Chapter Fourteen

LIAM DIDN’T sleep well. He kept wanting to get up and look around. Not snoop, exactly, but—well. Something close to it.

He managed to resist, but the mental effort made it hard to relax. Knowing he was in Ben’s house, only feet away from Ben’s bed? Yeah, that made it hard to relax, even if Ben wasn’t actually in the bed.

It made for a fitful, restless night before he walked to the job site. Ben was there, since Seth’s wife had volunteered to look after Calvin, but he was back to cool, remote, frustrating Ben. Liam wanted to grab him, drag him behind a stack of lumber, and pin him against it and kiss him until he stopped being mad, until they both forgot their history, their mistakes, forgot their damn names, let go of everything that got between them—

Liam carried sheets of drywall instead. He cut and fit and taped and worked and pushed all other thoughts out of his mind.

At lunch, Seth fell into the food line behind him and followed him over to a spot under a shade tree. They settled, took a few bites of food, and then Seth said, “You having fun?” in a tone that made it clear he knew it was a stupid question.

“I shouldn’t be here.” It was so clear, really. It had been just as clear the day before, of course, but Liam hadn’t been as tired then, and it had been easier to keep his spirits up. “Ben doesn’t want me here, and I have a lot going on back in the city. What the hell am I thinking, wasting my time like this?”

“If Ben did want you here, would it still be wasted time?” Seth sounded like he was picking his words carefully, but Liam wasn’t sure he appreciated the effort.

“Hypotheticals are just one more way to waste time. I can’t afford to be messing around with all this.”

Seth shrugged. “We’ve gotten a lot done—we’re ahead of schedule, even with Calvin sick. And you were an extra anyway. If you can’t be here, we’ll be fine without you.”

It wasn’t said in a mean way. Seth was trying to help, not to hurt, and Liam knew it. Still. We’ll be fine without you. He wasn’t needed. He was just an extra. There was a community here, a damn family, but he wasn’t part of it. He’d blown his chances at that years and years ago.

The sandwich was too dry. He took a slug from his can of pop to wash down the bite in his mouth, then forced himself to take another and swallow it before saying, “I’m not going to quit. I said I’d do it and I’ll do it. And I’ll stop bitching about it. Sorry.”

Seth shrugged easily. “It’s fine. I invited the bitching, and you’ve been working hard. It’s not like you were moping around, not getting anything done. Really, you’re a better worker when you’re a bit mad—I wonder if there’s some way for us to harness that. We could team you up with somebody really annoying, and you could work out your frustration with amazing feats of building-related strength.”

“You sound too much like Calvin, with his schemes and manipulations.”

“He’s the master. I’m a mere apprentice.” Seth frowned. “Actually, I think Dinah might be his real apprentice. I’m kind of worried about her spending the whole day with him today. She’ll come home even more Machiavellian than she was this morning.”

“A day spent looking after a sick old man is going to make your wife sinister? That seems like the reverse of what I’d expect.”

“Expectations do tend to reverse themselves once Calvin’s involved.” But Seth really didn’t sound too worried.

“You guys are pretty happy together, huh? Things have worked out well for you.”

Seth’s smile was sweet and genuine. “I’m the luckiest man alive. Wife, daughter, life—everything’s fantastic.”

“Damn. Are you auditioning to be the annoying guy who makes me work harder?”

Seth’s smile widened. “I have to audition. Damn, I don’t know—is it really that much of a treat to be the guy hanging out with you?”

Well, Ben would clearly say it wasn’t, but Liam didn’t let himself point that out. He asked polite questions about Seth’s family and actually found himself enjoying the answers and the conversation that flowed from them. Seth was a lucky man, and it was hard to resent him when he acknowledged it so openly.

Ben stayed remote for the rest of the afternoon, and when it all wrapped up around four, he kept himself conspicuously distant from Liam as everyone exchanged sweaty, satisfied hugs of congratulation for a job well done.

Liam’s hands were blistered, with bandages wrinkled and grimy from work; his neck was sunburned despite repeated applications of sunscreen; every muscle in his body was complaining, with a special scream coming from those bastards between his shoulder blades; he was grimy, smelly, and he had a three-hour drive home before he could do anything about either of those issues.

And he still would have been perfectly satisfied with his life if only Ben would smile at him. A little wave, maybe, a suggestion that he knew Liam was alive. That he cared Liam was alive.

But Liam didn’t get what he wanted. Seth and most of the rest of the team were friendly and happy with him, but Ben? He left earlier than anyone else, saying he had to get home to Calvin, but clearly more interested in getting the hell away from Liam.

So Liam drove home, lonely and smelly, got disgustingly delicious drive-through burgers for dinner halfway home, made embarrassed excuses to the neighbors he met in his building’s elevator, showered, pulled on clean clothes, and tried not to sulk.

