The Swallow's Nest. Emilie Richards
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Название: The Swallow's Nest
Автор: Emilie Richards
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9781474070614
isbn:
Regan turned to her back again. “He found me and called one night after I’d been in California for a couple of months. He was back in school in a different state but doing well. He knew addiction would be a lifelong battle, but he had tools to fight it. He wanted my forgiveness. That’s all he was asking for. And I couldn’t give it to him. I kept thinking he’d chosen heroin over me, that he’d ruined both our lives. I told him I didn’t want to hear from him again.” Her voice was suddenly thick with tears. “And I never did.”
Lilia moved closer to put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Did he die of an overdose?”
“No. He decided to spend his spring break in Haiti with some other guys from his program. They were helping build a new wing on a treatment center there. His program is big on community service as a way to return self-confidence and give back to the world. His second night there one of the residents got high, found a knife, and when he went after another resident, Devin stepped between them.”
“I’m so sorry.”
They lay that way for a few minutes until Lilia finally moved away. She was sure of one thing. Regan hadn’t traveled this far just to acknowledge her own past. “You’re trying to tell me I should forgive Graham and go home. That people really can change.”
“I don’t have any idea if you should go back to Graham. I really don’t.” Regan wiped tears off her cheeks. “Only you can know that.”
“Then what?”
“We never know whether change will stick or what the future’s going to hold. And we’re never under an obligation to play somebody else’s games. But I’ll be haunted forever because I didn’t tell Devin I was glad he’d made progress and wished him well. Even if I’d opened the door for another chance at a life together, he probably still would have gone to Haiti and died trying to help other addicts. But if I had just said those words? Both of us would have had closure. And who knows? Maybe we would have had that second chance.”
“Don’t marriages have to be built on trust?”
“We like to say that, but isn’t marriage just a merger between two flawed, fragile human beings who make mistakes, sometimes really terrible mistakes, and somehow come through them together? Trust is a shaky foundation because it can be so easily destroyed. The question is whether a relationship is worth rebuilding. Maybe more than once.”
Lilia cleared her throat, which was suddenly clogged with tears. “You’re afraid Graham’s going to die, aren’t you? And you’re afraid I’ll have the same regrets you do.”
“All of us are going to die. But I wish I had asked myself what really mattered for whatever time I had left on this earth, or Devin did. And I guess that’s what I came to say. Maybe that’s what you need to be asking now. What do you have to say to Graham that you haven’t said? What, if anything, do you need to forgive? Because nobody knows the future. You can trust me on that.”
Marina hadn’t yet cooked for Blake, but on Friday night he had a cold and didn’t feel like going out. Even though her work week had seemed a hundred hours long, she had volunteered to feed him.
She wasn’t a gourmet. Her talents ran to macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, tuna fish sandwiches, anything her brothers would deign to eat when she had been in charge. She still specialized in food that arrived at her local Safeway in a box, jar or can. Tonight, for a change, she was going to prepare something more appealing. Even she could bake a potato and broil a steak, and these days salad came in a plastic bag with dressing. At the grocery store she added frozen garlic bread to her cart and half a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream. Blake’s fancy wine cooler was already well stocked.
As she unpacked and started dinner she took stock of the kitchen. The space was expansive, only separated from the living room by an island. Drawers were crowded with every possible utensil and gadget. Since Blake relied on pre-prepared meals from the supermarket freezer, she suspected his wife had been the one to revel in complex recipes. She also noted that the black granite countertops were spotless, which meant the kitchen probably hadn’t been used since his cleaning service had come on Monday. She wondered how much he missed being married.
She wondered if he wanted to be married again.
As the garlic bread warmed in the needlessly complicated oven, and the potatoes baked in a microwave with enough settings to fly a space shuttle, she poured orange juice and took it into the living room.
After work she had changed into her shortest micro-miniskirt without tights, even though she hadn’t enjoyed the modesty challenge as she slid in and out of her car. But when he’d opened the door to find her standing on the porch with groceries, Blake had enjoyed the sight of her bare legs enough for both of them.
He was enjoying them again, this time as she held out the glass. “Pretend it’s a screwdriver. You’re not taking care of yourself, are you?”
He took it and began to sip. “If you were living here, I bet you’d make sure I did.”
She smiled, although the thought of being in charge of somebody else sounded woefully familiar. “And if I was taking care of you, I would never make it to work, would I? You’re usually a pretty hands-on guy. You must be sick.”
Reluctantly he wrapped both hands around his glass. “Somebody ought to take care of you.”
“I’m a big girl.” She paused just long enough. “But I won’t be around much next week. Sales meetings, and in-service training in San Francisco. I’ll be driving back and forth since my company’s too cheap to spring for a hotel, so I’ll be getting back too late to see you.”
“You’ll be missed.”
“I’ll call and check on you. And you’ll go to the doctor if your cold gets worse, right?”
He sent her a warm smile, which must have taken some effort. “Do you like being back at work?”
Blake thought she’d been on leave to recover after minor surgery, so she couldn’t tell him the truth. No, she didn’t like being back. She didn’t like the way the other employees looked at her, the way they didn’t ask about her baby son because they knew he was no longer with her. None of her sales colleagues had been at Graham’s “celebration” party, but word traveled fast in the construction community. While she’d spawned a little sympathy as a pregnant woman alone in the world, now it had vanished. She’d had an affair with a man they had previously respected, and now she had given him their child to raise. Publicly, too. For a mother there was no greater crime.
And maybe they were right.
When she didn’t answer, he continued. “You shouldn’t have to work so hard. You need more fun.”
If that was true, clearly somebody had forgotten to tell Deedee, Graham and God. Her brief sojourn in Los Angeles had been as close to “fun” as Marina had ever experienced, too little and over too fast.
She lowered her lashes. “I imagine I’ll have fun at the sales meeting. They pull in executives from all over the world. I’ve met some great...” She paused, as if to reconsider word choice. “People. There’s СКАЧАТЬ