The Manning Brides

“No, let me finish. Please, let me finish while I have the courage. I never competed with her, never allowed myself to be put in that position, because I knew, I always knew, I’d be the loser. The problem isn’t you, Paul, it’s me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve discovered I’m greedy and jealous and I hate myself for it. I hate thinking the things I do. I hate feeling sick with envy because you love Diane. I feel guilty and miserable and I can’t go on like this.”

  “Leah, Diane’s gone. I’ve let her go—released her. She’s my past. You’re my present, my future.”

  “I wish it was that simple,” she said with a sob.

  “You don’t need to compete with her.”

  Leah turned to look at him, her gaze unflinching. “Do you love her?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, but I love you, too.”

  “I need some time…to think, sort out my feelings. I’m sorry….”

  “Time?” He went cold with fear. She was going to leave him. His heart was in turmoil, his head spinning. Could he have found happiness only to lose it again?

  “I…can’t sleep with you anymore, Paul. You want me, you desire me, but it’s Diane you love. It’s Diane you call for in the middle of night. Not me. For the first time in my life, I’m not willing to take second place to my sister. For once, just this once, I want something just for me. I want to be loved for me.”

  She started to cry then, and Paul knew that nothing he could say would comfort her.

  Twelve

  Paul drove around for several hours, trying to clear his head. A light rain had begun and the skies were gray, which only depressed him more. He parked his car when he passed the small apartment complex his brother Jason owned. He sat there, wondering if he should talk to his younger brother.

  He never discussed his problems with anyone, not even family. Generally he preferred to work things out by himself, without the counsel of relatives or friends.

  But Jason had said something recently that had struck a chord with Paul. His brother had said it was time Paul realized he wasn’t any better than the rest of them—that he should quit being so arrogant.

  His brother’s assessment had taken Paul by surprise. Jason and Rich viewed him as pompous! He’d thought he was just being strong.

  Not dragging out his troubles for others to analyze wasn’t a matter of pride, Paul had reasoned. More a question of habit. He was the oldest in a family of five. The others looked up to him. He was their role model. He could almost hear his parents’ words, often repeated, reminding him how important it was to be a good example to the others.

  He’d gotten so accustomed to keeping his worries to himself that he wasn’t sure he knew how to ask for help. Or even if he should.

  After several minutes, Paul climbed out of the car and ran toward Jason’s apartment. He’d assumed Jason had made a mistake when he’d recently bought the eight-unit complex. As far as he was concerned, renters were nothing but trouble. But his brother didn’t seem to be having much of a problem. He managed the building himself, made sure he got the right tenants, then sat back and collected the rent money every month.

  Jason answered the door, wearing a football jersey and a baseball cap. He’d been a sports fanatic since they were kids. He’d been on the varsity cross-country, track and swim teams in high school, and he’d continued with cross-country in college.

  These days all Jason played was softball, and the season had ended a couple of weeks earlier. But he still loved to watch any kind of sport.

  “Paul!” He sounded surprised to see him.

  “Morning.”

  “It’s afternoon.”

  Paul checked his watch, shocked to see that his brother was right. “So it is.”

  “Come on in out of the rain. Notre Dame’s about to kick off.” He motioned toward his sofa, where a bag of potato chips had spilled across the coffee table and a can of soda was sitting on the morning paper.

  Paul had only been to Jason’s home once before, shortly after his brother had bought the building. A look around told him Jason wasn’t much of a housekeeper. Newspapers, at least a week’s worth, were carelessly scattered across the beige carpet. A partial load of laundry, towels it looked like, was heaped on the recliner. Several glasses, plates and eating utensils littered the living room.

  Jason plopped himself down in front of the television. “Make yourself at home.”

  Paul sat on the sofa beside him and for a while pretended to pay attention to the game.

  “You want something to eat?”

  “No, thanks,” Paul said. He reached for a potato chip and munched on it before he realized what he was doing.

  “So things aren’t working out between you and Leah?” Jason asked in that easygoing manner of his.

  “How’d you know?” He hated the fact that his younger brother could read him so well. Paul had always thought of himself as aloof, adept at hiding his emotions. Apparently he wasn’t as good at it as he’d assumed.

  “You got the look, big brother,” Jason said, grinning.

  “The look?” Paul frowned.

  “Yeah, the look of guilt. What’d you do this time?”

  “Why are you so sure it was me?” Paul muttered.

  “’Cause it usually is the guy,” Jason said without taking his eyes off the television screen.

  “For not being married, you certainly seem to be an expert on this.” Paul almost wished he’d gone to Rich, instead. He knew Leah had gone shopping with Jamie earlier in the week and he was delighted the two of them had become friends. If he was going to spill his guts, Rich was, for a number of reasons, the more logical choice, yet it was Jason he’d turned to.

  “You’re right, you know. I am guilty.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Paul nodded and rubbed his palms together as he gathered his thoughts.

  Jason reached for the remote and turned off the TV. “You want a drink? Soda? Beer? Coffee?”

