“This was your theory?” I could have started shrieking like a harpy here. I was furious that he had taken so long to say anything, that he’d hidden his suspicions so well from me even though I’d been trying desperately to hide the truth from him.
Okay, I wasn’t at my best. Imagine Scotty, down in the hold: “She’s crackin’ up Cap’n. I dinna know how long I can hold her together.” Chunks were falling off my walls, the moat was being drained, the portcullis was suddenly rusted right clear through.
James knew.
James had always suspected.
The game was up.
“I didn’t suspect at first, not until it was too late.” He gave me another hard look. “And when you finally came home, I thought we’d get it straight. But you made sure that what I saw had nothing to do with what I was looking for, didn’t you? You’re as responsible for this as me.”
My anger found an outlet. “This is not my fault!” I shook a finger at him, enraged by his attitude. “You are not going to lay this at my door! You’re the one who married my sister.”
“Only because I was looking for you!” James turned and propped his hands on his hips, his snapping eyes revealing that he was far more angry than I had suspected. “Perhaps you’ve noticed that you two are twins.”
“Liar. You were not looking for me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I gave you my phone number.” I spat the accusation I’d held back for twenty years. “You never called. Not once.”
“I took the wrong coat from the bar. I never got it back.”
“A likely story.”
“A true story.” James shoved a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Do you know how many weeks I spent prowling campus, hoping to catch some glimpse of you?”
That non-existent Twinkie in my gut was thinking of heading north again. “And you found my sister.” Oh, it was just too horrible to be true.
“Except I didn’t know that she had a sister, not then. I thought I’d found you.”
“What a bunch of self-serving crap,” I said, feigning indifference even though my heart was racing like I’d been running a hundred miles an hour. “You’re the one who keeps saying that no one could mix us up.”
“What did I know about you then, Maralys? I didn’t even know your name, or else I didn’t remember it.”
“We were so drunk.” I dropped the lid of the toilet and sat on it, burying my face in my hands. “It’s ancient history, James. It’s got nothing to do with anything.”
It has everything to do with everything, Maralys.” James squatted in front of me and pulled my hands away from my face, his unexpected gentleness making me want to cry. Wouldn’t that be slick? “I was looking for you when I found Marcia, and I thought she was you. I courted her and married her because I thought she was you.”
“Ooops.”
I peeked just in time to see his expression harden. “You did nothing to persuade me differently. You hid out until after the wedding, then you showed up years later looking like a punker queen and pretending not to know me from Adam. What was I supposed to think?”
“What did you think?”
His gaze was rueful. “Just what I suspect you wanted me to think. That you were the family slut and you didn’t even remember sleeping with me.”
Our gazes held and I had the urge to hide from his searching look. “But you should have known,” I whispered, clinging to my ridiculous romantic assumption. “You said it stunk, right from the start.”
“It did.” James sighed. “I couldn’t reconcile how she was with what I remembered of you. I rationalized it a thousand ways. We’d been drunk that night, but she wouldn’t drink when we were dating. I thought maybe she was embarrassed -” he laced his fingers with mine again “- because I remembered how shy you were once we were alone. She wanted to wait for our wedding night and I thought it would be fine then. I thought I would get her drunk the next night if it wasn’t. I was sure I could make it work. I was sure that it would all be fine in the end.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“Marcia never liked sex, which was a whole lot different from what I remembered of you.” His quick glance made me blush. “I knew she wasn’t faking but was dumb enough that I didn’t figure it out right away.” James grimaced. “It didn’t help when I asked why she had her mole removed.”
“Oh Jesus.” I hung my head. Marcia knew damn well that I had a mole there - we used to play compare-and-contrast when we were little, maybe because we were both so desperate to find a hint that we weren’t exactly the same. I put my head between my knees and begged the nonexistent confection to stay put. “If it sucked, then why were you so determined to marry her?”
James shook his head. “Because I was enough of my father’s son - or so I thought at the time - that I was determined to make things right. I thought I was supposed to marry her. You were a virgin, Maralys. I thought it was my responsibility to marry you after what we’d done.”
“That’s a lousy reason to get married.”
“It’s been good enough for a lot of other people through the ages. And there was something between us that night.”
“Your dick.”
“Besides that. A lot more besides that.” He squeezed my fingers so tightly that it hurt but I didn’t so much as flinch. I sure didn’t look up because I knew I couldn’t hold his gaze. “Where the hell were you? If you’d made one single appearance while Marcia and I were dating - one show, Maralys - everything would have been resolved.” His voice rose slightly. “Why the hell did you have to run away to Japan?”
I sighed, all my careful reasons of the time now seeming as substantial as dust. “I’d been thinking of going anyhow. And then you never called and I never saw you again. I figured that the cliché had come true for me, that you’d only wanted one thing from me and disappeared once you’d gotten it.”
“I would never do that.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“It’s the kind of man I am.”
