A Little Secret between Friends

He hadn’t meant to hurt her tonight, of course. He still couldn’t believe he’d actually shoved her that hard. That was all it had been, though—a shove. It wasn’t his fault she’d been stupid enough to touch the stove, or that her head had knocked against the stone counter. When he’d left her she was conscious. He was sure he’d heard her moan.

But in the past hour he’d started to worry. What if she’d been injured more seriously than he thought? You could never tell with trauma to the head. Since Lara was out for the night, Sally could end up lying on the floor until morning.

But as he turned onto her street, he saw that she wasn’t alone. There was an SUV he didn’t recognize parked in her driveway. What the hell was going on? He glanced at his dash. It was almost three in the morning. The lights were out in the house, so Sally wasn’t entertaining late.

Unless this was a party for two.

Neil pulled up next to the SUV. He got out of his car and touched the hood of the other vehicle. Stone cold.

He turned to the house, went to the window and peered inside. Couldn’t see anything except a faint light from the hall that led to the bedrooms.

Was Sally scared to sleep in the dark?

Or maybe she wasn’t sleeping.

He didn’t like the thought of that. Not one bit.

He considered sneaking inside—he’d made a copy of Lara’s house key shortly after they’d moved into the new place and Lara had told him the security code, too. But there was the dog to contend with. Before they’d bought that miserable animal, he’d indulged in the occasional late-night foray. Those days were over now. He couldn’t take the chance that the dog would bark.

Neil shoved his hands into his pockets, frustrated.

He was a family man. This house should be theirs not hers and he should be in bed with her right now, their three kids sleeping down the hall.

Instead, Sally lived on her own and he only saw his daughter on alternate weekends and every Wednesday.

Neil’s fingers closed around the key in his pocket. He rubbed it as if it was a charm, wishing he could somehow transport himself inside without the dog noticing. He was desperate to find out if Sally was sleeping with the guy who belonged to this SUV.

If she was, it was a big deal. Sally didn’t hook up with many men. He’d made it his business to keep tabs on her life, especially her love life. It was not only his right, as the only man who had ever been married to her, it was his responsibility. They had a daughter after all.

Lara. She was the proof that he and Sally belonged together. How could they not, when the combination of their genes had created someone so wonderful, so perfect.

Neil never stopped marveling over her. Their child was beautiful, smart and kind, and on top of all that, a talented athlete. With Olympic potential. Olympic.

You’d think Sally would count her blessings to have a daughter like that. But no, she continued to work—had done so since Lara was eight months old. And not only had she spurned her traditional role as a mother, she’d washed her hands of being a wife, too.

She’d tried to marginalize him. Him, the father of her child. It was a crime. And the bigger sin was this country’s liberal legal system that made it possible for women to get away with behavior like that.

Neil cast one more fruitless glance into the house, then finally gave up and headed for his car. Whatever was going on, at least he knew she wasn’t unconscious on the kitchen floor. Though now he almost wished she were.

“STILL TIRED after your sleepover?” Sally asked her daughter on Monday morning.

Lara said, “Not really,” and then she yawned, which made both of them laugh. “Maybe a little,” she conceded.

The weekend, like all of her daughter’s weekends, had been busy. After the sleepover, Lara spent Saturday afternoon training with her ski team. On Sunday Sally had driven Lara and her friend Jessica to the ski hill at Sunshine for what would probably be their last ski outing of the season.

Sally had sipped hot chocolate in the lodge while the girls skied like mad all morning. By mid-afternoon the snow turned slushy. They’d left early, dropped Jess at home then had cheese fondue for dinner, followed by a hot bath and bed.

Now, as Lara ate her breakfast, Sally slathered cream cheese on bagels for both of their lunches and cut up fruit.

She worked awkwardly, favoring her left hand. The bandages were off, the exposed skin puckered and tender. But at least the stitches on her head were healing nicely and the headache had cleared. She felt almost normal again, and in the sunlight, with her daughter slouched on a stool at the kitchen counter, and the prospect of a regular workweek ahead of her, it was tempting to chalk up her experience with Neil on Friday as a very bizarre, frightening anomaly.

Neil hadn’t meant to hurt her. That wasn’t his style. It wouldn’t happen again.

But Sally, who specialized in family law, and had volunteered for many years with the Women’s Emergency Shelter, had worked around abused women too long to let herself get away with such easy rationalizations.

Neil had crossed a line on Friday night. It was certainly possible he would do it again if the right opportunity presented itself.

She would have to make sure that opportunity never occurred. She wasn’t naive or unempowered like so many of her clients. She could handle this situation. She could handle Neil. Later she would phone a handyman service to get the kitchen door fixed so it would be easier to keep locked. She’d make better use of her alarm system, too.

Those were both good, concrete steps to take, but Sally was afraid they wouldn’t be enough. The real problem here was that Neil was Lara’s father, and as such, Sally couldn’t barricade him from her house or her life as thoroughly as she wanted.

Had she made a mistake not reporting his assault to the police?

She knew what her answer would have been for a client in a similar situation. Definitely, she should have contacted the police, if only to have a record of her complaint.

She knew it, but she still couldn’t make herself take such a drastic step. Accusing Neil would set an unavoidable sequence of events into motion. For sure Neil would deny the charges. The ensuing battle would be horrible for Lara. Friends and associates would find themselves choosing sides. Many, she feared, would refuse to believe that Neil was capable of such behavior.

The scandal would probably wreck her chances of becoming a judge, at least this time around. And who knew when the next opportunity would arise?

Sally packed Lara’s bagel and fruit into a bag, along with a yogurt and a couple of cookies. “I guess we’d better get moving. You can finish your toast in the car.”

Lara slid to the floor. Her tight jeans and T-shirt revealed the subtle new curves to her lean, athletic body.

My baby, Sally thought, sadly. Why did she have to grow up so fast?

“I have to go to Jessica’s to work on our social studies project after school,” Lara reminded her, as she shifted her backpack onto her shoulders. “Can you pick me up at six?”

“No problem.” Sally tossed her own lunch into her briefcase then slipped on her blazer and made sure her cell phone was clipped at her waist. She let Armani inside and put him in the laundry room with his toys and water. She’d hired a pet-sitting service to come into the house around noon to take him for a walk. Still, she piled newspapers in the corner of the room in case he had an accident.

Lara stopped to give him a hug on her way out the door. “I love you, Armani.”

Following their morning routine, Sally dropped her daughter off at school, then headed for her downtown office. During this part of the drive she usually turned off the radio station her daughter liked to listen to and focused on the day ahead of her.

But today she couldn’t concentrate on her morning appointments.

Colin Foster. She’d done her best not to think of him since he’d left her house on Saturday morning, about half an hour before Lara was scheduled to come home. She didn’t want to remember how unexpectedly kind and gentle he’d been with her.

Oh, she’d seen him that way with Beth, especially in the later stages of the cancer. But Sally had never expected to experience such treatment herself.

Or to enjoy it so much.

Poor Colin must have had very little sleep on Friday night. He’d checked on her several times, and once she’d woken to see him sprawled out in the chair in her room. Their glances had connected across the quiet bedroom, then she’d pretended to fall back asleep again.

In the morning he’d made her breakfast. Boiled eggs and coffee and lightly browned toast. They’d shared the weekend paper, reading out snippets of interesting facts to each other.

He’d fussed over her a little, but not too much. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had taken care of her that way. Probably her Mom when Sally had the chicken pox in grade six.

Don’t be so nice to me, she’d longed to say to him. Colin Foster was easy to handle when he was acting arrogant and overconfident. This other side of him put her off balance.