The Friendship Pact

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I don’t clean tubs.”

  “But you could if you had to.”

  He grinned, his tie still tight at his neck, and shook his head. “I’d probably hire someone to get it done.”

  “I could hire someone to get this done, too.” If I wanted to ask Mom and Daddy for financial assistance, which I absolutely did not. Insurance was paying for Danny’s care, but while he was out of commission, we were down to one income, and I still had a mortgage and other bills to pay. And I was going to pay them on my own.

  Then I saw the moisture at the corner of Jake’s eye. He wasn’t crying or anything. But he was hurting.

  And, God, so was I. So badly. Jake wasn’t supposed to be in Danny’s house without Danny there getting him a beer. Life wasn’t supposed to work that way.

  I could tell he was feeling my husband’s absence, probably even more than I was at that moment. I’d had a lot more opportunity to be in our new home without Danny.

  But I missed him so much. And...

  I hiccupped, choking back a sob. I would not let it escape. My crying days were over. “What if he doesn’t get better?” Very quietly, with a catch in his voice, Jake asked the question that I couldn’t allow myself to voice. Even in my head.

  It was late. I was tired. And, frankly, scared to death. I could have lost Danny that night. I could lose him any time. Some day he was probably going to choke and there might be no one there to help.

  “I don’t...” I was trying to tell Jake I didn’t think like that. And that I didn’t know.

  I was frightened out of my wits. There was no Bailey. No Danny. No Mom or Daddy in my daily life anymore. No one to shelter me from the harsh realities of life.

  I felt utterly and completely alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I will never understand how we got from Jake bringing up the unthinkable to the two of us naked on my bed.

  I made no conscious moves or decisions. Didn’t even pull back the covers, which I always did when Danny and I made love. One minute I was on the brink of falling apart, and the next I was clinging to the warm body next to mine, holding on for dear life. Losing myself in the togetherness that kept me in the realm of sanity as I finally admitted that life as I’d known it was over.

  Jake kissed me and I didn’t have to breathe. He held me and I didn’t have to be strong. I wasn’t turned on. It wasn’t about sex. Not even when he pulled a condom out of his wallet and slid it on.

  I’d only ever made love with one man. Would only ever make love with one man. And as Jake slid inside me, pushing hard, pumping hard, I knew he was standing in for Danny. Just as he had following me home and fixing my garage door. In a different way, I was standing in for Danny, too.

  I cried a little. Just a trickle. And as Jake climaxed inside me, I called him Danny. I didn’t mean to. Didn’t realize I had until he froze. His penis shrank so fast the condom came loose, but he managed to disentangle himself. He was dressed by the time I came back from the bathroom with my furry winter robe wrapped around me.

  He looked about as sick as I felt.

  And that was when I remembered Jenna. Oh, God. I was no better than Bailey. No, wait. I was worse. She didn’t actually sleep with my husband.

  I’d just had sex with Danny’s best friend. With Bailey’s former lover. Her one true love.

  I wanted to die. Right then and there.

  “We’ll pretend it didn’t happen,” I said. I could tell by the guilt on his face that he knew I wasn’t referring to my name glitch during his climax.

  He nodded.

  “I need to take a shower. Lock up on your way out, huh?”

  Hands in his pockets, Jake nodded again and I turned to go back to the bathroom.

  That was the last I saw of him that night.

  * * *

  “You going to take the job?” Diane Langdon, Mayer and Mayer’s receptionist, asked over lunch the next afternoon. Currently without an office, Bailey had set up temporary shop in the conference room and Diane had brought her lunch. Bailey was sure it was at the direction of the partners.

  She’d gladly have skipped the meal.

  “I have a home in Boston,” she said, trying not to think about the offer. She couldn’t take it. There were no pros big enough to offset the cons.

  “So sell it.”

  With all the renovations in the three-block downtown area nearby, there was a waiting list for her building. She’d probably make twenty grand. Even in the current economy. But she wasn’t moving.

  “I like it.” She liked her job in Boston, too. Sheila and the other partners were wonderful. She had male friends who didn’t mind that her son came first. Mattie loved Delores. They had a life. A good life.

  “You aren’t going to take the job? Seriously?”

  Sitting in the plush chair at the head of a long wooden table in a very fancy high-rise office, she was about to emphatically assure the receptionist that she wasn’t even considering the position.

  But she stopped herself. She had to tell the partners first.

  * * *

  For the first time in my teaching career, I almost called in sick without being sick. When the alarm went off Wednesday morning, I didn’t see how I could possibly face my kids.

  They were innocents. Expecting things of me that I couldn’t give them. Deserving more from me than they’d ever get.

  I got up, though. Took a shower. And got dressed. No matter what, you had to get up in the morning and go about your business. Taking care of others. Daddy had always said it was the price you paid for the gift of life.

  I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be capable of paying my dues, though. By the time I got to Danny’s room that afternoon, I was pretty near collapse. Maybe not physically. But mentally, emotionally, I wasn’t sure how to live with myself.

