Clare O’Donohue - The Lover’s Knot

"Are you okay?" she shouted.

I nodded. "I'm fine. Just mad."

"You want to get some coffee and tell me about it?"

We headed over to the bakery, where I got coffee, a chocolate-covered doughnut, and an eclair.

"You are upset." Natalie sat at the bakery's one small table. "Who are you mad at?" she asked as I swallowed the donut. "Sure hope it's not me."

"Jesse."

She blinked slowly. "What did he do?"

"Put me in my place, that's what he did. I understand that he's the cop. And I was wrong. I'm willing to admit that."

"You made a mistake and you told him you were wrong and he got mad at you?"

"I didn't tell him I was wrong. I would have, but he was so busy telling me all the ways I've screwed up that I just couldn't."

"What exactly happened?"

"I've been helping him. He's wanted my help. Now, all of the sudden, he's telling me to stay out of it. And he just said the meanest thing to me about Ryan."

"He has that way about him sometimes," she agreed.

"Everybody has to be perfect like him," I said, still exasperated.

Natalie sipped at her coffee and dusted some nonexistent dirt off Jeremy's bib. "He's not perfect."

"I know about you and his wife."

"Who told you?"

"Eleanor."

She nodded and looked away. "Then you don't know, not really."

Out the window I could see Jesse walk out of the police station and stand talking to another officer. "What don't I know?" I asked Natalie.

"When Lizzie, his wife, was really sick, I used to come by and visit. A lot of times, though, she would fall asleep and I would stay to keep Jesse company. It was hard for him, trying to look after his daughter. She was just a baby. I didn't realize at the time how hard that could be." She swallowed. "One night we sat outside, Jesse and me, and talked. He was so scared. So lonely. I don't think he'd admitted that to anyone before."

I could see that Jesse was slowly walking up the street toward the bakery. "Did something happen?" I asked, watching Jesse with one eye.

"It was stupid. One night we were having some wine and talking. Me about my bad marriage, him about his dying wife. I guess we both felt a little sorry for ourselves. He leaned over and kissed me," she said, blushing. "I let him because I was a little shocked, a little sorry for him. It wasn't a big deal, and that's all that happened, but to Jesse it was a huge betrayal. Whenever he saw me, he was ice-cold. He doesn't allow himself much in the way of failure."

"That's why he's mad at you-because you represent his failure to be a perfect husband."

"I guess." She leaned back. "He had also made me promise it wouldn't change my friendship with Liz, but it did. I felt uncomfortable, and I just stopped visiting her."

"And then he felt you had abandoned his wife."

"I guess, and if it made him feel better to be mad at me, then I was okay with it. Maybe I could have handled it better, for Lizzie's sake. But I didn't, and enough is enough. He's human too. He makes mistakes. And I'd tell him that if I saw him. I really would."

"You may have your chance, because he's walking up to the store right now."

Natalie's head spun around, just as Jesse reached the window. But he didn't stop. He just kept walking as if he didn't know we were there. Maybe he didn't. Or maybe I'd gotten on his bad side, just like Natalie, and now I was going to be ignored.

The whole way back to my grandmother's I replayed our conversation. I wanted to be angry at Jesse, but I just felt sorry for him. Not dead wife sorry, but sorry that he was so hard on himself, and by extension everyone else. Namely me. And that thought made me mad at him again. By the time I reached the front door, I was completely confused about everything, except that I was definitely not staying out of the investigation.

"Nell," Eleanor called out as I walked in the door. "Nell, is that you?"

I wanted to go upstairs, but I knew I couldn't. "Yes, I'm home."

"Come into the kitchen."

She was sitting at the kitchen table, rubbing the cast on her leg. "I can't wait to get this thing off," she said. She looked at me. "What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

"I know what it is," she said quietly. "Ryan called here. He's frantic. He said he called you half a dozen times today and you're not picking up your phone."

Ryan. I had forgotten about him. "I'll call him back right now." I took out my cell phone. There were five missed calls from Ryan and three from Amanda. Poor Amanda-he was enlisting her to bug me.

"Nell," my grandmother said softly. "This isn't any of my business, but if you're having doubts…"

"Are you telling me that no one has ever had doubts before they walked down the aisle?"

I sat next to her. She laid her hand on mine. "No."

"Did you have doubts when you married Grandpa?"

She smiled a little. "No. But it was a different time. He was heading to Korea. We wanted to have sex."

"Grandma!"

She shrugged. "So tell me about the help you've been giving Jesse."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"You think Ryan might have killed Marc, and you're trying to prove that he didn't."

I shook my head. "I don't know what I'm trying to prove anymore. I really don't. I just have to know the answer."

"Do you love Ryan?"

I looked into her gray-blue eyes. "Why are you asking me that?"

"You've been leaving your wedding invitations all over the place and following Jesse around."

"I left them one place, in Jesse's office. And I haven't been following Jesse around. I've been helping him."

"He doesn't seem to think so, at the moment, anyway."

"I admit we had a fight." I stopped and looked at her. "How do you know about that, anyway?" She smiled. I knew I was turning a little red. "Can I get anything past you?"

"I have spies," she laughed, waking up Barney, who had been sleeping in the corner.

"Barney?" I asked, only half kidding. I wasn't sure how she knew the things she knew anymore.

"Heavens, no. He's dumb as a post, poor handsome thing."

Upstairs I pushed my quilt off the bed and lay under a dark blue blanket. My cell phone rang. It was Ryan again. This time I picked up.

"Finally." His voice seemed far away. "Where have you been all day?"

"Why did you come up here the day Marc was killed?"

"What?"

"Just tell me?"

"I thought we should talk."

"You didn't come up here to get back together, then get spooked when you saw Marc? Because that's what I thought happened."

There was silence for a minute. "I meant what I said that day by the river. I realized what a stupid mistake I was making by letting you go."

"You told someone that at Moran's Pub."

"No, I didn't. What are you talking about?"

"You were on the phone at Moran's Pub the day of the murder. Who were you talking to?"

"How do you know that?" His voice was getting angry. I heard him take a breath. "I was talking to Amanda."

"What did she tell you?"

"She told me that I needed to decide what I wanted. And that once I knew I should go for it. So I decided to fight for you." He stopped. "Not like that. Not like that."

I stared at the ceiling, my mind blank. "You told Jesse that you went into the shop when I was there. That isn't true."

"I panicked. I knew it would look bad."

"Didn't you think Jesse would ask me the same question?"

"I knew you would back me up." I smiled a little at that. He was so sure of me. "It's not a big deal."

I sat up. "Why were you in the shop?"

"To talk to him. He kicked me out. I hit him," he said. "What does it matter? You need to put this behind you. We have to put the past behind us and just move on. You hear me?"

"Yes," I said, but my voice had gone dull.

"You love me, Nell."