“Like, am I interested in a committed relationship? Do I want to settle down? Would I like a family? Can I support a family? Am I stable? Those things.”
Something occurred to her. “Do you want a family? Children?”
He grinned happily. “I’d like a dozen, but I’d be real happy if I could have one. If I could do half as good as my parents did raising a family, I’d be proud of that. But, if I don’t end up with kids, I have a pretty full life. My brothers are hanging plenty of fruit on the family tree.”
“You haven’t asked me those questions,” she pointed out.
“I already know the answers,” he said. “You’ve told me everything I’ll ever need to know. You look real good on paper, Cassie.”
“Walt, is it true that you haven’t had a serious woman in your life for literally years? One you were with for a good while? Absolutely true?”
“Maybe never. Makes me look like a loser, huh?”
“Not in any way. But it makes you look like someone who’s been real solitary, independent. There was no one to put demands on your time and space. No one else to spend money on before now, and you’ve been dropping a ton of it, too.”
“I’m ready for a little less personal time and space, and more with you. And it feels good to spoil you a little bit.”
“Well, I’ll try to be patient about your time and space issues, in case you haven’t really tested that yet. And you must stop spending such huge amounts of money. You’ll be broke in no time, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“Are you worried about money, Cassie?”
She laughed. “Walt, I’ve always had to worry about money. I told you how I grew up. I’ve been pretty much alone and self-supporting since I was fifteen. My girlfriend Julie worries about money all the time, too, but if she runs into an emergency, she can call her brother or her mom and dad. I don’t have that. Just a stepdad I’m not at all close to who doesn’t have much, anyway. I’m real careful with money. Always have been.”
He ran a big hand over her silky hair. “I guess that explains why you’re so frugal, so careful. You don’t have to worry about my money, honey. I have plenty.”
She smiled at him. “Well, you always have before, I guess. But I believe the important thing is having work you love. I know you love yours. And I’d really be lost without the E.R. I’m hooked.”
“Well, I make a good living. But for you, I’d get a second job if I ever had to,” he said. “I doubt it’ll ever come to that. I thought nurses made a good salary.”
“Well, good enough for me to afford a little house and a car, if I pinch. But there’s also lots of overtime to be had at the hospital. I admit, I could work harder.”
He looked very concerned. “Cassie, I said I love you. That means I’ll do whatever it takes so you’ll never have to worry. You understand that, don’t you? You trust that?”
“Oh, see how sweet you are? This is the wrong time to have this discussion.” She kissed him. “I’m sorry this came up now. We should be thinking about other things, like how nice it is waking up in the morning like this.”
“Know what I’d like? I wish it was Sunday morning,” he said, pulling her closer. “Because I have to go to work. One of the things you’re going to see for yourself when you want more of me is that I work some long hours sometimes.” He kissed her and asked, “How long before I can see you again?”
“You mean how long before we can have sex again?”
“I wasn’t going to ask that. But I sure liked sleeping next to you.”
“Well, I am off today, of course. How would you like to have dinner here tonight? Since I’m off and have time to grocery shop.”
“I’d love that….”
“If I buy steaks, can you turn ’em on the grill? I destroy steaks…”
“I’m pretty good with the grill. Big steaks, huh, Cass?”
“Sure,” she said. “Big steaks, potatoes, salad. And tomorrow morning I will be up and gone before the sun rises,” she said. “But it’s okay if we go to bed early, isn’t it?”
He grinned. “I can live with that, yeah.”
While Marty was at work, she got a voice mail from Joe asking her if she’d like to go out to dinner that evening. It was Monday. He must be brain damaged; no way he would miss Monday Night Football to take her out to dinner. Then she realized he probably didn’t really mean dinner; he meant some sports bar with a bunch of guys and a platter of wings. Whatever was going on, her schedule was too wild for her to respond. She never even called back.
She was aware he’d been trying to please her, even if it did feel too little, too late. She’d occasionally come home to vacuum tracks and a semiclean kitchen. His underwear was regularly hitting the hamper and the towel was usually hung, but if he started dinner he made a mess and his efforts at straightening—picking up the newspapers, fluffing the couch pillows, taking care of a day’s worth of dishes—were clumsy. The last time she looked he hadn’t taken care of all the hair that came off in the bathroom or the toothpaste spit on the sink and mirror; since she wasn’t sharing a bathroom with him, she hadn’t looked in a while. She knew him too well; he wasn’t so good at spit-shining a house, but he sure could make an F.D. rig or a boat sparkle.
He was regularly wearing newer, clean sweats or jeans and shaving; he was a little obvious. He wanted her in bed. His libido was a bit on the Mediterranean, hyperactive side….
She walked in at six. Tired, so tired. There were those carpet tracks; he was trying to do the things she could see. And the TV was off. She dropped her purse and by the time she was in the kitchen, he came from the back of the house.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “I never heard back. You feel like going out to dinner?”
He was clean and dressed in a nice pair of slacks, a V-neck sweater with a light blue shirt underneath and opened at the neck. It was his four days off; a few weeks ago he’d have been disgusting and stinky. But he looked nice. Crisp. She felt like the disgusting one—sweaty and covered with hair clippings after a long day. She glanced at his chest hair peeking out from his opened shirt collar. He had to shave all the way down his neck. There was a time she found that so masculine and sexy, until she had to start wiping it out of the shower and off the bathroom floor.
