The Perfect Match (Blue Heron #2)(56)

Another time, she said, “Charlie, honey, let’s go out for ice cream, just you and me.” She cut Tom a glance. “Just family.” But that night, when they got back, and Charlie was sticky with marshmallow, she’d given Tom a kiss and handed him a half-melted hot-fudge sundae, the ice cream oozing down the sides of the Styrofoam container.

And that was the problem. If she’d been beastly all the time, he would’ve left...probably. But those moments, he wanted very much to believe, showed the true Melissa, the one who didn’t complain, trash-talk her coworkers and parents, didn’t flare up in temper for no apparent reason. She’d been a single mother since twenty, lived at home with her parents until just two years ago...she was still adjusting, maybe. She was smart. Sharply funny. When she was nice, she was utterly fantastic.

When she wasn’t, she went for days without speaking to him, bending over backward to be supersweet to Charlie, almost as if proving who the real parent was.

So, being a man, and therefore idiotic about matters of the heart, Tom figured he should propose.

Right.

That went right up there in the Great Decisions of Tom’s Life along with the time he’d tried to skateboard down a metal railing, ending up with a bruised scrotum that hurt for three weeks.

But propose he did. He bought a ring, got a dozen red roses, dressed in his one and only suit and went to her workplace, figuring she’d like a big fuss. Got down on one knee and asked the big question, and when she said, “Holy shit, Tom,” he took that as a yes. So did everyone else, because they laughed and cheered and congratulated her, and she did seem happy, blushing and looking at the ring.

And that worked, for a while. She liked going dress shopping and tasting cakes and crossing people off the guest list when they irritated her, then putting them back on later (or not).

But, Tom noticed, she was also growing more distant. They had sex less often. She went out more with the girls, and stayed out later. And then came the phone calls, when she’d leap to answer and then say, “Hold on a minute,” before dashing to the loo to talk, always locking the door behind her.

By the time April rolled around, Tom was fairly positive she was having an affair. “Melissa, are you sure you want to marry me?” he said one night as they lay in the dark, not touching.

“Oh, great.” She sighed. “Yes, Tom, I want to marry you. I said I did, didn’t I? Can you not be an old woman about this?”

He almost broke up with her a dozen times. But who was he fooling? If he ended things, he’d lose Charlie, and that was an intolerable thought. Maybe it was why she stayed with him as well—she might make snide references to the boys’ club, but her son adored Tom, and for the first time, Charlie had a steady male influence in his life, and Melissa, in one of her nicer moments, acknowledged that Tom was good for her boy.

But those moments were becoming more and more rare.

Then came the Friday that Tom came home to find her throwing some clothes into an overnight bag. “I’m going away for the weekend with a friend,” she said with a quick glance. “You’ll be around, right? Charlie hates staying with my parents.”

“Where are you going?” he asked. “Which friend?”

“Can you not interrogate me, please?” she snapped.

“Melissa,” he began, “I think I have a right to know where you’re going.”

She sighed. Stopped folding her clothes. He couldn’t help notice that her trashiest underwear was in the suitcase. “Look, Tom,” she said slowly. “I need a little thinking time. Okay? So don’t ask too many questions, because I just need some space, and I’ll see you Sunday.”

“Can I come, Mom?” asked Charlie from the doorway.

“Not this time, baby,” she said, hefting her bag off the bed. “I’ll bring you a present, though, okay? Now smooch me.” Charlie obliged, and the two of them went out on the porch to watch her leave.

“Go back inside,” she ordered. “It’s chilly out here. Bye! See you Sunday.”

They obeyed. “What should we do tonight?” Charlie asked. “Can we go to the movies?”

“Yeah, sure, mate,” Tom said. “Let me, uh, let me just get the paper to check the times, all right?”

He went outside, into the little yard, scrubbing his hand across the back of his neck.

There she was, four houses down, pulling her suitcase behind her. At the intersection sat a blue muscle car, one of those growling Detroit monsters. A man got out, opened the door for her, tossed her bag in the back, then got in the driver’s seat, and they were gone.

Tom closed his mouth, tasting bile.

So she was having an affair. He’d known it in his heart, but seeing it was the equivalent to a left hook to the kidneys.

“He didn’t even come in,” came Charlie’s voice. Tom turned. The boy’s face was pale, his funny little eyebrows knit together.

“Who, mate?” he asked, his voice hollow.

“My dad.”

* * *

MELISSA DIDN’T ANSWER her phone, though Tom left eleven messages, telling her Charlie had seen them and wanted to know very badly why his parents hadn’t taken him along. The bitterness in Tom’s own voice was shocking. One thing to be a bit of a whore, right? Another to be whoring around with your son’s father and not even bother having the man come in and say hello to the lad. Oh, and let’s not forget, asking your fiancé to babysit your kid while you were busy shagging someone else.