The Edge of Eternity

Frankie stabbed a prawn in her spinach salad and took a moment to savor the seafood morsel. “Still, you have to wonder what he’s going to say, don’t you?”

“I don’t expect he’ll say much of anything.” Elizabeth toyed with her pear salad. “He’ll probably move out and then he’ll have his lawyer contact my lawyer to negotiate an equitable distribution of the assets.”

“Are you so sure it will be all that equitable?”

Elizabeth glanced up. “What do you mean?”

“Paul has a lot more to lose in a divorce settlement than you do. He’s a rich man, at least on paper. Financial and real-estate holdings, investment deals, retirement and savings accounts, 401(k)s…you think he’s going to want to split all that evenly with you?” Frankie leaned forward. “Look, I know he’s basically a good guy, but divorce can bring out the worst in people. Especially greed. Believe me, I know. My poor sister got taken to the cleaners when she and her husband split up.” Frankie grimaced as she picked up her wineglass. “You need to look out for your own best interests. Take my advice and hire yourself a shark. Because I’ll bet you anything he will.”

“You’re assuming that I want half of everything,” Elizabeth said with a scowl. “I don’t. I’ll take the condo, and he can have the lake house. We’ll each keep our cars, split the savings and the rest is his.”

“And you think he’ll go for that?”

“Why wouldn’t he? It’s more than fair.”

“Fair has nothing to do with it. He’s a man, so his ego is going to get all tangled up in the negotiations, particularly if he doesn’t want this divorce. All I’m saying is that you have to protect yourself.” Frankie sipped her wine. “What about the shop?”

“What about it?”

“Need I remind you that it was Paul who bailed us out last year when we were having cash-flow problems after the Nordstrom deal put us in a bind? What if he decides to call in the loan? The last three quarters have looked good, but we’re in no shape to cough up that kind of capital right now. We’d have to sell.”

“He won’t do that,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Paul isn’t a vengeful person. He’s just…”

“A savvy businessman? A husband scorned? Take it from me, that’s a dangerous combination,” Frankie said. “At least, for us.”

“He won’t call in the loan. He has no interest in the shop, and besides…” Elizabeth glanced down at her barely touched salad. “I’m thinking of selling my partnership anyway.”

Frankie laid down her fork and glared at Elizabeth. “What did you just say?”

Elizabeth sighed. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that, but…I’m thinking of moving back to Chicago once the divorce is final.”

“For God’s sakes, why?” Frankie demanded. “Why would you do that? You haven’t lived there since college, and your family has all moved away since then. They’re scattered all over the country. You said so yourself. What’s back in Chicago? All your friends are here in Seattle. Not to mention your business.”

And so were her memories. Elizabeth rubbed her forehead where a headache started to pound. “It’s not definite. Just an idea I’ve been toying with. I need a change, that’s all.”

“You’re getting a divorce. Isn’t that enough of a change?”

Yes, maybe. But maybe what she needed more than a change was a clean break. A new start in a place familiar enough that she wouldn’t feel lost, but one in which memories didn’t lurk around every corner.

But the past would always be with her, no matter where she went. She would always have memories of her son, and that was the way it should be. Elizabeth wanted to remember Damon…the sound of his voice, his laugh, his hurried footfalls on Christmas morning. She wanted to remember everything about him, but more than anything she wanted to be able to look at his picture and say his name without going to pieces.

She wanted to remember Paul, too, but the way he used to be, when they were happy. Not the cold, steely-eyed stranger who had moved out of her bedroom months ago.

The death of their son had affected them both so deeply they were like different people now. For Elizabeth, the changes were more profound than even Dr. Summers knew, because there were some things she couldn’t confide even to her therapist, and certainly not to Paul. Like how she could still sense her son’s presence, so strongly at times that she would find herself calling out his name. Like how when she went for walks, she could feel him beside her, could even smell the unique scent of him, all dirt, sunshine and little boy.

Those moments were private and special and Elizabeth savored them. She didn’t want to share them with anyone, not even Paul, because he wouldn’t understand. He might think that she was losing her grip on reality and have her committed…again.

So, no, she couldn’t tell Paul. She couldn’t tell Frankie or Dr. Summers. She couldn’t tell anyone.

