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The Couple Most Likely To
But the timing was impossible. Jillian raised her voice right at that moment. “Everybody?” The kitchen and adjoining sunroom had filled with people and the noise level of numerous conversations had climbed. If the music he’d put on earlier was still playing, he couldn’t hear it anymore, and people hadn’t heard Jillian, either.
“Everyone?” she repeated, speaking louder this time. She sounded nervous, as if she didn’t want to do this but would do it anyhow, on principle. “Can I have your attention for a minute? Don’t worry, it won’t take long.” The room quieted.
“You’re right, Jillian,” said her brother Eric. “We should talk about why most of us are here.”
“Jake?” She turned to him. “Do you want to recap? Tell everyone what happened when we met up in Seattle?”
“I think you should do that,” he told her. “You were the one who approached me, and I know that took some guts, under the circumstances.”
He heard a tiny sound from Stacey, still standing beside him. She didn’t move, but she looked interested and curious—as well she might. He felt awkward about the fact that everyone—his brothers, his cousins, their partners, spouses, dates and friends—would see the two of them standing like a couple at such a significant moment.
Jillian nodded. “All right,” she agreed quietly, then raised her voice again. “Many of you know this part. I saw Jake’s name on a conference program in Seattle a few months ago, and realized from his looks and his age and his biography in the conference program that he had to be one of those Logans. You know the ones, Robbie, Eric, Bridget? The ones we never speak about? The ones we never see? The ones who might as well not exist?”
They nodded. The family knew. Some people didn’t.
“I listened to Jake give his presentation on infertility and emotional well-being, and at first I thought I’d just sneak out afterward and not say anything—the way we’ve not said anything to or about Lawrence Logan and his family almost our whole lives. But then I thought, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ Here I was, a social worker, listening to a doctor talk about family dysfunction and family healing. And the doctor was my own cousin. And I hadn’t met or spoken to him ever, because my father couldn’t forgive his father for things that had happened twenty and thirty years ago.”
“Thirty years?” murmured his brother Scott’s date, as if dinosaurs had still roamed the earth.
“So when the session was over, I went up to him,” Jillian continued. “My legs were shaking. I had no idea what kind of a reception I’d get.”
“But you came up to me anyhow, Jillian.” Jake picked up the story. “For those of you who don’t know this—”
He threw a brief glance at Stacey, but there would be others, he knew. His brother Ryan’s girlfriend, Brian and Carrie Summers, their friend Lisa. There were several more unfamiliar faces, also. His stepsister Suzie was here and had brought a date, as had Scott. His cousin Eric’s wife, Jenny, had brought her brother Jordan, a high-power corporate attorney.
“Thirty-one years ago, our cousin Robbie was kidnapped.” He saw Nancy squeeze her husband’s hand and frown at his words. “It was a devastating event for my uncle and aunt, as you can imagine. My parents wanted to help, but Uncle Terrence couldn’t accept that kind of support from them. As brothers, their life choices and priorities had always been at odds, and I know my uncle was racked with a belief that if he’d been a better father, Robbie would never have disappeared.”
There was a murmur from the listeners.
“My father was hurt by the repeated rebuffs,” Jake continued, “and when he went on, a decade later, to write his two bestselling books on family values he was careless in the case studies he chose. One of them was strongly based on his brother, Terrence, and if there had been any chance of reconciliation before the books were published, there certainly wasn’t once they achieved their stellar success. Hardest to Forgive stayed at the top of the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List for forty-three weeks.”
Beside him, Stacey made another sound. She’d read it. Millions of people had. It had surpassed even the sales of his dad’s first book, The Most Important Thing.
“There were some crucial sections in the second book which Dad intended as an attempt to reach out to his brother, but unfortunately the timing was bad.”
“With both books the timing was bad,” Jillian said. “A false lead had come up regarding Robbie’s whereabouts. I know my parents received several fresh blows over the years. Although we all shared their anguish, we were just kids. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like.”
