Used-To-Be Lovers

She only let go of the counter when his tires bit into the gravel of the road.

“Are you all right, Mom?” Bri’s voice made Sharon stiffen.

She faced this child of her spirit, if not her body, with a forced smile. “I’m fine,” she lied, thinking that Bri looked more like Carmen’s photographs with every passing day. She wondered if the resemblance ever grieved Tony and wished that she had the courage to ask him.

“You don’t look fine,” Briana argued, stepping inside the kitchen and closing the door.

Sharon had to turn away. She pretended to be busy at the sink, dumping out the coffee she’d just poured, rinsing her cup. “What’s Matt doing?”

“Turning over rocks and watching the sand crabs scatter,” Bri answered. “Are we going fishing?”

The last thing Sharon wanted to do was sit at the end of the dock with her feet dangling, baiting hooks and reeling in rock cod and dogfish, when right now her inclinations ran more toward pounding her pillow and crying. Such indulgences, however, are denied to mothers on active duty. “Absolutely,” she said, lifting her chin and straightening her shoulders before turning to offer Bri a smile.

The child looked relieved. “I’ll even bait your hooks for you,” she offered.

Sharon laughed and hugged her. “You’re one kid in a thousand, pumpkin,” she said. “How did I get so lucky?”

Carmen’s flawless image, smiling her beauty-queen smile, loomed in her mind, and it was as though Tony’s first wife answered, “I died, that’s how. Where would you be if it weren’t for that drunk driver?”

Sharon shuddered, but she was determined to shake off her gray mood. In just two days she would have to give Briana and Matt back to Tony and return to her lonely apartment; she couldn’t afford to sit around feeling sorry for herself. The time allowed her was too fleeting, too precious.

She found fishing poles and tackle in a closet, and Bri rummaged through the freezer for a package of herring, bought months before in a bait shop.

When they joined Matt outside, and the three of them had settled themselves at the end of the dock, Bri was as good as her word. With a deftness she’d learned from Tony, she baited Sharon’s hook.

In truth, Sharon wasn’t as squeamish about the task as Bri seemed to think, but she didn’t want to destroy the child’s pleasure in being helpful. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m sure glad I didn’t have to do that.”

“Women,” muttered Matt, speaking from a seven-year pinnacle of life experience.

Sharon bit back a smile. “Shall I give my standard lecture on chauvinism?” she asked.

“No,” Matt answered succinctly. It was the mark of a modern kid, his mother guessed, knowing what a word like chauvinism meant.

Bri looked pensive. “Great-gramma still eats in the kitchen,” she remarked. “Like a servant.”

Sharon chose her words carefully. Tony’s grandmother had grown up in Italy and still spoke almost no English. Maybe she followed the old traditions, but the woman had raised six children to productive adulthood, among other accomplishments, and she deserved respect. “Did you know that she was only sixteen years old when she first came to America? She didn’t speak or understand English, and her marriage to your great-grandfather had been arranged for her. Personally, I consider her a very brave woman.”

Bri bit her lower lip. “Do you think my mother was brave?”

Questions like that, although they came up periodically, never failed to catch Sharon off guard. She drew in a deep breath and let it out again. “I never met her, sweetheart—you know that. Wouldn’t it be better to ask your dad?”

“Do you think he loved her?”

Sharon didn’t flinch. She concentrated on keeping her fishing pole steady. “I know he did. Very much.”

“Carl says they only got married because my mom was pregnant with me. His mother remembers.”

Carl was one of the cast of thousands that made up the Morelli family—specifically, a second or third cousin. And a pain in the backside.

“He doesn’t know everything,” Sharon said, wondering why these subjects never reared their heads when Tony was around to field them. “And neither does his mother.”

Sharon sighed. God knew, Tony was better at things like this—a born diplomat. He and Carmen would have made quite a pair. There probably would have been at least a half dozen more children added to the clan, and it seemed certain that no divorce would have goofed up the entries in the family Bible. Maria Morelli had shown her all those names, reaching far back into the past.

Sharon was getting depressed again. Before Bri could bring up another disquieting question, however, the fish started biting. Bri caught two, Matt reeled in a couple more, and then it was time for lunch.

The telephone rang as Sharon was preparing sandwiches and heating canned soup.

“It’s Gramma!” Matt shouted from the front room.

“Tell her your dad isn’t here,” Sharon replied pleasantly.

“She wants to talk to you.”

Sharon pushed the soup to a different burner, wiped her hands on a dish towel and went staunchly to the telephone. “Hello,” she said in sunny tones.

“Hello, Sharon,” Maria responded, and there was nothing in her voice that should have made her difficult to talk to.

All the same, for Sharon, she was. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Michael’s birthday is next week,” Maria said. She was referring to her youngest son; Tony was close to him and so were the kids.

Sharon had forgotten the occasion. “Yes,” she agreed heartily.

“We’re having a party, as usual,” Maria went on. “Of course, Vincent and I would like the children to be there.”

Sharon’s smile was rigid; her face felt like part of a totem pole. She wondered why she felt called upon to smile when Maria obviously couldn’t see her.

A few hasty calculations indicated that Bri and Matt would have been with Tony on Michael’s birthday anyway. “No problem,” Sharon said generously.

There was a pause, and then Maria asked, “How are you, dear? Vincent and I were just saying that we never see you anymore.”

Sharon rubbed her eyes with a thumb and a forefinger, suppressing an urge to sigh. She regarded Vincent as a friend—he was a gentle, easygoing man—but with Maria it seemed so important to say and do the right things. Always. “I-I’m fine, thanks. I’ve been busy with the shop,” she responded at last. “How are you?”

