The Ocean Between Us (28 page)

Dear Daddy, I need to tell you about something that happened to me….

Emma stared at the pulsing cursor on the computer screen until her vision blurred. Then she did what she always did when she was tempted to spill her guts. She hit the delete key.

Delete, delete, delete. If only her memory had a delete button. She’d tried everything—pretending it hadn’t happened, fantasizing about going to the police, getting revenge. Day in and day out, for weeks and now months. But nothing seemed to work. Everything, every moment, reminded her of the rape. She simply could not forget. Her brain overheated like a steam engine, and sometimes she imagined the top of her head blowing off and the truth erupting from her.

But even though her fingers ached to type the message to her father, to tell him about the pain and shame and terror, she knew she couldn’t do that. That would only make things worse. If Cory had been any other kid, maybe she would have a choice. But she knew her dad. If she told, he’d take his chances regardless of the cost to his career.

She would never ask that of him. She wouldn’t make him lose
everything he’d been building since before she was born. After this tour, he’d have the biggest command of his life. One word from her could destroy his chances.

She’d seen it happen before. As a freshman, she’d gone to high school with the son of a rear admiral. The boy had been caught stealing from the base commissary. Not long after that, his father had been mothballed to a low-level administrative job.

Sometimes when she saw Cory in school, she couldn’t believe it had happened. He acted so…normal. If she’d dared to say anything, he would find a way to make people believe his side of the story. She knew it. He probably had it all planned out in his head, in case she spoke up.

Sometimes Emma even doubted herself. Had she overreacted? Maybe that was a typical encounter between kids who weren’t very experienced. Maybe Cory was acting on signals she’d sent out. Up until the moment he’d pushed her down on the bench, she’d been attracted to him, had invited his kisses, his touches. Maybe, just maybe, she was wrong about that night.

Except that she wasn’t. The terror and humiliation were real. The sense of violation and fury still lingered. When she woke up panicked and sweating at night, she knew exactly what had happened to her.

Daisy wandered in, her nails clicking on the floor. She came over to the desk and pushed her soft muzzle at Emma’s hand with sweet insistence.

Emma petted her absently, her thoughts still troubled. She had no idea how to get over it. One thing was certain, she would never say a word. She’d made that decision and she intended to stick to it.

So instead of burdening her father and forcing him to sacrifice his career, she wrote a nice, safe note about Daisy. The big, laughing yellow Lab mixed-breed dog was easy to write about. She was so adorable. Thanks to Daisy, Emma finally understood the meaning of unconditional, nonjudgmental love. From the moment Mom had brought her home, she’d burrowed into everyone’s hearts, curled up and stayed there, a permanent resident.

Some days she was Emma’s only reason to smile.

She scratched Daisy behind the ears. The kids at school thought Emma was losing her mind, first by dumping Cory—she didn’t contradict him when he told everyone he’d dumped her—and then by chopping off her hair.

She wasn’t losing her mind. She was trying to keep it intact. It was hard, though. Everything Mom said tended to scare the crap out of her. The most innocent question made her worry that Mom knew. She had to be careful around her mom. Because sometimes the only thing in the world Emma wanted was to crawl into her mother’s arms and sob out her agony.

She ran upstairs to take a shower. Again. In the months since the rape, she’d showered and scrubbed and shampooed herself raw, over and over again. But she could never get clean enough.

The hot needles of water beating down over her head and neck and back—this was her new excess. She couldn’t help herself, though. She wanted to shampoo her brain. Treat her heart with detangling conditioner so she could comb out the memories, leaving only sleek forgetfulness behind.

Steve felt an ache of loneliness as he read his older daughter’s latest e-mail. Emma always had something cheerful to say, some little anecdote to share. Today’s note was about the dog. She’d attached a digital photo. The thing had grown as big as a horse.

The constant din of the carrier’s power plant hummed in his ears. Every few minutes it felt like a bus ran into the wall beside him as the catapult hurled another aircraft aloft for drills. The crash and stomp reminded him that this was his world, a cold steel cocoon. But when he reread Emma’s note, it all went away for a few minutes.

