Linda Howard - Sarah's Child

“See anything you want?”

The question startled her, and she jumped, dropping the picture back into the box. She realized that he was asking in general and hadn’t noticed her staring at his picture with sick longing, but her shadowy green eyes were wide and wary as she scrambled to her feet, smoothing her skirt.

“Yes. I’ll take the box. There are a lot of pictures in here of Diane and the boys…if you don’t—”

“Take them,” he said curtly, walking into the room. He stopped in the middle of the floor and stood looking around, as if he’d never been there before, but his eyes were bleak, and his mouth looked as if it would never smile again. He did sometimes smile, Sarah realized, after a fashion, but it was merely a polite movement of his lips rather than an expression of humor. Certainly the smile never reached his eyes and lit the dark fires that had once smoldered there.

He jammed his hands into his pockets, as if he had to do something to keep them from knotting into fists. His shoulders were tense, braced against the impact of memories that this room must bring to him. He’d slept in that bed with Diane, made love to her, wrestled with the boys on early Saturday mornings when they came running in to wake him up. Quickly Sarah leaned down to pick up the box, turning her gaze away from him to keep from witnessing his anguish.

The anguish was as much in her as it was in him. She loved him enough to wish Diane back for him, so he could smile again. He would always be Diane’s anyway, because her death hadn’t stopped his love for her. He was still grieving for her, still hurting from her loss.

“I’m finished in the boys’ room,” he said remotely. “Everything’s packed up. I…I—” Suddenly his voice broke, and Sarah’s heart broke with it. He drew a ragged breath, his chest heaving with the effort it took to control himself.

Suddenly his face twisted with rage, and he whirled to slam his fist against the dresser, rattling the bottles of perfume and cosmetics that still littered the top. “Dammit, it was such a waste!” He cursed violently, then groped for the dresser as his body sagged under the weight of his anger and grief. He’d never known defeat until his family had been taken from him. Death was final, permanent, striking without warning and destroying the life he’d built for himself.

“In some ways, losing the boys was worse than losing Diane,” he said in a muffled tone. “They were so young; they hadn’t had a chance at life. They never knew what it was like to play high-school sports, or go to college, or kiss their girlfriends for the first time. They hadn’t made love, or seen their own children born. They never had a chance.”

Sarah clutched the box to her breast. “Justin kissed his girlfriend,” she said shakily, a tiny smile breaking through in spite of the pain. “Her name was Jennifer. There were four Jennifers in his class, but he told me very firmly that his Jennifer was the `pretty one.’ He kissed her right on the mouth and asked her to marry him, but she got scared and ran away. He told me that he ‘spected she just wasn’t ready for marriage yet, but he’d keep his eye on her. That’s practically verbatim,” she added, laughing a little. She’d imitated Justin’s way of talking, drawling and tough for a seven-year-old, and Rome’s mouth twitched. He glanced at her, and suddenly his dark brown-black eyes were dancing with golden lights. He made a choking sound, then he was laughing, throwing back his dark head on the deep healthy sound.

“My God, he was a tough little nut,” he chuckled. “Poor Jennifer wouldn’t have had a chance.”

Neither had poor Sarah. Justin had received all of his tough charm straight from his father.

Her heart jolted at his laugh, the first genuine laugh she’d heard from him in two years. He hadn’t talked about the boys, or Diane, since the accident. He’d bottled up all of his memories with the pain, as if he had to keep them locked away in order for him to function on even a basic level.

She shifted, still clutching the box. “These pictures…if you ever want any of them, they’re yours.”

“Thanks.” He shrugged his wide shoulders, as if trying to ease the tension in them. “This is rougher than I thought it would be. It’s still…almost more than I can handle.”

Sarah ducked her head, unable to answer or look at him without crying. This was so traumatic for her that she was beginning to doubt her ability to get through it, but she couldn’t do anything to make it any harder for him. If he started to cry, she’d probably die on the spot. Part of the agony she’d felt after the accident had been for Rome, knowing how he was suffering. She hadn’t even been able to put her arms around him at any of the services; he’d held himself stiffly erect, his face utterly white and withdrawn, sealed off by his grief from everyone around him. Rome had been alone, unable to share his pain.

When she looked up again, Rome was sitting on the bed where he’d slept with Diane, her silk nightgown in his strong hands. His head was bent, and he pulled the silk through his fingers over and over again.

“Rome—” She stopped, not knowing what to say to him. What could she say?

“I still wake up at night and reach for her,” he said in a rough tone. “This is the nightgown she wore the last night we spent together, the last time I made love to her. I can’t get used to her not being there. It’s an empty pain that won’t go away, no matter how many women I take.”

Sarah gasped, her Nile-green eyes widening and becoming shuttered; he glanced up, his eyes bitter. “Does that shock you, Sarah? That I’ve had other women? I was faithful to Diane for eight years, never even kissing another woman, though sometimes when I was on a trip I’d lie awake all night, wanting a woman so much that I hurt all over. But no one else would do; it had to be her. So I’d wait until I came home; then we wouldn’t sleep that entire night.”

Sarah’s throat tightened, and she retreated from him as an unexpectedly savage pain slashed at her. She didn’t want to hear this. She’d always tried not to think of him in bed with Diane, trying not to envy her friend, eternally striving to keep jealousy from ruining their friendship. She’d succeeded while Diane was alive, but now Rome’s words were tearing at her, forcing images into her head that she didn’t want to see. She turned away from him, her face averted as she tried to avoid hearing his words. The bed squeaked as he left it; then suddenly his hands were gripping her arms with a hard grip, jerking her around to face him. His face was white and full of rage, a muscle jerking in his temple. “What’s wrong, Saint Sarah? Are you so buried in that mental convent of yours that you can’t stand hearing about normal people who enjoy the sinful activity of sex?” He was snarling at her, and Sarah was frozen in his grasp, stunned by the anger that had erupted in him. Dimly she realized that he wasn’t angry at her as much as he was angry at the fate that had taken his wife from him and left him with only emptiness in his arms, but still, Rome in a temper was a man to fear.

He shook her, as if he wanted to punish her for being a warm, living woman, when Diane was forever gone. “I still can’t sleep with another woman,” he rasped in a voice harsh with pain. “I don’t mean sex. I had sex with another woman only two months after Diane died, and I hated myself for it the next morning…hell, as soon as it was finished! It felt as if I’d been unfaithful to her, and I felt so guilty that I went back to my hotel room and threw up. I didn’t even particularly enjoy it, but I did it again the next night, so I’d feel guilty again. I tried to make myself suffer, to make myself pay for being alive when she was dead. There’ve been a lot of women since then; every time I…need sex, there’s always a woman who’s willing to lie down with me. I need sex and I’ve been taking it, but I can’t sleep with them. When it’s over, I have to leave. In my mind, I’m still Diane’s husband, and I can’t sleep with any woman but her.”