Chapter 1
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”
Steven’s calm reply was a direct contrast to Tierney’s shrill demand. “Just what I said. I’m packing. My plane leaves tomorrow morning.”
Tierney put her hands on her hips. “You mean, you’re leaving now to get settled, find a place for us, and Sienna and I will join you later.” She tried to sound as calm as he did, but her stance suggested she really didn’t believe her own words.
“No, Tierney. I’m going to stay out there, by myself. I’m sorry. I really tried to make it work—we both did—but all the trying in the world can’t save us.”
All her attempts at composure vanished like lotion into dry skin. The volume of her voice escalated with each word. “You mean, now that you’ve gotten paid for the screenplay and series idea you sold, it’s not working. But before that, it worked just fine, because I went to work every day and supported the three of us. You used me, Steven Simmons. How dare you treat me like that! You came home just this afternoon from meeting with the producers, for heaven’s sake. I rushed home from work to make your favorite linguine with clam sauce, and you have the nerve to tell me you’re leaving again, this time for good?” Yelling now, Tierney abruptly stopped at the sound of crying. She turned to see her four-year-old daughter standing in the doorway to the master bedroom, tears running down her face. As she rushed to the child, she said over her shoulder, “Look what you made me do. Sienna’s upset.”
“You’re the one who’s screaming at the top of your lungs.”
His composure infuriated her. How dare he announce he was leaving her and their daughter? To think that after weeks of apprehension after he made the sale, she’d worked so hard to embrace thoughts of their family leaving northeastern Illinois for a new life in sunny Southern California.
Her apprehension stemmed from the fact that they really hadn’t been getting along; the strain of her being the sole support—other than an occasional short story sale Steven made—of the three of them had been too much. She feared she would grow old pinching pennies, and when he informed her that a cable network wanted to buy his script and develop it into the series he envisioned, then named the dollar amount they offered him, she’d been floored. The first thing that occurred to her was that their financial difficulties were over. Then she realized that they would have to move to California…and she didn’t like that idea at all. She had a good-paying job with a good company here in Illinois…she had friends…her church…her mother and stepfather lived in Indiana, just two hours away…why would she want to give that up to go live with a man she wasn’t even sure she loved anymore?
Her friend Tracy Norwood, who was married to the governor, invited them to come down to Springfield for a weekend, during which they would celebrate Steven’s big sale. For the most part they’d been stuck in Lake County the last two years, lacking the funds to go anywhere other than the occasional two-hour drive to visit Tierney’s mother. The weekend had been perfect. Not only did Steven behave in a loving manner toward Sienna—he often demonstrated impatience with her—but he’d treated her the same way. They spent two nights at the Governor’s Mansion, and both nights they found peace in each other’s arms, as if they were new lovers again. When they left Sienna with Tracy to go see several tourist sites related to Springfield’s favorite son, Abraham Lincoln, he’d captured her hand in his. Things had gone so well that she began to reconsider her reluctance to relocate.
In the four weeks since their return, Steven had met with a financial advisor, had them make wills, worked on screenplays for the series, deposited his check, and flown to the Coast to meet with the producers to discuss the direction of the show and the scripts he’d written. Then he hit her with this bombshell…he planned to move out West alone and leave her and Sienna behind.
Now Tierney couldn’t help wondering when this decision had been made. Had he made up his mind to leave the moment he made the sale? She felt like a fool. He’d deceived her in one of the worst ways a husband could deceive a wife. Only cheating on her could sting worse.
No, she forced herself to admit, that wasn’t how it happened. Steven was right when he said that despite their best efforts, their marriage had lost its luster. Sure, they were polite and considerate to each other, much more so than during those lean times, during which short tempers ruled; and their sex life had taken on a tenderness that had long been missing, starting that weekend in Springfield. In hindsight, that probably stemmed from the special affection they held for each other, perhaps out of a longing for old, happier times. But as hard as they tried, they simply hadn’t been able to recapture their old feelings. Kindness and consideration, and even good sex, could only carry a couple so far. There had to be that sense of true love and dedication…and for them it was gone. Maybe they should have been honest with each other and confessed it was hopeless before Steven left for California.