“Where’s Jason?”
“I took him to your mom’s. If you want to go out, we can pick him up on the way home. If you don’t want to go out, I can go get us some takeout and pick him up then. It’s up to you.”
“I’m pretty grungy,” she said. “I’d need to shower. Change clothes.”
“Whatever you feel like. You want to shower? We can go after you’re done.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But what about football? We going to sit in the bar and watch the game?”
“Anywhere you feel like going, Marty. If you don’t have any ideas, we could try that new fish place. And there’s always Martinelli’s. But no, I wasn’t looking to watch the game…”
“Joe, are you all right? You never miss a game!”
“I thought it was more important to take you out to dinner than see a game tonight. Your Mondays at the shop are pretty tough, and I was off. I, ah, tried to clean up a little….”
Reluctantly, she had to give him some credit for remembering about her Mondays, which were brutal. It surprised her; she hadn’t thought he ever noticed. “Thanks,” she said, heading for her shower. “Give me a half hour. We can go wherever you want.”
Marty pinned up her hair and jumped in the shower. She’d quickly rinse off the grunge, fluff her hair, freshen her makeup and pop out in twenty minutes and catch him riveted to the game. Then it might take an hour or two before he decided on a sports bar for pizza or chicken strips as their dinner out. She knew without a doubt that she’d catch him just being himself.
There were a few complications that kept Marty from making a decisive move. She’d been in her own room down the hall for a couple of months and it had given her way too much time to think; sh
e’d had too many nights without the warmth of a loving man in the bed beside her. She’d been angry with Joe for such a long time and now she found herself hanging on to that anger with a vengeance despite his efforts.
And she’d been fantasizing about Ryan….
It had been at least eight years since her last breakup with Ryan. During the years they’d been a couple, though on and off, she was just a girl. As relationships go, that one had been rife with pain and disappointment, but even considering that, she couldn’t have asked for a more sensuous, experienced and loving introduction into the ways of men and women. Ryan was a gifted seducer; he knew what to say, how to touch and tempt, and he could certainly deliver. But she’d spent at least as much time crying as she had sighing in contentment.
Now, emotionally estranged from her husband, she found herself obsessed with wondering if, over the past eight years, Ryan had learned. Could he have come to his senses, finally understanding what commitment meant and what the rewards were? Because if she looked back at the time with him and subtracted the ache of betrayal and the tears of sheer loneliness, he would be the perfect partner for her.
She kept asking herself why she didn’t just leave Joe, or ask Joe to move out and give her a divorce. It wasn’t about finances; there was money in the bank and she’d gladly trade all the toys for the home furnishings. She drew a decent paycheck and she knew she could count on Joe to do right by his son even if he hated her. And it wasn’t the promises she’d made that held her in place; as far as she was concerned, he broke those when he started treating her like his maid. The single thing that was holding her was knowing that Joe was trying to put it back together, that he actually loved her. He was trying harder than she was. She thought that before too long she would have an answer; either there was hope she could feel that way about him again, or no hope of getting it back. She was still in flux; when it became crystal clear, she would know.
But there was no doubt in Joe’s mind; she knew that. It had been like that since the very first time they met. When Billy introduced them, she saw it in Joe’s eyes immediately. After they’d been out a few times, she overheard Joe say to Billy, “I’m going to owe you forever for this!” He put every ounce of energy toward winning her, proving his love. He’d been a stupid slob for the past couple of years, at least, but he’d never looked at another woman, never once acted as though life with her was lacking for him in any way even though she complained constantly. She’d become a shrew—at least as hard to live with as he was.
Those two things—indulging fantasies about Ryan’s potential that she suspected were ridiculous, and suffering under the pure knowledge of Joe’s love and commitment—held her in a limbo she couldn’t seem to escape.
She finished her primping in just under twenty minutes, but Joe foiled her plan. He was sitting on the sofa, newspaper opened on the coffee table in front of him, TV off. He looked up and said, “That was fast. You look fantastic.” And then he folded up the paper.
“Joe, you’re really confusing me. What are you trying to do?”
“Give you some special attention, Marty. Isn’t that what you said you needed?”
She just shook her head.
“Where would you like to have dinner?” he asked.
“Surprise me,” she said, testing him. And she went to the car.
Twenty minutes later they were seated in a spacious booth in an upscale restaurant. It being a Monday night, it wasn’t terribly crowded and the service was prompt. Opposite from them, the dining room bled into a lounge where there was indeed a TV with the game on, but this being a pricey place, it wasn’t full of shouting, beer-guzzling men. Rather, it seemed to host several couples seated at high tables. And the TV was not in Joe’s view.
They ordered drinks and were given menus. “This doesn’t seem like your usual place,” Marty said. “I was expecting pizza or wings.”
“See anything there you think you’d like?” he asked.
“Lots of things,” she said. This was the kind of place she would have chosen and had in fact argued for many times. Now, when she’d rather not be in an elegant place quiet enough to have a conversation in, it was what Joe had chosen.
