204 Rosewood Lane

Page 42

“So do I,” Jack complained.
“Stick around and I’ll feed you dinner.”
He grinned, glad of the invitation. His relationship with Olivia was complicated. If the twins hadn’t decided to make their entrance into the world when they did, he might have coaxed her into bed with him. But when he’d returned from the hospital, she’d had time to think, time to assess whether this was the right step for them. Her decision was that, yes, eventually it should and would happen—but unlike Jack, she wasn’t in a hurry.
In the weeks since, he’d done his best to shower her with love, much as she did those fancy roses she’d planted.
“I heard from Eric this afternoon,” he told her. “He asked if you’d be willing to marry him and Shelly.”
“Of course.” Olivia reached for a large watering can and sprinkled the freshly fertilized earth. “Did he tell you when they’d like to do it?”
“No, but that’s a minor detail, don’t you think?”
“Seeing how long it’s taken him to get to this point, I can’t help agreeing.” She raised her hand to her face to brush away a stray hair and in the process smeared dirt across her cheek. Jack looked down to hide a smile.
“There must be something in the air, because I heard from my son today, as well,” she said casually. “James and Selina are coming for a visit next month.”
“That’s great. I look forward to meeting them.”
“I can hardly wait to hold Isadora. Do you realize she’s going to be a year old this month? I swear I don’t know where the past year went. She barely knows me and Stan.”
At the mention of her ex, Jack tensed. “I suppose Stan will want to see James.”
“Of course!” She straightened, hands on her hips, and glared at him in a way that made him want to squirm. “Don’t tell me you’re having another jealous fit?”
“Who, me?” he asked, but the fact was that he didn’t like the idea of Stan being anywhere near Olivia. He could read her ex-husband more easily than a first-grade primer, and he didn’t like what he saw. Stan Lockhart might be married to another woman, but he definitely had interests outside the house. Stan didn’t like Jack hanging around Olivia, either. Naturally she didn’t see it. Although he’d never asked, Jack had the feeling Stan had done everything he could to discourage the relationship.
“What’s for dinner?” he asked, deciding to avoid the one subject that remained a sore spot.
“I was thinking of making an Oriental chicken salad.”
“That’s the one with the grapes and Chinese noodles I liked the last time?”
“You’re easy to please,” she told him, smiling.
How true that was. After years of scrounging on his own and eating far too many fast-food meals, Olivia’s cooking was a treat. Still, much as he enjoyed the food, it was Olivia he came to see, Olivia he longed to be with and Olivia he loved. He hadn’t actually told her how he felt. For a man who worked with words, Jack knew he was strangely inadequate at expressing his emotions. When it was a matter of political argument or moral persuasion, he could express his thoughts clearly and directly. But feelings…
“You look preoccupied,” Olivia murmured pulling off her gardening gloves.
He shrugged as he followed her up the steps to the back porch, where she kept her gardening supplies, and then into the kitchen.
“Anything special on your mind?”
“Not really,” he said and realized he’d spoken too quickly.
Olivia studied him a moment as she washed her hands. When she’d dried them, she opened the refrigerator and took out a large head of lettuce.
“Anything I can do?” Jack asked, feeling like an unneeded accessory. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but he was afraid that making an announcement would be embarrassing or inappropriate; so he let it drop.
“Nothing just now, thanks,” she answered.
He walked into the living room, but for the life of him couldn’t stand still. He started pacing, his mind churning and his hands itching to do something, hold something. The need for a drink clawed at him. It happened like that occasionally, although such times were rare after almost eleven years’ sobriety. He needed a meeting and he needed to talk to his sponsor.
“Olivia,” he said, sounding more anxious than he meant to. “I can’t stay after all.”
“You can’t?” She stood in the doorway that led from the kitchen to the formal living room, looking perplexed.
“I’ve got to be somewhere else—I’m sorry, I forgot. Well actually, it isn’t that I forgot, it’s just that I need a meeting. You don’t mind, do you?”
“A meeting? Oh, you mean AA.” She stepped into the living room. “Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I apologize, but the meetings help me clear my head and get rid of ‘stinkin’ thinkin’.”’
“You’re having negative thoughts now?”
“No, I’m thinking how good a cold beer would taste. That’s ‘stinkin’ thinkin” and a meeting is the best place for me to be. There’s one downtown I sometimes attend. It starts in fifteen minutes.”
“Then go,” she urged.
He was already halfway to the door. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Jack?”
He heard her call him and stopped, his hand on the knob.
“You’ll phone later?”
“Of course.”
