Callie Shaw still was not married.
A year before, that fact had made Nancy vaguely uneasy. As far as Nancy could tell from the carefully scrutinized cards, Callie had no steady boyfriend either. She still lived near Bayport. She was still great friends with Joe and Vanessa.
Ned had not remained great friends with Bess and George after Nancy left. According to Bess, he had only reappeared on the cousins' radar after he and Nancy had unexpectedly run into each other at the grocery store. They lived on opposite sides of Chicago, but still.
As far as Nancy knew, Callie had never stopped talking to Frank.
When the yearly card came in the mail, Nancy opened it and a faint dusting of silver-white glitter fell over her fingers and to the carpet. Callie did, despite any other shortcomings, have good taste in cards. Nancy never displayed them anywhere, though, because Callie wrote long messages inside, in hard blue and long looped strokes, messages which contained absolutely nothing of value but Frank read them anyway, and smiled, and shoved them back into the shredded envelopes.
On the last unseasonably warm day Nancy took Sam to the park, and while Sam bubbled on about everything she had managed to accomplish in the morning Nancy felt her gaze drawn to a solitary figure walking a dog, there at the edge, in a dark hooded sweatshirt. A strand of blond hair fluttering free. Long shapely legs. She showed absolutely no interest in either Sam or Nancy.
Then she pushed back the hood and brought a cell phone to her ear, said a few short phrases, laughed, and hung up.
Callie.
Maybe a girl who just looked like Callie.
Sam tugged impatiently at her mother's sleeve and Nancy looked down at her daughter, into Sam's scowling face. "I heard you," Nancy lied, stealing a glance back in the girl's direction. She was vanishing around a corner, the hood back up, her hair hidden again.
When Nancy's own cell phone began to ring, her stomach filled with ice. "Frank?"
"Hey," he said. "I'm going to be a few hours late tonight, but keep dinner warm for me, okay?"
--
"When are you going to be in town again?"
"Don't know," Nancy said. "This year it's his parents' for Thanksgiving and River Heights for Christmas, but I doubt that's what you had in mind. All depends on the next time he's called off to save the world."
He didn't speak for a moment. "We need to talk, about," he said, and trailed off.
"About what happened?"
"Not so much about what happened," Ned replied. "It's done. It's what's going to happen that I'm worried about."
Nancy checked on Sam, who was happily coloring, and shut herself outside on the deck. "You don't need to be worried," she told him. "It was. And, if we, if we do decide," she began, and clenched her eyes tight shut, willing the words out, "if you say that we need to stay away from each other, then we'll try that again. No more unexpected visits to your apartment."
"I want to see you again."
"I want to see you again too," she admitted, her breath coming out in a rush, the relief palpable. "As soon as you can. Tonight. But." She ran her hand through her hair. "You probably have another girlfriend by now."
"I think I'm going to put that off," he said. "Suspend the search indefinitely. If you."
Nancy's breath caught. "If I what?"
"If you--"
A pair of headlight beams swept across the lawn as Frank pulled into their driveway, and Nancy's heart seized in her chest. "Oh God, he's here, I'll call you later," she said, and snapped the phone shut quickly, then walked back into the house. Sam was already looking at the front door, her crayon in midair, a smile beginning to light her face. Nancy put her phone down on the counter and walked over to the refrigerator, pulled open the door and let the cooler air bathe her flushed cheeks.
"I'm home," Frank called from the door, and Nancy sighed, building the smile she would have to force until she could find some time apart from him again.
Sam covered the silence Nancy couldn't find it in herself to fill. Nancy was constantly walking back and forth between the kitchen and dining room, for drink refills or extra napkins or anything she could think of, staring at her phone and almost wishing it would ring, staring at the lake gently shimmering at the edge of their yard. Seeing Sam with Frank was almost painful. Frank leaned in close to her, listening carefully to everything she said, smiling down at her. Attentive.
If she managed to snatch his cell phone, would she find Callie's number in the history?
Nancy looked at her own phone, her heart in her throat, and deleted Ned's number from the call history. She hadn't programmed it into her phone, but Frank was a detective. Cell phone numbers were easy enough to trace.
"You okay?"
Frank had his and Sam's plates in his hand, and was standing at the kitchen door, gazing at her, but he was smiling faintly. No accusation in his manner.
"Fine," Nancy said, fighting the urge to avoid looking him in the eye. She brushed her hair back and took the plates out of his hand. "Sorry, I was just thinking about something."
"What?"
He said it lightly enough, and she answered in the same tone, "I could have sworn I saw Callie Shaw walking in the park today."
Frank smiled. "Maybe you did, the weather was gorgeous."
