Seeing Red (20 page)

Kicking and screaming indeed.

Chapter 17

“So, Megan, explain this to me in simple terms,” Mom demanded. She perched atop a large box of books Meg had just taped closed and loosened her fingers from the work gloves she’d donned to help Meg pack her home.

The condo was going on the market. Not that Meg knew where she was going, but the sensible step one was to de-clutter and move some things into storage. Her real-estate agent didn’t think the unit would be on the market long, given it was in such a desirable building and had a fabulous view of downtown Raleigh, but they figured better safe than sorry.

“Okay. Simple terms.” Meg shifted her weight and locked her gaze onto the rug’s pattern, thinking about the past couple of months and how they’d damn near broken her. She hadn’t thought it was possible for there to be anything lower than rock bottom. “I married Sergei, Seth, so people would stop seeing me as a laughingstock. I thought if I could show I’d moved on, they’d move on, too, and find someone else to pick at.”

She waited for the fallout, for the scolding, or a long-suffering sigh, or anything. Nothing came.

“Aren’t you going to say something? You had plenty to say after I took Spike home.”

Mom entwined her fingers atop her lap and stared at her daughter. It was the same stare Mom had given when she and Stephen made too much noise in church as kids. The same stare that sent Meg up to her room to change her clothes when Mom didn’t approve of Meg’s choices. The same ice-cold look she’d given her when Meg, in a period of self-doubt, had her stylist apply a permanent, dark brown dye to her red hair at age sixteen. That dye hadn’t suited her any more than Spike had.

“Say something, Mom.”

Mom blinked, and directed her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know what to say. What to feel.”

“Why would you feel anything at all?”

“Because I have a heart. Do you know how many times in the past week I’ve had a little boy ask me to call someone he wants to talk to and me having to tell him I can’t because I don’t know his number? I had to call his company, Megan. I called his company and had the switchboard put me through so Toby could talk to him.”

“Mom—”

“He didn’t even want anything, Toby. He just wanted to say hi and make sure he was still there. And the volume was loud enough that I could hear him say ‘I’m here, Toby,’ and even he sounded like he was tired of the lie.”

“Mom, don’t bother him at work.”

“Don’t have to.” She pried her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen. “I have his cell number now. He didn’t know what to do, so he grabbed Toby a preschool spot, by the way. Needs to know what you want to do with it. Added you to his insurance policy, too. Said he’d take you off when you wanted. Doesn’t matter if you’re together as long as you’re legally married…which you will be for another fifty weeks at least, right? That’s the law in North Carolina, isn’t it? A year separated?”

Meg sank onto the wingback chair near her mother and covered her eyes with her hands. “Mom.”

“I’ve never been the kind of mother to tell you what to do, Megan, and I don’t want to start now, but I’ve got to say something, kiddo. This one, he’s a good one.”

“I know.”

“Down-to-earth, and not terribly jaded about it considering what he’s put up with. And now this mess with you.”

Meg’s eyes prickled, stung with unshed tears when she drew her hands away. “Mom.”

“Tell me something, princess. Why Spike? Huh?”

“Funny thing is, right now, I can hardly remember. I think I just wanted to do what people didn’t expect of me. I didn’t want to be predictable. To marry the handpicked blue blood like all the other girls in my old clique did. I wanted my own identity, and all I got was a lot of stress and heartache. He really is a disgusting human being.”

Mom shrugged. “I didn’t want to be the one to say it.”

“Didn’t have to. Stephen certainly voiced his opinion enough.”

“Can’t argue that. Can I tell you something you probably don’t want to hear?”

“Go for it,” Meg said with a sigh. “I’m low enough. What’s a bit more weight on my heart?”

“Oh, stop. Stephen told me that night of the fight, Seth got into it with Spike over Spike not terminating his paternal rights during the divorce, especially since he was being such a twerp about the DNA stuff.”

“Did he?” Meg dragged her shirtsleeve across her wet eyes, and now the tears flowed freely. Who gave a shit? It was just Mom.

“I still don’t know why they met, but knowing Spike I can put two and two together. Everything Spike does is for attention, and if not that, money. Maybe he even sees Toby as a ticket to cash some day, but Seth was more concerned about day-to-day things like whether he’d legally be able to add Toby as a beneficiary to his life insurance, or if he’d have to seek permission from Spike if he ever wanted to take Toby out of the country.”

“He told you that?”

“Stephen did. And he’s pursuing it, your brother. He’ll pester Spike until he does the right thing. At least in his mind. He worries about you. Always has. Couldn’t wish for a better big brother for you…even if he’s been somewhat dodgy and hard to pin down lately. Would someone please tell me what’s in Bermuda that has him burning through frequent-flyer miles at an unholy clip?”

Meg shrugged. “Don’t know.” She really didn’t. She’d never known her brother to be so secretive, even for a lawyer.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure, exactly, but can you be clear on something for me?”

“What?”

“Are you actually…condoning this?”

With some effort, Mom stood up from the low box and picked through the toy-strewn living room. After fetching her abandoned coffee mug from the counter, she turned to face Meg. “I don’t agree with the scheme. No. I wish you had said something to us. I don’t know why you think you have to keep secrets like this. First Spike, then your pregnancy with Toby. Now this?”

“Mom, please spare me the too-much-class speech.”

“Well, it’s true. And it’s not because of the money. You wouldn’t have the friends you have if they thought you had money.” She rinsed her mug, and poured the last of the ultradark Colombian roast into it. “My point is, your father and I raised you not to have to struggle, and you’ve been doing nothing over the past ten years but struggling. Maybe not financially, but emotionally, which in my opinion is far worse. I feel like I should shoulder some of the blame for it. Was there some way we could have raised you differently?”

