by Shawna Seed
Then he turned back to face Elizabeth, and his smile began to fade.
Elizabeth knew she should leave, but she felt pinned there by Brian’s eyes.
“Oh God,” he said. He took a step back, caught his heel on a rug, staggered a little.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve made a mistake.”
Brian’s voice was barely a whisper. “Is it really you?”
“This is a mistake.”
A car went speeding down the street, and Elizabeth turned to look. It was a police car. She felt exposed, standing on Brian’s front porch like this, but there was nowhere to go.
Brian looked over her head at the car whizzing down the street, then back at her.
Without a word, Brian grabbed her wrist, pulled her inside and pushed the door shut behind her.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t realize…”
“Everybody said you were dead.” Brian’s voice broke, and he threw his arms around her, pulling her into a hug so tight she could hardly move. Elizabeth could feel Brian’s breath coming shallow and ragged.
“Brian.”
There. She’d said it.
He exhaled once, hard, when she said his name, but he didn’t let go.
She tried again. “Brian. Please. I can’t breathe.”
Brian relaxed his grip and backed off half a step. “It really is you.”
“I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t realize… I didn’t know about your kid. I don’t want to disrupt your life, I just need…”
Brian frowned, shook his head. “My kid?”
“Maybe you could meet me somewhere, if you could get away and…”
“What kid? Where did you come from?”
Elizabeth stopped mid-sentence. They were carrying on parallel conversations, talking over each other, neither getting answers.
“There’s a car seat in your truck,” she said. “You’re a dad, right?”
“It’s for my niece,” Brian said, dismissing the question. “I can’t believe I opened my door, and here you are. After all this time, you’re just...” He opened his arms wide. “Here.”
Elizabeth let her purse fall from her hand and walked into Brian’s open arms. She rested her head on his shoulder. They fit together, the way they’d always fit together. She turned her face into Brian’s neck and inhaled. He even smelled the same.
She knew she should step back and explain herself, but she didn’t. She just stood there letting her breathing settle into a rhythm with his.
The first kiss was tentative, a question – Brian’s hand under her chin, his lips barely brushing hers.
The vehemence of her answer surprised them both.
Then Brian was pulling her deeper into the house. Or maybe she was pushing him.
She banged her shin on a table as Brian led her down the hall. “Ow!”
“Sorry,” he murmured, reaching behind him to open a door.
Those were the only words either spoke for a long time.
With her eyes closed, Elizabeth could almost will herself to believe that 20 years hadn’t passed. She and Brian might be back in their little shotgun house, before the drugs, before Cliff and Missy died, before the hurricane, before everything that went wrong.
Later, Brian sprawled on the bed next to her, his mouth close to her ear, and whispered the one word that brought her back to reality.
“Sharlah.”
Elizabeth kept her eyes pressed shut, not wanting the spell to be broken. She just wanted to linger here, savoring the heat of Brian’s hand on her stomach.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Brian said.
This is a disaster, Elizabeth thought.
She couldn’t even explain to herself why this had happened. Because Brian’s eyes were still blue and he still had the smile that melted her heart when she was 17? Because she was lonely and scared, and Brian had always been able to make those feelings go away?
She’d expected questions. She had not been ready for this. It was, she realized with a start, exactly the kind of thing Sharlah would have done.
Well, she wasn’t Sharlah. Not anymore.
Brian was stroking her hair, his breath warm on her neck. She put her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him away.
“Brian, please stop.”
He drew back. “What’s wrong?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath and summoned her strongest, hardest self, the one who had said no to Eamon, who had dispatched Wyatt – over the phone, no less – when he seemed to be falling in love.
“This was a mistake,” Elizabeth said. “I shouldn’t have let it happen. I didn’t mean…”
She felt her resolve slip away. “God. What have I done?”
Brian’s eyes grew wide, and he groped for her left hand under the sheet. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Me neither,” Brian said. “So we’re legal.”
“I only wanted to talk to you.”
Brian rose on one elbow and propped a pillow under his head. “Let’s talk, then.”
“Not like this,” Elizabeth said. “We should get dressed.”
After a long pause, Brian rolled to the far side of the bed. He sat for a moment, his back to her, hands resting on his knees. Then he stood, pulled on his boxers and T-shirt, and put on his glasses.
He picked up clothes from the floor, putting them on the bed. When he picked up her blouse, something seemed to register.
“You walked by my shop today,” he said. “I remember this blue shirt. I saw you, but from the back. Why didn’t you come in?”
“There was a police car parked outside.”
“What kind of…” Brian started, then stopped.
He looked down at her for a few beats. Finally, he said, “Whatever trouble you’re in, that wasn’t about you. I asked him to come take a look at my security because there’ve been some break-ins on the street.”
He folded her shirt and put it on the bed.
They stared at each other, Elizabeth clutching the sheet to her chest, Brian standing at the foot of the bed.
“Hang on,” he said.
He walked out of the bedroom and reappeared with a bathrobe. “Here,” he said, draping it across the bed.
