by Emily March
We haven’t had sex in six weeks. We’ve had sex only once since Thanksgiving, and that was because it was the middle of the night and he’d been half asleep. When he’s fully awake, he’s always disapproving. Critical. Mean.
Is he having an affair?
No, it’s the job. I have to remember that it’s the job and not me. He’s under stress. Major stress. Tears build in the back of my eyes and I blink them away. I have friends who have offered to babysit in the past, but with only a twenty-minute lead time? Maybe if I call Stephan, he will adjust his schedule?
And maybe the sun will rise in the west tomorrow morning, too.
But I decide to try. I’m that desperate. But as I reach for the phone, another thought occurs. Cynthia!
Bank executives Charles and Cynthia Larson live two flights up with their eight-month-old son, Hayden. “If you ever get in a bind for a sitter, don’t hesitate to give our au pair a call,” Cynthia had said. “I’d like Hayden to be around children a little more often. Babies learn from watching others. Holly’s a sweet girl and so obviously smart. I think it might good for Hayden to have her around from time to time.”
Mark likes the Larsons, too. He thinks that Cynthia is the kind of woman I should emulate.
Hope reaches for the phone, crossing the fingers of her free hand.
Five minutes later, she’s standing at the Larsons’ door holding Holly’s hand and carrying a well-stocked backpack. Margarita opens the door with a wide, welcoming smile. She’s a young woman with such a friendly face. I smile at her with relief.
Ready for her nap, Holly whines a little as I hand over the backpack and give Margarita instructions. “We will be just fine, Mrs. Montgomery,” she says as she picks Holly up to comfort her. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
I thank her profusely, kiss my daughter’s soft cheek, and inhale her sweet scent, then I dash for the elevator. Margarita stands in the doorway with my daughter and they both wave Holly’s good-bye. My last sight of Holly is a tired, sullen smile.
At the salon, Stephan greets me with a smile that quickly turns to horror. How dare I neglect myself this way? I am ushered to his chair and spend the next two hours in “emergency repairs.” I leave the salon feeling rested and renewed, confident in my appearance for the first time since my pants wouldn’t button over my winter-depression belly. Delicious anticipation washes through me. I will wow Mark tonight.
I steal an extra half hour in the lingerie store two doors down from the salon and leave knowing that my husband doesn’t stand a chance. Things will get better. They will.
I enter our apartment building, and thoughts of Mark fade. I have missed my sweet Holly. These three hours have been the longest I’ve been away from her in weeks. That will change when she starts kindergarten in the fall. She and I will both need to adjust. I tap my foot impatiently as the elevator ascends. I wonder if Holly will say something about my hair.
The door slides open. I swing my shopping bag joyfully as I step up to the Larsons’ door and ring the bell. I hear Hayden crying inside. Poor little guy. I hope he hasn’t felt neglected having to share his Margarita.
I wait, and when I don’t hear footsteps, I ring the bell again. The crying escalates. I hear no other sounds from inside the condo. The first frisson of alarm skitters along my nerves. I try the knob. Locked. I use my fist to pound on the door. “Hello? Margarita? Answer the door please.”
I put my ear against the door and hear only infant wails.
Alarm spikes to fear. I pound on the door. Bang bang bang bang. I thumb the bell. Ring ring ring ring. “Waaa waaa waaa.”
I drop my shopping bag and dig into my purse for my phone. I call the super. “It’s Mrs. Montgomery from five. I’m at the Larsons’ on seven. I need you to bring a key immediately. The baby is crying and Margarita isn’t answering the door. My Holly is in there! Hurry!”
I keep my ear to the door, listening … praying to hear Holly. Calling out to her. Why isn’t she answering? Is she asleep? Please, God, let Holly be asleep. I imagine Margarita lying dead of a heart attack on the floor, her hand clutched to her chest. Or maybe Holly had been playing with her toys in the kitchen and Margarita stepped on one and fell and hit her head on the black granite counter.
