The little scream from upstairs broke the silence of the house. He flew up the stairs to Ella’s room. She was sitting straight up in bed, clutching her fuzzy pillow, tears streaming down her face.
“Daniel!” She flung her arms around him.
He hugged her close, easing his way onto the tiny bed, rocking her back and forth until the shudders stopped and the tears quieted.
“Did you have a bad dream?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Okay.” He continued rocking. “Remember, it was only a dream. You’re home, and you’re safe. I’m right here, and your mum loves you so much.”
“She loves you, too,” Ella said.
“What?” He was startled. His mind and heart raced.
“She does,” Ella said, in her little no-nonsense voice. “She said so.”
“Said what?” He hoped he wasn’t inappropriately pumping her for information, but he needed to know.
“She was on the phone.” Ella rubbed her eye with a tiny fist, yawning grandly. “She said ‘Daniel has been wonderful.’ then she whispered it.”
Wudderful.
He smiled at her pronunciation.
“Whispered what?”
“I love him,” Ella said, matter-of-factly.
Daniel couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“I love you, too,” Ella said. She craned her neck and placed a kiss on his cheek.
His heart swelled, his throat tight with emotion. It seemed silly for a child’s declaration to carry so much weight, but it did. Not only were they words that meant more to him than he wanted to admit, it was also the first time he’d heard anyone utter the statement to him in as long as he could remember.
“I love you too, Ella.” He kissed the side of her sweet, sweaty head. He loved her, and her mother, very much. It had long been impossible for him to imagine his life without them.
Could they possibly feel the same way?
She yawned and snuggled closer.
“Will you stay ‘til I fall asleep?” Her eyes were already closed. She rubbed her cheek against his shirt pocket.
“Of course.”
I’ll stay forever, if I can.
He closed his eyes, exhausted, and listened to the sound of her gentle snoring.
****
Marienne wasn’t sure how long she’d been driving around. She had no idea what time it was when she left, she only knew she’d had to pull over, twice, because she’d been crying too hard to see the road.
So many things were starting to make sense. The late nights. The times Frank hadn’t come home at all. His distance when he was around. His increasingly frequent need to drive into work. Even the morning of the accident made sense now. That’s why he was dropping Daniel at the PATH station. He was going to see
her
.
The initial shock turned to sadness, then anger, and acceptance was starting to settle over her. Her thoughts shifted back to Ella. She could still see Daniel’s worried face. She needed to go home.
“Daniel?” she called into the family room. The empty room answered with silence. She hung her jacket on the coat rack and stepped out of her shoes. “Daniel?” She peered into the darkened kitchen.
She tiptoed upstairs to Ella’s room and stopped short when she saw them. The room glowed pink from the nightstand lamp. The fairy mobile spun as the breeze wafted in from the open window. There on the bed lay Ella and Daniel.
She was curled like a kitten alongside him, her tiny hand clutching his forefinger. His arm was protectively wrapped around her. His head tilted to the side against the puffy pink headboard, long legs spilled sideways onto the floor. Her hand went to her mouth.
How long has he been lying there, twisted into that position? Did she have another nightmare? How did he manage to soothe her back to sleep? I can barely do that.
She gazed at the sleeping figures of the two most important people in her world. She marveled at how much love he showed Ella. How much love he showed her.
I love him.
The thought caused her to gasp as it echoed in her head. “I love him,” she whispered aloud, and the tears began to flow again.
Chapter Forty-Five
It was a sunny summer afternoon and Marienne and Daniel sat together on the park bench, reading, as Ella scampered around the playground.
“It’s karma,” Marienne said.
“What is?” Daniel looked up from his book, squinting at Marienne in the bright sunlight.
“Frank cheating on me. Most of the men in my life cheating on me. It’s karma because I cheated on the first guy I ever dated.”
“What?” Daniel scrunched his face and shielded his eyes with one hand as he gawked at her.
“I’m serious.” Marienne leaned forward in an attempt to block some of the sunlight that was apparently blinding him.
“All the men who’ve hurt you, who’ve acted selfishly and reprehensibly, it’s all karma? All your fault? Because you cheated on a boy, when was that? College?”
“High School,” she said. “But he was the first guy I ever really dated, so I started the whole relationship karma thing off on the wrong foot. In a big way.”
Daniel vaguely remembered her mentioning something about this, years ago, when they’d first met, but he couldn’t recall the details.
“He walked in on you having sex?” He tried to clarify the specifics of what she clearly considered to be her life-altering karmic mistake.
“No, not sex, I was still a virgin. We were kissing.”
“You think kissing one boy while you were dating another has doomed you to a life where you deserve nothing better than men who cheat on you?”
“Pretty much.” She nodded.
Daniel puffed out his cheeks and let out a deep breath. “So, you think karma is only about the bad things?”
“What do you mean?”
“You think karma is responsible for your bad fortune because you feel you did bad things in your past, well, one bad thing, specifically. What about all the good things you do? Where do they fit in?”
Marienne scowled, but didn’t answer.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Doesn’t karma work both ways? I have to say I’ve seen you do an awful lot more good things than bad, so I have to wonder how you think they factor in.”
“Daniel….”
“What?”
She sighed and turned to watch Ella as she went down the slide. Ella waved and ran back around to wait in line for another turn.