Thank God for e-mail. Even filtered and restricted, it was a way to stay in touch on a basic level. Emma had an instinctive sense of the best way to bolster morale. It was one of those intangible qualities of leadership so hard to find and even harder to measure. In his reply to Emma, he mentioned that.
Your note came just when I
needed it. Knowing what to say and when to say it is a gift,
he typed.
It’s one of those things that’ll take you where you want to go.

He hit Send, then scrolled through the rest of his new messages. Each day, he felt a lurch of nerves when he checked his mail. He never knew what he would find—a contract to buy a house, a son applying to art school, a new puppy.

A divorce.

He hadn’t seen that particular message, yet the possibility haunted him. He desperately wanted to forget the past, but he had no idea what Grace was open to these days. This standoff was not going to resolve anything, but they were trapped in a holding pattern. And deep down, he had not forgiven her for the house, for making decisions without him. For building a life without him.

“Lieutenant Lamont to see you, sir,” announced Lieutenant Killigrew.

“Send him in.” Just recently, the toughest deployment of Steve’s career had gotten tougher. Not only had the cruise been extended another eight weeks, but Lieutenant Joshua Lamont had arrived on the COD. Initially, for maybe half a second, Steve thought he might get away with acting as though Lamont was just another nugget pilot. But in the next half of the second, gossip ripped through the carrier with the speed of a lightning bolt.

He and Lamont were going to have to deal with each other. They were strangers related by blood alone. Yet Lamont’s very existence shook Steve’s world and there was no point pretending it didn’t.

Lamont entered the office and saluted. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

Yeah. About twenty-six years ago, thought Steve. “At ease, Lieutenant. I wanted to know how you’re getting along on board.” Steve could have asked for a report from the CO of the squadron, but he wanted to hear directly from Lamont.

“Fine, sir. The squadron’s everything I could want. Flying twice a day—man, that’s a dream.”

In that moment, Steve knew him, knew this stranger who looked so much like him. Lamont’s face lit with the irrepressible
enthusiasm of a young pilot in love with flying. Steve recognized it, because he used to feel exactly the same way.

Still, he felt an obligation to play his role as senior officer. “The Navy likes passion, but how have your landing grades been?” Each trap on the flight deck was graded by the Landing Signal Officer—“OK” being the best to hope for. A pilot’s grades factored into all of his evaluations.

Lamont’s gaze shifted. “I’m training hard, sir. I’ve got some OKs, no 5s yet, probably too many no-grades and bolters.”

The unenviable record of poor grades was typical for a new pilot. “Tell me about the pattern wave-off yesterday.”

“Sir, I was reacting to winds during zip-lip and I rolled out long, and then I was behind an aircraft that was too wide abeam. It cut my interval short.”

“If there were no standards, we’d have lazy overall performance,” Steve pointed out. Even though Lamont was squirming, the conversation felt normal to Steve. A senior officer had a duty to review and discuss pilots’ performances.

“I understand, sir.”

They talked business for a while longer, but finally Steve said, “What the hell’s on your mind, Lamont?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. You’re not focusing, and that’s not a good thing when you’re flying two missions a day. Is it me?”

“Absolutely not, sir. I realize there are…unorthodox circumstances between us, but it isn’t affecting my performance.”

“Something is.” Steve liked to think he watched all the pilots in the air wing with equal attention, but the fact was, Lamont’s record received extra scrutiny. He couldn’t help it. When he looked at Lamont, he felt such mixed emotions—frustration and regret, and a dark anger that had no clear target. He’d missed his son’s birth, his childhood, his coming-of-age. That led to thoughts of the other kids. He’d only been there half the time for them, and lately he wondered if that was enough.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” he said.

“Before I left, I asked a girl to marry me,” Lamont blurted out.

The drone of the ship’s power plant filled the ensuing silence. Steve leaned back in his chair. So that was it. A girl. “You wouldn’t be the first,” he pointed out.

“No, sir. But…she didn’t answer. It’s bugging the hell out of me.”

“What, the fact that she hasn’t made up her mind, or the fact that you haven’t?”

Lamont blinked. “But I have—”

“If you were a hundred percent sure, you would have gotten that answer out of her before you left. But you’re not sure, because you know what this job is. You know what you’re asking of a woman. You’re asking her to hold the line while you go away for months at a time. If there are kids, she’s a single mom half the time. Do you get the picture, Lamont?”