Maria’s voice had acquired a cool edge. “Very well, actually. I’ll just let you get back to whatever it was that you were doing, Sharon. Might I say hello to Bri, though?”

“Certainly,” Sharon replied, relieved to hold the receiver out to the girl, who had been cleaning fish on the back porch. “Your grandmother would like to speak with you, Briana.”

Bri hastened to the sink and washed her hands, then reached eagerly for the receiver. The depth of affection this family bore for its members never failed to amaze Sharon, or to remind her that she was an outsider. Even during the happiest years she and Tony had shared, she’d always felt like a Johnny-come-lately.

“Hi, Gramma!” Bri cried, beaming. “I caught two fish and the floors got all flooded and this morning I thought things were okay between Dad and Mom because they slept together….”

Mortified, Sharon turned away to hide her flaming face. Oh, Bri, she groaned inwardly, of all the people you could have said that to, why did it have to be Maria?

“Right,” Briana went on, as her words became clear again. “We’re having—” she craned her neck to peer into the pan on the stove “—chicken noodle soup. Yeah, from a can.”

Sharon shook her head.

“Listen, Gramma, there’s something I need to know.”

An awful premonition came over Sharon; she whirled to give Bri a warning look, but it was too late.

“Was my mother pregnant when she married my dad?”

“Oh, God,” Sharon moaned, shoving one hand into her hair.

Bri was listening carefully. “Okay, I will,” she said at last in perfectly ordinary tones. “I love you, too. Bye.”

Sharon searched the beautiful, earnest young face for signs of trauma and found none. “Well,” she finally said, as Bri brought in the fish but left the mess on the porch, “what did she say?”

“The same thing you did,” Briana responded with a shrug. “I’m supposed to ask Dad.”

Sharon allowed her face to reveal nothing, though Tony had long since told her about his tempestuous affair with Carmen and the hasty marriage that had followed. She had always imagined that relationship as a grand passion, romantic and beautiful and, of course, tragic. It was one of those stories that would have been wonderful if it hadn’t involved real people with real feelings. She turned back to the soup, ladling it into bowls.

“I guess I could call him.”

Sharon closed her eyes for a moment. “Bri, I think this is something that would be better discussed in person, don’t you?”

“You know something!” the girl accused, coming inside and shutting the door.

“Wash your hands again, please,” Sharon hedged.

“Dad told you, didn’t he?” Briana asked, though she obediently went to the sink to lather her hands with soap.

Sharon felt cornered, and for a second or two she truly resented Bri, as well as Carmen and Tony. “Will you tell me one thing?” she demanded a little sharply, as Matt crept into the kitchen, his eyes wide. “Why didn’t this burning desire to know strike you a few hours ago, when your father was still here?”

Briana was silent, looking down at the floor.

“That’s what I thought.” Sharon sighed. “Listen, if it’s too hard for you to bring this up with your dad, and you feel like you need a little moral support, I’ll help. Okay?”

Bri nodded.

That afternoon the clouds rolled back in and the rain started again. Once more, the power went out. Sharon and the kids played Parcheesi as long as the light held up, then roasted hot dogs in the fireplace. The evening lacked the note of festivity that had marked the one preceding it, despite Sharon’s efforts, and she was almost relieved when bedtime came.

Almost, but not quite. The master bedroom, and the bed itself, bore the intangible but distinct impression Tony seemed to leave behind him wherever he went. When Sharon retired after brushing her teeth and washing her face in cold water, she huddled on her side of the bed, miserable.

Sleep was a long time coming, and when it arrived, it was fraught with dreams. Sharon was back at her wedding, wearing the flowing white dress she had bought with her entire savings, her arm linked with Tony’s.

“Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?” the minister asked.

Before Sharon could answer, Carmen appeared, also wearing a wedding gown, at Tony’s other side. “I do,” Carmen responded, and Sharon felt herself fading away like one of TV’s high-tech ghosts.

She awakened with a cruel start, the covers bunched in her hands, and sank back to her pillows only after spending several moments groping for reality. It didn’t help that the lamp wouldn’t work, that rain was beating at the roof and the windows, that she was so very alone.

The following day was better; the storm blew over and the electricity stayed on. Sharon made sure she had a book on hand that night in case her dreams grew uninhabitable.

As it happened, Carmen didn’t haunt her sleep again, but neither did Tony. Sharon awakened feeling restless and confused, and it was almost a relief to lock up the A-frame and drive away early that afternoon.

The big Tudor house was empty when they reached it; Mrs. Harry had done her work and gone home, and there was no sign of Tony. The little red light on the answering machine, hooked up to the telephone in the den, was blinking rapidly.

Sharon was tempted to ignore it, but in the end she rewound the tape and pushed the Play button. Tony’s voice filled the room. “Hi, babe. I’m glad you’re home. According to Mama mia, I need to have a talk with Bri—I’ll take care of that after dinner tonight, so don’t worry about it. See you later.” The tape was silent for a moment, and then another call was playing, this one from her mother. “Sharon, this is Bea. Since you don’t answer over at the other place, I figured I’d try and get you here. Call me as soon as you can. Bye.”

The other messages were all for Tony, so Sharon rewound the tape and then dialed her mother’s number in Hayesville, a very small town out on the peninsula.

Bea answered right away, and Sharon sank into the chair behind Tony’s desk. “Bea, it’s me. Is anything wrong?”

“Where are you?” Bea immediately countered.

“At the house,” Sharon replied in even tones.

“Crazy arrangement,” Bea muttered. She had never approved of Sharon’s marriage, Sharon’s house or, for that matter, Sharon herself. “In, out, back, forth. I don’t know how you stand it. Furthermore, it isn’t good for those kids.”

“Bea!”

“All right, all right. I just wanted to know if you were still coming over this weekend.”

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