just…she just gets me, you know? She’s warm and she’s kind. She’s
talented, she’s beautiful. When I’m with her, I feel like I can be who
I am. There are no roles I’m expected to play, no images she wants
me to uphold. I can just be myself. It’s so…” She searched for the
right word. “Freeing. It’s freeing, Dad. I wish you could have had
that with Mom or somebody, because it’s the most amazing feeling
in the world.”
And what about Eric? He would say it without accusation, but
the point would be made.
She had no answer to that. She sighed heavily, then sat in
silence, soaking up the fresh air and the warmth of the sun. The
birds chirped nearby and the leaves on the trees rustled gently, but
the peaceful sounds did nothing to relax her mind.
“I don’t know what to do, Daddy.” Her voice was small, barely
audible. She obviously didn’t expect an answer from her dead
father, but she found herself straining to hear his voice anyway.
After a long while, she took a deep breath, then stood to go,
thanking her father for listening and promising she’d be back again
138 Georgia Beers
soon. She was almost to her car when she felt in her pocket for her
keys and realized they were missing.
“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath as she retraced her
steps back. As she approached her father’s plot, she noticed a slim,
dark woman crouching down near it.
She was putting fresh daisies in the holder.
Jennifer’s heart hammered, as she was sure she’d never laid
eyes on the woman before. She approached slowly, not wanting to
intrude on the woman’s privacy even though the curiosity of who
she might be was killing her. The woman wiped an errant tear from
her face and her shoulders convulsed in what could only have been
a quiet sob. Jennifer stopped, embarrassed that she was spying on
the poor woman. She dropped her gaze to the ground.
Her keys were in the grass by her feet.
She stooped to pick them up as the woman pressed her fingers
to her lips, then to the grave marker. The fact that she’d been in love
with her father was so glaringly apparent, it almost knocked Jenni-
fer over with its weight.
She stood riveted to the spot as the woman stood and headed in
Jennifer’s direction. She met Jennifer’s gaze for a short second,
then lowered her red-rimmed eyes apologetically, wiping at her
dampened cheeks. Jennifer smiled and, much to her surprise, spoke
to the woman.
“I’m sorry. You obviously cared very much about him.”
The woman stopped and nodded, not the least bit startled that
a perfect stranger had said something to her. She studied Jennifer
carefully as if wondering if she was supposed to recognize her.
“Very much. He was a wonderful man.”
Even close up, she was unfamiliar to Jennifer. She was a plain
woman with no spectacular features except the noticeable kindness
in her hazel eyes. “Was he your husband?” She couldn’t believe
she’d actually gotten the question out, but for some reason, she felt
the need to find out more about this woman’s relationship with her
father.
The woman chuckled sadly. “Oh no. Only in my dreams.” She
looked wistfully back at the gravesite. “I could never get him to just
follow his heart.”
Jennifer blinked at her. The lack of response didn’t seem to faze
the woman any more than Jennifer’s initial comment had. She
sighed with sadness and went on her way, leaving Jennifer standing
in the cemetery, absorbing the fact that her father had had a lover
she’d known nothing about.
* * *
Thy Neighbor’s Wife 139
That night’s volleyball game was a disaster. It was an early
game, six o’clock, and the first time Alex and Jennifer had been in
close proximity with one another since the fiasco on Alex’s deck a
few nights earlier.
Aside from a nod at one another and a quiet hello, no words
were exchanged between the two. Jackie noticed this right away and
narrowed her eyes with suspicion, but said nothing.
Alex didn’t play well when she was distracted or frustrated and
that night, she couldn’t seem to bump or spike the ball cleanly to
save her life. Her returns went shooting off at sharp angles. The tim-
ing on her blocks was way off. Her spikes went either directly into
the net or so far out of bounds, the opposite team had to sprint after
the ball to prevent it from bouncing into the water. Her lousy level
of play only served to frustrate her further and she snapped at her
teammates when they tried to encourage her. Because of that, they
began playing in silence, the kiss of death in any team sport.
Jennifer played just as poorly. Her fingers were stiff and her
sets had no height, assuming she was lucky enough to actually get
beneath the ball. Her legs didn’t seem to want to cooperate and her
movements on the court felt sluggish and slow. Each time a set
didn’t get to Alex, the taller woman would huff with annoyance,
which only ticked Jennifer off and made her play worse.
Their opponents were not that great. A win shouldn’t have
been difficult, but by the middle of the second game, all six players
were drenched in sweat and completely stressed out from the ani-
mosity permeating the court. Jackie was getting frustrated for her
team. As she watched her best friend and the newest member of the
team, she quickly put two and two together and knew immediately
that whatever was going on between the pair, it was more than the
simple crush Alex had claimed. Jennifer had never played this badly
with them; something was obviously bothering her. Alex had her
moods, but she was usually able to pull herself out of them with the
help of her teammates. Now, she seemed to be instigating the poor
volleyball performance, rather than trying to help fix it. The more
Jackie thought about it—and the fact that Alex had lied to her—the
more agitated she became.
Steve smacked a beautiful serve. The other team received it
cleanly, then put it up for a spike. As Alex went up to block, Jenni-
fer crouched behind her to cover. As it had been throughout the
match, Alex’s timing was a little off. The ball hit her hands, then
dribbled down her arms. Jennifer dove near Alex’s feet to save the
point, but as she did so, Alex stepped backwards, also flailing for
the ball. She fell back over Jennifer and the two of them lay
sprawled in the sand, panting and annoyed, legs tangled like wet
spaghetti.
