Before and Ever Since (9781101612286) (18 page)

“Ohhh!” I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. He pumped harder and all I could do was cry out in some crazy voice, as I heard him build up a roar of what sounded like pain if I hadn't been watching his face.

My name never sounded so good as it did being forced through his clenched teeth in the throes of orgasm. Again. And again.

I fell onto his chest as we both heaved in air and waited for the blood to return to our heads. And just when I thought I couldn't be surprised anymore, he grabbed me tight and flipped us over so that he was on top, smiling down at me.

“Wow,” I breathed.

“Impressed?”

“Kinda. Especially since you're not even breathing hard anymore,” I said, huffing.

He chuckled and moved the hair out of my face. “Well, I guess I recover quickly.”

“I'm a little out of practice, sorry.”

“Oh,” he said, shaking his head. “If that's out of practice, you're doing just fine.”

I smiled and closed my eyes, still in my basking place. “That was—”

“Amazing,” he finished for me, as he kissed my nose, my cheeks, and found his way to my lips again. “Hot, sexy—”

“Mmm, oh, yeah,” I agreed.

“Better than the roof?”

I chuckled. “I don't know; that had its own special touch.”

“I don't think my bones could handle that now,” he said.

I moved my hands along his shoulders, up to his face. “I think your bones do just fine.”

His fingers were in my hair, playing with the strands, and his eyes were playful. “Well, now that the crazy monkey sex is out of the way, we'll see how well they hold up.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am,” he said, dropping a kiss on my lips. “See, I'm taking a little break, here.”

“Uh-huh.”

Another kiss. “And then I'm going to make love to you very slowly.”

“Mmm, sounds good.”

Another kiss. “And then I'm gonna take a little longer break.”

I giggled. “Mm-hmm.”

“And then that one's on you.”

“Really?”

“Yep, your choice.”

I kissed along his jawline. “And if it's on the swing in my backyard?”

He looked down between us. “I think I just got hard again.” We both laughed, and his eyes were warm. “I don't care how we do it, I just want to see your face.”

Something in that simple sentence froze me, brought me back to reality, and he must have sensed it because he leaned back to look at me. I know he saw it in my eyes, the fear behind the desire.

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“No, there was something. The whole room changed temperature.” He caressed my cheek with his thumb. “Talk to me. What did I say?”

I looked in his eyes. “The—seeing my face thing. It's stupid, I know, but it brought me back. You said that then—”

Realization dawned. “Emily, let me tell you something.” He moved off me and lay to my side, on one elbow. “I made a mistake back then. One that cost us.” He closed his eyes for a second like he physically felt the pain. “When I leave here today, I
will
be back. And the time after that. And the time after that.”

A sinking feeling joined the celebrating one in my gut. Cassidy.

“For whatever reason, we've been given a second chance,” he said, pulling me up close to him. “I'm not blowing it.”

We can't have a second chance,
my brain screamed. But everything else was making a much louder noise. My heart pounded in my ears. “I love you.” I froze as I said it, surprised that it fell out of my mouth like that.

His eyes misted a little, and that got me even more. “I've always loved you, Em.”

•   •   •

B
EN DIDN'T LEAVE THAT DAY AT ALL.
O
R THAT NIGHT.
E
VERYTHING
was an opportunity. Making something to eat created a new perspective on my kitchen counter. Watching TV on the couch gave it new love. Showering—well, let's just say we took a few. We never did make it to my swing, but I figured there was time for that.

I watched him sleep, as I woke up and couldn't get enough of seeing him lying next to me. I wanted to take a picture to keep with me, to prove I didn't imagine the phenomenal day and night we'd just experienced. To hold on to this image of the man who could still give me goose bumps just lying in my bed. I wanted to believe in what he kept saying about fate and second chances, but he didn't know what I knew. I just couldn't trust that it had staying power. Not with the giant wrecking ball looming over our heads.

What would happen if the truth were found out? Or
when
. Because life was never that simple and it shouldn't be. The truth would come out, sooner or later, if Ben and I remained together. And there really wasn't an
if
there, either. I was madly in love, again. I was everything I'd tried so hard not to be.

It was that damn house's fault. Because that was logical.

What would happen to Cassidy if she found out that the man she'd always called Dad—wasn't? They had their differences, but still, she loved him. Kevin adored her—it would crush him. And Ben—what would he say? How would he feel? I knew that answer and I pushed it away.