And conversation was exactly what Joe had planned, she soon learned. When the drinks arrived, Joe said, “Marty, we should probably talk.”
She looked up from her menu. “About?”
“About?” he mimicked. “Let’s see…you live on the other side of the house and every time you look at me, my bones freeze. That’s a good place to start. What’s your plan?”
She closed her menu and sighed, searching for an answer, but she was saved by the appearance of a waiter. So they took a moment to order and then Joe lifted his glass of red wine to his lips and looked over the rim at her, waiting. He could look so stern when he wanted to. Scary, if you didn’t know him. When you knew him, it was obvious he was decent and kind underneath his gruffness. He was the guy who said he’d never bolt if she got sick, disfigured.
But Ryan? She wasn’t sure he could even remain faithful. He could be counted on to be fastidious and smell good, but stick by a woman who was ill? Even she couldn’t fantasize that far! “I don’t have a plan, Joe,” she said. “That’s half my problem.”
He took a sip, put down his glass and said, “See, I don’t get that at all. Is there something more I’m supposed to be doing to get your clothes back in your closet? Because if there is, I don’t know what it is.”
“You sure it’s the clothes in the closet you’re after?” she asked.
“I want my marriage back. I want my wife back. Are you planning a divorce? Are you doing it with someone on the side—is that it? Is this going to last another week? A year? You seeing a lawyer or a lover? Come on, Marty. I’ve been real patient with this—I deserve an answer of some kind.”
“I’m not seeing anyone—not a lover or a lawyer. I got out of our bedroom because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I guess that’s what it took to get your attention, but the sad thing is, now I’m scared to go back. I’m afraid everything goes back to the way it was and I just can’t live like that anymore. I can’t face that kind of future.”
“You can’t trust me? That I’ll do my best?”
“I need a little more time, Joe. I’m not ready yet.”
“Marty. Do you still love me?”
Oh, damn, she thought. What in the world do you do with a question like that? But she hesitated long enough that he looked down at the table in front of him, shook his head and under his breath said, “Fuck.”
“What’s your plan, Joe?” she asked, taking a sip of her own wine.
“Well, that depends on a lot of things. I don’t plan to keep living in separate bedrooms, that’s for sure. In fact, if I’m living with a woman who can’t stand the sight of me, I’m not hanging around. How’s that for a plan? See, it was my plan to do whatever it took to get you back, and to keep doing it to keep you back, but if it’s not going to make any difference, I don’t know why I should stay. You want your house just perfect, which I can’t seem to get right, and you’re pretty goddamn happy in your own bedroom. That’s not my idea of…”
Her mouth dropped open as she listened to him. In all her complications and calculations, she had forgotten a couple of things—like Joe was a proud and pig-headed Italian. He was a real macho man; it wasn’t in his makeup to be whipped into shape by a woman. That loving side of him—that was the side that allowed him to make concessions and compromises, but he expected to be rewarded. She finally found her voice and interrupted him. “You’d leave me?” she asked, stunned.
“Marty, I think you left me. You just haven’t kicked me out of the house yet, that’s all.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Joe, I just took a little space, because I’ve felt hurt and unloved. I wasn’t planning to—”
“You’re planning something, you just haven’t cut me in on the deal yet. Are you saying that in the two months you’ve been holding down the fort in
your own wing, you haven’t thought about what you wanted to happen next? About a divorce? Because if there was anything in the wind that said you were getting over your tantrum here, I sure didn’t hear it.”
“Tantrum? Is that what you think happened? I had a tantrum?”
“Okay, okay, you had a point. I was an idiot and didn’t know what kind of attention you needed. I realize I needed a kick in the ass. You got through to me. Now I’m asking you…what’s next?”
She was quiet for a moment that stretched out. “Is that why you brought me out to dinner?” she finally asked. “To pin me down like this?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “This was the last thing I thought would happen. I really thought when I asked that loaded question—do you still love me?—the answer would be on your lips so fast I’d feel like a damn fool. I already felt like an idiot for not knowing how to take care of my own wife, and I’ve been trying like hell to make that up to you. But something else is going on here and it’s not me forgetting to hang up the goddamn towel. Feels like you’re done with me. Done with us.”
The waiter cheerfully brought salads, made small talk, served them freshly ground pepper, refilled water glasses. When he was finally gone, Marty said, “I wish we didn’t have to do this right now….”
Joe held his fork, but he didn’t touch the salad. “I don’t want to be doing this at all. You have any idea how I feel about you? I’d do anything for you, if I knew how, if I knew what. When I asked you to marry me, you think I was just looking for any warm body?” He shook his head. “I might not have been a whistling idiot every day of our marriage and, I admit, it got to me when you weren’t happy, but Jesus, Marty, I never for one second thought I’d made a mistake. In fact, you scared me real good when you moved down the hall, but I still thought we’d get it back. I thought that because I’ve always been so damned in love with you. And I really thought you were in love with me, underneath all that anger.”
She felt the tears come into her eyes. “I thought you barely cared about me at all…. I mean, I knew you loved me, but…”