"It was," Nancy agreed, and he went back into the dining room, and Nancy leaned over the kitchen counter with her head in her hands.
--
When she woke, Frank was already gone.
Nancy rubbed her hands over her face. Sam was making noise in her bedroom. Some chirping electronic voice with chimes and bells, an old and long-forgotten toy unearthed by the move. When Nancy passed her room on the way to the kitchen, Sam was wearing a jacket over her pajamas and shiny black Mary Janes on her bare feet.
On the way back from Sam's preschool, Nancy stopped by a gas station for a pack of cigarettes.
Even though Ned's business card had his work number on it, the thought of calling him there was too much, and interrupting him by calling his cell phone was just as bad. He knew her schedule. Maybe, if Frank didn't make an unexpected visit...
She had given Ned an anonymous email address. When she checked it, before composing a message for him to call her if he took an early lunch, she found a message already waiting.
I couldn't stop thinking about you last night.
Nancy went out on the back deck and chain-smoked two cigarettes. The wind coming off the lake snatched the smoke away and chilled her through her thin t-shirt, but she sat anyway, and even though her mind was racing, when she caught it she found there was nothing there at all. No resolve or plan.
Just the knowledge that she wanted to see Ned again, and the knowledge that if Frank found out he would probably fight for sole custody of their daughter. In the inevitable absence of her father, Sam would be raised by Nancy's mother-in-law, probably to hate her. Frank made the money in their household. Frank had the financial means to support her. Nancy had less than nothing. The house was in his name. His name was on Sam's birth certificate.
Nancy's stomach clenched as she thought of how easy the idea had seemed, those years ago, to make another phone call, to tell a tiny lie. It would have been so easy.
But it was done. Ned was right. She had made her choice, and it wasn't him.
If you can manage to call me, please do, she wrote, the scent of cigarettes still clinging to her skin. I have to pick up Sam at noon.
She was waiting at a stoplight at eleven forty-six and he still hadn't called. Her spirits were abysmally low. Fourteen minutes was no time at all.
Her phone rang and she snatched it from the seat, answering it before the first ring ended. "Hey," she greeted him, breathless.
"Sorry, I couldn't get away until now," he apologized. "You're alone?"
"For another," she checked her watch, "thirteen minutes. I don't," she began to explain, then stopped. "I'm sorry. I miss you."
He chuckled, low, but there was no humor in it. "We have to stop this," he told her. "I know that. But I can't not see you, and when I do..."
She smiled. "I know," she said softly.
--
"I made a picture for daddy."
"You did?" Nancy asked, in the soft abstracted way, sorting through their movie collection to find the one Sam had requested. "What is it?"
"It's a surprise," Sam said.
"Oh," Nancy said. "Well, you think maybe I could look at it?"
Sam made a face, but her eyes were bright, and Nancy smiled.
"I was just wondering," Nancy said, elaborately casual, "since I know you always draw the best pictures. They're so beautiful."
Sam giggled in pleasure. "You can see it," she said, and went through her bookbag. Then she paused, looking back at her mother. "But just for a minute, okay?"
"Okay," Nancy agreed, pulling out the movie.
When Sam brought her the picture, she saw Ned, through Sam's eyes. Brown and black, his hair and the leather jacket, the simple shallow U of his smile. "Tell me about your picture," Nancy asked.
"This is a man," Sam said, pointing. Then she indicated an orange blur at one end of the picture. "And this is a cat."
"It's a great picture, Sam," Nancy told her daughter. "I have an idea. Do you want to go see Hannah for the weekend, while Daddy's out of town?"
Sam was carefully putting her picture back into her bookbag. "With kittens?"
"She might have some more kittens by now," Nancy agreed mildly. Her fingers were trembling against the remote control. "I want to go see Aunt Bess and Aunt George and you can stay with Hannah for a little while, okay?"
"We can't play dress-up again?"
"Maybe we can," Nancy said. "So it's settled."
Sam nodded, in her exaggerated way, and Nancy laughed despite the rising tremor in her veins.
--
"You're really out of it tonight, Drew."
Nancy sighed, adjusting the strap of her tank top under her leather jacket. "Sorry," she said faintly. "It's just, I think Frank might be cheating on me."
George had been lining up her shot. At Nancy's muttered explanation she stood to her full height again, the cue forgotten on the edge of the table. "What?"
Bess returned and handed Nancy another drink, then looked back and forth between her cousin and her friend. "What?"
When George's gaze didn't blink or waver, Bess turned back to Nancy, who dropped her own. "I don't know," she said. "I just have this feeling that he's been seeing Callie."
