“I would never have been mean to a kid with special needs. Even if Charlie hadn't been my brother.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“I just know.”
“Whoever you think I was—whatever you think I was—back in high school, I’m not that guy now,” Jason said. “I’m not sure I ever was him, but I’m definitely not him now.”
“It doesn't matter,” she said. “You can't just say ‘I’m good now’ and have everything suddenly be forgotten.”
“Why not?” Jason rubbed his temple savagely. “Why are you fighting this so hard, Sari? Why do I have to be evil through and through? Why can't I have changed? Why do you want to think badly of me?”
“I don't.” She sagged back against the wall, suddenly exhausted. “At least … I don't think I do.”
“Then why can't you give me a break?”
It was so hard to explain. “I’ve hated everyone from high school for so long. I’ve gone to sleep thinking about how much I hated you all for years now. I don't think I could even go to sleep without thinking about all that.” She gave a little painful smile. “It's like my security blanket.”
“You need to give it up.”
“Charlie's been so screwed over,” Sari said. “In every way. He never had a chance, Jason. You don't know what it's like. Zack will be fine. Charlie won't.”
“You can't blame the kids from high school for that.”
“If they'd been kinder to him—”
“It would have been better,” he said. “But it wouldn't have cured his autism. There has to be more to the story than that.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I mean, of course. But—”
“But what? Why do you have to keep hating me?”
“Because it's easier than—” Than what? She turned away from him, pressing herself against the wall, trying to think, trying to find something coherent to say.
It was all such a mess, everything to do with Charlie. First there was her mother's craziness and her father's indifference, and then the cruelty of the kids at school … and then when all that was behind her, she had thought I’ll learn how to make everything better for him, but nothing she learned had ever made any difference—and the truth was she hadn't helped him at all.
She hadn't helped him at all.
God, it hurt to think that. She had spent the last six years of her life studying how to help Charlie, but he was still stuck at home watching TV and eating too much, isolated from the real world. For all her schooling and good intentions, she hadn't done a thing for Charlie. Her mother always got in her way when she tried to change things, and eventually she had given up even trying.
It was too awful to think about—all that failure, all that giving up. It was so much easier to blame everyone else—her mother for not getting it, her father for not caring, her sister for running away, everyone at school for laughing at him—
But what had she ever done to make Charlie's life better? Who had hurt him more in the end—some strangers who made fun of him or the sister he loved who used to hit him and scream at him because he couldn't change? What good had any of her promises or hopes or anger actually done him?
“Oh, shit,” Sari said. She hid her face in her hands, her body crouched against the wall. “I can't do this.”
“Do what?”
Through her fingers, she said, “I can't just suddenly change the way I’ve been thinking about things.”
“Why not?” Jason was suddenly standing very close to her. “Didn't you tell me the brain is very good at reshaping itself? Ever hear of a little thing called neural plasticity?”
Sari let her hands drop to her sides. “If you tell me to lay down some new neural pathways, I swear I’ll—”
“You'll what?” Jason said.
“I don't know,” she said and wouldn't look at him. “It's just not that easy.”
“We could schedule some interventions for you, if it would help,” Jason said. “I know some excellent therapists.” He took her hand. She looked at their fingers and saw how quickly hers twined around his. “I know how hard it is to change the way you think about things,” he said. “Do you know how long I’ve clung to the idea that I’m going to make it in Hollywood? That I’m some undiscovered genius? And meanwhile I’m just a part-time kids basketball coach whose wife—soon to be ex-wife— has to support him. I need to lay down some new pathways of my own.” He rubbed his thumb softly against the rounded part of her palm. “You could help me, Sari. You're good with all this brain-retraining stuff. It's what you do.”
“Why would you want me to help you?” Sari said. “I was mean to you and Zack. You said so yourself.”
“Yeah, you were,” he said. “And back in high school, I used to laugh when someone tripped a retard.”
“So what are you saying? That we're even?”
“Not that. More like … people can act badly and not be bad people.”
“How do you tell the difference? Between a bad person and one who just acts badly? Because I’ve been trying so hard to figure that one out and I can't. I cant.”
“You just know,” he said. “One pretty good indication is when the person devotes her life to helping other people. Truly bad people don't usually do that. Not unless it pays well.”
“It doesn't pay well,” Sari said. She couldn't look at him, just kept focusing on their hands—on how her fingers were clutching on to his. She felt choked with hope and dread and uncertainty.
“Also,” he said, “when someone kisses you and it's all you can think about for weeks and weeks, you just can't believe that person is bad.”
“Bad people can be good kissers.”
“I’m sorry.” Jason pulled on her hand, gently reeling her in toward him. “I just can't think of you as evil. God knows I’ve tried, Sari. For the past few days, all I’ve done is try. I’ve been so pissed off at you … But I keep seeing you throw your arms around Zack because he said ‘more’ one day, and everything else gets lost.”
