Never Too Late

“Oh, God,” she said, closing her eyes. “The baby?”

“They’re both okay—baby’s fine, Mama had a few bruises. She had the SUV. Your Toyota is toast. They had to use the Jaws of Life to get you out. You don’t remember anything?” Clare shook her head. “Well, your head is all right, so I guess it’s just a stroke of luck that you can’t remember.”

Clare nodded off again and when she woke Maggie was still there, holding her hand. She stood from the chair she’d been using and leaned over the bed. Seeing her there made Clare feel so cherished. Maggie, a lawyer, wife and mother kept a killer schedule. She couldn’t imagine that she’d just drop everything. “Have you been here long?”

“Just a few hours. Today.”

“You don’t have to stay,” Clare whispered.

“I’m going to leave soon,” Maggie said. “I just wanted to be sure you’re back.”

“Did I almost die?” she asked.

“I don’t know about that, but your injuries were definitely life threatening. Is the pain terrible?”

It was, but she shook her head. “Roger?” she asked.

Maggie got a look on her face as if she wanted to spit something out. “He’s been here. Do you want me to leave word that you want to see him?”

She shook her head. “I want him to stay away.”

Maggie obviously couldn’t resist a satisfied smile, but all she said was, “Sure.”

As time passed, so slowly, Clare saw the faces of all her loved ones leaning over the bed at one time or another, but they were careful not to tire her. Jason was very emotional. He cried and laid his head on her hand and said, “God, Ma, I was so scared. If you died, what would I do?”

She said, “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going anywhere.” And she had it on firm authority from the other side. She had things to do. Things to do?

Her younger sister, Sarah, was holding up, but she looked a little wild-eyed behind those thick glasses, as though this close call had terrified her. She had been twenty-one when their mother died and definitely took it the hardest. Clare touched her hand and said, “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s going to be okay.”

Sarah gave a wan smile. “That’s so you,” she said. “You’re in the hospital, but you’re comforting me.”

Looking at Sarah now, dishwater blond hair pulled severely back, black-rimmed, old-fashioned glasses, no makeup—it was hard to imagine the younger wild child. Maggie and Clare used to call her slut-in-training. Their mother’s death had changed all that; had changed Sarah completely.

But another trauma had changed Clare. It was no coincidence that she’d be thinking about that quite a lot while in the hospital. After all—she’d just seen Mike in that ghostlike, after-life appearance he’d made. It caused her life to literally flash before her eyes, sending her back in time over and over.

Right until she was twenty-one Clare had lived a charmed life. She’d been a happy kid from a happy marriage, even as the middle child. Maggie was bossy and Sarah had that sense of entitlement that comes from being youngest, but Clare had good looks, humor, intelligence and luck. She’d done well in school, been popular and was never afraid. She’d hung out with a great group of friends who had all grown up together and at the age of fifteen she fell in love with the star quarterback and homecoming king, Mike Rayburn. He was two years older than she and went to college in Reno, just a short drive from their hometown of Breckenridge, Nevada, a beautiful little town nestled at the base of the majestic Sierras below Lake Tahoe. With the green, plentiful valley filled with crops and grazing animals under snowy peaks, it could pass for Switzerland. It was a sweet life in a magical place where they had played at the lake all summer, skied the mountains all winter.

There was no question but that Clare would go to school in Reno, too, and their romance was hot and steady right through college. After Mike graduated he went into the Air Force, separating them for Clare’s last two years, but he gave her a shiny big diamond and told her to spend her last year of college planning their wedding.

Then there had been a hiccup. Er, earthquake.

Mike’s younger brother, Pete, who was Clare’s age, had been one of her best pals and buddies all through high school. They had graduated together. Pete had never been much on school while Mike had been an honor student. Pete concentrated on having fun. He and Clare would get laughing so hard and so long that Mike, annoyed, would threaten to pound them both. And like big brother, he was a gifted athlete. But because he was more of a fixture in detention than the honor roll, after graduation he had taken a full-time job and some classes at a community college in Breckenridge. Then at the age of twenty-one, ready to finish a degree, he was university shopping. He went to Clare’s campus and she was more than thrilled to be his hostess while he looked around.

