Stand-In Wife Read online

  Jason plopped himself down in front of the television. “Make yourself at home.”

  Paul sat on the sofa beside him and for a while pretended to pay attention to the game.

  “You want something to eat?”

  “No, thanks,” Paul said. He reached for a potato chip and munched on it before he realized what he was doing.

  “So things aren’t working out between you and Leah?” Jason asked in that easygoing manner of his.

  “How’d you know?” He hated the fact that his younger brother could read him so well. Paul had always thought of himself as aloof, adept at hiding his emotions. Apparently he wasn’t as good at it as he’d assumed.

  “You got the look, big brother,” Jason said, grinning.

  “The look?” Paul frowned.

  “Yeah, the look of guilt. What’d you do this time?”

  “Why are you so sure it was me?” Paul muttered.

  “’Cause it usually is the guy,” Jason said without taking his eyes off the television screen.

  “For not being married, you certainly seem to be an expert on this.” Paul almost wished he’d gone to Rich, instead. He knew Leah had gone shopping with Jamie earlier in the week and he was delighted the two of them had become friends. If he was going to spill his guts, Rich was, for a number of reasons, the more logical choice, yet it was Jason he’d turned to.

  “You’re right, you know. I am guilty.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Paul nodded and rubbed his palms together as he gathered his thoughts.

  Jason reached for the remote and turned off the TV. “You want a drink? Soda? Beer? Coffee?”

  With so many other things on his mind, Paul found making even a simple decision almost impossible. “Coffee, I guess.” He followed his brother into the kitchen and marveled that there were any clean dishes left in the house. Dirty pots and pans lined the sink and counter. Ah, the joys of the bachelor life.

  Jason opened the dishwasher and pulled out a mug. He examined it before filling it with tap water. Then he opened the microwave, removed a pair of socks and set the mug inside.

  While the water was heating, Paul paced the small kitchen. “I had a dream last night…about Diane.” He paused, half expecting Jason to comment. When his brother didn’t, he continued. “I don’t remember anything about the dream—only that she was in it.”

  “Has this happened before?”

  “Not that I recall.” Paul hardly ever remembered his dreams. “I don’t understand it. If Diane was going to haunt my sleep, why now? Why would she come back just when I’ve made my peace with her death? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jason apparently didn’t have any answers for him, either.

  “I’ve remarried and after almost a year, I can finally say I’m happy. Leah and I are…were,” he amended sadly, “working everything out. I’ve been doing my best to be a good husband, to make up for the things I didn’t do earlier. Now this.”

  “Don’t go hitting yourself over the head because of a dream.”

  “It was more than that,” Paul admitted sheepishly. “Last night, Leah and I—” he hesitated “—I don’t know how to explain it. It was as though for the first time all the barriers were down. I’d finished my novel and—”

  “Congratulations!” Jason said.

  Paul smiled weakly. “Thanks.” He wasn’t as excited as he had been. The book, or at least the first draft, was finished, but the exhilaration was gone. Nothing was more important to him than his relationship with his wife.

  “Leah and I made love and… I don’t know how to describe it, Jase, it was so…beautiful. I held her in my arms and I realized how much my life had changed since I married her.

  “I feel so whole again. I loved Diane and I always will, but she’s gone and I’m alive, and for the first time since I buried her, I’m not sorry to be.”

  “You’ve come a long way, Paul.”

  Paul shook his head. “When I went to sleep I was at peace with myself and my world, and then I had that dream….”

  “Did it occur to you that maybe Diane was saying goodbye to you?” Jason asked softly.

  “Saying goodbye to me? I don’t understand.”

  “You just finished telling me you’d accepted her death.”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps your subconscious allowed her the opportunity to release you, too. After Kelsey was born—before Diane died—there wasn’t much of a chance for the two of you to talk, was there?”

  “No. It happened so fast. Within days she was gone.”

  “I know.” Jason’s eyes were somber.

  “I wish I remembered more of the dream,” Paul said after a moment’s silence. “There’s a glimmer, but… Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  Paul pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. The burden of his guilt had never felt heavier. “There’s more. I don’t know how it happened, but apparently at some point during the night I called Leah Diane.”

  “You didn’t do it on purpose,” Jason said. “Surely Leah understands that.”

  “I don’t know what she understands. She was crying and, to be truthful, she wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. She kept saying she wouldn’t compete with Diane anymore, and that she’s moving out of our bedroom because I loved Diane. I’m not supposed to have loved her?” he demanded. “She was my wife!”

  “Give Leah time. She’s obviously upset, and when you think about it, you can’t really blame her.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m upset, too,” Paul said heatedly. “Where does this leave me? I’m supposed to tell Leah I don’t love Diane anymore?”

  “She wouldn’t believe you even if you did.”

  “I know,” Paul admitted, slumping forward in his chair. “I remember the day I married Diane. It’s clear as anything, but it seems like a hundred years ago now. I recall thinking I was going to love this woman all my life. And the amazing part is, I will always love her. I can’t stop loving her. But I don’t understand how it’s possible to love two women so intensely.”