  With so many other things on his mind, Paul found making even a simple decision almost impossible. “Coffee, I guess.” He followed his brother into the kitchen and marveled that there were any clean dishes left in the house. Dirty pots and pans lined the sink and counter. Ah, the joys of the bachelor life.

  Jason opened the dishwasher and pulled out a mug. He examined it before filling it with tap water. Then he opened the microwave, removed a pair of socks and set the mug inside.

  While the water was heating, Paul paced the small kitchen. “I had a dream last night…about Diane.” He paused, half expecting Jason to comment. When his brother didn’t, he continued. “I don’t remember anything about the dream—only that she was in it.”

  “Has this happened before?”

  “Not that I recall.” Paul hardly ever remembered his dreams. “I don’t understand it. If Diane was going to haunt my sleep, why now? Why would she come back just when I’ve made my peace with her death? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jason apparently didn’t have any answers for him, either.

  “I’ve remarried and after almost a year, I can finally say I’m happy. Leah and I are…were,” he amended sadly, “working everything out. I’ve been doing my best to be a good husband, to make up for the things I didn’t do earlier. Now this.”

  “Don’t go hitting yourself over the head because of a dream.”

  “It was more than that,” Paul admitted sheepishly. “Last night, Leah and I—” he hesitated “—I don’t know how to explain it. It was as though for the first time all the barriers were down. I’d finished my novel and—”

  “Congratulations!” Jason said.

  Paul smiled weakly. “Thanks.” He wasn’t as excited as he had been. The book, or at least the first draft, was finished, but the exhilaration was gone. Nothing was more important to him than his relationship with his wife.

  “Leah and I made love and…I don’t know how to describe it, Jase, it was so…beautiful. I held her in my arms an
d I realized how much my life had changed since I married her.

  “I feel so whole again. I loved Diane and I always will, but she’s gone and I’m alive, and for the first time since I buried her, I’m not sorry to be.”

  “You’ve come a long way, Paul.”

  Paul shook his head. “When I went to sleep I was at peace with myself and my world, and then I had that dream….”

  “Did it occur to you that maybe Diane was saying goodbye to you?” Jason asked softly.

  “Saying goodbye to me? I don’t understand.”

  “You just finished telling me you’d accepted her death.”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps your subconscious allowed her the opportunity to release you, too. After Kelsey was born—before Diane died—there wasn’t much of a chance for the two of you to talk, was there?”

  “No. It happened so fast. Within days she was gone.”

  “I know.” Jason’s eyes were somber.

  “I wish I remembered more of the dream,” Paul said after a moment’s silence. “There’s a glimmer, but…Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  Paul pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. The burden of his guilt had never felt heavier. “There’s more. I don’t know how it happened, but apparently at some point during the night I called Leah Diane.”

  “You didn’t do it on purpose,” Jason said. “Surely Leah understands that.”

  “I don’t know what she understands. She was crying and, to be truthful, she wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. She kept saying she wouldn’t compete with Diane anymore, and that she’s moving out of our bedroom because I loved Diane. I’m not supposed to have loved her?” he demanded. “She was my wife!”

  “Give Leah time. She’s obviously upset, and when you think about it, you can’t really blame her.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m upset, too,” Paul said heatedly. “Where does this leave me? I’m supposed to tell Leah I don’t love Diane anymore?”

  “She wouldn’t believe you even if you did.”

  “I know,” Paul admitted, slumping forward in his chair. “I remember the day I married Diane. It’s clear as anything, but it seems like a hundred years ago now. I recall thinking I was going to love this woman all my life. And the amazing part is, I will always love her. I can’t stop loving her. But I don’t understand how it’s possible to love two women so intensely.”

  “You love Leah, too, then?”

  Paul nodded. “I didn’t go into this marriage with the same rosy vision I did when I married Diane. It made sense to marry Leah. It was a practical decision. I have to admit I was attracted to her, though. I admired and respected her, and she didn’t object. But I didn’t truly love her when we got married, not the way I loved Diane.”

  “But now you do. That means something, doesn’t it?”

  “Apparently not a lot,” he answered vehemently. Then he sighed. “I didn’t know I could love both of them so much. I struggled with that, thinking I was cheating one or the other.” It was a moment of self-realization for Paul; talking to his brother like this was helping him clarify his feelings.

  Jason didn’t say much, but he sat down across from him.

  “Leah and I didn’t start our physical relationship right away,” Paul continued, a bit chagrined to be discussing his sex life with his unmarried brother. “Neither of us was ready for it.”

  “At least you were wise enough to recognize that. Not everyone would have.”

  “For a while I felt like I was being unfaithful to Diane, to Diane’s memory, by loving Leah. But try as I might, I couldn’t make myself not love her.”

  “She’s your wife,” he said simply. “You should love her.”

  In his heart Paul knew Leah was as miserable as he was. He’d tried to talk to her that morning, tried to reason with her, but she was beyond listening. Not knowing what else to say or do, Paul had slipped out of the house.