It’s three minutes … or maybe three years before the elevator dings.
The super hurries out, a large ring of keys in hand. “He’s calling for help. Hurry!”
The super bangs on the door as he slips the key into the lock and calls, “Hello?”
My heart pounds as the door swings open. Hayden’s cries slice against my heart like shards of glass. Fear has turned my knees to butter. The super steps into the Larsons’ apartment repeating, “Hello? Margarita? Mr. Larson? Mrs.—?”
I’m right behind him. The sight that meets my eyes stops me cold.
The baby sits in his car seat in the middle of the living room floor. Alone. Crying.
“Holly!” My head whips around. She’s not in the living room. Panicked, I rush from room to room screaming my daughter’s name.
But she’s not here. Her backpack is not here. Margarita is not here.
“Where’s Holly?” I demand as the super picks up Hayden. The baby can’t answer me, of course—he’s only eight months old. The super sends me a helpless look. I want to shake him. Instead, I dial 911. “I need you to issue an Amber Alert. My daughter is missing.”
Five years later, in a girls’ locker room in Eternity Springs, Colorado, Hope met Lucca Romano’s sorrow-filled gaze. “Margarita Santana disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Oh, Hope.” He grasped her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss against her palm. His mouth was warm, and she was so cold.
She didn’t remember when he had taken a seat beside her on the bench. What exactly had she said to him, she wondered? Surely she hadn’t talked to him about her sex life with Mark. That would be just too humiliating.
“At first we waited for a ransom call. It never came. Local police, FBI, private investigators … no one turned up anything. They disappeared into thin air. Mark blamed me, of course. His mother blamed me. How could I have left our child with a stranger! Never mind that Margarita had been with the Larsons since Hayden was born, and they’d done a thorough background check on her before they hired her. She’d taken excellent care of Hayden.
“I didn’t care that they blamed me, of course. I blamed myself just as much. When Mark asked me for a divorce six months after Holly disappeared, I was relieved. By that time, he’d grown paranoid, convinced I’d planned the entire thing. They questioned me for hours. The same questions, over and over. My answers never changed. I told the truth. He still shows up on my doorstep from time to time demanding to search my house for our daughter.”
Anger flashed in Lucca’s eyes. “That’s sick. Damn, Hope. Why don’t you get a restraining order on him?”
She smiled shakily and without amusement. “I have someone checking up on him, too.”
“What?” he couldn’t hide his shock.
“It got ugly between us, Lucca. And I honestly wouldn’t have put anything past Mark at that point. My baby was missing and I knew in my heart that she was alive somewhere. My marriage was dead. I didn’t mourn it.”
She grew silent for few moments after that, torn between losing herself in her memories and the need to make a point. That’s why she’d begun this whole sad story, right? Because she’d decided Lucca needed to hear it? I’ll see your nervous breakdown and raise you prescription drug abuse.
“I almost killed myself, Lucca.” As his eyes widened in shock, she hastened to say, “Not on purpose. At least, I don’t think it was on purpose. I don’t know … maybe it was. At this point, I can’t remember much beyond being on autopilot. Staring at the phone, hoping for the ransom call. Praying for word that she’d been found. In those first weeks, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t bear the nights or the nightmares, so I stayed awake. I had horrible, horrible headaches, and one
night when I went looking for aspirin, I spied a bottle of Vicodin left over from Mark’s knee surgery. It took the edge off. Allowed me to sleep. Soon I was doctor shopping because it took more and more to dull my pain. It was frighteningly easy to do. A friend found me passed out on my living room floor one morning.
“I got help. Got off the drugs, but more important, I got on with living. That’s what I wanted to say to you today, and it came out with a lot of anger and frustration. You see, I understand your pain. I understand your despair. I understand why you walked away from your family and your friends and your career. Because I do, I know what a big step you took today. I also have a caution for you—something I learned through bitter experience.”
“What is that, sweetheart?”
She blinked back sudden tears and cleared her throat. “Emotional healing doesn’t follow a straight line. It’s often one step forward, two steps back.”
