John Lescroart - Guilt

Although, just for a moment, the final abandonment by his children did seem to take the resiliency out of him. Then he bounced back, smiled, nodded. 'Hit me a good one,' he said.

She was sitting on one of the barstools, and when he came over, she rubbed a hand across his back. He straightened up, leaned into it. 'That beats the drink,' he said. But then he took the drink, too.

She'd stayed to clean up. She knew the house, was good with the caterers. It was a help having her there. Everybody else had gone by 6:00, and she went back into the kitchen and though they certainly didn't need it, poured two gins on the rocks and brought them out to where he sat in the living room, in his black suit, his hands shading his eyes, at one end of the chamois-soft white leather couch.

They clinked glasses. 'Long day,' she said. 'Why don't you take off your coat and stay awhile?'

'I guess I should.'

As though she were his valet, she helped him out of it. On the way over to the closet to hang it up, she caught sight of herself in the large gilt hall mirror.

Stopping there, she had to think again that Wes was an idiot. She was slightly out of focus, but she looked terrific. In her own black tailored suit, her high heels and black hose, she could have been ten years younger, trim, toned, her hair lightened to ash, cut a la Princess Di.

Well, screw Wes and his girlfriend.

She hung the coat in the closet. The day was still warm and suddenly the top of her own suit felt binding. She unbuttoned it, shrugged out of it, and hung it next to Mark's. Her black blouse, too, was tight at her neck, and when she came back to him, it was undone to the second button.

He handed her her glass, and she stood in front of where he sat as they chinked them again. She felt him looking up at her as she drank.

'God bless gin,' she said. 'I don't think I've had anything but wine for six months. But sometimes you need a real drink, don't you think?'

'Here's to that.' He tipped his own glass back. 'To quote the great Dean Martin, that sometime is now.'

'Get you another one?'

He drained his drink and handed her up his glass. Back in the kitchen, she grabbed the silver ice bucket and the bottle of Bombay and brought it out with her, setting them on the coffee table, building two fresh ones.

She was standing in front of him again.

'Here we are,' he said. 'Who would have thought it?'

She stepped out of her heels. 'How are you, Mark? Really?'

He took a thoughtful sip, rotated his head, brought his hand up behind his neck.' Tell you the truth, I'm tight as a drum.'

Putting her glass down, she walked around behind the couch and put her hands on his shoulders. 'Close your eyes,' she said. Take a deep breath.'

As her thumbs dug into the muscles around his neck, he let out a small groan of relief. 'You've got a half-hour to cut that out, Lydia.' His head fell back against the couch and he slumped down.

She stopped. 'Now your angle's all wrong.'

'That's what she said.'

'Down on the floor,' she said. 'On your stomach.'

He was stretched out as she'd directed, arms folded now under his head. She knelt at his waist, reaching up, and began to knead his shoulders, his neck, down his backbone.

Reaching across, then, over the broad back, another bad angle. She straightened up, hitched her skirt up, and straddled him, her hands moving, pushing, rubbing. Pulling the shirt out, then, going under it. Up his backbone with her thumbs.

Another sigh of pleasure.

She reached to her side and undid the button then, unzipped, stood and stepped out of her skirt, her nylons. Dooher still lay on his stomach, unmoving.'Turn over.'

His eyes were closed, his hands crossed behind his head. The belt, then, the button. Zipping slowly over the bulge.

He still didn't move.

Sam and Wes were on the roof of his apartment building, sitting barefoot in beach chairs, holding hands, watching the sunset. Bart lounged between them. A small pot barbecue smoked and Sam had turned Farrell's boom-box radio to a country music section, which he barely knew existed until six weeks before.

Now he was worried that he was getting hooked on the stuff. Something in him rebelled at the idea of a middle-aged urban professional like himself relating to this corn, but dumb as they were, about every fourth song seemed to bring a tear to his eye. A couple of tunes over the past weeks – Tim McGraw's Don't Take The Girl and Brooks & Dunn's Neon Moon – had made him outright weep.

When he'd been alone, painting.

But all of 'em were about those country things – old-fashioned values, Mommy, Daddy (sometimes Grandpa), true undyin' love, God, beer, dogs and trucks.

But dang, he couldn't deny they hit something in him.

Wynonna was just finishing up She Is His Only Need and Wes was blinking pretty hard. Sam squeezed his hand. 'You're just doing that to impress me.'

'Doing what?'

She laughed. 'That misty-eye thing to every mushball lyric you hear.'

'It's nothing to do with the lyrics. I happened to look too long at the sun and it made my eyes water. Or else it was the smoke.'

She ignored him. 'So maybe I'll think that, way deep down, you've got a tender and gentle soul.'

'No, that is not me. I'm not trying to impress you. I'm a cynical big-city attorney and nothing touches me. I am a rock. I am, in fact, an island.'

'My understanding is that no man is an island.'

'I tell you, I am a fucking island.'

'Okay, you're an island. Anyway, I am impressed.' She lifted his hand and kissed it, then nudged Bart with her bare toe. 'I think he actually feels things, don't you, Bart?'

Bart raised his head, put it back down on his paws.

'See?' she said. 'The mute beasts concur.'

Wes got up and took the top off the kettle cooker. A couple of T-bone steaks filled the whole grill. He gave them a turn and came back to sit down. 'You know why people cry at happy endings in movies? Or at weddings? Or even, some incredibly weak slobs, at country-music lyrics?'

'They're crybabies?'

'I'm going to hit your broken arm.'

'Crybabies isn't the answer?'

He shook his head. 'They want it that way again. Something in them remembers that they used to think it was that way, that things in life could turn out good, and seeing that hope, being reminded of it, it's too much to take. So they cry.'

'But you still think things turn out good, don't you?'

'No. I still wish they did just as bad, but I don't think so anymore.'

She reached and took his hand. 'Seeing your wife today?'

'Lydia?' He let out a long breath. 'No, Lydia's over. It was more, I think, the kids. Mark's kids.'

'What about them?'

Again, he sighed. 'I don't know. All the effort, the hopes, the lessons, the tears, the fights, the sicknesses – and at the end, what do you get? You get some kids who are total strangers, who don't want anything to do with you.'

'Your kids?'

'Well, some of that, maybe. But mostly Mark's. They really hate him.'

'Maybe he wasn't a good father.'

'That's just it. He was a great father. I was around. I saw him. Baseball, tennis, soccer, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, private schools, great summer camps – you name it, those kids had it.'

'But did they have him?'

He seemed to deflate. 'I guess I don't know that. Did my kids have me? I mean, both of us – Mark and I – we worked like dogs so Lydia and Sheila didn't have to. This was, of course, the Middle Ages. Back then wasn't considered the height of oppression.'

The silence, as well as the difference in their ages, hung between them. 'I better get the steaks,' Wes said, but he didn't get up. He didn't want to let go of Sam's hand. He turned to her. 'His kids really hate him, Sam, and I know them. They're not bad. They're fine with me. They call me Uncle Wes even, sometimes. But their dad… I just don't get it.'