Distant Shores

Elizabeth felt as if shed just gone two rounds with Evander Holyfield. She sat in the porch swing, gliding back and forth. A full moon hung above the midnight-blue ocean, its light a silver beacon across the waves.

The last four hours had been the worst time of her life.

Theyd all sat together, alternately weeping and shouting. Jamie had vacillated between fury and despair; Stephanie had been stubbornly silent, refusing to accept that her parents might not get back together.

Now, finally, the girls had gone to sleep.

She heard the screen door open and bang shut.

Jack stepped onto the porch. With a sigh, he slumped down onto the swing beside her. The chains groaned at his weight.

Elizabeth wrapped the woolen blanket more tightly around her shoulders. "We should have lied to them. "

"I dont know how you had the guts to tell them," he answered. "When they started crying . . . shit, it was awful. "

"Its my fault," she said. "I refused to go to New York. I wrote that letter. I had to be the one to tell them. "

"We both know better than that, Birdie. This is a thing we did together. "

It meant so much to her, those few and precious words. Hed shouldered part of her guilt. "I still love you," she said, realizing suddenly that it was true. That it had always been true. She turned to him. "Until tonight, Id forgotten that. "

He looked at her steadily. "For years, I asked you what was wrong. You never really answered, did you?"

"You dont know what its like to disappear, Jack. How could you? Youve always been so confident, so sure of yourself. "

"Are you kidding, Birdie? I went from all-star in the NFL to nobody. Nobody. "

"Thats different. Im talking about who you are inside. Not what your job is. "

"You never understood," he said. "For a man, what you do is who you are. When I lost football, I lost myself. "

"You never told me that. "

"How could I? I was ashamed, and I knew what it had been like for you as a players wife. "

He was right. Shed grown to hate his football years; the better he did in the sport, the farther he moved from the family.

So she hadnt been there for him in his time of need. Instead of his safe harbor, shed been another port to avoid. "Im sorry, Jack. "

"Dont say that. Weve wasted too many years on that. "

"Not wasted," she said softly. "We did okay, Jack. We buoyed each other up for twenty-four years. We built a house and home that was a safe and happy place. We created two beautiful, loving young women. " She managed a smile. "Not too bad for a couple of kids who ran off to get married in the last semester of college. There were a lot of years when I thought we had everything. "

He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it greedily, held on so tightly his strong bones shifted within her grasp. "Youre something special, you know that?"

Hed never said that to her before. The simple compliment meant more to her than shed thought possible. "You, too. "

"Well. Good night, Birdie. "

"Good night. "

She went to her bedroom alone.

Jack pulled into the airports underground parking lot. When he turned off the rental cars engine, the silence was deafening.

Jamie and Stephanie sat in the backseat, huddled together. There had been no clamoring to sit up with Dad. Not this time.

He glanced in the rearview mirror. "Wed better get going. You dont want to miss your flight. "