“A curved mountain road with switchbacks and dips,” he said, a faint smile playing on his lips.
“Exactly. I didn’t know that, and when I descended into one of those dips, I grew terribly discouraged. I gave those setbacks more power than they needed to have. I was lucky because I had a friend who understood. He made me promise to call him day or night when I felt myself starting to slip. That saved me, Lucca. It continues to save me.”
“Wait.” Lucca shoved to his feet. “Wait just one minute. You already have someone? A guy? I thought you were alone. Who is this paragon?”
“Pardon me?”
“Your friend. The man who understands you.”
“His name is Daniel Garrett.”
“At risk of being blunt, where the hell was he Saturday night?”
Hope sat up straight and looked at Lucca in surprise. “I don’t know,” she said, wonder in her tone. “I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t call.” Her brow furrowed and she added in amazement, “I didn’t even think to call.” Instead, I came to you. I needed you.
Lucca gave her a long look, then shoved his hands in his back pockets. “Does he live here?”
“In Eternity Springs? No, Boston. Daniel lives in Boston.”
“Okay, then. That shouldn’t change anything.”
Hope didn’t understand what Lucca was muttering about or why he looked so cranky. She wasn’t paying that close attention, either, though, because her mind had returned to Saturday night. The fact that she had walked next door to Lucca’s rather than pick up the phone and call Daniel disconcerted her. It bothered her even more that she’d done it and never realized it.
In the past five years of their acquaintance, she’d called Daniel dozens of times when she’d been hurting. She’d visited him more than once while in the depths of despair.
She’d never had sex with him. That had never been part of their relationship. Yet, the first excuse she’d had, she’d gone to Lucca for sex. What’s up with that?
Lucca dismissed the subject of Daniel by grabbing her hands and pulling her to her feet. Rather than release them, he clasped them tighter and waited until she lifted her gaze to meet his. “You are an amazing woman, Hope. Thank you for telling me about Holly. What happened to you … I cannot imagine. Has to be one of the worst stories I’ve ever heard. The fact that you not only are still walking upright, but thriving and doing wonderful things with your life … you shame me.”
“I didn’t tell you my story in order to shame you.”
“I know that, and that’s why it does. You were right to kick my ass today at lunch. I want to kick my own ass, now.”
He had demons. She had demons. Different, true, but yet they could relate. Maybe that was why Lucca had come into her life. Maybe she was meant to help him. Maybe he was her purpose.
“Stop it, Lucca. Your pain is real, just as real as mine. That’s the point. Grieving is individual and it’s not right or fair for a person to say that my grief is worse than yours or that my tragedy is more tragic. That’s stupid. I don’t want to shame you, Lucca. I want to support you and celebrate with you. You faced one of your demons today. You conquered the beast.”
“You helped me do it.”
“Exactly. You’ve spent your time bearing your burden by yourself. Now it’s time to rely on family and friends, time to reach out. Time to share the load.”
“Great minds think alike.” He gently brushed a stray curl away from her eyes. “You know, Ms. Montgomery, I get the sense that you are speaking to yourself as much as to me.”
“You’re right. I am.” She released a long sigh. “I hate to be pitied, Lucca. It rubs me the wrong way.”
“Note the lack of pity here. Sympathy, yes. But no pity. Even the hint of pity is curb-stomped by admiration.”
“I’m glad.” she smiled up at him. Lucca Romano could be a very nice man when he wanted. “Thank you.”
“Yet another thank you. Aren’t we just a mutual admiration society today?” Hope gave a little laugh at that. Lucca stepped closer and slipped his arm around her waist. “Since I’m speaking about admiration, Ms. Montgomery, allow me to mention how much I admire your mouth and how you use it. Use it on me now, would you?”
Lucca dipped his head and kissed her. She tasted of butterscotch and tears and … Hope. It began as a sweet kiss, a comforting kiss, but as their lips clung, fire kindled, and his hands began to roam. He backed her up against a locker and just as things got interesting, he heard a knock on the door. A man’s voice called, “Janitor.”
