From Friends to Forever Read online

  “I would think so—”

  “Or maybe it was this house,” he said, frowning up at the sagging porch ceiling, over at the fence in dire need of repair. “My mother left us the place when she died, all we had to pay for was the utilities and taxes. And at first Rissa said it would be fun, fixing it up. Making it ours.”

  He looked back at Lili. “But renovating a house like this takes big bucks, it’s not like we could march into Home Depot and say, ‘Make it happen.’ More than once she hinted at wanting to move closer to her folks, who left Springfield about ten years ago. Closer to Bahston—” he deliberately exaggerated the flat accent “—to a better neighborhood.”

  Lili’s forehead creased. “What’s wrong with this neighborhood?”

  “Nothing, really. But the city’s been through some rough patches. Like a lot of the kids who live here…” His brow knotted as his brain switched tracks yet again. “And that was another sticking point. Me not wanting to leave my kids. A lot of ’em, their family life sucks, maybe school’s not exactly their favorite place to be. But…”

  Tony gave his head a sharp shake, feeling like a thunderstorm was brewing inside him. “But they need somebody to see past the ’tude and the bluster to the real person in there. To tell ’em, hell, yeah, they’ve got potential—”

  “Like Hollis?”

  “Yeah. Like Hollis. Like a hundred others like him, kids who know I don’t take any crap off them but I respect ’em, too. Sure, there’s plenty of days when my head feels like it’s gonna split wide open from banging into that brick wall, when I get a kid in class I can’t reach, or run into a dead-end because of some bureaucratic crap or other. It’s not fun. But it’s a helluva lot more than blowin’ whistles and keepin’ track of the basketballs. I mean, when they get out on that basketball court or football field—” his hands came up, fingers taut around an imaginary football “—and I see the light in their eyes, that this…this is someplace where they can forget about everything but the game, that moment, where they can just be themselves, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, whatever…and damn, that feels good.”

  Scratching the dog’s ears, Lili smiled slightly. “I imagine so. But Marissa never understood that?”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Tony said, dropping his hands. “I thought she did. At first, anyway. Used to be, she’d come to the kids’ games, ask me how they were doing, how my day went. But I don’t think she ever really got it, that what I do? It’s not just a job.” He dropped onto the end of an old chaise, looking out over the tangled mess of the garden. “Then she got pregnant with Josie.” He blew out a humorless laugh. “That’s when the bottom really fell out.”

  “Now you know why.”

  “Yeah, guess so.” Leaning forward, he clasped his hands between his knees. “Although at first I just chalked it up to the pregnancy itself—after Daph, she’d made it more than clear she didn’t want another kid. And I thought we’d been careful, but…” He shook his head. “Not that she wasn’t okay with the girls—I mean, sure, she’d yell at ’em sometimes, name me a mom who doesn’t—but me? Unless it was to talk about the house or the kids, I might as well not have existed.” He scraped a hand across his jaw. “Crappiest nine months of my life.”

  “And let me guess. Nobody knew.”

  “Are you kiddin’? After everything we went through to convince our parents we weren’t making a mistake getting married so young? No damn way. Even so, I said I’d go to counseling, whatever she wanted. No dice. Frankly, I was worried maybe she even wouldn’t bond with the baby. But whaddya know—soon as Josie was born, it was like the old Marissa was back. Acted no different with Josie than she had with the first two. Cuddled with her just as much, always right there if she so much as made a peep…”

  He felt his eyes sting. “She was a great mom. Whatever problems the two of us might’ve had—no matter what I know now—nothing can change that. And anyway, after the baby came…she started acting like she wanted to make things up to me, even though of course I no idea that’s what she was doing. Then…”

  He ground one fist into his palm. “Then she got sick. Just when it looked like maybe we could get things back on track. Went through her like wildfire. Chemo, radiation—nothing even made a dent. Although…this is gonna sound crazy, but—”

  “What?” Lili said gently.

