That was another reason she kept taking Roger back—because if she couldn’t be forgiving, she couldn’t be forgiven. That, and she wanted her life to be worth something. She wanted the family she’d made to survive. And of course there was the fact of Roger, a seductive and charming flirt to the end—and it had worked on her for years.
But then she woke up in a hospital in Reno with every inch of her body throbbing in pain and for the first time in almost twenty years, she realized her marriage had gone on long enough.
It was time to move on.
Two
If there was anything on par with being dragged half-dead out of mangled car, it was physical therapy. Every step shot through Clare like dynamite, every stretch came with the agony of the rack. The first thought she had upon waking in the morning was that she was going to suffer the torture of the truly damned. All this was administered by a devilish little creature no bigger than a wood sprite. Her name was Gilda and one should not be fooled by the fact that she was a mere slip of a thing. She had a black heart and the strength of a herd of dragons.
“One more step, come on, one more. Good! Good! Okay, one more…”
“I…hate…you…so…much….”
“Ah, yes—sweet talk. You’ll thank me when you’re up dancing the rumba again.”
“I’m…taking…out…a…contract…on…you….”
“One more, no whining. Good! Good! Okay, how about just one more.”
“You’re going to suffer. I swear to God!”
Gilda kissed her cheek. “You’re tough stuff, Clare. Good thing you were in such great shape when you got hit—it’s paying off.”
“You are a mean-spirited witch.”
“Yes, so they tell me.”
The payoff was that after being abused by Gilda she could have a pain shot, a sponge bath and a nap. Then the company would start to arrive. And with them always the same dilemma—she was bored and lonely in addition to wretchedly uncomfortable, and she was too tired to endure too much visiting. Still, she wanted them to come.
Her younger sister, Sarah, dropped by daily and Maggie came for a little while most afternoons, often bringing Jason with her. Her brother-in-law, Bob, usually made a quick swing by in the evenings—he spent a lot of his workday in Carson City, the capitol of Nevada. And her dad, George, still went to his neighborhood hardware store every day, retirement not even a part of his agenda despite the fact that he was in his sixties. One thing had changed in his schedule—he was now taking a lunch hour, which he spent at the hospital. And he would sometimes stop by later in the evening on his way home from work. And George’s cleaning lady, Dotty, made it a point to come to the hospital most days with some kind of sweet treat meant mainly for the hospital staff. “Soften them up,” Dotty said. “They’ll go easier on you if you feed them.”
Clare’s mom, Fran, fell ill with cancer when Jason was only three. It took her quickly. Sarah was devastated by the loss and at twenty-one, moved back into her dad’s house, but she proved to be no help at all. Both of them grew thin and messy, so Maggie and Clare pooled their resources and hired Dotty to clean twice a week and stock the refrigerator with nutritious meals. George protested, but soon he gained some weight and his stained clothes were clean and pressed. Sarah, so lost there for a while, had a maternal figure to watch over her.
Dotty was a widow just a couple of years older than George. When they first found her, she had a total of four families she worked for, but now she was down to George, who she said would have to bury her to get rid of her. “I don’t like him that much,” she said, lying through her false teeth, “but it’s obvious he is useless on his own. And if I can do one kind thing for his departed wife, it will be to make sure he doesn’t join her too soon.”
The one person in Clare’s life who hadn’t put in an appearance was Roger. But in the way things that seem too good to be true aren’t, he showed up. He got past the sentries at the door. He waited until evening, just before visiting hours were over, and brought with him that pathetic face that said, Oh I’m such a bad boy, you must take pity on me for I suffer so. What poor Roger didn’t know was that the second she saw him that vision came into her mind—of a slim blonde on top of him. And it infuriated her anew.
“Clare,” he said. “I’ve been trying to see you, but your sisters said you didn’t want to see me.”
She put on her call light. “That’s right, Roger. Go away. I’m an injured woman and you’re making the pain worse.”
“I want to talk to you about Jason,” he said.
