Together Alone (20 page)

“I’ll help Leila out until you’re done outside.”

She did what she could. By the time he returned, the two youngest children had been bathed and changed, the three others were playing in a fort under a blanket-draped table, and in the marginally cleaned kitchen, Leila was cooking a pot of spaghetti.

She faced Brian apprehensively.

“I didn’t learn much,” he confessed, “but I’ll take what I have back to the station and pass it around. We’ll keep an eye on the house for a couple of days. Sound fair?”

Leila swallowed. She looked at Emily, then at Brian, and nodded.

“What did you find?” Emily asked when they reached the car.

“Footprints, lots of different ones in the dirt around the house, and cigarette butts, same thing, different brands. I checked the neighbors on both sides, plus the two living above. No one saw any strange man walking around.”

“So what do we do?”

“We?” he asked, sliding her the corner of a smile. “
We
do nothing.
I
file my report and keep an eye on her.”

“She needs help.”

“She needs birth control. Why do these kids keep doing it, over and over again? She can’t handle four, so she has another? It doesn’t makes sense.”

“Maybe sex is her only pleasure,” Emily suggested. “Maybe that’s the only time she feels loved.”

“Okay.
Have
sex. But
use
something, for God’s sake.” He leaned toward the wheel and peered up. “It’s getting darker out there. Think it’ll rain?”

“Lord, I hope not. Myra will be distraught.”

“When are we due there?”

“Six.”

“I’ll drop you home, then go back to the station to file my report before I pick up Julia. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Julia was quiet when Brian arrived. She toddled straight to him and, when he swung her up, put her head down on his shoulder. He sensed something was wrong, even before Janice said, “I don’t think she’s feeling well. She may be coming down with a cold.”

He felt a wave of panic. She hadn’t been sick since they’d been alone. In fact, she hadn’t been sick at all. “What do I do for a cold?”

“Start with baby aspirin. She feels warm. If she needs a decongestant, your pediatrician will suggest one.”

Brian wasn’t taking the chance of needing one and being without. On the way home, he stopped at the drugstore for aspirin and the decongestant that Harold said Julia’s pediatrician liked. He bought cough syrup and an antacid for good measure.

Julia lay quietly against Brian while he paid for the medicine, and then, because she felt warm, cuddly, and unusually docile, he strolled toward the back of the store.

He dug quarters out of his pocket and slid into the photo booth. “Grammie will never know that you weren’t feeling well. I don’t think she believes me when I tell her we’re doing fine, so we’ll take this picture and send it along. Here we go. Real quick and easy. One quarter, two, three, four. There.” He settled himself in and gave Julia a nudge. When she didn’t move, he checked her face. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open and moist. She was sound asleep.

He grunted just as the first flash went off, and gave her another nudge. “Wake up, toots. Time to smile for Grammie.” He shifted her, but she was like a limp scarf, molding to his shoulder regardless of how he tried to arrange her. The second flash came and went with her breathing heavy against his neck. Her cheek was flushed. He touched it, disconcerted by its warmth. Sighing, he asked, “No picture yet?” as the third flash went off, then said, “What the hell,” and produced a broad smile for the fourth.

She didn’t wake up when he put her back in the car and slept all the way home, but when he tried to put her into her crib, she began to cry. That made giving her the aspirin easy. Once that was done, he picked her up and sank into the chair. She settled against him, content once more.

Myra scowled at the sky. She didn’t understand. It had been so beautiful—bright sun, blue skies, crisp air—all day. Now that the time of her cookout was approaching, clouds had moved in.

Her guests were due at six. The rain might hold off. Maybe there wouldn’t be rain at all, just clouds, in which case they could stay out in the yard. She had candles for when it grew dark, white candles in lovely little glass cups that reminded her of the ones in church.

She turned on the radio in the kitchen and moved the tuner up and down the dial, skipping over music, stopping at words until she heard the ones she wanted. “…Southbound is clear to the Pike. The weather forecast isn’t as promising. Clouds will be moving in—”

“They’re already here!” she shouted.

“With rain likely by dusk and continuing on through the night.”

She turned off the radio and shot a worried look at the clock. It was five-thirty. Dusk wasn’t until six-fifteen. They had a chance.

But if the clouds were already in, Grannick was ahead of the rest of the world, which meant that the rain could come any time.