Ben stirred in his sleep, and I used the opportunity to curl up against his warmth. His body responded without ever waking up, a rumble of contentment in his chest as he pulled me to him, our bodies fitting each other perfectly.

•   •   •

T
HE NEXT TWO DAYS WERE A BLUR OF WORK AND SEX.
I
HAD
showing after showing after closing after contract signing, which was a good thing after all the downtime. Every other waking moment—and the non-waking ones, too—were spent naked. Ben was insatiable, and I have to admit that my sex drive had skyrocketed. I remembered hearing about the mighty Ben Landry's sexual prowess when we were young, how he spoiled women for any other men. I was definitely spoiled.

But it was more than that. I knew the sex would calm down with time. I had my best friend back. The one I could talk to without reservation and listen to his voice forever. That was the good stuff.

I pulled up to Mom's house late one afternoon, just as the sun was disappearing behind the trees and the sky looked sleepy. I'd spent an entire day dragging one particularly picky couple all over the county to find the perfect window lighting. Of course, the lighting changed throughout the day, so what they nixed in the morning was the one they loved in the afternoon. I joked that they could just sleep in every day, but I don't know that they were normal enough to find that funny.

I parked behind Ben's truck, feeling the giddy tingle in my stomach at the thought of him in there. Holly drove up just as I got out.

“Where've you been?” she asked, lugging some foldable boxes out of her backseat.

“Working.” I held up the bag of fast-food remains I'd chowed in the car. “And eating.”

“That stuff is so bad for you,” she said.

“So is starving,” I said defensively. “It was necessary. It was a long day.”

She got a wicked grin on her face, kind of foreign for Holly. “Mm-hmm, I bet.”

I looked at her funny as I took some of the load off her and we walked up to the porch. “What?”

“I saw Ben's truck at your house last night,” she said, all singsong-y.

Everything went hot from my shoulders up. I wasn't quite ready to share it yet, but clearly it was going to be shared anyway. And just as I was about to make it sound all talky-talky and noncommittal, Ben opened the front door.

“Saw you coming,” he said, holding it open wide for us to maneuver her boxes in.

The look that passed between us did not go unnoticed by Holly. And I couldn't deny it, either. There was nothing noncommittal about what I wanted to do with him right there in the entryway. And it wasn't even just a sexual thing. I saw the whole package from our whole lives when I looked in his eyes, and it had little to do with the way my skin tingled thinking about the night before.

He closed the door and went back to his work, but my smile couldn't be pulled back.

“Oh my goodness,” she said, leaning the boxes against a wall. “You got laid.”

“Shhh,” I said, my head on a swivel, although a giggle came up like I was fourteen.

Holly laughed, too, and shoved at me. “Mom's outside with Aunt Bernie, picking up sticks.”

“Why?”

Holly did a weary shrug. “You know Mom and her leaf and stick fetish.” She lowered her voice. “So what changed this around?”

I put my hands over my face. “I don't know. Being weak, I guess.”

“That dance the other night at The Grille—”

“Yeah, that—probably didn't help.”

Holly laughed again. “So, what now? Are y'all, like, dating?”

I opened my mouth to answer and then realized I had no idea what to call it. “I think we kinda skipped that step.”

Her eyes got wide. “It's that serious.”

“It's—that serious.”

We looked at each other, both realizing the implication of that, which took the levity down considerably.

“Does he know about Cassidy?” she asked, to which I shook my head. She bit her lip and nodded. “Okay then.”

“I know,” I said. “I don't sleep anymore, thinking about that. Mom knows, by the way.”

“Oh, shit.”

I held up a hand. “No, it was okay. When I had my little nervous breakdown that night—she guessed.”

Tandy pushed through the doggie door flap and did her huff-and-puff routine at us before settling into her bed with a glare.

“You have no idea how sucky your life is about to get,” I said to her.

“So what did she say?” Holly asked, bringing my attention back to her.

“Not much, really,” I said. “She didn't get upset.”

Holly snickered. “Well, at this point, Ben's got more brownie points than Kevin.”

“True.” I shook my head, chuckling in spite of myself. “That's horrible.”

“Well,” she said, taking in the empty living room and the just-enough-to-get-by kitchen. “Off to clean my room, well, as much as I can around Aunt Bernie's stuff.”

And off the subject, per classic Holly.

I didn't know what I was there to do, actually. Maybe watch Ben work? No, that would be juvenile. My room was done, and I had no desire to go back to verify that. Not that there was anything else to beat me up with in there, but I wasn't taking the chance.

