Accidental Happiness (24 page)

“You wouldn’t have had a baby. You were so completely fucked up about your little sister. He knew you’d never come around to that. But a stepdaughter. You might accept that. It was his one shot. What do you think,
Genes
? You think maybe he didn’t want to lose that chance by asking for
proof
? He didn’t want to know for sure any more than I did.”

Genes.
I heard the mocking tones when she said it, and I felt violated. Only when she used Ben’s name for me did it occur to me all that he had confided in her. All about my sister. She knew about Elise. Tears came new and I stood up. I wanted to be away from her. I wanted to be in a place where she didn’t exist. I never thought anything could be worse than losing Ben. But I’d been wrong about that. I’d been wrong about so many things.

“You must have thought you hit the jackpot,” I said. “When he married someone who didn’t want kids and you already had one, ready to serve up.”

She gave me a bored look, said nothing, but the silence brought too many thoughts back to me, too many images of Ben and his efforts to persuade me.

“So if you had it all worked out, why did you disappear again, after he was already attached to Angel?” It was a throwaway question. Something to keep me from breaking down completely. But as I asked it, I saw her breathing change, a slight shift in her posture. I realized the power of what I’d said. “Why hadn’t you tried to get in touch with him for all those months before he died?”

The rapid rise and fall of her chest inside her thin blouse belied her face, impassive and stonelike.

“Reese?”

She shook her head, such a subtle movement that I wondered if she’d responded at all.

“Ben was relentless,” I answered for her, feeling suddenly bold. “Ben never gave up on an idea once he’d decided. That meant he wouldn’t give up on Angel. But it also meant he wouldn’t give up on me, on our marriage. And you really thought he would, didn’t you? When you trotted out a kid and a story—some version of your
truth,
whatever it was—you thought he’d be so dazzled with the idea of a daughter that he’d shut down on me, and eventually leave. But that wasn’t going to happen.”

“No,” she said without inflection, still without expression. “He wasn’t going to do that.” She planned to take whatever I threw at her. To let my anger run its course. Well, I didn’t want to disappoint.

“So you packed up your toys and went home, took Angel away from him—again. Only this time he knew she existed. But he had no idea where you were, did he?”

She shook her head.

“When you told him about her, did you really think he would leave me?”

“I didn’t know you,” she said, with no effort at denying what I’d said. “I had no reason to think you’d be good to my daughter. Then when I found out you didn’t even want children . . . I figured he’d eventually get fed up. Who knows? After all you put him through, maybe he was getting tired of it all. Maybe he realized what he lost and he was waiting for us to come back.”

“But Ben never got fed up, and you know it.” I kept my voice even. On some level, I’d won, if there was such a thing. And we both knew it. “He was the most optimistic person I ever met.”

“I didn’t know you, Gina,” she said again, as if that justified everything. “And I sure as hell didn’t know how you’d treat my daughter. And look how cold you’ve been to her. I was right, wasn’t I?” It was her only defense. “I had no reason to believe—”

“It’s okay, Reese.” I stood up, motioned with my hand for her to stop, let it go. The last thing I wanted to sit through was some lame justification of her efforts to take my husband away. The fact was, in my heart of hearts, I didn’t blame her.

After a minute, maybe two, she stood up. “I need to cool off.” She looked a little unsteady on her feet, but it seemed to pass. “I forgot how hot this fucking place is in the summer.”

I didn’t mind the heat, and I didn’t want to go inside. The thought of looking at Angel seemed too much to take. I walked to the edge of the porch, leaned against the house, and let the sun cover me full-on.

“I don’t blame you for wanting him again,” I said. “But what I can’t figure out is why you ever left him in the first place. You had him, Reese. You had him and you left him. I’ll never understand that.” I didn’t look at her, didn’t expect any more answers.

“You’re right. You wouldn’t understand,” she said.

I still didn’t turn around, but when she opened the door to go inside, the cold rush of air from the house sent chills up my arms.

23

Reese

D
erek sat on the floor opposite Angel, a deck of cards between them. “War!” Angel shouted.

“You can say that again,” Reese mumbled.

Derek glanced up, looked beyond her to the front door.

“She’s fine,” Reese told him before he asked.

He nodded, went back to the game; but he seemed distracted, and after a few seconds said to Angel, “Let’s leave the cards like they are and take a little break.”

“Okay,” Angel said, looking unbothered. She turned up the volume on a cartoon and settled on the couch to watch TV. Without looking Reese’s way, Derek went out to the porch.