She turned off the call light.
“I think he should be staying with me,” Roger said.
“What on earth for?” she asked, genuinely perplexed. “You’re busy all day and most evenings. What’s he supposed to do?”
“We’ll get in the car pool for school. I’ll lighten my schedule. He can have his old room.”
She thought about this for less than ten seconds. “No,” she said. “He’s fine at Maggie’s and, in case you haven’t noticed, he’s still very angry. You’re going to have to give him more time and make up with him before you coax him home.”
“How can I make up with him when he doesn’t want to see me?”
“I’m sorry, Roger, I know it makes you feel bad, but he’s adamant, he doesn’t want to spend time with you.”
“You can talk to him about that.”
A few days ago, pre-cracked pelvis and major surgery, she probably would have. But the cause of this current separation had created such terrible anger in Jason. This had been a long time coming; she had always dreaded the day her son would find out that his dad, the object of such admiration, was screwing around on his mother. Jason felt completely abandoned by his father, though Roger kept trying to reconcile with him.
The night it happened was awful beyond belief. Clare had chosen the time specifically because Jason wasn’t going to be home. He was spending the night at a friend’s house. Clare confronted Roger about his latest affair, which she had researched thoroughly. He denied it and she laid out her proof—copies of bills, cell phone calls, et cetera. She knew exactly who the woman was—one of his many clients to whom he sold insurance. A lot of regrettable things were said, but the worst were:
“Okay, maybe I did have a stupid, meaningless little fling—a guy can make a mistake!”
“A meaningless little fling? There have been over a dozen. Maybe many dozens!”
“Well, you’re not exactly welcoming in the sack, you know, Miss Ice Queen.”
“What do you expect? I’ve had to worry about disease!”
“When have I ever given you—”
Roger’s eyes had grown large as he looked past Clare and his expression became stricken. She whirled to find Jason standing there, the in-line skates he’d come home to fetch dangling from his hand.
“My God, Jason,” she had said, chasing him as he fled from the house.
Roger rattled the bed rail to regain her attention. “Clare? You’ll talk to him about that? Tell him, regardless of our family problems, his place is with his father.”
In her mind she saw that blonde again; she remembered the night Jason overheard their fight.
“No,” she said. “No, Roger. We don’t have ‘family problems.’ You have a problem. I’m not sure what it is—sex addiction? Being a pathological liar? Doesn’t matter. The fact is, I don’t have a problem and Jason seems to be doing fine. He’s had a big scare with my accident and I’m not going to make it even worse by forcing him to go to your house. We’ll deal with your relationship later.”
“My house? It’s still our house, Clare. And there are legal—”
Her hand came crashing down on his and he yanked it off the bed rail with a yelp. “What the…?”
“Listen to me, Roger. Don’t you dare fuck with me now. You leave Jason alone or, so help me God, I will make you pay! Now go home and leave me alone. No one will bother you—you can screw your brains out with any hoyden you can find!”
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He looked at her as though cut to the quick. “That’s nice, Clare. Very nice. As though your accident hasn’t been a big shock to me, too?”
“Oh bite me, Roger.”
He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what’s happened to you.”
“It’s very simple—I got smacked up the side of the head and all your bullshit fell out and some sense seeped in. Now go!” She flipped on the nurse’s call light for emphasis.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine.” He turned and left.
It was amazing how good that felt. She didn’t seem to even want a pain shot. It was as if drawing that line in the sand with him, firmly for once, was all the narcotic she needed.
She saw someone peeking in the door. George had a real evil grin on his leathery face. “Oh, Clare,” he said. “That’s the best entertainment your old dad has had in ages.”
So how did they get past that trauma of Jason overhearing? He skipped the night at his friend’s house and Clare took him with her to the Hilton in Lake Tahoe where they got a plush two-bedroom suite. She bought them bathing suits in one of the shops there, and ordered room service and a movie. They went swimming at midnight. She told him as much of the truth as she thought he could bear—but she could see it really didn’t get through his anger.