He looked a little queasy. “Maybe so.”

“Thanks to deployment, we get to live two separate lives. It’s a blessing and a curse. Did I miss one of my children’s birthdays? Yeah, I did. But did I also miss a burst water heater? Getting the car repaired? Dragging a screaming kid to the dentist? Yeah, I missed all that, too. Some things, you’re not so sorry to miss out on. And anyone who won’t admit that is lying to himself.”

Steve was a little shocked at himself for being so candid. But he felt compelled to be honest with Lamont. Deep down, he liked being away. He enjoyed the luxury of knowing Grace was taking care of everything. Maybe that was chickenshit, but it was the truth.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but if being married is such an ordeal, why are most of the guys on the boat family men? And women, for that matter.”

Because the heart never stops hoping, thought Steve.

But he didn’t say so. Josh Lamont was in love. He was finding that out for himself. Instead, Steve played devil’s advocate. “Maybe the question is, why are so many divorced? Among carrier per
sonnel, it’s double the national rate.” Steve could tell these thoughts had been close to the surface for a long time. “A Navy wife has to be strong and independent enough to be on her own for months at a time. The flip side of that is her way of life gives her the skills to walk away and make a new life for herself.”

“Like my mother did.”

Steve felt echoes of the old fury that had gripped him after Cissy left. “When you’re deployed, you have to trust her or you’ll make yourself nuts. When you come back, you have to learn how to get along, all over again.” Fatherly advice it wasn’t. But Steve was not this man’s father.

“Anyway,” he concluded, “being honest with yourself about the realities of this life is the best way to get your concentration back. It’s okay to have second thoughts. Accept it and focus on the job. Because if your landing grades don’t improve, you
will
move on, whether you like it or not.”

Lamont looked a little shell-shocked as he saluted and left the office.

Out of habit, he reached for his St. Christopher medal, which customarily hung around his neck at all times. It was gone. He dug deeper around his collar, seeking the slim chain, but couldn’t find it. Frowning, he looked around and under the desk, all over the floor. He tried to remember the last time he’d been aware of it, and couldn’t. Damn.

It gave him a bad feeling. He’d worn the medal on every cruise since he enlisted, and now it was gone. It had been his talisman against bad luck. He knew it was just a dumb superstition, but this was the first time he’d ever been at sea without it. It was also the first time he’d left on bad terms with Grace, the first time he had a son he didn’t know on the carrier, like it or not. A lot of firsts. None of them good.

But it was oddly fitting. Cissy had given him the medal. It was the only thing he kept from her. Now it was gone, but he had a far more powerful reminder of that time in his life. He had Joshua Lamont.

Steve took out a business card he’d kept tucked in his wallet ever since the eve of this deployment. It was the card given to him by Joey Lord, his former squadron mate who was happily working in the private sector. Steve opened a new message box and began to write.

Grace stared in disbelief at the calendar on her dressing table. Somehow she had managed to ignore her encroaching birthday. Now it hit her like a drive-by shooting.

Forty years old. She was forty years old today.

She wanted to run and hide. Instead, she threw on her sweats and put her hair in a ponytail. She had plenty of work to keep her busy. But it was hard, everything was hard. Her heart ached all the time these days. With Daisy trotting at her heels, she ran downstairs and threw a banana and some soy milk in the blender for a smoothie. The whine of the motor made her wince and probably woke the kids, but it was nearly time for them to get up, anyway.

Brian was the first to arrive, and this morning he had a special gleam in his eye. He look incredibly grown-up today and very handsome, with his sandy hair, his father’s square jaw and a sense of humor all his own. Maybe he had some surprise up his sleeve for her birthday. But this was Brian, she reminded herself. He never remembered her birthday. She hid her suspicion and acted as though it was any other morning.

“You’re up early,” she commented.

He emptied half a box of Cheerios into the yellow mixing bowl. “Yep. Hey, Mom.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Of course he did. He’d never remembered her birthday in the past, but he was a man now. Perhaps this was a sign of his new maturity. “What sort of surprise?” she asked, unable to keep from grinning.

He stood and took his backpack from a hook behind the door. Rummaging around, he pulled out a large, thick envelope. “This came in yesterday’s mail.”