But it was deeper than a sulk, wasn’t it?

He was legitimately disappointed. He’d hoped for something, and it hadn’t worked out.

But that wasn’t the end of the damn world. He needed to keep himself together. He hadn’t started crying, at least, so that was a small victory.

And it was Sunday night, which meant he had a phone call to make. Not that it was likely to be interesting enough to distract him from his misery, but it was probably important that he keep to his routine. He found his phone, ignored his aching muscles, and made the call.

“Liam!” his mother gushed. “We just got in the door. We had an early dinner over at Charles and Martha’s. They have a lovely new pool—well, more than that, a sort of pool area—an ‘outdoor room,’ they called it, with the pool and a cabana and a patio and some beautiful plants, although those are still a little small. But they’ll grow, of course! And your father is—it’s Liam, dear. Go get on the other line.”

“Sounds like a nice evening,” Liam managed. He’d hear about his father’s golf games and his mother’s dinners and he’d give them a watered-down version of the situation at work. He wouldn’t mention any peculiar building activities at all—and it would just be a typical Sunday-evening parental check-in.

Or so he thought, until his father got on the phone and said, “Liam. I’m glad you called, son. We were going to get in touch with you later this evening.” And there was something unnaturally grave in his tone.

Cancer. Heart disease. Bankruptcy? Suddenly Liam’s own complaints seemed petty. “What’s going on?”

“Well, it probably won’t affect you much, really. But we wanted to let you know before we made it public.”

“Okay….”

His mother broke in. “Your father and I are getting a divorce. We’ve been talking about it for a while, and we just… well. It’s time.”

“A—what?” He took a moment, trying to make the words make sense, but it did no good. “I—I’ve never even seen you guys have a fight! What the hell are you talking about? You’re in your sixties, you’re living your perfect lives on the beach with all the golf and whatever—why the hell would you get a divorce?” He waited a moment, then demanded, “Is this a joke?”

“Of course it’s not a joke,” his dad said. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite a while.”

“You’ve been thinking about getting a divorce? Why? You guys have always been solid.”

“But is that all there is to life?” his mother asked. “Being ‘solid’?”

“I swear to God, if you start talking about the importance of passion, I’m going to hang up.”

“What? Why? What do you have against passion?”

“I don’t have anything against it, I just—” But his trials at work didn’t seem like something that would add to the conversation. “Never mind. But you guys don’t need to get a divorce! That’s really drastic.” Yeah, this was good. He’d be a problem solver, a mentor. “Why not do a trial separation or something? Take a trip without each other? Just test this out without diving into it.”

“We’ve already done those things,” his father said. “We aren’t stupid, Liam. And we aren’t asking for your permission on this. We’re just telling you what’s going on.”

“You’ve already—what do you mean, you’ve already done a trial separation? When? What the hell? You didn’t mention that to me?”

“Well, there was no real point.” His mother sounded completely placid and content with the entire situation. “We didn’t want to upset you for nothing, if we decided not to go through with it. And before you suggest it, we’ve done counseling too. That was actually what made us realize we don’t need to be married anymore.”

“You went to marriage counseling, and it made you realize you should get a divorce? I think you should ask for your money back.”

“Not at all,” his father said. “It helped us realize that our marriage hasn’t failed. It did what it was supposed to do. It gave us a stable family for raising our child, it gave a framework for us to merge our social and financial lives… it worked. But our needs have changed now, and the marriage won’t work for our new needs.”

“What the hell kind of counselor were you going to? You’re in South Carolina, not California—this ‘conscious uncoupling’ bullshit doesn’t make sense for you!”

“Conscious uncoupling,” his mother mused. “I like that!”

“Me too,” his father said.

“Of course you both like it—you share the same brain! You’ve agreed on every single thing I’ve ever heard you discuss for my entire life! Why on earth would you walk away from that?”

“Why do we need it?” his father asked. “Are we so weak that we need an exact twin to echo our thoughts on every matter? We can’t handle a little dissent, a little disagreement? We can’t let ourselves be excited by new ideas and new experiences, with new people?”

“Yeah, but—” But what? Liam needed to get a grip on this conversation. “Couldn’t you just join a different golf club or something? Find a new group of ladies to have lunch with? Hell, you could make bigger changes than that—start volunteering somewhere, or maybe even start a little business or get a part-time job. There are lots of changes you can make and still stay together.”

“We want to date other people,” his mother said. “We want to have relationships—sexual relationships—with other people.”