Sixteen
Despite Maryellen’s determination to keep Jon out of her life, she was curious about him. It was an unhealthy curiosity, but one that persisted. She supposed this was due mainly to his talent. Thankfully, she hadn’t run into him since that unfortunate incident right before Christmas. Nor had she heard anything from him since, and she was grateful, but she also felt disappointed, which confused her completely.
The BernardGallery, located in Pioneer Square
in downtown Seattle, sold his work now. She was sure he’d do well, and he deserved a wider audience, but the truth was, she missed his infrequent visits. She missed talking shop with him, but most of all she missed seeing his photographs. His talent was no small thing. When a notice came about a showing of his work in Seattle, Maryellen decided to attend the launch. She had no fear that Jon would be there. Experience had taught her that he avoided these events; he claimed the pretentiousness was not only unbearable but brought out the worst in him. He’d told Maryellen that comments about his “deconstruction of natural phenomena” or his “grasp of non-being” made him want to leap up and down making ape-like sounds.
The Sunday afternoon of the show was Mother’s Day and it seemed fitting that Maryellen should allow herself this one indulgence. She spent the morning with her own mother and treated Grace to brunch at D.D.’s on the Cove. In a rare moment of sentimentality, Maryellen told her that she hoped to be as good a mother to her baby as Grace had been to her. Then, before heading to the ferry terminal, Maryellen dropped off a gift for Kelly.
When she arrived at the BernardGallery, the show was in full swing. Wearing a loose-fitting black dress with black hose and a string of white pearls she looked, in her own estimation, rather elegant. Before long, she held a wineglass filled with apple juice and made her way over to the display of Jon’s work.
She found Mr. Bernard himself standing in front of Jon’s photographs. He spoke to a middle-aged couple apparently enthralled with one of Jon’s pictures.
“Mr. Bowman is something of a recluse,” the gallery owner was saying. “I did try to persuade him to attend today’s function, but unfortunately he refused.”
Maryellen smiled to herself; she’d guessed right. If there’d been any chance of Jon’s attending, she wouldn’t have risked it. She could not allow him to learn about her pregnancy.
The BernardGallery had displayed his photographs by suspending them from the ceiling. The pictures were beautifully framed and matted, each one signed and numbered.
Moving from one piece to the next, she paused to admire his photographs of nature. A field of blue wildflowers blooming against the backdrop of Mt.Rainier was so intensely vivid that her breath caught in her throat. Several scenes of the snowcapped Olympics behind the pristine waters of Puget Sound revealed the thrusting strength of the mountains.
The next series of photographs showed a new side of Jon. These pictures, in black and white, were all taken in and around the marina. In one of them, an early-morning fog obliterated the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on the other side of the Cove. Sailboats, with thinly veiled masts, rose toward an unseen sky. It was lovely and serene and mysterious.
The second photo she looked at was completely unlike anything she’d seen from Jon before. A notice taped to the corner stated this photograph was not for sale. Maryellen stopped and stared at the picture of a woman at the end of the pier, overlooking the Cove. The snowy peaks of the Olympics could be discerned in the far distance. The day was sunny and her back was to the camera. She stood on tiptoe, leaning over the railing, tossing popcorn into the air for seagulls to catch. They swarmed toward her, their wings flapping.
So Jon was taking photographs of people now. For one unchecked second, she wondered about the woman who’d captured his attention so completely and felt an unexpected and unwelcome surge of jealousy.
Wonder at his skill quickly overcame her ambivalent feelings as she studied the photograph. It wasn’t necessary to see the woman’s face to experience the simple joy she found in feeding the birds. Maryellen had thrown popcorn to the seagulls herself and knew how exhilarating it could be. She’d stood at the end of that very pier and—
Wait a minute!
That wasn’t just any woman—that was her. Jon had taken a picture of her on the pier. Hurrying on to the next picture, she realized, much to her relief, that there was only one photograph in which she was the subject.
Instead of feeling uplifted, Maryellen found that her spirits were low as she boarded the ferry for the fifty-minute sailing into Bremerton. That single photograph told her more than she wanted to know. He’d seen her at the pier without her being aware of him. When? It’d obviously been after their meeting at Christmas—probably during March, judging by the coat she was wearing. She’d gone to feed the seagulls during her lunch hour a few times, and he’d obviously caught sight of her. The fact that he’d taken this picture—his one and only photograph of a person—suggested he’d had genuine feelings for her. Maybe still did. And yet, she couldn’t allow herself to respond to those feelings, nor could she act on her own deep attraction to him. She just couldn’t.
Instead of driving directly home, Maryellen surprised herself and drove to her mother’s, instead. Grace was in the kitchen, doing her weekly cooking. She’d recently gotten into the habit of preparing, freezing and storing everything she’d need for the next six days—until the following Sunday, when she’d start the whole cycle again.