Big Girls Don't Cry

by Brenda Novak

  Reenie found herself watching the woman and child as avidly as her children were. “That’s true. Do you think they might be the family who moved in across the street from Nanna?”

  “Maybe,” Angela said. “Nanna told me they have a girl close to my age.”

  “That girl can’t be eight,” Jennifer said.

  “Why not?” Angela replied.

  “She’s so tall.”

  “It’s possible,” Reenie mused. “She’s tall, but so is her mother.”

  “Her mom’s pretty,” Isabella breathed.

  The woman was pretty—and perfectly assembled, even at this hour and in this weather. “She must be new,” Reenie grumbled. “No one around here bothers with hair and makeup on a morning like this.”

  “Hurry so I can catch up with them,” Angela said.

  Reenie finally drew abreast of the curb and let her children hop out. They waved before running down the sidewalk to catch the woman and her children.

  Reenie pulled away, but while waiting for a break in traffic, she noticed that Isabella had left her backpack in the van.

  Rolling down her window, she motioned to the person behind her that she needed to get out of line. It was a man in a Lexus. He gave her room, and she managed to reverse until she could double-park. Then she grabbed the backpack and went after her kids.

  “Isabella!” she called, dodging traffic as she crossed the crowded lot.

  The new woman glanced up when she heard Reenie’s voice, saw her hurrying toward them and, grabbing both her children, dragged them off toward the office.

  “Who was that?” Reenie asked as her daughters came back to meet her.

  “They’re new, just like we thought,” Isabella said cheerfully.

  Angela was only a step behind her little sister and didn’t look nearly as happy.

  “What is it?” Reenie asked.

  Her eyebrows knitted as she shielded her face from the falling snow. “She is my age.”

  “The tall girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what’s wrong? I thought you’d be glad.”

  “I was glad until I asked her if she could come over and play today.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She wanted to. But her mother jerked her hand and said…” Angela hardened her expression as she mimicked what she’d heard, “‘I’m afraid not.’”

  “Really?” Reenie stared after the woman, who’d disappeared into the office. “That doesn’t sound too friendly.”

  “It wasn’t,” Angela complained.

  “Maybe she reacted that way because we’re still strangers. Maybe she wants to get to know us better first. That’s understandable, isn’t it?”

  “I told her that,” Jennifer said. “I mean, give them some time. They’re gonna like us. We have the same last name.”

  “What?” Reenie said. But the bell rang right then, and the girls rushed off, leaving her standing at the edge of the parking lot, feeling as though she’d just been zapped with a stun gun.

  “They wouldn’t have,” she murmured, over and over to herself. But her mind was racing. What were the chances that an unrelated family of O’Connells would move to town at this time? Could that blond woman be Liz? And those children…Keith’s? She remembered Isaac’s final words from last night, which now seemed much more than just a turn of phrase: See you around…

  As Reenie glanced back at the elegant Esplanade, her chest constricted and she took an impulsive step toward the office. She had to find out.

  But she couldn’t confront Liz at the school. Not with children, teachers and administrators looking on.

  “This isn’t happening!” she cried, so loud that the last of the departing parents turned to stare.

  Rosie Strickland, the crossing guard, was carrying in her sign. “Reenie, are you okay?” she asked.

  But Reenie didn’t answer. Rushing to her van, she jumped behind the wheel and tore out of the lot.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SOMEONE WAS POUNDING on the door.

  The noise intruded on Isaac’s sleep, dragging him from a pleasant dream he knew he probably wouldn’t remember once he opened his eyes. For a moment, he fought consciousness—only to hear the doorbell ring several times in rapid succession.

  With a groan, he blinked and stared through his window at the gray, cold-looking day as reality came crashing back. He now lived in a town of only fifteen hundred people in the mountains north of Boise. Three weeks ago, he was waiting to return to the most exotic place in the world. Now he’d be lucky to go to a movie.

  “I should’ve killed Keith when I first figured it out,” he muttered. “Then I wouldn’t be here.”

  More pounding. Insistent. Angry.

  What the hell could be so urgent? No one even knew who they were yet. Where was his sister, anyway?

  “Liz?” he called.

  No response. He couldn’t hear movement or voices in the house. Even the children seemed to be gone.

  Which left him to deal with the visitor.

  Maybe it was Keith, presenting him with the perfect opportunity to break his ex-brother-in-law’s sorry neck.

  That thought was encouraging enough to get him out of bed. Shoving a hand through his unruly hair, he dragged on his jeans, and stumbled down the hall to the living room. His eyes felt like sandpaper; he’d definitely been up too late. But his fatigue fell away the instant he opened the door.

  Reenie gasped when she saw him, and rocked back, as if he’d slapped her. “It is you,” she murmured.

  “Reenie—”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “Listen to me—”

  “You brought her here?” Her eyes darted to the boxes behind him. “You moved her here?”

  Her voice had escalated considerably. He lowered his, hoping to calm her. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Oh, right,” she managed to say, but this time her words were barely audible. She was pressing a hand to her chest and breathing so fast he was afraid she was hyperventilating.