Reese picked up her pocketbook off the couch, took it to the kitchen where she’d seen Gina’s purse on the table. Might as well get the credit card back where it belonged while Mr. Night Watchman kept her occupied. The confrontation had left Reese rattled, feeling foolish and nearly pathetic. Gina had been right. Part of her had thought Ben would drop everything and pick up where they’d left off. He’d always been there for her, before and after she left him. He’d always offered money and help when she got really stuck. But for the first time since she’d met Ben, she had to consider that maybe his efforts had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with pity.

“You’re from Charleston.” Those had been his first words to her as she had sat watching television in the lounge of the student center. Her sophomore year, his freshman.

“Are you psychic or just some everyday stalker?” She’d noticed him already, had asked a couple of friends from his dorm if they knew him.

“Stalker,” he said. “With spies on the inside.”

“Good. I’m a little freaked out by psychics.”

He’d been younger by a year, but it never seemed that way. By the time she was a senior, they had an apartment together, and by the time she graduated, they were married. Mama Maxine hated her from the start, and his dad was pretty much a no show. Reese had no family she cared to involve in a wedding. So it made sense that they just slip off to Myrtle Beach to make everything official. Two nights at the Buccaneer Motel. That’s what passed for a honeymoon, but she didn’t care.

They’d kept it a secret until he started his senior year. Until his dad had put down the money for at least a semester’s tuition. But the money didn’t stop when his parents found out. It was odd, but she thought that always disappointed him a little—that his dad didn’t get more upset, didn’t seem to care one way or the other. His mother had an over-the-top fit, but she never held it against him. Reese, on the other hand, had been getting the blunt end of Maxine’s anger ever since.

She opened Gina’s wallet and slipped the credit card inside.

“Hi.” Lane startled her, walked into the kitchen the very second Reese’s hand left Gina’s purse. If she saw anything, she didn’t let on.

“You feeling better?” Reese asked.

“It’s all relative, but yeah, I’m functional.” Lane walked over to the cabinet and took out a mug. “I’m going to make some tea and then amuse myself by trying to drink it without dribbling. You can watch if you’re bored. You want a cup of English Breakfast?”

“No, thanks. I can’t drink hot stuff when it’s ninety degrees outside.”

Reese sat down at the kitchen table, waited for Lane to put a kettle of water on the stove before she spoke up.

“I need to talk with you,” she said to the older woman.

“Okay, hon,” Lane said. “Can you give me a minute? I need to go grab my pills out of the bathroom. Will you listen for that water for a sec?”

“Sure.”

Reese wondered if it was the right thing to do, to ask Lane. She didn’t see any other choice. Gina wasn’t a player, it seemed. Maybe the meds she got would make a huge difference in how she felt and it would never matter. But she couldn’t count on it, not after what had happened in Boone. And she felt things getting worse. The woman she’d waited on at the restaurant, the one with the cane, had gotten her thinking. It seemed like some kind of sign, an omen that she needed to make a decision, to get things in order for Angel.

Reese had made up her mind. She would ask Lane to be Angel’s legal guardian if something should happen to her. If she wasn’t able to take care of her little girl, she couldn’t think of anyone better than this woman she’d only known for a couple of days. Strange, the way life took you to the right places sometimes, all on its own.

The whistle started its slow build as the steam from the kettle grew more insistent. As she got up to move it off the burner, it occurred to her that the pressure inside the kettle seemed to match all the things going on inside her head. But the decision itself felt like most of the battle. She would talk with Lane. She would protect Angel, once and for all.

24

Gina

I
sat on the porch rail, my back resting against the side of the house. I could feel the sweat inside my shirt, running between my breasts, down my sides. The small breeze off the inlet met slick skin, cooling me, providing unexpected relief.

“It’s a sauna out here,” Derek said. I hadn’t heard him come out.

“Feels good to me. I’d like to sweat down to nothing, then start all over again.”

“Well, don’t.” He smoothed the damp hair back, away from my face. His salty kiss reminded me of the kinship between humans and the sea. No wonder saltwater felt like home.

“What happened with you two?” he asked.

“Ben didn’t sleep with Reese.”

He waited for more, but I didn’t know what else to say. So much of what Reese and I had said to each other made no sense without volumes of explanation to Derek. I realized how little he really knew about me. Strange, how it felt as if he should know everything.

“Is that all?” he finally asked. “You two were out here for a while. If that’s all you settled, it was a long run for a short slide.”

