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Chapter 181

Despite her worries of being alone, Claire thought she had handled her temporary separation from Jamie over the last month or so fairly well, maybe because Jamie had made it easy for her by acting the part of the asshole so well that she didn’t want to be around him. In any case, being several states away from her husband turned out to be far easier than being a few miles away from her premature twin babies.

Claire found this out the next morning, when she was discharged from the hospital and sent home without them.

She cried in the NICU when she went to say goodbye, then cried the whole way home too, as her parents drove her back to the condo.

“Sweetie, you’re not far from the hospital; we can be there in a matter of minutes if we need to be. You’ll still be able to go and visit them all the time, especially once you’re all healed up,” her father tried to reassure her, smiling at her in the rearview mirror. But her mother didn’t say much of anything, seeming to understand much better how hard this was for her. Claire supposed it was a “mom” thing.

Once back at the condo, her mom helped her into bed and made sure she was comfortable, tucking her in and fussing over her the way she always had when Claire was sick, whether it was the flu as a child or leukemia as an adult. Now, Claire thought, she should be the one putting her own daughters to bed… but instead, the twin cribs lay empty, her babies slept in plastic boxes at the hospital, and she wouldn’t be up for taking care of anyone until she finished recovering from the C-section. Dr. Valerio said it would take six to eight weeks, but Claire was hoping to be back to normal in a month.

Even so, four weeks seemed like a long time – and even longer when she realized that Caitlin and Delaine might very well still be in the hospital a month from then. After all, even then it would still be a month before their original due date, which had not been until the end of March.

Sighing, as she lay uncomfortably in her bed, Claire wished it could be March now. After having lain around this condo for the better part of two months already, the thought of another month or more of taking it easy was torturous. Then again, she certainly didn’t feel like moving around much either; it still felt like her guts were going to come spilling out of her incision every time she got up or rolled over or laughed or coughed, even though Dr. Valerio had checked her over and removed the staples just that morning. It was frustrating because if not for her need to heal, she would be able to spend time at the hospital with her babies as often as she liked.

Determined to keep herself occupied, Claire tried reading, then watching TV. Neither one could hold her attention, so finally she adjusted her pillows and maneuvered herself so that she was sitting up more in bed, then called her mother to bring back her knitting gear. At least, she thought, she would have plenty of time to finish the booties and blankets she had wanted to make for the twins.

She knitted obsessively all afternoon and found that the activity, repetitive though still requiring her concentration, did help to keep her mind busy and off of the babies and Jamie and her pain and any of the other things that had been bothering her. She stopped only to take her pain medication, use the bathroom, and, in the early evening, to take a phone call.

When the phone rang, she set down her skein of pale green yarn just long enough to reach for the cordless phone next to her bed and glance at the caller ID. Not recognizing the name, she didn’t bother to answer it. But it cut off after another ring, and, from a distance, she heard her mother’s muffled voice answer, “Hello?”

Pausing, Claire listened to her mother’s side of the conversation.

“No, he’s not. I believe he’s staying with his brother right now, but I don’t have the number handy. I’m sure Claire does though; would you like to talk to her? Yes, she’s home, just got out this morning. Oh sure, I think she’ll be up to it… let me see.”

Someone for Jamie, thought Claire, as she heard her mother’s footsteps approaching.

“Claire?” Her mom’s head poked through the door; she had her hand cupped over the phone. “There’s a young man on the phone, wanting to get a hold of Jamie. Can you give him the number?”

“Sure,” agreed Claire. She picked up the cordless again and punched the Talk button to turn it on. “Hello?”

She heard a click as her mom got off the other line, and her footsteps faded.

On the other end, a vaguely familiar voice said, “Hi, Claire? This is Bill MacLeod… I used to work with Jamie here in Tampa.”

The words jarred her memory, and Claire pictured Jamie’s former coworker, a tall, dorky-looking guy with dark red hair and freckles. She hadn’t known him well, but she’d met him a few times; she had once gone to a Fourth of July cookout as his house with Jamie, and he had been at their wedding as well. She remembered him as being very nice. “Oh, hi, Bill!” she said. “How are you?”

“I think I should be the one asking you that,” chuckled Bill. “I’m fine, but how are you? Congratulations, by the way.”

“Thanks,” smiled Claire; apparently Bill had been in touch with Jamie recently. “I’m doing fine.”

“Good. Well, listen, I don’t mean to bother you, but I’ve been trying to get a hold of Jamie. He called the other day and gave me this number to reach him at.”

Claire frowned; that was presumptuous of Jamie, assuming she would let him stay here again after the way she’d kicked him out on Christmas. Then again, if it hadn’t been for the way he’d acted at the hospital, she probably would have.

“Oh,” she said, “well, he’s not staying here right now; his mom’s in town, and they’re both staying with his older brother, Brad. Let me get you his number… hang on.” She picked up her cell phone as well and flipped through her contacts until she found Brad’s home number. She read that off to Bill and gave him the number to Jamie’s cell too.

“Thanks so much,” replied Bill graciously. “I’m sure I used to have his cell phone number saved, but I must have lost track of it sometime since the two of you moved. Hey, how are you liking Des Moines, anyway?”

“It’s… uh… it’s okay,” answered Claire, feeling awkward because she actually hadn’t been in Des Moines since before Thanksgiving. “I can’t say I really miss it right now, though,” she added, as she thought about how hard it would be to go back once this was all over. That was, if she went back.

