I, Richard - Elizabeth George [70]
She worked her way into one of the hard-backed pews. She sat. There was a kneeler that she could have used to pray from, but she was beyond casting petitions heavenward. There was no help—divine or otherwise—for what ailed her. This was something Eric had known the moment she confessed to him the depth to which her suspicions about him had taken her. And she'd had to confess—had felt the need to confess—once he'd come home triumphant from “the biggest sale in my whole career, Char, wait'll you hear about the bonus, how does a cruise sound to you for a celebration? Or even a complete lifestyle change? We can have that now. We can have it all. Hell, I'm sorry I've been so out of it lately.”
She'd known then that her fears had been groundless, that there was no other woman in his life. And, knowing this and seeking absolution for her sin of doubting him, she'd told him the truth.
“Char, God, we went through this once already, didn't we? I'm not having an affair!” He'd said it all with an earnestness that, combined with the joy with which he'd told her about his impending good fortune, had made it impossible to disbelieve him. “You're the only one… You've always been the only one. How could you think anything else? I know I've been preoccupied. And in and out at weird hours. And taking phone calls and disappearing. But that all was because of this deal and you can't ever think… Hell, never, Char. You're the reason I've been doing all this. So that we can have a better life. For us. For our kids. Something more than suburbia. You deserve it. I deserve it. And now that this deal I've been concentrating on at work has gone through… I haven't wanted to talk about it because I didn't want to jinx it. I never thought it'd get you all upset. Come here, Char. Hell. God. I'm sorry, babe.”
And she'd known from the sound of his voice that he meant it. And from the sound of his voice and the look in his eyes, she'd drawn the comfort that told her her fears were groundless. So she'd given herself up to his love that evening and later, at dawn, she'd confessed the rest of her sins. She owed him that confession, she thought. Only by telling him how low she had sunk would she be able to forgive herself.
“I finally stopped it all when I spilled medicine all over the floor in your bathroom.” She laughed at herself and at all of her fears, groundless now. “It was like I regained consciousness all of a sudden, standing in a pool of Robitussin.”
He smiled and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Robitussin? Char. What were you up to?”
“Insanity,” she said. “I was so sure. I thought, ‘There's got to be evidence somewhere. Of something.' So I was searching through everything. Even your medicine cabinet. I broke that bottle of cough syrup on your bathroom floor. I'm sorry.”
He continued to smile but in Charlie's mind's eye—now, in the chapel in San Juan Capistrano—she could see how fixed that smile had become. She could see how he'd attempted to clarify what she was telling him.
“There wasn't cough syrup in my bathroom, Char. You must've been in—”
“You've probably forgotten it. The label was old. It's actually just as well it got thrown out. Don't they say medicine over six months old isn't right to take?”
Had his lips looked stiff? Had that smile stayed fixed? He said, “Yeah, I think they do say that.”
“Sorry I broke it, though.”
Had he averted his eyes, then? “How'd you clean it up?”
“On my hands and knees, doing penance.”
Had he laughed? Weakly or otherwise? “Well, I hope you wore rubber gloves, at least.”
“Nope. I didn't want anything to get in the way of me and my sin. Why? Was it not really cough syrup?