by SJD Peterson
“I can’t go back,” I said in a low voice. “I can’t let our marriage be what it was. You have to offer me more, Hugh. You have to decide you’re really going to share a life with me. You have to give me as much as I’m willing to give you. Most of all, you have to let me into your heart. I can’t accept anything less.”
Hugh was silent for a while but then said, “You make it sound like an ultimatum.”
How coldly he could speak, allowing no emotion to surface in his voice. Well, I had to be cold now too. I had to be strong. “It is an ultimatum. No compromises this time, no half measures.”
I clenched my hands even more tightly, waiting for Hugh’s answer. This was his chance to give me what I required—maybe his last chance. But would he take it?
Please, please, Hugh, be who I need.
His answer came. No words were necessary. He simply stood, remained completely still for a moment, and then walked from the dressing room. He closed the door after him, the only sound the slight click of the latch.
Left alone, just as Edgar had been alone at the end of the play. But this time my emotions didn’t belong to an imaginary character.
This time my heart was truly breaking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SOMEONE WAS pounding on my door. I pulled the pillow over my head, determined to ignore it. I was exhausted. Last night was the fourth night in a row I’d performed the role of Edgar. Staying in character, building the emotions necessary throughout the play, required far more from me than I ever imagined. Today, thank goodness, was my day off from the Common Cure. I needed to sleep. I did not need to answer that obnoxious banging at my door.
Whoever it was wouldn’t let up. A knock came, then a pause, then another knock. It was almost getting into a sort of rhythm.
Oh for Christ’s sake, I finally crawled out of bed. I pulled my robe on and stalked into the living room.
“Who is it?” I called grumpily.
“Special delivery” came a very identifiable voice from the other side of the door—the voice of Hugh Bayard—my husband.
I froze. I couldn’t possibly let him in. If I did, I’d lose the little equanimity I’d been able to achieve these past few days. It would be the worst thing I could do for myself.
“Benny, I need to talk to you.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why now?”
“Why not now?” Hugh countered.
I hesitated. Hugh was so close, just on the other side of the door. But physical proximity wasn’t what I needed from him. If I was smart, I’d leave all the bolts firmly in place. I’d go back to my solitary bed and hide under my pillow again.
“Benny,” Hugh murmured.
Why did he have to say my name like that, his voice lingering on each syllable with just a trace of huskiness?
I undid the bolts and opened the door a crack. I peered out.
Hugh stood there gazing back at me. His expression was intense, his dark hair a little rumpled as if he’d been running his hands through it. I felt myself go weak with the longing to touch him. A tingling went through me, as if only near Hugh did I truly come to life. It wasn’t fair, Hugh being here like this, disrupting my life once more. I pulled my robe tighter around me. Why, I’m not sure. A barrier perhaps? I don’t know. I wished desperately I could just shut the door again.
“What do you want, Hugh? What’s this all about?”
“You’d better let me in. I have something to tell you, Benny,” he said with determination. “Make that a lot of things.”
I hesitated another moment and then reluctantly pulled the door open wider. That was all the invitation Hugh needed. He came into my apartment, walked around the bicycle, and sat down on the couch. He still looked very intense.
“Have a seat,” he said.
Only Hugh could barge in here and tell me to have a seat as if he owned the place. Hugh fished in the back pocket of his pants and brought out a rather creased slip of paper. He opened it and glanced over it with a frown. “I have a lot to say,” he repeated. “Number one—”
“You brought a list?” I asked in disbelief.
Hugh looked disgruntled. “Yes, I have a list. It’s not every day I go spouting off at the mouth, and I could use a little help. Sort of a cheat sheet. Is that so bad?”
I was confused, battling any number of stubborn hopes. I went to sit on the far end of the couch. “I suppose I’m ready.”
Hugh rattled his list, then studied it for a long moment. “Hell,” he said, sounding disgusted. “It isn’t going to work. I’m no good at this, Benny. I came here so I could do what you’re always asking. I came here to open up. I just don’t know how to go about it.”