  He’d felt numb as he drove around. Numbness frightened him. For the first few days after Diane’s death he’d experienced the same lack of emotion. Gradually, a red-hot pain had overtaken him, and the grief had dominated his every waking moment. The agony had been so consuming that his mind had blotted out whole weeks. He’d functioned, gone to work, taken care of his children, lived day to day, but he didn’t remember much of what had happened.

  It had all started with a numbness, the same numbness he’d felt that morning when Leah told him he’d called her by her sister’s name.

  “What are you going to do?” Jason asked him.

  Paul had to pull his thoughts together, mull over his dilemma. “I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “Try to rebuild her trust. I’ll love her without making any demands on her, give her the space and time she needs.”

  “Sounds like a good place to start.”

  Paul smiled. He never did get the cup of coffee his brother had promised him—not that it seemed very palatable. It didn’t matter, though. He was finished—or rather he’d found a place to start.

  “How’d you get to be so smart?” he asked Jason.

  His brother grinned. “Guess it just runs in the family.”

  Eager now to go home to Leah, Paul left his brother’s apartment. He was ready to talk to her, to explain everything he’d realized when he was talking to Jason.

  More than anything, he longed to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her, how much he needed her, how much he wanted her.

  He parked in the driveway and nearly leapt out of the car. He dashed to the front door, throwing it open.

  “Leah.” Her name was on his lips even before he entered the house.

  No response. He hurried into the kitchen to find Kelsey standing up, holding on to the seat of a chair. She gave him a four-toothed smile and thrashed her free arm about with excitement.

  A neighbor girl, Angie somebody, was slicing a banana at the counter.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, smiling broadly.

  “Where’s Leah?”

  “She left about an hour ago.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No. I’m sorry, I didn’t ask. She gave me the phone number to…” She reached for a slip of paper. “Here it is, Jamie and Rich’s.”

  “Yes?” Paul prompted.

  “She wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so she said I should call Jamie if you weren’t here by dinnertime. Apparently Jamie was going to come over and pick up the kids.”

  Paul’s heart was pounding. “Did she tell you when she’s coming back?”

  Angie shook her head. “I don’t think it’s anytime soon. She must’ve been going on a trip or something because she took a suitcase with her.”

  Leah had no business being behind the wheel of a car and she knew it. Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision, making her a hazard on the road.

  She stopped when she came to a red light and blew her nose, then ran the back of her hand across her eyes. The rain that spattered her windshield was the perfect accompaniment to her mood.

  She didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to get away. The logical thing to do was to check into a hotel. She had to sort through her emotions, try to make sense of why she’d said what she had to Paul. She needed to understand what was going on between her and Paul. Between her and Diane.

  Finding somewhere to spend the night might have been rational, but Leah was in no frame of mind for rational behavior. If she had been, she would never have done anything as stupid as packing her bag and walking out on Paul and the children.

  But he’d left her. He’d left the house, and she’d been all alone with her pain. Everything was crowding in on her, and she’d felt the overwhelming urge to escape.

  Leah hated what was happening to her. What was happening to Paul. She’d reacted in anger, lashing back at him for the pain he’d caused her. The same pain she’d carried most of her life, standing on the sidelines while her mother fawned
over Diane. She’d smiled and swallowed back the hurt when it was Diane who received new clothes at the beginning of the school year while Leah got hand-me-downs from neighbors and friends.

  She’d carried the hurt with her all those years, and yet she loved her sister. Diane couldn’t be blamed for being pretty and sweet, any more than Leah could for being plain and serious.

  Then Diane had died and, ironic as it seemed, wrong as it seemed, that had given Leah a chance at happiness. She’d jealously guarded her heart for so many years. If she was going to fall in love, why did it have to be with her dead sister’s husband?

  Paul had adored Diane. He still adored her. It didn’t seem fair that the only man Leah had ever loved had to be a man who loved her sister so completely.

  They were very different, Leah and Diane. Leah could never hope to gain Paul’s devotion. He loved her, Leah realized that, but what he felt for her paled in comparison to the depth of his love for Diane.

  Once again, she stood in her sister’s shadow.

  She was jealous of Diane, but why now, when she’d never been jealous before? Early in life she’d accepted her lot, understood her place. So why now? Why, after Diane was gone, did Leah feel this way? It was crazy. Unfair.

  Leah continued driving in the rain, taking side streets and staying off the busy thoroughfares. Her aimless route led her past a golf course. Golfers carrying umbrellas ambled from one green to another.

  With a jolt, it came to her then. She needed to talk to Diane, and even if it was a one-sided conversation, Leah had things that had to be said.

  Because she didn’t know what street she was on, it took her some time to locate the cemetery. She parked, then walked slowly across the damp lawn, ignoring the drizzle that still hadn’t let up.

  Nearly a year had passed since Diane’s death. In all that time Leah hadn’t once visited her sister’s grave. She’d stood there as the coffin was lowered—her heart breaking, her breath coming in tortured gasps—and had no desire to ever return.

  Paul came often, or he had in the beginning. For months he’d brought fresh flowers each and every week. Leah knew because she’d often looked after the children while he was gone. Sometimes he’d be away for hours; other days it would only be a short while.