Truth was, I had gotten so accustomed to going to my mother's house almost every day that it seemed like the natural thing to do. If Aunt Bernie hadn't been there occupying her attention, she'd probably be eating it up.

I wasn't going to stalk Ben, so I headed up the stairs with the intention of seeing what needed doing in the attic. I passed my door without hesitation, and before I could get to the pull down, I noticed my dad's office door open slightly.

I went in and flicked the switch, flooding the lonely old room with light. The telescope had been put back in its place from where we'd moved it, and I flicked the switch back off to go peer out of it. It took some adjusting to find the right angles again, but the familiar places were there. Waving, as though they'd been waiting all along. The Big Dipper. Orion's Belt. I made a mental note to ask Mom once again if I could bring the telescope to my house rather than put it in a cold, dark storage building where no one would enjoy it. I didn't see her attaching it to Big Blue.

I turned on the lamp behind my dad's desk and saw that the other stuff was already gone. It struck me hard in the gut to see it that way. All the weird décor, the wooden duck, the tins, the calculator—all the stuff on his desk was gone. I felt a burn in my stomach as I pulled out the drawers and saw they were empty. The thumbtacks, even. I looked up at the poster, though, that was still on the wall and ran my hand over the dusty surface. I wondered when my mother had done this, and if she'd needed me. Or maybe it had been something she needed to do alone. Regardless, it was like a physical loss, not being able to come in there and feel his things. I'd always thought it was kind of silly, but now I realized how comforting it had been.

I sat in his chair, listening to the familiar squeak of the springs and the clicking noise as I swiveled a little to look at the poster. No sooner had I done that, when the tingling and tightness around my body began.

“Lovely,” I muttered, gripping the chair arms and closing my eyes. The sound of wind rushing by filled my ears and everything went topsy-turvy for a second until I jerked forward and sucked in a giant breath of air.

CHAPTER

16

Still sitting in my dad's chair, I took the usual few seconds to catch my breath and look around. I had an immediate rush of warmth as I got to see all his things back in their places. Knowing they'd be gone again when I returned, I panned the room slowly, memorizing the way it was supposed to be, wishing I could film it for posterity. There were extra things, too. Some large boxes lined up on the far wall, probably attic overflow. Possibly Uncle Tommy's stuff, or some of Mom's craft stuff.

The quiet didn't last, which I didn't expect it would. I figured there was something to be learned by my little trip, and that hadn't happened sitting alone yet. Dad's voice came down the hallway, accompanied by one that grabbed my heart.

“Well, let's go see,” my dad's voice said, entering the room. He looked exactly as he did when I'd last seen him, with gray taking over most of his short hair and a slight paunch to his belly.

Holding his hand was Cassidy. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that bounced golden curls like springs. By the stretchy leggings and sparkly yellow butterflies on her shirt, I put her at around seven or eight years old. My hand automatically went to my chest as I took in the little girl Cass had once been. Skinny and prissy, free of makeup and beauty products, just eager dark eyes waiting to drink in the stars and constellations.

“Is it dark enough?” she asked, her little voice melting my heart.

“Oh, I think so,” he said. “Question is, are you eight enough?” I smiled as I remembered him doing that. “Because only true-blue eight-year-olds can see Orion's Belt.”

“I've seen it,” she said, with all the grown-up-ness she could pull off. “You showed me the three stars when we were in the backyard like a year ago.”

He winked at her as he peered into the scope and moved it to line it up just right. “But not the whole shebang,” he said. “Not like you can see it through here.”

He moved to the side so she could look, and she did it like he told her to, not touching it, keeping her hands down by her side.

“Whoa,” she breathed. “Look at everything else around them. How come you can only see the three when we look up at the sky? There's like kagillions!”

“Because space goes on and on forever,” he said, leaning an arm against the window. “We see the closest and the biggest. The stuff the sun shines on.”

“I want to go see it all one day.”

Dad laughed. “You want to go to space?”

“Yeah,” she said in awe, still taking it all in through the little eyepiece. “I could do that. I could be an astronaut.”

Dad shrugged. “You can be whatever you put your mind to, whatever you're willing to work for. Because if something's hard to get, it's—”

“Gonna be the good stuff,” she finished with him, smiling up with two missing teeth.

“That's right, doodlebug,” he said, tweaking her nose. He sat down on the window seat and gazed at her.

