She Has Your Eyes (10 page)

“I won’t tell anyone anything, I swear.”

After a few beats, I returned to the subject of Andrew. “So, did Folk Boy say anything else?” I asked Maggie.

“He asked me for your e-mail address.”

“You didn’t give it to him, did you?”

“No, but I said you were still teaching at NU, and he said he’d look you up through their department website.”

I scoffed. “Well, I suppose he would’ve eventually found me there had he not asked you. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t just Google me.”

“Maybe he wanted confirmation,” said Maggie.

“What will you do if he e-mails you?” asked Miranda.

“What else?” I said as I finished the last of my moccaccino. “Delete it.”

Two days later, at home with my laptop and working on a new chapter, I took a break and opened my e-mail inbox. Sure enough, there was an e-mail from apclark22 (his favorite book had always been
Catch-22
). The subject heading was a casual
hello
. As if we were well acquainted with each other. Despite the advance warning, seeing the e-mail handle and the unread message in the inbox rattled me a bit. I leaned in to my laptop, put my fingers to my pursed lips, and stared at the
hello
, as if it were waving at me.

Andrew was even more ancient history than David’s escort days. Moreover, the person I was when I was with him and the person I was with Sam (and now David) were so completely different that the former was barely recognizable to me. Knowing all the problems I’d had back then—my struggles with intimacy, low self-esteem, and seeking approval and validation from men instead of myself—had made me just as much of a participant in our demise as his cheating on me. Not to say that his betrayal was justified, but I understood it years later, and was able to forgive him for it.

That said, I still thought he was a clueless idiot.

But what if he had grown since then? After all, wasn’t I once a clueless idiot too? David insisted there was a difference between being clueless by arrogance and clueless by circumstance. He had put Andrew in the former category, me in the latter. “You were in pain,” he once explained to me. “You’d been programmed to believe something about yourself that wasn’t true. Andrew didn’t care to know any better.”

What if he did now? Didn’t he deserve the second chance as much as I had? I hadn’t seen him in years, but the last two times we crossed paths—once at a conference (the same one where Sam and I met), and then when Mags and I visited our old stomping grounds at South Coast University, two years after Sam’s death—I had treated him coldly. What if he had genuinely been trying to extend the olive branch? Maybe he had my rebuff coming to him—after all, he’d not done a very nice thing to me. But what the hell did I care now? Things had,
in the end, worked out well for me. I got to be with men I really loved, and who really loved me. Both of them.

Which meant that I didn’t need to hear from an ex who had caused me nothing but pain.

But before the pain, wasn’t there love? Before he’d been my ex, he’d been my friend. He’d been even more than that.

I looked at the new ring still getting acclimated on my finger.

I already had everything I needed.

I highlighted the e-mail and clicked on the Delete button.

Are you sure?
a message on the screen asked.

I then hit Cancel, logged out of my e-mail account, and shut down my laptop.

chapter fifteen

I couldn’t get the damn e-mail out of my head. It kept poking at me, an invisible blinking red light demanding my attention. I knew me—deleting it wouldn’t have been an option. It would’ve haunted me in my dreams. This, however, wasn’t much better. I should’ve read it hours ago.

David could tell I was preoccupied throughout dinner, kept prodding me with questions about my day and classes and my latest novel-in-progress. I responded to each one, but could tell he wasn’t getting the answer he wanted. Finally he came out and asked.

“Everything OK, Andi? Your mind seems to be elsewhere.”

“Oh, it’s just everything that’s been going on, I guess.” Lying to David never felt good, and the bigger the lie, the more convinced I was he could see through it. The statement in and of itself wasn’t untrue—certainly a lot of drama had transpired in a short amount of time—but using it to cover up the fact that my ex had gotten in touch with me, and keeping it from David, was the real offense. Why had I done it?

Again, he wasn’t convinced. “Anything you want to talk about?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“You sure?”

I nodded. He stood up, crossed to where I was sitting, leaned in and kissed me. Then he held out his hand. “Come upstairs with me for a sec. I wanna show you something.” I looked at him, uncertain, and he beckoned me again. “Leave the dishes; I’ll do them later.”

I took his hand and he pulled me from my chair. I followed him up the stairs and down the hall to the guest bedroom. The room had always been sparse with decoration, although Sam and I had painted the walls a taupe color with white trim. The full-size mattress was dressed in neutral-toned bedding occupied by Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that Sam had bought at a yard sale back when we were dating—he had called them Raggedy Sam and Andi. A single bookcase leaned against one wall (filled, of course), and a chest of drawers countered the opposite wall.

I looked at David, confused. “What? I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. I thought you were going to show me a new painting or something.”

“What do you think of making this Wylie’s room for when she visits?”

I stiffened. “Dev,” I started, but he continued.

