Used-To-Be Lovers

She had earned her stripes as a mother.

The ferry whistle droned, and Sharon started in surprise. The short ride was over, and the future was waiting to happen.

She herded the kids below decks to the car, and they drove down the noisy metal ramp just as the heavy gray skies gave way to a thunderous rain.

2

Holding a bag of groceries in one arm, Sharon struggled with the sticky lock on the A-frame’s back door.

“Mom, I’m getting wet!” Briana complained from behind her.

Sharon sunk her teeth into her lower lip and gave the key a furious jiggle just as a lightning bolt sliced through the sky and then danced, crackling, on the choppy waters of the sound.

“Whatever you do, wire-mouth,” Matt told his sister, gesturing toward the gray clouds overhead, “don’t smile. You’re a human lightning rod.”

“Shut up, Matthew,” Sharon and Briana responded in chorus, just as the lock finally gave way.

Sharon’s ears were immediately met by an ominous hissing roar. She set the groceries down on the kitchen counter and flipped on the lights as Bri and Matt both rushed inside in search of the noise.

“Oh, ick!” Bri wailed, when they’d gone down the three steps leading from the kitchen to the dining and living room area. “The carpet’s all wet!”

Matt’s response was a whoop of delight. His feet made a loud squishing sound as he stomped around the table.

“Don’t touch any of the light switches,” Sharon warned, dashing past them and following the river of water upstream to the bathroom. The source of the torrent proved to be a broken pipe under the sink; she knelt to turn the valve and shut off the flow. “Now what do I do?” she whispered, resting her forehead against the sink cabinet. Instantly, her sneakers and the lower part of her jeans were sodden.

The telephone rang just as she was getting back to her feet, and Matt’s voice carried through the shadowy interior of the summer place she and Tony had bought after his family’s company had landed a particularly lucrative contract three years before. “Yeah, we got here okay, if you don’t count the flat tire. It’s real neat, Dad—a pipe must have broke or something because there’s water everywhere and the floor’s like mush—”

Sharon drew in a deep breath, let it out again and marched into the living room, where she summarily snatched the receiver from her son’s hand. “‘Neat’ is not the word I would choose,” she told her ex-husband sourly, giving Matt a look.

Tony asked a few pertinent questions and Sharon answered them. Yes, she’d found the source of the leak, yes, she’d turned off the valve, yes, the place was practically submerged.

“So who do I call?” she wanted to know.

“Nobody,” Tony answered flatly. “I’ll be there on the next ferry.”

Sharon needed a little distance; that was one of the reasons she’d decided to visit the island in the first place. “I don’t think that would be a good idea…” she began, only to hear a click. “Tony?”

A steady hum sounded in her ear.

Hastily, she dialed his home number; she got the answering machine. Sharon told it, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of its high-handed owner and hung up with a crash.

Both Bri and Matt were looking at her with wide eyes, their hair and jackets soaking from the rain. Maternal guilt swept over Sharon; she started to explain why she was frustrated with Tony and gave up in midstream, spreading her hands out wide and then slapping her thighs in defeat. “What can I say?” she muttered. “Take off your shoes and coats and get up on the sofa.”

Rain was thrumming against the windows, and the room was cold. Sharon went resolutely to the fireplace and laid crumpled newspaper and kindling in the grate, then struck a match. A cheery blaze caught as she adjusted the damper, took one of the paper-wrapped supermarket logs from the old copper caldron nearby and tossed it into the fire.

When she turned from that, Bri and Matt were both settled on the couch.

“Is Daddy coming?” Briana asked in a small voice.

Sharon sighed, feeling patently inadequate, and then nodded. “Yes.”

“How come you got so mad at him?” Matt wanted to know. “He just wants to help, doesn’t he?”

Sharon pretended she hadn’t heard the question and trudged back toward the kitchen, a golden oasis in the gloom. “Who wants hot chocolate?” she called, trying to sound lighthearted.

Both Bri and Matt allowed that cocoa would taste good right about then, but their voices sounded a little thin.

Sharon put water on to heat for instant coffee and took cocoa from the cupboard and milk and sugar from the bag of groceries she’d left on the counter. Outside the wind howled, and huge droplets of rain flung themselves at the windows and the roof. “I kind of like a good storm once in a while,” Sharon remarked cheerfully.

