“What?”
She smirked at me and tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. Then she patted my arm sympathetically.
“Hurts, doesn’t it, motherfucker?”
“When?” I breathed.
“Uh-uh. I’m not telling you that.”
I licked my lips. “Cammie … tell me it’s not Turner.”
Her face broke into smile. “Nope.”
I felt the pressure in my chest release a little. A little. I hated Turner. I hadn’t even met the guy. It was by sight alone.
“Noah Stein,” Cammie said, grinning. “Funny story,” she said, making her eyes really big. “She met him on that little impromptu trip she took to Rome. You remember? The one where she came baring her soul, and you turned her away.”
“It didn’t happen like that.”
She cocked the corner of her mouth up and shook her head like she was disappointed in me. “You had your chance, big boy. Fate hates you guys.”
“Leah had just lost the baby and her sister tried to commit suicide. I couldn’t leave her. I was trying to do the right thing for once.”
She jerked to look at me. “Leah was…” her voice trailed off and her eyes glazed over. I cocked my head.
“Leah lost a baby?” she repeated. I saw something in her eyes that made me take a step closer.
“What are you not saying?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head at me. “When you went to Rome with Leah, were you trying to have a baby?”
Cammie was known for asking uncomfortable questions, but this was a little personal, even for her.
“No. We were just taking a break. Getting away from everything. Trying to work on-”
“Your marriage,” she finished.
“Why are you asking me this?”
She suddenly looked up from the patch of floor she’d been staring at. “Just interested, I guess. Hey, I’ve got to get out of here.”
She leaned up to kiss me on the cheek, but something wasn’t sitting right with me. Cammie was an obnoxious spitfire. When she started acting awkward, something was wrong.
“Cammie…”
“Don’t,” she said. “She’s happy. She’s getting married. Leave her alone.”She started walking away, but I grabbed her wrist. “You said that to me once before, do you remember?”
Her face paled. She yanked her arm away.
“Just tell me when?” I pleaded. “Cammie, please…”
She swallowed. “Saturday.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head. “Bye, Cam.”
“Bye, Caleb.”
I didn’t get Leah’s pretzel. I got back in my car, drove to the beach and sat on the sand looking out at the water. Leah called me five times, but I sent the calls to voicemail. Saturday was two days away. She was probably a mess. She always was when there was a big life change on the horizon. I rubbed my chest. It felt so heavy.
I watched the couples for a long time, walking hand in hand along the water. It was too late to swim, but some kids were playing in the surf, kicking water at each other. In a few weeks, I’d have one of my own. The thought was frightening and exciting — the way you felt before getting on a roller coaster. Except this roller coaster ride would last eighteen years, and I wasn’t sure if my riding partner really wanted to be a mother. Leah tended to like the idea of things more than the actual things.
Once, when we were first married, she’d come home from work cradling a Collie puppy in her arms. “I saw him in a pet shop window and I couldn’t resist,” she’d said. “We can take him on walks together and get him one of those collars with his name on it.”
Despite my skepticism about the duration of the dog’s stay in my house, I’d smiled and helped her pick out a name — Teddy. The following day I’d come home from work to find the house filled with dog supplies — squeaking hamburgers, stuffed toys and tiny, florescent tennis balls. Aren’t dogs colorblind? I remember thinking, picking one up and examining it. Teddy had a fluffy bed, a rhinestone studded collar and a retractable leash. He even had food and water bowls with his name on them. I studied this all with a sense of dread and watched Leah measure out half cups of food into his dog bowl. For two days she bought things for our new puppy, yet I never once remember seeing her so much as touch him. By day four, Teddy was gone. Given to a neighbor along with his florescent balls.
“Too much mess,” Leah said. “I couldn’t housetrain him.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that it took longer than three days to housebreak a puppy. And so Teddy was gone before we could ever go on a walk with him. Please God, don’t let a baby be another puppy to Leah.
I stood up, dusting the sand off my jeans. I had to get home — to my wife. That was the life I chose, or what was chosen for me. I didn’t even know anymore where my choices started and ended.
Saturday. I told Leah that I had errands to run. I set out early, stopping at the liquor store for a bottle of scotch I knew I’d need later. Tossing it in the trunk, I drove the twenty minutes to my mother’s house. My parents lived in Ft. Lauderdale. They bought their house from a pro golfer in the nineties, something which my mother still bragged about to her friends. When Robert Norrocks owned this house…
She opened the door before I could knock.
“What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
I pulled a face, shook my head. She made a show of looking relieved. I wondered who taught her to make a performance of every emotion she felt. Both my grandparents had been pretty stoic people. As I walked past her into the foyer, her hand fluttered to her neck where her fingers absently found the locket she wore. It was a nervous habit I’d always found endearing. Not today.
I walked into the living room and sat down, waiting for her to follow.
“What is it, Caleb? You’re scaring me.”
“I need to talk to you about something,” I tried again. “I need to talk to my mother about something. Can you do that without being…”
“Bitchy?” she offered.
I nodded.
“Should I be afraid?”
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out at her precious roses. She had every shade of pink and red. It was a mess of thorns and color. I didn’t like roses. They reminded me of the women in my life; beautiful and bright, but if you touched them they made you bleed.