A War Like Ours Page 4

  “Daddy—”

  “How about for now, you keep your kisses sweet for her? We do have chocolate syrup.”

  She seemed somewhat pacified. “Do we have strawberries, too?”

  “We do.”

  “Awesome!” She grinned. “Can I have one now?”

  “Go wash your face, and I’ll lay it all out for you.”

  She agreed and dashed to the bathroom.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. How was I going to handle it? What the hell was I thinking, lying to her? Maybe I should tell her the truth. I had to, sooner or later. I was simply delaying the inevitable. Tell her. Tell her!

  My knees clicked as I marched over to the bedroom and found Katie at the bathroom sink, straining on the balls of her feet, trying to see her face in the mirror. Her small hands held a thin tube. She lifted it and ran the end of it over her lips. It was a lipstick. Nat’s lipstick. Her favorite color red.

  A child tends to mimic his absent parent. I had read this line countless times in psychology journals. It was science. It was bound to happen. Like I wore similar dark-colored clothes as my father. I took my coffee with a hint of cinnamon, as my father had. I only ate meatballs and left the spaghetti untouched, exactly like my father. I knew this would happen. I was too knowledgeable not to. She became doomed the day Nat had died. In fact, she became doomed the day she was born. I was a part of her.

  Yesterday, in my panic, I shouted at her to throw the lipstick away, making her cry. Her small frame hiccupped with her sobs, and I was powerless against the onslaught of her tears, so I let it go.

  Now, I didn’t know if I could bear to watch it every day. A sharp steel blade flashed in front of my eyes.

  “Do you like it, Daddy?” Katie skipped over to me and beamed.

  I pressed my fingers to my stomach, nearly doubling over in pain. The air around me felt suffocating.

  “Daddy? You don’t like it?” Katie asked in a small voice.

  I took a deep breath. “I like it.”

  “Yay!” She beamed. “I love you, Daddy.”

  Her words, though filled with love, cut me like the blade in the face of my lies. I hugged her, crushed her to my chest and patted her small back with shaking hands.

  “I drew the lake and this cottage for Mommy last night,” she whispered in my neck.

  “You did?”

  She drew away from my arms and looked at me. “Do you wanna see?”

  “Of course.”

  In the living room, she showed me the picture she had drawn for her dead mother. It was beautiful, just like her. My eyes stung with unshed tears, always brimming but never falling, never giving me the relief.

  “Do you think she’ll like it?” Katie asked, biting her lip.

  “She’ll love it.”

  Her lips tipped up in a tremulous smile. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “Yay! I’m going to make more for her so when she comes back she can pick her favorite.”

  She ran to the bedroom to get her painting supplies, and I stood there, clutching the drawing in my hands.

  How could I break my daughter’s heart by telling her the truth? How could I not?

  ****

  Madison was watching me. Again.

  She was the woman who’d helped my daughter yesterday when all I could do was stand outside the restroom and worry over whether to go in or not. Under other circumstances, I would have simply passed her by, without sparing her a second glance. Not because she was unremarkable but because my life was too complicated at the moment.

  In fact, she was…beautiful.

  There was a subtle glow to her skin that wasn’t apparent at first glance. A web of intricate freckles that made her look innocent, young. Her rounded face and stubby nose could be unattractive on anyone else, but on her they worked together. They spoke of her stubbornness, maybe. The flicks of her brown hair teased her beautiful jaw when she smiled or talked.

  But her brown eyes were the most attractive to me. They were bordered with dark circles, which suggested insomnia, something we might have in common. Madison gave the impression of being unemotional, careless, and of sleepless nights, contrasting the innocent freckles. I would give anything to be that careless, so I could take one breath without it being weighed down by my guilt.

  She stood in the corner near the tables, and by the looks of it, she had been watching me for a long time. Her arms were stuffed in her front pockets, and her full lips were slanted up in a smirk.

  Heat crept up my neck, and I turned away, disgusted. What the hell was I thinking?

