“I went home afterward,” Joelle said, still facing the window. “I couldn’t get Mara’s face out of my head. I knew how she felt about fidelity. My God, we’d talked about that sort of thing so often. We both felt so strongly about it, about the sanctity of marriage and wedding vows. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was like a teenager who didn’t know any better. Who didn’t know that A would lead to B and on and on and on.”

She walked back to the sofa and sat down again, looking at the magazines arrayed neatly on the coffee table without really seeing them. “The next day,” she said, “he called me and said he felt worse than ever, that we never should have done that, that he was sorry, that we had to stop spending so much time together, that he still had a wife he loved. Etcetera.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Joelle. How painful for you.”

“I knew he was right. And yet…to just cut off our relationship like that. It was all I had left.”

“And all he had left, too.”

“He has Sam,” she said, and started to cry. “And now I’m cut off from both of them.”

“But you work together, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Every single day. And we have meetings together, and help each other out on cases, and eat lunch together with Paul, the other social worker, and we don’t ever really look each other in the eye. It’s torture.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“And there’s more,” Joelle said.

“Yes.” Carlynn wore a sympathetic smile.

“I’m pregnant.”

Carlynn nodded. “I know.”

“How could you have known that?” Joelle’s hands flew to her belly. She’d thought she had hidden her pregnancy well.

“I’m a good guesser.”

Joelle thought something other than guessing was at work here, but she continued. “Fifteen weeks pregnant. I thought about an abortion, but I’ve wanted a baby so long.”

“And Liam doesn’t know?”

“He has no idea.”

“When will you tell him?”

“I don’t plan to,” she said. “I’m going to leave before my pregnancy becomes too obvious. I’ll move away. I’m not sure where I’ll go yet. Maybe to Berkeley where my parents live.”

“Isn’t it unfair of you not to let Liam know?” Carlynn leaned toward her on the sofa.

Joelle shook her head. “There’s nothing he can do about my being pregnant except feel worse than he already does, Carlynn,” she said. “He can’t marry me.”

“Do you really want to leave Monterey?” Carlynn asked her.

Joelle hesitated a moment before answering. “Honestly, no. I love it here. But maybe I can come back someday.” She let out her breath, looking up at the ceiling. “This doesn’t have to be forever.”

“Does Liam still perform his music?” Carlynn asked the question seemingly out of the blue.

Joelle shook her head. “No. I don’t think he’s picked up his guitar since Mara went into the nursing home.”

“Well.” Carlynn set her sandwich plate on the coffee table. “There is one thing I know for absolute certain about you, Joelle.” There were tears in Carlynn’s eyes as she moved closer to Joelle, wrapping her thin hand around Joelle’s where it rested on her knees. “You are a tremendously noble human being.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at what you’re doing, honey. You love this man so deeply that you want to find a way to heal his wife, to return his wife to him, because you know that’s what will make him truly happy. Even though you love him. Even though you’re carrying his child. You’ve placed his happiness above your own. Few people would do that.”

A bit embarrassed, Joelle looked at her uneaten sandwich resting on the coffee table. “It feels good to love someone that much,” she said, her voice a near whisper. “It’s the only thing that feels good about this whole situation.”

“The next time I visit Mara,” Carlynn said, “I’d like Liam to be there, as well. Can you arrange that?”

Joelle grimaced. “I’m not even sure how he’s going to react to your being there today, Carlynn,” she said. “But I’ll ask him.”

“Good.” Carlynn patted her hand and stood up. “Now you’d better get out of here before the fog socks you in.”

Joelle nodded, although she was thinking it might not be that bad to be stuck in the mansion with Carlynn.

At the front door, she kissed Carlynn’s cheek.

“Thanks so much,” she said, opening the door and walking outside. The world was filled with translucent gray air, but all Joelle could think about was that she had a new confidante. An unexpected confidante.

Although she was not very far from Carmel, the fog obscured parts of the road, and she had to drive slowly. She felt trapped inside her car with nothing but the memory of that night with Liam.

