Love and Other Natural Disasters (33 page)

"Charlie, it's not like we
were colluding or—"

He cut me off. "You get Jacob
ready yourself. Knock on my door just before you go and I'll take care of Liv.
But I'm not making any promises after today."

"Why are you so mad at
me?" I asked his retreating back.

Not turning around, he said,
"I'm not mad at you." He continued down the hall, went into his room,
and shut the door.

I was anxious all day at work.
Charlie was going to leave. I could feel it. He loved Jacob and Olivia, but
they were my life; he'd wanted his own life with Lil. Now that he wasn't going
to have it, he'd go back to his closest approximation. Back to loser friends,
easy sex, no job, no home of his own, but at least it was his.

I was suddenly terrified. I
couldn't imagine being in the house alone. Charlie had camouflaged the reality
that Jon was gone; he'd stood in as an adult male voice. He'd been my tag team
partner, my confidant. The brother who couldn't have been trusted six months
ago to pick someone up at the airport on the right day had become my rock.

I spent much of the day marshaling
every argument I could for him to stay, but eventually I had to admit my own
selfishness. I wasn't the one to say whether he was better off staying or
going. The decision had to be his.

Just before two o'clock, Chad
knocked on my office door and stuck his head in. "You've got a
visitor," he said with a broad smile.

I flashed on an image of Jon, and my
heart surged. But Chad stepped aside, and it was Charlie, pushing Olivia in her
stroller.

"I thought I should finally
see where you work," he said. He looked around approvingly. "Nice. It
could use a window, but nice."

I was relieved to find no trace of
anger in him. "It's so good to see you. This morning—"

"It was way too early,"
he said dismissively.

As he settled into a chair, I
greeted Olivia. She gurgled happily. I thought how much she'd changed under
Charlie's watch, and I hoped my guess was wrong and he was staying after all.

I sat in the chair next to him,
instead of going back behind the desk. "What's going on, Charlie?" I
asked.

He smiled at me, but there was
something in it that evoked an image of him driving away and me standing by the
roadside. It was a good-bye smile. "You know what's going on."

"I'd rather hear it from
you."

"It's time for me to take off.
We've taken care of each other pretty well these past months, but all good
things come to an end, right?" His face was composed, but his Adam's apple
was working way too hard.

"Is it just because of Lil? Or
was it me, too?"

"I was starting to feel edgy.
That's why I talked about getting my own place. I mean, I'm a guy. How long am
I supposed to live with my sister and her two kids?"

I nodded. "But if Lil hadn't
ended things—"

"They would have ended
eventually. It's like you said. What am I going to do, be a husband and
father?"

"I think you'd be a great one,
actually."

"Someday. That's a good thing
to learn about yourself. I wouldn't have guessed it."

"But not now?"

"Nah. Not now."

"So what will you do?" I
asked.

"I'm going to live with Mom
again. Just for a while. I talked to her this morning, and then to Phil. He's
going to give me a job as a mechanic at his dealership, and as soon as I get a
few paychecks, I'll get my own place."

"Is that really what you want
to do? Be a mechanic?"

"I don't know. I was good at
it, I just screwed off too much." Olivia started crying, and before I
could move, Charlie leapt up to check on her. Her teething had started, and he
rubbed ointment on her gums.

"Have I told you how proud I
am of you?" I said. "The way you've stepped up with the kids, the way
you stepped up with Lil. I know it didn't work out, but you really put yourself
out there. That's big."

He avoided my eyes as he resettled
himself next to me. "Thanks," he mumbled, suddenly shy.

"Don't stay a mechanic if it's
not what you want, okay? But don't quit until you find something else."

He did a military salute.
"Yes, sir."

"I just don't want you to
settle. You've got a gift, and it's people."

He shrugged.

"No, I'm serious. I'm still
looking for mine."

"You've got lots of gifts,
Evie
. But I don't have time to name them. Liv and me, we're
going to take a walk around campus." He got down on his haunches by the
stroller. "What do you think, girl?"

"I can take my break now and
show you around," I said. "Then you'll have time to name all my good
qualities. Maybe one of them can give me an actual career."

"This doesn't look so
bad."

"I could do worse." I
turned to Olivia, and lifted my voice. "You ready to go meet Dyan?"

There was the question of timing.
Maybe I shouldn't approach Jon now; maybe he'd think I was doing it only
because Charlie was leaving and it was convenient. Maybe I was only doing it
because Charlie was leaving. But deep down, I'd known before that. I wanted Jon
and me to have another chance when we were smarter and stronger. At least, I
hoped we were smarter and stronger.

I asked him to meet me at a cafe in
the city, walking distance from his apartment. I had a fantasy about us staring
into each other's eyes, wordlessly communicating our desire, then hurrying back
to his apartment, fumbling with the locks on the door, then with his belt
buckle... Being with Ray had unleashed all sorts of cinematic (at times,
pornographic) scenarios in my mind, only starring Jon. I'd been so busy with
all the arrangements around Charlie's departure that it hadn't been hard not to
call Ray, who seemed to understand the need for distance after getting that
close.

I got lucky on parking and tried to
convince myself it was a sign. If this had been a Chinese restaurant, I would
have been madly cracking open fortune cookies. Instead, it was a loud, bustling
cafe, with a well-dressed crowd (I'd decided to go more Nob than Loin) and
energetic baristas shouting out drink orders of such specificity they became
parodies of themselves: "Half-fat, light-foam, part-Americano, shade-grown
mocha!"