Those stubborn hopes of mine were growing stronger. “Maybe I could help,” I said. “Maybe you could show me the list, and we could go from there.”
“Maybe.” Hugh didn’t sound convinced, but he handed the sheet of paper to me.
I examined it carefully. Hugh’s writing was aggressive and hard to decipher. Several words had been crossed out, others jotted in. I examined it a moment longer, then glanced at him. “There’s only one problem—for the life of me, I’ve never been able to read your handwriting. Maybe if you could just… start at the beginning.”
Hugh balanced his elbows on his knees and gazed broodingly at the floor. He seemed to be thinking things over. “The beginning… I don’t know where that is. Lord, Benny, all I can think about right now is the year I turned seventeen. So long ago. It should be done with. It should be finished. I was just a boy; I’m not anymore. I’m forty now. A different person. Hell, at least I should be different.”
I listened intently. I heard the pain he was struggling so hard to stifle. Just as he was clearly trying to stifle the seventeen-year-old boy he’d once been.
I wanted to reach out to him. But some instinct warned me not to speak but to listen.
“I was seventeen,” Hugh said, his voice very low. “Everything changed that year. My mother was diagnosed with cancer. That only made the problems between my parents worse. They didn’t know how to face her illness, how to pull together against it. My father started spending more and more time away from home, flying in that old seaplane he loved. He was trying to escape, I suppose, just like I’d always tried to escape that house. Then his plane crashed.”
I had only been nine at the time of Alexander Bayard’s death, but I could still remember standing on the front lawn early one morning with my parents and great-uncles, all of them shocked because they’d just learned the news—Hugh’s father had crashed in his plane and died instantly.
Hugh stood up abruptly. He glanced toward the door as if he wanted more than anything to bolt. I had to force myself to stay seated where I was, letting him decide what he would do.
“Benny,” he said, his voice very heavy now, “I felt so damn guilty. There’d been times I’d wished both of my parents would go away, disappear somehow. Then my mother became ill, and my father died. I kept thinking that if I’d just done something differently, he’d still be alive. She wouldn’t be sick.”
Hugh’s features tensed, as if he were still struggling to keep all the pain inside. “My mother would be lying there in the house, in her sick room, and she’d call for me. She’d send the nurse away and call for me instead. Of course, I went to her, I always went. How could I not? She was my mother. She was sick. She was dying. I remember the smell of that room. Lord, Benny… all the cleaning, all the disinfecting in the world, couldn’t hide that smell. The smell of sickness, of dying. As if her soul were decaying right there before me. Her soul, not just her body.”
Hugh sat down again. He stared straight ahead, and when he spoke again, his voice was devoid of all emotion. “She wanted me to be there beside her. She wanted me to tell her about all the good times, all the wonderful times we’d had as a family. Happy memories, that was what she wanted to hear. I tried. God, I tried. But there were no happy memories. So my mother let me know the good times had happened before I came
along. She told me that she and my father had been very happy but only before me. I can still hear her voice. Plaintive. Angry, asking me why I’d come between them. Why I’d made them hate each other. Over and over, she asked me that, demanding an answer. What answer could I give her? When I couldn’t listen anymore, I’d leave. But she’d call for me again. The next day and the day after. And I’d go to her again. She was my mother. I had to go to her.”
I felt a chill deep inside. How little I had known of Hugh’s family. Images of Grace Bayard flashed before my eyes—a frail woman sinking into her illness. A delicate woman, it had seemed. Yet she had lashed out at her only son, blaming him for her suffering. Perhaps she simply hadn’t been strong enough to blame herself. How terrible to be so weak that you would turn on your own child. Hugh was right: Grace Bayard had been sick in her soul, far more than in her body.
