“When I was growing up my mom just barely made enough for us to scrape by. I’d never even eaten in a restaurant other than fast food before I left home for university. I met you only one year out of school. And though by then I’d been wining and dining clients, traveling and seeing how the other half lived, actually being dumped into your lifestyle was culture shock to me.”
“I got that—a little late, unfortunately—but I got it. We were working around it, but you never seemed to adapt.”
“That’s because there’s something else. Something that you don’t know.”
Also gathering things from the table, he stopped, peered over at her.
Glad for the distance between them, the buffer of space, she sucked in a fortifying breath. “I…um…my parents’ divorce was not a happy one.”
“Very few divorces are.”
“Actually my mom, sisters and I ran away from my dad.” She sucked in another breath. “He was abusive.”
“He hit you?” Anger vibrated through his words, as if he’d demand payback if she admitted it was true.
“Yes. But he mostly hit my mom. We left in the night—without telling him we were going—because a charity like A Friend Indeed had a home for us hundreds of miles away in Philadelphia. We changed our names so my dad couldn’t find us.”
He sat on one of the chairs surrounding the table. “Oh.” Processing that, he said nothing for a second then suddenly glanced up at her. “You’re not Liz Harper?”
“I am now. My name was legally changed over a decade ago when we left New York.”
“Wow.” He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s certainly not your fault that my father was what he was or that I lived most of my life in poverty, always on the outside looking in, or that I didn’t have the class or the experiences to simply blend into your life.”
“That’s why you’re so attached to A Friend Indeed.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
A few seconds passed in silence. Liz hadn’t expected him to say anything sympathetic. That simply wasn’t Cain. But saying nothing at all was worse than a flippant reply. She felt the sting of his unspoken rejection. She wasn’t good enough for him. She’d always known it.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She snorted a laugh. “Tell my perfect, handsome, wealthy husband who seemed to know everything that I was a clueless runaway? For as much as I loved you, I never felt I deserved you.”
He smiled ruefully. “I used to think the same thing about you.”
Disbelief stole her breath. Was he kidding her? She’d been the one with the past worth hiding. He’d been nothing but perfect. Maybe too perfect. “Really?”
“I would think why does this beautiful woman stay with me, when I’m an emotional cripple.” He combed his fingers through his hair as if torn between the whole truth and just enough to satisfy her openmouthed curiosity. Finally he said, “The guilt of my brother’s death paralyzed me. Even now, it sometimes sneaks up on me. Reminding me that if I’d left a minute sooner or a few seconds later, Tom would still be alive.”
“The kid who hit you ran a red light. The accident wasn’t your fault.”
“Logically, I know that. But something deep inside won’t let me believe it.” He shook his head and laughed miserably. “I’m a fixer, remember. Even after Tom’s death, it was me Dad turned to for help running the business and eventually finding a replacement he could trust with his company when he wanted to retire. Yet, I couldn’t fix that accident. I couldn’t change any of it.”
“No one could.”
He snorted a laugh. “No kidding.”
A few more seconds passed in silence. Fear bubbled in her blood. She had no idea why he’d confided in her, but she could see the result of it. She longed to hug him. To comfort him. But if she did that and they fell into bed, what good would that do but take them right back to where they had been? Solving all their problems with sex.
She grabbed her handful of napkins and walked them to the laundry room, realizing that rather than hug him, rather than comfort him, what she should be doing is airing all their issues. This conversation had been a great beginning, and this was probably the best opportunity she’d ever get to slide their final heartbreak into a discussion.
She readied herself, quickly assembling the right words to tell him about their baby as she stepped out of the pantry into the kitchen again.
Cain stood by the dishwasher, arranging the final glasses on the top row. She took a deep breath, but before she could open her mouth, he said, “Do you know you’re the only person I’ve ever talked about my brother’s accident with?”
“You haven’t talked with your family?”
He shrugged and closed the dishwasher door. Walking to the center island, he said, “We talk about Tom, but we don’t talk about his accident. We talk about the fact that he’s dead, but we never say it was my fault. My family has a wonderful way of being able to skirt things. To talk about what’s palatable and avoid what’s not.”
Though he tried to speak lightly, she heard the pain in his voice, the pain in his words, the need to release his feelings just by getting some of this out in the open.
This was not the time to tell him about their baby. Not when he was so torn up about the accident. He couldn’t handle it right now. Her brain told her to move on. She couldn’t stand here and listen, couldn’t let him confide, not even as a friend.
But her heart remembered the three sad, awful years after the accident and desperately wanted to see him set free.
“Do you want to talk about it now?”
He tossed a dishtowel to the center island. “What would I say?”
She caught his gaze. “I don’t know. What would you say?”
“Maybe that I’m sorry?”
“Do you really think you need to say you’re sorry for an accident?”
He smiled ruefully. “I guess that’s the rub. I feel guilty about something that wasn’t my fault. Something I can’t change. Something I couldn’t have fixed no matter how old, or smart or experienced I was.”
“That’s probably what’s driving the fixer in you crazy.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not your fault. You can’t be sorry.” She shook her head. “No. You can be sorry your brother is gone. You can be sorry for the loss. But you can’t take the blame for an accident.”
“I know.” He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “That was weird.”
“Talking about it?”
“No, admitting out loud for the first time that it wasn’t my fault. That I can’t take the blame.” He shook his head. “Wow. It’s like it’s the first time that’s really sunk in.”
He smiled at her, a relieved smile so genuine that she knew she’d done the right thing in encouraging him to talk.
The silence in the room nudged her again, hinting that she could now tell him about their baby, but something about the relieved expression on his face stopped her. He’d just absolved himself from a burden of guilt he never should have taken up. What if she told him about her miscarriage and instead of being sad, he got angry with himself all over again?
She swallowed, as repressed memories of the days before she left him popped up in her brain. All these years, she’d thought she’d kept her secret to protect herself.