She tried to call Emily, but reached the machine instead and hung up. She hated machines. A machine couldn’t tell her that Emily was in the bath, which was where, no doubt, she was. She had been out walking earlier. Myra had seen her leave. Brian had driven her home, then left. He had just returned with Julia.

She dialed Emily’s number again, hung up on the machine, and counted to ten before dialing again, hanging up again, counting again. She repeated the sequence three more times before Emily answered.

“Emily, I
know
you were in the tub, and I’m very sorry to get you out, but you said you would help me with the coals for the cookout, and it’s time.”

“Myra! Good Lord, I was frightened. I didn’t know who it would be, calling over and over again.”

“The clouds are already in, which means that the rain may come sooner than they say. I can’t let that happen.”

“It’s no problem, Myra. We can always eat inside.”

“But this is a cook
out
. Eating
in
defeats the purpose. I thought that if you could come right over, we might get started. We’ll call Brian as soon as the coals are done. Come now, Emily.”

“You’ll have to give me ten minutes to dress.”

“Ten minutes. Oh, dear. I suppose I can start taking things from the refrigerator. You won’t be any longer, though, will you?”

She hung up the phone and glanced outside. Beneath the willow, on the grass by the bench, was the beautiful green blanket she had spread, and, on top, the brightly colored paper plates and napkins that she had bought in town. The colors looked brighter beneath the backyard lamps. The sky looked all the darker by contrast.

Hurriedly, she began taking the results of two days’ work from the refrigerator. She had made three different salads—potato, carrot-raisin, and the five-bean salad Frank loved. She had baked corn bread and had stuffed mushrooms. She had sliced tomatoes and red onions, had made a fruit compote and mixed up punch. Not knowing Brian’s preference, she had bought regular chips, ripple chips, and barbecued chips, not to mention ketchup, green and red relish, brown and yellow mustard, and green and black olives.

She rushed back and forth from the kitchen to the yard, setting bowl after bowl on the blanket. She was just carrying out the platter of meat when Emily arrived.

“And none too soon. Hurry, Emily. Light the grill. There’s not a moment to spare.”

“Hamburgers, hot dogs,
and
chicken? Myra, you have enough food here to feed an army!”

Myra saw the willow sway. “Oh, dear. The wind is picking up. Hurry, Emily, hurry.” But even as she spoke, she felt the first drops of rain. “Oh,
no,”
she wailed. “I’ve waited
so
long for this. It
can’t
rain now! My plans will be
ruined
.”

“No, they won’t,” Emily said, filling her arms with the dishes that Myra had just carried out. “We’ll simply eat in the house. Let’s get these back inside.”

“But it has to be
here
,” Myra cried. “That was the whole point.”

Arms laden, Emily made a dash for the house. Myra stared at the spread on the blanket, so lovely moments before, now growing wet, and she thought of the opportunity being lost.

She looked skyward. Frank had to be there. She couldn’t think of any other explanation. He was controlling things still.

“Hurry, Myra!” Emily cried, grabbing her hand. “You’re getting soaked.”

Myra didn’t feel the chill of the rain seeping through her dress, to her skin, as she was led toward the house. All she felt was an old, familiar sense of defeat.

Brian was just as glad that they were eating inside. It was far more comfortable, what with Julia collapsed on his shoulder. Poor Myra, though, remained dispirited, despite every attempt to cheer her up. They complimented her on the food, on the drink, on the paper plates with their large autumn flowers. Brian, for one, ate far more than he wanted to, just to show her how good it was, and he stayed longer than he would have, given Julia’s cold.

Inevitably, though, it was time to leave.

“Thanks, Myra,” he said at the door. “You were good to have us over.”

She looked heartsick. “I wanted us to sit outside.”

“Another time, we will.”

She considered that for a minute, then looked up. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Soon?”

“If the snows hold off. Otherwise next spring.”

“I may be
gone
by then.”

Emily put an arm around her. “You’ll be here. Thanks for dinner, Myra. Everything was wonderful.”

Brian opened his umbrella, while Emily held Julia. He drew them close to keep them dry as they crossed the cul-de-sac.

At her door, Emily said, “I’d invite you in, but Julia needs to be in her crib.”

He looked down at Julia. Her nose had started to run. “I’ve never lived through a cold with her.”

“Keep giving her aspirin. If she feels really hot and gets cranky, put her in a tepid tub. That’ll bring the temperature down. She may wake up crying from time to time, but that’s because she doesn’t know why she feels lousy. Just keep reassuring her, and she’ll be fine.”

