Once Upon A Marriage

With jealousy.

* * *

MARIE MEASURED VINEGAR, poured it into the carafe. Added water. Poured the mixture into the water dispenser of the first of twelve professional-grade silver coffeemakers, flipped the button to make coffee and moved on to maker number two. One by one she filled carafes with the vinegar mixture, poured it into the dispensers and hit Brew.

Then, with all the blinds drawn so that she wasn’t on display like a fish in a bowl, she stood there and watched twelve pots drip.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

After midnight on a Saturday wasn’t a good time to be calling anyone. So she was cleaning the water dispensers. It was a job that had to be done. At least once every three months.

Beat sitting upstairs alone in her apartment feeling sorry for herself.

She’d had a date. Of sorts. Dinner and the theater with Burton. A safe, completely boring man she’d met three years before during the intermission at Phantom of the Opera. Gabi had been going to go with her, but she’d had a custody emergency with a client. Unwilling to waste her ticket, or to miss one of her favorite shows of all time, she’d gone to the theater alone. Burton had been sitting a couple of rows back. He was a season ticket holder, as well. His companion had been his mother until she passed away.

Not wanting him to sit by himself, she’d invited him to join her.

Eventually they’d fallen into the habit of going to the theater together.

She was never going to fall in love with him. He was never going to expect her to marry him. The relationship suited her just fine.

Pot number one was full. Dumping it in the sink, Marie filled the carafe with clean water and dumped it back into the dispenser, hitting Brew again. And down the line she went. For all twelve coffeemakers.

And then another time.

Twelve-thirty. She had to be downstairs to open the shop at seven. Grace, the eighty-year-old spritely and self-sufficient resident who did most of her baking, would be there two hours before that. The stairs at the back of the shop beckoned. Or she could take the elevator next to them. Now that it was fixed, it required a code to travel upstairs from the coffee shop in order to prevent coffee shop patrons from having access to the private apartments on the remaining eight floors.

Her apartment did not beckon. After thirteen years of living with the same roommate, she found that adjusting to her best friend’s marriage was proving to be even more difficult than she’d expected.

Hence the paranoia. She was letting things get to her that had no basis in fact simply because for the past thirteen years she’d run all of her thoughts by Gabi at night. She was becoming a ninny. Like worrying that Liam was heading toward a path of infidelity. And that Gabi could end up as heartbroken and destroyed as her mother had been.

Well, not exactly the same. Her best friend, a lawyer, had a stronger backbone than her mother had ever had. Gabi had been taking care of herself for most of her life and could give thugs on the street a run for their money.

Liam didn’t stand a chance.

Nor did he need one. The two of them were besotted with each other. It didn’t take a believer in true love to see that. The reason Liam had never settled on one woman was that he’d been in love with Gabi all along. That was the fact that was as clear as day.

Still, Marie would rather clean than face her own thoughts alone upstairs in the apartment she and Gabrielle used to share. She was going crazy with loneliness.

What she needed to do was talk to someone. Another voice to drown out the reverberating of her own mind.

And there was one person who owed her an abrupt awakening in the middle of the night. He owed her as many of them as she needed for as long as he lived.

He picked up on the first ring.

“Marie? Baby? You okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Daddy. Are you alone?”

“Yes, of course I’m alone. You know the only woman I’ve ever spent the night with is your mother.”

“It’s only a little past midnight. You don’t necessarily have to be down for the night.” She was being petty. She knew it. Hated it. And took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. And sorry for calling so late.”

“Don’t you ever apologize for calling me, baby. You know I’m here for you anytime you need me. Anytime.”

Hard part of it was that she did know that. Her father was a great dad. Had always been a great dad. Even when he’d been sleeping with his assistant while Marie and her mother thought him hard at work on whatever architectural plans his firm had been implementing. Or getting a little afternoon delight from a less reputable source before arriving right on time to coach Marie’s softball team to victory.

“I need to understand, Daddy. I need to know why. And how.”

“Sure. Of course. What are we talking about?”

“The women. All the women.”

Silence fell on the line. In all the years since her parents’ divorce, she’d never asked that particular question.

Because she’d been too afraid of the answer? Because she didn’t want to see her mother in a new and less favorable light?

“I don’t know that I can answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Now that she’d asked, she couldn’t let it go. “It’s making me crazy, Daddy. I... Did you love her?”

“No!”

Okay, then. Though she was actually shocked by his vehemence. Frowning, she slid down to a seat in a shadowed corner of the deserted shop. The one thing she’d thought a given through her rocky years growing up had been her father’s love for her and her mother. Both of them.

She’d bet her life that her mother believed he’d loved her. Still did. Though he knew better than to ask for a third chance. For Barbara’s sake.

“Does Mom know that now? Maybe if she knew you’ve never really loved her you’d set her free.”

Because one thing was for sure. Barbara Bustamante was still helplessly in love with her cheating ex-husband.

“Wait. What? You were asking if I love your mom?” It sounded as though there was a bit of her shock running over into his voice.

“Yes. Of course.” If she’d been referring to anyone else, she’d have had to use the plural. And then some.

“Then, yes! Unequivocally. I thought you knew that. All my life I have only ever loved one woman. Your mother.”

Her heart sank. Liam loved Gabrielle that way, too.

“So why?”

Gabi said Liam and his editor had just had dinner once, to go over strategy for the series of articles he was writing on his father’s life and the ongoing investigation. They’d needed to speak out of the office, and Liam was careful not to bring any aspect of his father’s life to the historic Arapahoe—their apartment building—not only for Marie’s shop and their home, but also to preserve the homes of the elderly residents who’d been there most of their lives and who had been soon to be put out on the street.

But Marie’s father’s first affair had started out with just one working dinner with his assistant. And then another had been necessary. After which he’d taken her home because her car was in the shop.

Or at least that was the story she’d been told.

“Why, Daddy? If you loved Mom, why were you unfaithful to her?”