The Solitude of Passion (28 page)

Kat attacks him full throttle, wrapping her arms around his waist. She gives into long, convulsive sobs and heaves into him as if this were our post death reunion. I fight the urge to join them, to pull into a tight circle, and crush Mitch with the weight of our relief.

“Congratulations,” he says, pulling back. He wipes his cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes still glittering like broken glass. “Lee tells me I’m going to be an uncle.”

Kat looks uneasy, her lips disfiguring, uncertain which way to turn. “You are.” She gives one of her infectious belly laughs and adds some much needed levity to the situation.

“Kat was just dropping me off,” I say, hugging her goodbye. I can feel the stress exuding from her like a furnace. I don’t want her babies to feel one vibration out of tune, so I usher her to the car and wave as she drives down the street.

“Look what I found?” Mitch erects his old surfboard between us like a testament to the past.

I run my fingers along the pocked wax. It still gives off the soft scent of its perfume, sweet bubblegum mixed with plumeria, as if a half a decade never blinked by. There’s a dent on the nose from the time he crashed into a reef.

I step into him and cup the side of his face. It takes all of my effort to resist the urge to cover his mouth with mine.

“Did you think I’d get rid of anything you owned?” The entire garage is chock full of his stuff. Mitch lingered like a ghost for so long, and now he’s here reclaiming his things, his family. And, oddly, it’s me who feels like the ghost now.

“
You’re
gone, Lee.” It comes out sad, so low I could barely make out the words.

“Not true.” I shake my head as though I were telling the truth. But we both know I’m not. He’s right. I gave away the one thing that meant the most to him: myself.

“I’m glad you didn’t ditch the surfboard.” He straightens as if the entire exchange never happened. Mitch heads over to the hose and melts five years worth of dust off in one long muddy track. “You think Max has a pair of shorts I can borrow? I’d love to go out.”

“Sure.”

Mitch follows me upstairs and stops shy of the bedroom. He looks in from the threshold, but keeps his eyes glued on me. It’s like the furniture—the room didn’t exist.

There he is, my husband at the door. So many times I thought I saw him lingering in the house, thought I heard him rummaging around downstairs, calling me in the night, and now he is here, hesitating as if he didn’t belong.

“You can come in,” I say, coaxing him over like a stray cat. It must feel strange, hugely emasculating, to wait for permission to do something he’s done thousands of times before.

“That’s all right.” He straightens his spine against the frame instead.

I watch as his gaze falls slowly to the carpet, the dresser. It’s as if he can’t take it in all at once. Just the thought of Max filling in this sacred space kills him on a primal level. I know it would me.

I riffle through two drawers before holding up a pair of grey board-shorts for his approval.

“Perfect.” He holds out a hand for me to toss them over.

“Come and get them.” The words come out staggered as though I’m inadvertently taunting him. “I’m not trying to be mean, Mitch.” I take a breath. “But I need you to come in. This is the heart of the house, the bedroom you built for us. This is where I cried an entire ocean for you, and I don’t want you to fear it or hate it.” I can see the power it has over him, how far down it beats him, and I want him to hurdle that wall.

Mitch moves his foot into the room as if he were stepping into a fire. He looks up and gives a bashful smile as he makes his way over. His arms collapse around me like a life raft, and I pull him in close.

“You made it,” I whisper into his chest. “You’re really here, and now I can never let go.”

“I’m not going to let you out of my sight, Lee.” He warms my hair with his words. “We’ll never be apart again. I swear it.”

A stillness takes over the room as Mitch holds me in his warm embrace. He runs his lips over the top of my head, my forehead, my temple before glancing over my shoulder.

“That’s our bed,” he whispers.

I look back at the malfeasance staring us both in the face. The bed is still unmade. The sheets hold the divot of where Max held me last night.

“I’m sorry.” I give it in a broken whisper. I’ve inadvertently laid out my betrayal for him. I lured him into the bedroom and force-fed him the most intimate part of my world as Mrs. Max Shepherd. This bed—this unholy witness testifies against me in the worst possible way. Mitch rests his head on my shoulder. He sears his breath into my neck, his wanting emanates thick as vapors. I close my eyes and take in the moment. Mitch holding me in our bedroom as my flesh cries out for his. I need Mitch to cover me like a blanket, to wipe the pain away with his body moving over mine. I’d give anything to savor that feeling just one more time. Mitch has become my carnal addiction, and it severs the final cord of who I thought I was, what kind of person I thought lived inside me.

His deep, calm breaths rake over my skin, and I close my eyes, soaking it all in. An entire waterfall of tears purge from me. I’m ashamed at how far I let the man Mitch hated most penetrate our lives, but it was
Max
. Max who I loved deeply while Mitch was away, and still do.

I glance up to find his eyes lost in a series of crimson tracts.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” I whisper.

“I never said you did.”

“You think he did it to hurt you,” it comes out accusatory.

Mitch doesn’t respond, just wraps his arms tighter around my waist and presses a kiss above my ear.

“I need you back, Lee.” He touches his forehead to mine and closes his eyes.

