Part 27 (1/2)
”*Just about anything,'” his smart and beautiful wife echoed.
”That's right.” He tried bl.u.s.tering his way through the qualifier. ”You name it.”
”I won't go home to the man you've been lately, David.” She dropped her gaze to pick at some lint on the blanket. ”That man made me doubt myself. I thought maybe I wasn't enough because I don't have a degree or because I *only' take care of our kids. But I loved that life we had before. I enjoyed being the woman who lived it, and I thought we were very happy. Maybe I can't have it back. Maybe I'll have to go to work or go to college because we're not going to be together anymore.”
Her words sent those dull knives digging into him again. What he'd done, the pulling away, it hadn't been about any failing of hers. ”Tess...”
”But I know I deserve a man like the one you were before you turned forty, and I'm not going to settle for anything less.”
David jumped to his feet and paced to the window, staring out over the sand to the ocean that looked like a black hole in the night. The same as what would be inside him if he lost what he and Tess had together. He didn't know how to stop that from happening, and he felt as if he was drowning in all that darkness already. The cold seemed to be overtaking him, dragging him deep, deep, deep.
He rested his forehead against the cool gla.s.s. ”I love all of you so much, Tess. Too much.”
Behind him, he sensed her sitting up on the sofa. ”We love you too. Why is this a problem?”
His hand flailed wildly. ”Rebecca is a teenager, for G.o.d's sake!”
”Yes, well,” his wife said, her voice dry, ”after the past couple of weeks I think I'm a little bit more aware of that than you.”
”And Russ...” He couldn't finish the thought because it had a stranglehold on his throat.
”What is it about Russ?” Tess asked. ”I've been racking and racking my brain trying to understand why you've treated him differently than the other babies.”
She stood now and came closer to him. ”Do you...do you have some doubts that you're his father?”
Startled, David turned. ”What?”
Her hands were in the kangaroo pocket of her sweats.h.i.+rt. There was a paint stain on it, the pale sky color of their youngest child's room. He remembered her up on a ladder with a roller, her pregnant belly round under the cotton fleece. He'd lifted it from her taut skin, his kiss for her and their growing baby boy.
Tess smoothed her hair. ”I just thought maybe that's why you're so cool to him.”
”Of course I know he's mine! And not just because I know it, but because-” David shoved his hands in his own pockets and transferred his gaze to his shoes ”-he has my ear.”
”What? You mumbled that last bit.”
”He has my ear.”
”Your ear?”
David felt the back of his neck go hot and he lifted one shoulder. ”The rim of my right ear is not the same as the rim of my left. It's thicker. Larger.”
Tess stomped right up to him then and took his jaw in her cool hands. She turned his head this way and that. ”You're right. I've known you for fourteen years and I never noticed that before.”
”I didn't want you to notice. I used to get teased about it when I was a kid. It was worse then, but it's still a...a flaw.”
”You have a lot worse flaws than that,” Tess informed him, then she hurried out of the room.
He looked after her, unsure of her purpose until she came back, wearing a bemused expression. ”You're right. Russ does have your ear.”
”I talked to the pediatrician about it,” David muttered. ”I asked about plastic surgery.”
Her arms slammed across her chest. ”No one is changing a hair on my little baby's body. You're crazy.”
”That's pretty close to what Dr. Gomez said.”
There were roses in her cheeks now, and she looked as if her health had returned with her indignation. Her blue eyes blazed at him, and he found her so beautiful that he felt that tightening in his chest again, that vise constricting his ribs. Or maybe the pressure was coming from the inside, because his heart felt as if it was swelling, its beat banging hard against his bones.
Tess's brows drew together. ”Are you all right? Are you feeling sick now?” Her face showing clear concern, she came toward him and put her arm around his waist. ”Come sit down.”
Put yet another black mark on his side of the record books because he didn't tell her it wasn't the flu that was affecting him. Instead, he slid his arm around her shoulders and made sure she sat beside him on the sofa. But there was still worry in her eyes when she turned to him. ”David, is there something wrong with your health? Is that what you've been keeping from me?”
”No, no.” He drew her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ”It's not about me.”
Her fingers tightened on his as her eyes searched his face. ”You're lying to me. That's why you've been exercising. That's why-”
”Tess, it's not my health. It's...everything. Rebecca growing up. All the kids moving out into the world where things...things can happen to them. I've tried to separate from all of you because of how much that could hurt me.”
She shook her head. ”What kind of things are you talking about?”
”What if we lost Russ?” Again, the words just burst out of him. They tasted bitter on his tongue, and he hated that he'd said them, as if they could pollute the air with the ugliness of the idea.
Tess's hand trembled in his. She sat back in the cus.h.i.+ons, her other hand rising to her throat. ”Why would you say such a thing?”
”The other Russ, my brother...”
Her gasp was loud in the room. Then his wife drew closer, her arms circling him. His arms closed around her. It felt so good. So right.
”My love,” she said against his pounding heart. ”Oh, my love.”
Then she pulled back, relief written all over her face. ”This is what it's about. Your little brother dying of leukemia. You're afraid to be hurt that way again.”
”I loved him so much, Tess,” he said, his voice hoa.r.s.e. ”I made promises and avoided cracks and took all my favorite toys and put them on his bed and he still didn't come home from the hospital.”
”I'm so sorry,” she said, pressing herself to him again.
He squeezed his eyes against the burn behind them. His hand cupped her head, and he pressed his mouth against her hair. It smelled of baby shampoo. ”He was a good little kid. He never did anything wrong.”
”And neither did you,” his wife said.
His body gave him away. He stiffened as the horror of that morning came to him again. Panic flushed through his blood at the memory, and he sharply inhaled as if it might be the last oxygen his lungs would ever take in.
Tess moved back, wary once more.
”I need to tell you...I did do something wrong,” he said, feeling as if each word was pulled from his throat. ”On the morning of my fortieth birthday.”
She swallowed. ”I was out shopping for the party we were throwing that night. You took the kids to the park.”
”The Gordon kids from next door wanted to come with us. All three of them and their bikes. No, the oldest had his skateboard.”