“I know,” she said and extricated her hand from his, but only so she could slide it up his arm, feel the muscle there and the warmth of his skin. “I’ve been trying even harder to hate you. To keep hating you, I mean.” She was whispering now, not to be quiet, but because it was so hard to find the breath to speak out loud. “But you keep making it almost impossible.”
“Sari,” he said, and it was a question, only she didn't try to answer it, just pushed herself against him, and maybe that was answer enough. She could feel his whole body sigh with relief. She buried her face in his chest. She only came up to his shoulders, and it felt good to just collapse onto him, to let someone else hold her up for a change. “Sari,” he said again. His fingers went to her hair and he stroked it gently for a moment, but then he caught some of the short strands in his fingers and tugged it back—not painfully, but firmly enough to force her head back and make her look at him. His face—his so-handsome-it-hurt-to-look-at-him face—was taut and anxious, and his voice was hoarse when he said, “If this is another one of those times when you're playing with me—if you're going to turn on me again like you did last time—”
“And the time before,” she said, ashamed, remembering how every time she started to like him and let him see that she liked him, she'd force herself to be cold and angry with him again, with no explanation or apology. “I won't. I swear I won't. And I wasn't playing with you before—I was fighting with myself.”
“That's not what it felt like from where I was standing.”
“I was pretty awful, wasn't I?”
“Just a little cruel.”
“Here I was thinking you were the bad guy,” Sari said. “And it was me all along.”
“Yeah.” He kept the firm hold on her hair, kept her head pulled back, his eyes studying her face. “But I forgive you.” He bent over her. There was enough anger left in him that his kiss was hard and violent.
She was instantly aroused, instantly drawn under. She had been waiting a long
time for this, she realized, and her body was already tightening with the lust she'd been trying to ignore for all that time. This time, there was no holding back, no wondering whether she was making a mistake. All she wanted was to be this close to him forever, always feeling his mouth and body demanding hers and hers demanding his.
And then someone cleared her throat just a few feet away.
They sprang apart.
“Hi,” Ellen said, standing in the doorway, holding her briefcase across her chest like a shield. “Am I interrupting? Or am I allowed to come into my own office?”
“Oh, God,” Sari said. She felt her hot face flush even hotter.
“I’m so sorry, Ellen. Oh, God.”
Ellen came into the room. “Hey, curie,” she said, holding her free hand out to Zack, who was still lying on his back on the floor. “How about standing up now? It's time to go home. Past time, I’d say,” she added with a sharp look at Sari as she hauled Zack to his feet and extended his hand to his father.
“Come over later?” Jason whispered to Sari as he slipped by her on the way to taking Zack's hand.
Sari nodded. She wasn't capable of speaking at the moment.
“Really?” he said.
She nodded again, and he led Zack to the door. “Sorry,” he said to Ellen. “We never meant to—”
“Just please take your child and go,” Ellen said. Jason hesitated, looking at Sari, who gestured with her head toward the door, and he nodded and left. Ellen dropped her briefcase on the floor and turned to Sari. “Tell me why I shouldn't strangle you.”
Sari forced a smile. “You'd be short a clinician?”
“That's the only reason I’m not. But if you ever do anything like this again—”
“I’m so sorry, Ellen,” Sari said. “I—” It was hard for her to get words out, but she cleared her throat and tried again. “I wouldn't. Ever. I never have before, I swear.”
“Well, that's a relief. I’d hate to think you're in here making out with men whenever my back is turned.”
“This was the first time—”
“First, last, and only. You understand?”
“Of course. Of course.”
“The kid was right there,” Ellen said. “God knows I’m no prude, Sari, but the poor kid was lying on the floor and his parents aren't even divorced yet. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn't really thinking,” Sari said.
“That's obvious.” Ellen studied her carefully. “I assume this was connected to the whole ‘I can't work with Zack but I swear his father's not a letch’ thing?”
“Kind of. I mean—”
“Do we want to revisit the question of whether his father's a letch or not? Because it seems to me—”
“Please,” Sari said. She put her hand to her forehead. “It's not like that, Ellen.”
“Really? So tell me what it's like.”
“I don't know,” she said. “Can I get back to you on that?”
“Whatever it is or isn't, keep it out of the office,” Ellen said.
“I promise.”
“And if you ever ask to be taken off a child's case again for personal reasons—”
“I won't.”
“You better not. Or you'll be out of here. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“All right then.”
Sari went to the door.
“One last thing—” Ellen said.
“What?” She turned.
Ellen scooped up her briefcase off the floor and dropped it onto her desk. “Don't forget to go over there later. Might as well finish what you started. Only this time in the appropriate environment.”
Sari managed a nod and stumbled out of the office.
