Big Girls Don't Cry

by Brenda Novak

  A click told her someone had just opened the door. She glanced over her shoulder to see Gabe peek into the room.

  “I’m up,” she said, wondering how she could sound so normal.

  Wearing a sweater and a pair of faded jeans, he rolled a few inches into the room. With his thick black hair, vivid blue eyes and muscular build, he was as strong and handsome as ever. She’d idolized him as a child, was still incredibly proud of him.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  She raked her fingers through her tousled hair. Like hell. How would anyone feel? “Fine,” she said. “I need to get up, feed the girls.”

  “Don’t worry about the girls. They’ve eaten. Hannah just left to take them to school.”

  Thank God for her brother and sister-in-law. Gabe and Hannah had their own children, but maybe Kenny, who was seventeen, had helped out with Brent, his nine-year-old brother. Reenie was grateful they had stepped in for her. She couldn’t remember ever needing that kind of help before. She was generally highly functional, efficient. Wouldn’t folks be surprised to see that she couldn’t put one foot in front of the other today?

  “What’d you give me last night?” she asked.

  He rolled a little closer, concern a dark shadow on his rugged face. “You wouldn’t take any sleeping pills.”

  “So you put them in the tea you brought me, right?”

  When he didn’t respond, she grimaced. “My mouth’s so dry I can hardly swallow.”

  “I wanted to make sure you’d sleep,” he said. “I thought some rest would help you…cope.”

  “Cope,” she echoed, chuckling mirthlessly. “I guess my life isn’t what it seemed, huh?”

  “Keith isn’t what he seemed. That doesn’t change anything else.”

  Gabe was wrong. She’d built her life on the foundation of her marriage. She’d built her children’s lives on the same thing. Where did she go from here? “So what do you think?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “My sham of a marriage.”

  “I don’t want to tell you what I think.”

  “Why not?”

  “It might make you defensive of Keith.”

  She grimaced. “I doubt that.”

  “He called a few minutes ago.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Gabe shifted in his chair. “He’s at the airport in Boise, on his way home. He begged me to reserve judgment until he gets here.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I’ll listen to what he has to say, but…”

  She waited for the rest. His chest lifted in a deep breath before he continued, “It won’t make any difference. Either this other woman exists, or she doesn’t.”

  Exactly. And Reenie already knew she existed. She knew it deep in her bones. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to forgive him, Gabe?”

  He hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “You might be able to forgive him, but trust is another issue entirely. And there’ll always be this…other family.”

  She stared at the tiny slices of light at the edge of her blinds. Odd how the simple things she’d never paid much attention to before suddenly seemed so exaggerated.

  “Do you want me to tell him to pack his bags?” Gabe asked at last.

  Yesterday she thought she and Keith would spend the rest of their lives together.

  “Do you know how to get hold of Isaac Russell?” she asked, not answering his question.

  “He left his number on the counter and I put it in my day planner. Why?”

  “I need it.”

  Her brother took his day planner from the pouch on his chair where he always kept it. “Here you go.”

  She dialed as he read off the number. Then the phone began to ring. Once, twice, three times. Reenie was just about to hang up. She didn’t plan on leaving a message. Then Isaac answered.

  “Hello?”

  She cringed at the voice of the man who’d brought such devastation to her doorstep, the brother of her husband’s other wife.

  God, this can’t be real….

  “When did it start?” she asked without preamble.

  He immediately knew who she was and understood what she wanted. Maybe her question was one he’d been expecting her to ask last night. “Nine years ago.”

  She’d been prepared for a blow, but nine years still knocked the wind out of her. Nine years was a long time to live a lie. “How many children do—” she struggled to swallow “—do Keith and…and this woman have? One?”

  “No, two. And her name’s Elizabeth, by the way.”

  She could sense Isaac’s stubborn loyalty and knew it made them enemies. “Two,” she repeated, as if venturing out on a ledge she wasn’t quite sure could hold her.

  “An athletic boy and a very bright girl,” he added.

  A numbing coldness swept through Reenie. “What—” she took a bolstering breath “—what’re the children’s names?”

  “Reenie, listen—”

  “What’re their names?”

  She heard him sigh into the phone and knew he wasn’t enjoying the confrontation any more than she was. “Christopher and Mica.”

  “Did she know about me? Your sister, I mean?”

  “No. She’s not that kind of person.”

  She believed him. But the fact that she couldn’t blame his sister somehow made everything worse. The man she loved had done this to her. Keith alone was to blame.

  Reenie massaged her temples. She couldn’t seem to think straight, to sort out this tragedy.

  “He’s on his way back to you,” Isaac said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  She remembered Keith’s panicked response. I’ll quit my job right now, buy you the farm. During the past two months, she’d all but begged him for both. He’d made her feel selfish for even asking, then flown off to be with his other family. He’d been lying to her for nine years. Lying as he made love to her. Lying as he told Jennifer he couldn’t come to her play because of his work. Lying, lying, lying. She couldn’t see an end to the lies….

  He couldn’t love her and hurt her the way that he had.