At the back of the room, Robbie nodded, while his wife, Nancy, squeezed his arm. Jake had only been four years old at the time, but the suffering on both sides of the Logan family had been fierce for years afterward. He still had some distant memories of phone calls and police cars and angry confrontations—of his parents trying to help his aunt and uncle, his mother bringing casseroles, his father wanting to hand out fliers, and all their efforts being rebuffed.
“In his anguish over Robbie,” he continued, “Uncle Terrence took everything Dad had written in the opposite way to what he’d intended—as a further indictment of my uncle’s choices, his marriage, and the way he was raising his kids. I can understand my father’s message. The thousands of letters he’s received over the years from around the world attest to its value. I’m proud of him and what he achieved, but my uncle and his family did suffer because of that book.”
“We all did,” Eric Logan said. “Word got around. I’ve seen copies of both books with the fictional names Uncle Lawrence gave us footnoted by hand with our real names. Our friends’ parents passed the book around the way people used to with dirty magazines in high school.”
Bridget picked up the story, while Jillian stayed significantly silent, Jake noted. He had the impression she’d reached her personal comfort threshold and was ready to leave the emotional revelations to others. “Kids would ask us if he beat us,” Bridget said, “and what was wrong with our mom, and why didn’t they just get a divorce, and was my dad the worst father in the world, if it said so in a book that millions of people had read.”
Eric put his arm around his sister. “People willfully took the book’s message in the wrong way, when it referred to our family. A lot of people were very happy for us to prove single-handed that money can’t buy happiness. I heard whisperings that Robbie hadn’t been kidnapped at all, that he was buried in our basement and our parents had put him there.”
Nancy clicked her tongue in distress and she and Robbie held each other more tightly.
“I was the youngest, which spared me the worst treatment,” Bridget said, “but as I grew older I could understand why Dad was angry.”
“And yet we’ve all lost out, over the years,” Jillian came in. Her tone edged toward clinical. “I think people always do, when there’s that level of family conflict. I want to heal the rift—in this generation, and hopefully even between our parents. Over coffee at the conference, I convinced Jake to come back to Portland. This potluck supper is our first attempt at reconciliation.”
“I’m glad it’s happening,” said Scott. “I’m glad to be a part of it. Jillian and Jake, thanks.” He put his hands together and began to applaud, and soon everyone had joined in.
“Your parents aren’t here,” Stacey said beside Jake, when the applause died. The story had drawn her in. He could see the troubled emotion in her face. Because she’d never felt close to her own parents or her sister? Jake wondered. He knew they’d moved to San Diego some years ago.
Jillian pulled a wry face in answer to Stacey’s question. “No. Well. First things first. We’ll have to work up to it.”
“Were they asked?”
“My father and stepmother are in New York for a few days,” Jake said, “Visiting my brother L. J.”
“And our parents didn’t want to know,” Jillian put in. “Especially Dad.”
“I think it’s his problem, Jillian. Time heals, but he won’t let it do so in this case.” Bridget hugged her older sister. “I agree with Scott. I’m so glad you’ve done this.”
The formality began to fragment and the noise level rose again. Stacey remained at Jake’s side. “I had no idea about the rift in your family,” she said, when no one else was close enough to hear. “You never told me.”
“It didn’t seem important to me back then.”
“But it does now? It must, or you wouldn’t have come back to Portland.” She stayed silent for a moment as she thought, then her face changed suddenly. “No. That’s right. Yesterday you told Nancy if family tensions run too high, it’s very easy for you to leave. Portland might be your hometown, but it’s a way station for you, just like any other place, just as you always wanted.”
He couldn’t mistake the anger in her voice, or the shift in her attitude. She didn’t think highly of the way he ran his life, and she took it personally.
“Stacey—”
Stacey gave a mechanical smile and didn’t let herself meet Jake’s eye. “Excuse me, Jake, I’m going to grab some food now and say hi to Nancy.”
“Hey, look, don’t you think we need to—?”
No. She didn’t think they needed to do anything.
She knew she needed to find some space. She was furious with herself.
And, yes, as Jake had picked up, she was angry with him, too. He hadn’t changed…and she should have understood this at once. She should never have flirted with him over the oven controls, letting the old attraction show so openly.