She and Liam had sat with Sam on Liam’s bed, looking through a picture book with the little boy and singing him silly songs, like “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” and “Pat-a-Cake,” and Sam didn’t care a bit that Joelle couldn’t carry a tune. He giggled and let her nibble his fingers while he cuddled with her and his dad. When Sam grew tired, Liam carried him into the nursery and tucked him into his crib, but Joelle stayed where she was on Liam’s bed. She was looking forward to talking with Liam about the day, and if she realized the sofa in the living room would be a more appropriate place for such conversation, she didn’t let herself think about it.

Liam came back into the room and fell forward onto the bed, his head resting on his folded arms. His face was turned toward her, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he seemed to be staring into space. The light on the night table caught the pale blue of his eyes, and she wanted to touch his cheek, the place where the long, sexy dimple formed when he smiled, but she kept her hands to herself instead.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked him.

He licked his lips. “About you, actually,” he said. “About how great you’ve been this year. How I couldn’t have made it without you. How good you are with Sam. How much I need those late-night phone conversations with you. How incredible you’ve been at helping me deal with all the nuts-and-bolts issues around Mara—the nursing home, dealing with her doctors, the whole gamut. You took so much of the pressure off me by being there.”

“I’m glad,” she said, touched.

With a sigh, Liam rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “We’ve been grappling with this mess for a year,” he said. “One long fucking year. My beautiful wife is a… She’s just gone. I don’t know who that person is inside that screwed-up body, but Mara’s not in there anymore.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why didn’t I listen to her, Jo?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. “Why did I talk her into having a baby? If I’d only listened…really let myself hear…how afraid she was. How much she didn’t want to have a baby. She knew it was the wrong thing for her.”

“She made the choice, Liam. She—”

“It was my choice,” he said. “You know it and I know it. She did it for me. She had a selfish side to her, I know that, but she would have done anything for me. I begged her to do something she knew was wrong. She had a gut feeling about it, Jo.”

“I know,” she said. “But—”

“I destroyed her.” He began crying, like a child might cry, with rivers of tears and shaking shoulders, and Joelle wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, as though trying to keep the parts of him together. “I killed her, Jo,” he said.

“Liam, no,” she said, her own tears beginning to mix with his because she knew his words were, if only in his own heart and head, the truth.

He opened his eyes to look at her. Really look. She felt him explore her face as he lifted a long, thick strand of her hair from where it lay against her breast and draped it over her shoulder. “Thank you for being with me,” he said. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” She stared into his eyes for a moment before leaning forward to kiss him, and she wasn’t surprised when he met her halfway. The kiss was long and deep and started a hunger in her body she hadn’t felt for years. He leaned away from her, only to return for another kiss a second later, and when she slipped her tongue between his teeth, he groaned.

She was wearing a long, loose skirt, and as he rolled on top of her, he carved a place between her legs with his own, until she could feel his erection press against her through their clothes.

Slowly, Liam raised himself to his knees above her. Taking her hand, he pressed it to the bulge of his penis beneath his slacks, which were still zipped, still belted. He looked at her with the eyes of a man who had not known physical love in a year.

“Please,” he said.

There was no way she could deny him. It would have been like denying herself.

Lying next to him afterward, exhausted and chilled, she pressed her lips to his shoulder. “I love you,” she said, but there was no reply.

She didn’t feel it yet herself, but she knew it was coming. The guilt. She feared, though, that it had already found Liam. Without a word, he slipped out of the bed, leaving her skin cool where his body had been touching hers. He reached for the afghan that lay across the end of the bed and covered her with it, tucking it all around her as though he truly cared that she be comfortable and warm. He leaned over, and she felt him brush her hair from her forehead with his hand, then kiss her lightly on the temple. She heard him walk into the bathroom, then into the guest room, closing the door behind him. And she knew that she had both found and lost something, all in the same moment.







17






LIAM WONDERED IF JOELLE WAS SIMPLY IGNORING HIS CALLS. HE’D been trying to reach her since seven, when he’d arrived home from his visit to Mara. He left her one more message, calling her from the phone in his bedroom.