“I want to go everywhere,” she said, climbing onto his lap and looking up at the poster with the red circles. “Space and Japan and Greece and Hawaii.”

He widened his eyes in mock surprise. “All that?”

“That's just one summer,” she said, her head cocking with attitude, as he laughed. “I'm gonna see all of Europe, and South America, and Australia the summer after that. And Alaska.”

“Wow,” he said. “I want your job.”

“Oh, I'm gonna have a great boss, too. She's gonna let me take off on my trips whenever I want, and pay me lots of money.”

“Good for you!”

“Yep.”

“Cassidy?” came my voice from downstairs. “Come on, baby, we have to get home. Tomorrow's school.”

“Ugh,” she said. “Today should go on forever. Birthdays should be longer than regular days.”

So it was her eighth birthday. That thought jiggled something in my memory, but I couldn't pick it out.

“Yesterday was your birthday, it probably was longer. Today was just like icing. Like a freebie. That's the good part of when birthdays fall on a weekend.”

“I guess.”

“And you need lots of school if you're gonna be an astronaut and snag that rich job of yours,” Dad said, tickling her ribs. “So give me a hug.” She jumped up and attacked his neck with a giant bear hug. “Ooh, yeah, that's a good one. Love you, doodlebug.”

“Love you too, Paw-Paw.”

She ran downstairs, and Dad continued to sit in the dark, leaning against the wall that jutted out from the window. He looked off at nothing, and I wanted so badly to talk to him. To tell him all the things I never got to say. Because you always think you have later to say them.

The light filled the room, and my dad blinked as Uncle Tommy walked in. “You sitting in the dark?”

“Hey, bud, thought you were already gone,” Dad said.

“Nah, I had to hit that birthday cake again,” Tommy said with a chuckle. “Nice to see everyone tonight; thanks for the invite.”

I had to think a minute, but then I remembered a party that Uncle Tommy came to right after his second divorce. He was evidently lonely and Mom and Dad decided he needed some family interaction. My kid's eighth birthday was, I guess, the closest thing on the agenda.

“Glad you could come by,” Dad said, getting to his feet, looking tired in the bright light. He hugged his brother in that backslapping way that men do and moved as if to leave the room, but Tommy stayed put.

“Um, wanted to talk to you, if you have a second,” he said.

My alarms started going off. Dad's probably were, as well, but he didn't show it. He just looked worn out.

“Okay.”

Tommy sat on the desk, so his back was to me, but I could see Dad's face.

“Well, you know things have been hard since the hardware store went under,” Tommy began, and I saw Dad's eyes lose a little shine.

“Yeah, I have a little bit of an idea.”

Tommy held up a hand. “I know, I know. You've had to struggle, too. The store just—”

“Don't even go there,” Dad said, his voice quiet. “That was seven years ago. And the store didn't do anything. You did.”

Tommy sighed, a deep, miserable sound that even made me feel sorry for him. “I know,” he said again.

“And you need money,” Dad said. It wasn't a question.

“Just till the end of the month, when I get paid,” he said. “And only if you can spare it.”

“And if I can't?”

There was a pause, and all three of us knew that Tommy would do something stupid to get it, which is why they kept trickling it to him. “Then I'll figure something out,” he said. “I'd pay you back, though.”

“No, you won't,” Dad said, walking around behind his desk. Tommy turned to face him. Dad leaned on the desk, right next to me. I could have touched him if my bubble of freakydom would let me. His hands splayed above the drawer that held his never-used thumbtacks. “Do you know that I've been trying to save for years to take my wife, my family—now just my wife again—on a trip?”

“What?” Tommy said, looking thrown by the change.

“All she ever wanted to do was travel,” he said, still looking down at his hands. “I promised to take her, but it never happened. We had kids, and I promised to take them. Never happened.” He stood up and looked at the poster. “Kids are grown and have kids of their own now; it's just me and Frannie again. I'd love to make good on just one of those promises.”

“So what's stopping you?” Tommy said, making my dad turn to him with a look that should have withered him.

“You.”

Tommy looked taken aback and gave a little chuckle. “What do I have to do with it?”

Dad turned back to the poster, lifted up the free corner at the bottom with no tack, and reached behind it sideways, to his elbow. When he pulled out a metal box, I cried out.

“Oh my God.” The freaking box. It was behind the damn poster?