The real credit went to George, both for being there for Jason and somehow managing not to kill Roger. George explained to Jason that Roger was a screw-up when it came to flirting with women and had really disappointed and let down Clare. It was probably a good idea for them to separate, but what George wanted Jason to understand was that while Roger seemed to have this weakness, he had many strengths—he’d been a pretty good father and was proud of Jason. He cared about him and was suffering, terribly, because he’d disappointed his son. “So what? He should have thought of that before,” Jason had said.
“You’re right, he should have. But none of us is perfect, so let’s not throw stones. I know you’re all bent out of shape, and maybe I don’t blame you, but don’t nurse this too long, Jason. Your dad loves you, and you’re only as mad as you are because you love him.”
“You’re saying I should forgive him?”
“I’m saying I hope we get to that pretty soon, yes. Because whether you believe me or not, the two of you need each other.”
Clare topped that off by getting Jason in a counselor’s office, too. She intended to do all she could for him, feeling so damn awful about not bolting the door that traumatic night against his possible surprise return. What they finally came to learn was that once Jason knew his father had been unfaithful, he immediately felt that Roger had cheated on Jason, too. No wonder he was pissed.
Lying around in a hospital bed, Clare had plenty of time to think about her family, especially her sisters, her two best friends. Maybe they hadn’t been best friends growing up, but they were in adulthood. As Clare spent so many long hours of the day in pain, her sisters putting their own lives on hold to sit at her bedside, she was reminded constantly of how lucky she was to have them. She couldn’t get through this without them.
George and Fran McCarthy had three pretty green-eyed daughters. Maggie came first, Clare three years later, and then Sarah, the caboose, who was born six years after Clare. They couldn’t be more different if they had been born on different planets.
Maggie was a typical firstborn overachiever, who had excelled in high school and college and attended law school, graduating with honors. She married a lawyer and had two daughters who were now thirteen and fifteen; they were sometimes Jason’s closest friends, sometimes his bane. Hillary and Lindsey.
Maggie, age forty-two, lived in a perfect world and though she worked hard and put in long hours, her clothing was always chic, her shorter-than-short light brown hair impeccably cropped, her nails immaculate and there were never circles under her eyes. She had the wonderful high cheekbones that can carry off that coiffure and looked sexy as hell, except that she downplayed the sex appeal with conservative suits, tools of her trade in court. She had household help, of course, in that not-so-modest Breckenridge manse of hers, but even on Ramona’s days off, there was never a speck of dust or so much as a throw pillow out of place. Maggie was all about perfection and control. Yet she was loving—but in a very crisp and unflappable way. Nonsentimental. Maggie was the one to call if you needed something taken care of; if there was a problem to solve. If you were wallowing in self-pity or feeling fat or in love, forget Maggie. She had no time for petty self-indulgences.
And then there was Sarah, thirty-three. As a teen, Sarah had been in constant trouble. She lied to her parents, broke curfew, went to parties she was forbidden to attend, lost her virginity at fourteen and found school to be a gross inconvenience so she dropped out in her senior year and moved out of her parents’ house the second she turned eighteen. Sarah smoked, drank to excess, wore tight, provocative clothing, and when she did come home for family gatherings, she always managed to find a guy to bring along who looked like a member of a biker gang. Sarah knew her mom was hopelessly disappointed in her; Sarah and her mother had been locked in a bloody battle over Sarah’s wild and loose behavior since Sarah was fourteen. Then Fran fell ill and died without that being resolved and Sarah crumbled. She hit bottom and suffered through a frightening depression that required medical attention.