I cast off his grip and pushed him away, getting to my feet with undisguised impatience. “Puh-leese! We were drunk! We barely knew each other! We didn’t even know each other’s names!”
Now I was getting angry again. Thank God I have no neighbors because if I had, they would have enjoyed overhearing this show.
“What was I supposed to think when my sister showed me a picture of her dream date? What the hell was I supposed to think when she rhapsodized about the special bond between you? What was I supposed to do when she insisted she was going to marry this guy and live happily ever after?”
“She had a picture of me.”
“Who the hell else? There it was, in living Technicolor. You and my sister were as happy as two clams, holding hands and the whole nine yards. It was, if you must know, sickeningly sweet.”
“You could have made one appearance,” James insisted. “You’re twins, Maralys, you have to be used to being confused with each other.”
“This is not my fault!” I roared. “How was I to know whether it was true love or not? Marcia was happy about it. My parents were happy about it. You looked happy about it. What right had I to destroy her engagement?” I jabbed my thumb at my own bare chest. “Who was I to step into the happy scenario and say ‘hey, I’ve done it with him and he’s okay.’ Can you even begin to appreciate how much trouble that would have made?”
“No, but I’m starting to get the idea.”
“We were Catholic, James, not Catholic the way it is now, but dyed in the wool on your knees every morning and confession once a week Catholics. Marcia and I were supposed to be virgins until our wedding night and only tolerate sex after that so that we could do God’s will in making more Catholics.”
I forced myself to take a breath. I was shaking, but it might as well all come out now. “Nice girls were not supposed to be so curious about sex that their virginity was lost on a whim. Nice girls were not supposed to get drunk. Nice girls wer
e not supposed to stay out late with friends. Nice girls were supposed to put others before ourselves.” I paused for emphasis, letting James see the fullness of my hostility. “Nice girls did not get pregnant out of wedlock and left alone to deal with it.”
With that, I left the bathroom, aware that I had probably shocked James for the first time in his life. His jaw had practically bounced off the floor with that last one, but I didn’t care.
Everyone wanted truth? Well, they’d better fasten their knickerbockers. I had lots of truth to share around. The casualties had only themselves to blame for asking in the first place.
I started to get dressed, I don’t know why, because I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe I just needed some kind of protection between myself and this man.
Ha. A little ‘protection’ would have saved me a lot of trouble some twenty years ago. I moved jerkily, having trouble with the simplest things, like getting one foot into my undies at a time.
But wasn’t keeping your undies on always the problem, Maralys?
“Pregnant?” James came out of the bathroom, looking dazed. “You were pregnant? From that one time?”
I gave him a scathing glance. “Spare me the slut lecture. It was from that one time.” I turned my back and zipped up my jeans, thinking how stupid it was to be shy in front of this man who had already seen so much of me. But I did it anyway.
I heard him coming across the floor, cautiously, as if I might lob another Molotov cocktail at him. I expected an outburst, but apparently had shocked him beyond that.
James caught my shoulders in his hands and bent his head, touching his forehead to the top of my head. It wasn’t the reaction I expected from him. It was almost…tender.
You know that kind of shit throws my game. I stiffened but didn’t turn, even though my heart was starting to skip again. Tears pricked at my eyes. I couldn’t bear it if he was going to be decent about this.
James’ voice was thick. “What happened to the baby, Maralys?”
I shouldn’t have been disappointed that he asked that, shouldn’t have been surprised that he was more concerned with his unknown progeny than with me. Nope, no ‘gosh how did you cope?’ but ‘what did you do with my baby?’
But I could have slugged him. Really. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake off the weight of his hands. No luck. “It doesn’t matter,” I said viciously, fighting his grip in earnest.
“Well, yes it does.” James spun me around to face him. “You owe me the truth.”
“Fat chance!” I was ready to fight, but James disarmed me yet again.
He spoke very gently. “Is it so reprehensible that I want to know about our child? I know I’m late to the party and I know that I can never make it up to you, whatever you went through. But tell me, Maralys, tell me what happened. Please.”
It was the ‘please’ that got me. Nothing like good manners to melt my reserves. Guess one of my mother’s many lessons hit home after all.
I looked away as my tears welled. “It died.”
“It?” Now he was annoyed. “Boy or girl?”
“Who knows? What difference does it make?”
I might have walked away, but James tightened his grip and gave me a shake. “Don’t you know?”
I met his gaze angrily. “How very flattering that you think I didn’t even bother to find out the baby’s gender. I miscarried.” I spat the word. “At fourteen weeks, in a hotel room in Osaka. The gender of the child was as yet not easily discerned by the layperson, particularly a young stupid layperson under duress.”
I stared at him challengingly, letting my tears fall, as if they were as much an accusation as my words. “I was alone. In a country whose language I did not speak, without medical care, without a friend, without anyone I could even call.”
