Anna Adams - Marriage in Jeopardy

Josh snatched at the candy and turned. Only to face the crib. Where his son would have slept in a few more months. Where his child would never sleep now.

He stumbled. The candy slipped from his fingers, a bag at a time. He reached the crib on his knees.

He could barely see through his tears. He clutched the rails and pressed his face between two of them, crying so loudly the neighbors could hear him.

Lydia could hear him. He had to shut up.

“Josh.” She was at his back, dropping to her knees with her arms around him.

He yanked her close, and for once, she didn’t pull away. Choking into her hair, he fought for control.

“We can’t do this,” she said. “I’ve been hiding from everything that mattered to me here, and I can’t stand seeing you like this. Let’s go.”

Telling himself to be a man, Josh climbed to his feet and helped Lydia up. Pressing his arm to his eyes, he leaned down for the bags he’d dropped and then followed Lydia.

“I won’t go to my parents’,” he said. “Forget it.”

Stopping in the hall, she nodded. She closed the door, and he swore the pressure on his chest eased.

“I’m going,” Lydia said, robbing him of the ability to breathe at all. “You can come. I want you to come, but I’m going.”

“WHAT MAKES my mother and father our answer?” Josh pulled Lydia to face him as she tried to walk away. From such a large man, his insistence should have been intimidating, but she shared his grief and understood his reluctance.

“They’re family. We need them, whether you know it or not. I don’t care about the past anymore. I want a future.”

“With me?”

His taunting barely touched her. “You don’t seem to believe me, but yes. Are you coming?”

“Clara’s all over that place.”

And maybe he was, too—a bereft teenage version of Josh that wouldn’t loosen his grip on the grown man. “It might be time to face her and yourself.”

“You’re a psychologist all of a sudden?”

She shrugged. “Is this house any easier to be in?”

His face turned ruddy, as if he were ashamed of the tears that had turned her back into a fighter. “I haven’t stayed in that house for longer than a weekend since I left for college.” And he’d left the second he was able to.

She stood, still and silent. He had to decide. She’d made her decision, but she couldn’t force Josh to try again.

He turned. She let him reach the stairs before she spoke, and she spoke over the feeling she was strangling.

“Wait.”

He stopped without looking back. “What?”

“Maybe I’m not being fair, but I do wish you’d come.”

With his back to her, he tensed his shoulders. More eloquent than words, resentment carried him downstairs.

Lydia grabbed at the wall. Suddenly exhausted, she limped to their bedroom. They’d already perfected the silent sharing of a bed, each clinging to one side. She kicked off her shoes, lay down and pulled the quilt Evelyn had given her on her last birthday up to her shoulders.

SITTING AT the family room desk, Josh tried to concentrate on paying the bills that had piled up while Lydia was in the hospital. He ruined four checks and five envelopes.

Memories, never far from his mind, rushed at him, claws outstretched. His parents had been unconscious when he’d come home from his first day of high school. Revolted at the sight of his mother and father sprawled on matching sofas, he’d expected the worst—with no idea how bad it would be. He’d searched the house for Clara.

He’d found her dollhouse, abandoned, her lunch, half eaten. He’d found her body, floating in the filthy swimming pool in their back yard. He couldn’t save her. He barely remembered the paramedics dragging him away from Clara after his mother had finally awakened to his screams and dialed 911.

Though he couldn’t stop loving his parents, he’d also hated them since that day. Nothing—not a visit, not brainwashing—could change the facts.

But his hard feelings couldn’t help Lydia. If she needed comfort—and for some ungodly reason, his parents were love enough for her, how could he refuse to go?

Swearing inside his head, he climbed the stairs. He’d expected to find Lydia reading. Instead, she was burrowed inside a quilt his mom had made for her. The vulnerability of her slight body sealed his fate.

He eased the door shut and started packing the car. He turned their Halloween candy over to the neighbors, asking them to hand it out, and he packed his clothes. Then, he called his parents.

His father answered. “Josh, is something wrong?”

“Lydia’s fine. She mentioned that Mom asked us to come up for a few weeks?”

“Yeah.” His dad sounded stunned. Too stunned to make it easier on Josh.

“Well, do you mind if we take her up on that?”

“No, son. Come. Yes, Evelyn, he wants to come up.”

His mother’s voice came through the phone. “You’re coming? I’m so happy. When?”

“Lydia’s been napping. I’m going to wake her up so I can pack some of her things. We should be there by dinner.”

“Tonight?” He might have offered her the recipe for turning lead into gold. “We’ll be ready. I need to make the bed in your old room. We’ll have lobster. Bart, run down to the market and get some corn. Even if it’s not fresh, it’s Lydia’s favorite. I think I’ll make homemade peach ice cream.”

“Okay, Mom. Thanks. I’ll call when we’re almost there.”

“Don’t bother. Just come and we’ll see you when you get here. Josh, I’m so pleased.”

“Thanks for the invite.” His parents were already talking to each other when he hung up. He put his bag in the back of the car and spread a sheet on the backseat, hoping he could persuade Lydia to rest on the drive up, rather than sitting for four hours.

Finally, he eased to her side of the bed and rubbed her shoulder. She opened her eyes and focused on him. “Hi.”

“Want to go to my mom and dad’s?”

She sat up, a hint of light in her eyes at last. “Are you coming?”

As if she’d given him a choice, but he was doing this because she needed it, and he wasn’t about to let himself resent her. “Yes.”

“When do you want to leave?”

“We just have to pack your things. Tell me what you want and I’ll put everything in a bag for you.”

“What about Halloween?” She rubbed her face. “I feel as if I’m still asleep.”

“I asked Mrs. Dover to hand out our candy.” A retired teacher, she had a way with children.

“Good.” Lydia grinned. “I’d hate to find our door soaped when we get back.”

Hell, he was just relieved she could think of returning. “What do you need?”

She shoved the quilt down to her knees and crawled out, grimacing as the movement hurt her. “I’ll pack for myself.”

He got out of her way and dragged her bag from the back of the closet to the end of the bed.

“We should call your mom,” she said, grabbing her things.

“I did.”

Lydia stood over her suitcase, clothing spilling over her arms. “Evelyn must have fainted.”

“She was happy.” He’d dreamed of a real family until he was sixteen and they’d come home and brought him back to Kline, Maine, with them. He’d been grateful to escape the foster home where he’d milked cows and felt bitter for nearly two years, but he hadn’t expected family life back in Kline. He’d never been able to believe in it or his parents.

“What changed your mind, Josh?”

Still mired in the past, he didn’t understand.

She read the question in his eyes. “About going to Maine.”

“You needed to see Mom and Dad.”

Puzzled, she dropped her clothes and then tried to bunch them into a tidy pile. With a few deft moves, she folded all the pieces that had seeped over the edge of the suitcase. “Thanks.”