Used-To-Be Lovers. Linda Miller Lael

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      A steady hum sounded in her ear.

      Hastily, she dialed his home number; she got the answering machine. Sharon told it, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of its high-handed owner and hung up with a crash.

      Both Bri and Matt were looking at her with wide eyes, their hair and jackets soaking from the rain. Maternal guilt swept over Sharon; she started to explain why she was frustrated with Tony and gave up in midstream, spreading her hands out wide and then slapping her thighs in defeat. “What can I say?” she muttered. “Take off your shoes and coats and get up on the sofa.”

      Rain was thrumming against the windows, and the room was cold. Sharon went resolutely to the fireplace and laid crumpled newspaper and kindling in the grate, then struck a match. A cheery blaze caught as she adjusted the damper, took one of the paper-wrapped supermarket logs from the old copper caldron nearby and tossed it into the fire.

      When she turned from that, Bri and Matt were both settled on the couch.

      “Is Daddy coming?” Briana asked in a small voice.

      Sharon sighed, feeling patently inadequate, and then nodded. “Yes.”

      “How come you got so mad at him?” Matt wanted to know. “He just wants to help, doesn’t he?”

      Sharon pretended she hadn’t heard the question and trudged back toward the kitchen, a golden oasis in the gloom. “Who wants hot chocolate?” she called, trying to sound lighthearted.

      Both Bri and Matt allowed that cocoa would taste good right about then, but their voices sounded a little thin.

      Sharon put water on to heat for instant coffee and took cocoa from the cupboard and milk and sugar from the bag of groceries she’d left on the counter. Outside the wind howled, and huge droplets of rain flung themselves at the windows and the roof. “I kind of like a good storm once in a while,” Sharon remarked cheerfully.

      “What happens when we run out of logs?” Briana wanted to know. “We’ll freeze to death!”

      Matt gave a gleeful howl at this. “Nobody freezes to death in August, blitz-brain.”

      Sharon closed her eyes and counted to ten before saying, “Let’s just cease and desist, okay? We’re all going to have to take a positive approach here.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, the power went off.

      Resigned to heeding her own advice, Sharon carried cups of lukewarm cocoa to the kids, then poured herself a mugful of equally unappealing coffee. Back in the living room, she threw another log on the fire, then peeled off her wet sneakers and socks and curled up in an easy chair.

      “Isn’t this nice?” she asked.

      Briana rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Mom. This is great.”

      “Terrific,” agreed Matt, glaring into the fire.

      “Maybe we could play a game,” Sharon suggested, determined.

      “What?” scoffed Bri, stretching out both hands in a groping gesture. “Blindman’s buff?”

      It was a little dark. With a sigh, Sharon tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Memories greeted her within an instant.

      She and Tony had escaped to the island often that first summer after they bought the A-frame, bringing wine, romantic tapes for the stereo and very little else. They’d walked on the rocky beaches for hours, hand in hand, having so much to say to each other that the words just tumbled out, never needing to be weighed and measured first.

      And later, when the sun had gone and a fire had been snapping on the hearth, they’d listened to music in the dark and made love with that tender violence peculiar to those who find each other fascinating.

      Sharon opened her eyes, grateful for the shadows that hid the tears glimmering on her lashes. When did it change, Tony? she asked in silent despair. When did we stop making love on the floor, in the dark, with music swelling around us?

      It was several moments before Sharon could compose herself. She shifted in her chair and peered toward Bri and Matthew.

      They’d fallen asleep at separate ends of the long couch and, smiling, Sharon got up and tiptoed across the wet carpet to the stairs. At the top was an enormous loft divided into three bedrooms and a bath, and she entered the largest chamber, pausing for a moment at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sound.

      In the distance Sharon saw the lights of an approaching ferry and, in spite of her earlier annoyance, her spirits were lifted by the sight. Being careful not to look at the large brass bed she and Tony had once shared—Lord knew, the living room memories were painful enough—she took two woolen blankets from the cedar chest at its foot and carried them back downstairs.

      After covering the children, Sharon put the last store-bought log on the fire and then made her way back to the chair where she rested her head on one arm and sighed, her mind sliding back into the past again, her gaze fixed on the flames.

      There had been problems from the first, but the trouble between Tony and herself had started gaining real momentum two years before, when Matt had entered kindergarten. Bored, wanting to accomplish something on her own, Sharon had immediately opened Teddy Bares, and things had gone downhill from that day forward. The cracks in the marriage had become chasms.

      She closed her eyes with a yawn and sighed again. The next thing she knew, there was a thumping noise and a bright light flared beyond her lids.

      Sharon awakened to see Tony crouched on the hearth, putting dry wood on the fire. His dark hair was wet and curling slightly at the nape of his neck, and she had a compulsion to kiss him there. At one time, she would have done it without thinking.

      “Hello, handsome,” she said.

      He looked back at her over one broad, denim-jacketed shoulder and favored her with the same soul-wrenching grin that had won her heart more than ten years before, when he’d walked into the bookstore where she was working and promptly asked her out. “Hi,” he replied in a low, rumbling whisper.

      “Have you been here long?”

      Tony shook his head, and the fire highlighted his ebony hair with shades of crimson. “Ten minutes, maybe.” She wondered if those shadows in his brown eyes were memories of other, happier visits to the island house.

      She felt a need to make conversation. Mundane conversation unrelated to flickering firelight, thunderstorms, music and love. “Is the power out on the mainland, too?”

      Again, Tony shook his head. There was a solemn set to his face, and although Sharon couldn’t read his expression now, she sensed that his thoughts were similar to hers. When he extended his hand, she automatically offered her own.

      “I’m hungry,” complained a sleepy voice.

      Tony grinned and let go of Sharon’s hand to ruffle his son’s hair. “So what else is new?”

      “Dad, is that you?” The relief in the little boy’s voice made Sharon wonder if she’d handled things so badly that only Tony could make them better.

      Tony’s chuckle was warm and reassuring, even to Sharon, who hadn’t СКАЧАТЬ