Joan Kilby - Homecoming Wife

“We had very different ideas of what marriage entailed, that’s for sure. I was in it for the long haul whereas you gave up when the going got rough.”

“It wasn’t like that,” she said indignantly.

“You can’t argue with the facts. You only lasted a few months. Then when we fought you didn’t stick around to talk things out. Instead, you left me.”

“You let me go.” For an instant her features contorted in pain. Her eyes closed briefly and when she opened them again her face was composed. “Obviously you didn’t care enough to try to find me.”

“I did try, the next day, after I realized you’d gone to Vancouver and not to Janice’s. I couldn’t find you in any of the places she suggested looking. Where were you?”

She looked away, one hand gripping the car roof. “Okay, I admit that at first I told Janice not to tell you where I was—”

He threw his hands up. “And you blame me for our breakup.”

“—then I changed my mind, but you’d gone back to your stupid bike race.”

“Because it never occurred to me you would leave me for good. The prize money was a considerable chunk of dough—well, it seemed like it at the time—and I figured we would need it if we were going to start a family.”

Angela paled under her tan as she stared at him in silence. A moment later she was back on the attack. “How could we have afforded a baby with you spending all your money and time with your bikes?”

“That was an investment that paid off.”

“How was I to know that? I didn’t want any kid of mine growing up the way I did, nor did I want to end up a single mom in a trailer park if you got yourself killed falling off the mountain.” She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen because I know it does.”

“You never had any faith in me. If we’d had a baby do you really believe I would have let you and the child want for anything?”

“I don’t know and that’s the whole point. You were always off on your bike. The day after I left, instead of coming looking for me you were riding in some competition! I know bikes are important to you but they shouldn’t have been more important than me!”

“They weren’t! And if you hadn’t stayed away we might have worked out our differences.” That remark was met with a strained silence. Nate shook his head. They were going around in circles. “Now that you’re back, where do we go from here?”

Drawing a deep breath, she said, “We’ve been separated for ten years. It’s time to resolve the past and move on with our lives.”

His insides seemed to freeze. “Are you talking about a divorce?”

Her fingers twisted the strap on her purse. Her eyes were very bright. “Is that what you want?”

“Does it matter what I want?” he asked bitterly. After all this time the suggestion to make their split permanent and legal shouldn’t come as a surprise but somehow he wasn’t prepared for it. “Are you planning to marry again? Janice told me you were seeing someone in Toronto.” Damn. He sounded like a jealous husband.

“This has nothing to do with Albert. That’s over.”

A retired couple pulled their cart up at the camper van parked next to Angela and started loading groceries. Frustrated, Nate said, “We’d better finish this later. I’ll call you tonight.”

Angela started to turn away, then hesitated. “Ricky doesn’t realize we were married. It might be easier if we kept it that way.”

Now she was denying they were ever together. She got in her car and drove away, leaving Nate feeling as if he’d just cycled straight into a rock wall at eighty miles an hour.

He slung on his backpack, strapped on his helmet and pedaled off. Flipping the Shimano gears into a higher sprocket, he coasted down the ramp onto the highway with the wind in his ears.

Was this it, then? Were they finally going to break the last flimsy tie between them?

Advantage of Bachelorhood Number 149: Freedom.

Now that he thought about it, it sounded damn good.

“WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER EAT, a caterpillar or a moth?” Ricky said as if this was the most reasonable question in the world.

Angela was tidying the kitchen after dinner, or rather, attempting to, since her mind was flitting between her earlier encounter with Nate and their coming conversation. The wall calendar bearing the legend Wilde Log Home Construction that kept catching her eye didn’t help. Now she stared at Ricky, not certain she’d heard correctly. “I don’t know. What would you rather eat?”

“A caterpillar, of course,” Ricky replied. “It’s juicy and a moth is yucky and dry, like feathers.”

“I see.” She was not going to ask him how he knew.

Getting out the broom, she swept up the crumbs of their pizza from beneath the table. Janice’s house, with its pine furniture and cheaply framed photos, wasn’t anything fancy, but rag rugs, polished floorboards and chunky handmade pottery gave it a warm, comfortable feel. However, the clutter also made it difficult to clean and Angela spared a wistful thought for her immaculate minimalist apartment in Vancouver.

When she was done sweeping Angela set up her laptop on the kitchen table so she could work on her marketing plan for the next quarter while she waited for Nate to call.

Ricky moved closer and eyed her computer with interest. “Do you have any games on there?” She shook her head. “Tim’s got a computer with a ton of games,” he went on. “Dad said we’ll get a computer for Christmas. If we can afford it.”

“Uh-huh,” Angela said absently as she organized her notes while the laptop booted up. Then she realized Ricky was still watching her. “I guess my work can wait until tomorrow. Would you like to play a board game?”

“Board games are boring,” Ricky said. “I’d rather play with my Game Boy.”

“I don’t have one so we couldn’t play together.”

“How about cars?” he suggested.

“Grown women don’t play with cars unless they’re full-size luxury models,” she said, attempting a joke. Ricky didn’t crack a smile and she wondered fleetingly if kids, like dogs, could tell when a person was nervous around them.

“I’ll just go watch TV.” With a resigned sigh he went down the hall to the living room leaving Angela feeling as though she’d failed him somehow.

With a sigh of her own she inserted a disk into her computer and called up the file containing the spreadsheet of this month’s advertising expenditures. Again her fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to type, but her thoughts had returned to Nate.

All the way to Whistler she’d tried to steel herself for their first meeting but she hadn’t been prepared for the leap of her heart when she’d rounded the aisle and seen him standing there, a bag of muesli in his hand. His thick dark hair was still perennially tousled, as though he’d just taken his bike helmet off and run his hands through it. And he was as combative as when they’d been together. Back then they’d engaged in battles of wits as naturally as breathing, as frequently as lovemaking.

She could still recall the day they’d met. She’d been taking her break out back of the Whistler hotel where she worked as a chambermaid when he’d wheeled down the lane after winning a bike race, buzzing with testosterone and adrenaline.

With his hair falling over his forehead, tanned forearms and powerful thighs, she recognized him as one of the Wilde boys. Wilde by name, wild by nature. He was from a comfortably well-off family, not the type to notice a poor girl from Pemberton, a logging town half an hour north of the resort. Yet he’d stopped, made her laugh with his teasing banter, then asked her what time she got off.