In the way young men are a bit slower to mature than young ladies, she always thought of him as a kid—skinny, lanky, goofy. She’d been busy doing other things while Pete was maturing and she was a bit shaken to find this kid came to her a grown man, just as handsome and sexy as his older brother. Maybe, just maybe a little more so.

Pete stayed with her and her two roommates while he toured the school, met some of the teachers and coaches, talked to counselors and in general had a look-see. She introduced him to her friends and took him out to the local pub when it was crowded with people and he had a wonderful time…and all her girlfriends went gaga. Then her roommates left for the weekend. Clare fixed Pete a nice big spaghetti dinner and he bought a jug of Chianti as big as a horse’s leg. They ate, drank, laughed and told stories late into the night.

Then something happened. She began remembering how much she liked him; realizing how much she’d missed him. They were a little bit drunk when she felt the vibrating tension of his muscular thigh against hers. He touched her hand, he looked into her eyes, he kissed her. He kissed her again. To this day she wasn’t sure what happened. It wasn’t exactly the first time she’d had a little too much wine, nor the first time a guy had come on to her. She had never cheated on Mike, had never even been tempted. But she was suddenly swept up in some kind of crazy passion right there on the couch with Pete, who was no longer a little brother but a very strong, able and experienced man. Every kiss sent her soaring; his touch thrilled her and she responded with need of her own. Her brain and her judgment took a hike.

Before she knew it she was beneath him, opening herself to him, begging him to come inside, to finish, to give her everything he had. He told her he wanted her, that he couldn’t stop, and the fact that he seemed slightly out of control only made her want him more. He thrust and she answered each one with wild craving. He nibbled, caressed, teased and brought her to a shattering climax right in time with his own.

They came slowly to earth and suddenly she was stunned. Mortified. She gasped in horror and said, “Oh my God!”

“Clare, I—”

But she couldn’t listen. What had she done? To Mike? To Pete? To herself? She fled from that apartment couch into her bedroom, slammed the door and was racked with sobs of remorse through the night. All the while she was thinking that if she felt that terrible, he must hate her for what she’d encouraged him to do to his brother. After all, she had begged him! In the morning when she got up she found a note under the aspirin bottle. “Let’s never talk about it. It didn’t happen. Pete.”

She didn’t talk about it, that was for sure, because she was thoroughly ashamed. Clare froze up inside. She had trouble putting together the wedding guest list, couldn’t stand to talk about the reception, didn’t register her gifts and when she went for a bridal gown fitting, she burst into tears. She was completely miserable and a long way from getting over it. Of course she didn’t hear a word from Pete—and she didn’t know if that made things better or worse. And if he didn’t hate her, at the very least, he would have lost all respect for her.

Mike seemed not to pick up on the trouble during their phone conversations, either because he had so much going on at flight school that he was preoccupied or maybe she was becoming the master of deception. Either way it hardly mattered because just a couple of months later his F-16 went down and he went with it.

Clare was plummeted from despair into a deep well of grief and regret. It was the blackest time of her life. She wondered if she would die of it. She never once met Pete’s eyes during the memorial services, not even when she embraced him and they sobbed on each other’s shoulders. It was a long, long while before she stopped feeling she had killed Mike with what she had done.

It was two years before she could even manage a girls’ night out with her friends, and she adamantly refused any fixing up. There was such an ache in her heart. She wouldn’t consider letting herself be that vulnerable again. When she ran into Pete, she could barely talk to him, and he ducked his head away from her eyes. It was obvious to her that his pain was equal to her own.

And then she met Roger; smooth, good-looking Roger. She was lifted up out of the darkness, laughed, looked forward to events and dates. He was such a clever flirt; he could charm the paint off an old Buick. He pursued her with such gusto. She didn’t even know she had it in her to be seduced and she felt alive for the first time since Mike’s death. When she realized that days passed without her thoughts turning to Mike or her sin against him, she saw in Roger a chance to start her life over. More than that, she fell for him, hard and fast. That was the Roger she had always had trouble leaving—the sweet, sensitive, fun-loving man who pulled her up out of the darkness and into the light. Clare would be forever grateful to him for that. Her friends and family were so relieved to see her smile again, they wholeheartedly encouraged them. They loved Roger, and so did she. She accepted his proposal, which came a little too soon into their relationship, but he had always moved fast. Jason arrived immediately.