She found it disturbing enough that the attraction still existed. To act on it in any way would be asking for trouble. He stood close, a little threatening in the way he confronted her. What did he want? Honesty? To dig up the past?
“Let me breathe, Jake. It’s a mistake, thinking we have anything left for each other after all this time. Anything except anger and regret.”
He gave a tight nod. “You’re probably right. I just wanted to talk.”
“Well, I don’t.” She turned away from him and looked for Nancy across the room.
She’d been captured by all the wrong memories, yesterday and this evening. The good memories. Memories of how she and Jake had once connected to each other with humor, and through the sizzle of teasing laced with awareness. Nothing’s funnier than a joke between two people who want each other, no matter how lame the actual lines. She and Jake used to laugh all the time, while their blood sang with wanting.
So help her, her blood still sang with wanting, but she had to forget about that and focus on all the ways he’d hurt her, and all the signals that he hadn’t changed. She spent the next hour talking to other people, helping to serve the hot food.
Anything to avoid getting too close to Jake.
Chapter Three
The situation was ironic, Jake decided.
He’d come back to Portland to heal one rift, only to face another one. And to be honest, in his adult life he’d been affected a heck of a lot more by what had happened between himself and Stacey than by the fact that his father and his uncle didn’t speak to each other.
Am I going to let this happen?
Am I going to let us go the whole evening without talking about what we went through together, and how we feel now? I want to say Anna’s name out loud, to the one person who’ll understand how sweet and sad it sounds.
No. He wasn’t going to let it slide.
He couldn’t.
They had to talk.
He looked across the room at Stacey. He’d been tracking her the whole evening, for a good two hours at least, although he’d tried not to let anyone see it—especially Stacey herself.
To his eyes, she was the star of the whole gathering. The prettiest. The warmest. The best listener. The one who set up the most unlikely conversational pairings—such as the one between his brother Ryan’s supercilious, bored-looking girlfriend and his cousin Eric’s quiet wife, Jenny.
“Anitra, Ryan tells me you’re studying for a law degree, part-time, while you model,” Jake had heard her say, while pretending he wasn’t listening. “Jenny, you’re an attorney and I know you were juggling a lot of commitments at one stage. Any tips for Anitra?”
Now Anitra was laughing with Jenny, in the middle of one of those very female conversations where they’re both nodding like crazy and going, “Oh, I know! Oh, absolutely! Oh, I totally understand!” the whole time.
Jillian and her friend Lisa Sanders were talking together very earnestly. Stacey had been a part of their conversation for some minutes, also. Lisa seemed a little upset and agitated. Stacey had listened intently to what she’d said, nodding and frowning. Now Jake heard Jillian say in a decisive way, “You cannot have something like this hanging over you, Lisa, and neither can Carrie and Brian. Get the legal situation checked out. If there’s any chance that your ex could invalidate the adoption…”
Lisa chewed on her lip. “My ex. I can’t believe we were ever involved. It seems a lifetime ago. And I can’t believe he would try to mess with all our lives like this, just because he thinks there’s something in it for him.” She shook her head, sounding distressed, and Jake realized he should move farther away from what was obviously a very personal conversation.
Meanwhile, Stacey had retreated to his kitchen to load the dishwasher, which unfortunately matched the oven and had similar cryptic controls.
His cue, he decided, heading in that direction. “Try the Mercedes-Benz symbol, Stace.”
“Yeah, I would,” she answered, straightening. If her cheeks had been a faint, pretty pink before, they were flushed now. It suited her, hinted at her emotional nature. “Only there isn’t one.”
“Leave the dishwasher,” he growled at her. “I want to talk to you.”
“The feeling isn’t mutual, Jake, right now.” She hunched her shoulders, and hugged her arms across her front. “We—we flirted before, and we shouldn’t have. It was irresponsible and meaningless and just dumb. If you think I’m backing off fast…you’re right! I don’t want to talk.”
“Don’t you think this is the best time?” He stepped closer, because he didn’t want people to hear this. “When seeing each other again has brought our emotions so close to the surface?”
