Used-To-Be Lovers. Linda Miller Lael

within an instant.

      She and Tony had escaped to the island often that first summer after they bought the A-frame, bringing wine, romantic tapes for the stereo and very little else. They’d walked on the rocky beaches for hours, hand in hand, having so much to say to each other that the words just tumbled out, never needing to be weighed and measured first.

      And later, when the sun had gone and a fire had been snapping on the hearth, they’d listened to music in the dark and made love with that tender violence peculiar to those who find each other fascinating.

      Sharon opened her eyes, grateful for the shadows that hid the tears glimmering on her lashes. When did it change, Tony? she asked in silent despair. When did we stop making love on the floor, in the dark, with music swelling around us?

      It was several moments before Sharon could compose herself. She shifted in her chair and peered toward Bri and Matthew.

      They’d fallen asleep at separate ends of the long couch and, smiling, Sharon got up and tiptoed across the wet carpet to the stairs. At the top was an enormous loft divided into three bedrooms and a bath, and she entered the largest chamber, pausing for a moment at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sound.

      In the distance Sharon saw the lights of an approaching ferry and, in spite of her earlier annoyance, her spirits were lifted by the sight. Being careful not to look at the large brass bed she and Tony had once shared—Lord knew, the living room memories were painful enough—she took two woolen blankets from the cedar chest at its foot and carried them back downstairs.

      After covering the children, Sharon put the last store-bought log on the fire and then made her way back to the chair where she rested her head on one arm and sighed, her mind sliding back into the past again, her gaze fixed on the flames.

      There had been problems from the first, but the trouble between Tony and herself had started gaining real momentum two years before, when Matt had entered kindergarten. Bored, wanting to accomplish something on her own, Sharon had immediately opened Teddy Bares, and things had gone downhill from that day forward. The cracks in the marriage had become chasms.

      She closed her eyes with a yawn and sighed again. The next thing she knew, there was a thumping noise and a bright light flared beyond her lids.

      Sharon awakened to see Tony crouched on the hearth, putting dry wood on the fire. His dark hair was wet and curling slightly at the nape of his neck, and she had a compulsion to kiss him there. At one time, she would have done it without thinking.

      “Hello, handsome,” she said.

      He looked back at her over one broad, denim-jacketed shoulder and favored her with the same soul-wrenching grin that had won her heart more than ten years before, when he’d walked into the bookstore where she was working and promptly asked her out. “Hi,” he replied in a low, rumbling whisper.

      “Have you been here long?”

      Tony shook his head, and the fire highlighted his ebony hair with shades of crimson. “Ten minutes, maybe.” She wondered if those shadows in his brown eyes were memories of other, happier visits to the island house.

      She felt a need to make conversation. Mundane conversation unrelated to flickering firelight, thunderstorms, music and love. “Is the power out on the mainland, too?”

      Again, Tony shook his head. There was a solemn set to his face, and although Sharon couldn’t read his expression now, she sensed that his thoughts were similar to hers. When he extended his hand, she automatically offered her own.

      “I’m hungry,” complained a sleepy voice.

      Tony grinned and let go of Sharon’s hand to ruffle his son’s hair. “So what else is new?”

      “Dad, is that you?” The relief in the little boy’s voice made Sharon wonder if she’d handled things so badly that only Tony could make them better.

      Tony’s chuckle was warm and reassuring, even to Sharon, who hadn’t thought she needed reassuring. “One and the same. You were right about the floor—it is like mush.”

      Bri stirred at this, yawning, and then flung her arms around Tony’s neck with a cry of joy. “Can we go home?” she pleaded. “Right now?”

      Tony set her gently away. “We can’t leave until we’ve done something about the flood problem—which means we’re going to have to rough it.” Two small faces fell, and he laughed. “Of course, by that I mean eating supper at the Sea Gull Café.”

      “They’ve got lights?” Bri asked enthusiastically.

      “And heat?” Matt added. “I’m freezing.”

      “Nobody freezes in August,” Bri immediately quoted back to him. “Blitz-brain.”

      “I see things are pretty much normal around here,” Tony observed in wry tones, his head turned toward Sharon.

      She nodded and sat up, reaching for her wet socks and sneakers. “An element of desperation has been added, however,” she pointed out. “As Exhibit A, I give you these two, who have agreed to darken the doorway of the Sea Gull Café.”

      “It doesn’t have that name for nothing, you know,” Bri said sagely, getting into her shoes. “Don’t anybody order the fried chicken.”

      Tony laughed again and the sound, as rich and warm as it was, made Sharon feel hollow inside, and raw. She ached for things to be as they had been, but it was too late for too many reasons. Hoping was a fool’s crusade.

      Rain was beating at the ground as the four of them ran toward Tony’s car. Plans encased in cardboard tubes filled the back seat, and the kids, used to their workaholic father, simply pushed them out of the way. Sharon, however, felt an old misery swelling in her throat and avoided Tony’s eyes when she got into the car beside him and fastened her seat belt.

      She felt, and probably looked, like the proverbial drowned rat, and she started with surprise when the back of Tony’s hand gently brushed her cheek.

      “Smile,” he said.

      Sharon tried, but the effort faltered. To cover that she quipped, “How can I, when I’m condemned to a meal of sea gull, Southern-style?”

      Tony didn’t laugh. Didn’t even grin. The motion of his hand was too swift and too forceful for the task of shifting the car into reverse.

      Overlooking the angry water, the restaurant was filled with light and warmth and laughter. Much of the island’s population seemed to have gathered inside to compare this storm to the ones in ’56 or ’32 or ’77, to play the jukebox nonstop, and to keep the kitchen staff and the beaming waitresses hopping.

      After a surprisingly short wait, a booth became available and the Morellis were seated.

      Anybody would think we were still a family, Sharon thought, looking from one beloved, familiar face to another, and then at her own, reflected in the dark window looming above the table. Her hair was stringy and her makeup was gone. She winced.

      When she turned her head, Tony was watching her. There was a sort of sad amusement in his eyes. “You look beautiful,” he said quietly.

      Matt groaned, embarrassed that such a sloppy sentiment should be displayed in public.

      “Kissy, kissy,” added Briana, not to be outdone.

      “How does Swiss boarding school sound to you two?” Tony asked his children, without cracking a smile. “I see a place high in the Alps, with five nuns to every kid….”

      Bri and Matt subsided, giggling, and Sharon felt a stab of envy at the easy way he dealt with them. She was too tired, too hungry, too vulnerable. She purposely thought about the rolled blueprints in the back seat of Tony’s car and let the vision fuel her annoyance.

      The man never went anywhere or did anything without dragging some aspect of Morelli Construction along with him, and yet he couldn’t seem to understand why Teddy Bares meant so much to her.