“What happens when we run out of logs?” Briana wanted to know. “We’ll freeze to death!”

Matt gave a gleeful howl at this. “Nobody freezes to death in August, blitz-brain.”

Sharon closed her eyes and counted to ten before saying, “Let’s just cease and desist, okay? We’re all going to have to take a positive approach here.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, the power went off.

Resigned to heeding her own advice, Sharon carried cups of lukewarm cocoa to the kids, then poured herself a mugful of equally unappealing coffee. Back in the living room, she threw another log on the fire, then peeled off her wet sneakers and socks and curled up in an easy chair.

“Isn’t this nice?” she asked.

Briana rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Mom. This is great.”

“Terrific,” agreed Matt, glaring into the fire.

“Maybe we could play a game,” Sharon suggested, determined.

“What?” scoffed Bri, stretching out both hands in a groping gesture. “Blindman’s buff?”

It was a little dark. With a sigh, Sharon tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Memories greeted her within an instant.

She and Tony had escaped to the island often that first summer after they bought the A-frame, bringing wine, romantic tapes for the stereo and very little else. They’d walked on the rocky beaches for hours, hand in hand, having so much to say to each other that the words just tumbled out, never needing to be weighed and measured first.

And later, when the sun had gone and a fire had been snapping on the hearth, they’d listened to music in the dark and made love with that tender violence peculiar to those who find each other fascinating.

Sharon opened her eyes, grateful for the shadows that hid the tears glimmering on her lashes. When did it change, Tony? she asked in silent despair. When did we stop making love on the floor, in the dark, with music swelling around us?

It was several moments before Sharon could compose herself. She shifted in her chair and peered toward Bri and Matthew.

They’d fallen asleep at separate ends of the long couch and, smiling, Sharon got up and tiptoed across the wet carpet to the stairs. At the top was an enormous loft divided into three bedrooms and a bath, and she entered the largest chamber, pausing for a moment at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sound.

In the distance Sharon saw the lights of an approaching ferry and, in spite of her earlier annoyance, her spirits were lifted by the sight. Being careful not to look at the large brass bed she and Tony had once shared—Lord knew, the living room memories were painful enough—she took two woolen blankets from the cedar chest at its foot and carried them back downstairs.

After covering the children, Sharon put the last store-bought log on the fire and then made her way back to the chair where she rested her head on one arm and sighed, her mind sliding back into the past again, her gaze fixed on the flames.

There had been problems from the first, but the trouble between Tony and herself had started gaining real momentum two years before, when Matt had entered kindergarten. Bored, wanting to accomplish something on her own, Sharon had immediately opened Teddy Bares, and things had gone downhill from that day forward. The cracks in the marriage had become chasms.

She closed her eyes with a yawn and sighed again. The next thing she knew, there was a thumping noise and a bright light flared beyond her lids.

Sharon awakened to see Tony crouched on the hearth, putting dry wood on the fire. His dark hair was wet and curling slightly at the nape of his neck, and she had a compulsion to kiss him there. At one time, she would have done it without thinking.

“Hello, handsome,” she said.

He looked back at her over one broad, denim-jacketed shoulder and favored her with the same soul-wrenching grin that had won her heart more than ten years before, when he’d walked into the bookstore where she was working and promptly asked her out. “Hi,” he replied in a low, rumbling whisper.

“Have you been here long?”

Tony shook his head, and the fire highlighted his ebony hair with shades of crimson. “Ten minutes, maybe.” She wondered if those shadows in his brown eyes were memories of other, happier visits to the island house.

She felt a need to make conversation. Mundane conversation unrelated to flickering firelight, thunderstorms, music and love. “Is the power out on the mainland, too?”

Again, Tony shook his head. There was a solemn set to his face, and although Sharon couldn’t read his expression now, she sensed that his thoughts were similar to hers. When he extended his hand, she automatically offered her own.

“I’m hungry,” complained a sleepy voice.

Tony grinned and let go of Sharon’s hand to ruffle his son’s hair. “So what else is new?”