“We can let her pick out a color—she doesn’t seem to be the taupe type—and deck it out any way she wants. Put in a TV or stereo, perhaps, some extra storage.…”

“Whoa, Dev—slow down. We don’t even know if Janine is going to let that happen.”

“She can’t legally forbid me from seeing my daughter. I’ll take her to court if I have to.”

He spoke in a threatening tone I’d never heard before. Like a lion protecting his cub.

“These things take time. You can’t expect to have a relationship with this girl overnight.”

“ ‘This girl’ is my
daughter
, Andi.”

“I know that,” I said, feeling like a child who’d just been reprimanded.

“And why not? She’s the one who came to me, remember?”

“Because a few weeks ago you didn’t even want to get tested, just wanted this whole thing to go away. Now you’re redecorating rooms?”

“I’m not afraid anymore. I want her in my life and I want to play some kind of role in her life. I want us to be
a family
.”

“She already has a family. She has a mother and a father who love her. We can’t swoop in and threaten that.”

“You’re the one who sounds threatened,” he said.

I glowered at him. “I have been nothing but supportive of you throughout this or—” I censored myself from saying
ordeal.
“—
situation
, David. How dare you get all righteous on me.”

“I don’t see why you’re giving me such a hard time about this.”

“I am not giving you a hard time. I am trying to be reasonable. You obviously can’t see clearly right now.”

“Who’s being righteous now?”

David followed me as I walked into the hallway and down the stairs, my footfalls heavy. I paced around the living room before moving to the kitchen; the house suddenly felt small and cramped.

“Look,” I said, “you know I’m supportive of you and you know I want you to have a relationship with Wylie. But you can’t just go in all gangbusters and expect everyone to line up behind you. Sam and I never had children not because we didn’t get around to it, but because we didn’t
want
to. You yourself were worried about how Wylie’s presence was going to affect us. Well, I’m uncertain about that too. We’ve got to slow down and talk about these things. Who’s going to make
decisions for or about her—you and Janine, or you and me, or both? Who or what will I be to her—a stepmother? A friend? Her biological father’s wife? Does this now mean that I come second in your life?”

He took a step toward me. “Andi, no. How could you ever think that?”

“Because,” I said as tears stung my eyes. “Because it’s possible.”

“OK, maybe I jumped the gun a bit with the bedroom. But you are very much a part of this. I am not going to shut you out, I promise.”

A dread like no other filled me as soon as he said the words.

I spied the dirty dishes on the table. “I’d better do those,” I said.

“No,” said David, “I said I’d do them. Why don’t you go upstairs to the study? I promised you a painting lesson, didn’t I? We can start tonight.”

We hadn’t even mentioned our impromptu arrangement since its conception, much less acted on it. “Not tonight. I’ve got some work to do.” Another lie of sorts—not that I didn’t have work, but none that couldn’t wait until tomorrow. This was turning into a bad habit.

His eyes turned dark with disappointment. “Well, let’s make it a standing weekly appointment, like we did last time.” He was referring to our escort arrangement.
What the hell had I been thinking?
I wondered.
Then and now?

“Sure,” I said, unenthused. I climbed the stairs to my office, the room next door to the guest room, filled with even more trepidation as I imagined it as Wylie’s room, with music blasting from behind the door and pounding through the adjoining wall, shutting us out yet taking full advantage of
David’s desire to make up for fifteen lost years. I tried to imagine another person in the house—in
Sam
’s house—vying for David’s attention and getting it.

As usual, David was right—I was threatened to the core. It had seemingly snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking, like a virus.

Closing the office door and putting on my own music, I went to my laptop, logged in to my e-mail, and clicked on Andrew’s
hello
.

chapter sixteen

Dear Andi,

I ran into Maggie the other day and she told me all about you.

(
Nice. Make it sound like Maggie spilled her guts willingly when I know it was the other way around. What, you think my best friend doesn’t talk to me?
)

She said you’re doing great, and I’m so happy to hear that. I’m doing fine as well. I’m singing and playing solo now, doing small gigs at coffee shops and the like. I never had the gift your brothers have,

(way to suck up)

but I’ve always enjoyed interacting with an audience, even if just a few people, and telling stories through my songs.

Speaking of stories, I read the novel you co-wrote with your husband and really enjoyed it. You did an excellent job creating a flawless voice; I couldn’t tell where he left off and you picked up. There was a genuine intimacy, not only between the characters but also in the writing, as if Sam was still alive and you actually collaborated. But I
suppose if you’ve been with someone that long, it’s not hard. The intimacy especially touched me.

(You don’t know the half of it.…)

I know I blew it with you. I cheated on you and you have every right to keep hating me for that. I don’t think I ever truly apologized to you. If there’s anything I wish I could do over in my life, it would be the way I treated you. Maybe it’s too much to ask, but I really want to make things right with you. Is there hope for that?