In therapy, Sarah discovered art. She eventually went back to school, got a degree in art and began to create and do some teaching. She painted, threw pots, sculpted and wove decorative rugs, throws and tapestries. A true gift emerged, and also a focus so intense she would become lost in her work. She opened a small studio that grew into an art supply shop where she also gave occasional classes to small groups of aspiring artists. With that avocation came not only renewed health but a disinterest in those bad habits and slutty clothes. She tossed off the contact lenses in preference for glasses so her eyes wouldn’t dry out if she was consumed by a project for hours and hours, chose clothes that were loose and comfortable to work in, had no time for makeup and pulled her hair back into a severe ponytail or bun. At thirty-three, still living with George, she had become dowdy and spinsterish.
Of the three daughters, Clare lived the most average life. She was a stay-at-home mom who did some volunteering and substitute teaching. She had become an excellent decorator, chef and homemaker. A terrific wife. For what good it had done.
Clare loved her sisters deeply. She was probably closer to Maggie, given that they were nearer in age and both tended to mother Sarah. Much to Sarah’s annoyance, they still worried about her and protected her whenever it seemed like what she needed.
It was only Maggie to whom Clare confided the events preceding her accident. In earlier times she had felt the need to explain reasons for her separation from Roger to her sisters and dad, though they were hardly surprised. They’d taken him for a hopeless philanderer long before Clare put a name to it. She hadn’t said anything about the night of the accident, however. She had already left Roger and her family patiently, hopefully, awaited the divorce. No need to drag him through any more mud and risk having the whole shoddy experience further damage Jason.
But when they had a moment alone in the room, she told Maggie.
“He said he was going to be out of town on business, so I went over to the house to grab a few kitchen things and leave him a birthday card I forced Jason to sign. I was actually feeling kind of sorry for him—alone on his birthday. I’d barely arrived, standing in the foyer, when I heard a sound from the bedroom. He was banging some blonde.”
Maggie surprised her by letting go a whoop of a laugh. “My God! How can one man be so predictable!” She leaned closer to the hospital bed. “Is that why you never saw the SUV coming? Your mind wandering back to the scene of the slime?”
“No, that’s just it,” she said. “Just a few minutes before the accident, I was pulled over for speeding. I didn’t get a ticket, but the officer followed me a little. I remember stopping at the red light and I remember it turning g
reen. He was right behind me.”
“He must have seen the whole thing! That’s how the police got the witness report that she had blown the light!”
“Probably. I should thank him. But maybe if he’d let me speed…”
“Yeah, then maybe it would’ve been your fault.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Let me ask you something. Does Roger think he upset you enough so that you weren’t paying attention and got broadsided?”
She took a heavy breath. “I don’t know what Roger thinks and I don’t care. He’s great at acting guilty, but since his behavior never changes, it’s probably all crap.”
“Oh man,” Maggie said. “I think you’ve finally suffered enough.”
“We’re not going to tell anyone about that night.”
“Are you protecting poor Roger?”
“Hell, no. But I think Jason has enough on his plate.”
Maggie nodded resolutely. “Agreed. Time to let the kid heal.”
Clare had been in the hospital for over two weeks and the rains of March were giving way to the sunshine of April, which Clare could only view through a veil of pain. Within a week she would be released, though she would be on crutches for a while and back for physical therapy, probably lasting months.
Maggie let her know she’d be coming into money. She was using her attorney skills to negotiate with the offending driver’s insurance company for a settlement. “I’m not going to have to sue her, am I?” Clare asked.
“Not a chance,” Maggie assured her. “You’re badly hurt, a police report puts her in the wrong and believe me, they’re going to settle generously. I’ll see to that. You should have a nice nest egg—which is the least you deserve. The details will take time.”
Police report. She was reminded about finding and thanking the police officer who stopped her, though she wasn’t sure how to go about that. And then, late in the day after company had gone and the lights in the ward had begun to dim, he appeared in her doorway. It took her a moment to place him as his dark blue uniform had been replaced by a sweater and a pair of jeans. The absence of the bulletproof vest didn’t seem to diminish that broad chest, thick neck and strong shoulders. As she studied the young face that peeked in her doorway, it wasn’t until he flashed that winning grin that she realized who it was. “You!” she said.