Meg blew out a breath. “That’s just my nature, Mom. Always has been. I’m that woman who’ll try to climb the outside of a building because she doesn’t realize there are stairs inside.”

“You’re destroying yourself.”

“That’s what my shrink said. We were making great headway before my insurance lapsed. He thought I didn’t value my own existence.”

“Do you? Because, you know, Megan, there are a bunch of people who love you and are glad you’re on this Earth. Not just me and Daddy and Stephen, but Sharon and Carla love you, too.”

Yeah, they did. And Erica, too, in her overbearing Latin way. Meg grinned at the thought of how Erica had shouldered her way in a week ago and laid out this fabulous buffet of dishes Meg had never seen the likes of, and that she and Toby had stuffed themselves with for four days straight. She hadn’t said anything. Just enveloped her in the hug she needed and let her cry it out.

When Meg was done and had wiped her eyes, Erica had whispered, “I told Curt, and he’s in a mania. Won’t stop doting. I’ll just hide here for a few hours. Maybe he’ll fall asleep pacing.”

And they’d giggled. Goddamned
giggled
.

Mom gave her a nudge. “Also, I’m reasonably sure there’s a geek down in Fayetteville who’d love you, too, if you let him.”

Meg stared at her rings, spun them idly for a minute, and cast her gaze toward her mother. “What makes you think that?”

Mom sipped her coffee and stared back. She stared so long, Meg gave up on her answering and taped the bottom of another box.

“You really have to ask that?” Mom finally returned.

“I wouldn’t waste my breath otherwise.”

“Then that’s sad, if you don’t know what it feels like for a man to love you as much as he does.”

Meg’s hand with the tape dispenser stilled.

“No man is going to inconvenience himself that much if he didn’t care. Doesn’t matter how good the sex is.”

“Mom.”

Mom put her hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m speaking hypothetically, but I’m not going to pretend you’re a chaste little angel. I know under different circumstances you wouldn’t even have considered him. But fate is a weird thing. Unpredictable. Sometimes it kicks us in the gut, and other times it raises us up to euphoria. I think you’re overdue for a bit of euphoria, princess.”

Meg swallowed and set down the tape dispenser. She laced her fingers together, spinning her thumbs around and around each other, trying to make sense of it all.

Did he love her? She thought she’d known what that felt like, and then her derelict of a husband gave her reason enough to believe he’d never loved her at all. Maybe she wouldn’t know reciprocal love if it smacked her in the face.

She knew one thing for sure, though.

She loved Seth. Every bit of him, even the mangled idioms. She loved watching Toby bloom in his presence and chuckling at how he answered every one of Toby’s questions, no matter how trifling. No matter how repetitive.

Somehow, in the past couple of months, he’d managed to seep into every aspect of her life. Maybe that’s what Curt’s mania felt like—being so infatuated with the idea of something epic, and yet fearing it was unreachable.

This mania was like a disease.

Rozhkov’s Disease, maybe.

“Perhaps I am,” she said in a quiet voice, but Mom heard it anyway.

“Having someone love you—for you not to have to an uphill climb all the time… That doesn’t make you weak, princess. It’s okay to let him love you.”

“I don’t know how to do this. What to do from here.”

“Hmm.” Mom returned to the kitchen and poured a generous splash of half-and-half into her mug. “You’ve got a mess, but from where I’m standing it doesn’t look like much of one. Toby could make a bigger mess in his sleep.”

At the mention of his name, Toby stuck his head out of his bedroom door and looked at them both. “What?”

“Nothing, Toby. Just wondering if you needed a nap,” Mom lied.

“Nope.” Toby closed the door.

At least Toby knew what he wanted. Oh, to be four.

Chapter 18

Meg’s heart seemed to beat so quickly that it pulsated in one nonstop thrum. Even with her hand over her breast, she couldn’t tell where one beat ended and the next began. “All right. I’m going to do this.” She’d driven all the way down to Fayetteville for this, and being forced to concede—to give in—unsettled her.

Her body temperature had spiked high enough that she’d tested the limits of her antiperspirant, and it had failed. She dragged her hand across her forehead and shifted her weight as heavy footsteps echoed in the house.

“Please be kind,” she whispered to the door, and then it opened.

Seth filled the doorway, dressed in tattered plaid pajama bottoms, a T-shirt advertising his gym, and bare feet. His hair was deliciously messy, falling into tired eyes that widened a bit more the longer he stared.

She’d missed that face so much. The boyish curiosity of it. The way it softened whenever she engaged him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Megan. It’s so early. Where’s Toby?”

“May I come in?”

He cringed and moved out of the door. “Yes, of course you can. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I just am.”

“No. You’re not.” She moved tentatively across the threshold, taking in the clutter of the living room: mismatched sofas, battered tables, lamps that probably hadn’t been fashionable since the
Miami Vice
craze. The look, all pulled together, said, Hopeless PhD. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Would you like some coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee. You know how I take it.”

He nodded and retreated down a hallway, ostensibly to the kitchen. “Make yourself comfortable, if you can,” he called back.

“Okay.” She scanned the room again, and decided the plaid sofa looked like her safest bet. She fell into the low thing with an
oomph
. “Guess I’ll need help getting up.” She struggled a bit, wormed her body left and right, and managed a comfortable tilt that put her at face level with a framed photo on the end table.

Gingerly, she picked it up and brought it closer to her face. She didn’t know if it was the dim light or her slow brain in the early hour, but far too many seconds passed before she realized who she was looking at. It was Seth, or Sergei as he had been then, perhaps ten or twelve. His head was propped against the shoulder of a dark, round woman who covered gray hair with a kerchief and wore a simple blue dress. Her smile was serene, and his was easy.