  I’d done the unthinkable. I’d been unfaithful to Danny. In today’s world it wasn’t a big deal. I knew that. But in my world it was everything.

  And so that day, I did what I had to do to live with myself. As soon as I saw Danny lying there, that damned tube taped to his handsome face, I closed the door to his room and approached him.

  “We have to talk,” I told him, dropping my bag to the floor. I wasn’t going to make this harder on either of us. Wasn’t going to touch him or get all dramatic and emotional.

  “I screwed up,” I said. Literally. In the biggest way ever.

  I was just going to stand there and blurt out what I’d done, hoping for his forgiveness, but looking at his face, the face I’d faithfully shaved every single day since his accident and hadn’t yet shaved, I had one of those...epiphanies. I guess that’s the word. One of those moments when realization swoops down and konks you on the head so hard you feel dizzy and spinning with it.

  Oh, my God. I’d been so sanctimonious with him. All these months, feeling like such a big person, dedicating my life to his care, loving him, in spite of whatever he’d done with Bailey behind my back. Something had caused that look of guilt on her face. Maybe they hadn’t slept together, but they’d been close. Much closer than they’d let on to me. And I’d never really forgiven him. I’d just loved him and pushed the rest away. Hurting out there all by myself. Part of me resenting him the whole time.

  “Oh, Danny, I love you so much...” Emotion poured out thicker than the words and I lost it, falling down to the bed. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, my throat hurting with the force of the words. “I love you and whatever happened, I know you were hurting so badly and...I forgive you, Danny, for whatever it was. Life is just too hard sometimes...”

  Words came with the tears. I lost track of them both. Lost track of myself, really. I couldn’t get close enough to Danny, couldn’t get enough of his warmth to obliterate the fact that another man had touched me, but I trie
d my damnedest. With my head on Danny’s chest, I just let it all go.

  A year’s worth of growing up. Of throwing out. And throwing up. The pain. The fear. The loss of every single dream I’d ever had. Not out of self-pity, but in self-surrender.

  I was going to tell him about Jake, just as soon as I could do it without making the whole thing about me. As soon as I could break it to him gently, thinking only of him. Because as my husband he deserved the truth. Not because I had to assuage my own guilt.

  My deluge quieted, and then erupted again as another memory hit me and with it another bout of pain greater than my ability to cope. Again and again. I’d been bottling things up for so long and it all just came pouring out. William Daniel’s death. Danny’s sterility. Him and Bailey...

  And...something moved against my calf. A phantom memory. But it was enough to calm me. I lay completely still, allowing the out-of-body experience to calm me. Our whole lives together, anytime I’d needed comfort I’d lie like this with Danny. He’d hold me, saying nothing, but every now and then he’d rub his leg against mine. Just a reminder that he was there, I guess.

  We’d never spoken of it. I’m not even sure he was aware he did it. But it had calmed me every time.

  Just like now...

  I froze. Completely. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Had Danny’s leg just moved again? For real? Had I imagined that feeling, too? Was I losing my mind?

  It happened a third time. Barely perceptible. More pressure than anything. But I wasn’t making this up! Was I? Was this proof that I’d gone crazy?

  Needing to spring up, and scared to death to move, to find out I was imagining this, I rose slowly up on my arms. And Danny’s leg moved again. I didn’t just feel it this time, I saw it!

  “Ohhh!” I screamed so loudly my throat was raw. Danny’s face remained as impassive as ever, his eyes closed, his mouth still.

  I slid off the bed to go for help and ran smack into the two nurses who’d just pushed through Danny’s door.

  “He moved! He moved his leg. He moved. I felt it. I saw it. He moved....”

  I was babbling and couldn’t stop. I couldn’t take my eyes off my husband, either.

  “It could just be an involuntary muscle reaction,” Aimee, the least compassionate of the nurses, said. I trusted her with Danny’s care. She just wasn’t my favorite. She leaned over my husband, lifted his eyelids, looked in his mouth. Smoothed the edge of the tape that held the feeding tube to his face.

  “How you doing today, Danny?” she asked, studying him for, I assumed, some sign that I wasn’t losing my mind.

  “It probably was just an involuntary muscle movement,” Leticia, the nurse on my side of the bed, leaned over to say. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but you know that happens, and it’s so hard not to get your hopes up...”

  She didn’t think I was crazy.

  “He moved,” I said. “I was talking to him and he moved to let me know he heard me.”

  Oh, God, Danny, come back to me. Please, please show them that you’re coming back to me. Please God, let Danny come back to me. Send him back. I need him so much. I will be a better wife to him. I won’t ask for anything else as long as I live. I’ll think of him, not me and...

  “Whoa!” Leticia spoke suddenly, leaning over as she stared at the covers. Aimee straightened. They were both up by Danny’s shoulders. I was by his knees. But all three of us had seen his covers move. Not a lot. We’d have missed it if we hadn’t all been watching him.

  “I’m calling the doctor.” Aimee was out the door before she’d finished the words. Leticia stayed and held my hand.

  * * *

  Bailey was sitting with Mattie in the coffee shop at their hotel Wednesday night when her phone rang.

