Reunion in October (The Calendar Girls Book 2) (25 page)

“That’s why I didn’t argue when Dr. Stewart suggested we start seeing a counselor,” he continued. “I thought, ‘Here’s a way we can finally talk.’ You’d have to come with me because your doctor ordered it as part of your treatment regimen. And at Dr. Calderon’s office, we could not only air the problems between us without distractions, but we’d have someone unbiased who could help us pick up the pieces and put it all back together again.”

Margie’s words echoed in my skull.
Those are the days I know we loved each other the most because we got through them. Together.

My mouth dried to dust, and I sipped tepid water from the cup on my bed table. “Is that what you want? For us to pick up the pieces and put our marriage back together?”             

“I did.” He shook his head. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

Ouch. The barb struck my poor splintered heart, which I supposed, Roy had targeted with the sharp rebuke. My first reaction was to shoot back, but I stopped, breathed, counted to ten, sipped more water. I’d already hurt him so badly. Maybe it was time for me to tell him what I wanted. Maybe, instead of continuing to bottle up the problems until they fermented and soured our marriage, I should release them into the air. Maybe then we could actually tackle them. After all, he’d come here now to talk. So maybe we should both take advantage of the solitude and
really
talk.

“Well, I do want us to pick up the pieces,” I said, “if it’s at all possible. We clearly can’t go on the way we are right now. Not only because it put me here, but because it’s not healthy for either of us, or our kids. I think all we need is time and space. To find out where we’ve gone wrong and find our way back. If that means I have to move in with Margie and Vinnie for a while until we can repair the damage, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Well, thank you, St. Emily, the martyr,” Roy retorted. A quick glance at the clock on the wall, and he rose again, this time, with slow deliberation. “I should go back to work. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon for the first joint counseling session. Not that I guess it’s going to do much good.”

The change in his demeanor jolted me. What had I said? Where had we just gone wrong? Again? Were we totally doomed? While tears built up behind my eyes, a block of regret filled my throat, making any additional conversation impossible. I nodded.

He bent and brushed a quick kiss across my forehead. “Take care of yourself, Em,” he murmured gruffly.

Again, I nodded. Only after he left did I voice my anguish in noisy sobs as I let the tears stream from my eyes.

Chapter 17

Emily

The following morning, when Lucius wheeled me into Dr. Calderon’s mini-office on the hospital’s fifth floor, I discovered Roy hadn’t shown up. I should have been surprised. Should have been. But, after our last conversation, I really hadn’t expected him to show up. He’d already said his piece and wasn’t interested in hearing any more about my side.

Which meant I’d be doing an encore solo performance with Dr. Calderon, who sat at her desk, writing on a note pad.

“You wanna stay in the wheelchair, or you want me to help you onto the couch?” Lucius asked me.

I glanced at the comfy couch, which looked so inviting. For two. If those two were a couple. But whether or not Roy showed up, I’d feel more abandoned on that couch than in my temporary transport. “I’ll stay in the wheelchair,” I said. Made escape easier, too.

“Okay.” He offered me his blinding smile. “I’m gonna hang out over at the nurse’s station down the hall until you’re ready to go back.”

“Which one are you interested in?” I asked him pointedly.

He didn’t attempt to evade my questions about his romantic pursuit. “Darcie. She is one fine-looking lady. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

Even after he left, I didn’t speak to Dr. Calderon, instead staring at my hands folded in my lap, counting off beats of time, faking the serenity of Buddha. Inside, though, I was a mess. My poor battered heart curled up in my chest, but couldn’t ease the ache of my husband’s abandonment. Was he testing me? Punishing me? Was this so I would know how he felt about my decision to leave for a while? Not a separation. Just a break. I refused to call it a separation. A separation sounded like the first step toward divorce. And I wasn’t ready to seriously consider that as an option.

When I glanced at the clock and noted the minute hand had inched toward the ten-minute mark, I sighed. “Maybe we should get started.” I struggled to come up with a plausible excuse. “I guess Roy couldn’t find a sitter for the kids.”

Dr. Calderon pushed her notepad aside and nodded.

