Laurie Breton - Die Before I Wake

Jesus Christ. How was I supposed to respond to that?

Like a mother grizzly with her cub, I’d steadfastly defended my husband. In part because he’s the love of my life, and in part because I firmly believe that each of us is responsible for our own happiness, or lack thereof, and have no right to blame our failings on other people. Anybody who chooses to deal with their problems by jumping off a bridge surely has mental health issues that are not the result of anything another person may have done—or not done—to them. After mounting a defense of Tom so brilliant it would have made F. Lee Bailey proud, I grilled Melanie for more details. Of course, she couldn’t pinpoint a single concrete reason that would have led Beth’s unhappiness back to Tom. No, she admitted, he wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict. No, he didn’t beat his wife. Nor, as far as Mel knew, did he run around behind her sister’s back. All she really had to go on—and it was pretty damn flimsy evidence—was that her sister had been deliriously happy for the first few years of her marriage to Tom. Then, as time wore on, Beth’s demeanor changed. She became withdrawn and distant. She started keeping secrets. She stopped participating in life, became more of an observer, wearing her unhappiness around her like a heavy, black cloak.

And, of course, somehow this was Tom’s fault.

This sounded to me like classic symptoms of clinical depression, but there was no point in suggesting to Mel that her sister suffered from mental illness. It would only exacerbate her already considerable pain, and she wouldn’t believe me anyway. Her sister was dead, and she needed somebody to blame it on. As Beth’s husband, Tom was the nearest and most likely target. And as Tom’s new wife, I was firmly rooted in the enemy camp.

So I let it go. But it gnawed at me, this newly gained knowledge that not only had Tom’s first wife chosen to take her own life, but that he’d lied to me about it. Or, at the very least, if he hadn’t lied, he hadn’t been fully forthcoming. It bothered me. It bothered me a lot. I’m a very open person. I say what I think and I think what I say. My candor is legendary among my friends and acquaintances. I don’t hide things from the people I care about; my life is the proverbial open book. Tom’s, it seemed, wasn’t. As much as I hate seeing people toss around psychobabble buzzwords like so much confetti, I had to admit that I was seeing a significant amount of dysfunction in this family. And if there was one thing I was familiar with, it was family dysfunction.

Tom and his mother arrived home at the same time, with Riley, who might not sleep here but appeared to eat all his meals here, straggling in a couple of minutes later. I already had the dining room table set, the girls washed up and their hair combed, and was just finishing dinner preparations when the rest of the family came in. Jeannette checked to make sure I had everything under control, then disappeared upstairs, presumably to remove the odor of wet doggie from her person. Riley headed to the sink to wash his hands. Tom came directly to where I stood at the stove, checking the potatoes for done-ness.

He planted a kiss on the back of my neck and murmured in my ear, too low for anybody else to hear, “I missed you today.”

Turning around, I wrapped my arms around him. He pressed me back against the oven door and kissed me the way a woman wants to be kissed by the man she loves. I drew in the warm scent of him, leaned into his body and kissed him back.

“Christ on a crutch,” Riley said from across the kitchen. “Why don’t you two just get a room?”

Tom drew back and gave me a wink. “We already have one upstairs.”

“Then go up there if you have to play kissy-face. Although you two might be wildly enthusiastic about your sex life, the rest of us have appetites we don’t want ruined.”

“Jealousy,” Tom told his brother. “It so doesn’t become you.”

Rolling his eyes, Riley wandered off to somewhere, leaving us alone in the kitchen. “Tom,” I said, “we have to talk.”

The now-familiar furrow between his eyebrows—the one I’d never seen until we arrived in Newmarket—put in an appearance. “If it’s a problem with my mother—”

“It’s not about your mother. It’s something else. But it can wait until after we eat.”

“Should I be worried?”

“As in am I about to pack my bags and run back to L.A.?”

“As in precisely that.”

I rested a hand against his abdomen, felt it rise and fall with his breathing. “Stop worrying,” I said. “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of me leaving you.”

“Hold that thought,” he said as the girls bounced into the kitchen. “We’ll discuss it in more detail later.”

Supper was over, the table cleared, the dishes washed, the girls read to and tucked into their beds. Tom and I were finally alone. Perched cross-legged on our bed, my hands clasped around my ankles, I watched my husband’s mirrored reflection through the open bathroom door as he peeled off his dress shirt and dropped it into the hamper. His body was lean and sinewy, with nice shoulders, well-defined muscles and a narrow line of dark hair that ran from breastbone to navel. My breath quickened at the sight of all that male pulchritude. He opened the medicine cabinet, took out toothbrush and toothpaste. “What’s in the bakery box?” he said.

“Éclairs. I bought them to soften you up.”

He uncapped the toothpaste and turned on the faucet. “I thought you liked me better hard.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.”

“If you think that’s funny, you should see my summer stand-up act in the Adirondacks.”

“I’m sure it’s a scream and a half.”

I waited until he was done brushing his teeth, watched him as he leaned over the sink and splashed cold water all over his face. New as it was, this kind of familiarity still felt odd. Awkward. A little too intimate. I turned my face away from his reflection and said, “Tom?”

He put away his toothbrush and toothpaste, wiped down the marble counter, and tossed the washcloth into the hamper. Still shirtless, he leaned against the door frame, towel in hand. “What?”

I took a deep breath. Might as well jump right in with both feet. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about Beth?”

I’d caught him by surprise. I could see it in his eyes. He finished drying his hands and returned the towel to its hook in the bathroom. “What truth?” he said.

“Oh, for the love of God. You know what truth. She killed herself.”

His gaze was cool. “Yes,” he said. “She did.”

“It would have been nice if you’d bothered to tell me. It was a little disconcerting, hearing it from someone else.”

He shoved both hands into the pockets of his pants. “Who told you?”

“Her sister, Melanie.”

“And I bet she told you exactly what she thinks of me. That I’m just as responsible for Beth’s death as if I’d shoved her off that bridge railing myself.”

“That might have come up somewhere in the conversation. She’s clearly not one of your biggest fans. Damn it, Tom, why didn’t you tell me?”

His expression remained emotionless, as if I were a stranger. “The time just never seemed right.”

“She was so smug about the fact that you’d lied to me. As though it corroborated her ridiculous accusations. I felt like a fool.”

“I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you everything.”

“In the end, what’s the difference? I still ended up looking like a fool. Damn it, Tom, she blindsided me.”

“What the hell do you want me to say, Jules? Maybe I should’ve turned to you that first night and said, Hi, I’m Tom. My wife was so miserable living with me that she killed herself. Say, can I buy you a drink? That would’ve gone over really well.”