The look in Cal’s eyes was one of pity, and perhaps disappointment.
He stood up slowly. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have said all this. You just got me on a bad day. I’m feeling low. I guess I just wanted a friend to tell me it would be okay.” He headed for the door, grabbed his coat off the rack. “See you tomorrow.”
She was still there, standing in the middle of the office, staring at the closed door when it hit her.
Lisa left me.
I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.
She’d made it about her. Cal had shared with her his pain—and it was a lion’s-sized pain she knew all too well—and she’d said nothing to comfort him, nothing to help.
I just wanted a friend to tell me it would be okay.
Which she hadn’t done.
For years people had made little remarks about her being selfish. Ellie had always brushed them off with a pretty smile. It wasn’t true; whoever said it was either jealous of her or wasn’t a friend.
You’re like me, Ellie, her dad had said to her once, a center stage actor. If you marry again, you’d best find someone who doesn’t mind letting you have the spotlight all the time.
When he’d said it, Ellie had taken it as a compliment. She loved that her dad thought of her as a star.
Now, she saw the other meaning of his words, and once she opened that door, once she asked herself, Is it true? she was barraged with memories, moments, questions.
Two lost marriages. Both had gone south—she’d thought—because her husbands didn’t love her enough.
Was that because she wanted—needed—too much love? Did she return the amount she took? She’d loved her husbands, adored them. But not enough to follow Alvin to Alaska … or to put Sammy through truck driver’s school with the money she earned on the police force.
No wonder her marriages had failed. It had always been her way or the highway, and one by one the men she’d married and the others she’d loved had chosen the highway.
All these years, she’d called them the losers.
Maybe it had been her all along.
When Mel came in to work the night shift, Ellie nodded at him, made a point of asking about his family, then raced out to her car.
She pulled up to Cal’s house less than thirty minutes after he’d left the station and parked beneath a huge, bare maple tree. A pretty little birdhouse hung from the lowest branch, swinging gently in the autumn breeze. One of the last dying leaves clung to its rough hewn cedar roof.
Ellie went to the front door and knocked.
Cal opened the door. His face, usually so youthful and smiling, looked older, ruined. She wondered how long he’d looked like that, how often she hadn’t noticed.
“I’m a bitch,” she said miserably. “Can you forgive me?”
A tiny smile tugged at one side of his mouth. “A drama queen apology if ever there was one.”
“I’m not a drama queen.”
“No. You’re a bitch.” His smile evened out, almost reached his eyes. “It’s your beauty. Women like you are just used to being the center of attention.”
She moved toward him. “I am a bitch. A sorry one.”
He looked at her. “Thanks.”
“It’ll be okay, Cal,” she said, hoping late really was better than never.
“You think so?”
She felt as if she were drowning in the dark sadness she saw in his eyes. It so unnerved her, she barely knew what to say. “Lisa loves you,” she said at last. “She’ll remember that and come back.”
“I thought that for a long time, El. Peanut kept saying the same thing. But now I’m not so sure it’s what I even want.”
Ellie’s first reaction was Peanut knew? but she wouldn’t fall down that trap again. This wasn’t about her bruised ego. She led Cal to the sofa and sat down beside him. “What do you want?”
“Not to be so lonely all the time. Don’t get me wrong. I adore my daughters and they’re my life, but late at night, in bed, I want to turn to someone, just hold her and be held. Lisa and I stopped making love years ago. I thought I’d be less lonely when she was gone, or at least that it wouldn’t make a difference, but it does.” He looked at her, and in those eyes she knew so well, she saw a sadness that was new. “How can a wife in a bed down the hall be more comforting that no wife at all?”
Ellie had gone to sleep next to that kind of loneliness for more winters than she wanted to count.
“Does it get easier?”
She sighed. This was where their conversation had begun. “Be thankful for your kids, Cal. At least you’ll always have someone who loves you.”
Max finished his rounds at six o’clock. By six-thirty he’d completed all his chart notations and signed out.
He was inches from the front door when they paged him.
“Dr. Cerrasin to O.R. two stat.”
“Shit.”
He ran to the O.R.