The door burst open, and Roy raced in. “Sorry. Minor emergency at home.”

Worry shot through me, and I sat up. “What? What happened?”

His frigid expression froze me to the chair. “Don’t worry about it, Em. I took care of it.”

“Took care of what?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” he retorted and sank into the couch without any hesitation.

“Since when?”

“Since you made that choice.”

Dr. Calderon stepped forward—a little too late, in my opinion—gaining our attention as she perched one hip on the desk’s edge. “Roy, I’m glad you could join us. Now why don’t you tell us both what happened that delayed you today?”

“It’s not a big deal. Corey’s game started late. I had to call my mother to relieve me at the field so I could get here. Thank God I’ve got
someone
to support me.” He glared at me again.

Too many years of holding back exploded in one outburst. “Oh, yes, thank God for Mommy! If not for her cheering him on, Saint Roy couldn’t zip up his own pants.”

“Leave my mother out of this,” he growled.

“You brought her up,” I reminded him. “What’s wrong, Roy? You can mention her, but I can’t? What are you afraid of? Afraid you might have to hear the truth about her?”

“What truth? Your twisted version where you’re the victim? She just wants to help—”

“You!” I interjected. “She just wants to help
you
. At the expense of me and anyone else she thinks has an emotional piece of you. I’m scared to death she’ll one day turn our kids against me just to toy with you.” I turned to Dr. Calderon. “Do you know what she did on our wedding day? Five minutes before we went before the justice of the peace, she pulled Roy aside to tell him it wasn’t too late to change his mind. That he didn’t
hafta
marry me just because I got myself pregnant.”

Roy let out an exasperated breath. “I never should have told you about that.”

Dr. Calderon, seated in a club chair across from us now, leaned forward, gaze fixed on Roy. “Why
did
you tell her?”

“I thought it was funny. I never thought she was serious, or that Em would hold that one stupid comment against my mother for nearly twenty years.”

“And maybe,” I shot back, “if that had been a single incident, I might have laughed it off, too. But that one comment, and your lack of reaction to it, set the pattern for the rest of our married lives.”

“Oh, right. Now it’s
my
fault you don’t get along with my mother.”

“In a way, yes, it is.”

“Are you delusional?” This time, he looked to Dr. Calderon for agreement. “Tell her she’s crazy. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

The counselor held up a hand. “Don’t judge and condemn, Roy. Just listen. Emily, tell him why you think he’s responsible for your mother-in-law’s attitude toward you.”

A lump filled my throat, and tears dripped from my eyes. I grabbed a tissue from the box on the table beside me and swiped at the moisture. How in the world could I make him understand? “You allowed it,” I said, my voice little more than a croak in my clogged throat. “Because you didn’t tell her she was wrong, you condoned her treatment of me. In almost twenty years, you’ve never once leapt to my defense or told her that you wouldn’t tolerate her disrespect toward me. It’s almost like you’re afraid of her or something.”

“I’m not afraid of her. I just think we owe her a lot. For Chrissake, she gave up her house for us, Em. What do you expect me to do? Make demands on her when she’s been so good to us?”

Anger woke from a decade-long slumber inside me. “Okay, first of all? She didn’t
give
us her house. We bought it outright.”

“At below-market price!”

Oh, no. He would not play that tune with me. “The house had been on the market for nearly a year with no takers. Buyers had their pick of places, and your parents had priced theirs far too high for the area at the time. Plus, they already had their place in Florida built, couldn’t carry the expenses for both properties, and your father was antsy to get down there to the golf course. And in exchange for selling their house to us, they got a place to stay whenever they came back up to New York for visits. Sounds like they did okay to me.”

“Visits like now, you mean?” he barked. “When they dropped everything to fly up here to help us. ‘Cuz last I looked, I didn’t see your mother leaving her cozy little place in Tennessee to take care of our kids.”

I recoiled as if he’d slapped me. “That’s not fair. You know she can’t afford to leave her job for an extended period of time. But, for the record, she offered anyway. I turned her down.”

“Of course you did. Because you knew my mother would be here for you, right? Just like she always is.”