  “Tell your sister she can have him,” she said, and hung up.

  * * *

  IN L.A. THE DAY WAS GRAY and drizzly, but Elizabeth was wearing sunglasses when Isaac threw his small bag into the back of her white SUV and climbed in the passenger side. She mumbled a greeting but barely looked at him before checking traffic and pulling away from the curb. Mica and the kids had to be in school because they weren’t in the car. Isaac was grateful for that. He wanted to be able to speak candidly, work through this mess one hurdle at a time.

  “The weather turned almost the day after you left,” his sister said as if the lack of sunshine was important. She was wearing a pair of brown wool slacks with a beige turtleneck sweater and leather boots. If Isaac didn’t know what had happened, he wouldn’t have guessed from her appearance. Although her face was devoid of makeup and she’d combed her hair into a low ponytail instead of her usual more sophisticated style, she looked as collected as always. The sunglasses, and the strain in her voice, provided the only clues that today wasn’t a day like any other.

  His sister was a real class act.

  What Keith had done was so grossly unfair.

  Liz drove past the other terminals and finally swung out of the airport. When they came to a stoplight, she turned her windshield wipers up to combat the falling rain, and Isaac’s gaze fell to her hands. He’d been wrong a moment earlier, he realized. There were more clues to her fragility than he’d first noticed. Her fingernails, usually perfectly manicured, had nasty sores around the cuticles. She’d been picking at them. He knew because it was the same nervous habit she’d had as a child. One she’d worked hard to overcome. She also wasn’t wearing her wedding ring or the tennis bracelet Keith had given her.

  “You okay?” he said.

  She nodded, but he couldn’t get past those painful-looking fingers. She’d probably paced the
floor, digging at herself the entire night. How was she holding herself together? When he’d called her after leaving Reenie’s house, he’d found her almost frantic with worry. Since Keith had suddenly disappeared, Isaac had been forced to tell her.

  His words had been met with dead silence. Afraid that she’d collapsed, he’d called her name several times, and she’d finally answered—quietly and without tears. Certainly she hadn’t reacted to her husband’s betrayal in the same vocal, angry way that Reenie had. Reenie was confident enough to acknowledge and express her pain, and to feel justified in doing so.

  That was normal; this was not.

  “Liz.” Isaac squeezed her shoulder, hoping to lend her his strength. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know,” she said softly, but she was still sitting stiffly in her seat, staring at the snake of bumper-to-bumper traffic ahead of them.

  “That’s it?” he said as they inched their way toward Interstate 10. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  When there was some space between her and the car in front of her, she eased off the brake and let the SUV roll forward a few feet. “My husband left me last night. What do you want me to say?”

  Did she think she could cope with this the same way she’d coped with so many other unfortunate events in her life—by simply absorbing the hurt and shock and carrying on as if nothing was wrong?

  “Holding the pain inside will only make it worse, Liz.”

  When she spoke, he detected a deep reservoir of emotion behind her words. “And letting it out will change what, exactly?”

  “Venting might help you to recover.”

  “How will it do that?”

  “I don’t know. Most women would cry if they faced what you’re facing right now, wouldn’t they?”

  A slight crease marked her normally smooth, high forehead. “I’ve never been like most women, Isaac. You know that. Maybe that’s why Luanna hated me so much.”

  The car in front of them slowed, and they came to an abrupt stop.

  “Luanna hated you because she was a jealous, coldhearted bitch,” he said. “She didn’t want to compete for Dad’s attention, so she edged you out of the picture as much as possible. What happened after Mom died wasn’t your fault. It’s just the way things were.”

  She tore her eyes from the road. “I can’t change this, either, Isaac. I have to deal with it whether I want to or not.”

  She had him there.

  “My point is that you did nothing to cause it. Keith was already married when he met you. Had things been the other way around, maybe this would never have happened.” Isaac hoped that thought would bring her a small measure of comfort, but if Keith could cheat on a woman as passionate and animated as Reenie, he could probably cheat on anyone. If Isaac had his guess, Keith’s behavior had nothing to do with finding either Liz or Reenie inadequate.

  “Have you talked to him?” he asked when she didn’t respond.

  She changed lanes and gunned the SUV, only to slam on the brake two seconds later to avoid crashing into the back of a Suburban. “He finally answered my many messages. This morning. When he arrived in Boise.”

  The lane they’d abandoned began to move more quickly than the one they were in now, which was in keeping with the luck they were having in general. “What did he say?” Isaac asked.

  “That he’s going to quit his job. He won’t be returning to California.”

  “Reenie told me she won’t take him back. She said you could have him.”

  “Reenie?”

  “That’s her name. Remember? I told you last night.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe he doesn’t yet know she won’t take him back. Anyway…” She turned on her blinker and switched lanes again.

  Isaac wished the traffic would ease before they rearended someone. “Anyway?” he prompted when she didn’t immediately continue.

  “He said she’s an emotional woman, but that she’ll calm down and eventually do whatever is necessary to hold her family together.”