  Someone knocked on my shoulder, giving me temporary relief from my thoughts. It was the man who had inspired me to box yesterday. I had seen him pummeling a bag through the glass walls, and my eyes took in his intensity—the ferocity behind his every punch, the way he flinched every time his fist connected with the bag. He must have felt the agony of his punches even through the boxing glove. I wanted to experience it myself, channel my guilt and self-loathing somewhere.

  The man smiled at me. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I saw you hitting that thing and thought to myself that here’s another man as passionate for boxing as me. Do you box often?”

  His voice sounded soft, the absolute opposite of his big, muscular body. “No. I’m very new at this.”

  I had never experienced this sort of pain before. As if the skin over my biceps would tear off and blood would spray out. My muscles felt suffocated, choked with the lack of oxygen. It had been…soothing, surreal. Like the blade.

  He rubbed a hand over his bald head, looking surprised. “Really? You’re a natural then. Though if you don’t mind, I could show you a few things that would make you even better. I noticed some of your hits were a little…” He gestured with his hands. “You know, a little rough, if you don’t mind me saying. I’ve been boxing for fourteen years now. Can’t seem to let go of the sport. My wife hates it.” He laughed, his muscled shoulders shaking, and I might have smiled too, to keep up appearances. He offered me a handshake. “I’m Tim, by the way. I’m in cottage four with my wife, Anna.”

  I nodded and took my gloves off to shake his hands. “Nice to meet you.”

  Tim looked at me with expectation, as if he wanted me to say something more. A second later, I realized what. “Uh, I’m James. Cottage eleven. I’m here with my daughter.”

  He smiled and was about to say something when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I had half a mind to ignore it, but talking to a stranger was the greater of two evils. I never understood what to say and when to smile.

  I patted my pocket about to retrieve the phone. “Sorry, but I’ve got to take this.”

  Tim thrust his hand out and smiled. “No, it’s okay. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  I looked at the caller, and it was my mother. My finger hovered over the ignore button, but I’d already ignored her countless calls in the past two days. A novelty for me.

  “Hello,” I said into the phone and swiveled around to look beyond the glass. Katie and Madison sat poring over the drawing sheet. The strands of their hair—brown and black—meshed together.

  “James?” My mother’s voice sounded questioning, urgent. As if she wasn’t expecting me to take her call.

  “Mother,” I replied in a soft voice. It was my way of calming her down, even though neither of us ever acknowledged that she required it in the first place. Mother lived under the mistaken impression that she needed no help and neither did the people around her. Everyone was made of granite.

  Our initial greeting was always followed by a short pause. Then Mother would be all business. “Are you avoiding me? Where on earth are you, James? Where did you run off to?”

  Her words knifed my stomach, and I pressed my palm on the glass.

  “What, you can’t talk now?” She sighed, long and sharp. “You haven’t told Katie yet either, have you? What’s gotten into you? When did you become like this, James? I didn’t raise you to be a liar. You know better. You�
��re smarter than this.”

  “I’m handling it,” I snapped, gripping the phone tighter. Katie smiled at Madison, pointing at something on the paper, making her lipstick-covered lips even more pronounced. I clenched my jaw.

  “No, you’re not. You’re avoiding it. Running away like this— You have responsibilities, James. You have a job. People depend on you. Life doesn’t stop because of a tragedy.”

  Was that why she never took any time off to grieve after Father left?

  “I don’t care about my job,” I told her. “My only responsibility is Katie.”

  “And you’re making a mess of it, aren’t you?” she snapped. “Tell me where you are, James. I have a right to know. I’m your mother.”

  Her voice bordered on hysteria. Guilt pierced me once again, but this time for my mother, for leaving her alone. Over the years, Mother’s dependency on me had worsened. Even my marriage to Nat had been a sore spot with her. “I know it’s hard for you to be alone, and I’m sorry, but it’s only a matter of—”

  “Do you think this is about me?” she interrupted. “Don’t be so naïve, James. Being alone isn’t hard for me. I’ve always been alone. What I can’t take is when my colleagues ask me where on earth is my son? Why doesn’t he show up for work? Do you know how humiliating that is for me?”