  “You love Leah, too, then?”

  Paul nodded. “I didn’t go into this marriage with the same rosy vision I did when I married Diane. It made sense to marry Leah. It was a practical decision. I have to admit I was attracted to her, though. I admired and respected her, and she didn’t object. But I didn’t truly love her when we got married, not the way I loved Diane.”

  “But now you do. That means something, doesn’t it?”

  “Apparently not a lot,” he answered vehemently. Then he sighed. “I didn’t know I could love both of them so much. I struggled with that, thinking I was cheating one or the other.” It was a moment of self-realization for Paul; talking to his brother like this was helping him clarify his feelings.

  Jason didn’t say much, but he sat down across from him.

  “Leah and I didn’t start our physical relationship right away,” Paul continued, a bit chagrined to be discussing his sex life with his unmarried brother. “Neither of us was ready for it.”

  “At least you were wise enough to recognize that. Not everyone would have.”

  “For a while I felt like I was being unfaithful to Diane, to Diane’s memory, by loving Leah. But try as I might, I couldn’t make myself not love her.”

  “She’s your wife,” he said simply. “You should love her.”

  In his heart Paul knew Leah was as miserable as he was. He’d tried to talk to her that morning, tried to reason with her, but she was beyond listening. Not knowing what else to say or do, Paul had slipped out of the house.

  He’d felt numb as he drove around. Numbness frightened him. For the first few days after Diane’s death he’d experienced the same lack of emotion. Gradually, a red-hot pain had overtaken him, and the grief had dominated his every waking moment. The agony had been so consuming that his mind had blotted out whole weeks. He’d functioned, gone to work, taken care of his children, li
ved day to day, but he didn’t remember much of what had happened.

  It had all started with a numbness, the same numbness he’d felt that morning when Leah told him he’d called her by her sister’s name.

  “What are you going to do?” Jason asked him.

  Paul had to pull his thoughts together, mull over his dilemma. “I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “Try to rebuild her trust. I’ll love her without making any demands on her, give her the space and time she needs.”

  “Sounds like a good place to start.”

  Paul smiled. He never did get the cup of coffee his brother had promised him—not that it seemed very palatable. It didn’t matter, though. He was finished—or rather he’d found a place to start.

  “How’d you get to be so smart?” he asked Jason.

  His brother grinned. “Guess it just runs in the family.”

  Eager now to go home to Leah, Paul left his brother’s apartment. He was ready to talk to her, to explain everything he’d realized when he was talking to Jason.

  More than anything, he longed to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her, how much he needed her, how much he wanted her.

  He parked in the driveway and nearly leapt out of the car. He dashed to the front door, throwing it open.

  “Leah.” Her name was on his lips even before he entered the house.

  No response. He hurried into the kitchen to find Kelsey standing up, holding on to the seat of a chair. She gave him a four-toothed smile and thrashed her free arm about with excitement.

  A neighbor girl, Angie somebody, was slicing a banana at the counter.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, smiling broadly.

  “Where’s Leah?”

  “She left about an hour ago.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No. I’m sorry, I didn’t ask. She gave me the phone number to…” She reached for a slip of paper. “Here it is, Jamie and Rich’s.”

  “Yes?” Paul prompted.

  “She wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so she said I should call Jamie if you weren’t here by dinnertime. Apparently Jamie was going to come over and pick up the kids.”

  Paul’s heart was pounding. “Did she tell you when she’s coming back?”

  Angie shook her head. “I don’t think it’s anytime soon. She must’ve been going on a trip or something because she took a suitcase with her.”

  * * *

  Leah had no business being behind the wheel of a car and she knew it. Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision, making her a hazard on the road.

  She stopped when she came to a red light and blew her nose, then ran the back of her hand across her eyes. The rain that spattered her windshield was the perfect accompaniment to her mood.

  She didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to get away. The logical thing to do was to check into a hotel. She had to sort through her emotions, try to make sense of why she’d said what she had to Paul. She needed to understand what was going on between her and Paul. Between her and Diane.

  Finding somewhere to spend the night might have been rational, but Leah was in no frame of mind for rational behavior. If she had been, she would never have done anything as stupid as packing her bag and walking out on Paul and the children.

  But he’d left her. He’d left the house, and she’d been all alone with her pain. Everything was crowding in on her, and she’d felt the overwhelming urge to escape.

  Leah hated what was happening to her. What was happening to Paul. She’d reacted in anger, lashing back at him for the pain he’d caused her. The same pain she’d carried most of her life, standing on the sidelines while her mother fawned over Diane. She’d smiled and swallowed back the hurt when it was Diane who received new clothes at the beginning of the school year while Leah got hand-me-downs from neighbors and friends.

  She’d carried the hurt with her all those years, and yet she loved her sister. Diane couldn’t be blamed for being pretty and sweet, any more than Leah could for being plain and serious.

