“You used to love Martha, too.”
Todd shook his head. “I still do, but I was never in love with her,” Todd admitted, shocking him.
“Sure you were,” Will said automatically. “You’re just caught up in some midlife crisis and not thinking straight.” Will sought desperately for an example, some point in their lives when Todd had shown how enamored he was of his wife. He thought back to their wedding day.
And couldn’t honestly remember a look on Todd’s face, a gesture, a word, that indicated his devotion. The best way to describe Todd, he decided as his memory turned traitor on him, was content.
“Open your eyes, man,” Todd said. “I was never in love with Martha like you were with Becca.”
Suddenly Will’s eyes were open. Wide. Like you were with Becca. But was he?
And how could he insist that his friend feel something that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt? Had they both been victims of Shelter Valley? Settling for a life the town provided because it was expected of them?
“Becca would be coming over, and you’d light up like a baseball diamond at night,” Todd said almost bitterly. “There was a life that only existed when the two of you were in a room together. It was like you were connected on some wavelength no one else could hear, and it was sickening to witness, believe me,” Todd said.
“You and Martha never had that?” Will asked, his mind reeling at the picture Todd had drawn. Could it be true? Had he and Becca really been that way?
Were they still connected—even if only by a thread?
Or was the picture just a skewed painting created from the memory of a middle-aged man who was trying to justify an affair with a girl young enough to be his daughter?
“Martha and I were friends,” Todd said. “We are friends. There’s just never been any real passion between us. On either side.”
Will found that hard to believe, too. Todd and Martha had had their share of nights in the dorm room, nights when Will had been asked to find someplace else to sleep. Nights he’d gone to Becca’s apartment and hardly slept at all.
“Where do you think this is going, Todd?” Will asked. “Stacy may be here another year or two, but then she’s gone. Have you thought of the future at all? Taken into account everything you’ve risked?”
The man was going to lose his job. Didn’t that matter to him?
“I was hoping we’d have time for her to finish her studies here,” Todd said. It was clear that he’d given the matter quite a bit of thought. “A Montford education means a lot to her. It meant a lot to me. I know what it could do for her.” He paused, lifted his hands and let them fall. “But we’re both prepared for it to all come crashing to an end sooner than we’d planned.”
“You’re going to end it, then? Stop seeing her and hope that Martha will be able to forgive you?”
Will couldn’t believe how badly he wanted that to be the case. How much he’d like to find a way for Todd to get his job back at some point. And hoped that Todd’s family would not be irreparably hurt by his mistake.
“End it?” Todd frowned. “Of course not!” He leaned forward. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Will? Stacy is my life.”
“Then what—”
“We knew we might have to leave here before she was finished with school,” Todd explained. “We’re both prepared for that eventuality. I just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.”
Speechless, Will just sat there. It was his turn to stare. Obviously he wouldn’t even have to worry about firing Todd. The man was planning to walk away from a prestigious position at a prestigious college—one he’d worked his whole life to obtain—without looking back. Incredible.
“Where will you go?” he finally asked. “What will you do?”
“Get a divorce, marry Stacy,” Todd said. “I won’t have any problem getting some kind of teaching job. And if that doesn’t work, I can always get my license, do counseling.”
“Where?” Will asked again. Not because it mattered, but because he needed something tangible in order to grasp what was
happening.
“Somewhere back East,” Todd said. Obviously that, too, had already been discussed. “If Stacy can’t finish up at Montford, I want her at an Ivy League school.”
Anything for Stacy.
Was this love? The willingness to lay down one’s entire life for another?
“What about the kids?”