  As she took it out of her purse, Mattie reached for it. She’d downloaded a couple of toddler aps he liked to look at.

  “Eat,” she said, pointing to the little pieces of chicken she’d cut and put on a napkin in front of him.

  “No!” He pulled at her arm with greasy fingers, still reaching for the phone.

  Getting him out of their hotel suite had seemed like a good idea when she’d come back from work. But she could see a tantrum brewing.

  “Hello?” she said, answering on the fourth ring, trying to catch whomever it was before her phone went to voice mail.

  Miraculously, as soon as he saw that he wasn’t going to get his way, her son dropped the whole tantrum idea and shoved a piece of chicken in his mouth.

  “Bail? It’s me. Jake.”

  She’d recognized his voice. “Jake?” With a nervous glance around, Bailey felt exposed. Guilty. Did he know she was in town?

  “Yeah, listen, I...just thought you should know...Danny’s...”

  She blanked out. She could not hear that her best friend’s husband had passed away.

  “It’s all just a possibility at the moment, but the doctors are tentatively hopeful that...”

  “Wait a minute.” She dropped her fork. Was peripherally aware that Mattie, in the high chair next to her, grabbed for his sippy cup and was drinking. “What did you say?”

  “That the doctors—”

  “No, before that.”

  “Danny moved his legs today. Several times.”

  “He’s waking up?” She could hardly speak. Or hold the phone.

  “The doctor said it’s possible. He’s tentatively hopeful. Those were Kora’s exact words.”

  “You talked to Kora?”

  “I’m on my way to the convalescent center now...”

  “How’s Kora doing?” She had to be ecstatic. And scared to death, too, because Kora worried so much sometimes...

  “She’s...holding up.” His voice took on an odd note, and Bailey had to resist the urge to jump up and get to her friend’s side as soon as possible. She had to remind herself that Kora’s side wasn’t her place anymore. “She was...upset this afternoon,” he continued and Bailey shoved more food onto her son’s napkin, hardly aware of what she was doing. “Apparently she had a breakdown while she was lying with Danny, and he moved. The doctor told her it’s possible that her anguish broke through whatever emotional and mental barriers he’d been locked behind. As hokey as it seems, he told Kora that it’s sound medical reasoning to think that Danny could be coming back to her because he sensed that she needed him....”

  “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it!” The couple next to her were staring.

  “He also warned her, however, that waking up could take a while and even if Danny wakes up completely, there could be brain damage.” “Oh, my God.”

  Even Mattie was watching her now.

  “I just thought you should know...”

  Her phone beeped another incoming call. Kora? Bailey pulled the phone back to check.

  Mama Di.

  “I’m here,” Jake was saying. “I’ll keep you posted.” He was gone. Bailey switched calls.

  And didn’t tell anyone that she was right there in Pittsburgh.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I sat up with Danny all night. At some point Jake was there. He called the sub line for me, letting them know I’d be out for the rest of the week. He brought food. We didn’t look each other in the eye. Or get close enough even to brush hands.

  At some point he left.

  I’d called Mom after I’d called Jake, which was right after I’d seen the doctor. Sometime after the center had quieted down and all the residents were in their beds, watching television if not sleeping, Daddy called.

  “How you doing, baby girl?”

  “Fine.” Chewing my fingernails to the quick. And fighting nausea, too. I was too excited to relax. And too scared to be in a good mood.

  “Mom told me you’re staying at the center tonight.”

  “Yeah.
The doctor recommended it. He’d like me to periodically talk to Danny. To keep him with us, he said.” He’d actually told me to talk to him as much as I could. Like I was calling out to him. Calling him back to me.

  “Did he give you something to help you sleep?”

  “He offered.” I’d said no, of course. How could I talk to my husband throughout the night if I was drugged?

  “Is Jake still there?”

  “No.” And by the way, Daddy, did I mention that I had sex with him last night?

  I shook away the thought. Danny needed my full focus right now. He needed and deserved every ounce of my strength. Self-blame would have to wait for another day.

  And maybe by then I’d be better able to understand what I’d done.

  “Maybe you should call Bailey.”

  I knew Mom talked to her. But my folks never butted in.

  “She’s in Boston, Daddy. And it’s not like there’s anything she could do.” The days of Bailey giving me strength, of us drawing strength from each other, were long gone.

  “She cares. About you and about Danny, too.”

  My parents had never questioned my choice to remove Bailey from my life. But did they, behind my back, think it was a wrong one?

  They didn’t know what I knew. They hadn’t seen the guilt on my best friend’s face when I’d walked in during the middle of a workday and seen her there with my husband.

  “We’re fine, Daddy,” I said now, my stomach cramping. I almost always did what my parents asked, and always had.

  “She’d like to hear from you, Kora. And now, with Danny maybe coming out of the woods...”

  “I...” In that split second, I knew I wasn’t his little girl anymore. I was a grown woman who had to do what was right for me. “I’m sorry, Daddy, but I can’t.”

  Most of my instincts pressed me to babble on. To explain and somehow get his approval.

  Something stronger held me back.

  * * *