Brian clung to those words. He bathed Julia and put her in her pajamas, gave her another dose of aspirin, then held her for a while. Long after she was asleep, he held her, and it wasn’t because he thought Gayle would have. Gayle would have been in bed, asleep in anticipation of the next busy day. No, he held Julia because he remembered being held as a child, himself. He remembered being cared for and loved. He wanted Julia to feel that, too.

It was nearly eleven when he finally carried her to her crib, drew bunny close, and covered them both with the blanket. He stood over her for a minute to make sure she was sleeping, then quickly showered and checked in on her again, before returning to the main room, pulling out the sofa bed, and stretching out.

He barely had time to think about feeling lonely or frightened, before he was asleep, but both hit him head-on when, several hours later, he awoke to a godawful sound.

It was coming from Julia’s room.

J
ULIA WAS SITTING IN HER CRIB, CRYING, BUT THE
sound of it was like nothing Brian had ever heard. His first thought was that she was suffocating, but when he grabbed her up and switched on a light, she wasn’t blue at all. Her cheeks were pink and her nose running furiously. She looked as terrified by the noise she was making as he was.

Wrapping her in the blanket, he raced into the other room and was pushing his feet into his sneakers at the same time that he picked up the phone and called Emily.

She said a groggy, “Hello?”

“Julia’s making horrible sounds when she breathes. Listen.” He held the phone to Julia, who wheezed obligingly. “Hear that? I’m taking her to the hospital.”

“No, no, Brian. Don’t. There’s no need. Not yet, at least. She has croup.”

“Croup?”

“Laryngitis for babies. She needs moisture in the air. I have a humidifier that I used for Jill. I’ll bring it over. In the meanwhile, take her into the bathroom, close the door, and run the shower hot. Let the room fill with steam and sit there with her. I’ll get the humidifier going in her room. Is the downstairs door unlocked?”

“It will be in two seconds.”

He hung up, raced down the stairs and unlocked the door, then raced back up and made for the bathroom, holding Julia all the while. “There we go,” he told her when he had the shower running. “Full force, on hot.” He wiped her nose with a piece of Kleenex. “This will help. Emily knows.”

For an instant there, he had imagined a hospital emergency room, with tubes and respirators and doctors taking him aside with their arms around his shoulders and their eyes filled with regret. He had imagined losing Julia.

But she was safe in his arms, looking around the room as it grew misty, seeming alert and aware. The hoarse sound still came when she breathed, but it was less ominous, now that it had a name.

Emily hauled the humidifier down from the top shelf of the linen closet and, pausing only to pull a sweater on over her nightgown, ran through the rain, across the driveway to the garage apartment. She let herself in and hurried up the stairs, passing right through the living room to knock softly on the bathroom door.

Brian opened it enough for her to slip inside. She set the humidifier in the sink and turned to Julia. “Hey, pretty girl,” she touched her cheek, “did you give your daddy a scare?”

Julia touched her cheek right back in a way that made Emily’s heart melt, all the more when she said in her hoarse little rasp, “Em-mee.”

“Poor baby, you sound
terrible
, when you probably don’t feel terrible at all. Am I right?”

Julia pointed at the shower. “Dad-dy laloo.”

“Definitely croup,” Emily told Brian.

“How long does it last?”

“The worst will be over by the morning. Actually, the worst is probably over now, the panic that first time.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t panic.”

“Are you kidding? I thought Jill was choking on something that
I
had left in her crib. Doug was running around, yelling at me. It was a nightmare.” She took the top off the humidifier and began to fill it with water. “I’ll get this going in her room.”

It didn’t take long. Once a fine mist was radiating into the air, she closed the door to concentrate it, and returned to the bathroom. Brian was sitting on the floor with his back against the tub. Julia was between his legs, reading a vinyl book.

“She doesn’t seem any worse for the wear,” Brian remarked. “I wish I could say the same for myself. That little scare aged me a year.”

He didn’t look it, Emily thought. She thought he looked wonderful, all sinewy arms and hair-spattered legs. He was the image of the modern father taking care of his child, and there was a sweetness, a gentleness to it that made her ache. The fact that he wore nothing but a pair of gray, slim-fitting, thigh-long knit boxers enhanced the contrast, male with child.