“We went around in circles about a lot of things,” I explained. “But more than anything, I needed to know that Ben was faithful.”

“Okay. But what about Angel?”

“Ben knew her, thought she might be his. I don’t want to go into all the reasons he didn’t tell me, but I’m not angry, not the way I was. I’m coming to terms with it. Can we talk about something else?”

He moved back, put some distance between us, and I realized how irritable I sounded.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t deserve to be snapped at.” But it felt like too little too late. He offered a small nod, walked over to the glider, and sat down. He looked so young, and I felt so old.

“Listen Gina,” he said, sounding tired. “I’m here when you need me. But that means I’m still around when the crisis is over. If that’s not what you have in mind, then we don’t have much to go on here.”

“I know.” I moved off the porch rail and into the shade. I settled in the chair. Reese’s soda can sat empty on the ground beside me. A black smudge on top of the can marked the spot where she’d put out her cigarette.

“I’m not holding out on you,” I said. “It’s just that a lot of what Reese and I talked about involves ancient history. My history. She’s not even out here anymore, and in my head, I keep arguing with her. Going back and forth. It’s exhausting because I’m having to do her parts too.”

He laughed. He wasn’t angry. I couldn’t stand the thought of him angry. Not on top of everything else. I worried that I was wanting—needing—too much from him too soon.

“I’m not even intending to keep anything from you. Anything in the past or the present. But I don’t have the stomach to go through it now. One night soon, over beer and some more of those alligator fritters, or whatever the hell we ate last night, I’ll talk about it. I promise.”

“Fair enough.” His body, his entire posture eased. I imagined a yielding, of sorts. I felt my own muscles, the ones in my arms, my neck, relax.

“And Derek?”

“Yeah?”

“Like I said, I don’t feel angry with Ben anymore either.”

“Okay,” he said. Waited for me to make my point.

“Whether I agree with what he was doing or not, I think I understand why he did it. She gave me that much.”

“Good,” he said. “Understanding is a good thing.” He shook his head slightly, as if to say,
And?

“I want to be with you again.”

“
Be
with me? Hang out and watch MTV, be with me? Or biblical sense, be with me?”

“Abraham. Moses.” I felt myself smiling. It felt good.

“I always did like Sunday school.”

I moved over beside him on the glider. For an instant I thought I could, should, let everything else go, once and for all. Let all my questions about Reese and Angel stay that way. But I had one more practical bit of information to sort out. The prescription receipts, with my name on them, were still folded in my pocket.

“So when do we begin this
being together
thing?” he asked.

“As soon as I get back from a quick errand.”

“Not the answer I was looking for.” He smiled. “But I’ll take it.”

“Listen, do you mind getting my pocketbook for me off the kitchen table?” I asked. “I don’t want to see Reese again at the moment.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stood up. “Men are like puppies. You dangle the notion of sex in front of us and we’ll play ‘go fetch’ all day long.”

“Well, as long as you’re fetching, would you grab another soda for me while you’re in there?”

“I’ll be right back.”

As I waited for Derek, I watched the boats coming and going through the inlet. It was a sight I’d seen with Benjamin dozens and dozens of times, and I’d looked at it every day for weeks since moving onto the boat. But for the first time since Ben died, I saw it from the vantage point of the present, not the past; a view less filtered by the fog of grief.

“Here you go.” Derek came out and handed me my purse and a Diet Coke.

“And here I go,” I said, leaving him standing, smiling on the porch.

Dr. Jenson’s office was nearly empty. Minus flu season and the rash of early summer out-of-practice water sport injuries, I surmised that the good doctor had an August lull before the kids started passing around bugs after school started. Livie, his receptionist of a decade or more, raised her eyebrows at me when I came in.

“Oh my, you’ve had quite a week. Is everything okay?”

“You read the newspaper,” I said.

“Everybody reads the newspaper. How about the little girl?”

“She’s fine. I still feel like an idiot, though.”

“Oh, honey.” She shook her head. “Accidents happen. The best we can hope for is to live through them. You know that better than anybody.”

Livie was a kind, blunt soul. What she lacked in tact, she made up for in heart. Plus she was damned efficient. Dr. Jenson said his practice would fall apart if she left, and I don’t think he was exaggerating.

“I do know that,” I told her. “Listen, do you think I could see Dr. Jenson for a couple of minutes? I’ve got some questions I need to ask him.”