Then came the late-night meetings, the trips out of town, being unable to reach him during the day because he was tied up with a client. Once he was home, he could smooth things over with ease—he had this way about him. Irresistible and always so desirable, he banished her edginess in no time.

But it was not how she thought it would be, not how it had been with Mike who was far less charming and fun loving but more reliable. There were lonely times in the dark of night when she rocked her baby—often waiting for Roger to come home hours later than she expected him—that she would fantasize she was waiting for Mike and that she rocked their child. Because of that dirty little secret, because of what she had done before, she worked as hard as humanly possible at being a good wife.

Clare felt guilty about fantasizing Jason was Mike’s, until years later when she learned that Roger had first been unfaithful while she was in her pregnancy. There had been a reason why he was always unavailable and late, and her name was Jill. As far as Clare knew, Jill was the first one.

Instead of being her knight in shining armor, Roger became her cross to bear. Her penance.

Much of her adult life had been manipulated around the mere fact that she had made love to her fiancé’s brother. Every time she ran into Pete she remained aloof and cool and he looked at her with the saddest eyes—it appeared neither of them would ever recover from what they’d done. She even tried counseling and was honest as a heart attack during her sessions, but still she floundered on in a marriage that wasn’t true.

That was another reason she kept taking Roger back—because if she couldn’t be forgiving, she couldn’t be forgiven. That, and she wanted her life to be worth something. She wanted the family she’d made to survive. And of course there was the fact of Roger, a seductive and charming flirt to the end—and it had worked on her for years.

But then she woke up in a hospital in Reno with every inch of her body throbbing in pain and for the first time in almost twenty years, she realized her marriage had gone on long enough.

It was time to move on.

Two

If there was anything on par with being dragged half-dead out of mangled car, it was physical therapy. Every step shot through Clare like dynamite, every stretch came with the agony of the rack. The first thought she had upon waking in the morning was that she was going to suffer the torture of the truly damned. All this was administered by a devilish little creature no bigger than a wood sprite. Her name was Gilda and one should not be fooled by the fact that she was a mere slip of a thing. She had a black heart and the strength of a herd of dragons.

“One more step, come on, one more. Good! Good! Okay, one more…”

“I…hate…you…so…much….”

“Ah, yes—sweet talk. You’ll thank me when you’re up dancing the rumba again.”

“I’m…taking…out…a…contract…on…you….”

“One more, no whining. Good! Good! Okay, how about just one more.”

“You’re going to suffer. I swear to God!”

Gilda kissed her cheek. “You’re tough stuff, Clare. Good thing you were in such great shape when you got hit—it’s paying off.”

“You are a mean-spirited witch.”

“Yes, so they tell me.”

The payoff was that after being abused by Gilda she could have a pain shot, a sponge bath and a nap. Then the company would start to arrive. And with them always the same dilemma—she was bored and lonely in addition to wretchedly uncomfortable, and she was too tired to endure too much visiting. Still, she wanted them to come.

Her younger sister, Sarah, dropped by daily and Maggie came for a little while most afternoons, often bringing Jason with her. Her brother-in-law, Bob, usually made a quick swing by in the evenings—he spent a lot of his workday in Carson City, the capitol of Nevada. And her dad, George, still went to his neighborhood hardware store every day, retirement not even a part of his agenda despite the fact that he was in his sixties. One thing had changed in his schedule—he was now taking a lunch hour, which he spent at the hospital. And he would sometimes stop by later in the evening on his way home from work. And George’s cleaning lady, Dotty, made it a point to come to the hospital most days with some kind of sweet treat meant mainly for the hospital staff. “Soften them up,” Dotty said. “They’ll go easier on you if you feed them.”