Brian peered down at Julia. “She looks wide awake.”

“So am I. Funny how a scare can do that.”

He turned warm, tired eyes on her. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t be silly. I’d have been upset if you hadn’t. Not that I know all the answers, and if she was sounding worse now, I’d be driving you to the hospital, myself, but if there’s the chance of an easy answer, why not take it.”

“I’m grateful.”

She smiled. “That’s why it’s so nice to help you out.” Thinking that Doug was never grateful for anything, she reached over and turned off the shower. “The moisture will hang in here for a while.”

“How long do we stay?”

“Another few minutes. By then her bedroom should be moist.” It occurred to Emily to return home, but she truly was wide awake, and then Julia was scrambling to her feet, running to her with the book held high. “What’s this? A book? How
lovely
. What’s it about?” She turned a page. “A house that talks? What’s it saying?” She hunkered down and looked at the book with Julia, who hunkered right down beside her. After a minute, it simply seemed more comfortable to slide to the floor. Julia climbed into the crook of her legs.

“How sociable she is at one in the morning,” Brian mused. “Is this a harbinger of the future?”

“Nah. She was frightened, too. This is relief.”

“Doug,” Julia said in her hoarse way, pointing at the book while she looked up at Emily.

“Actually,” Emily observed, “I think it’s a squirrel, but that’s kind of hard to pronounce, so we’ll call it a dog.”

“Did Jill get sick much?”

“For a while, when she started spending time with other children. Then she built up her immunities.”

“So Julia caught this at Janice’s.

“Probably, though croup is her own body’s response to a cold. Another child might have the cold without the croup. Jill still gets laryngitis.”

Julia climbed out of Emily’s lap, leaving the book there, and went to Brian. When he scooped her up, she put her head on his shoulder and a thumb in her mouth.

“This is nice,” he said. When she gave a coarse little cough, he stroked her curls. He was calmer now and passed the calm along.

“I should leave,” Emily said, but his eyes caught hers, and then, as though to second his protest, Julia coughed again, longer and more loudly. “Do you have cough medicine?”

“On the kitchen counter.”

“Have you given her any?”

“Not yet.”

Emily rose to get it. She returned with both the cough syrup and the baby aspirin, and knelt beside Brian while he turned Julia in his arms. The aspirin went down just fine. Julia even sucked on the dropper. The cough syrup was another matter. The smell somehow made its way through her stuffy nose even before she tasted it, and then she twisted to escape it. When Brian tried to hold her still, she fought.

In the end, it took four adult hands and two refills of the dropper before a proper dose was inside her, and by then both Brian’s chest and Julia’s pajamas were sticky with the stuff, and her crying was a hacking sob.

He carried her into her room, and paced the small space, talking softly, rubbing her back to soothe her. Emily took her from him so that he could shower the medicine away. By the time he was done, she had changed Julia and was rocking her in the chair under a dim glow from the lamp.

“Want me to take over?” he asked.

But Emily was content. She was doing what she knew best, what she loved. “I’m fine. You must be exhausted. Go lie down. I’ll sit with her a while.”

“She’s my responsibility.”

“So’s work. You have it tomorrow. I don’t.”

“I don’t like taking advantage of you.”

“Why not, if I offer? Go to sleep, Brian.”

He stretched out on his stomach on the small rug before the crib, reaching, as an afterthought, for the pillow that Emily had displaced when she had sunk into the rocker. She thought to tell him that she hadn’t meant for him to sleep on the floor, but he was quickly settled in.

So she rocked in the chair, with Julia’s warm weight against her, and though she tried looking anywhere but, her eyes kept returning to his long, prone form. He was damp from the shower, the hair darker than its usual honey on his head and his limbs. His back was well-toned, ropy higher, lean lower. His waist was firm, his backside tight.

She hummed softly to Julia and closed her eyes, but his image lingered behind her lids, and then little things started coming to mind—the comfort she felt when he held her and the pleasure of it, the way his eyes made her insides flow, his calling her beautiful. She remembered the awakening she had felt as she lay on the rock by the pond, remembered feeling luxuriously feminine, talking of hunger even before she realized she felt it.

She didn’t have to remember the way she tingled when she was with Brian. She was doing it now.

“She’s sleeping,” he whispered close by her ear. Her eyes flew open as he slid his arms against her body, lifted Julia, and put her gently in her crib.