Jason was putting Zack to bed when Sari arrived. She volunteered to read Zack a bedtime story, and Jason sat on the bed and watched her intently through the whole book. It made it hard to read.
Once she was done, she put the book back in the bookcase while Jason tucked the blanket around Zack's little body. Over his shoulder he said to her, “I have to lie down with him until he falls asleep or he'll scream for an hour.”
“You should let him scream,” she said. “Eventually he'll learn to—”
“No,” he said. “Not tonight. I want him to go to sleep quickly tonight.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too.”
“Wait for me in the family room?”
“Okay.”
She was alone in the family room for almost half an hour. Which gave her plenty of time to wander around looking at photos she would rather not have looked at and then to torture herself by studying them minutely—photos of Jason and Denise getting married (she wore a satin slip dress cut on the bias and was gorgeously slim and elegant), photos of a weary but triumphant Denise cuddling a newborn Zack, photos of the whole family on vacation near a beach, Zack just a toddler in his fathers arms—photos, over and over again, of the perfect family, perfectly happy together.
Jason walked in while she was still studying one of the older photos—Denise and Jason in their college graduation gowns, kissing, each of them holding a diploma up to the camera, but otherwise apparently oblivious to its presence.
“Hi,” he said, coming to stand next to her.
“Is he asleep?”
He nodded then gestured at the photos surrounding them.
“So what do you think?”
“There are a lot of them,” she said, carefully placing the one she was holding back among the rest.
“I know. I’d like to get rid of some of them. Or even all of them. There's something sad and creepy about having to look at them all the time, like nothing's changed. But I don't know how Zack would feel about it if they all just disappeared.”
“Yeah, that might be hard on him.”
“It might.” They were both silent for a moment.
Then Sari said, “She's really beautiful.”
“I guess.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “I like the way you look.”
“You didn't back in high school.”
“I barely knew you. If I had ever stopped and really talked to you—“
“It wouldn't have made a difference,” she said. “We weren't in the same place back then.”
There was another pause. Then: “How mad was Ellen?”
“Pretty mad. I don't blame her. We were acting like—” She stopped.
“Like what?”
“I don't know. Teenagers, I guess. Getting carried away by our hormones.”
“That's not such a bad thing,” he said, and he grinned suddenly. “Want to do that again?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do.” But when he reached for her, she suddenly ducked away. “I’m sorry,” she said, twisting her hands together. “It's just a little scary.”
“What?”
She gestured toward a photo of Denise sitting by a pool and laughing. “Well, she is, for one thing. The way she looks … it just makes me wonder how many other beautiful women you've been with.”
“Not that many,” he said. “You'd be surprised.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “In high school alone, they must have numbered in the dozens. All those cheerleaders.”
He shook his head and reached for her hand. Just the touch of his fingers on hers made her want to jump out of her skin in a good way. “You're nuts. I had two girlfriends in all of high school, and they both ended up dumping me.”
“You were always with some girl or another,” Sari said. “Always. You were like this movie star on the campus. All those girls, all over you—they were always giving you massages on that wall behind the cafeteria and—”
“You gave me a back rub not that long ago,” he said. “That I remember.”
“A back rub?”
“With a hot towel.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “Did you like that?”
“Are you kidding? It was maybe the most erotic two minutes of my life.”
“Don't say that. I was there to work
with Zack, not to turn you on.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I did my best to hide it.”
“Anyway, what are you talking about, two minutes? It was a lot longer than that.”
“It was not. You were in and out. Got me all excited and then walked away—telling me to go take Advil. You're a cold, cold woman, Sari Hill.”
“Turn around,” she said and he obeyed her. She pulled up his shirt, put her hands against his warm back.
He shivered. “You really are cold. Your hands are like ice.”
“They'll warm up,” she said. She slid her hands all the way up under his shirt, to the muscles of his shoulders and let herself really feel how warm and strong he was, then she slipped them down and around his waist to his flat stomach and up again to explore the broad planes of his chest.
“Ah,” he said.
They stood like that for a moment, her hands pinning him against her, front to back. She rested her cheek against the swell of his right shoulder. And then he turned around, so her hands were caught for a moment in his shirt and by the time she had worked them free, his arms were pulling her tight against him, and then his mouth came down on hers and for once—for once—they were alone somewhere private, with no cars or people to stop them from doing what they both wanted to do so badly, and no anger left in Sari to make her pull back and reject something that she wanted with all of her body and all of her heart.
9
Yarn Over
I
As the old year gave way to the new one, Kathleen found herself with a lot of free time on her hands.
For one thing, she no longer had a job. After Hawaii, she had never even bothered returning to the office. “You can kiss any references goodbye,” Sam said when he found out she hadn't given two weeks’ notice. It didn't matter: her sisters had asked her to come back to work for them and she had said she would, after a few more weeks of vacation.