And time we’d had. Enough that I no longer wondered why she’d been so sure of Westley’s devotion to me those first weeks of our marriage. And I no longer questioned her wisdom on forgiving him so quickly.
“My husband and I hadn’t shared a bed for weeks by that point. Maybe months.”
I certainly understood that and I nodded.
“But I knew what I had to do to keep the tongues from wagging,” she continued, “and I did it. Buford was in DC at some convention. I booked a flight as soon as I returned from the doctor’s office, then took a taxi to the hotel where I managed to cajole the manager to sneak me into my husband’s room.” She winked at me. “Told him it was our anniversary and I was there to surprise him. Asked that a magnum of champagne be sent up—and it was. I took a long, hot soak in a tub full of bubbles, dolled myself up as I hadn’t done in years, and waited.”
“I take it your plan worked.”
“It did.”
“And he never suspected that Biff wasn’t his biological son?”
Miss Justine pulled the drawer open to again reveal the hidden box of cigarettes. “He suspected,” she said, removing the box, retrieving a cigarette, and then lighting it. “But I never let on one way or the other.”
“And Biff? When did he start to suspect?”
“He didn’t need to suspect. He had enough of his father’s blood to know and he’s let me know it with those eyes of his since he was old enough to understand the way of things.”
“But you love him. Surely you love him.”
“My loving him has nothing to do with this. Stay away from him, Allison. He’ll use you and then discard you like he does all the conquests in his life and you’ll be left running toward a hotel room, lying to the manager, ordering up a bottle of champagne.”
I sank into the seat. “No worries there, Miss Justine. You and I both know I’ll never have to convince Westley as to the paternity of a child.”
She drew hard on the cigarette, held her breath, then exhaled. “I’m not talking about paternity, Allison. I’m talking about not believing your marriage is in trouble simply because Westley’s head—or maybe his health—is somewhere else right now.”
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot today,” I said, deciding quickly what to say and what to leave out, such as, “Cindie’s pregnant again. Married.”
Instead, I said, “It’s more than the medication he’s on—our not sleeping together. Westley is so caught up in what he’s doing at work—climbing the great financial ladder so he can buy more toys and go on more trips. And his weekends are consumed with Michelle. He thinks—never mind the heart attack—he still thinks life is one great big party and that it all works out if you just do the fun things. I think—no, I know—he’s forgotten about me. About who I really and truly am. To him I’m the woman who raises his child Monday through Friday. I’m the one who makes sure her homework is done and that she makes it to dance class twice a week and Girl Scouts and church. He could have hired someone to do what I do—”
“Not true. He could never pay anyone enough to love that child the way you love her and the way she loves you.”
That much was true.
“Allison?” She ground out her cigarette, left the second butt next to the first, both rimmed with the red of her lipstick. “Do you love him?”
“Westley?”
“Of course, Westley. You’re not so foolish as to think you love my son.”
“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation. “I love him very much. And you’re right about the other.”
“Do you tell him?”
“Of course.”
“Then the passion will return.”
Maybe … and maybe I would—could—forget about Biff. About the way he unnerved me. Seemed to read my thoughts and desires. The way he somehow knew me better than I knew myself. Yes, maybe …
After all, the passion between Wes and me had been nearly astonishing once upon a time. Explosions and starbursts and trumpets and cymbals. Maybe it could be again. “Thank you, Miss Justine.”
“Don’t let me down,” she said as I stood. “And do not come back to this house until Wednesday.”
“Why Wednesday?”
“Because I’m sending Biff home tomorrow. Whether he likes it or not. This is still my house and I can darn well determine who stays and who doesn’t.”
I laughed at the notion. “All right.” The clock struck, the little bird sticking his head out once, twice, then a third and final time. “I need to go home,” I said, then retrieved my purse and started for the door.
“Allison?”
I turned.
“We’ll never speak of this again.”
I smiled to soften the moment, my eyes roving to the drawer in the little table and the crushed butts in the ashtray. “What cigarettes?”
Miss Justine laughed so hard she fell into a coughing fit. “God love you, baby girl. God love you.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
March 1993
Cindie
One of the best things about being married to Kyle, in Cindie’s mind—besides the fact that he treated her and their son like a queen and a prince, respectively—was Friday nights. Every Friday, after a long week of work, she drove through the torment of Atlanta’s typical bumper to bumper traffic to their Tucker home—the same one she’d shared with Kyle when they’d been roommates, the one he had eventually purchased—to find her husband and son waiting. Waiting and ready for pizza.
“To commemorate the night we really got to know each other,” Kyle had told her when he began the tradition shortly after their marriage.
Although, in her mind, the evening she’d come home from being with Patterson only to find Kyle stretched out on the sofa—the evening they’d shared their first pizza and their first decent conversation—was not
