A Family Affair(34)

“But, Anna, he loved you. He admired you. More than once he admitted he didn’t deserve you.”

“He married me because he thought I was strong enough to hold him up. You know the story of how we met. He fell off the pier and thought he was drowning and I was the closest one. So I pulled him out.”

“The most attractive love story I’ve ever heard,” Joe said, laughing in spite of himself.

“It’s quaint, I’ll give you that. But from that moment on he expected me to fix everything. And I did. Eventually I got used to it. I could almost anticipate his mood swings.”

“But you loved him.”

“I did,” she said. “When it was good, it was very good. Just like Chad.”

“And when it was bad?” he asked.

“When it was bad, I became an overachiever. The first time I thought my marriage was over, I went to law school. I felt I was doing that out of self-preservation, but the truth is, I owe it to Chad. If I had been more comfortable in my role, in my life, I wouldn’t have taken on so much.”

“Then there’s the bench,” he said.

“And not surprisingly, that was about all Chad could take. It wasn’t long after I accepted my appointment that Chad, once again, became unhappy. But this time he said he thought we had less in common than ever. That’s when he began to move away. We only went to counseling because I insisted.”

“You outflanked him,” Joe said. “But he was very proud of you.”

“He resented me,” she said. “He once looked me in the eye and said, ‘You think you’re so smart.’ Now what was I supposed to say to that?”

“What did you say?” Joe asked.

“I said I knew I was smart!”

Joe let out a big gust of laughter and Anna quickly joined him. They carried on like that until tears were running down their cheeks, slowly getting back to control.

“You know what I’m really glad about?” she asked. “I’m glad I’m not dead and you and Chad aren’t sitting here talking about what a pain in the ass I was.”

“I always thought you were smart,” he said.

“Chad apologized for saying that but he couldn’t erase the fact that that’s how he really felt. As if I was showing off. He was threatened by me. By my position.”

“And yet you loved him.”

When she nodded, she pursed her lips. “Whatever it was, we didn’t get a chance to fix it or make it better. And now we never will.”

“You’ll have to fix whatever is going on without him. You’re a strong woman and amazing mother. It’s perfectly all right for you to think about yourself for a while. Guilt free.”

“I have to completely reinvent myself and I have an entirely new past to try to build it on. A new set of facts!”

“You had such a crazy day,” Joe said. “What was the worst thing?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Possibly my mother checking out like she did. And dropping the idea of an older brother existing out there somewhere.”

“Then what was the best?”

Her facial features froze for a moment. “Let me think.” She drummed her fingers on the counter. Then she smiled sweetly. “I held the baby. Chad’s granddaughter. He had never even seen her. She has no real connection to me but I feel like she does. It was also nice that Amy told me, to the best of her knowledge, Chad didn’t have an ongoing relationship with her mother. But he was a cad. He should have told me about Amy and made arrangements to help support her. He helped, Amy said, but it sounds like he really didn’t do his share.”

“I’m pretty sure he was afraid of losing you.”

She laughed. “He could have gotten a lot of mileage out of telling me that!”

“I know,” Joe said. “Are you planning to tell the kids pretty soon?”

“Yes, of course. Not only do they deserve to know they have a sibling but, selfishly, when I die I’m not going to leave behind a lot of mysteries and questions. I’ve always tried to impress on them that the truth is easier and safer. Bess simply can’t lie, Mike hates lies but he has figured out how to say very little and Jessie can be brutally honest but with a strong deference to her own feelings and needs. I never told my children about Chad’s affair. I didn’t think it was pertinent. I thought it was selfish of me to be tempted to tarnish his reputation. But then, I didn’t know about Amy.”

“Now you know.”

“I have one more piece of information to get from her. We didn’t talk about Chad’s will. Surely she’s the ten percent.”

“Hopefully he doesn’t have more families scattered around,” Joe said.

“God help us.”

Joe stood and walked around the breakfast bar. He slowly and casually put his hands on her waist and pulled her a bit closer. “I’m going to leave now,” he said, and his voice had become a bit gravelly. He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her, short and sweet. He noticed she let her eyes gently close, breathing in, breathing out. He pulled her closer and went in for the kill, covering her mouth in a searing kiss, and her lips opened under his. Joe groaned a little bit against her mouth. Their tongues played; their arms tightened and he was feeling aroused.