Clare’s mom, Fran, fell ill with cancer when Jason was only three. It took her quickly. Sarah was devastated by the loss and at twenty-one, moved back into her dad’s house, but she proved to be no help at all. Both of them grew thin and messy, so Maggie and Clare pooled their resources and hired Dotty to clean twice a week and stock the refrigerator with nutritious meals. George protested, but soon he gained some weight and his stained clothes were clean and pressed. Sarah, so lost there for a while, had a maternal figure to watch over her.

Dotty was a widow just a couple of years older than George. When they first found her, she had a total of four families she worked for, but now she was down to George, who she said would have to bury her to get rid of her. “I don’t like him that much,” she said, lying through her false teeth, “but it’s obvious he is useless on his own. And if I can do one kind thing for his departed wife, it will be to make sure he doesn’t join her too soon.”

The one person in Clare’s life who hadn’t put in an appearance was Roger. But in the way things that seem too good to be true aren’t, he showed up. He got past the sentries at the door. He waited until evening, just before visiting hours were over, and brought with him that pathetic face that said, Oh I’m such a bad boy, you must take pity on me for I suffer so. What poor Roger didn’t know was that the second she saw him that vision came into her mind—of a slim blonde on top of him. And it infuriated her anew.

“Clare,” he said. “I’ve been trying to see you, but your sisters said you didn’t want to see me.”

She put on her call light. “That’s right, Roger. Go away. I’m an injured woman and you’re making the pain worse.”

“I want to talk to you about Jason,” he said.

She turned off the call light.

“I think he should be staying with me,” Roger said.

“What on earth for?” she asked, genuinely perplexed. “You’re busy all day and most evenings. What’s he supposed to do?”

“We’ll get in the car pool for school. I’ll lighten my schedule. He can have his old room.”

She thought about this for less than ten seconds. “No,” she said. “He’s fine at Maggie’s and, in case you haven’t noticed, he’s still very angry. You’re going to have to give him more time and make up with him before you coax him home.”

“How can I make up with him when he doesn’t want to see me?”

“I’m sorry, Roger, I know it makes you feel bad, but he’s adamant, he doesn’t want to spend time with you.”

“You can talk to him about that.”

A few days ago, pre-cracked pelvis and major surgery, she probably would have. But the cause of this current separation had created such terrible anger in Jason. This had been a long time coming; she had always dreaded the day her son would find out that his dad, the object of such admiration, was screwing around on his mother. Jason felt completely abandoned by his father, though Roger kept trying to reconcile with him.

The night it happened was awful beyond belief. Clare had chosen the time specifically because Jason wasn’t going to be home. He was spending the night at a friend’s house. Clare confronted Roger about his latest affair, which she had researched thoroughly. He denied it and she laid out her proof—copies of bills, cell phone calls, et cetera. She knew exactly who the woman was—one of his many clients to whom he sold insurance. A lot of regrettable things were said, but the worst were:

“Okay, maybe I did have a stupid, meaningless little fling—a guy can make a mistake!”

“A meaningless little fling? There have been over a dozen. Maybe many dozens!”

“Well, you’re not exactly welcoming in the sack, you know, Miss Ice Queen.”

“What do you expect? I’ve had to worry about disease!”

“When have I ever given you—”

Roger’s eyes had grown large as he looked past Clare and his expression became stricken. She whirled to find Jason standing there, the in-line skates he’d come home to fetch dangling from his hand.

“My God, Jason,” she had said, chasing him as he fled from the house.

Roger rattled the bed rail to regain her attention. “Clare? You’ll talk to him about that? Tell him, regardless of our family problems, his place is with his father.”

In her mind she saw that blonde again; she remembered the night Jason overheard their fight.

“No,” she said. “No, Roger. We don’t have ‘family problems.’ You have a problem. I’m not sure what it is—sex addiction? Being a pathological liar? Doesn’t matter. The fact is, I don’t have a problem and Jason seems to be doing fine. He’s had a big scare with my accident and I’m not going to make it even worse by forcing him to go to your house. We’ll deal with your relationship later.”

“My house? It’s still our house, Clare. And there are legal—”

Her hand came crashing down on his and he yanked it off the bed rail with a yelp. “What the…?”