“Day after day,” Hugh said, his voice still expressionless. “Day after day. For a year, it was like that. A year until she died. I’d never realized how many days there were in a year. All those days to wonder if it’d been my fault. Wondering if everything bad in my family somehow did revolve around my existence.”
I could no longer restrain myself. I went to him. I sat close and wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could. Hugh was motionless for a very long moment. But then he brought his own arms around me, holding me close.
“God, Benny, can you imagine what it feels like to be glad when your mother finally dies? To be relieved that she’s gone? And then to know more damn guilt because of it?”
“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s okay. You’re not to blame for anything that happened.” I was trying to comfort the seventeen-year-old boy, the boy he’d once been. Maybe that was impossible. He was a man now, maturity forged on that long-ago pain. I didn’t know how much I could help. But I went on holding him, anyway, and being held in return.
We stayed like that on the couch in my shabby little apartment for a very long while, wrapped in each other’s arms. Finally, Hugh met my gaze. His features were still tense. “I’m sorry, Benny, for what I put you through. After my mother died, it seemed I’d had enough emotion to last a hundred lifetimes. I guess I had to protect myself somehow, so I never gave you what you needed. I shut myself off. I’m still shutting myself off.”
“No, you’re not. You’re here with me now. You came to me, Hugh. Whatever happens from now on, you came to me. If you could just tell me one more thing—”
“I love you, Benny. I love you with all my heart. Do you know how much it scares me to say that?”
I closed my eyes and rested my head against his cheek. Oh, what a journey it had been. I felt as if I had traveled all my life just to hear Hugh say those words.
“What happened with your parents won’t happen with us,” I said softly. “I promise you that. You can let go with me, Hugh. You can trust me.”
Hugh lifted my chin and gazed at me fully. “To think I almost lost you.” The emotion in his statement was evident in the husky tone of his voice. “I’ve been so damn stubborn, so determined not to let down my guard. It’s not going to be easy, learning how after all this time. Will you have patience with me?”
“Yes. Oh yes, as long as you love me,” I said fervently.
“I love you, Benny. Lord, I always have. I just wouldn’t admit it. Can you forgive me for that?” His eyes were very dark.
I placed my fingers tenderly against his lips. “No more guilt, not between the two of us. I love you, Hugh. I’ve loved you all my life. And now I love you even more—”
Hugh pressed his lips to mine, demanding entrance. I happily opened up to him, giving myself over. It was a kiss of promise, of renewal.
EPILOGUE
I LAY in Hugh’s arms, warm and replete. He smoothed damp strands of hair away from my face.
“That was great,” he said. “It always is with you, Benny.”
I reached up and teasingly stroked his jaw. “We just happen to be very good in bed together. What can we do about it?”
“Just stay in practice, that’s all I can say.”
I smiled softly. “You never look away anymore.”
Hugh gave me a quizzical look. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
But maybe there wasn’t really any need for me to explain. Somehow, during this past year of our new marriage, it had happened naturally. Hugh would make love to me, and afterward I would still see all the love from Hugh’s heart showing in his eyes. Just as I was seeing it now.
Not that revealing his emotions came easily. He still withdrew from time to time behind the wall he’d found necessary to build in his childhood and beyond. But he and I were working on taking it down brick by brick. Maybe we would be working at it the rest of our lives. That would be all right as far as I was concerned. I knew that I was safe and cherished in Hugh’s love, even when he couldn’t always express it.
“Meow.”
I peered over the edge of the bed at the spoiled glossy-black cat. A pair of yellow eyes stared at me accusingly.
“Okay, okay,” I grumbled. “I’ll feed you, Sidney.”
Before I could slip from the bed, Hugh grabbed me by placing a possessive hand on my shoulder and kissing the nape. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“King Sidney has spoken.”
“But I’ll miss you,” Hugh said. He kissed his way down to the center of my back. I shuddered.
“If you keep that up, the cat is never going to get his tuna.”
Hugh looped his arms gently around me and cradled me against his chest. “Who’s more important, me or the cat?”