But there were other times, other moments that Elizabeth didn’t savor. Sometimes when she was alone in the apartment, she would hear doors closing and music playing in her dead son’s bedroom. Going inside, she would find toys scattered about as if he’d been hurriedly called away in the middle of a game.

It was during those times that Elizabeth would sense another presence.

Someone who seemed to be watching her.

Someone who had been with her ever since she’d awakened from a coma eighteen months ago.

No, Elizabeth most certainly did not savor those moments. She’d come to dread them. And that was why she’d decided to make some changes in her life. Obviously her subconscious was warning her that she couldn’t continue in the same vein. She had to come to grips with reality. She had to accept what had happened to her son and to her marriage. She had to try and find a way to be at peace again, because trapped in the depths of despair was no way to live.

“Elizabeth?”

She glanced across the table at Frankie. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I was just asking if you’re okay. You seemed a million miles away just now.”

“I’m fine.” She blotted her lips on her napkin.

Frankie checked her watch. “We should probably get back. Although Wednesday afternoons are always slow. I don’t suppose there’s any real need to hurry.”

Elizabeth scooted back her chair. “Let me visit the ladies’ room and then I’ll be ready to go.”

“Take your time.” Frankie’s concerned gaze searched Elizabeth’s face. “I’ll pay the check when it comes.”

THE LOW RUMBLE OF VOICES unnerved Elizabeth as she maneuvered her way through the maze of tables to the front of the restaurant. She had that uncomfortable feeling of being watched, but when she turned once to scan the crowded room, no one even seemed aware of her.

It was just her imagination, she decided. The conversation with Frankie had left her understandably anxious. She dreaded telling Paul what she’d decided, but she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. He would probably be relieved, and Elizabeth had to wonder if that was what she dreaded the most.

The lounge area outside the ladies’ room was furnished with an upholstered bench and a pay phone which began to ring as Elizabeth entered through the arched doorway. Pausing, she glanced around to see if anyone hurried to answer it, but when no one came, she ignored it herself and pushed open the door to the ladies’ room.

Turning on the water at one of the sinks, she washed her hands, then moistened a paper towel and held it to her face, wincing at the dark circles under her eyes, the fine lines in her face that hadn’t been there eighteen months ago.

She didn’t look like herself anymore, which was fitting, she supposed. She wasn’t herself. She wasn’t the same Elizabeth Blackstone who had taken her eyes off the road long enough for a drunk driver to swerve into her lane, hitting her vehicle head-on.

The doctors had later told her that it was not uncommon to suffer short-term amnesia following a trauma. She might never remember the details of the crash, but after a while everything had come back to her…Damon buckled into the front seat beside her, screaming a warning because he saw the car first. And then her own scream. The sound of brakes squealing, metal crunching and her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Later, the sirens. She’d been told that she hadn’t been conscious when the paramedics arrived, but she remembered their voices, their frantic shouts as they used the Jaws of Life to pry her and Damon from the car. She had been floating above it all, conscious on some level but helpless to change the outcome.

When they finally got them free of the twisted metal, she knew when a policeman covered Damon with a sheet. The paramedics were frantically working on her, and she wanted to scream at them to leave her alone and go help her son. But it was too late. Damon was gone. And Elizabeth had wanted to die, too.

She almost had. She’d lingered in a coma for over a week, and when she’d finally awakened, Paul had been standing by her bed. But he wasn’t the same person either. The man at her bedside wasn’t the Paul she had kissed goodbye the morning of the accident. That Paul was lost to her forever, and in his place was a remote, grief-stricken stranger. The same stranger she had been living with for the past year and a half.

The door opened and an attractive redhead came in. She wore a pencil skirt and silk blouse accessorized with a simple gold chain and black high heels, the kind of classy yet sexy outfit that Elizabeth might once have worn for her husband.

Her gaze met Elizabeth’s in the mirror as she took out her lipstick and began to repair her makeup. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Gorgeous,” Elizabeth agreed.

“It’s the kind of day that makes you glad to be in love,” the woman said with a laugh. “Have a good one,” she called as Elizabeth started out the door.