expression in his eyes. 'We got married for all the wrong reasons. Maybe subconsciously we thought that having the boys would pull us together. But it didn't. It was a poor
excuse, and the boys are the ones who paid for 93 it.' He studied his crossed ankles as he ended quietly, 'They're both sorry.'
'Sorry?'
He looked up. 'Rebellious, troublemakers, in and out of scrapes with school, the law, you name it. Not exactly all-American boys.'
'Oh, Tommy Lee, I'm so sorry.'
He half turned, stubbing out his cigarette. 'Yeah, well, don't be. It was Roz's fault and mine, not yours. Maybe if we'd loved each other more we would have been better parents and raised better kids. I don't know.'
'And they live with her?'
He nodded. 'In Mobile.'
'Do you ever see them?'
'As little as possible. When we're in the same room you can see the sparks in the air.'
'Do they write to you?'
He lifted sad eyes to her. 'When they need money. Then good ol' dad gets a letter.'
Her heart melted with pity. He looked lonely and defeated, and she wondered if losing a child the way he had wasn't more devastating than
giving one up for adoption.
'And what about… Beth?' The name was difficult for Rachel to say.
He smiled ruefully, shook his head, then crossed to take the chair opposite Rachel, dropped an ankle over a knee, and drew circles on the white Formica with the bottom of his glass. 'Beth is hovering on the brink. I'm not sure yet which way she'll go. She and her mother don't get along and I'm out of the picture.'
'You had her with your second wife.'
It struck Tommy Lee that Rachel had kept close tabs, indeed, but for the moment he answered her non- question by going on, 'Yes, my second wife, Nancy. Do you know why I married Nancy?' His glass made dull murmurs on the tabletop. When she looked from it to his face, she found his eyes on the giraffe at her throat. They moved up and locked with hers as he admitted quietly, 'Because the first time I saw her, she reminded me of you. Her hair was the same color as yours, and her mouth was a lot the same. And when she laughed, there was always that little half-hiccup at the end, just like you do.'
The pause that followed was anything but comfortable for
Rachel. She was embarrassed, yet 95 flattered, and her heart seemed to thump in double time while she couldn't think of a single sensible thing to say. She was thankful when he went on. 'But before we were married a year I realized she was nothing at all like you. She's a vicious bitch. I married her because I was lonely, and on the rebound from another marriage. That-granted- wasn't so hot, but at least it was company. I needed the sound of another human voice at the end of the day, and somebody across the supper table. So I married Nancy.'
She could well imagine his loneliness at the time, for by then he'd cut himself off from his parents.
'And your third wife, Sue Ann?' she prompted.
He flexed his shoulders against the back of the chair, glanced out at the night, chuckled ruefully and shook his head. 'What a joke. The whole damn town knows why I married Sue Ann Higgenbotham.' He swallowed the last of his drink, set the glass down and crossed his forearms on the table, meeting her eyes directly. 'I think most people refer to it as male menopause.'
She smiled at his candor but recalled her mortification upon reading of his third marriage to a woman fifteen years his junior, and one known for her licentious relationships with countless older men around town. She recalled the snickers and raised eyebrows, and the way she'd always reacted to them with a quick defensive anger. How many times had she bitten back a quick defense of Tommy Lee? She experienced again the quick flash of anger she'd felt toward him then for making himself vulnerable to speculation and gossip.
'But did you have to choose someone that much younger than yourself? And a girl like that?'
'Why, Rachel,' he noted, grinning, 'do I detect a spot of temper?'
She colored slightly, but unloaded her convoluted feelings at last. 'I used to get so angry with you for… for cheapening yourself that way. There were times when I wanted to smack you in the head and ask you just what in the world you were trying to prove! And you realize, don't you, that you left me open to questioning, with all your antics. People remembered that we were practically born and raised together, and they'd come up to me and ask the most embarrassing questions, as if I still kept tabs on you.'
'Apparently you did.' 97
'Don't get smug, and stop trying to evade the issue. I asked you why in the world you got tangled up with somebody like Sue Ann Higgenbotham.'
'Chasing after my own youth, I guess. Trying to find it with somebody who was as young as I wished I was.'
'But you were young.' She leaned forward earnestly. 'You were only thirty-five, Tommy Lee.'
Again her recordkeeping struck him, but he made no issue of it. 'Rachel, I've felt old since I was twenty-one, fresh out of college, marrying some woman because it was the acceptable thing to do.'
'That was different. She was your own age, and you were starting out together. With Sue Ann I always had the feeling you were throwing her in your parents' faces.'
'How could I throw her in their faces when we weren't even talking to each other?'
'You know what I mean. Flaunting her, choosing the worst woman the town had to offer. They were just as aware of what a mess you were making of your life as everyone else in Russellville. Through the years I've often felt you came back to do it
under their noses just to humiliate them.'
He pondered, studying her steady eyes. 'Maybe I did. God, I don't know. You as much as admitted there were times when you had the urge to get even with your parents, too.'
'Yes. Times. But I wasn't raised that way, Tommy Lee, and neither were you. I realize they were as fallible as anybody else. They made their decision because they loved me and thought it was best for me.'
There was a stern edge to his voice and his brows drew downward. 'But it wasn't, Rachel, was it?'
Her heart thundered heavily as she met Tommy Lee's eyes and wondered if her own disillusionment showed as openly as his. 'My life with Owen was very good,' she argued, perhaps a little too quickly.
Tommy Lee's eyes swept around the room, returned to her before he asked very simply, 'But where are the children, Rachel?'
Her polished lips fell open and a pained expression etched her eyes. Beneath the draping silk blouse he saw her breasts heave up once, as if she were struggling for control. He was
terribly sorry to do this to her, but what 99 she'd suffered-if she had-was important to him.
She dropped her eyes to her empty glass and admitted quietly, 'We were never able to have any.'
'Why?'
Their eyes met, delved deeply, and he saw fissures of vulnerability within the woman who always appeared so carefully in control. She pondered the advisability of revealing the truth to the man who'd fathered the only child she'd ever been able to have, but somehow it seemed right that he should know. Her lips trembled, paused in shaping the first word, but finally she got it out. 'I… I was allergic to Owen's sperm.'
He couldn't have looked more surprised if she'd slugged him. His jaw dropped and he tried to speak, but nothing came out. Though she was hidden by the table from the waist down, his eyes dropped to the point where her stomach must be, then as he realized where he was gazing, they flew back to her face again. But his own face was a mask of regret.
'Ironic, isn't it?' Rachel added. 'But it's true.'
'I've never heard of such a thing,' he blurted out.
Her face was slightly pale, his growing increasingly pink as she went on, chafing her crossed arms as they rested on the table edge. 'It's not all that uncommon. It seems my body had an excessive sensitivity to his semen, and put up what they called an immunologic reaction to it. I actually created antibodies that prevented the sperm from reaching the egg to fertilize it.'
He was stunned by the queer twist of fate that had made her pregnant at a time in her life when she didn't want to be, but had prevented pregnancy during the years when it was what she must have most desired. Yet she