Bess was the first to speak. "I wasn't going to bring this up, but what happened the night of the reunion?"
"Can we wait on talking about this until we're somewhere else?" Nancy said, and took a long sip of her drink to hide the flush in her cheeks.
"I knew it," George said, her voice low, but not without a trace of humor. "You stole my date, didn't you."
"Please," Nancy begged. "Just not right now. We can go back to your place and talk about this but, not here," she said, gesturing at the smoky floor, the overpainted girls and half-drunk guys.
"Don't give me another drink, I'm holding her to it," George told her cousin, and leaned down again to complete her turn.
Bess looked at Nancy. "Okay," she sighed. "Too bad there aren't four of us, we could play spades."
Nancy shrugged with false ease. "Call Ned," she suggested. "I'm sure he's in town."
George walked around the table to take her next shot. "Get her another drink," she told Bess. "This I have to see."
--
She could tell from the expression in Ned's eyes that he'd had a few drinks before Bess's call. After George had buzzed him up and Bess had answered the door, they set eyes on each other for the first time in what felt like years, and Nancy couldn't bring herself to disguise the naked hunger in her gaze.
"You remember how to play spades, Nickerson?"
"Nice place," he said, glancing around, before answering. "I'm sure I can fake it."
When Ned took Nancy up on her offer of a beer, Bess raced her to the kitchen, where she hissed, "Nothing happened the night of the reunion?"
Nancy shook her head, her eyes wide. "Nothing happened," she repeated. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I swear to you."
Bess accepted her answer, but pouted. "I could swear," she began, looking at Nancy's face, but didn't finish.
They played with their old partners. Nancy and Ned facing each other across the table, Bess and George next to them, and it all came back, their old code and winks and protests over cheating and betting and sandbagging and objections over Bess keeping the score. After another drink George good-naturedly ribbed Ned about deserting her at the reunion, and he bumped her shoulder as he apologized, but when he caught Nancy's gaze the expression in his eyes was for her alone.
"You gonna be okay to drive?" Bess asked, finishing off her drink.
"I took a cab," Ned explained. "I was in a bar when you called me."
"We should hang out more often," Bess said, and the rest of the table nodded in alcohol-slowed agreement. "I forgot how much fun it was, with you guys."
Nancy could feel the same nervous energy rising in her as the hours wore on, as the cousins started saying that they would only play one more hand before turning in for the night. She kept staring at Ned's mouth, wondering if the imprints of her fingernails were still in his skin, if she would agree should he suggest that they take a cab somewhere.
George was the last to stumble off to bed with a wordless wave, the television still humming some slow raucous comedy show in the background, Nancy and Ned relaxing a safe distance from each other on the couch. The lights were dim and when he stared at her, she couldn't manage to speak.
He reached out and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Where are you staying tonight?" he asked softly.
Nancy shrugged, returning his faint smile. "Sam's with Hannah for the night, and George let me have the couch last time I was here."
The corner of his mouth curved up a little higher. "Hmm," he said. "I think I can do better."
--
Her rings were already at the last joint of her finger when he unlocked his door, and he swept her off her feet, the metal clinking faintly as it fell to the hardwood, his mouth on hers again. There were a thousand things they needed to say to each other. She couldn't remember a single word, not when she had been fighting herself to keep from attacking him during the cab ride over, not when he was pulling her tank top over her head, not when his hands were all over her.
They bumped into everything in the dark, laughing between the kisses, the couch and the coffee table and the door of his bedroom, the bed itself, and then she was staring at him in the bare faint light, speechless, her palm cupped against his cheek. His fingers. She was breathless and when he kissed her, it was all satisfied, every word she hadn't yet found herself able to say, every misgiving and doubt.
"I swore to myself I wouldn't do this," he whispered, after. His eyelashes dark against his cheek.
"What," she whispered, stroking the line of his jaw.
His smile was bittersweet. "You aren't mine, not anymore," he whispered.
She returned the smile, her eyes filling with tears. "Why didn't I call you, the day I found out," she said, tracing her fingers down, feeling his pulse hard beneath his skin. "Why didn't I."
He traced his thumb over her slightly parted lips. "Nan." She gazed at him, and when he pulled himself under the covers she followed, trembling slightly, suddenly cold without the heat of his skin against hers.
When he slept, exhausted, their sweat mingled on his skin, he still held her. He still didn't stop touching her. She loved him for it, in the stillness. She loved him for the soft hair at the back of his neck and the way he touched her when she was bare and vulnerable beneath him, the concern and the desire in his warm brown eyes. The rightness of it. This was the way making love was supposed to feel, supposed to be. This was what she had denied herself.