  Grabbing her arm, he tried to pull her inside, where she’d at least be warm and dry.

  But she reacted as though he was trying to drag her into a grave with a rotting corpse. Yanking out of his grasp, she backed up too fast, slipped off the step and fell.

  When she landed awkwardly on one hand, Isaac cursed and darted forward to help her. But she wouldn’t let him touch her.

  “I already told you—she can have him,” she said, scrambling away and climbing to her feet. “My marriage is over. You made sure of that when you came here a few weeks ago. Is that what you wanted to confirm with your friendly little instant message? How hard you were going to have to work to finish things off? Well, pack up your stuff and go back to L.A.—and take my husband with you!”

  “It’s not that simple, Reenie,” he tried to explain. But she wasn’t listening. Tears gathered in her eyes and streaked down her face. Only this time, instead of succumbing to them, she lifted her chin and glared through the welling drops.

  “Oh yeah?” she said. “It’s simple to me. Keith and your sister can spend the rest of their days together. In California.”

  Except Keith wanted Reenie.

  “Will you come in so we can talk?” Isaac asked.

  Anger flashed in her eyes, but as she squared off in front of him, he couldn’t help admiring her spirit.

  “Go to hell,” she said. “You can’t hurt me, you hear? You can’t hurt me! So you might as well leave!” Wincing slightly when she moved her injured hand, she hurried back to the van she’d left running in the driveway.

  “Hey, watch where you’re going!” he shouted, afraid she’d kill someone, or herself, driving in her current state of mind. But she didn’t appear to hear him. Or she was too upset to care. She burned rubber as she backed out of the driveway, and he cringed as she almost hit a Lincoln Town Car that was turning into the driveway across the street.

  Celeste Holbrook parked haphazardly as Re
enie gunned the engine and rocketed away from them. “Was that Reenie?” she called as she stepped out of her car.

  He sighed heavily, watching the van screech around the corner. “I’m afraid so,” he called back.

  “But—why was she at your house?”

  She wasn’t bringing him a casserole.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Celeste added before he could respond to her first question.

  “She’s had a bit of a shock,” he said. “Maybe you should go over and make sure she’s okay.”

  Celeste seemed to take in the fact that he was standing outside without a shirt or shoes, freezing in the chill wind. “I will,” she said, “right away,” and immediately got back into her car.

  Isaac turned to go into the house, but just then Liz pulled up, looking a little rattled herself. “What are you doing out here?” she asked as she climbed out of her SUV.

  He crossed his arms to garner some warmth. “Reenie came by.”

  There was a long hesitation. “What did she say?”

  “She wants us to take Keith with us and go back to L.A.”

  Liz pursed her lips as she took in this information. “Did you tell her Keith won’t even return my calls?”

  “No. I didn’t get the chance to tell her much of anything.”

  She threw back her shoulders. “We have a right to be here, too.”

  “I guess,” Isaac said, and went inside.

  * * *

  KEITH’S CHEST CONSTRICTED with fear as he gazed down at the legal-size envelope he’d just retrieved from his parents’ mailbox. He’d rushed home over his lunch hour because he was expecting his last check from Softscape and he needed the money. He hadn’t sent anything to Liz since he’d left L.A. and their house payment was due on the first. He was sure Reenie was running low on funds, too.

  But this was no check. It came from an attorney named Rosenbaum—an attorney in Boise.

  In the other room, his father and mother were arguing about where to place a picture Georgia had bought last week.

  “Aren’t you going to measure it?” Georgia asked impatiently.

  “Why?” Frank responded. “I can tell I’ve got a stud right here. Why not let me hang it and be done?”

  “Because I want it centered.”

  “It is centered. I can see that it is. If you don’t let me put the nail here, the weight of the picture will pull it right out of the wall.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. Keith works at the hardware store. He can get you one of those special doohickeys that works even without a stud, if we need it.”

  Their voices filtered through his mind as Keith gazed at the envelope. As great as his parents were, living with them was no picnic. He missed Reenie. He missed Liz. He missed his children, clamoring to wrestle with him or climb onto his lap, and he missed the money he used to make…

  What about the counseling they’d discussed? he wondered. That was supposed to save their marriage. She seemed willing to go to a therapist the last time he called. But she hadn’t told him to disregard anything he might receive from her attorney.

  His heart thumped erratically in his chest as he opened the envelope. He knew what it would contain, and yet the sight of the Divorcement Decree hit him hard. Reenie was divorcing him. The woman who’d always loved him so passionately.

  “Doesn’t she understand what I’m giving up?” he muttered to himself. What about Liz? And Chris and Mica? His sacrifice had to mean something to her.

  Vaguely he heard his mother come into the room, but he was so devastated by what he held in his hand that he didn’t bother to hide the documents from her.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He swallowed hard. “Reenie’s divorcing me,” he said, his words sounding as hollow as the rest of him.

  “What?” She came closer to peer down at the papers. “Honey, she must’ve started that before she agreed to counseling. Have you called her since you got this?”

  “No.” The truth was that he was afraid to call her, afraid she might say she was going through with the divorce, after all. Until this moment, he never really believed she would.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, looking like someone shot you,” she said. “Get on the phone.”