To James’ credit, he didn’t look away. In fact, he seemed to be becoming as angry as I felt. “Your family…”
“Would have shunned me if they had known. Trust me. That wasn’t an option.” I shook my head. “I think sometimes that my father does know, that he somehow guesses, because that certainly would explain his attitude towards me.” I stepped away, knowing that I was going to mourn my lost child once again and wanting to be alone to do it, as I’d always been alone. “Don’t you have to go somewhere?”
James wasn’t budging. “So, that’s where you got that chip on your shoulder.”
I spun on him, furious and weeping and damn near losing it. “Don’t make this sound trite! I lost a child! I lost my child! And I lost everything with it. I lost my innocence and my conviction that there was anyone or anything I could rely upon!”
“And you were cheated.” He stepped closer. “We not only lost our child, Maralys, but we lost something precious that we found for just a moment.”
“Don’t you show me sympathy now.” I shook a finger at him and backed away. “You are not the hero here.”
“No. You never gave me a chance to be. What’s the matter, Maralys? Still afraid someone might live up to your expectations, if you give them a chance?”
“No. There’s no chance of that.”
We glared at each other. James stepped even closer, but he didn’t touch me this time. I could smell his skin and feel his heat and a part of me wanted very much to have his strength wrapped around me again.
But I fight my own battles, thanks very much.
He watched me, as if reading my thoughts, then his eyes narrowed. “One of these days, Maralys, you’ll either admit that you might need someone else, or you’ll self-destruct.”
I folded my arms across my chest, hugging myself since no one else was going to get close enough to do the honors. “Let’s just say that I’m selective with my trust.”
James looked pointedly around the loft. “Selective to the point of exclusion.”
“What time is it, Mr. Wolf?” I said challengingly, knowing one good way to be rid of him. “Time to go home to your family yet?”
James looked at his watch, swore, then reached for his Jockeys and jeans. He dressed quickly, his gaze dark and fixed on me. “This isn’t done, Maralys.”
“It is done, James. It’s been done for a long, long time.”
“No, it will never be done.” He closed the distance between us with quick steps and caught my chin in his hand. He put his thumb over the wild flutter of my pulse, then lifted my hand to the thrum of his. I was surprised to discover how quickly his heart was beating. “It’s never going to be done, Maralys, because this spark that started it all is never going to die.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. It brought us together once…”
“Too much cheap beer and rampant teenage hormones brought us together once.”
“Cheap beer made us able to hear this, even in a bar packed to the roof with rampant teenage hormones.” He folded his hand over mine, trapping my fingers against his heartbeat. “This is what it’s all about, Maralys and you know it as well as I do.”
“No.” I tried to step away, but his certainty stopped me. “I don’t agree with you.”
“Message received,” James whispered. “That’s why I’m going to have to change your mind.” And he gave me another one of those soul-searing kisses before I could get away.
He was way too persuasive. I pushed him back and it wasn’t easy to do - either because he was bigger than me or because that kiss was awfully good stuff. But I wasn’t going to be something else to be made right, something else in his life he could fix.
“I’m not another duty left undone, James.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Yes, it is. Go home.” I was rubbed raw and bleeding all over the floor, so many emotions finally cut loose that I couldn’t think straight. “It’s over now, as it should have been over a long time ago. Now you know and we can both move on.”
“Bullshit,” he said flatly and framed my face in his hands.
“Truth,” I challenged.
James smiled, ready to prove
me wrong, but I ducked out of his grip and retreated. I’d been angry with James for so long, with life for so long, that it didn’t seem fair to suddenly find out that he had tried to make it right. Talk about losing my pointer.
It was imperative that James not make an appeal to me now, in my weakened and vulnerable state, because I might screw up and agree to something that I would regret later.
Hell, I already had screwed up.
I put my hands up when he started towards me. “Go home.”
James shook his head and kept on coming. “Where does it say that you get to make the rules, Maralys? This is important!”
“It’s not important to me!”
“Liar!” James’ words came out in a little growl. “Maralys, I’ve spent my whole life living up to expectations and fulfilling duties. This is about following instincts. This is about recognizing something good and not letting it go…”
“I won’t be your midlife crisis!” I backed away. “Get out and get out now.”
James scowled and raised a finger to argue more. I had to admire that the guy didn’t back down from a fight, even if it was seriously pissing me off in this particular instance.
The phone rang before he could speak. I leapt for the receiver and knew damn well that James would interpret my gratitude for an interruption as a victory for his side. “Hello? Hello!”
“Where the hell is Dad?” Marcia demanded, without so much as a do-you-mind. “I’ve been calling him all night and there’s no answer. What have you done with him? What have you done to him?”
On impulse, I pivoted and chucked the cordless receiver at James. “It’s for you,” I said with an innocence of manner that made him look wary. He caught the phone instinctively, though, and I left him no choices. I headed for the shower.
Saved by the bell.
Sort of.
* * *
The problem with being in the shower was that I couldn’t eavesdrop. But then, I’d only want to eavesdrop if I had some kind of vested emotional interest in the success or failure of James’ marriage, and that I didn’t have.