Mystified, Grace took it from him. It was too big to be a simple birthday card. She held the parcel at arm’s length—another lovely aspect of growing older was that her vision was weakening—and checked the return address. “Rhode Island School of Design,” she read aloud. And then it finally hit her—this wasn’t about her or her stupid fortieth birthday. It was about Brian and his dreams and his future. “Oh, Bri,” she said. “Is this what I think it is?”

He grinned from ear to ear. It was the same expression he’d worn when he’d pitched his first no-hitter.

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

“You weren’t home after school. I had to go to work and you were already asleep when I got back. Doesn’t matter, Mom. You’re the first to know after me.”

She beamed at him. “You did it, Brian. I knew you would.” She felt stupid for being so focused on turning forty. “Son, I’m incredibly proud of you,” she said. “Let’s have a look at this.”

Seated side by side at the kitchen table, they went through the materials that came with Brian’s acceptance to college. Forms to fill out, campus maps, lists of things to do. Everything had a curious air of gravitas; it was all so important.

The good news was grants and loans would cover most of the tuition costs. Yet even as she congratulated Brian, a bittersweet
awareness filled her, and her heart broke a little. This was his future, shining before him. It was his first step away from her, a huge, cross-country step.

“What?” he said when he caught her staring at him.

“I’m going to miss you, son.”

“He has to go away before you can miss him,” Katie pointed out, coming to the breakfast table. She looked at the papers. “Whoa. You got in. Hey, Emma, he got in.” She turned to Brian. “You actually found a college that’ll have you.”

“Very funny,” he said, but couldn’t summon even a hint of annoyance.

Emma paged through the brochure of the campus. “Way to go, Brian,” she said.

Grace tried to read Emma’s mood. She didn’t seem to be making any plans even though she’d received an acceptance from Western Washington University. During an appointment with Emma’s school counselor, Grace had confessed her worries.

“It’s normal,” Mrs. Snyder assured her. “Lots of kids get stressed out about their college decisions. Just because she’s quiet doesn’t mean she’s avoiding the issue. She’s probably thinking about it a lot.”

Shortly after breakfast, the kids headed off for school, calling out their after-school plans for the day. “Don’t plan on me for dinner,” Katie said. “Brooke and I are starting our final project for American Studies.”

“I’m working at the pool until eight,” Emma reminded her.

“Me, too,” said Brian. “Working at the cycle shop until closing time.”

Grace stood in the doorway next to the dog and waved goodbye. So what if they forgot her birthday; it came around every year whether she liked it or not. They were actually doing her a favor. Who needed to celebrate turning forty, anyway?

At the end of the driveway, Brian stopped the car and Emma rolled down the passenger-side window. “Hey, Mom.”

Grace went to see what was the matter. Emma handed her a
glossy pink gift bag, filled with tissue paper. Katie leaned out the window. “Don’t look so surprised.”

“Did you think Dad would let us forget?” asked Brian. “Jeez, Mom.”

Grace’s heart filled up as she reached into the bag and pulled out a card and a printed sheet of paper.

“It’s a certificate for a whole morning at Gene Juarez salon,” Emma explained. “You’re all booked for a manicure, pedicure, hair and makeup, ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“The girls said you’d like it,” Brian muttered.

“I love it,” said Grace. “Thank you.”

“It’s from Dad, too,” said Katie. “Don’t forget to thank Dad.”

Grace went to the study and got down to work. As usual, her e-mail box was filled with work-related messages from real estate agents, shippers, contractors, service partners and consultants. She was juggling four projects now, which amounted to a full-time job. And she loved it. She liked being busy, making phone calls, scheduling appointments, keeping a log. She almost couldn’t remember how she used to fill her days.

But then something would remind her. A call or a note from Allison Crowther would clue her in. Soon Grace would be the wife of the CAG, and as such, would be consumed by duties for which the Navy would neither acknowledge nor compensate her.

When she and Steve were first married, she performed her duties as a Navy wife without a thought of the alternative. Now she constantly considered alternatives.

She worked steadily throughout the day, scarcely noticing the passage of time until the doorbell rang. Daisy erupted, her bark so deep and loud that the windowpanes shook.