“Well…,” I teased, but I didn’t try to escape Hugh’s warm embrace. During the past year, Hugh had done a very good job of showing me just how much love we had between us.
“Meow!”
“Okay, okay,” Hugh grumbled. “Breakfast.”
I laughed. Yup, we had a lot of love between us, and it was a good thing too, because the little cat demanded a whole lot of it.
Hugh pulled on his sweatpants and led the way to the kitchen, the cat slinking along behind him. I pulled on my robe and followed a moment later. I paused in the living room, glancing around at the clutter. Two bicycles, for rides in Central Park, were propped in the corner. The one with a wire basket was a pretty shade of light green, and the other was slate black. I liked having the bicycles right here, but one of these days, I’d get around to organizing the rest of the place. I was still a rotten housekeeper. So was Hugh. But, a little at a time, we were decorating this Greenwich Village townhouse we’d purchased together. And whenever we had a chance, we worked on the house in Charleston too. It was still quite difficult to get Hugh into an antique store, but I was doing my best.
I went to stand by the window and allowed the summer sunshine to wash over me. What a complicated life Hugh and I had chosen to live. We’d chosen to juggle two homes, along with the beach house, two careers, and a very demanding little cat. But somehow, we managed it. We’d come this far. Hugh still worked long hours, but not nearly as long as he had during our first marriage. He was getting better at delegating authority and making compromises so he and I could be together.
I pressed my forehead against the window, smiling ruefully. I was getting better at making compromises too. It had just taken me a while to realize I, too, needed to make a few changes. I’d finally quit my job at the restaurant, accepting that independence came in many shapes and forms—accepting also that I only had so much time in the day. If I wanted to have time for my husband, see my family in Charleston, continue acting classes, go to auditions, and go sailing with Hugh, then something had to give.
The second time around was even better than the first. Hugh wasn’t as romantic as I had once hoped. We had different definitions of romance, but we were meeting in the middle, and it was pretty damn good there. Plus, I could finally trust Hugh with my heart and my dreams. Maybe it was time to make another dream come true and start thinking seriously
about providing Sidney with someone else to bow down to him. I was beginning to think having a family, hearing the pitter-patter of little feet—human feet—was exactly what we needed to complete our lives.
While Sidney ate his tuna, Hugh stood beside me at the window and linked our fingers.
“Happy?” he asked.
I squeezed Hugh’s hand and looked up into his eyes. “Ridiculously so.”
More from SJD Peterson
Jimmy Brink and Eric Halter grew up together in a small country town. While Eric has always been content with life as a rancher, Jimmy wanted more and moved to Chicago early on to pursue a medical career.
Life has a way of coming back around. When Jimmy’s parents decide to retire in Florida, Jimmy returns to his hometown to finish his residency at a local hospital. Flamboyant boyfriend Oliver in tow, Jimmy bumps into his old friend. Eric quickly takes a disliking to Oliver, though, and for good reason. Oliver proves he’s not only self-centered but also a cheater.
To complicate matters, Eric finds it more and more difficult to hide his attraction to his best friend. When the opportunity arises, he needs to decide whether to risk their friendship to pursue his feelings… but maybe Jimmy will see there’s more for him now than ever before in his hometown.
Life is simple and hopeful in youth. Luke and Nelson are best friends exploring their budding sexuality. They have big plans for the future, and nothing can stand in their way or tear them apart—except a family move that puts a continent between them.
Ten years later Luke and Nelson meet again, but nothing is simple anymore. As strong as the attraction remains, obligations and expectations come between them as Luke is forced to honor family responsibilities over the desires of his heart.
Impossibly fate sees fit to offer them a last opportunity to see what might have been. Will the third time be the charm, or is trust so badly broken it is impossible to repair? Can they recapture the innocent love they once knew and make up for all the wasted years? In a love story that spans half a lifetime, two friends destined for each other will have to fight hard for their happily ever after.