“Not for me,” I insisted. “For you. Trust me. She’s spent the last several days letting me know how much I suck. All I hear about is how hard you’re working while I ‘get some rest’—like I faked a heart attack to be pampered in the hospital.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did she really tell you that you suck? Were those her exact words?”

“She doesn’t have to say the exact words. Everything she says to me is a subtle insult meant to belittle me and make you look like a saint for putting up with me. I’m a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad…everything! If you actually listened to her sometime—”

“Stop being so overdramatic, Em.”

Frustration finally drained the fight out of me. “Just once,” I said on a sigh heavy with regret and exhaustion, “I wish you’d take my side.”

“Since when are there sides?” Roy retorted. “It’s not a competition between you two.”

“Yes, it is!” I slammed my hand on the wheelchair armrest, clinking my wedding ring against the metal. “You still don’t see it, do you? Your mother makes
everything
a competition. She always has. All those barbs she flings are meant to make you see me as sub-par, as beneath you.”

He waved me off. “You’re being oversensitive. You take everything she says and does the wrong way.”

“No, I don’t.” I sniffed again. “
She
knows how to properly fold fitted sheets,
she
never overcooked a pot roast,
she’s
still a size eight,
she
never allowed her child to smart-mouth her...”

“So what?”

“So you have no idea how much it hurts to hear her point out all the places where I’m lacking.” My voice cracked, and the tears rolled down my cheeks. “She’s like a poison. Every drop eating away at my soul and my self-worth.”

He leaned forward, arm on his thigh, hand outstretched toward me. “Why? Why do you let her get to you?”

“Because she’s right! I’m not perfect.”

“I’ve never asked you to be perfect. Hell, you think
I’m
perfect?”

“
She
thinks you’re perfect. And that I ruined your life.” I stared at my lap. “And I’m beginning to think she’s right.”

“What do you mean?” The question came out a gruff whisper.

I’m setting you free.
The words hovered on my tongue, but I couldn’t say them aloud. Instead, I glanced up at our counselor, who’d remained a silent witness during our disagreement. “I think I want to go back to my room now. Would you ask Lucius to come get me, please?”

She cocked her head. “You still have fifteen minutes.”

“I’m tired.” Not a total lie. I
was
tired. Tired of the arguments, tired of waiting for Roy to say I love you, tired of running the same circle and expecting a different outcome.

“Okay.” Dr. Calderon pushed off the desk’s edge and headed for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

Once she left, Roy turned to me, red-faced. “So that’s it? You’re running away again?”

“I’m not running away.”

“Yeah, you are. It’s what you do.” He rose from the couch and strode past me. “But before you go, you should know one thing. I never cared what my mother said about you. In my eyes, you were always perfect.” He opened the door and tossed over his shoulder one last comment. “Do me a favor. Tell Dr. Stewart to have you released before one o’clock tomorrow so the kids don’t see you come and go, okay?”

I nodded, and he was gone.

****

Francesca

“Hey, it’s Josh. I’m unavailable to take your call right now, but if you leave a message at—”

I hung up without waiting for the voicemail to connect me. I’d already phoned him twice in the last week, but my calls went straight to voicemail. Although I left messages both times, he didn’t call back. Disappointed and hurt, I threw myself into work and, when not at the hospital, yard maintenance.

With Halloween a mere ten days away, I decorated the house with fake cobwebs on the shrubs, black and purple lights strung from the gutters, and plastic headstones with creepy epitaphs staked on the front lawn. I bought a dozen bags of fun-sized chocolate bars and scarfed down the contents of two of them within three days. To save my blood sugar level and waistline, I gave the remaining candy to my neighbor and vowed not to buy any more until the night before the holiday. Still, I didn’t hear a word from Josh.

Behind my house, the construction at the McNeils’ had moved along at a speedy pace, with the shell covered by a bright blue tarp at this stage. If Josh had spent any time there at all, he was only showing up when he knew I’d be at work because I never saw him.

Much as I hated admitting to the weakness, his absence left me hollow inside. I’d become accustomed to his voice on the phone, to the way he called me “Frannie,” to his outrageous attempts to make me smile and laugh. Maybe I should have my head examined, but I missed him.