  “It was almost like she didn’t want to fight it. Like…like the guilt was literally eatin’ her up. The thing is, if I’d’ve known, if she’d’ve just come out and told me, maybe we couldn’ve worked through it somehow.”

  “Do you really think that would have made a difference?” Lili said, even more gently. “In the outcome?”

  “Judging from what she wrote me? I think she died in the kind of pain that has nothin’ to do with the body.”

  Lili frowned slightly, then got up and walked to the porch railing. “And now she’s passed that guilt on to you.”

  Tony’s head jerked up. “What? No—”

  “I know you’re not asking for advice,” she said, turning. “As if I’d have anything to offer on that score. But why are you taking so much of this on yourself? Yes, of course it takes two to make a relationship work, and it takes two to make it fall apart. But your wife’s having an affair…” Her eyes sparked. “That wasn’t your fault. And for God’s sake, neither was her death.”

  His mouth twisted. “You think I sound off my nut?”

  “No. You sound like someone trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense whatsoever. Only sometimes…things simply don’t make sense. And all the mental juggling in the world won’t change that.”

  A long, ragged breath left his lungs. “But all these thoughts…they’re battering the hell outta me, Lil. First I’ll think Josie looks exactly like Claire did at that age, she feels like my kid, whatever the hell that means. The next minute I’m scared to death I’m gonna answer the door one day to find some dude standing there, demanding his daughter. Except then I think it’s been too long, if somebody else is the father, maybe he never knew. Maybe Rissa never told him, because she didn’t know. She didn’t go into details, for all I know maybe it was a one-time fling. Or…or maybe it wasn’t, maybe she’d planned on leaving me, but her getting pregnant was a deal breaker with the other guy. Then I think, dear God—if Josie’s not mine, do I tell her? When? And Marissa’s parents…how on earth do I tell them—”

  “Tony, Tony…” Lili crossed to kneel in front of him, taking his hands in both of hers and pulling him into those damn eyes of hers again. “For God’s sake, you’re going to make yourself sick with all this worrying and wondering. Have the test done, as soon as possible. Then figure out what comes next. But all this conjecturing is pointless.”

  “Maybe I don’t see it as pointless,” he said flatly. “Maybe I see it as bein’ prepared for the worst. I’ve been raising that little girl virtually on my own for the past year,” he said through a thick throat. “That feeling you get when you see the baby for the first time, and they reach right in and grab your heart…You think I’m gonna suddenly love her less if I find out my blood’s not in her veins?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  Tony’s eyes dropped to their linked hands as the stupid dog came over to flop on his back, hoping for a tummy rub. “It would kill me, losing Josie. Losing any of ’em.”

  Her eyes followed his. She let go, like she suddenly realized what she was doing, then stood. “Just as it killed you to lose Marissa?”

  Palming his head, Tony said, “I just wish I knew what went wrong. It’s like there’s this hole inside me where the answered questions should be.” He lifted his eyes to Lili. “Only there’s nothin’ to fill it up.”

  To avoid those tortured eyes, Lili squatted again to pat Ed’s stomach, the sense of déjà vu so strong it nearly made her dizzy. Memories of Tony’s lying on that very chaise fourteen summers ago, his leg immobile as they talked about whatever crossed their minds; her mother’s nearly identical laments, afte
r Leo’s betrayal—the recriminations, the transferred guilt, the lot. And hadn’t she berated herself for months, after Peter so cavalierly shrugged and walked away from their two years together, certain she’d been the flawed one, somehow?

  She supposed there were two kinds of people in the world—those who believed nothing was their fault, and those who believed everything was. How odd, when it was obvious that things were rarely that cut-and-dried.

  “Swear to God,” Tony said with a soft, deprecating laugh, “I had no idea that was all gonna come out. But you being here…in some ways it’s like being in a time warp. Even then, I felt like I could talk to you in a way I couldn’t to anybody else.”

