He hadn’t.
She’d come running because she was worried about Vanessa and didn’t want him to be alone. But his wife’s office was out of harm’s way, and Rowan assured him that her husband had landed safely in Chicago the night before, away on a business trip.
He gave her toddler something to play with and then the two of them stood shoulder--to--shoulder in front of his television watching the horror unfold. At some point—-when another plane hit the Pentagon, or when the first tower collapsed, or the second?—-she cried. His arm went around her, pulling her close, comforting her.
Everything changed that day, in many ways. Globally, locally, politically . . .
Emotionally, romantically, physically.
I was already in love with her by then. Not just infatuated. In love.
It didn’t matter that she was married, or that he was.
In the days that followed the terrorist attacks, they drifted back into spending time together even without the kids around. They had coffee and watched the endless news reports. As September turned to October and then November, life slowly drifted back to its usual rhythm. There was no longer any compelling reason to spend mornings together, vigilantly keeping an eye on CNN and reminding each other that they were safe.
Yet they kept seeing each other. Her son Mick was always with her, the safeguard against anything inappropriate happening between them while their spouses were absent.
Then came the snow day.
They spent the morning on the hill in the park, with all the kids and their sleds. Then she promised them hot chocolate and home--baked cookies, so they all trooped back to her house. Mick wanted to watch the Grinch movie with the big kids in the living room, and Rick and Rowan found themselves alone together in the kitchen, and . . .
Even now, he curses the fateful intervention of the smoke alarm. They were close, so close . . .
Afterward, if she’d been willing, Rick would have embarked on a full--blown affair. Hell, he might have walked away from Vanessa if she’d asked him to; maybe even from the kids.
She wasn’t willing. She distanced herself immediately. He hardly saw her again that winter, and the next thing he knew, it was spring and she was moving away.
He tried to convince himself it was for the best. Vanessa was his wife, the mother of his children, a good, steadfast, beautiful woman. She loved him and didn’t deserve to be left twice in a lifetime.
Had he ever stopped loving Rowan, though?
Vanessa didn’t think he had.
He’d lied to Rowan today, when he’d said he hadn’t told anyone what had happened between them on the snow day.
He’d told two -people. One was his best friend, Bob. The other was Vanessa.
He hadn’t confessed to his wife right away. He never intended to do it at all. But after the Mundy family had packed up and moved, Vanessa said she was glad to have them gone.
“Why would you say that? They were the ideal neighbors. Our kids miss them like crazy.”
“They’ll survive. But will you?”
He looked sharply at her and he saw in her eyes that she knew. Maybe not exactly what had unfolded between him and Rowan, but she knew how he felt about her.
There was no denying the accusation in Vanessa’s eyes, or in her words when she came right out and asked him what had gone on.
He told her the whole truth.
It almost killed her.
In the end, maybe it had.
“Here you go, love.” His Aussie pal is back, setting down a cocktail napkin and topping it with a glass filled with amber--colored liquid. “What are we drinking to this evening?”
“I can’t think of anything worth toasting.”
“Rubbish. There’s always something or someone worth toasting, isn’t there?”
“You know what? There is.”
“All right, then. Cheers.”
“Cheers.” Rick raises his glass, not to her, but to his own reflection in the rain--spattered plate--glass window.
From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives
Local News
January 6, 1975