larry looked toward Mick. “Who paid for your ticket, your mother?”
“Why shouldn’t she? It’s her fault. If you’d rather she stay, then I can just go home.”
“I suggest you do just that. Go home to the kids and Roy, and pray that he loves you one tenth as much as your mother loves me.”
“You’re a fool, Dad. If she loved you, she wouldn’t have slept around.”
Larry could feel his blood began to boil, so he backed away from his daughter.
“First, that’s none of your business. I’m married to your mother, not you. Second, I don’t blame her. If it had been me, I would have tossed me out on my ass years ago for subjecting her to this kind of behavior.”
THE AFFAIR Page 30