  Then Diane had died and, ironic as it seemed, wrong as it seemed, that had given Leah a chance at happiness. She’d jealously guarded her heart for so many years. If she was going to fall in love, why did it have to be with her dead sister’s husband?

  Paul had adored Diane. He still adored her. It didn’t seem fair that the only man Leah had ever loved had to be a man who loved her sister so completely.

  They were very different, Leah and Diane. Leah could never hope to gain Paul’s devotion. He loved her, Leah realized that, but what he felt for her paled in comparison to the depth of his love for Diane.

  Once again, she stood in her sister’s shadow.

  She was jealous of Diane, but why now, when she’d never been jealous before? Early in life she’d accepted her lot, understood her place. So why now? Why, after Diane was gone, did Leah feel this way? It was crazy. Unfair.

  Leah continued driving in the rain, taking side streets and staying off the busy thoroughfares. Her aimless route led her past a golf course. Golfers carrying umbrellas ambled from one green to another.

  With a jolt, it came to her then. She needed to talk to Diane, and even if it was a one-sided conversation, Leah had things that had to be said.

  * * *

  Because she didn’t know what street she was on, it took her some time to locate the cemetery. She parked, then walked slowly across the damp lawn, ignoring the drizzle that still hadn’t let up.

  Nearly a year had passed since Diane’s death. In all that time Leah hadn’t once visited her sister’s grave. She’d stood there as the coffin was lowered—her heart breaking, her breath coming in tortured gasps—and had no desire to ever return.

  Paul came often, or he had in the beginning. For months he’d brought fresh flowers each and every week. Leah knew because she’d often looked after the children while he was gone. Sometimes he’d be away for hours; other days it would only be a short while.

  Leah couldn’t recall the last time he’d come here. If he still came as often, he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

  Leah wandered around, ignoring the drizzle, searching for her sister’s marker.

  Diane Sandra Manning, Wife, Mother. The dates of her birth and death were listed along with a Scripture verse from Proverbs 31.

  So few words.

  Yet they said so much.

  She stood looking down at the headstone. An overwhelming sense of sadness came at her and fresh tears filled her eyes, mingling with the rain.

  After several minutes, she composed herself enough to speak. “Hi, Sis,” she said when she could, her voice tight. “I bet you’re surprised I came to see you.”

  It was probably foolish talking to a patch of lawn. In her heart Leah knew Diane wasn’t there; she knew her sister would never hear the words she spoke. But none of that mattered to Leah.

  “The boys started kindergarten. Oh, Diane, you’d be so proud of them! They’re growing up so fast. Ryan came home from class last week and announced that anyone who could read five whole words didn’t need a blankie. He gave it to me and hasn’t asked for it even once. Ronnie’s given up his thumb, too.” She smiled as she smeared the tears across her cheeks.

  She began again. “Kelsey’s such a precious baby. She’s walking now. Three and four steps at a time—she’s so eager to get into everything. She’s drinking out of a cup, too, but she still has two bottles a day.” Leah folded her arms around her waist. “She has your coloring. Her hair’s so blond it’s white. She’s a beautiful little girl.”

  Leah opened her purse and took out a fresh tissue, which she wadded up in her hand. “Paul finished his novel the other night,” she said haltingly.

  Then, squaring her shoulders, she closed her eyes. “I love him, too,” she cried. “Is that what you wanted—for me to love Paul? I didn’t mean for it to happen…. I’m not even sure when it did. One morning I woke up and I realized it was too late—I realized I love him.

  “W
hat do you want me to do, Diane? I can’t fight you for him. We can’t sit down and talk this out the way we did when we were teenagers. You can’t hug me and tell me everything’s okay.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Paul is your husband. But now he’s my husband, too. Is that what you intended? Is it what you wanted? For me to raise your children and…and to love Paul?” She was sobbing so hard now, she could barely speak. “Because…that’s what happened and I feel so wretched.”

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, it stopped raining. The dark heavy clouds that had blanketed the sky most of the day parted, and a dazzling display of sunlight broke through, shining on the grass, making it glisten.

  Leah looked up at the sky, feeling the sun’s warmth seep into her bones.

  * * *

  Paul tried to keep the panic at bay as he called Rich’s number.

  “Hello.”

  His sister-in-law picked up the phone—for which Paul was grateful. “Jamie, it’s Paul,” he said, managing to keep his voice smooth. “I just got home. I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Leah?”

  “Oh, hi, Paul. No, I haven’t. At least not since she phoned this morning.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  Jamie didn’t hesitate. Paul was listening carefully, waiting for the slightest pause, hoping he wouldn’t detect one so he’d know she was telling the truth.

  “No, she didn’t. Is everything all right? You seem worried.”

  “Everything’s fine,” he said abruptly, far more interested in getting the information he needed than in providing polite reassurances. “How did she sound when she talked to you?”

  “About the same way you’re sounding now. You’re sure everything’s all right?”

  “Yes. What did she say?” he asked again.

  “Not much. She phoned to ask if I could take the twins and Kelsey for her if you didn’t get back before dinnertime. I told her it wasn’t a problem.”