“Dad, is that you?” The relief in the little boy’s voice made Sharon wonder if she’d handled things so badly that only Tony could make them better.

Tony’s chuckle was warm and reassuring, even to Sharon, who hadn’t thought she needed reassuring. “One and the same. You were right about the floor—it is like mush.”

Bri stirred at this, yawning, and then flung her arms around Tony’s neck with a cry of joy. “Can we go home?” she pleaded. “Right now?”

Tony set her gently away. “We can’t leave until we’ve done something about the flood problem—which means we’re going to have to rough it.” Two small faces fell, and he laughed. “Of course, by that I mean eating supper at the Sea Gull Café.”

“They’ve got lights?” Bri asked enthusiastically.

“And heat?” Matt added. “I’m freezing.”

“Nobody freezes in August,” Bri immediately quoted back to him. “Blitz-brain.”

“I see things are pretty much normal around here,” Tony observed in wry tones, his head turned toward Sharon.

She nodded and sat up, reaching for her wet socks and sneakers. “An element of desperation has been added, however,” she pointed out. “As Exhibit A, I give you these two, who have agreed to darken the doorway of the Sea Gull Café.”

“It doesn’t have that name for nothing, you know,” Bri said sagely, getting into her shoes. “Don’t anybody order the fried chicken.”

Tony laughed again and the sound, as rich and warm as it was, made Sharon feel hollow inside, and raw. She ached for things to be as they had been, but it was too late for too many reasons. Hoping was a fool’s crusade.

Rain was beating at the ground as the four of them ran toward Tony’s car. Plans encased in cardboard tubes filled the back seat, and the kids, used to their workaholic father, simply pushed them out of the way. Sharon, however, felt an old misery swelling in her throat and avoided Tony’s eyes when she got into the car beside him and fastened her seat belt.

She felt, and probably looked, like the proverbial drowned rat, and she started with surprise when the back of Tony’s hand gently brushed her cheek.

“Smile,” he said.

Sharon tried, but the effort faltered. To cover that she quipped, “How can I, when I’m condemned to a meal of sea gull, Southern-style?”

Tony didn’t laugh. Didn’t even grin. The motion of his hand was too swift and too forceful for the task of shifting the car into reverse.

Overlooking the angry water, the restaurant was filled with light and warmth and laughter. Much of the island’s population seemed to have gathered inside to compare this storm to the ones in ’56 or ’32 or ’77, to play the jukebox nonstop, and to keep the kitchen staff and the beaming waitresses hopping.

After a surprisingly short wait, a booth became available and the Morellis were seated.

Anybody would think we were still a family, Sharon thought, looking from one beloved, familiar face to another, and then at her own, reflected in the dark window looming above the table. Her hair was stringy and her makeup was gone. She winced.

When she turned her head, Tony was watching her. There was a sort of sad amusement in his eyes. “You look beautiful,” he said quietly.

Matt groaned, embarrassed that such a sloppy sentiment should be displayed in public.

“Kissy, kissy,” added Briana, not to be outdone.

“How does Swiss boarding school sound to you two?” Tony asked his children, without cracking a smile. “I see a place high in the Alps, with five nuns to every kid….”

Bri and Matt subsided, giggling, and Sharon felt a stab of envy at the easy way he dealt with them. She was too tired, too hungry, too vulnerable. She purposely thought about the rolled blueprints in the back seat of Tony’s car and let the vision fuel her annoyance.

The man never went anywhere or did anything without dragging some aspect of Morelli Construction along with him, and yet he couldn’t seem to understand why Teddy Bares meant so much to her.

By the time the cheeseburgers, fries and milk shakes arrived, Sharon was on edge. Tony gave her a curious look, but made no comment.

When they returned to the A-frame, the power was back on. Sharon sent the kids upstairs to bed, and Tony brought a set of tools in from the trunk of his car, along with a special vacuum cleaner and fans.

While Sharon operated the vacuum, drawing gallon after gallon of water out of the rugs, Tony fixed the broken pipe in the bathroom. When that was done, he raised some of the carpet and positioned the fans so that they would dry the floor beneath.

Sharon brewed a fresh pot of coffee and poured a cup for Tony, determined to do better than she had in the restaurant as the modern ex-wife. Whatever that was.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done,” she said with a stiff smile, extending the mug of coffee.

