Chapter 2 A Cry In The Night

She moved in close, lifted her face, and kissed him.

It was awkward at first. Her lips brushed his with more courage than skill. She laid both hands on his chest. He felt warm and solid under her fingers. One hand slid up to his neck but she stopped short of pulling him in closer.

Rebecca kept her eyes closed, perhaps to shut out any show of rejection in his expression.

He smelled faintly of soap and the clean, tangy trace of cedar that had clung to his shirts for as long as she had known him. It was a scent so familiar, it never failed to tease her senses.

Throughout their marriage she had slept beside it, folded it from his laundry, breathed it in from the empty side of the bed after he had already risen.

She pressed her mouth to his again, a little more insistent this time, trying to follow instinct where experience failed her. One hand timidly roamed the expanse of his chest, following the contours of the muscular curves. Her other hand tightened at his neck, betraying her rising need.

She was aware of everything at once — the warmth of his mouth, the proximity of his solid frame, the painful beat of her own pulse, the silence between them.

Vance didn’t move at first. Then his hand came to her waist.

Rebecca almost pulled back in surprise, but his fingers closed on her waist, firm through the thin fabric of her nightdress, tracing the curve down to her hip where his hand pulled her in closer. The breath she had been holding broke free. A little gasp.

Then he pulled away so sharply, a chasm of rejection opening up between them once more. His hands remained on her for only a second longer, just enough to steady her, before he let go.

Rebecca stood where he had left her. She opened her eyes slowly.

Vance had turned away from her, his head lowered, the firm line of his shoulders no longer quite so composed. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, roughened at the edges.

“This cannot happen.”

Rebecca heard the words, but for a moment she didn’t seem to understand them. She only looked at him, her lips parted, the warmth still lingering a moment longer.

Then her hand dropped to her side.

“Oh,” she said.

It was a small sound. Too small for the humiliation consuming her.

She lowered her gaze before he could read her defeat. Her fingers twitched along the hem of her nightdress.

Vance turned back. “Rebecca, I —”

“It’s all right.” She said it too quickly.

She sounded polite, automatic, almost practiced. She became suddenly aware of how exposed she was standing there in front of him, with damp hair, swollen lips, and her thin little nightie.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

His cell phone rang on the bedside table.

Just a standard ring tone, but she recognized that specific chime. It was not the one Vance used for business calls, nor was it the usual tone announcing calls from everyone else.

It belonged to Catherine.

Vance hesitated.

For an instant he remained close beside her, his breath still warm against her cheek. Then she felt the restraint come crashing in once more and he abruptly moved back, restoring the polite distance he always maintained.

Rebecca could tell that any fragile semblance of new intimacy opening between them, was firmly slammed shut.

He reached for the phone.

“Catherine?” His voice was low, but Rebecca heard the name clearly.

She didn’t move. Her nightdress had slipped off one shoulder and she pulled it back into place. Her skin felt cold beneath the thin fabric.

In the silent room, a woman’s voice could be heard coming through the phone, unsteady and wet with tears. Rebecca couldn’t catch the first few words, only the sound of distress, intimate enough that it seemed wrong for her to hear it in her own bedroom.

Vance sat down on the side of the bed.

His bare back was facing her now, the shirt fallen to the floor, crumpled at his feet. Rebecca watched the line of his shoulders change.

She had seen him handle crises before. Board meetings, family dinners, public scandals all brushed aside with a commanding calm that made other people look foolish for panicking. But this was different. His composure was crumbling. His fingers were gripping the phone tightly.

“What did you say?”

The voice on the other end broke, then steadied, louder now.

Loud enough for Rebecca to catch the exclamation.

“I’m pregnant!”

Rebecca sat down quietly on the edge of the bed beside him, one hand still at her shoulder, the other pressed flat against the covers. He was still turned away from her, focused on the phone. She looked at his back and realized with a dull clarity, that she could have just been another piece of bedroom furniture, for all he would notice.

He was listening intently.

That was what she would remember later — not the call itself, not even Catherine’s words, but the intensity of his commitment to that call. His head was lowered, and his breath caught in a way Rebecca had never heard before. Not once in all this time.

He didn’t reply and the call was cut short. A heavy silence descended.

Then he turned to her. Their eyes met.

Rebecca waited for something. An explanation, perhaps. A denial. Even guilt would have been something she could process.

But Vance only lowered the phone from his ear and said, “Something came up at the office. I have to go.”

His tone of voice had returned to its usual softness. Smooth, controlled, almost kind.

A bald lie.

Rebecca’s fingers curled against the bedcovers. “At the office?” she asked flatly. The question came out quietly. Too quietly.

Vance had already stood up from the bed, picked up his shirt and pulled it on, his face angled away from her as he began fastening the buttons.

“Yes.”

She looked at the phone on the bedside table.

“Was that Catherine?”

His fingers paused for less than a second. Then he reached for his jacket.

“It’s work, Rebecca.”

She nodded once, though she didn’t know why. It felt like obedience, like something that was expected of her. Wear the excuse. Don’t challenge it.

Vance crossed the room to collect his watch from the dresser. All trace of the man who had returned her kiss as if he was discovering something new and valuable, was gone. In his place stood the husband she knew too well: composed, distant, already leaving.

Rebecca pulled the fallen strap of her nightdress back onto her shoulder again, and smoothed it with shaking fingers.

“I see,” she said, her tone dull, defeated.

Vance glanced at her then, and for an instant something like discomfort passed across his face. But it disappeared too quickly.

“I won’t be long.”

She lowered her eyes. The lie sat between them, neat and polished, like everything else in this house.