“Listen to me, Roger. Don’t you dare fuck with me now. You leave Jason alone or, so help me God, I will make you pay! Now go home and leave me alone. No one will bother you—you can screw your brains out with any hoyden you can find!”

He looked at her as though cut to the quick. “That’s nice, Clare. Very nice. As though your accident hasn’t been a big shock to me, too?”

“Oh bite me, Roger.”

He shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what’s happened to you.”

“It’s very simple—I got smacked up the side of the head and all your bullshit fell out and some sense seeped in. Now go!” She flipped on the nurse’s call light for emphasis.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine.” He turned and left.

It was amazing how good that felt. She didn’t seem to even want a pain shot. It was as if drawing that line in the sand with him, firmly for once, was all the narcotic she needed.

She saw someone peeking in the door. George had a real evil grin on his leathery face. “Oh, Clare,” he said. “That’s the best entertainment your old dad has had in ages.”

So how did they get past that trauma of Jason overhearing? He skipped the night at his friend’s house and Clare took him with her to the Hilton in Lake Tahoe where they got a plush two-bedroom suite. She bought them bathing suits in one of the shops there, and ordered room service and a movie. They went swimming at midnight. She told him as much of the truth as she thought he could bear—but she could see it really didn’t get through his anger.

The real credit went to George, both for being there for Jason and somehow managing not to kill Roger. George explained to Jason that Roger was a screw-up when it came to flirting with women and had really disappointed and let down Clare. It was probably a good idea for them to separate, but what George wanted Jason to understand was that while Roger seemed to have this weakness, he had many strengths—he’d been a pretty good father and was proud of Jason. He cared about him and was suffering, terribly, because he’d disappointed his son. “So what? He should have thought of that before,” Jason had said.

“You’re right, he should have. But none of us is perfect, so let’s not throw stones. I know you’re all bent out of shape, and maybe I don’t blame you, but don’t nurse this too long, Jason. Your dad loves you, and you’re only as mad as you are because you love him.”

“You’re saying I should forgive him?”

“I’m saying I hope we get to that pretty soon, yes. Because whether you believe me or not, the two of you need each other.”

Clare topped that off by getting Jason in a counselor’s office, too. She intended to do all she could for him, feeling so damn awful about not bolting the door that traumatic night against his possible surprise return. What they finally came to learn was that once Jason knew his father had been unfaithful, he immediately felt that Roger had cheated on Jason, too. No wonder he was pissed.

Lying around in a hospital bed, Clare had plenty of time to think about her family, especially her sisters, her two best friends. Maybe they hadn’t been best friends growing up, but they were in adulthood. As Clare spent so many long hours of the day in pain, her sisters putting their own lives on hold to sit at her bedside, she was reminded constantly of how lucky she was to have them. She couldn’t get through this without them.

George and Fran McCarthy had three pretty green-eyed daughters. Maggie came first, Clare three years later, and then Sarah, the caboose, who was born six years after Clare. They couldn’t be more different if they had been born on different planets.

Maggie was a typical firstborn overachiever, who had excelled in high school and college and attended law school, graduating with honors. She married a lawyer and had two daughters who were now thirteen and fifteen; they were sometimes Jason’s closest friends, sometimes his bane. Hillary and Lindsey.

Maggie, age forty-two, lived in a perfect world and though she worked hard and put in long hours, her clothing was always chic, her shorter-than-short light brown hair impeccably cropped, her nails immaculate and there were never circles under her eyes. She had the wonderful high cheekbones that can carry off that coiffure and looked sexy as hell, except that she downplayed the sex appeal with conservative suits, tools of her trade in court. She had household help, of course, in that not-so-modest Breckenridge manse of hers, but even on Ramona’s days off, there was never a speck of dust or so much as a throw pillow out of place. Maggie was all about perfection and control. Yet she was loving—but in a very crisp and unflappable way. Nonsentimental. Maggie was the one to call if you needed something taken care of; if there was a problem to solve. If you were wallowing in self-pity or feeling fat or in love, forget Maggie. She had no time for petty self-indulgences.