Tony, who was sitting at the dining table by then, a set of the infernal blueprints unrolled before him, gave her an ironic look. “The hell you do,” he said. Then, taking the coffee she offered, he added a crisp, “Thanks.”

Sharon wrenched back a chair and plopped into it. “Wait one second here,” she said when Tony would have let the blueprints absorb his attention again. “Wait one damn second. I do appreciate your coming out here.”

Tony just looked at her, his eyes conveying his disbelief…and his anger.

“Okay,” Sharon said on a long breath. “You heard the message I left on your answering machine, right?”

“Right,” he replied, and the word rumbled with a hint of thunder.

“I didn’t really mean that part where I called you an officious, overbearing—” Her voice faltered.

“Chauvinistic jerk,” Tony supplied graciously.

Sharon bit her lower lip, then confessed, “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it in exactly those terms. It was just that—well, I’m never going to know whether or not I can handle a crisis if you rush to the rescue every time I have a little problem—”

“Why are you so damn scared of needing me?” Tony broke in angrily.

Sharon pushed back her chair and went to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee for herself. When she returned, she felt a bit more composed than she had a few moments before.

She changed the subject. “I was thinking,” she said evenly, “about how it used to be with us before your construction company became so big—before Teddy Bares…”

Tony gave a ragged sigh. “Those things are only excuses, Sharon, and you know it.”

She glanced toward the fire, thinking of nights filled with love and music. Inside, her heart ached. “I don’t understand what you mean,” she said woodenly.

“You’re a liar,” Tony responded with cruel directness, and then he was studying the blueprints again.

“Where are you sleeping tonight?” Sharon asked after a few minutes, trying to sound disinterested, unconcerned, too sophisticated to worry about little things like beds and divorces.

Tony didn’t look up. His only reply was a shrug.

Sharon yawned. “Well, I think I’ll turn in,” she said. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Tony responded in a bland tone, still immersed in the plans for the next project.

Sharon fought an utterly childish urge to spill her coffee all over his blueprints and left the table. Halfway up the stairs, she looked back and saw that Tony was watching her.

For a moment she froze in the grip of some unnamed emotion passing between them, but her paralysis was broken when Tony dropped his gaze to his work.

Upstairs, Sharon took a quick shower, brushed her teeth, pulled on a cotton nightgown and crawled into the big, lonely bed. Gazing up at the slanted ceilings and blinking back tears of frustration, she wriggled down under the covers and ordered herself to sleep.

But instead of dreaming, Sharon reviewed the events of the evening and wondered why she couldn’t talk to Tony anymore. Each time she tried, she ended up baiting him, or sliding some invisible door closed between them, or simply running away.

She was painfully conscious of his nearness and of her need for him, which had not been assuaged by months of telling herself that the relationship was over. She put one hand over her mouth to keep from calling his name.

From downstairs she heard the low but swelling strains of familiar music. Once, the notes had rippled over her like the rays of the sun on a pond, filling her with light. They had flung her high on soaring crescendos, even as she clung to Tony and cried out in passion….

Sharon burrowed beneath the covers and squeezed her eyes shut and, an eternity later, she slept. When she awakened the room was filled with sunlight and the scent of fresh coffee.

After a long, leisurely stretch, Sharon opened her eyes. A dark head rested on the pillow beside hers, and she felt a muscular leg beneath the softness of her thigh.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, “we made love and I missed it!”

A hoarse laugh sounded from the pillow. “No such luck,” Tony said. “Our making love, I mean. We didn’t.”

Sharon sat up, dragging the sheets up to cover her bosom even though she was wearing a modest cotton nightgown. She distinctly remembered putting it on, and with a quick motion of her hands, she lifted the sheet just far enough away from her body that she could check. The nightgown was still in evidence.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing, Tony Morelli?” she demanded furiously.

He rolled onto his back, not even bothering to open his eyes, and simultaneously pulled the covers up over his face, muttering insensibly all the while.

“You guys made up, huh?” Briana asked from the doorway. She was all smiles and carrying two cups of coffee, hence the delicious aroma.

“No, we didn’t,” Sharon said primly.

