Diane Chamberlain - The Lies We Told

Denzel was running through the darkness with a gun in his hand. Rebecca had no idea who he was after or why, nor did she care.

“You huffed again,” Brent said, without shifting his gaze from the screen.

“Excuse me for living.”

He grabbed the remote from the bed and hit the mute button. “What is your problem? ” he asked.

She shifted on the bed so that she was facing him. “What if we got married and something terrible happened?”

“You said you don’t want to get married.”

“Hypothetically. What if Dot died? Or your sister or brother? Would you shrug it off like this?”

Brent stared at her for at least five long seconds. Then he sighed, rubbing his forehead with his palm, and she knew she’d finally gotten through to him. “Of course not,” he said softly. “Whatever happens, we’d be there for each other. We’re great together, Bec.” He reached for her hand, lifting it to his knee. “We’d do DIDA till we keeled over of old age. The cool thing about you … about both of us … is that we’ve always been able to roll with the punches, no matter what’s happening around us. We’re survivors. That’s why DIDA suits us.” He leaned over to kiss her. “I love you, Rebecca. Don’t you get that?”

She nodded, and he wrapped his arms around her. Resting her forehead against his shoulder, she suddenly pictured herself holding Maya’s healthy, full-term baby, pressing the infant close to her chest, and she felt a loss so sharp and deep it made her gasp.

She jerked away from Brent.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She stood up, rubbing her arms. The room was cold, the sound from the TV too loud. “I don’t know what’s with me tonight,” she said. “Sorry I’m being weird. I’m going out on the balcony to smoke.”

“Want me to pause the movie?” Brent asked as she slid the glass door open.

She shook her head. “I can’t concentrate. Just let it run.”

She carried her cigarettes and lighter out to the balcony and sat on the chair overlooking the harbor, trying to shake off the unexpected sensation of losing something precious. Above her, the sky was filled with stars, and below her, lights flickered in the boats lining the piers. She couldn’t blame Brent for being irked by her tonight, she thought as she lit a cigarette. She wasn’t usually like this. It was as though Maya had crawled under the surface of her skin and she couldn’t simply brush her off.

Maybe Maya and Adam would get serious about adoption now. Maya would eagerly adopt, but Adam desperately wanted his own biological child. He’d be such a joyful father, either way. He’d cook for his kids. Make pancakes in the shape of animals, with Maya watching him, smiling, totally in love with her husband and their brood. Adam was equally smitten with Maya.

You only needed to be with them for two seconds to know he adored her. Why did Maya get to be loved like that and she didn’t? The thought made her feel small and churlish. She’d felt that way ever since they were kids, when Maya’d received their father’s attention at every turn. Maya had been so much like him—bookish and studious—while Rebecca had their mother’s vitality and spunk. Rebecca’d always been certain of her mother’s love, but it was her father’s she’d craved, and that seemed out of reach. “I have a scholar and an athlete,” he’d say of his two daughters, as though he valued them equally, but everyone knew which daughter he favored. Rebecca was smart, but Maya was smarter. Maya could sit still for hours, with a focus that was uncanny for a child. Their father would read to them in bed, and although Rebecca would try her best to pay attention, she could never make it to the end of a story. “You have ants in your pants?” he’d ask her with a resigned smile, and she’d nod, hopping out of the bed to play with her trucks or run around the house with her arms outstretched, pretending she was an airplane, leaving her younger sister behind to bask in their father’s love.

Rebecca blew a stream of pale smoke into the darkness, resting her head against the back of the seat. She hated when she relived the past as though it mattered, nursing an ancient jealousy over her sister’s treatment when they were kids. The truth was, they’d both suffered the same loss. If Maya was lucky enough to find a guy like Adam, Rebecca wanted to be happy for her.

That was part of the problem with her and Brent, wasn’t it? If she was ever going to get married, she should feel about a man the way Maya felt about Adam. So she and Brent were disaster junkies. Big deal. That didn’t feel like enough.

She stubbed out her cigarette on the concrete balcony, then turned to look through the sliding glass door. She could see Brent, the changing colors of the TV screen altering his features second by second. His eyes were wide, absorbed by the movie.

“Rebecca’s type triple A,” he’d said once, when they were out with friends, and she knew he meant it as a compliment. “You should see her in the field,” he’d added. “She never sleeps.”

She’d felt his admiration then. His love. He did love her. She had no doubt of that. What the hell more did she want?

THEY KEPT ME OVERNIGHT AFTER THE D AND C BECAUSE Elaine was concerned about the amount of bleeding I was having, but by morning I was doing much better. Physically, anyway. The nurse wheeled me outside to the sidewalk deck where two other women sat in wheelchairs, waiting for their rides home. I was relieved that neither of them had a baby in her arms. I would have lost it.

The woman in the next chair looked vaguely familiar, and I wondered if she was the mother of one of my young patients. I often bumped into them without having a clue who they were, although I would recognize their children anywhere.

Adam pulled up in his silver Volvo and got out. He was pale, his face drawn and tight. The nurse bent over to lock the brakes on the wheelchair, and just as I was about to stand up, the woman who looked familiar spoke up.

“Adam!” she said, and I instantly realized who she was: Adam’s ex-wife, Frannie. The one who’d decided she didn’t want children. I’d seen pictures of her in Adam’s old photo album. She lived in Boston, though, and I couldn’t imagine what she was doing next to me on the parking deck. I sank back into the wheelchair.

“Frannie!” Adam exclaimed with his usual effervescence in spite of the circumstances. The tight expression on his face vanished with a smile. He walked to the side of my chair, resting his hand on my back. “Maya, this is Frannie, my ex-wife. Frannie, this is Maya, my—”

“Current wife.” Frannie laughed. She had pretty teeth and thick, curly brown hair, but she looked as exhausted and pale as I felt. “Nice to meet you, Maya,” she said. “Though I feel like I’ve been run over, and you probably do, too.”

I nodded with a small smile. All I wanted was to get home and into my own bed.

Adam left my wheelchair to open the passenger door of the car. “So …” He looked at Frannie with a puzzled smile. “What are you doing in Raleigh?”

“My husband, Dave, put in for a transfer with IBM,”

Frannie said, “and we moved here last year. Better weather. Better for the kids.”

“Kids?” Adam had been reaching for my arm to help me stand up, but his hand stopped in midair.

Frannie laughed again. “I know, I know.” She ran a hand through her curls. “Don’t give me a hard time about it. I changed my mind about having them after all. We’ve got two. Just had my tubes tied, though. Two is plenty. They’re a handful.”

“Adam,” I pleaded, and he reached down again to take my arm. I let him guide me into the car, the muscles in my thighs quivering. He closed the door behind me, shutting out the rest of his conversation with the woman he’d left because she wouldn’t have children and who now had two while I—and he—had none.