I settled myself by the window with
my workaday cappuccino and watched the foot traffic, hoping Jon would also be
early. Again, I got lucky and he was.

I stood up as he approached and we
shared a quick, strained hug. "Let me get your drink," I said.

"No, I'm already up."

"I'm up, too. And I'm the one
who invited you."

"Well, I was up longer, and
I'm the one who's late."

"You're not late." Was
this banter? Or just bad conversation? I couldn't tell. My palms were sweating.

"Eve," he said with
finality, "I'll get my own drink."

I noticed that as he crossed the
room to the counter, there was an energy to his step. It seemed positive (for
him, if not necessarily for us).

He returned with his coffee, and we
sat sipping our respective drinks. "Well," I said, "at least
it's not awkward."

"We've got that going,"
he agreed, smiling.

"I've been doing a lot of
thinking, and..." I paused. "
Argh
. What
kind of beginning is that?"

"A thoughtful one?" he
suggested.

I laughed. "I'm so nervous,
the last thing I needed was caffeine."

"What do you want to tell me,
Eve?" he asked gently.

"Okay. I just need to dive in,
and if it's messy, it's messy."

"Agreed."

"I just don't know if you're
still angry with me. Can I ask you, are you?"

"Sometimes," he said.

"How about now, this
minute?"

"Right now, I'm pretty
mellow."

"Good. Okay. So... I've been
thinking about all that's happened, and about you and me and Laney. I know I
haven't always been as good to you as I should have, and that's part of why you
were involved with Laney."

He raised his eyebrows, but said
nothing.

"I'm not saying that makes
everything with Laney okay, but if we both take responsibility for things,
maybe we could try again." I realized I'd been holding my breath, and
exhaled.

"I appreciate that. But I
guess I feel like you've never fully taken responsibility for what came after,
for the way you pushed and pulled me, and then for reading the e-mails. It's
going to be hard for me to trust you again."

"It's going to be hard for me
to trust you again, too. But I think we just need to do a lot of talking, and
ask a lot of questions. I was wrong for not asking you more about Laney. I
don't want to assume anything anymore, and I don't want either of us to lie, no
matter how tempting it is, no matter how much easier it seems like it'll make
things." I paused and looked into his eyes. "What I'm saying is that
I'm going to do my absolute best to forgive you for Laney and I'd like you to
try to forgive me for everything else. I've made a lot of mistakes."

"Part of me is so happy to
hear you say that, and the other part of me just can't believe it took so long.
Does that make sense?"

"Yes."

"Therapy's been good for me. I
don't feel like the same person I was. I mean, even this conversation—I can
feel how different it would have been just a few months ago. I would have
jumped at anything you said. But I'm not like that anymore."

"I see that."

"I don't want to become that
guy again. I'm lonely as hell, Eve, but I'm a better man."

I saw that, too. "I'm trying
to be a better woman. For a while, Jon, I didn't know who we were. I didn't
know who this man was who'd betray me with Laney, and I didn't know who this
woman was who'd read her husband's e-mails night after night. But I don't think
we're those people anymore. I mean, I'm hoping."

He nodded. "I've been wanting
to apologize once again for Laney. Because regardless of what you did, that was
wrong. And some part of me knew that all along. Otherwise, I would have told
you about her when she started taking up more of my time and my thoughts. I
rationalized it because there was no sex, but on some level, I knew she meant
more than she should." He leaned toward me. "But she never meant more
than you. Never. That's the truth."

"How did it happen, Jon?"

"Life was stressful. Sometimes
it was boring. You'd heard all my stories; Laney hadn't. Sometimes I felt like
a superhero talking to her, like I was a hundred feet tall." He looked
away, and I could see that he was trying to decide whether to go on. "But
it was more than that. I couldn't stand up to you. I felt like I was no match
for your convictions or, frankly, for your anger. Sometimes it seemed like what
I felt didn't matter. Sometimes I didn't even know what I felt, I was so used
to just sucking it up. I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty, it's what I
felt. In talking to Louise, she helped me see that part of why Laney was so
dangerous was that she was my release valve. I'd feel down after something
happened with you and instead of telling you how I felt, I went to Laney so she
could build me back up. I let myself turn away from you, Eve, and that was
wrong. It was unfair. And I'm sorry."

Tears pricked my eyes. "Thank
you," I said.

He reached over and squeezed my
hand, then held it. "I'm going to think about this for a while, what we
said here today and where we go next. And it's not because I don't love you. I
love you plenty. But I need to know that I'm doing the right thing."

I was disappointed, but I tried not
to show it. "I understand. I respect that."

"I love you. But we can't go
back."

"I love you," I said.
"And no, we shouldn't go back."

"So I'm going to go
think." He began to smile, and I did, too.

"Tell Louise I said hi."

"I will."

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Jacob and Luke were on the swings,
arguing strenuously. I thought we should intervene, but Lil predicted that if
we gave them a few minutes, they'd work it out. It was a debate Jon and I used
to have. He said I was always too quick to jump in, and I could see now that
I'd grown accustomed to overruling him. But he was right a lot of the time,
just like Lil was this time. They did work it out, as Lil and I watched from a
nearby bench.

"He misses Charlie," Lil
said, her eyes on Luke. "Much as I wish it was different, much as I want
to be all things, he wants a man around."

I avoided saying that I thought she
did, too. Not just any man, but I was pretty sure she missed Charlie herself.

Lil could read my face. "Yes,
I miss him, too," she said.

"Phil's giving him a pretty
good opportunity. Paying him well, giving him good shifts."