Tierney knew what had kept her from being honest…Sienna. Her child was the number one priority in her life, and Tierney felt she had seen and heard enough. Tierney felt responsible for that unhappy look on her daughter’s face. For half her young life, it seemed as if all her parents did was bicker. Even in the face of Steven’s announcement, Tierney felt she should have done a better job of controlling her temper, for her daughter’s sake.
She bent and scooped up the child. “There, there, Punkin. Mommy’s here,” she soothed, her left hand massaging Sienna’s back. “Nothing to cry about.”
“Mommy, you scared me. You were yelling.”
Guilt shot through Tierney. Her own parents had broken up when she was seven, but she barely remembered any dissension between them at all, just a sense of weariness, a lot of heavy sighs. In hindsight, she realized they must have taken special pains to keep their faltering marriage hidden from her, to keep her feeling safe and happy. Her daughter deserved that same consideration. “I know, baby,” she said as she coddled her daughter. “But it’s okay. There’s nobody here but Daddy and I. I promise we won’t make so much noise. Okay?”
Sienna nodded. “Okay. I wanna talk to Daddy.”
Tierney wasn’t sure how receptive Steven would be. No doubt that he loved his little girl, but he could be short with her, as he’d demonstrated many times over the past two years as he rushed to perfect and polish his script before, as he explained to her, another writer beat him to it. His improved demeanor toward her in the few months since the offer couldn’t possibly be enough to wipe out her frequent memories of making Daddy upset, and right now he was more focused on his preparations to leave them, which didn’t exactly mesh with being a loving father. Reluctantly, she carried Sienna over to him.
He smiled as he reached out to take her. Normally, the sight of her husband smiling would have made Tierney do the same, but today she simply glared at him, her hostile expression warning him not to be unpleasant to their daughter.
He held Sienna by her armpits and swung her high above his head, the way she loved, before lowering her to cradle her in his arms. “How’s my baby girl? I missed you while I was away.”
Tierney grunted. If Steven thought he missed Sienna after his brief trip to the Coast, how did he think he’d manage now that he planned to move out there permanently without them? There was probably two thousand miles between Waukegan, Illinois, an hour’s drive north of Chicago, and L.A.
“I missed you, too.”
“That’s my good girl.” He kissed her cheek.
“You and Mommy scared me, Daddy,” she said accusingly.
“I’m sorry about that. You know we didn’t mean to. But I have to ask you if you’ll be a good girl and go play in your room. Mommy and Daddy have to finish talking. Would you do that for me?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
He lowered her to her feet, and the moment she left the room Tierney raised her chin defiantly, but said nothing.
“All right,” Steven said, his tone conciliatory. “I probably should have talked to you about my plans earlier
. I knew it wasn’t going to work even before my check came. Waiting until the check cleared was kind of cowardly on my part. I’m sorry, Tierney. But that doesn’t change anything,” he added. “It doesn’t change the fact that you and I just aren’t in love anymore. Things haven’t been the same since I got laid off.”
“Because it’s been so much of a struggle for me to make ends meet, Steven. I’m only a senior administrative assistant. It’s hard to support a family of three on fifty-five K a year. This apartment is expensive.” They’d rented in one of the nicest apartment complexes in the city, because they were both working at the time and they could afford to. It had been difficult to make the rent for their two-bedroom-plus-den apartment each month, though, when they only had her salary with which to foot the bills. “One minute we were looking at houses, and the next you didn’t have a job and everything was on my shoulders. That’s why I asked you to get a job, even something part time, just to have a regular paycheck coming in. Would it have killed you to spend a few hours in the evening doing a little bartending or working at Sam’s Club?”
“I did make some money writing, Tierney. You make it sound like I contributed nothing to our household that whole time.”
“And then you insisted that Sienna stay in daycare. You wouldn’t even allow that cut in expenses.”
“We’ve already gone over that. I couldn’t concentrate with her wanting to play every five minutes. I had to get my concept completed and polished so I could attract an agent. Plus I was trying to spend part of each day working on stories I could sell for immediate income.” He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Maybe if you’d believed in me, you wouldn’t have been so damn resentful.”
Her mouth set in an unforgiving line. “I did believe in your talent. When you got laid off I agreed you should see if you could make it as a writer.”
