Part 20 (2/2)
Rebecca was brainstorming ideas for her final a.s.signment for the history seminar she was taking. It apparently included an in-cla.s.s presentation. ”One of my friends can trace her lineage back to the Mayflower, and she has a family tree all mapped out. This other boy is going to talk about slavery. He's going to bring in the sc.r.a.p of a dress an ancestor wore when she was auctioned at eight years old. In comparison, everything I've thought of is boring.” With an agitated movement, she crossed and uncrossed her legs, the ankle bracelet they'd bought her for her thirteenth birthday winking in the sunlight.
David shook his head. How could she be a teenager already? But she was; even her voice sounded nearly adult to him now. She'd be moving on from their family so soon. And before that, moving on to high school in the fall, where they could lose her in other insidious ways.
The thought tightened a vise around his chest, and he couldn't catch his breath. His tongue felt thick, and there were black spots at the edges of his vision. It felt like a heart attack, it felt just like that morning on his fortieth birthday when his across-the-street neighbor, Mac Kearney, had called his cell phone. Breathe, David ordered himself now. Breathe. If he keeled over in the soft sand, no one would hear him fall.
As he tried sucking in air, another voice started talking. It belonged to the woman who was giving Griffin trouble. Jane. ”Can your project cover more modern history?”
”I guess,” said Rebecca, in the tones of a teen beleaguered.
David's vision cleared as more oxygen infused his bloodstream. His anxiety ratcheted down a notch, and he leaned against the side of the house, clutching the soccer apparatus to his gut.
”How about World War Two?” Jane was suggesting. ”You could interview Mr. Monroe. Find out what it was like to be a foreign correspondent. Maybe as part of your presentation he could come speak to your cla.s.s.”
”Hmm...” David's daughter was mulling it over. ”Okay. And what if...” her voice gained enthusiasm ”...what if Uncle Griff could do the same about Afghanistan?”
”I don't know if that's such a good idea,” Tess put in.
Rebecca was standing now, ignoring her mother. ”I'm going to ask.”
”Let's start with Mr. Monroe first,” Jane said. ”Can I take Russ along?” As she also came to her feet, David could see she had his youngest son on her hip.
It was only Tess who remained on the porch as the two other females trekked off, Duncan and Oliver on their heels like puppies sniffing out new amus.e.m.e.nt.
Even though he now had his wife alone, David hesitated, staying hidden from her. There was still a residual aching pressure in his chest, and he wasn't sure that his dry tongue could convincingly promise great s.e.x. He wasn't sure it was even a wonderful idea any longer. d.a.m.n it! Though he wanted his family back at the house, he couldn't risk getting too close to any of them.
”Did you have something you wanted to say to me?” Tess pitched her voice in his direction.
Shaking his head, he gave up on lurking and moved around the corner to mount the porch steps. When it came to the kids, she always had a sixth sense, instantly aware if one was about to catch them wrapping the Santa gifts or if another was two steps from interrupting foreplay. Apparently that ability extended to him too. He settled onto a porch chair, leaving an empty one between himself and his wife. The boys' soccer stuff he dropped at his feet.
Glancing over, he felt yet another pang. He thought she might be thinner than before, but her skin had a light tan revealed by her tank top and sporty miniskirt. It had matching attached shorts, and she wore that kind of thing when she took the baby out for a jog in the stroller. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, the ends brus.h.i.+ng the spot between her shoulder blades he'd kissed the other night after he'd mounted her from behind.
His c.o.c.k went half-hard at the memory, and he could almost feel the sleek skin of her hips against his palms. Why was he having second thoughts? Great s.e.x was a stupendous idea.
Except Tess didn't seem to be much concerned with David at all. Her beautiful blue eyes were trained on the small band of their children as they ambled up the beach. He followed her gaze, and the silence between them grew longer and more uncomfortable. Finally, he cleared his throat. ”History, huh?” he said, referring to Rebecca's project.
Her head turned to him, the bones of her face elegant. And the expression so serious. ”Our history, encapsulated right there. From Rebecca to Russ.”
The vise cinched down again. David plucked at the front of his dress s.h.i.+rt. He'd taken off the tie as he'd left work, but now he went after the b.u.t.tons. It didn't make it much easier to breathe. It didn't prevent him from glancing again at the kids, receding in the distance.
Over Jane's shoulder, little Russ suddenly looked at him. He raised one chubby arm and executed a baby wave, the kind where the fingers and thumb met a few times like a tiny duck quacking.