It’s so still, so quiet. I can feel the words he wants so desperately to hear trembling just shy of my lips, but before I can own them the sound of heavy footsteps race up the stairs. Max appears at the door, and I jump back from Mitch like a teenager caught in the backseat with her boyfriend.

My mouth falls open as I hold up the shorts. “He wants to borrow these.”

Max takes us both in—his eyes wild with disbelief.

“Go ahead.” He glowers over at Mitch.

“Thanks.” Mitch takes the shorts and heads downstairs. Max spears me with a look before doing the same.

It’s slicing me in two, this schizophrenic love. It’s reducing Max to dust while I blow Mitch in his eyes like smoke.

Stella, Eli, and I sit on the sand as Mitch surfs in the distance. He paddles out and straddles his board waiting for the perfect wave, but, for the most part, it’s flat today. The sun lost the battle with the clouds, and a fog bank as tall as a mountain moves in over the horizon.

Max stands a few feet away, hidden behind the veil of smoke from the barbeque. He volunteered to make dinner, and I didn’t stop him. He pulls the burgers off the grill then carefully throws on the buns to toast them.

It’s all oddly comfortable. Sort of the way I envisioned my life here on the shore with Mitch. Of course that version never included Max, and I guess that would paint Eli out of the picture, but I can’t imagine a world without my precious son or husband.

I pull my sweet, dark-haired boy over and let him sit on my lap while he shovels sand onto my thighs.

Max lands on the blanket next to me—his cologne as warm and sweet as he is.  “Dinner’s ready.” He presses out a dimpled smile, but the sorrow penetrates right through. Max wears his heartbreak on his sleeve, and it destroys me.

“Thank you.” I push the words out in lieu of tears.

In the distance, I catch Mitch disappearing into the horizon until he’s just a speck. It’s as if he’s sailing back to China because I couldn’t get rid of Max, and my heart shatters thinking this might be true.

“What the hell are we going to do, Lee?” Max whispers it out like a secret, while Eli plays with his sister. The warble in his voice lets me know this is his worst nightmare.

“Mommy!” Stella calls and we glance over. “We’re going to dig to China!”

“That’s nice,” I say.

Max’s chest rumbles with a dry laugh. I already know he’d like to toss Mitch in that hole. He’ll probably buy them each an extra gift at Christmas if they can figure out how to send Mitch back permanently.

“Come here,” I say, pulling him in by the back of the neck. Max lights up like lantern. It’s as though Mitch were a smothering scarf, and now with my affections, he could breathe again.

“Lee.” He comes in with his eyes as deep as the ocean and blesses me with a kiss. I let Max wash over me, and my entire person sings. There is nothing secondary about our love, nothing in me whatsoever that wants to hoist Max to the curb like an old newspaper. Max crashes his lips to mine, and we drink our kisses down like an ancient wine reserved for this very moment—precious, and few, and God forbid fleeting.

“Thank you for loving me,” I say as I blink back tears.

“You can thank me later.”

It’s not until after we get the kids to bed and Max is in the shower that I’m left thinking maybe having Mitch take up permanent residence downstairs isn’t the most pragmatic solution.

I pace the floors like a prisoner on death row awaiting a reprieve. Max and his lustful desires, those sidelong glances, the seductive half-smile over dinner—it’s all about to culminate, I can feel it.

It made me nauseous to have Mitch at the table witnessing the display. Mitch and those sad forsaken eyes, the hollow of his person resonating his grief as wide and long as an afternoon shadow.

The pipes sound through the room like a death rattle. Max and Mitch under one roof unnerves me. I stop shy of the window and press my hand to the cool of the glass. My reflection stares back at me—a lost girl in a white gown. My face trembles and distorts itself as I make my way over to the bed. I just need to recalibrate, refocus myself, and then I’ll figure out what to do.

Max emerges with a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair slicked back, wearing nothing but a wicked grin as he makes his way over to bed.

“Hey beautiful,” he whispers, dotting my ear with his lips.

It occurs to me, as Max sizzles his lust-filled kisses down my neck, that I forgot to tell them about Dr. Van Guard at dinner. Of course, with the kids at the table begging for more of Mitch’s horror stories, it wouldn’t have been the greatest idea. You would think he had been on some amazing adventure the way both Stella and Eli squealed with delight as he recanted his interment. It was nothing but horror, and, now, I want to scrub my brain clean with an ice pick at the imagery he drew up.

Max glides his lips over mine, and all thoughts of dinner and the kids—Mitch—evaporate like smoke. He pulls my dress off in one easy stroke, and I let him. A small ache in my chest writhes at the thought of never making love to Max again. I’m not ready to stop. I’m not ready to surrender all of my heart to Mitch if it means cutting Max out with a hatchet.

Never in our entire marriage have I asked Max to stop, to put it off for another night, and yet Mitch lingers beneath my lids like a poltergeist. I try to push Mitch away, submerge him into the deepest part of my heart where I buried him these past few years, but no matter how hard I try, he pops up like a cork.