“Yeah…for the four weeks my severance pay lasted. Not that I’m complaining. Hell, I was lucky to get that much, since I only worked there for a year. But I barely had time to lay out my idea in four weeks, much less work on writing it.”
Tierney silently conceded that Steven had worked on his writing seven days a week, with diagrams outlining plotlines and characters she didn’t understand. Four weeks seemed like a long time to her. “I still think you could have worked part time and wrote the rest of the time. You used to do it with a full-time job.”
“And I’d still be working on my idea instead of having sold it. Hell, someone else might have beaten me to it.”
“But they didn’t,” she snapped, “and Sienna and I are being cast aside now that someone’s paid you a six-figure amount for creating a series.” Tierney had to force herself to keep her voice down after promising Sienna there would be no more frightening shouting. Her harsh whisper made her anger clear. “I’ve been nothing but a meal ticket to you.”
Steven’s eyes narrowed. “For your information, I left three-quarters of the money in your account. I have a certified check for one-fourth of it, which I’ll deposit into my new account out west.”
“It used to be our account,” she said softly. Her shoulders drooped in defeat, even as she considered that this was probably for the best. Her anger came from being disappointed. She’d gotten accustomed to the idea of relocating, tried to tell herself she was still in love with Steven, even if in her heart she knew it wasn’t true. At any rate, if he didn’t want her anymore, that was it. She had too much respect for herself to want to hang on to a man who no longer wanted her. At least he was providing for her and Sienna financially. What was that he’d said to her when they were down in Springfield? “You’ll always be special to me, Tierney. I’ll always be grateful to you for taking care of us.” It hadn’t sat too well with her at the time he said it, but she’d been falling asleep at the time. When she was able to recall what he’d said, she chose not to ask him about it, but she couldn’t help thinking it sounded more like parting words than a pledge of undying love.
Steven had suspected even then that their marriage was over. And if she’d had any sense, she would have considered it, too.
Tierney straightened her shoulders. Above all, she wanted to behave in a dignified manner. The argument they were having now only cemented the fact that they needed to be apart. “But if you want a life apart from Sienna and me, I’m not going to try to stop you. I have dinner to make.” The water she’d put on to boil for spaghetti before Steven asked to speak to her was probably boiling by now, or at least about to.
“Like I promised you, Tierney, I’m going to take care of you and Sienna.”
“That’s big of you,” she said bitterly. “You’re doing what you’re damn well supposed to do. But supporting your daughter is one thing. When do you plan on seeing her? Or do you just plan on being a cash register that she only has vague memories of?”
“Of course I’ll be seeing her, Tierney. She’s my daughter.”
“How, exactly? You’ll be living two thousand miles away!”
“I haven’t worked that out, exactly…but I absolutely plan on being a part of her life.” Steven looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “Why are you giving me such a hard time, Tierney? You put a good face on it, but I know that deep down you haven’t been any happier than I’ve been. Are you angry because I made the first move toward ending it?”
She drew in her breath as though he’d slapped her. “How dare you accuse me of that! This isn’t about my ego, Steven. It’s about my jumping through hoops for you the last two years, going along with you at every turn. You wanted to write full time when you lost your job, and I went along with it. Then you sold your script and said it meant moving to L.A., and I went along with that. Now you say you’re moving, but without Sienna and me. You haven’t considered my feelings at all! That’s why I’m so ups—”
The sound of an ear-piercing scream just then sent Tierney into immediate action. She raced toward the direction of the scream, which wasn’t Sienna’s bedroom.
It came from the kitchen.
Good Lord. The pot of hot water on the stove…
Steven practically knocked Tierney down in his rush to get to Sienna, who stood screaming next to a puddle of water, the toppled Dutch oven on the floor, pointing to her left arm.
“Get ice!” Tierney screamed. She reached for her injured daughter, careful not to touch the affected arm.
Steven opened the freezer door and grabbed ice cubes, applying them to Sienna’s arm. They dissolved within seconds.
“We have to get her to the emergency room,” he said. He took more cubes from the freezer and applied them to her arm. “Hold these in place.”
Tierney mutely did as he said, watching as he filled a zipper-sealed bag with ice cubes and sealed it. “Keep this on her arm. Let’s go.”