  Lili forced herself to catch his embarrassed smile in the porch’s shadow, not sure what she felt when he looked at him. Sympathy, she supposed, mixed in with a little irritation. Then she thought of his expression when he talked about his students, his obvious pride in Hollis, and her stomach free fell. She did her best to smile back.

  “So everything’s the same between us as it was then?”

  Their gazes held for several seconds before Tony stood, eventually going down the steps to the netted cherry tree close to the house, ablaze with clusters of bright red fruit. “Whaddya think—these look ripe to you yet?”

  For a moment Lili felt as though she’d picked up the wrong book, confused because she couldn’t find where she’d left off. But she finally joined him, pulling a firm, warm fruit off the tree and popping it into her mouth.

  “Not yet,” she said, making a face as the sour juice exploded over her tongue. “Another week or so, I think.”

  “You nut,” Tony said softly. “You didn’t hafta do that.”

  “What’s life without a little risk?” she said, spitting out the pit.

  He turned away again, the hot, heavy breeze ruffling his already messy hair. “So you can’t feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  His eyes found hers again. “That of course it’s not the same between us. How could it be? We’re not the same people we were then.”

  The knotty, sturdy tree trunk poked between her shoulder blades when she leaned against it, her hands tucked behind her back, the shade a welcome relief from the searing heat. Except, this close to Tony, relief was a relative term.

  “Perhaps we’re not so very different,” she said. “Not at heart. For instance, I see the same person I did that summer. Just one who’s been tried and tested.”

  Tony palmed the trunk, barely six inches over Lili’s head, his earnest, direct gaze sending a chill through her. “How come you never returned my e-mails? And don’t tell me you didn’t have the Internet then, because Aunt Magda told me you’d write to her from your library’s connection.”

  Lili pushed herself away from the tree. “What would have been the point?” she murmured, gasping when he caught her arm.

  “The point is, I thought we were friends. When you left…I missed that. Missed you.”

  A strand of hair tumbled free of the elastic band holding it back; she jerked it behind her ear. “Did Marissa know you were e-mailing me?”

  Letting go, Tony frowned slightly. “What does that hafta do with anything?”

  “Did she?”

  “I dunno. Maybe. Why?”

  Lili hesitated, then said, “It turned out my mother’s main reason for sending me away that summer was so she could marry Leo. Without it ‘upsetting’ me.”

  “What does that have to do with—?” At her sharp look, he lifted his hands and went with the flow. “But I thought your dad had just died?”

  “Not even six months before, to be precise.” Lili’s mouth flattened. “I’d met Leo exactly once, for about five minutes.”

  Tony swore. “And how did she think keepin’ it a secret wouldn’t upset you?”

  “I doubt she was thinking much at all, to be blunt. Being on her own—being alone—petrified her. Obviously. To the point where she was more than willing to let someone else do the thinking for her. She told me later the quick marriage had been Leo’s idea.”

  “This is same jerk who dumped her, right?”

  “Yes. And no, the irony was not lost on her. But my point is…I was still reeling that summer. Which you know. To come home and discover my mother had betrayed my father’s memory…”

  “Your father, hell,” Tony said softly, pulling her into his arms. Startling the life out of her. “She betrayed you. Damn, honey…I can’t imagine how rough that must’ve been for you.”

  Tears welling in Lili’s eyes as she settled against his chest, her hands curled underneath her chin. “It felt worse than the grief,” she said after a moment. “In fact, I was so upset that I went to live with my grandmother, because I couldn’t bear to be around my mother and him. In any case, I was so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself that my time here didn’t even feel real.” You didn’t feel real. Blinking, she pulled away, lifting her eyes to his. “I read the first few e-mails, but they felt as though they’d been written to someone else. After a while I marked them as ‘read’ and moved on.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” At the edge to his voice, she frowned. “Dammit, Lil—you should’ve talked to me. Told me what was goin’ on, what you were feeling—”

  “And what could you have possibly done?”