Liam fought the urge to drop the phone. “Okay, I’m not really ready to discuss your sex lives with you—”

“And we’re not inviting you to.” His father’s voice was firm. “This isn’t actually something that requires your opinion or your input, and it certainly doesn’t need your approval. We’ve made our decision, and we’ll be letting people know about it starting tomorrow. We’re both planning to stay in South Carolina, at least for the immediate future, so if you come to visit, we’ll both be happy to see you. Your mother’s staying in the house for now, but we may end up selling it. I’ve got an apartment—I’ll email you the address and phone number.”

“Wait—you guys are okay for money, right?” They’d always been comfortable and had helped Liam quite a bit when he’d moved to New York. But maybe they’d overextended themselves, contributing to his flashy life? “You wouldn’t be selling the house because you need to?”

“We’re fine,” his mother said reassuringly. “But the house was too big for two of us, really, so I can’t imagine it won’t be too big for one.”

“Jesus,” Liam managed.

“Think of it like a retirement,” his father said. “It’s an ending, yes, but it’s also a new beginning. It’s a good time to look back and celebrate, as well, and we’re planning on doing that. We’ll be sending you an invitation in a couple weeks—we’re hoping you’ll be able to come down for a party we’re planning.”

“You’re having a divorce party? Like, both of you, together?”

“It’s going to be lovely.” His mother sounded just as enthusiastic about this as about any of her other events. “We’ll have the catering set up by the house, but a fire down on the beach, and I found some absolutely darling candle holders with little tinted glass globes to go over the flame and keep the wind off, so we can light the path through the dunes with those instead of the floodlights. The floods really aren’t very festive, are they? And not flattering either. I think the candles will be romantic.”

“And we’re thinking of having our favorite foods from all the places we’ve lived together. Or at least something inspired by those foods—like on one of the cooking contests on television.”

“We met when we were going to school in Vermont, so we’ll have something with maple syrup. Maybe some variation on kielbasa for our time in North Falls. You know how much we loved Dan Stuart’s kielbasa.”

But Liam really wasn’t ready to help his parents plan the menu for their Happy Divorce party. “This is—” He stopped himself. These were his parents, and they’d made their decision. Decisions, plural, he supposed, and that was going to take some getting used to. But they both seemed fine with the situation. Pretty damn chipper, really. “Okay. I mean—okay. You’re right. This is your decision. I—okay.” Was there anything more to say? “Let me know if you need anything, I guess?”

“Just your handsome, smiling face at the party!”

“And maybe some kielbasa,” his father said. “It’d be nicely authentic if we imported the food from the actual places we lived. We can check on the internet first—if Dan Stuart isn’t in business anymore there’s no point, or maybe he has some way to ship food from his shop. But if that didn’t work out, maybe we’d be able to persuade you to take a trip up to North Falls at some point?”

“Maybe,” Liam agreed faintly.

They finished the call with a few of the inane niceties Liam had been expecting in the first place—good to know that the impending dissolution of his forty-year marriage hadn’t affected his father’s golf game at all—and then Liam stood in his apartment, staring at the wall.

His parents weren’t upset. He knew them well enough to know that neither one was much for putting a false face on; if they felt something, they showed it, and in this case they just weren’t feeling all that much. They were fine.

He certainly had no right to be upset on their behalf, and he didn’t think he was upset, not really. But he was… unsettled, maybe?

Something that he’d thought was permanent had turned out to be just as temporary as everything else in the damn world.

He left the apartment without a real plan for where he was going, but maybe it was time he stopped fooling himself about that. If he was just going for a wander, he’d walk. When he left home and climbed into his car with no real destination in mind? Well, he had a damn destination in mind.

He rolled into North Falls a few hours later, windshield wipers sluicing a gentle rhythm as he drove. He’d blown right past the Welcome To sign without even thinking about turning around. That was either progress or deterioration, he supposed.

And he didn’t mess around with his tour-around-the-town nonsense this time either. He drove straight to Ben’s house, then parked on the street in front of it. He climbed out of the car, made it halfway up the walk, and at that point his nerve deserted him.

He stood there in the rain, wondering what the hell he was doing. He wanted to see Ben, yeah. He wanted—he wasn’t even sure he had words for all the things he wanted from Ben. But that was his problem, not Ben’s, and showing up at—he looked down at his watch—a little past midnight on a day when Ben needed to wake up the next morning for work? When Ben had made it crystal damn clear that he wanted nothing to do with Liam?

There wasn’t a light on in the house and Liam was going to go knock on the door. That was a dick move. He and Ben had made some sort of peace and that needed to be the end of it.

Still—he couldn’t quite make himself turn around and leave.

So he stood there in the rain, staring at the house.

And that was when a voice, unexpected but oh so familiar, reached him from the dark corner of the porch. “You going to stay out there?” Ben asked. “Or do you want to come inside and get warm?”