They didn’t speak as they walked home, the mood between them comfortable. Lucca held her hand, and he kissed her thoroughly again at her front door, serenaded from inside by her barking dog. He wanted to ask her to invite him in, but he knew this wasn’t the right time. “We still on for dinner Friday?”
Her teeth tugged uncertainly at her bottom lip. “You haven’t changed your mind?”
“Not at all. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll see you before then, of course. We have practice on Thursday.”
“We do?”
“Yeah.” He gave her one more quick kiss. “We do. I’m actually looking forward to it. G’night.”
The bright smile she gave him warmed him the rest of the way home.
Later, after almost killing himself by attempting to eat the truly bad Mexican casserole Gabi had deposited in his fridge after cleaning out her own prior to her trip, Lucca settled into his living room recliner and called his twin. “Guess what I did today,” he began.
“All right,” Tony replied. “You tried to hang a picture for Mom at the B&B and she changed her mind seventeen times.”
Lucca laughed. “No … only because we still have lots of work to do over there before we get to picture hanging. I helped coach at the local high school’s hoops practice.”
“Did you really?” Tony’s voice echoed delight. “Well, hot damn. So, how’s the team?”
Lucca started to reply “Pitiful,” but changed his mind. “Full of heart, but shy on natural talent. Except for one kid. He could be a player.”
“Oh, yeah? Tell me about him.”
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Lucca and his twin talked hoops. It was something they’d done most all of their lives, and it was part of who they were as men, professionals, and brothers. “Damn, I’ve missed this,” Tony said when the topic wound down. “I can’t tell you how glad I am you called.”
“Me, too.”
His voice cautious, Lucca asked, “So, when do you think that you’ll come back?”
“Back where?”
“To coaching.”
“You mean collegiate coaching?”
“Yeah.”
Lucca rose from the recliner and began to pace the room. It took him a few moments to figure out what to say, and then he only punted the question. “I don’t know, Tony. I’m not sure that’s what I want. I love the game, but even before the trouble I’d grown disenchanted with the big-business reality of college sports. That and the ‘me’ attitude of the players.”
“Now you sou
nd like an old fart: ‘These young whippersnappers.’”
“I know.” Lucca rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll tell you this much. I had more fun with these high school kids than I’ve had in a while. On a team like this, they do it out of love for the game, not because they’re shooting for the NBA.”
“But—”
“Let it go, bro.”
After a beat, Tony asked, “So how is Mom?”
“She’s not driving me quite so crazy. Having Richard around has helped in that respect. I think she’s driving him crazy instead, poor guy. But I have to tell you, she’s still not acting like herself. She’s distracted and flighty and—are you ready for this? She colored her hair.”
“That’s not a big deal. Mom has colored her hair for some time now. You know how women are about gray hair.”
“I’m not talking a touch-up. I’m telling you she’s now a flaming redhead with highlights.”
“What?”
“Gabi and I decided just yesterday that we have a role reversal thing going on. It’s like we are the parents and Mom’s the teenager.”
“That’s scary.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Maybe it’s menopause. You could ask her.”
“You can kiss my ass. Better yet, why don’t you ask her? And I’ll be sure to pick you up off the floor when she’s finished with you.”
“She called me this morning about Thanksgiving. She wanted me to promise that I’d be there. I told her I had a tournament beginning Friday, but she got all teary on me.”
“What did you do?”
His brother sighed. “I told her I’d show. I’ll have to leave by four o’clock, though, and I reserve the right to change my plans if the weather looks chancy.”
Thanksgiving. This would be the family’s second holiday season without their father. He hoped like hell it would be easier than the previous year. Mom had cried through the whole meal.
His thoughts turned to Hope, and his heart did a little lurch. Bet she dreaded the holidays. He’d have to rope her into the Romano family orbit and help her get through them. Unless she spends them with Daniel Garrett.