Dying Breath. Wendy Corsi Staub

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СКАЧАТЬ shark’s tooth—the sign—is safely wrapped in several layers of Kleenex and stashed in the glove compartment.

      The rain beats down on the car roof, the radio plays soft jazz, and the windshield wipers swish rhythmically, seeming to echo the silent, soothing mantra.

      Find…her…find…her…

PART II: JUNE

      Chapter Three

      Cam throws another pair of shorts into the open suitcase on the bed she once shared with Mike.

      Then she wonders why she even bothered.

      It’s not as if they’re likely to fit for more than another week, maybe two at the most. She desperately needs to go shopping for some summer maternity clothes.

      Shorts with elastic bands at the belly, sleeveless tops to reveal her fleshy upper arms, maternity bathing suits…

      Yeah, that’ll be fun.

      But it was, last time around, she remembers wistfully as the warm night breeze stirs the sheers at the open window.

      It shouldn’t have been fun, shopping on a strict budget in pricey Manhattan maternity boutiques, battling nausea the whole time. But whenever she stepped out of a dressing room wearing some ill-fitting, overpriced garment over a strapped-on foam belly provided by the store, Mike would flash an emotional smile and tell her she looked great.

      She didn’t look great, and she didn’t feel great, and they couldn’t afford any of it—the clothes, the medical care, the baby—but that didn’t matter. Mike being there with her every step of the way made it all okay.

      This time around, she’ll have to go it alone. Maternity-clothes shopping, blood work and tests with potentially scary results, labor, diapers, the whole thing.

      Unless…

      Nope. No way.

      They’re already into June now, and he hasn’t come home. Not to stay, anyway.

      He comes and goes in the driveway, thanks to his regular visitations with Tess. But he never ventures into the house. If she happens to be at the door, he’ll wave and call out a greeting, but that’s about it.

      They talk on the phone a few times a week to discuss the details of his visitation schedule, household bills or repairs, that sort of thing.

      She hasn’t even had an opportunity to mention the pregnancy to him—if she was ready…which she’s not.

      When she is ready, though, it’s not something she should mention in passing.

      Tess has to be home early tomorrow night because of finals, I scheduled the annual cleaning for the hot water heater, and, oh, by the way, I’m pregnant.

      No, she’ll have to summon him over, sit him down, drop the bombshell, then…

      What?

      Wait for his reaction.

      Wait for him to get over his shock, to ask why she didn’t tell him sooner, to say that he wants to be a part of this baby’s life—all of which is inevitable.

      But where do we go from there?

      Do they continue on in this state of marital limbo?

      Trial separation.

      She’s tried it. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want it.

      But Mike, apparently, does. Otherwise he would be reaching out to her, talking about coming home.

      All he’d have to do is ask, and she’d take him back.

      When he finds out about the pregnancy, he might decide to do just that. But she doesn’t want him back that way. She wants him back because he still loves her.

      Because I still love him.

      She shoves another pair of too-snug shorts into the suitcase.

      Mike will be dropping off Tess soon. It’s a Tuesday night; he took her to a nice seafood restaurant for dinner to celebrate her terrific final report card. Cam stayed home, planning on eating cold cereal—to take in her nightly milk serving—in front of the TV. Then she decided that seemed pitiful.

      So she threw together a stir-fry and ate it on the good china, sitting alone at the kitchen table reading a literary novel and trying not to wish that the raspberry-flavored seltzer in her glass was Pinot Grigio.

      Talk about pitiful.

      But still better than cold cereal and TV.

      All right, what now? Should I catch Mike in the driveway and tell him we need to sit down and talk before Tess and I leave for the shore Friday morning?

      Yes. She should.

      In the split second after she makes that decision, as if to reinforce it, she hears a car pulling into the driveway below.

      Sitting in with the band, Ike Neary spots her in the middle of the first set, during the opening riff of “Brown Eyed Girl.”

      The shock is nearly enough to make him lose his grip on the drumsticks, but somehow he manages to hang on.

      Brenda?

      Oh my God, Brenda!

      After all these years…

      “Hey where did we go…” sings the lead vocalist, a kid named Jimmy.

      Ike’s drumming.

      And miraculously, Brenda’s familiar face is here among the throng that’s gathered to drink and dance to live music at the Sandbucket Grill on this warm Tuesday night in June.

      Oh my God.

      What should Ike do? What will he say to her?

      What does one say, after thirty-odd years, to a wife who walked away and never looked back? A wife who left you to single-handedly raise one daughter and bury the other…

      Swept by a familiar surge of fury-tainted grief, Ike blinks away the tears pooling in his eyes.

      What is she doing here? How did she know where to find me?

      He wasn’t even officially supposed to play tonight.

      He never does, these days.

      But Jerry, the owner, spotted him and asked him if he’d sit in for a set.

      “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we have a very special guest here tonight to help us inaugurate the Sandbucket’s new stage…”

      Over the winter, Jerry built a fancy new outdoor stage out back. Now he has to pay for it—and compete with the big acts in nearby Atlantic City—so he’s stepping up his exposure in the shore papers. This week he took out ads with color photos of all the new bands playing the Sandbucket’s СКАЧАТЬ