The Challenge(58)

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Justin got drunk again that weekend, although Marlene didn’t find the bottle in his room. He got dropped off at home by a friend Marlene had never seen before. When he got home, he went up to Noel’s room and told him what he’d witnessed in the kitchen: their mother having sex with Juliet’s father. Noel cried when Justin told him, and he asked his mother if it was true. She said it was. She said that Tom was a good person, and they loved each other. Noel asked her if she had loved his dad and, sobbing, she said she had loved him very much. She tucked him into bed that night while he cried, and for the first time in her life she hated one of her children. She hated Justin for the pain he was causing all of them, even his little brother.

She called Tom and told him what had happened. He realized how badly she needed someone to help her deal with this. Justin was out of control, and Noel couldn’t cope with his brother’s manipulations and shouldn’t have to. Justin was playing his mother like a violin, and making her feel guilty because she had a man in her life who loved her. And she loved Tom. Justin couldn’t face losing his father, the pain and grief were destroying him.

Justin slept off his latest drunken episode, while Noel went to sleep crying. Marlene lay in bed crying off and on all night. At his house, Tom fumed at how helpless he was, while Marlene tied his hands. He wanted to give Justin a piece of his mind. He wanted to protect Marlene from her own child and didn’t know how. He fell asleep on his bed in his clothes at six in the morning, and an hour later, Marlene called him sobbing hysterically.

She had gone in to check on Noel in the morning, as she usually did, and found him unconscious. She didn’t know if it was intentional or accidental, but his pump was out. She had a strong suspicion Noel had done it on purpose, as a feeble attempt at suicide, which wasn’t so feeble. He knew what would happen if he didn’t have his pump to deliver insulin to his body. He was in a coma and he was being airlifted to Saint Vincent’s in a police helicopter. They were about to take off when she called Tom.

“Oh my God.” He leapt out of bed and put his shoes on. “I’ll be there as fast as I can get there.” He grabbed his parka and ran out the door. The helicopter was already in the air.

Noel was out of the coma by the time Tom got there. He went straight to Noel’s room and Marlene came out to talk to him in the hall. Noel had been given proper doses of insulin by then. He was in pediatric ICU, looking much better than he had when she found him. What she didn’t know was whether the whole episode had been accidental or if Noel had wanted to kill himself because of what his brother told him. He said it was an accident, but she didn’t believe him. Justin had turned into an alcoholic and was poisoning his brother’s mind against Tom. It was all more complicated than she could deal with. They went to the cafeteria for coffee while Noel slept. Marlene was beside herself over what had happened and consumed with guilt.

A psychiatrist spoke to Noel that afternoon, and he confirmed that Noel said it had happened by accident. Marlene wanted to believe him, but she didn’t. It was all her fault that her family was falling apart because she had fallen in love with Tom and her sons weren’t willing to accept the idea that she had a right to have a man in her life after their father. It had happened quickly, but he was a good man and she loved him. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot and moved too fast for the boys, and the way Justin had discovered it was unfortunate.



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Tom stayed with her all day, and they released Noel that evening when his blood sugar levels were stabilized. Tom drove them home, and he and Marlene felt like they’d been hit by a train. Their whole world had fallen apart ever since Justin had walked in on them making love in the kitchen. The fact that he was drunk seemed irrelevant to her. The real issue for her was that her sons didn’t want her to have the relationship with Tom that had become so dear to her.

They rode quietly back to Fishtail as Noel dozed.

She put Noel to bed when they got home. Justin was out and hadn’t left a note. She kissed Noel before he went to sleep, and he apologized for all the trouble he’d caused and promised to be more careful with his pump. He always had been before, which was why Marlene was suspicious about what had happened.

By the time she got back downstairs to Tom waiting for her in the living room, she felt like roadkill. She was crying again, but she knew what she had to do.

She spoke in a low voice so no one could hear her, but there was only Noel upstairs, drifting off to sleep quietly.

“I don’t think I can see you anymore, Tom,” she said sadly. “I love you very much and I want a life with you, if you want me, but we have to stop for a while, until my kids adjust to having lost their father.” They’d had denial while he was dying for over a year, and it had only been three months since his death. They needed more time to adjust. They weren’t being reasonable. They were acting as though his death had come as a total surprise. They wanted their mother burned on their father’s funeral pyre, in some ancient barbaric rite. They seemed to think she didn’t have a right to a life, or a man, in the future. She and Tom had been ready, but the boys weren’t.

“Could I talk to them?” Tom asked her, and she just cried harder.

“It’ll just make things worse. I need to be alone with them for a while, until they get used to their father being gone. And then we can start over, if you still want to. But for now, we can’t see each other. Look what happened when Justin walked in on us. All hell broke loose. I’ve got one kid who’s practically an alcoholic, and nearly killed himself driving drunk a few days ago, and a diabetic child who may have tried to commit suicide last night, all because of us. How can we go on seeing each other?”