“What about how good a mum you are?” he said. Marienne remained silent. “What about how many meals you’ve fed me over the years? What about that bag of cat treats you keep by the back door to give to the Johnson’s pathetic old cat every time he wanders through your yard?”
“You know about the cat treats?”
“I know quite a lot about you, and I can’t see anything that makes me think you’ve earned anything bad from humans or karma.”
“Well, there has to be some explanation.” She sounded desperate to make sense of everything.
“Sometimes things just happen, for a reason maybe, but not necessarily a reason we’re meant to understand straight away. Look, I can’t tell you why Frank cheated on you, but I can tell you that the fact that he did says way more about his character than it does about yours. People cheat because they’re unhappy with themselves. He made the decision to be selfish and do what he wanted with no concern for you. It was about him, not about you.”
“It sure feels like it was about me.”
“I know it does.” His heart ached. He wished he could do something, anything, to take away her sadness. “But you need to remember, Frank was in your life for a reason. He brought Ella into your life. He brought me into your life.”
“And he left me.” She smiled ruefully.
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Marienne turned toward him. “Sorry implies it’s somehow your fault and it’s not, Daniel. You have to believe that.”
“I know.” He glanced at Ella as she shoveled in the sandbox.
“Not a day goes by that I’m not thankful you got out of the car, that you weren’t more seriously hurt. If I’d lost both of you, I think I would have gone out of my mind.”
The sun had ducked behind the trees enough that it was no longer blinding. It lit her from behind, her eyes dark and clear as they focused on his.
“I mean it, Daniel. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you. I wake up at night sometimes, and for a second I’ll think it was both of you, and I swear my heart stops beating. Then I’ll remember you’re okay, and all I feel is relief. Sometimes I have to prove it to myself, I’ll look out the window at your house or read an email from you, to convince myself that I’ve got it straight, that you’re really still here.” She closed her eyes. “That probably sounds crazy.”
All Daniel could do was stare. He managed to say, “Not at all.”
He could hear the love in her voice, or at least he thought he could. It filled him with a mixture of warmth and hope.
Could she possibly be saying that she loves me?
He could imagine her saying the words, could hear them in his head.
He knew Marienne loved him, as a friend, but he wanted her to love him, period. He wanted her to love him the way he loved her. He loved her so much it ached inside of him. He was so conflicted, unsure whether it was noble or horrible to feel so much love for someone who was not the woman he’d been married to for seven years, someone who was the newly widowed wife of a man who up until recently he’d considered his friend.
The guilt he carried had waned significantly after he’d split from Justine, and even more so when Frank’s infidelity had been confirmed, but a part of him still felt as though he was doing something wrong, something selfish. Like he was somehow lying to Marienne by not telling her how he felt. For pretending that friendship was all he wanted when he really desired so much more. He wanted her in every way, as a friend, a lover, a partner.
Is that selfish? To ask for so much?
He hoped not, because he wanted it all more than he’d ever wanted anything.
Marienne was everything he’d ever hoped to find. He just wasn’t sure that he could have her. The thought of somehow losing her terrified him. He couldn’t imagine life without her. Hearing her echo that sentiment made his heart flutter irregularly.
Could she possibly feel the same way?
The sound of the ice cream truck’s jingly music interrupted his thoughts, as did Ella as she tugged at his hand.
“Ice cream!” She yelled, excited in the way only a child can be. “Can we?” She looked at Marienne.
“Yeah, can we?” Daniel winked at Ella.
Marienne smiled then laughed. “Of course.”
“Good.” Daniel stood, still holding Ella’s hand. “I think we could all use some ice cream.”
“Yes, thank God for the Good Humor man.”
“Actually.” He smiled at Marienne. “I think it’s more like Good Karma.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Marienne watched as Daniel grabbed a Coke from her fridge.
He unscrewed the cap and took a drink. “It’s so much more difficult to understand American slang when English isn’t your native tongue.”
He continued speaking, but Marienne’s mind was still caught on the words
native tongue
. Or, more specifically,
tongue
. More precisely still, Daniel’s tongue. She’d always loved the sound of his voice, the expressiveness of his choice of words, but sometimes she just enjoyed watching his mouth move. This was one of those times.
At the moment she was focused on his tongue, watching it as he spoke, as it licked his lips when he paused, as it pressed against the Coke bottle when he drank. She felt warm.
Is it hot in here or is it him?
She was unable to focus on the question. She was mesmerized. Now it was curved upward, pressing against the back of his top teeth as he looked at her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. The concern in his voice caught her attention.
“What?” She no longer remembered what they’d been discussing.
“You’re not listening to a word I say. That’s not like you. I’ve been speaking total gibberish, and you didn’t even react. Are you okay? You’re all flushed.”
She tried to think of a way to explain why she was so distracted. He leaned forward and felt her forehead. She held her breath, dizzy from his touch. She wanted to scoot toward him and kiss him, on the lips, but didn’t dare to move. Thoughts of the kiss, and his tongue, flashed through her mind.
“You’re really warm.” His hand trailed to her cheek, flipping over so he could assess her with the back of his fingers. They felt cool and silky along the contours of her face, and she pressed against them.
His brow furrowed. “You’ve got a fever.”
What?
Her hand flew to her forehead. “Shit,” she said, as even she could feel the burning warmth.
He grabbed a glass from her cupboard and held it beneath the ice dispenser. The crystal chunks tumbled into it. “You must have finally caught whatever Ella had last weekend.” He filled it with water and handed it to her.