“He’s in with somebody now, but he’ll be done in a few minutes if you want to wait.” The phone rang, and she put up her finger for me to hold on a second. After she’d made an appointment for someone, she put down the phone and gave me her attention. “Leigh Ann’s free, if she can help you.”

Leigh Ann was a nurse who’d only been around for about a year. I liked her well enough, but my questions involved more than I wanted to trust her with, so I said I’d wait for the doctor. Twenty minutes and two
People
magazines later, Livie told me to go on back.

I’d known Nile Jenson ever since I’d moved to Charleston, even before I met Ben. He was only about ten years older than I was, but he practiced medicine the old-fashioned way, with more common sense than highbrow science. It suited me just fine.

“You had some kind of scare the other night,” he said, after I sat down in his office. “You and the kid both okay?”

“Okay is a relative term. But yeah, we’ve all recovered from that night, at least.”

“So what’s up?”

Another thing I liked about Nile Jenson. He had plenty of warmth, but he didn’t waste a lot of time on chitchat.

“I need to get your opinion about something and I need to ask you not to come back with any questions.”

“Is it something medical?”

“Yeah, but it may also be illegal.” I needed to get that up front, let him know what he was getting into.

“That’s tricky,” he said. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything until I know what you’re talking about.”

It wasn’t my ass on the line, so I didn’t blame him for being cautious. I needed to find out what the hell was going on with Reese. I figured trusting the good Dr. Jenson was the least of my problems.

“What kind of drugs are these?” I handed the receipts to him. He looked them over, studied each one, and then looked up at me.

“You want to fill in the blanks for me here?” he asked. “Who is this Dr. Harris?”

“That would be a question, Doc.”

“Come on, Gina,” he said. “What’s this about?”

“Can you tell me what they are first? Then I’ll explain what I can. Are they worth something on the street, or do people get addicted to them?”

“No. Not these drugs. I don’t know what you’re getting at. Why would anyone prescribe these for you? Have you seen a specialist?” He seemed genuinely baffled, stared at me as if I’d sprouted a third ear.

“Someone
borrowed
my credit card without bothering to tell me about it. They used it to order these drugs. What are they?”

“Have you called the police?” He seemed focused on the practical aspects of the problem. I just wanted the information plain and simple.

“It’s really complicated,” I explained. “I don’t want to turn anybody in. I just need to know if this person is addicted or something. I’d rather get them help than get them busted.”

“These aren’t drugs that anyone would normally abuse,” he said, settling back in his chair. “The person who ordered these most likely has some neurological disorder. My guess would be MS.”

“MS?” I inventoried my small knowledge of diseases, tried to remember exactly what that meant.

“Multiple sclerosis,” he said. “But this is a pretty heavy cocktail. Is this person highly symptomatic?”

“Only if the symptoms include being crazy,” I joked.

“I’m serious, Gina. Is she able to walk, lift things . . . you know, function normally?”

I thought about it. Certainly Reese didn’t have the extreme problems he described, but there had been a general . . . clumsiness about her. I’d dismissed it as not being used to the boat, or other normal explanations.

“She has some problems with balance,” I said. “But she’s been on my boat a lot. Even coordinated people don’t have good sea legs sometimes.”

I thought of her on the boat with Maxine, unable to grasp the drink I was trying to hand her. That wasn’t a balance problem. The bigger picture began to come into focus.

“If she wants to see me,” he was saying, “I’ll refer her to a good neurologist. Where did she get prescriptions for this stuff—and why did she put it in your name?”

“Those are both at the top of my list, Doc. I’ll get back to you if I get any good answers. Are you planning to tell anybody about this?”

“I’ll hold off for the moment,” he said. “They’re not narcotics, so I don’t think we’re talking about an abuse issue. But falsifying prescriptions—”

“I know,” I interrupted him. “Just let me look into it first, okay?”

He nodded but appeared more uncomfortable than I would have liked.

“I’m sorry to put you in a bad position.”

“We’ll file it under patient confidentiality for the moment,” he said. “But I’d feel better if you’d send her or him in, let me try to sort it out from a medical standpoint.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I left him in his office, looking troubled. Seemed I spread good cheer everywhere I went.

I’d gotten information, or partial information, at least; but there were more questions than answers inside what I’d learned. Multiple sclerosis. Was it possible that Reese had that kind of problem? And Benjamin. Had he known about this one too?
How the hell did you ever get mixed up with this woman, Ben?
Even if he’d been standing in front of me, I doubt he could have answered that one.