  We both worked at NYU but in different departments. She was the Dean of English, and I worked at the Cancer Center. But Mother had acquaintances in my department.

  For a moment, the unfairness of her words brought on a crippling pain in my chest. But then it was gone. I deserved it, didn’t I? I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and saw Madison shaking her head at Katie while smiling.

  “I’ll tell her when the time is right, Mother,” I said, tired.

  “And until then, you’ll hide away from the real world?” she scoffed. “You make me feel like a failure.”

  My fists clenched, ready to burst through the thick glass.

  “Nat’s mom called, asking for Katie. She said she hasn’t seen her in months. She wanted to know how she was holding up. I told her you were spending time with her. She seemed pacified for now.”

  Thank you sat on my tongue, but Mother didn’t give me a chance to say it.

  “I’m not a liar, James. If you insist on hiding your whereabouts, I might have to come out and tell Esther about your underhanded ways. You can have your few days, but then you’re coming back home. In the meanwhile, I’m looking into therapists, someone discreet. You obviously need to be checked out. Maybe we should’ve done that years ago.”

  Then she hung up. I had always known I was abnormal. But somehow my mother acknowledging it in words made it even worse.

  With one last look at Katie and Madison, I turned away and punched the bag until I felt my fingers bleed.

  Chapter Three

  Madison

  As the evening approached, Julia met up with me outside the reception house. Sometimes after work, we went home together.

  People knew about us at the resort and in town. They didn’t have any problem with us dating and working together. But Julia opted to always keep any tender gestures to a minimum when at work. She was my boss, after all, and didn’t want to seem that she was favoring me out of love. I didn’t care either way. I wasn’t above playing the sleeping-with-the-boss card if needed. I didn’t abuse it either.

  “Ready to go?” I asked as she came closer.

  “No, I can’t. I have some work to catch up on.”

  “Okay. Do you know when you’ll be back? I can order out for pizza or something,” I offered.

  “Yeah, okay. That’ll be great.”

  The door to the reception house opened, and Katie came running out with her father in tow.

  His name was James. James Alexander Maxwell. Very royal, I’d say. I’d seen his name next to Katie’s on the sign-up sheet for the class yesterday. I couldn’t take the suspense anymore, you know. So I had gone snooping. It was one of my better qualities.

  “Hey, Madison,” Katie greeted with a grin.

  “Hey, Katie. How’s it hanging?”

  She stood beside me, and announced, “We went boating today. It was soooo much fun. Right, Daddy?”

  James put his hands on her shoulders and threw us a tight smile. “Yes, it was.”

  Julia extended her hand for him to shake. “Hello, Mr. Maxwell, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m Julia. I manage the resort.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  My eyes caught at something shining on James’ hand. It was a ring, a wedding ring. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed it before when he was putting the flower in Katie’s hair. Maybe I was too busy ogling at his face.

  So did that mean his wife wasn’t dead? All this pain, aggression at the gym for mere divorce? I felt crushed, for some reason. Like someone stole my thunder.

  “And this is Madison. She works here,” Julia introduced me.

  Our eyes clashed, and my belly grew taut with heat and anticipation. It was just like before, when he’d caught me staring at him at the gym that morning. A pull, a vibration in the air as his eyes locked onto mine.

  “We’ve already met,” I murmured.

  He looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, we’ve already met.”

  I could see Julia was curious, but before she could ask anything, Katie chirped, “Yes, Madison put the flower in my hair yesterday, and then she told me jokes, too. It was awesome. Oh, and today she helped me draw the beach.”

  “Oh, wow. That sounds super fun.” Julia’s gaze swiveled to mine. “I thought you never interacted with kids.”

  “Well, Katie’s fantastic.” I ruffled Katie’s hair, and she giggled. Looking at James, I said, “I couldn’t stay away from her.”