Emily was still throbbing from the feel of his arms, when he took her hand and drew her up. She heard a raggedness in his breath, and met his gaze, and suddenly, whether from a trick of the dim light or not, there was nothing otherworldly or superpowerful about his eyes. They were simply human, wholly male, and rich with desire.

“I’ve been lying down there,” he said in a gritty whisper, “telling myself I should be thinking about my daughter and thanking God she’s all right, but I’m not thinking about Julia, I’m wanting you.” When he drew her close, she could feel how much. With trembling arms wrapped around her and his breath uneven on her temple, he said, “I know it isn’t a good time in your life for this, I know you’re not free, and I’m not either, really, but that doesn’t make it go away. If you don’t want it, better leave now.”

Emily was as stunned by his bluntness as by his suggestion. It was one thing to fantasize about him, another to be with the man, in the flesh, and hear him ask to make love.

He was right. It wasn’t a good time for her. She was married to another man.

But that other man hadn’t wanted her in ages, and she was powerfully drawn to Brian. The fact of that draw being mutual, of his wanting her with a hunger that thickened his voice and drew his body taut, was golden. His need excited her as much as everything else about him did. It was a salve on the bruises left by Doug’s neglect.

She moved her face against his chest. His eyes might have finally been human, but he smelled divine—not only clean and male, but sexy—such that even if some tiny part of her wanted to leave, she wouldn’t have been able to tear herself away. There was comfort here, and excitement and warmth, such warmth. It radiated from his skin and deeper, from her skin and deeper, and that wasn’t to mention the knot in her belly, growing tighter, making her shake with the tension of it.

She had such need,
such need
. When she opened her mouth against Brian’s skin to breathe that need, he echoed the thought with a guttural sound. He took her face in his hands and began to whisper soft kisses top to bottom. With repetition, the kisses grew less soft and more wet, until his mouth was liquid on hers and his tongue deep inside.

Hunger was one word for what she felt, desperation another. She ached to be loved, body and soul.

She didn’t protest when she found herself on Brian’s bed in the next room, and when he pulled the sweater over her head, all she could think of was holding him again.

He busied her mouth with long, caring kisses that said she was precious, and touched her through her nightgown until the knot in her belly began to burn. She writhed against the heat. There was some relief when he drew the nightgown over her head, but it was short-lived. Once his boxers were gone and he was naked against her, the heat rose tenfold.

Emily had never known such a charge from body contact alone. Perhaps it was the newness of Brian, the texture of his body, its scent. Perhaps it was the famine she had lived through. Perhaps the excitement came from the chemistry between them, or the way he moved against her belly and between her legs. Whatever, she was caught up in a need to be closer, ever closer, then part of and absorbed, and when he finally buried himself inside her, she cried out in sheer relief.

Just this once
, she promised herself in one of the few fragmented thoughts he allowed, because he had turned her mindless, a creature of sensation. She felt heat and need as she arched to his hands and his mouth, tingled and buzzed and ached as he stretched her and stroked her. She cried out again when he withdrew completely and thrust back in, and when he praised her with hoarse sounds and the imminence of his climax, she soared.

She clung to him while all else around her faded and the yearning inside sharpened, and when he drove into her with a final heightened force, everything hung there, hung there, then burst.

The descent was slow and sweet, moments of pleasure interspersed with ones of shock. When the throbbing inside her eased, when her breathing steadied and her fingers relaxed on his chest over damp, curling hair and a hammering heart, when her limbs rested entwined with his, she pressed her face to his collarbone.

He allowed it for a short time, holding her tightly, as though he were as reluctant as she to let it end. Inevitably, he relaxed his hold and rose on an elbow. “I’m not sorry,” he declared.

Just this once
. For something so consuming, so uplifting, so rewarding. “Me, neither.” She focused on his throat. “Does that make me wicked?”

“Not in my book. He isn’t satisfying your most basic needs, and I’m not talking about sex. He’s never here. He doesn’t help with the loneliness, or the boredom, or the loss you feel with Jill away. He doesn’t talk with you, and he isn’t here to hold you when you cry, and,
yeah
, let’s talk about sex. When was the last time you had it with him?”

Emily couldn’t remember exactly when, it was that long ago. “I told myself that it was natural for sexual interest to decline with age.”

“You are not in decline,” Brian said with a chuckle, and she tried not to join him—the situation wasn’t funny at all—but she couldn’t contain it completely.