Susan Phillips - Breathing Room

He pulled his hand from his pocket and braced it on the side of the pergola, not looking at her. “What you said this morning… Were you just throwing up another one of your smoke screens? About being fat and having stretch marks, when you know damned well you get more beautiful every day? And saying I don’t love you when I’ve told you a thousand times how I feel?”

Words uttered by rote. “I love you, Tracy.” No emotion behind them. Never, “I love you because…” Just, “I love you, Tracy. Don’t forget to buy more toothpaste when you go to the store.”

“There’s telling and there’s believing. Two different animals.”

He slowly turned to her. “It’s never been my love in question, not from the beginning. It’s always been yours.”

“Mine? I picked you! If it had been up to you, the two of us would never have happened. I found you, I stalked you, and I reeled you in.”

“I wasn’t that big a prize!”

Harry never yelled, and just the surprise of it silenced her.

He pushed himself away from the pergola. “You wanted kids. And I had ‘Daddy’ written all over me. Don’t you get it? For you, it wasn’t about us. It was all about your need to have kids. About me being the father you wanted for them. Someplace in my subconscious I always knew that’s what you were after, but I kept fooling myself. And it was easy to do when there were only Jeremy and Steffie. Even when Brittany came along, I could pretend it was still about us, that you wanted me for me. I might have been able to keep on pretending, but then you got pregnant with Connor, and you walked around with this cat-that-ate-the-canary smile on your face. Everything was about being pregnant and the kids. I tried to swallow it, to keep on pretending I was the great love of your life and not just your best source of sperm, but it got harder. Every morning I’d look at you and want you to love me the way I loved you, but I’d done my job, and you didn’t even see me. And you’re right. I did start shutting down. So I could keep going. But when you got pregnant this time and you were so happy, I couldn’t even go through the motions. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.” His voice broke. “I just… couldn’t.”

Tracy tried to take it in, but so many conflicting emotions were barreling through her that she couldn’t begin to sort them out. Relief. Anger at him for being so obtuse. And joy. Oh, yes, joy, because it wasn’t completely hopeless after all. She didn’t know where to begin, so she decided to start small. “What about the toothpaste?”

He stared at her as if she’d grown a second pregnancy from her forehead. “Toothpaste?”

“The way I don’t always remember to buy toothpaste. And the way it drives you crazy when I lose my keys. You told me if I screwed up the checking account one more time, you were going to take away my checkbook. And do you remember that dent in the fender of your car that you thought happened when you took Jeremy to Little League? I put it there. Connor threw up in my car, and I didn’t have time to clean it up, so I took yours instead, and I was yelling at Brittany in the parking lot at Target and drove my shopping cart into it. What about that, Harry?”

He blinked. “If you’d keep an organized shopping list, you wouldn’t forget to buy toothpaste.”

In typical Harry fashion, he didn’t get it. “I’ll never keep an organized shopping list or stop losing keys or get much better at any of those other things that drive you wild.”

“I know that. I also know there are a thousand men who’d line up for the chance to buy you toothpaste and let you run a shopping cart into their car.”

Maybe he did get it.

Isabel had told her to think with her brain instead of her heart, but that was hard to do when it came to Harry Briggs. “I did know you’d be a great father, and that might have been part of the reason I fell in love with you. But I’d have kept on loving you even if you hadn’t been able to make a single baby. I found all my missing parts with you. I don’t keep wanting to have more babies because you’re not enough for me. I keep wanting them because my love for you gets so big it needs more places to go.”

Hope flickered in his eyes, but he still looked sad. She realized that his insecurities ran even deeper than her own. She’d always regarded him as the most intelligent person she knew, so it was difficult to adjust to the idea that she might be the smarter partner. “It’s true, Harry. Every word.”

“A little hard to believe.” He seemed to be drinking in her face, even though he knew every pore. “Just look at us. I’m the kind of guy you could pass on the street a dozen times and never notice. But you… Men walk into mailboxes when they see you.”

“I never knew a man so hung up on appearance.” She forgot all about thinking with her head and smacked his jaw to get his attention. “I love the way you look. I could stare at you for hours. I used to be married to the most gorgeous man in the galaxy, and we made each other miserable. And you’re right-I could have had any man in the room at that party, but I wasn’t attracted to a single one of them. And when I dumped that drink in your lap, I definitely wasn’t thinking of you as anybody’s father.”

She sensed his spirits begin to lighten, but she wasn’t nearly done. “Someday I’m going to be old, and if you’d seen my grandmother, you’d know there’s a good chance I’ll be ugly as sin by the time I’m eighty. Are you going to stop loving me then? Is appearance all it comes down to with you? Because if it is, we’re in just as much trouble as I thought.”

“Of course it isn’t. I didn’t… I never…”

“Talk about throwing up smoke screens. I’ve always believed that you were so clear-thinking, but even on a bad day I’m thinking more clearly than you. God, Harry, next to me you’re an emotional basket case.”

That made him smile, and he looked so goofy that she realized she was finally getting through. She wanted to kiss away his fears, but she still had too many fears of her own to deal with, and their troubles were too big to be kissed away. She didn’t want to have to spend the rest of their marriage reassuring him. She also didn’t like how important her looks were to him. The face he loved so much was already showing signs of wear and tear. How was he going to feel when it went south with the rest of her body?

“After all these years of marriage, you’d think we’d understand each other better,” he said.

