Used-To-Be Lovers. Linda Lael Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 thought she needed reassuring. “One and the same. You were right about the floor—it is like mush.”

      Bri stirred at this, yawning, and then flung her arms around Tony’s neck with a cry of joy. “Can we go home?” she pleaded. “Right now?”

      Tony set her gently away. “We can’t leave until we’ve done something about the flood problem—which means we’re going to have to rough it.” Two small faces fell, and he laughed. “Of course, by that I mean eating supper at the Sea Gull Café.”

      “They’ve got lights?” Bri asked enthusiastically.

      “And heat?” Matt added. “I’m freezing.”

      “Nobody freezes in August,” Bri immediately quoted back to him. “Blitz-brain.”

      “I see things are pretty much normal around here,” Tony observed in wry tones, his head turned toward Sharon.

      She nodded and sat up, reaching for her wet socks and sneakers. “An element of desperation has been added, however,” she pointed out. “As Exhibit A, I give you these two, who have agreed to darken the doorway of the Sea Gull Café.”

      “It doesn’t have that name for nothing, you know,” Bri said sagely, getting into her shoes. “Don’t anybody order the fried chicken.”

      Tony laughed again and the sound, as rich and warm as it was, made Sharon feel hollow inside, and raw. She ached for things to be as they had been, but it was too late for too many reasons. Hoping was a fool’s crusade.

      Rain was beating at the ground as the four of them ran toward Tony’s car. Plans encased in cardboard tubes filled the back seat, and the kids, used to their workaholic father, simply pushed them out of the way. Sharon, however, felt an old misery swelling in her throat and avoided Tony’s eyes when she got into the car beside him and fastened her seat belt.

      She felt, and probably looked, like the proverbial drowned rat, and she started with surprise when the back of Tony’s hand gently brushed her cheek.

      “Smile,” he said.

      Sharon tried, but the effort faltered. To cover that she quipped, “How can I, when I’m condemned to a meal of sea gull, Southern-style?”

      Tony didn’t laugh. Didn’t even grin. The motion of his hand was too swift and too forceful for the task of shifting the car into reverse.

      Overlooking the angry water, the restaurant was filled with light and warmth and laughter. Much of the island’s population seemed to have gathered inside to compare this storm to the ones in ’56 or ’32 or ’77, to play the jukebox nonstop, and to keep the kitchen staff and the beaming waitresses hopping.

      After a surprisingly short wait, a booth became available and the Morellis were seated.

      Anybody would think we were still a family, Sharon thought, looking from one beloved, familiar face to another, and then at her own, reflected in the dark window looming above the table. Her hair was stringy and her makeup was gone. She winced.

      When she turned her head, Tony was watching her. There was a sort of sad amusement in his eyes. “You look beautiful,” he said quietly.

      Matt groaned, embarrassed that such a sloppy sentiment should be displayed in public.

      “Kissy, kissy,” added Briana, not to be outdone.

      “How does Swiss boarding school sound to you two?” Tony asked his children, without cracking a smile. “I see a place high in the Alps, with five nuns to every kid….”

      Bri and Matt subsided, giggling, and Sharon felt a stab of envy at the easy way he dealt with them. She was too tired, too hungry, too vulnerable. She purposely thought about the rolled blueprints in the back seat of Tony’s car and let the vision fuel her annoyance.

      The man never went anywhere or did anything without dragging some aspect of Morelli Construction along with him, and yet he couldn’t seem to understand why Teddy Bares meant so much to her.

      By the time the cheeseburgers, fries and milk shakes arrived, Sharon was on edge. Tony gave her a curious look, but made no comment.

      When they returned to the A-frame, the power was back on. Sharon sent the kids upstairs to bed, and Tony brought a set of tools in from the trunk of his car, along with a special vacuum cleaner and fans.

      While Sharon operated the vacuum, drawing gallon after gallon of water out of the rugs, Tony fixed the broken pipe in the bathroom. When that was done, he raised some of the carpet and positioned the fans so that they would dry the floor beneath.

      Sharon brewed a fresh pot of coffee and poured a cup for Tony, determined to do better than she had in the restaurant as the modern ex-wife. Whatever that was.

      “I appreciate everything you’ve done,” she said with a stiff smile, extending the mug of coffee.

      Tony, who was sitting at the dining table by then, a set of the infernal blueprints unrolled before him, gave her an ironic look. “The hell you do,” he said. Then, taking the coffee she offered, he added a crisp, “Thanks.”

      Sharon wrenched back a chair and plopped into it. “Wait one second here,” she said when Tony would have let the blueprints absorb his attention again. “Wait one damn second. I do appreciate your coming out here.”

      Tony just looked at her, his eyes conveying his disbelief…and his anger.

      “Okay,” Sharon said on a long breath. “You heard the message I left on your answering machine, right?”

      “Right,” he replied, and the word rumbled with a hint of thunder.

      “I didn’t really mean that part where I called you an officious, overbearing—” Her voice faltered.

      “Chauvinistic jerk,” Tony supplied graciously.

      Sharon bit her lower lip, then confessed, “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it in exactly those terms. It was just that—well, I’m never going to know whether or not I can handle a crisis if you rush to the rescue every time I have a little problem—”

      “Why are you so damn scared of needing me?” Tony broke in angrily.

      Sharon pushed back her chair and went to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee for herself. When СКАЧАТЬ