“Not a very diplomatic answer,” Tony observed from beneath the covers. “Now, she’s going to ask—”

“Then how come you’re in bed together?” the child demanded.

“See?” said Tony.

Sharon elbowed him hard, and crimson color flooded her face. “I don’t know,” she said with staunch conviction.

Briana brought the coffee to the end table on Sharon’s side of the bed, and some of it slopped over when she set the cups down. There were tears brimming in her eyes.

“Damn you, Tony,” Sharon whispered, as though there were no chance of Bri’s not hearing what she said. “Explain this to her—right now!”

With a groan, Tony dramatically fought his way out from under the blankets and sat up. “There’s only one bed,” he said reasonably, running a hand through his rumpled hair and then yawning again. “The couch is too short for me, so I just crawled in with your mom.”

“Oh,” Bri said grudgingly, and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

“She didn’t understand,” Sharon lamented.

Tony reached past her to collect one of the cups of coffee. “Kids don’t need to understand everything,” he said.

If the man hadn’t been holding a steaming hot cup of coffee, Sharon would have slapped him. As it was, she glared at him and stretched out a hand for her own cup.

After a while Tony got up and wandered into the adjoining bathroom, and Sharon didn’t look to see whether or not he was dressed. When he returned, he crawled back into bed with her, rolling over so that one of his legs rested across both of hers.

His mouth descended toward hers, smelling of toothpaste, and he was definitely not dressed.

“Tony, don’t—”

The kiss was warm, gentle and insistent. Sharon trembled as all the familiar sensations were awakened, but she also braced both hands against Tony’s chest and pushed.

The motion didn’t eliminate all intimate contact—Tony had shifted his weight so that he was resting lightly on top of her—but it did make it possible to speak.

“No,” Sharon said clearly.

Tony slid downward, kissing her jawline, the length of her neck, her collarbone.

“No,” she repeated with less spirit.

His lips trailed across her collarbone and then downward. He nibbled at her breast through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

Her voice was a whimper. “No,” she said for the third time.

Tony’s mouth came to hers; his tongue traced the outline of her lips. “You don’t mean that,” he told her.

Sharon was about to admit he was right when there was a knock at the door and Bri called out in sunny tones, “Breakfast is served!”

Tony was sitting up, both hands buried in his hair, when Briana and Matt entered the room carrying trays.

3

The downstairs carpets were far from dry. “Leave the fans on for another day or so,” Tony said distantly. Standing beside the dining room table, he rolled up a set of plans and slid it back inside its cardboard cylinder.

A sensation of utter bereftness swept over Sharon, even though she knew it was best that he leave. The divorce was final; it was time for both of them to let go. She managed a smile and an awkward, “Okay—and thanks.”

The expression in Tony’s eyes was at once angry and forlorn. He started to say something and then stopped himself, turning away to stare out the window at Bri and Matt, who were chasing each other up and down the stony beach. Their laughter rang through the morning sunshine, reminding Sharon that some people still felt joy.

She looked down at the floor for a moment, swallowed hard and then asked, “Tony, are you happy?”

The powerful shoulders tensed beneath the blue cambric of his shirt, then relaxed again. “Are you?” he countered, keeping his back to her.

“No fair,” Sharon protested quietly. “I asked first.”

Tony turned with a heavy sigh, the cardboard cylinder under his arm. “I used to be,” he said. “Now I’m not sure I even know what it means to be happy.”

Sharon’s heart twisted within her; she was sorry she’d raised the question. She wanted to say something wise and good and comforting, but no words came to her.

Tony rounded the table, caught her chin gently in his hand and asked, “What happened, Sharon? What the hell happened?”

She bit her lip and shook her head.

A few seconds of silent misery passed, and then Tony sighed again, gave Sharon a kiss on the forehead and walked out. Moving to the window, she blinked back tears as she watched him saying goodbye to the kids. His words echoed in her mind and in her heart. What the hell happened?

Hugging herself, as though to hold body and soul together, Sharon sniffled and proceeded to the kitchen, where she refilled her coffee cup. She heard Tony’s car start and gripped the edge of the counter with one hand, resisting an urge to run outside, to call his name, to beg him to stay.