“Hush now,” Grace admonished her. The clock on her computer screen indicated 4:00 p.m. She pushed back from the desk, opened the front door and was greeted with an enormous flower arrangement. Daisy let loose with a loud sneeze.

A young woman peeked out from behind the forest of pink
roses, spicy carnations and lush ferns. “Delivery for Grace Bennett,” she said.

“Wow,” Grace said, setting the heavy glass vase on the hall table. “Thank you. I…wasn’t expecting anything.” She signed for the flowers, bade the delivery person goodbye and stood back, her heart racing.

Finally, she thought. Steve was going to end the impasse after all. It was one thing to give the kids a credit card number for the salon, but this was different. This was personal. Maybe it was an olive branch.

With a laugh that was almost a sob, she ran to the study to type him an e-mail. The least she could do was let him know the flowers had arrived. After that, maybe he’d reply, and maybe later he would call.

She clicked on the New Message icon, then hesitated. Her steps were slow and heavy as she returned to the foyer and searched through the bouquet for a card. She located it at last, propped on a slender plastic stick. Please be from Steve, she thought as she opened the little envelope.

The damned type was too small to read. She fished in a drawer for her reading glasses, then turned the card over.

To Grace. Many Happy Returns. And thanks for everything. Ross Cameron.

With a guilty start, she tucked the card between two books on a shelf. Then she took it out and read it once more. Then she hid it on the bookshelf again. But there was no hiding the scent of roses and carnations. Perfume filled every room of the house, intoxicating her.

“How do you suppose he knew?” she asked Daisy.

The dog thumped her tail on the floor.

“He asked me.” Grace snapped her fingers, and Daisy came to attention. “I was whining to him about turning forty, and he asked me when.”
So I’ll know the date the world will come to an end,
he’d joked.

Lately she’d been thinking about him with embarrassing fre
quency. He was her first and most important client. He’d taken a chance on her and handed her a huge project. Even though they knew each other only through phone calls and e-mails, they shared a curious sort of intimacy. Due to the nature of her work, she knew the sort of home he liked, and that he wanted to live in a place with a view of the water. She knew how much his belongings weighed and what kind of coffee he drank. She knew he was generous to his employees and that he was a baseball fan.

He lived a romantic life. The wine importation and distribution business enabled him to travel the world. And not just anywhere, but to Bordeaux and Modena, Jerez and Napa and Chile. Fabulous places where he would meet with important people and make deals. Judging by his relocation budget, she surmised that it was incredibly lucrative.

She wondered what he looked like, if his face matched his easy laugh, if he looked as kind and thoughtful as he seemed.

He seemed interested in her, too. He always had time to hear about the kids and her friends, the new house and the misadventures of raising a puppy. Their conversations were never hurried, never forced, always interesting and sometimes even touching. More and more often lately, their growing friendship felt oddly forbidden. Sometimes there was a subtle tone of flirtation in their exchanges, but it was harmless. They were complete strangers.

But every time she inhaled the scent of roses, she thought of him.

A dozen times she picked up the phone and dialed his number, but never let the call go through. She wrote him a thank-you note on e-mail and then deleted it. She spent a half hour sorting through cards and stationery to find exactly the right paper to send him a handwritten note, but she couldn’t sit still long enough to write anything.

There was a message from Steve with the subject line, “Happy Birthday.” The message was simple:
Grace, I hope you have a happy birthday. Did the kids give you your gift? I’ll try to call later. Steve.

A chill slid over her skin. What if they couldn’t fix this? What if all the ennui of the past few years, combined with Steve’s de
ception and her independence, had caused irreparable damage? Grace finally put a name to the word that had been hanging around like a blight for the past couple of years, well before they knew about Josh.

Divorce.

The chill intensified, and she broke into action, cleaning the house with a vengeance. As she scoured the entire kitchen, she finally let herself think about the unthinkable. What would her life be like if she didn’t have Steve?

She thought about how fast and how hard she’d fallen in love with him, but found herself wondering how much of her husband she’d ever really had. Even when they’d first met, his commitment to the Navy was clear. That was his dream, and as his wife, she would be along for the ride. They’d both believed his work mattered in a way that made all her own frustrations and inner yearnings seem petty.

But now they consumed her. That night, she went to bed with the scent of roses in her head and the unsettling feeling that she was forty years old and still invisible.