“Thanks,” Elizabeth said. “Would it be OK if I had a quick shower?”
“First door on your left,” he said, pointing. “Do you want a drink?”
“Water would be good. Could you bring me my bag? I left it in the living room.”
As soon as Brian closed the bedroom door behind him, Elizabeth threw back the covers and shrugged into the robe. She gathered up her clothes, wincing at the sight of the condom wrapper on the bedside table.
I am a weak, horrible person.
Brian knocked when he came back, which only made her feel worse. He was obviously bewildered but trying hard to do the right thing.
He walked a couple steps into the room and dropped her bag on the bed. She fished out an elastic band and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “Just give me a minute and then we can talk.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Brian said.
Elizabeth cranked the shower as hot as she could stand it and stood there in the scalding spray trying to figure out what the hell she was doing.
It had been a long, long time since she’d fallen into bed with someone when she wasn’t intending to. Elizabeth still couldn’t quite believe it had happened.
But it had, and now she had to figure out how to deal with it.
As she stepped out of the shower and began to towel off, Elizabeth took note, for the first time, of her surroundings.
The bathroom was small, but the tile and fixtures looked new. It was spotless – a far cry from the first bathroom she’d shared with Brian.
She realized she needed to stop these endless comparisons with the past – Brian was more this or less that than he’d been when they were together. It was nothing but a distra
ction. Those people no longer existed.
Elizabeth finished dressing and stepped into the hall. “Brian?”
“Back here,” he said.
Brian had dressed and made the bed while she was in the shower. The condom wrapper was gone from the bedside table, replaced by a glass of water.
“I brought you water,” Brian said. He picked up his shoes from the floor by the bed and put them in the closet, then stood, expectantly, like he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Thanks,” Elizabeth said. She sat down on the bed and pulled one leg up under her.
Taking the cue, Brian sat down, too, carefully positioning himself a few feet from her.
“I’ve got to be honest,” Brian said, “I don’t understand what’s going on. I feel like maybe I should apologize for earlier? I guess I got carried away. I thought you…”
“Brian, it’s OK,” Elizabeth said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my mistake.”
“Where did you come from? How did you get here? I didn’t see a car out front.”
Elizabeth decided to take the easiest question first. “I left it down the block, in front of the yellow house,” she said.
“If you need to get it off the street, you can put it in the garage,” Brian said. “It’s best if I don’t know what’s going on with the police, but I’ll try to help you if I can.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank a little. Brian was still loyal, even if it might be to his own detriment.
“I think it’s OK,” Elizabeth said. “But thanks. That’s very generous. You’ve been really…”
Brian interrupted her. “I went through your purse while you were in the shower, before you get too far down the road on how generous I am. I’m sorry. I got paranoid.”
Elizabeth’s perception of Brian shifted again. Perhaps he wasn’t as trusting as he used to be. She was surprised, but not angry. “OK,” she said, shrugging. “I don’t blame you.”
“So you’re Elizabeth Ellsworth now? And you live in Florida? I saw your license, and a badge for the university.”
“Yes.” This was not really the path Elizabeth wanted to take. She had not planned to tell Brian about her life. But he knew now, and maybe it would be easier to let him get his questions out of the way. “I work there,” she said, “in the library.”
An unexpected grin broke across Brian’s face. “The library? Really?”
Elizabeth couldn’t help smiling herself. “Really.”
“Have you been in Florida the whole time?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “The last ten years or so.”
A silence stretched between them, and Brian’s face slowly clouded over.
“This is so weird, because I’ve thought so many times about seeing you again and now you’re here and I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m sorry to show up like this,” Elizabeth said. “I know it’s a shock.”
“Yeah,” Brian said, nodding. “You could say that.”
Elizabeth waited, giving Brian time to gather his thoughts.
“I guess the thing I really want to say is, I don’t blame you for leaving me. I screwed up pretty bad. The part I don’t understand is why you never called or anything.”
Here was the opening Elizabeth needed.
“I called.”
Brian leaned away, surprised and perhaps a little angry. “When? When did you ever call?”
“Three weeks after I left.”
“I was still in jail,” Brian said. “What did you do? Try the house once and give up?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath, knowing that what she said next would change everything. “I called the house first, but when no one answered, I called Kevin.”
“Kevin? But he never…”
“He told me my life was in danger,” Elizabeth said, remembering the pay phone in Kansas City, the quiet of the library hallway. “He said the only way you could cooperate was if I stayed away so you’d know I was safe. He said if I came back, you’d have to choose between helping yourself and protecting me, and you would choose me.”
Brian’s initial reaction was shock – Elizabeth could tell – followed swiftly by a recognition that he worked hard to mask.
Elizabeth waited to see what Brian would say next, sure now that she was right.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Did he genuinely not understand? Or was he still covering up? Elizabeth couldn’t tell.
“I think it does,” Elizabeth said. “You just have to turn it around.”
“Turn it around?”
