A Marriage Worth Fighting For

Maura had hidden any shock—or possibly lack of shock—behind the well-schooled facade that low-level, expendable employees learned to wear when confronted by difficult or irrational behavior from their employers. Alicia remembered the expression well from the countless times it had appeared on her own face. Maura had asked how long they would be here in Vermont, and on learning that it might be months, she’d come out with her explanation for not wanting to stay.

“When can you spare me?” Maura asked now, in response to Alicia’s question.

“It doesn’t matter.” Because nothing much did. She’d left MJ. That was all that counted. “Whenever you want.”

“Tonight?” Maura suggested hopefully. “If I check the schedule, could you drive me to the bus? A friend texted me about getting together tomorrow for—”

“Tonight is fine. I’ll give you cab fare to get you to the bus station.” Why go through an awkward evening? This way, Maura wouldn’t even need to unpack.

“I’m sure there’d be some lovely girls up here looking for child-care work,” Maura told her in an encouraging way.

“I’m sure, yes.” No point in telling this girl that she didn’t intend to replace her.

“You were going to give me those clothes that you didn’t want anymore….” Maura offered next, referring back to a conversation from a week or two ago that Alicia had totally forgotten.

“Give me a forwarding address, as soon as you have one, and I’ll mail them.”

This apparently dealt with the last of Maura’s concerns. Cast-off designer outfits, yippee! Her eyes lit up, and she gushed her thanks in the Irish accent that Abby and Tyler were both starting to pick up. They spent far more time with Maura than they spent with Alicia.

Well, that was about to change, big-time.

She looked at the clock.

Eight.

MJ was probably still at the hospital, or maybe winding down with a drink on the way home, with a couple of fellow doctors. When you added it up, she only saw him a few hours each week, and even those weren’t spent the way she would have chosen.

He was either dog-tired and silent, wanting only to sprawl on the couch eating the tired leftovers of a meal that had been fresh two or three hours ago, or else they went out to a charity event or a gallery opening or dinner at a smart restaurant. He always touched the small of her back as they moved through one of those public spaces together, as if to say to any other man who caught his eye, “Look what I’ve got. Pretty special, huh?” He rarely touched her when they were alone.

It was her own fault. She hated herself for it. She’d done her best—busted her gut—to marry for money and status. She’d worked her looks and her fashion sense and her hard-won poise for all they were worth, and her strategy had succeeded.

She’d snared MJ.

She hadn’t put a foot wrong.

She’d seized on that stupid, unforgettable night in Vegas when they’d gotten a little tipsy and stumbled into a garishly themed wedding chapel, and she’d gotten MJ over the line before he could sober up enough to rethink.

Brass ring, Alicia.

Married to a rich man with no prenup.

Not bad for a waitress from the wrong side of the tracks.

She’d been so goal-oriented about it that she hadn’t even stopped, before the ceremony, to think whether she loved him, or whether he loved her or whether they could possibly make each other happy.

She’d done her best for almost seven years to fulfill her side of the bargain. She’d given him two children. She’d kept her looks and her figure with an almost obsessive number of gym visits and spa sessions. She’d spent his money in all the ways he wanted her to. Everything they owned, from the children’s clothes to the hand-crafted dining table and matching chairs, was the product of hours of research on quality and brand names.

She’d said as little as possible about the foster homes she’d grown up in, from age ten to seventeen after Grammie died, and she’d never, ever, ever even hinted at the desperate straits she’d been in when he’d walked into her restaurant that first morning and given her the eye.

It wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t.

MJ’s first sizzling state of shock switched quickly to anger and an absolute refusal to accept his marriage was over. He found some chicken nuggets and oven fries in the freezer and nuked them in the microwave. While they were heating, he went into the bedroom and threw a couple of days’ worth of clothing into an overnight bag. The microwave pinged and he ate directly from the plastic dish, while he got on the phone and called his junior attending surgeon.

“Raj, something’s come up, and I won’t be available tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. McKinley. I hope nothing’s wrong.” The deep and slightly accented voice at the other end of the line strove to find the midpoint between professional distance and courteous concern.

“Everything’s fine. Family stuff. But let me catch you up on the schedule.” He switched quickly to the common language of their profession—the medical jargon and shorthand that safely took away any sense of the personal. In a couple of minutes, he covered from memory and electronic notes on his phone every patient going in for surgery tomorrow, as well as hitting the major points on several more cases that were either pre- or post-op. “Call me from the O.R. if you have any trouble with the Parker girl, because she’s going to be tricky,” he instructed. “You have the scans and the X-rays. But call me.”

He hated delegating. He was a better surgeon than most of the orthopedic specialists he knew, and that wasn’t arrogance; it was simply a fact.

Okay, correction: it was arrogance and fact.

He shoved the phone in his pocket, debating making another call or two—his office manager first, and then Oliver Marks, because they had a lunch plan in the works—but he could call later, or text. He wasn’t texting Alicia. She’d given no warning. He’d do the same. It would be midnight or later by the time he arrived, but too bad. When your whole world turned upside down, time ceased to count.

By seven-twenty he was down in the building’s underground parking garage, with his overnight bag in the trunk and his engine warming.

His marriage was not going to end with an arid little note from Alicia and divorce lawyers blazing their legal guns at fifty paces. He needed to confront her face-to-face, find out what was behind this, make her see.

See what?

His gut churned as he gunned the car in Reverse and squealed the tires on the echoing concrete.

See that this was impossible. Wrong. Just … impossible.

He seemed to have no other words for it than those two. Impossible and wrong. After almost five hours driving, with clenched hands aching on the wheel and jaw wired tight, he pulled into one of the twin driveways of his brother Andy’s elegant and cleverly subdivided Victorian house in Radford, Vermont, with no more idea of what he wanted to say to his wife than he’d had when he started.

The hammering on the door wrenched Alicia out of her restless, unhappy sleep. For about ten seconds, her heart thumped so hard in her chest that it interfered with her breathing and her skin prickled and stung with fear, but then she knew what was happening.

MJ.

Of course.

Why hadn’t she thought that he would race up here for a confrontation the moment he read her note? He had a highly developed need to win in any situation he encountered, and the prospect of a divorce was no exception.

She looked at the clock. Five minutes to midnight. It seemed appropriate. He must have gotten home from the hospital early tonight. Either that or he’d driven up here way too fast.

Probably both.

She felt sick at the thought of the imminent clash between them, and was only glad that Andy and Claudia were in New York City for a few days and weren’t around to hear anything through the walls.

She had called them to ask if she and the children could use the rental apartment, “just to get away for a short break and see the fall colors,” and they’d said of course she could, given her some practical instructions and told her where she could find the key. She dreaded their return four days from now, when she would have to tell them the truth.

She dreaded the next few minutes far more.

MJ hammered at the door again. Much more of it and he would wake the children, and that was the last thing she wanted. She rolled out of bed, grabbed a robe from where she’d left it on a chair in the corner of the room and hurried down, her bare feet chilling quickly on the wooden stairs and her whole body aching with reluctance and dread.

She snatched the door open just as he was about to batter his fist against it once more, so she caught him with it raised in the air, then saw the strong surgeon’s fingers slowly uncurl and drop back to his side.