140 Georgia Beers
“You can stay in your own part of the court, you know,” Alex
muttered.
“Yeah, well, your blocks obviously need all the help they can
get,” Jennifer shot back.
Jackie squatted down and was very much in their space. Her
eyes flashed with anger and when she spoke, her voice was no more
than an incensed hiss. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with
you two, but I suggest you get a grip on yourselves right now,
because you’re pissing off every last one of us. Get your shit
together and play like you’re members of this team, God damn it.”
Alex and Jennifer exchanged embarrassed glances and stood,
brushing the sand from themselves, looking properly chastened.
The game continued.
* * *
The weeds didn’t stand a chance, not given the state Jennifer
was in. She’d come directly home from the beach, covered with
sand and sweat and buzzing with nervous energy from her frustra-
tions with Alex on the court. It was still light out and she needed to
do something or she was sure she’d simply explode where she stood.
She had discovered gardening to be very therapeutic and was
amused by what one could learn when doing something one’s self,
rather than hiring an outside party to do it instead. Her family had
always hired gardeners when she was growing up. Getting her
hands dirty was certainly not something that had interested Jenni-
fer’s mother. Jennifer, on the other hand, had spent this summer
realizing that digging her fingers into the earth, smelling the rich-
ness of the soil, and helping along the beauty of nature was one of
the most calming activities in which she’d ever taken part.
So she sat in her flower bed that evening, pulling weeds and
loosening the soil around the thriving blossoms, trying hard to quiet
her brain. Between the woman at the cemetery, her dilemma over
Alex, and the disastrous volleyball game, her head was buzzing
loudly and all she wished for was an on/off switch for her mind.
She had so many questions—questions that could only be
answered by the woman with the daisies.
How long had she been my father’s lover?
Was he in love with her?
Did my mother know?
God, did they have any children?
She yanked viciously at an unsuspecting dandelion, unsure
how to feel. On the one hand, she was furious with her father for
cheating on her mother. She’d always thought of him as an honor-
able and noble man and this put a big chink in his armor. On the
Thy Neighbor’s Wife 141
other hand, she knew her parents didn’t have a warm and fuzzy
relationship. She knew her mother could be cold, distant, and
unemotional, so there was a part of Jennifer that actually applauded
her father for finding somebody to love him the way he deserved.
She looked up and took a deep breath to steady her nerves.
That was when she noticed Alex sitting on her deck. She’d obvi-
ously decided not to go out with the team either. They made eye
contact for barely a split second, both of them shifting their gazes
away at the same time.
Another weed fell victim to Jennifer’s wrath.
Before she had time to delve into the quadrant of her brain
labeled “Alex,” Jennifer was interrupted by her husband’s voice.
“Jen!” He was in the house and he did not sound happy.
“Great,” Jennifer mumbled. She had too much churning in her
head already. She had no desire to add Eric to the mix. She contin-
ued to weed.
“Jen!” he shouted again as he stepped out onto the deck and
spotted his wife. His steps were purposeful as he marched toward
her. She looked up at his approach and the scowl on his face made
the hairs on her arms stand on end. She got to her feet, feeling like
she had a better shot at handling his obvious anger if she was stand-
ing.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Don’t ‘hey’ me,” he snapped, causing her to flinch. “Did you
talk to my father?” His eyes flashed with fury and his face was
flushed.
Oh, shit, Jennifer thought. Here we go.
“Um…” she stalled, trying to figure out how she was going to
gracefully get through this one.
“Did you talk to my father recently?” He annunciated each
word slowly and carefully through clenched teeth. Jennifer had
never been afraid of her husband before, but his anger was so
intense that it caused a little spark of fear to ignite in the pit of her
stomach.
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“And did you tell him that I didn’t really want to take over the
firm?”
She grimaced. “Yes?”
“Jesus Christ, Jennifer!” He threw up his hands in exasperated
anger. “What the hell were you thinking? What are you trying to do
to me?”
“Eric, I—”
“Are you trying to destroy me? My future?” He was yelling at
the top of his lungs, his anger feeding his volume.
“No, of course not.” The spark of fear had become a full-blown
142 Georgia Beers
fire at that point and she tried to subtly take a step back from him.
The wild-eyed expression on his face matched the booming level of
his voice and she was torn between being embarrassed by what the
neighborhood was hearing and being frightened of him.
“He thinks you’re right. He agrees with you, God damn you,
and he’s exploring other alternatives.” He glared at her. She felt the
bottom drop out of her stomach. “You had no right, Jen. No right.”
“I was trying to be honest with him, Eric. He was worried
about you. He thought you were too stressed out. He was afraid
he’d dumped too much on you.” Her voice was pleading, but Eric
wouldn’t look at her, tried to turn her words off. “You haven’t been
happy since this whole thing started, since he started training you
to take over. I just want you to be happy.”
“You want me to be happy? Are you sure this doesn’t have any-
thing to do with you? That there are no ulterior motives here?” His
voice dripped with accusation.
“What?”
“I’m not stupid, Jen. I see things. I know things.”
Jennifer’s stomach roiled; the sense of dread she felt was
almost too much to bear. “What are you talking about?”
His back was to Alex’s house, but he jerked his thumb in that
direction. “Do you think I’m unaware of your little girlfriend over
there? I know your history. Don’t forget that.”
Jennifer’s eyes hardened. “Do you really want to do this? Do
you really want to get into the subject of infidelity, Eric? Because
I’m not stupid either.”
His face registered surprise, then guilt, but they only seemed to
fuel his anger and he quickly steered the conversation back to its