  Isaac had been in such a hurry to reach the airport this morning, he hadn’t bothered to shave. Now he rubbed the stubble on his chin as he pictured the spunky woman he’d had dinner with last night. “She might,” he admitted.

  “I’m sure he knows her pretty well. He’s been married to her for eleven years, right?”

  Isaac winced. “Right.”

  They drove in silence for a few seconds. “Have you told Mica and Christopher?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I’ve got to, of course. Soon, so they’ll understand what’s happening. But…” Her voice finally wobbled. He thought she might break down but, after an extended silence, she lifted her chin and finished as mechanically as she’d begun. “But I’ve been putting it off. I don’t want them suddenly stripped of all security.”

  As she’d been after their mother had died. “He should give you the house, everything the two of you own.”

  “I don’t care about the house,” she said.

  “You will once the shock and pain subside.”

  “No.” She shook her head adamantly. “The kids are all that matter to me.”

  “You don’t think he’ll fight you for custody?”

  “No.” Her throat worked for a moment before she got the rest of her words out. “He’s not planning on fighting me for anything. He’s…walking away, cutting ties. He said he’d send money every month, that he can’t promise anything more.”

  “Money’s good,” Isaac said, trying to be positive. “After what he’s done, that’s all you want from him.”

  Liz looked at him as though he’d just said the most idiotic thing in the world. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. I want you and the kids to have a roof over your heads and food to eat. I’m glad he’s willing to acknowledge that responsibility.”

  “The responsibilities of a father don’t end there. If it’s only food and rent we’re talking about, I can work more hours at the dental office or get a better job, and provide that, Isaac. What I can’t provide is the relationship Mica and Christopher are losing with their father!”

  It was the first time Elizabeth had raised her voice. Isaac waited, hoping she’d give in and really let go. But she quickly reeled in her emotions and spoke calmly again. “They need him.”

  “They’ll…adjust. Eventually,” he added, because his response sounded far too trite.

  She looked over at him. “You don’t understand. Christopher’s a very sensitive boy. He worships Keith.”

  “You didn’t choose for this to happen, Liz.”

  “I don’t care. I have to…to protect my son somehow. Do you know how often he—” the furrow in her forehead reappeared “—he asks when his daddy’s coming home?”

  “I’m sorry about that. You know I am. But there isn’t anything you can do about it,” he told her honestly.

  “Keith can’t simply abandon us.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until he could see the white of her knuckles. “That’s not fair. He—he told me he loves me. We…had plans for the future.”

  “I know.”

  “Bigamy’s illegal. If he won’t…if he thinks…anyway, there’s always that bit of leverage, right? He won’t be able to kiss us off completely.”

  Isaac scrubbed a hand over his face. Already this wasn’t going well. And he had more bad news. “As long as he pays child support, there’s a strong possibility he could do just that, Liz.”

  “What?” She swerved into the other lane, then jerked back before hitting another car. The driver she’d nearly sideswiped honked and flipped her the finger as he passed by, but she did nothing in response, except dig at her cuticles.

  Isaac wanted to chase down the other driver. He needed a target for his own anger, and this impatient stranger seemed like the perfect candidate.

  “Stop picking at yourself,” he said firmly, covering her hand.

  She scowled but quit.

  “And why don’t you pull over and let me drive?”

 
“I’m fine.”

  “Liz…”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Rather than argue with her, he went back to their conversation. “Well, even if you eventually decide that you’d like to see him in prison for what he’s done, chances are good that won’t happen.”

  “How do you know?”

  The cars ahead slowed yet again. Traffic in L.A. drove Isaac crazy. The jammed freeway, the discourteous driver who’d just flipped them off, this horrible situation. He craved the escape of the jungle worse than ever before. But now, even if the grant came through, he couldn’t leave. “This morning I called a friend of mine who works in the Attorney General’s office in Illinois.”

  “And?”

  Her fingers looked as though he’d need a crowbar to pry them off the steering wheel. “He said we can call the police, but the D.A. probably won’t prosecute.”

  “Why not?”

  Isaac fidgeted with his seat belt, bothered, along with everything else, by the chest restraint. “For starters, we have a jurisdiction problem. Because Keith has been living in both Idaho and California, they’d first have to decide which state would take the case.”

  “For crying out loud. That can’t be too hard.”

  “In theory. Anyway, the D.A. who ultimately gets the case would have to believe it worthy of his time and effort. And—”

  “How can it not be worthy of his time and effort?” she snapped. “Lord knows we have enough proof.”

  “Bigamy’s a felony, but it’s not a violent crime.”

  “So what?”

  “Keith wasn’t abusive, and he’s always provided for his children. Those two things will stand in his favor. Think about it. If he goes to prison, he’ll no longer be able to support either family.”

  “But if the police won’t do anything to stop this sort of thing, what’s to keep other men from committing the same crime?”

  “The kind of man who would do what Keith has done isn’t generally the type of man who would also support both families. They’d get him on something else.”

  “So there’s no legal recourse?”

  “Not really. Even if the D.A. agrees to prosecute, Keith will likely wind up with nothing worse than a few years of parole and some mandatory community service.”