“Kevin wanted me to stay away, not to free you up to cooperate, but because he thought it was the best shot at keeping you from cooperating. He wasn’t worried about me, or you. He was worried about himself.”
Brian stared straight ahead, refusing to look at her.
“Am I right, Brian?”
Elizabeth could see a muscle in Brian’s jaw twitching. “You can tell me, Brian,” she said. “It’s OK.”
She waited, staring at Brian’s profile. There were lines around his eyes now, and a scar in his eyebrow that she didn’t remember, but she recognized the stubborn set of his jaw.
When a few minutes passed and Brian still hadn’t answered, she tried again.
“For a long time, I thought it was Cliff who talked you into the drug deal,” Elizabeth said, “but then I realized that Kevin made so much more sense.”
Brian still said nothing, and Elizabeth felt her composure begin to slip.
“What I don’t understand is why, Brian. We were poor, but we had a plan. I thought we were happy.” She hated the ache in her voice, but she pushed on. “Weren’t you happy?”
That, finally, broke through to Brian. He turned to her. “Those two years with you, that was the happiest part of my life.”
“Then why?”
Brian took a deep breath and let it out. “Kevin needed money. He was in over his head with a bookie.” Another sigh. “I guess nothing about Kevin should surprise me anymore, but he could have told me you called. He could have said, ‘Sharlah’s fine, but she thinks you’re a loser and she’s leaving you.’ He didn’t have to make me suffer for 20 years, not knowing. Why do that?”
Elizabeth had known the things she came to tell Brian would hurt him, but that didn’t make his pain any easier to witness.
“I didn’t want to leave you, Brian,” Elizabeth said. “I know that doesn’t help, but I planned to come back. I’m sorry – sorry that I believed him then. And sorry to be the one to tell you now.”
“It’s not your fault,” Brian said. “Kevin could be pretty convincing.”
Kevin had seemed reasonable and compassionate on the phone that day, someone who genuinely regretted the bad news he had to deliver. From a distance of 20 years, it was easy for Elizabeth to see how he’d manipulated her. Kevin had played on her worst fears: that she wasn’t good enough for Brian and that he’d be better off without her.
Brian gave Elizabeth a tired smile. “I turned him down the first time he asked me. I told him, ‘Tell Dad. He’ll chew your ass, and you might never hear the end of it, but he’ll give you the money.’ ”
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer?”
“He didn’t want to bring Mom and Dad into it. He was trying to keep it from Lynn. This was right when they found out she was pregnant, and I don’t know if you remember, but she was really sick. Kevin was worried she’d lose the baby.”
Elizabeth sat quietly, listening. Now that the dam had been broken, Brian’s words were tumbling out.
“And I think he just didn’t want them to know, because he was used to being the one they were proud of,” Brian said. “He didn’t want to be a disappointment like me.
“I knew it was wrong, but I felt like I owed it to him. My whole life, Kevin looked out for me, doing my homework, running interference with Mom and Dad, beating up kids who called me stupid.
“It was just supposed to be one time, and Kevin and Cliff both said these guys were cool,
it would be fine.
“It wasn’t fine. One of them pulled a gun on me.” Brian pointed to the center of his forehead. “He put the barrel right here, and he said, ‘We’re going to call you next week, and you’d better be here, and the week after, and the week after.’ ”
Brian held his hands out. They were shaking. “Look at that. Twenty years later…”
“Here, have some water.” Elizabeth handed him the glass. “You must have been so scared, Brian.”
“Scared and pissed,” he said, taking a big gulp of water before passing the glass back to her. “I kept telling Kevin, ‘Man, you have to get me out of this,’ and he just kept saying he was working on it. We argued about it all that spring. You knew something was up. I kept expecting you to ask me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie to your face.”
“I knew something was up, but I guess I was afraid to ask, in case you were looking for an opening to break up with me,” Elizabeth said.
“Never,” Brian said. “Coming home to you was the best part of my day, every day.”
Elizabeth remembered those days, how she’d sit in her chair reading, waiting for the sound of Brian’s truck. He’d come home dirty and sweaty, and she’d lean against the bathroom sink and talk to him while he showered. Seeing his smile when he walked through the door always made her forget whatever bad thing had happened that day.
“I finally decided I had to get myself out of it,” Brian said. “So I asked around – there were always guys working construction who weren’t legal and had fake papers. I got everything ready, but then I chickened out whenever I tried to tell you.”
Brian spread his arms wide. “Anyway, that’s how it went down.”
He let his hands drop into his lap. “I didn’t know anything to tell the cops. All I did was drive from Point A to Point B. Before I got bail, I kept thinking they’d catch somebody who would put them onto Kevin, and he’d cut a deal for us both.”
“But they never caught anyone else?”
“Nobody but me,” Brian said. “Once I got out on bail, I thought Kevin would tell me something I could use to get a deal.”
“Did he?”
“He said I’d have to decide for myself what to do, that he had to do what was best for his own family. When I saw him with his baby, it was hard to argue with that. So I kept quiet.”