Marriage in Jeopardy

She must be out of her— “Are you crazy? I married you for better or worse. I’m not leaving you.”

“Why?” With no makeup and no pretense, she looked naked. “You don’t love me anymore.”

“Not love you? Have we been sharing the same bed?”

“I’m not talking about sex,” she said—loudly enough to make him glance toward the door.

“You’re the one who changed. You can’t—” How could he put his humiliation into words? “Can’t stand to let me hold you. Can’t let me touch you. Can’t let me kiss you.”

“I can’t stand the silence,” she said. “It was bad enough before, but all I want now is the baby.”

He didn’t pretend he’d been happy with their relationship, either. “It was getting better,” he said. “I thought we seemed closer again.”

“You mean we spoke once or twice at night if you got home before I went to bed, or if I called you from my office? We shared a chaste kiss before the lights went out and sex on the weekend if you found time away from the law library.”

How many times had she rolled away from him? “You didn’t want—”

“Yeah—right.” Her sarcasm left him cold. “And I just couldn’t tear myself away from work, either.”

“I thought you were excited about your projects.” Not always, he realized now. He’d wondered….

She stared at him, a hard, emotionless woman he’d never met and couldn’t hope to know. “Are you that insensitive?”

“I must be. Are you saying you want a divorce?”

She pulled her knees all the way to her chest, grimacing. Hunched over, she looked defeated. “I thought I could go on the other day, when I woke up, but now, I don’t know.”

He wanted to grab her so she couldn’t push him away. “I don’t even like going home now,” he said. She shot him another accusing glance, as if, like her, he missed only the baby. He shook his head. “I miss you, Lydia. I want you back.”

A frown lined her forehead.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were that unhappy?”

She linked her fingers at her ankles. “You stopped caring. I tried to tell you, but you never heard. Your job makes you happy, and I don’t.”

She’d left him room to fight. “I like my job, but you’re my wife. Just talk to me when you’re worried about something as crazy as my not caring.”

“Why should I have to tell you? A woman shouldn’t have to ask her husband—I shouldn’t have had to beg you to notice me.”

Defensive—and upset—he apparently didn’t know how to fight after all. “What do you need?”

She stretched out her legs and smoothed the sheet across her breasts. “I was serious about the third time being the charm. Three threats in five years shouldn’t seem so frightening, but that woman killed our family. I won’t ever forget.”

“You want me to quit?”

“Would you?”

“I don’t think I can.” He’d had one goal since college—to make people who’d grown up the way he had see that they could choose something cleaner, safer. He worked like hell to keep them out of jail and show them they didn’t have to repeat their parents’ mistakes. They didn’t have to give their children dangerous lives. They could keep their families out of the system that had let him down. He cared about those people who were as faceless and nameless as he’d been when his parents had gone to prison for neglecting his sister.

“Lydia, I can’t stop. What would I do?”

Tears filled her eyes. She fingered them away. “I’m afraid that if you can’t change, I will. I’ve thought about this all night. We’re about to go home, and I’m not sure there’s a reason to go together.”

“Nothing like this will happen again. It was an aberration.”

“It won’t ever happen to me again.”

CHAPTER TWO

“MR. QUINCY, if you’ll bring your car to the front entrance, we’ll take Lydia down.” Patty, Lydia’s nurse, took her bag of belongings and passed it, along with the cup of flowers, to Josh. “We’ll meet you at the doors.”

Josh looked at Lydia, longing in his eyes. They’d finished a wary morning. He’d gathered her things, talked about dinner tonight, assumed they were going home together.

“Are you all right?” he asked, but she knew he was asking if she’d rather call a cab.

She hesitated. She couldn’t turn back again. This time, it was give up or give in. “I’m fine.”

After he turned the corner, Patty put on her reading glasses and peered through several sheets of paper. “Let me see.” She ran her index finger down the print. “Watch for a rise in temperature and extra sensitivity in your abdominal region that might indicate internal bleeding. No sexual relations for six weeks.”

“No—” She’d almost said “no problem,” but stopped just in time to avoid flinging her dirty laundry at Patty’s feet.

“These are the numbers for the nurse’s desk and for Dr. Sprague. Call if you have any questions.” Patty took off her specs. “I’m working Monday, Wednesday and Friday from eight until eight.”

Unexpectedly warmed by an almost-stranger’s concern, Lydia smiled.

“I’d like to hear how you’re getting along.”

“I’ll call.”

“Okay.” Patty looked up as an orderly pushed a squeaking wheelchair into the room. “Shall we?”

Lydia sat and folded her hands to hide their shaking. The town house hadn’t felt like home since she’d first begun to think about leaving Josh, but if she was starting over she had to go home.

The trip in the small blue-gray elevator went too quickly. As the doors opened, a cool gust of air blew in. Lydia breathed deep. The orderly pushed her past a long row of wide windows and delivered her to the sidewalk as Josh pulled up in their car.

“Thanks,” Lydia said to the man behind her, though she avoided his helping hands as she stood.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Best of luck.” He nodded to Josh and went back inside.

“Are you in pain?” Josh opened the passenger’s door.

She shook her head and let her hair blow across her face. She assumed his tenderness, as he eased her into the seat, was for the baby they weren’t taking home. He pulled her seat belt out, but she fastened it herself. “Thanks,” she said.

“I’ll take it easy.”

The bumps in the road didn’t matter. Neither did the stab of pain in her belly when Josh had to slam on the brakes for a VW bug whose driver sped through a red light.

“Damn it!” His ferocity had nothing to do with the bug’s driver.