  His throat was too dry, too tight. “I’ll call her tonight.”

  “Call her now. This is more important than anything.”

  “I’ll deal with it later.” When he could breathe….

  “If you put it off, you’ll lose her for good, Keith. Deal with it now.”

  Taking a deep breath, he tossed the divorce papers onto the table to get them out of his sight and went to the phone.

  Reenie answered on the fourth ring, but she hardly sounded like the woman he knew. “Reenie?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Have you been crying?”

  When she sniffed but didn’t answer, the lump in his throat nearly choked him. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m so—”

  “Why’d you call?” she asked abruptly.

  He blinked, fighting his own tears. “I got the papers.”

  “Please sign them right away,” she said. “I…I want to put this behind me.”

  Squeezing his eyes closed, he pressed a hand to his aching chest. “What about counseling? You said—”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “Just go back to Liz, Keith.”

  “I don’t want to go back to Liz. I want to make things right with you. I—”

  “There’s no way to do that! Don’t you understand?”

  “I won’t sign the papers, Reenie.”

  “Then I’ll go to the police. What you did was illegal, Keith.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Would she really turn him in?

  The doorbell rang, drawing his mother away from the kitchen.

  “You must’ve loved Liz once,” Reenie said.

  Grateful for the privacy his mother’s absence afforded him, he struggled to come up with an answer for what he’d done that she might understand. He had loved Liz. In many ways, he still did. But not on the same gut level that he loved Reenie.

  In the end, he decided there wasn’t any way to make Reenie understand. He didn’t understand, completely. So he tried to take the focus off Liz by putting it back on their own marriage. “You and I have been together since we were in high school, Reenie. That’s half our lives. We have three children. You’re not going to throw all that away, are you?”

  “I’m not the one who threw it away, Keith,” she said. “You did. Now I just want to be left alone to raise my daughters. I don’t want Liz’s kids attending the same school as mine. I don’t want to bump into her when I buy gas. I don’t want—”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. But Reenie didn’t get a chance to explain before his mother interrupted.

  “Keith, there’s a woman here to see you.”

  Fresh panic clutched at his throat. “Who is it?”

  His mother wore a puzzled, distraught expression. “She says she’s your wife.”

  Keith’s heartbeat seemed to echo in the room. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  Evidently, Reenie had heard Georgia. “Liz’s there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said numbly, amazed to hear no surprise in her voice.

  “Maybe you can make your second marriage work, Keith,” she said. “For—for your other children. But please, take Liz and her family back to California.”

  “You can’t be serious,” he said. “We need to talk….”

  Only a dial tone answered him. She’d already disconnected.

  * * *

  LIZ HAD NEVER FELT colder in her life. She sat primly on the sofa in Keith’s parents’ living room, waiting for her husband while staring at her mother-in-law—a woman she’d thought was dead. It was pretty easy to recognize the gleam of animosity in Georgia O’Connell’s eyes. Keith’s mother didn’t want her here. Keith’s mother didn’t even want to know she ex
isted.

  “I’m not trying to cause trouble,” Liz said.

  “Then what do you want?” she responded coldly. “My son is married to a lovely woman. Together they have three children. His wife’s parents are good friends of ours.”

  Liz had expected Keith’s family to know about her—or she would’ve waited until she could confront him somewhere alone. She’d assumed word would have spread by now, sending shock waves through the whole community. Especially a community the size of Dundee. How could Keith’s parents not know? Why wouldn’t Reenie have told them?

  Maybe Reenie felt as humiliated as Liz did. But at least Keith had really loved Reenie. At least he’d wanted to save his relationship with her.

  “So? What do you have to say?” Georgia prompted.

  Managing to burrow beneath the Band-Aid covering her thumb, Liz dug even deeper into her cuticle. She’d thought speaking to her husband at his parents’ house would be much more private than showing up at the hardware store, where the clerk at the Gas-N-Go had told her Keith worked. But she’d made a terrible mistake coming here. She should’ve waited….

  “I—I realize this is difficult—” she started, but Keith appeared in the doorway at that moment, and the sight of him took Liz’s breath away. This was her husband, the man she loved. Surely there had to have been something authentic about their relationship.

  She stood because she didn’t know what else to do. Her natural impulse, even now, was to go to him. She longed to feel his strong arms slide around her, craved his smell, his touch.

  But he didn’t give her so much as a smile. He looked worried, rumpled, on edge. “Liz,” he said with a formal nod.

  Georgia O’Connell looked from one to the other. “Who is this woman, Keith?”

  Pressing the butt of his hand to his forehead as though he had a terrible headache, he closed his eyes.

  Liz held her breath.

  “Keith?” his mother repeated.

  The shrillness of Georgia’s voice seemed to shock him out of his stupor. It also brought an older man to the living room, one close to Keith’s height but significantly heavier. “Georgia?” he said. “Are you okay?”

  This had to be Keith’s father, the man the gas-station attendant had called Frank. Liz could see the family resemblance, the concern underlying his gruff exterior when he saw his wife’s distress.