Bill chuckled. “Understandable. Your family’s all down here, right? I think I remember Jamie telling me that. He said you wouldn’t want to move that far from your family. Not to mention, Iowa’s no Florida when it comes to weather – not so much sand and sun up there, right?”

Claire laughed a little, then immediately regretted it as her incision twinged. Pressing her hand over it, she grimaced and tried to steady her voice before replying. “So true. I’m not a big fan of winter.”

“Me neither, me neither,” Bill agreed. “I have to say, I was honestly a little surprised he convinced you.”

“Ha,” said Claire dryly, not really laughing this time. “It’s not like it was really a matter of convincing me. I wasn’t gonna let him lose his job; I’m not that selfish.”

“What? Oh no, I didn’t mean you were selfish,” said Bill, sounding slightly confused. “I just meant, when he talked about putting in for the transfer, the other guys at the office and I were joking around that a girl like you would never go for it. Like I said, who but him would choose to move from Florida to Iowa, you know?”

He laughed again, light-heartedly, but Claire’s heart had suddenly plunged into the pit of her stomach, which clenched around it. “What did you say?” she asked, clutching the phone closer to her ear, hoping that she had somehow misunderstood him. “Are you saying that Jamie put in for the transfer to Des Moines? That he requested it?”

“Uh…” Bill sounded very confused now. “Did he, uh, not… tell you that?” He sounded somewhat incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe a man would do that to his wife.

Claire began to breathe faster, her heart pounding in the bottom of her stomach. She was about to see red. She couldn’t believe it either, couldn’t believe that all this time, Jamie had been hiding a lie, a lie he had told to get her to move all the way to Iowa!

“No,” she said, managing to sound much calmer than she felt, “he didn’t.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. Then Bill said, “Wow… I am so sorry. I… I guess I shouldn’t have said anything, but… I honestly didn’t know. I assumed you knew… that he told you what he wanted to do…”

“No, thank you,” she replied quickly, maintaining the same calmness, knowing she could not blow up at him, this man who had finally revealed the truth to her. “I’m glad you said something. This is something I should’ve known a long time ago…”

She trailed off, and the conversation soon ended, very awkwardly so. Claire couldn’t blame Bill for being in a hurry to get off the phone after that; so was she. But as soon as she had hung up, she waited barely two seconds before punching the phone on again and dialing Jamie’s cell phone.

As the phone rang, she seethed, too worked up to even begin to rehearse what she was going to say when he answered. What did it matter? Whatever came out would be a tribute to how she truly felt, and that was what Jamie needed to hear.

After three rings, his voice cut in. “Hey, Clairie… what’s up?” He asked the question awkwardly, yet with almost his usual casualness, and the fact that he could be so calm, so unconcerned, as if nothing was wrong, as if he hadn’t been living a lie for the last however many months, threw her over the edge.

“Here’s what’s up,” she retorted without missing a beat, the composure she had maintained with Bill gone. “I’ve got a question for you, and you better damn well answer me honestly, James.” Without waiting for him to agree, she fired off, “Did you or did you not request that job transfer to Des Moines?”

There was a long pause, and for a moment, Claire was afraid he had hung up on her. She was just about to pull the phone away to check, when his voice responded very quietly, “Who told you that?”

That was good enough confirmation for Claire; if he hadn’t requested it, or if he’d wanted to lie to her again, he would have said no. “It doesn’t matter!” she hissed back fiercely. “You didn’t tell me, and that’s what matters! You made me believe that you’d lose your job if we didn’t move! You lied to me, just to get your fucking way! You dragged me away from my home, my family, all for nothing! All because it was what you wanted! You didn’t even care about my feelings, what I wanted!”

Jamie didn’t respond at first, didn’t even try to deny it or make excuses for his lie. And Claire was glad, because that made her decision all that much easier. By the time he got around to uttering a weak “I’m sorry, Clairie,” she had her mind made up.

“No, you’re not. You’re never sorry, Jamie! You always say that, but then you lie to me and abandon me! You can’t possibly be that sorry… but you will be. I’m through, Jamie. And no fake apologies, no tears, no lies are going to make me take you back this time. My mind’s made up.”

“What? Claire, no-” Jamie started, but she didn’t give him a chance to protest. She didn’t want to hear it, knew she couldn’t stand to hear it.

She hung up.

But just like before, acting quickly before she lost her nerve, she turned the phone right back on and dialed yet another familiar number.

After two rings, Nick’s voice answered.

Claire took a steadying breath to get a grip on herself, exhaled through her nose, and said, “Nick. I need your help.”

“Sure,” came Nick’s voice, sweet and concerned for her as always. “Anything. What’s up?”

Claire spoke loudly and clearly, returning to the same sort of calmness she’d kept while on the phone with Bill. “I need you to put me in contact with a good lawyer, here in Tampa.” She paused for a breath, then plunged ahead, voicing her decision out loud. “I’m getting a divorce.”

There was a pause, as Nick seemed to be comprehending what he’d just heard. Then his voice returned to the line, sounding as if he, too, was trying hard to keep his emotion in check. With him, though, she suspected the emotion was not rage, but total happiness.

“Claire, baby…” he said, and she could even hear the grin in his voice, “I’ll get you the best lawyer money can offer. But you don’t have to worry ‘bout the money, ‘cause if you’re serious about divorcing that prick, I’ll gladly pay your legal fees.”

***