“Why do we have to talk at all? We haven’t, for seventeen years, and we’ve done okay.”
“Have we? Have we really done okay? I think it’s all still there, underneath. I think it’s still affecting us.”
“Well, of course.” Her voice dropped low. “There’s still barely a day goes by that I don’t think about Anna….”
There it was. The sad sound of her name that he’d needed to hear, and that reproached him every single time. In his mind, he could see her, the tiny, tiny form, the black silky hair, the paper-thin translucent skin, those brief, fluttering movements she’d made before—
Stop.
Just stop.
“…especially since I had the twins,” Stacey was saying.
“Not just Anna,” he forced himself to argue. “The choices we made afterward. The things we turned our backs on.”
“You turned your back on.”
“You, just as much.”
“I don’t see it that way.” She sounded very stubborn, with a good bit of bravado in the mix.
“No?” he challenged her. “We always talked about seeing the world, and yet you’re still here in Portland with a failed marriage, stuck in a dreary suburban rut….”
She flinched, and he wished he’d chosen his words better.
Then she lifted her chin and returned the attack, which shouldn’t have surprised him. “So making a family means being in a rut, does it, Jake? What about you? Some people wouldn’t call what you’ve done with your life widening your horizons, they’d call it running away.”
“They’d be wrong. I like my life very much.”
“Good for you.” She blinked back sudden tears. “And I like mine. There. We’ve talked. We’ve told each other we’re happy. We’ve defended our choices. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Stacey…”
“It’s enough,” she repeated. “Thank you for this.” She waved vaguely at the gathering, which was still going strong after two or three hours. “I like your family. I’ve had a good time. I’m glad Jillian invited me. But I’m going home.”
He didn’t try to argue, but only because he’d already decided to tackle their talk a different way.
The worst part about Stacey’s rare evenings out when the twins were away was that she had to come back to an empty house. She’d left the heating turned up and a couple of lights on in strategic places, so the space was cozy enough. Her garage opened directly into a mudroom off the kitchen, which meant there was no interval of cold and vulnerability as she walked between the car and the house, but still it felt lonely and wrong.
So much in her life was right. Her children, her job, her house, her friends.
This part of it wasn’t.
She’d never planned for a life in which she had to come home at night alone. She liked the warmth of people around her, and found it nourishing. As a poor substitute for actual human contact, she checked the answer machine and found a message from her sister, Giselle, which was unusual. Stacey was the elder by five years and they’d never been all that close. Giselle had only been thirteen when she and Mom and Dad had moved to San Diego.
On the machine, she sounded perky and busy. “Hi-i, Stacey! Just calling. No reason. Talk to you soon. Bye-ee!”
No other messages.
Which was good, because it meant that everything must be running smoothly for John with the twins.
Stacey looked at the clock on the microwave—9:42. “What?” she complained to the green numbers. “You leave me with an hour between now and bed, and no suggestions about what I should do? You couldn’t have made it 10:25?”
No reply from the clock.
She made herself some hot chocolate, lit the gas fire—more for the companionship of its cheerful blue and orange flames than for its warmth—and put on a DVD.
About twenty minutes later, she’d gotten comfortable when her doorbell rang, which spooked her a little at this time of night—until she looked through the peephole.
She should have known.
Jake.
Heart sinking, she opened the door for him, with a brief, “Hi,” then stood back in silence for him to walk past her into the house. Clearly, he’d meant what he said about needing to talk. Even outside of rush hour, his place was a solid twenty-minute drive from here. He must have left his guests with Jillian to act as hostess. What kind of excuse had he made?
He didn’t intend to waste any time getting to the point, it seemed. She offered several beverage options, hot and cold, but he waved them all away. She ushered him toward the fire, but he ignored her and paced up and down the patterned Persian rug instead.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about you being in a rut. It wasn’t exactly the best start I could have made.”
“Start to what?”
“We have to say this stuff, Stacey! We’re going to keep seeing each other around the hospital. Nancy and Jillian both think of you as a friend, and I’m working on thinking of them as family. The connections are there, and ongoing. We ended in such a mess seventeen years ago. We’re a lot older now. You know I loved you—”
“Did you? You loved me? You’d claim that?”