  A frown appeared on his forehead, and he bit his lip, studying me. He seemed like one of those thoughtful types. No wonder he was a doctor who made cancer medicines.

  “Did you get a chance to take a look around town?” Julia directed her question to James. “We have some great stuff here.”

  “Yes, we’ve gone exploring a little. It’s great,” James replied.

  “We went to a toy store, too,” Katie told Julia. “It had a big dollhouse. Like, really big. Bigger than me.”

  “Really? Bigger than you? I don’t believe it.” Julia smiled.

  “No, it was,” Katie insisted. “But I don’t like dollhouses so much. So we took a photo of it on phone, so I can draw it for Mommy for when she comes back. She loves them. That’s her second favorite after the fish.”

  James tensed, his shoulders under the gray shirt—he changed after his workout—became taut, forbidding. If I wasn’t looking at him, I might’ve missed the twitch of his ring finger.

  Something was very, very wrong here.

  “I bet you miss your mommy very much.” Julia tapped on Katie’s nose.

  “Oh yes. I want her to come back soon. Daddy says she’ll be here soon.”

  James’ eyes were focused on something faraway—maybe the lake? I couldn’t tell, but there was a turmoil in their gray depths.

  My legs itched to get closer to him, maybe even…touch him. That was weird. Why did I react to him that way?

  I was thankful when James’ focus shifted to us, and he cleared his throat. “I think we’re going to take off. Katie’s had a long day.”

  “Sure,” Julia smiled. “You guys get some rest.”

  James enclosed Katie’s small hand in his big one and left. Katie stopped at the dogwood tree and bent down to pick up fallen flowers from the ground.

  “Hey, I’m gonna go finish up some work, and I’ll see you later at home.” At Julia’s voice, I turned my attention to her.

  I studied her regal face, high cheekbones, pink lips, and before I could think too much of it, I bent down and kissed her. Hard and fast.

  “See you later,” I whispered against her mouth.

  “Wh-what was that for?” she asked in confusion.

  “Nothing, jus
t felt like it.” I nudged her away, gently. “Now go finish your work. I’ll keep the pizza warm.”

  Julia walked away, still confused, and I stood there, smiling.

  My gaze fell on James then. He stared right at me, looking kind of shocked. His eyes were wide and locked on my lips. I studied the line of his throat, strained muscles creating a valley down his neck as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  Something about his reaction made me almost smile. All this staring across spaces…he was into me. He was so totally into me, and I was kind of…flattered, elated, excited.

  As I turned around to walk back home, I let my smile free. Once upon a time, I loved playing with a guy’s attention. Teasing him, testing his patience. It was fun. I could only imagine how it would feel like playing with not a boy’s but a man’s attention.

  How would it feel to play with James’ attention? It almost made me wish I was still the same girl from Bridgevale, Pennsylvania.

  Back at home, I took a long shower, ordered pizza, and watched mindless TV. A couple of hours later, Julia got back home and resumed the impromptu kiss from earlier. But this one was longer, harder. It stoked the urgency in me. I needed her to fuck me right this second or I’d die.

  We tore at our clothes and fell on the couch. Our legs tangled with each other, scissoring, sliding smoothly, lubricated with our sweat. It wasn’t long before I came, with my pussy pulsing and creaming against Julia’s core. Hers followed soon after. We came like we always did—me with my eyes open and Julia with her eyes closed.

  She fell on top of me, her face resting on my breastbone as we tried to calm our breathing.

  “I think I should revoke the no-kissing rule at work,” Julia whispered.

  I chuckled. “Do you remember the first day we met? You came into the salon, and I got your appointment mixed up. You’d think with the computer and all, I wouldn’t fuck it up, but I totally did.”

  Believe it or not, I used to be a receptionist at a salon once. My first job ever. Anyway, can you picture me close to sharp objects? It was a miracle I hadn’t killed someone out of frustration. It was more of a desperate times-desperate measures kind of situation. I was new in town, had just moved here to my mom’s sister Alana’s house, and she’d agreed to give me a job at her salon.