She slept fitfully, and when she woke he was staring at her, smiling, stroking her cheek.
"I wish we could wake up like this every day for the rest of our lives," he whispered.
She put her hand over his and held it against her skin, searching his eyes. "Ned," she breathed.
His smile turned bittersweet and then he was leaning over the side of the bed, pulling on his boxers. "Want some breakfast? I think I have some cereal. Maybe pancake mix if you're lucky."
"Whatever you want," she said softly. Her heart was a painful weight in her as she watched him walk through the door, out of her sight. Only then did she reach over the edge of the bed and hastily dress.
She walked out in his robe, and his only comment on her appearance was a soft smile. She waited until he was bent over the stove to kneel down and pick up her rings again, slip them into her pocket. She walked up behind him and put her arm around his waist, looking down at the skillet, where perfect golden pancakes were hissing.
"Let's have breakfast in bed," she suggested.
--
The very tips of her hair were damp and curling slightly over her shoulders from their shower as she walked into Hannah's house. Sam ran to her mother and wrapped her arms around her leg, until Nancy reached down and swept her up. "Thank you so much."
Hannah gazed at Nancy, her eyes sharp, but she smiled. "I tried to call you a few times," she said. "You three partying last night?"
Nancy smiled. "Yeah, a few drinks, some cards, that was about it," she said, and kissed Sam on the forehead, brushing her hair back. "Sorry. Sometimes I can't hear my phone when I leave it in my jacket."
"You on the way to the airport now?"
Nancy dipped her head. "Sam doesn't want to miss school, does she," she said, and Sam nodded vigorously, smiling.
Hannah smiled back. "Don't be a stranger."
On the plane Nancy put her fingertips against the oval of the window until they were numb with the cold. He hadn't said. He never said. She had left him with no promises, just a long hard crush of an embrace when she was already twenty minutes late leaving, but she couldn't bring herself to care about anything else than the sensation of him breathing, in and out, ruffling her hair gently, his fingers curled around her arm. She hated saying goodbye. She hated the hard look in his eyes when she slipped her rings back onto her finger.
A long time ago, a lifetime ago, his fingers trailing idly over her skin. "One day we won't have to say goodbye to each other anymore," he'd said, and smiled, and she had smiled, but the idea was too perfect to even imagine.
"I love you."
How could she promise him anything else, with Sam by her side. How could she promise Ned anything. Even as they lay in each other's arms, not moving, and she could still feel the trails of his fingers burning on her skin after each caress.
"Did you have fun with Hannah?" Nancy asked her daughter.
Sam nodded. "I had fun," she said. "Read me the book?"
"Sure," Nancy replied.
--
"You're beautiful."
Frank was treating her like they'd had a fight, walking on slivered eggshells, conciliatory. For the first time in a very long time she had told him she had a headache, instead of waiting with her breath held and the rising nausea sharp against the back of her throat. But she couldn't give in to him, not when she remembered the bittersweet smile on Ned's face. She looked down at Sam and she wanted a cigarette.
Instead she smiled vaguely at her husband. "Thanks."
He sighed, but not unhappily. He had done his duty for the day. She could no longer be angry with him if he'd paid her such a compliment. That was how it went in his head.
It didn't matter.
For the entirety of their relationship they had had Sam, and when Nancy was angry at Frank it was over their daughter, something he had done, something he had not done for her. For Sam's sake. Because Sam defined the two of them and everything they had in common and he had the accounts and the money and...
If I leave.
Frank's back. He was walking into the kitchen and she hadn't slept the night before. They had lay frozen side by side in the bed he'd bought, in the house he'd bought, with the daughter he'd provided for. He had never set out to keep her this way. This had never been what he'd wanted, what they had wanted. But now she was here, waiting, counting the seconds until she heard his next excuse, her next opportunity to call Ned, to hear Ned's voice, to speak to him, to see him, to. God. If I leave. If I leave.
I want to see you, his last message had said, and she had gone out on the deck and smoked another cigarette and buried it in the trash once she came back in. Holidays. Christmas day with her father and her husband and her daughter, twelve hours of cooking and a football game and wrapping paper all over the floor and excuses to walk out, ways to leave them, for the five minutes she could safely spend in a grocery store, a parking lot, long enough to catch a few words before she was back frozen and silent in Frank's bed.
Or she could. Or she could.
Sam vanished into the kitchen after her father, and Nancy closed her eyes, listening to the soft indistinguishable hum of their voices, and her blood was sick with heavy thick cement and her throat was full of it. Sam. Even half a father, even half a father.
I need to see you.
I need, she thought, and the tears rose in her eyes too fast to push them back.
