Her eyes drifted back to his, weary and full of sadness. “Iris. Honey considered . . . not having her, but Stephen changed her mind. I wasn’t expecting that.” She wiped the sleeve of her robe across her eyes, then bounced out of her chair. “Coffee?”
Wade blinked at her, startled by the abrupt change of subject, and by a newly improved view of her left shoulder. He dragged his eyes away to check his watch. “Sure. Why not? I’m basically immune to caffeine at this point.”
He watched as she scooped coffee into the basket, his professional sonar pinging off the charts. He could feel the carefully checked emotions, tamped down good and tight but bubbling hard beneath the surface. Anger mixed with confusion wrapped in betrayal. But there was something else too, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on.
She returned to the table a few moments later and handed him a mug. “Sugar only, right?”
She had tightened the belt of her robe so that her shoulder was no longer exposed. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. “You’ve been paying attention. I’m flattered.”
“You’ve been drinking coffee in my café for two months now.”
“True enough. Now sit.”
He was surprised when she actually dropped back into her chair without protest, her mug cradled between her palms.
“What’s going on? What haven’t you told me?”
“We didn’t have kids,” she said simply.
Wade looked at her over the rim of his mug. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “How is that relevant?”
“It just is.”
He waited, watching as she blew on her coffee, then sipped slowly. She was still stalling, tossing out lame responses, but she was getting there.
“I was the one who didn’t want kids.”
“And Stephen did?”
“If he did, he never said so. We talked about it before we got married—about not doing the family thing—and he seemed fine with it, maybe even a little relieved. But he could have changed his mind. Some men do.”
Wade sat with the words a moment, mentally tugging at several loose threads. “You’re saying if you’d had a baby Stephen wouldn’t have cheated?”
She shrugged. “They say a man with kids is less likely to cheat because he has more to feel guilty about.”
Wade paused midsip, stunned by what he’d just heard. “That may just be the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. Guys who cheat don’t do it because they’re dying to be family men, Christy-Lynn. They do it because they’re alley cats.”
“What about you? Did you want . . . my God, I never even thought to ask. Do you have kids?”
“No. But I wanted them eventually. I mean that’s part of it, right—raising a family? But our lives were so crazy. That’s one of the reasons I wanted off the media merry-go-round. I wanted to slow things down, see what else life had to offer. Simone had other plans. No way was she slowing down to change diapers.”
“You could have though,” Christy-Lynn pointed out. “You could have been a stay-at-home dad.”
“And I would have. I was ready for a change. But that wasn’t the life Simone signed up for. We never had the conversation before we got married. I guess she thought I felt the same way she did about the job. She loved the sleuthing, camping out in front of some guy’s apartment in hopes that he’d sneak out for cigarettes or a newspaper, and then bam. Full-scale ambush.”
“Yes, I know the drill.”
“Sorry, I forgot. I used to think she was just dedicated, you know? Change-the-world dedicated. But as time went on, I saw another side of her, a darker side. The chase, the constant adrenaline rush. It became like a drug for her, and I didn’t want any part of that. Which is why I eventually walked away. Stephen could have done the same if he wasn’t happy. Instead, he snuck around behind your back and fathered a child with another woman, a daughter you still wouldn’t know about if he hadn’t driven off a bridge with a half-naked woman in his car.”
“Thanks for the recap,” Christy-Lynn said dully.
Wade sighed, mentally kicking himself. Nice going, jackass.
“I’m sorry. I was just trying to make a point, which is that none of this is your fault. There was something about Stephen, something that made it okay to cross whatever line he wanted, even if it meant hurting people. He did it to me back in college. And now he’s done it to you. I couldn’t understand it back then. How could he stab a friend in the back and never bat an eye? Now I realize it was his pattern. I also realize it had nothing to do with me. Or you. It was him. He didn’t care about anyone but himself.”
“He cared enough to persuade Honey not to end the pregnancy,” Christy-Lynn said as she rose to refill her mug. “I can’t help thinking that if things had been different Iris might have been our daughter, and there would never have been a Honey Rawlings.”
Wade eyed her with open skepticism. “How would that have worked? You didn’t even want kids, remember? In fact, it sounds like you gave the matter quite a lot of thought, though you never said why.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you’re not going to.”
“No,” she said flatly. “And it’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it?”
Wade nodded. “Fair enough. And I wasn’t judging. I was just curious.”
“I know you weren’t. It just gets old, you know? Always defending your choices. No one ever imagines your reasons might be well thought out, that it might actually be the least selfish choice you’ll ever make. Not all of us believe our lives are meaningless unless we reproduce.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Christy-Lynn sighed, running a hand through her hair. “It’s just a sore spot for me right now.” She set her mug on the counter and crossed to the sliding glass door, arms folded over her chest as she stood facing her own reflection. “I can’t get her face out of my head. She has Stephen’s chin, that crazy dimple right in the middle. But she looks like Honey too. She’s beautiful.”
Wade let out a very long breath, lost as to how to respond. “I can’t imagine how hard all this must be.”
She turned back to him, her face near crumpling. “She barely speaks. Did I tell you that? Since the accident, she barely says a word. And she has nightmares. She’s afraid everyone’s going to leave her. And she’s right. Rhetta’s got to be eighty, and she isn’t well. And her uncle . . .” Her voice choked down to a whisper. “There’s a good chance she’ll end up in foster care.”
The tears came in earnest then, sliding silently down her cheeks, as if she was entirely unaware of them. Wade stared at her in astonishment. How was it possible that after everything, she could stand there gulping back tears for the child who embodied her husband’s betrayal?
He swallowed a groan, scrambling for something to say that wouldn’t come off sounding pompous or condescending, but came up empty. And so he let her cry. Because she needed to, and because he didn’t know what else to do.
Feeling helpless and desperate to make himself useful, he began closing up the takeout containers, gathering plates and silverware. After a few moments, Christy-Lynn blotted her eyes on the sleeve of her robe and moved to the sink. Neither spoke as they did the dishes, but the rhythm of the simple domestic act seemed to smooth the tension. When the dishes were stowed and the counters wiped, she turned to him.
“I’m sorry about tonight. You came over and did this nice thing, and all I did was weep into my soup. It’s all I seem to be doing lately—crying.”
“I’d say under the circumstances you’re entitled, although I do prefer you when you’re not crying.” He reached for the takeout bag on the counter, preparing to toss it when he noticed it wasn’t empty. “Hey, look, we forgot the fortune cookies.” He handed her one, then tore into his, snapping it in half to fish out the small bit of paper.
“Do not confuse activity with accomplishment.” He scowled as he crumpled the fortune and dropped it into the bag. “Appropriate for an aspiring novelist, don’t you think? Now you.”