  “Listened.”

  And he would have, she thought, in a way nobody else ever had. Even now, twisted up in his own problems as he was, his umbrage on her behalf for something that had happened half a lifetime ago vibrated from him like an aura. The man cared about other people with a bone-deep sincerity that could make a girl fall in love with him, if she weren’t careful.

  Lili reached up to place a quick, light kiss on Tony’s rough cheek, breathing in the scents of dark, damp earth and sweat, the soap he’d washed up with before lunch. “I somehow doubt Marissa would have been okay with that,” she whispered, then walked away. But when she reached the porch, she turned back. “If you like, I could come back again next weekend. To help you clean?”

  His gaze burned into hers, dark and troubled and smoldering with something even she had no trouble recognizing. Something that, if she had a grain of sense, would make her rescind her offer on the spot. “You really are nuts,” he said, barely smiling.

  “Then I’m in good company.”

  His chuckle followed her all the way back to her aunt’s.

  Tuesday morning, ten a.m. Vibrating with suspicion, Claire yanked back the kitchen curtain, her backpack thudding to the floor. “Who the heck is that?”

  Tony’s in-laws had just dropped the girls off, after begging to keep them an extra day. The garden turning out to be, according to Hollis, an inch away from hopeless, the kid had returned early that morning to continue his mission. Right now that meant battling Ed for the remaining ripe tomatoes. Judging from the kid’s periodic shouts, the dog was winning. Dog really would eat anything.

  “That’s Hollis,” Tony said mildly, his arms full of Josie, his head full of Lili. Like it had been all weekend. If he’d thought the path he’d been headed down before had been dangerous, this was a one-way road to hell. The odd kick to the groin, he could handle. That was…reflex. Hormones. Annoying, but easily dismissed. Okay, maybe not that easily, but at least manageable—

  “He usedta be one of my students. Now he’s our gardener. Sort of.”

  The kick to the center of his chest, though…Uh, boy. That was bad news. Really bad news. The kind of bad news you can’t forget even after you change the channel—

  “We have a gardener?” Daphne said, giving Tony raised brows. “Like Nana and Gramps have a gardener?”

  “Not exactly,” Tony said. To air, as it happened, since the child had already disappeared to accost the unsuspecting young man currently trying to tame their cantaloupe vine before it ate the neighbor’s children.

  “Daph!” Claire yelled out the window. Like that was gonna do any good.

  Tony laid a hand on her shoulder. �
�It’s okay, honey. If anything, Hollis should be afraid of Daph—”

  “Why do we need help with the garden?”

  “Because Mom’s not here, and I suck at gardening, and you guys are too young to keep it up. You want a garden? Hollis is part of the deal.”

  Claire shot him a wounded look, grabbed her backpack and stomped out of the room. “And he’s staying for lunch, too!” Tony yelled in her wake, because he could.

  Then he immediately felt like a bum for yelling at his kid, so he tramped upstairs after her, Josie giggling as they bounced up each step. Claire was sitting on her bed—legs crossed, elbows jammed on knees, scowl firmly in place—on some cutsie cartoon character bedspread which she refused to give up, despite both its threadbare state and her seven-year-old sister’s declaration that it was for “infants.” But at five, Claire had said she wanted a pink room; Marissa had obliged her with the pinkest room in the history of little girls. Pink, and frilly, and so intensely girlyfied Tony felt like Shrek every time he walked in.

  “So how was it at Nana’s?”

  Claire shrugged. “She taught Daphne the breaststroke.”

  “What about you?”

  “I already know the breaststroke.”

  “No, I mean, did you swim?”

  “Yeah. But only because if I hadn’t, Nana would’ve been totally on my case—Was everything all right? Was I feeling okay?” She shrugged again. “So I swam.”

  “You usedta love swimming.”

  “It’s not much fun anymore.”

  “Because…Mom’s not around to swim with you?”

  “I guess.”