A sharp pain shot down David's right arm as he found himself waving back. Was this a heart attack for real, then? Or was the warning sign pain in the left arm? He let his hand fall to his lap but kept his eyes on his smallest son.
d.a.m.n it. Why wasn't he turning into his dad? Why wasn't the whole distance thing working? The old man had been as remote as an outer planet. If he'd ever worried over his children or suffered for the love of them, he'd managed to hide it very well.
When his father's youngest child-David's little brother, the first Russ-had died of leukemia, Lawrence Quincy had left the hospital and gone right back to his desk at the water authority. There'd been a funeral. David had been six and his mother had dressed him up in a cousin's hand-me-down suit that had smelled like mothb.a.l.l.s. His father had probably taken off work to attend, but there'd been no other vestige of mourning. Lawrence had never mentioned the dead child's name again.
It seemed such a smart way to be now! Stoic and untouchable. That morning when he'd made that stupid, stupid mistake and almost lost his own Russ, all David could think about was the horror he would have felt if it had really happened. All he could do afterward was find some way to protect himself from possible future pain.
He just couldn't, couldn't love them all so d.a.m.n much.
”David?” Tess's voice grew urgent with concern. ”David, what is it?”
Her sixth sense at work again. He ran a hand over his face, wiping away a cold sweat. ”It goes by so fast, doesn't it?” His gaze cut to her, then back to the kids, who were almost out of sight around the bend toward the house where the World War Two reporter lived. ”That old guy they're going to visit was at our wedding reception, right? And it seems just like yesterday, but it was a lifetime ago. Four lifetimes.”
”So that's it, then?” Tess asked.
The sharp note in her voice had him staring back at her, suddenly wary. ”That's what?”
”You feel as if your good days are gone.”
”No! I was just...” He threw up a hand, not wanting to get into it. Wasn't he here to promise great s.e.x? His voice lowered, he hoped, to a seductive rasp. ”I had a good night, a very, very good night, right here on this beach not long ago.”
It only took a second for him to realize it was the exact wrong tactic. Her eyes narrowed, and while her face flushed a little, it looked more angry than aroused. ”Throwing that...that...purely physical response in my face is not helping matters.”
”d.a.m.n it,” he said, disgusted with himself. ”You know I'm no good at this kind of thing. I was never the charming ladies'-man type and I don't know why I'd think I'd start being that way now. You should have married one of those guys in your acting cla.s.ses if you wanted smoothly scripted lines.”
”Just start being honest!” she said. ”You talk about time going by fast, about four lifetimes. I don't know what you mean by it.”
”I don't mean anything. I was being nostalgic, Tess.” Or an idiot, because she didn't appear placated. ”I was thinking about the fact that I'm the father of four. I never saw-”
”You never saw yourself as being stuck with them, I get it. Well, Rebecca and Russell you can claim were oops babies, but you wanted Duncan and Oliver. You were a completely active and informed partic.i.p.ant in the conception of them both.”
He couldn't believe she was seriously going down this route, so he tried taking the emotion down a notch or two with a small smile. ”And really, Tess, what were we thinking? I'm not sure they're actually human children. Have you seen them feeding themselves Cheetos with their toes?”
Amused or appalled. Those were the two emotions he'd been going for. Instead she just stared at him, all expression leaving her face. ”That's the answer, then. You wish we didn't have the children.”
”No!” Christ, he didn't wish them away. That wasn't it at all. ”Tess, you've got to believe me. The kids...” His tongue was the size and consistency of one of those loofahs she used to smooth her skin in the shower.
”You got a vasectomy without telling me.”
”I...” His stomach knotted. More cold sweat broke over his skin. f.u.c.k, he could see her point about that. ”In my defense, I really thought we had agreed that four was our limit.”
”I have to know...” Her voice went very quiet. ”I have to know if you're fine with having those four.”
Oh, Tess. She was killing him here. ”Of course. Good G.o.d, of course.”
She stood up, her gaze steady on his face. ”It's me, then. You don't want me.”
”No!” He stood too, reaching out for her as she rushed to the steps, but he stumbled over Duncan and Oliver's soccer paraphernalia, his foot catching in a loop of a s.h.i.+n guard's stretchy strap. Before he could get himself untangled, she was running off down the sand.
Frustrated, he watched her retreating figure. What was he going to do now? How could he get her back without losing her by telling the truth? How would he get them all back without being crushed by the weight of loving them?
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