He set it on the desk rather hard, making the pencil cup jump. He opened it, and there was a small stack of cash, with notes scribbled on bits of paper. I strained to see them, but I couldn't make them out from my angle. He grabbed a section of the cash, counted out five hundred dollars, and shoved it at Tommy.

“Take it and go,” Dad said.

“That's it?” Tommy asked, fingering the bills like they'd betrayed him.

“Are you kidding me?” Dad said, rounding the corner of the desk. “Four months ago, I gave you a thousand. Six months before that, fifteen hundred. Last year, another four thousand throughout the year. And every other damn year before that,” he finished, his voice rising. “Why am I never able to do anything with my money? Why have I never taken my family anywhere? Why did my livelihood go down the damn toilet? Why am I having to live check to check at a shit job and watching Frannie work her ass off to help make ends meet at this point in our lives?” Dad advanced on Tommy, and I held my breath. I'd never seen him angry like that. “Because you are a leech and a user and all I ever do is throw good money at you.”

Tommy picked up the bills slowly, not saying anything, as Dad closed the box and put it back in its place.

“Thank you,” he finally said after a full minute, then he walked out the door, never looking up.

Dad leaned against the wall after he put the box back, and then looked at the poster again. He lifted the corner and pulled the box out, glancing at the door suspiciously.

“What are you doing, Dad?” I asked, not really intending to ask it.

He carried the box to the far side of the room, looked at the door again, and opened a flap of one of the large cardboard containers. He dug around in it, pulling things up I couldn't see, and shoved his box down into the middle somewhere, putting the other things back on top and closing the flap back.

I laughed out loud. “I don't blame you,” I said. “I wouldn't have trusted him, either.”

Dad rubbed at his face, raked his fingers back through his hair, and walked downstairs. I looked down at the pencil cup, the big antique calculator, and the desk calendar. And my skin lit on fire.

It was turned to May 7, 1998.

•   •   •

“Oh, no,” I breathed, as I looked back up to where my dad had left. “No, Daddy, wait!”

But he couldn't hear me. And I couldn't change anything. Tears filled my eyes anyway as I wished for a do-over so that I could have looked at him closer. If I'd realized this was the night he died, I would have paid attention.

I rested my face in my hands and recalled the hysterical phone call from my mother at three in the morning, when she'd found him in his recliner with the TV still going.
Bonanza
was on. I heard the music through the phone. I let the tears come, thinking how tired I was of crying. “I love you, Daddy,” I whispered.

The suction began, and I didn't move, didn't brace myself, I just waited. The noise of air and high-pitched ringing filled my ears, the air was squeezed from my lungs, and I hurtled through whatever it was that kept throwing me back and forth until I pitched forward like someone kicked me.

I sucked in a giant gulp of air and gripped the desk as the vertigo slowed down.

“Shit,” I muttered, blinking in the dark. “Okay, that—oh my God.” I got up and walked on shaky legs to the door, and shut it behind me.

“Whoa, Emily honey, are you okay?”

My mother would pick that precise time to come out of her bedroom.

I turned and nodded, swiping at my eyes. “Just having a nostalgic moment, I guess.” I opted against,
Well, I just saw Dad a few hours before he died, and by the way he gave Uncle Tommy five hundred dollars.

She put an arm around me, and we walked to Holly/Aunt Bernie's room, where Holly was smiling through Aunt Bernie's rant on downsizing, while giving the unmade bed-with-clothes-on-it an evil eye.

“You saw Big Blue,” Aunt Bernie was saying. “She has all I need. None of that crap that used to hang on me like a noose was necessary.”

“Well,” Holly said. “Right now, I like my crap. Think I'll let it strangle me for a little while longer.”

“Suit yourself,” Aunt Bernie said, kicking her shoes off and looking for her slippers, which were in two different places. I knew it had to make Holly nuts to see her old room so messy. “Sure wish I would have started sooner.”

She excused herself to go start baking something, and no one was about to get in the way of that, so Mom and I sat cross-legged on the messy bed and watched Holly wrap tiny ballet dancer figurines.

“House is looking good, Mom,” Holly said.

Mom smirked. “Well, some of it's just putting lipstick on a pig, but if it'll help sell it.”

“Sure you still want to?” Holly pressed.

Mom widened her eyes. “Yes, I'm sure. So—I hear things are happier with you and Ben?” Mom asked, nudging me.

I gave Holly a look, and she stuck her head in the box. “Really?” I said. “Can't imagine how you heard something like that.”