“I can’t keep living like this. We need to get whatever is broken between us permanently fixed.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to do that.”

“With a good marriage counselor, that’s how. And the sooner we get one, the better.” She stood on tiptoe, kissed him hard, and turned to the farmhouse. “Isabel! Could you come out here?”

Isabel and Ren lay naked together outside on the thick comforter, where they kept each other warm in the chilly night air. She gazed up at the sputtering candles in the chandelier that hung from the magnolia tree. He brushed her hair with his lips. “Too heavy for you?”

“Mmm… In a minute.” Funny, but lying beneath him didn’t bother her at all. Odd to feel so safe with such a dangerous man.

“Just for the record-that one sexual hang-up you used to have? I think we can safely say it’s a thing of the past.”

She smiled into his hair. “I was just trying to be polite.”

“Do unto others?”

“A philosophy I try to live by.”

He chuckled.

She trailed her fingers along his spine. He turned his lips into the pulse at her wrist, then nudged her bangle. “You always wear this.”

“It’s a reminder.” She yawned and traced the outline of his ear with her index finger. “ ‘Breathe’ is engraved inside.”

“A reminder to stay centered, I remember. I still think it sounds boring.”

“Our lives are so hectic that it’s easy to lose our serenity. Touching the bangle keeps me calm.”

“It would have taken a lot more than a bracelet to keep me calm tonight. And I’m not just talking about the last hour on this blanket.”

She smiled. “The porcini weren’t completely ruined.”

“Just about.”

He eased off her. She propped herself on an elbow and trailed her fingers across the hard landscape of his chest. “Your spaghetti al porcino was the best thing I ever tasted.”

“It would have been even better an hour earlier. They’ve been fighting for months. I don’t know why they decided they had to go into marriage counseling tonight.”

“They needed some emergency triage. I’m not really a marriage counselor.”

“You’re sure not. You made them swear on their children’s lives not to have sex.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Pretty hard to go deaf when you’re in the next room and everybody keeps telling you not to leave.”

“We were hungry, and we were afraid you’d take our dinner with you. Physical communication is easy for them. It’s the verbal that’s causing them trouble, and they need to concentrate on that right now. They looked happy during dinner, didn’t they?”

“As happy as two people can look who know they aren’t going to get any for a while. And aren’t you afraid those lists you told them to make will only stir things up again?”

“We’ll see. One thing I didn’t have a chance to mention to you-and I think you’ll be happy about this…” She nibbled on his shoulder, not just to be manipulative, although that was part of it, but because it was right there in front of her and looked particularly tasty. “We’re going to live together for a while.”

He lifted his head far enough to regard her suspiciously. “Before I start dancing the tango, let me hear the rest of it.”

The chandelier above their heads swayed in the night breeze. She used the tip of her finger to trace a ripple of shadow that meandered across his chest. “I’m moving into the villa tomorrow morning. Just for a few days.”

“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll move down here.”

“Actually…”

“You didn’t!” He sat up so fast he nearly knocked her over. “Tell me you didn’t invite those two neurotics to stay in this farmhouse.”

“Only for a few days. They need privacy.”

“I need privacy. We need privacy.” He fell back onto the comforter. “I’m going to kill you. Really. This time I’m going to do it. Do you have any idea how many ways I know to take a human life?”

“Quite a few, I’m sure.” She slid her hand down over his stomach. “But I’m hoping you’ll find something more productive to do.”

“I’m cheap, but I’m not that easy.” His breath caught.

“You sound easy.” She let her fingers move lower, until they located a particularly sensitive region.

He groaned. “Okay, I’m cheap and easy. But let’s try it on a bed this time?” He caught her head as she pressed her lips to his stomach. “We definitely need a bed.” He moaned.

She nuzzled his navel. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“You’re killing me, Doc. You know that, don’t you?”

“And I haven’t even shown you my vicious streak.”

Ren spent the next day trying to talk Harry and Tracy out of staying at the farmhouse, but he had no luck. His only satisfaction lay in the last-minute lecture he inadvertently witnessed Isabel giving them.

“Remember,” she said, just as he walked into the room at the villa that was supposed to be his office, “no sex. The two of you have a lot of work to do first. That’s why I’m offering you the farmhouse. So you have time alone every evening to talk without any interruptions.”

Ren backed into the hallway, but not before he saw Tracy give Harry a longing glance. “I guess,” he heard her say. “But you have no idea how hard this is. Don’t you think-”

“No, I don’t.” Isabel’s voice trailed after him. “Sex has allowed the two of you to mask your problems. It’s easier to get it on than talk it out.”

He winced. “Get it on.” Why did she have to put it that way? Less than two weeks ago she’d talked about sex being sacred, but she’d loosened up a lot since then. Not that he was complaining. He loved her responsiveness. He loved the way she enjoyed him, enjoyed them. At the same time, though, something about her attitude was beginning to stick in his craw.

He was being unreasonable, and he knew it. Maybe he had a guilty conscience. Not telling her about the change in the Night Kill script bothered him, and the fact that he felt guilty about it bothered him even more. Isabel had nothing to do with his career, nothing to do with him beyond the next few weeks. She was the one who’d spelled out the terms, and she’d been right, as usual. This was only about sex.

When it came right down to it, they were using each other. He was using her for companionship, for entertainment. He was using her to help him deal with Tracy and to work through his guilt over Karli. And, God knew, he was using her for sex, but that didn’t qualify as a sin in the Book of Isabel.