The Year Everything Changed by Georgia Bockoven Read Free Book Online Page B

forty-two he still had all his hair, but the black was shot with gray, the mustache even more so. She’d thought him handsome when they first met, but it was his intellect and passion and caring she’d fallen in love with. And his sense of humor. He was the only one she’d ever known who could make her laugh out loud, something neither of them had done enough of for a long time.
    “We have to talk,” Rachel said.
    “You want me to fix you something to eat first?”
    She shook her head.
    “Drink?”
    “ No .”
    He stopped to look at her. “Sounds serious.”
    She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She blinked to clear her eyes, but it didn’t work. Tears spilled over her lashes onto her cheeks. She clenched her jaw and wiped them away.
    Jeff didn’t react for several seconds and then, with a sigh, said simply, “You know.”
    She nodded.
    “How?”
    “Connie told me.”
    “I thought Connie was your friend.”
    “Me, too—something else I was wrong about.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “About what?” she challenged.
    “Whatever you want. Whatever you need.”
    “Bad timing, Jeff.”
    He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the entrance tile. “Did Connie also tell you that it’s over, that it’s been over for months?”
    The question threw her. “Is that supposed to matter?”
    “I guess that’s up to you.”
    She’d never hit anyone in her life, never understood the need. She did now. “How could you?”
    “That’s what you want? A reason?”
    “Yeah, sure, lay it on me. And then I want you to tell me how you could have been so goddamned careless that you let yourself get caught.”
    He frowned. “I’ve been tearing myself up about what I’ve done to you, what I’ve done to us, and what matters to you is that someone found out?”
    “If you’d been a little more discreet, we could have handled it quietly, between us.” Her breath caught in a sob. “We might have worked it out. Now, I have to do something. No one respects a doormat, and if I don’t have the respect of the people who work for me, I can’t do my job. Without my job”—she was feeling her way through a dark tunnel of pain, grasping for handholds to guide her—“we lose everything.” It was a smokescreen, words she could hide behind because the truth left her too exposed. Without Jeff . . . oh, dear God, she couldn’t imagine her life without Jeff.
    “I don’t care.”
    “Obviously,” she shouted.
    He reached for her. She threw her arms up to ward him off. “We don’t need all of this, Rachel. We got along fine on a lot less. We could again.”
    “And why would I want to go back there, Jeff? What’s waiting for me? A solid marriage? A man who loves me? A faithful husband?”
    “I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love you, Rachel. I want our marriage to work. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. What I did was stupid, the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I don’t want to lose you. Not over this.”
    “Why, Jeff?” she said in a choked whisper. And then, shouting again, “ Why?  ” If she could understand maybe it would give her something to hold on to. Even alone in the middle of an ocean, the floating seat cushion from a plane brings hope.
    “Whatever I say is going to sound self-serving.” He glanced at the stairs. “Do we have to do this here?”
    She looked around. “Is one room better than another? Do we have one I don’t know about set aside for dissolving a marriage?”
    “I was lonely.” He hesitated. “She needed me. You don’t.”
    She felt as if they were in the middle of a bad movie where the wife was being accused and punished for emasculating her husband with her ambition. “That’s bullshit. Of course I need you. I’ve always needed you.”
    He ran his hand over his face. “I can’t do this. I can’t defend something that’s indefensible. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s something I’m going to have to