From the Heart

marriage—we were young and there were a lot of pressures. College. Doug was cramming for exams; I was interning at a local station and studying every spare minute. Money didn’t matter much to either of us, luckily, because there wasn’t a great deal of it. We had some good times, but Doug was . . .” She let out a long breath, as if searching for the proper words.
    “He had a weakness for women. He loved me, I really believe he did in his own way, but he had a difficult time with fidelity. None of his—slips ever meant anything to him, and I wasn’t very sexually experienced.”
    Thorpe found himself forced to choke words back. He didn’t want to interrupt her now that she was talking, really talking, but the urge to curse the man she had married was almost too powerful to resist. He could remember very clearly her telling him, the first time they had made love, that she wasn’t very good at pleasing a partner. Now, at least, he understood how the notion had been planted. He kept quiet and listened.
    “We had Joshua within the year—hardly a year after we had first met. My family thought we were mad, starting a family so quickly and with an income far below what any of them could conceive trying to live on. But we both wanted a baby. We both wanted Josh. It seemed, for a time, he’d center our lives. He was so special.” Her eyes fell to the photo in her lap. “I know all mothers think that about their babies, but he was so beautiful, so good-natured. He hardly ever cried.”
    She saw the tear fall onto the glass of the frame and squeezed her eyes shut. “We both adored him. It was impossible not to. For almost a year, we were happy. Really, really happy. Doug was a tremendous father. No job was toosmall or too demeaning. I remember once he woke me up, absolutely beside himself with pride when he had discovered Josh had cut a tooth.”
    Liv said nothing for nearly a full minute. Thorpe didn’t want to prompt her. He understood her need to continue at her own pace. Keeping his arm around her, he waited.
    “After I had graduated, we moved to New Jersey. Doug had a position with a small law firm, and I had landed a job with WTRL. I had the night desk at first. It wasn’t easy on either of us. We were both just starting out, taking career crumbs, working obscene hours, raising the baby between us. I don’t think Josh suffered. It certainly didn’t seem so, he was such a happy baby. I was with him all day; Doug took over in the evening and put him to bed. Then, there was an incident with a law clerk Doug was attracted to. A small slip; he hadn’t had one in a year. I overlooked it.” She shrugged. “Tried to overlook it,” she corrected herself. “He blamed himself enough for it in any case. We tried to put things back together. We had the baby to think of. Nothing was more important to either one of us than Josh.
    “Finally, I got off the night shift and onto days. I started reading the weather and doing a few minor reports. We spent a lot of time finding a sitter who satisfied both of us. Even then, we disagreed. Doug wanted me to stop working and stay home with Josh. I wouldn’t do it.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes a moment, then laid them back in her lap. “He was so well adjusted, so content. I loved him more than anything else in the world, but it didn’t seem necessary, or even wise, for me to stop work, give up my career to be with him every minute. There were financial considerations, and my own needs. And I didn’t want to smother him.”
    Her voice lost its strength and started to waver. “It was so tempting to just stay with him, spoil him. Doug used to say if I had my way I would have kept him a baby forever. I always thought he was trying to make Josh grow up too quickly. It was really sweet the way he’d buy him a football and talk about two-wheelers when Josh was only eighteen months old. But then he bought this huge swing set on Josh’s second birthday. It terrified me, all those high bars. We argued about it a bit—not seriously. He laughed and called myoverprotective. Then I laughed because Doug had been the one to research car seats for three weeks before he’d bought one. If I’d . . . If I’d stuck to my instincts, everything might have been different.”
    Liv stared down at the picture a moment; then, she pressed it to her breast. “The sitter called me at work to tell me Josh had taken a tumble from the swing. Just a bump on the head, she said,