“Do you doubt it?”
“You pushed me away! You picked fights. I was the one who finally said It’s over, yes, but you made me say it, Jake. You didn’t rest until you’d goaded me into it!”
He stopped pacing in the middle of the rug, pinned by her words. They’d hit home. She could see it.
“You manipulated me into saying it,” she went on, “as the punch line to a massive fight, and you left me with the guilt when I did. We conceived Anna together, and we lost her, and then you manipulated the relationship so that I was the one who couldn’t let the loss bring us closer. It took me a long time to see all of that, but I know it’s the way it was. The only thing I don’t understand is why. If you’re telling me you did love me…”
“Of course I did.”
“But you stopped loving me after Anna died? Because you wanted to be free?”
“After Anna died, I was never going to be free,” he muttered, so low that she wasn’t convinced she’d heard him right.
“Well, it’s the only reason I can come up with.” She turned toward the gas fire, needing to look at those leaping flames, instead of Jake’s frowning face.
“Is it?” he said.
“The evidence is there in the life you’ve lived since, Jake.” She didn’t turn to face him again, but felt him move closer. “I’ve seen your résumé. No wife. No kids. You don’t stay in one place for longer than two or three years. You’ve worked all over the world. Clearly that need for newness and change and movement runs deep. And it angers me that you couldn’t be honest about it. You wanted your freedom, but you couldn’t say so. You had to turn me into the bad guy, instead.” She shook her head. “I had the same thing from my mother my whole life, growing up. I was the disappointing daughter, the one who messed up, while Giselle was perfect. I can fall into the role of bad guy sooo easily, Jake. Very convenient for you. And yet—you didn’t put me there on purpose? If you did—” she shook her head again “—then we really have nothing to say.”
“You weren’t this angry yesterday, or earlier tonight.”
She laughed. “No, because believe it or not, in a rut or not, I do have a life—one that I find very satisfying, by and large.”
“Tell me.”
“My job, my kids, my friends, my house, my hobbies. I haven’t spent the past seventeen years dwelling on grievances. I’m a pretty positive person. At first, when I saw you and talked with you, I remembered the good times. The connections.”
Oh, boy, did she remember the connections! He’d moved to stand beside her now, and they both watched the fire. Every cell in her body seemed to pull toward him. What was it about this one man? She had to take a breath to steady herself before she could continue.
“Now, though, when you tell me that I’m in a rut, and say that you did love me…Yes, I’m angry. It’s confusing and upsetting. And I really don’t understand.”
She had to wait a long time for his reply. The fire purred faintly, and the room was so quiet that she could hear the whir of the DVD player, which she’d left on the pause setting. Finally, he spoke. If that DVD player had been any louder, she wouldn’t have heard.
“I pushed you away because I felt so damn guilty, Stacey.”
Jake heard the words that came out of his mouth after the long silence and didn’t know if he could follow through with the full truth, even now. Was this what he’d meant by talking? Had he intended to make this much of a confession?
He’d driven here without rehearsing his lines, without much rational thought at all. He’d just known he needed to see her again tonight, not wait for some awkward moment when they ran into each other at the hospital.
As soon as he’d entered her house he’d felt the old attraction flare once again. He’d barely taken in the decor, just a vague impression of warmth and color and quirkiness, the kind of detail you promised yourself you’d take a closer look at next time.
And then the first thing he’d done was apologize, because there was so much he regretted when it came to Stacey and their shared past. But could he talk about it?
“Guilty?” she echoed. “Because Anna came too soon? How was that your fault? The doctors told us—”
“Because it let me off the hook. It opened the door to the original plan, the one we’d had to let go of when we found out you were pregnant. You know the saying. Be careful what you wish for.”
Tears filled her eyes. “You wished for—”
He swore harshly. “No! Of course I didn’t wish for us to lose Anna! But I would never have chosen at that age to get married and be a father and settle down in Portland, Stacey. I wanted you, but I didn’t want the whole traditional package. Not then. Not at eighteen.”