Secrets in the Marriage Bed

Nothing.

Even more frustrated than when she'd started, she put away the catalogues and spent the rest of the day pulling non-existent weeds from the back garden. The portable phone beside her rang mid-afternoon. It was her mother.

"Did you get my card? I'll be flying into Auckland sometime in the next couple of weeks. Coffee?" Danica asked in that voice that had acquired a slight Mediterranean accent over the years.

Vicki agreed, aware that it was more than likely Danica would forget to keep the date. Her mother's haphazard visits were something Vicki had gotten used to. At least that was what she told herself. "Give me a call when you get in."

Hanging up after a quick goodbye, she started pulling weeds with too much force, sending dirt flying everywhere. It took her ten minutes to calm down enough to realize she'd pulled out most of the dark purple and yellow pansies she loved. How did her mother always manage to agitate her so much?

Forcing herself to think through the furious buzz of emotion, Vicki apologized to the plants, replanted the ones that weren't too bedraggled and began to reorganize a border of stones around the garden. After a while, the repetitive physical activity numbed her emotions enough that she felt marginally better, though she knew it was a delaying tactic against not only dealing with her future, but also her chaotic feelings toward Danica.

She was picking up a big stone to reposition it for the seventy-sixth time when Caleb walked around the side of the house. He'd taken the stone from her before she could say a word of welcome. "Where?" he asked, face grim.

She pointed to the right spot. "You look like you saw a ghost."

He set down the stone and straightened. "I saw my pregnant wife threatening to kill herself hauling stones that didn't need to be moved." He was scowling, clearly not amused.

She rolled her eyes. "I was fine." Then she grinned. "You're home in time for dinner."

"I was hoping you'd notice." He rubbed a smudge of dirt off her nose. "Have you been rolling around in the mud again?"

Laughing, she took off a glove and pushed at him. "Change. Then come help me in the kitchen." For a second, their camaraderie was like when they'd first married. He'd come home countless times to tease her that she looked like a laborer's assistant with her broken nails and paint-splattered overalls. Then he'd lift her up in his arms and swing her around, both of them laughing with happiness simply because they were together.

Caleb's grin faded as she stared at him. "What do you see?" he asked.

"Us. Before we lost each other." The words came from somewhere deep in her soul where they'd been trapped for what seemed like forever. Under her hand, his heart beat strong and loud, but she wondered if it still beat for her as passionately as it once had.

"We're not done yet," he said. "Not by a long shot." The stubborn set of his jaw was as familiar to her as her own face, and welcome beyond measure. "You have dirt in your hair." He picked at the strands by her temple.

"I need to shower," she whispered, her voice husky.

For a moment, she thought he heard what she was trying to say, heard the woman in her attempting to come out of hiding, but then he dropped his hand and the moment was gone. "I'll let you clean up and meet you in the kitchen."

She tried not to let her disappointment show. "Okay."

* * *

They were just sitting down to dinner at the kitchen table when the phone rang. Caleb picked up the extension on the wall to answer it as she went to grab a forgotten bottle of salad dressing.

"Yes, I'm listening."

Her head jerked up at the tone of his voice. Gone was all the humor, sensuality, laughter. Tightly controlled, he sounded almost emotionless and there were only a few people who made him sound that way. "Your family? Lara?" she mouthed.

He gave a sharp nod. "How much?"

Vicki narrowed her eyes, in no doubt as to why Lara had called. It was the same reason why any of his family ever called. She was acquainted with all three members—Caleb had never hidden his roots. Before they'd married, he'd taken her to the run-down neighborhood where he'd grown up and introduced her to his family and friends.

She knew that Max was a sculptor and Caleb's mother, Carmen, a poet. Unfortunately, neither had achieved professional success. To Victoria, Max and Carmen had always seemed sanctimonious in their assertions that they were sacrificing for their art. What they'd sacrificed was their children's welfare. Caleb rarely talked about his growing-up years, but from what he had let slip, she'd guessed that he'd sometimes gone hungry.

Unlike Caleb, his sister, Lara, hadn't left the family fold. A struggling singer with two kids by two different men, she'd never wavered from her belief that her parents' way—poverty and suffering as the only path to creative genius—was the right way.

"What did she want?" Vicki asked when Caleb hung up the phone and came to stand beside her.

He sighed, staring blindly into space. "What she always wants. Money. Since I sold out to the capitalist regime, the least I can do is help her out now and then." His tone was flat, as if the call had drained all emotion from him.

Vicki recognized the familiar refrain. She'd heard it enough times from Lara's own mouth. Previously, Vicki had remained silent, reasoning that she had no business interfering with Caleb and his family. Now, seeing the pain revealed by her husband's bowed head, she decided it was very much her business.

Turning slightly, she pushed at his chest until he looked at her. "Why do you let them treat you this way?" Instinct told her there was something fundamental she didn't know. The political rhetoric the Callaghans spewed simply couldn't explain the antipathy Vicki sometimes felt emanating from them toward Caleb. What wasn't he telling her?

She knew she didn't yet have the right to push for that information. They'd barely started talking about repairing the fissures in their marriage. Until those wounds had healed, she had to tread softly. But it didn't mean she had to remain silent.

He shrugged. "They're my family."

"No," she said. "They abandoned you when you dared to be different." She knew he'd left home at sixteen and scraped by on his own, working multiple jobs while going to school. His parents had kicked him out when he'd dared argue with them about what he wanted from life. "They've never been there for you."

A bleak look appeared in his eyes. "They're all I've got."

She shook her head, furious at them for always causing him such pain. "We're your family, Caleb. Me and our baby."

"But you might be divorcing me." It wasn't a challenge but a reminder of their precarious situation. Before he could blink it away, she glimpsed an incredible anguish that had nothing to do with Lara or his parents and everything to do with her.

A crushing knot formed in her heart. God, but the man was proud. Proud and stubborn. Not once in those two months of separation had he ever hinted at the depth of his pain at the way she'd asked him to leave. Then again, neither had she ever told him how badly he'd hurt her when he'd taken Miranda to his bed. They were both too good at keeping their emotional secrets.

But that, she thought with a new spurt of determination, was in the past. It was the future that was important—a future built on trust, shared burdens and hope. Maybe asking for a separation had been the only way she'd known to get him to pay attention to their marriage, to her, but they'd gone beyond that now.

This was it. Time for action. Despite her fear that she'd do the wrong thing and their truce would go bad all over again, she nonetheless shook her head. "No. I'm not. I told you I want to be married to you. You're my husband, my family. I don't have anyone else, either."

He hauled her into a tight hug, saying with his body what he couldn't say in words. For so long, he'd spoken with his body but she hadn't been listening, hadn't known how to listen, but now she intended to hear every single whisper.

"It's Lara's kids I worry about. She can look after herself but what about them?"

Vicki had always been swayed by the same thought. "How about a trust fund? For education and anything else the kids might need. Your family doesn't get to treat you like an open checkbook anymore." It wasn't the money that made her mad, but the way they acted as if it was Caleb's duty to support them while putting up with their ingratitude.

She'd never been able to understand why her tough, powerful husband let them get away with it. She knew that taking care of Lara's children wouldn't even scratch at the surface of Caleb's problems with his family, or tell her anything of the reasons behind the way they treated him. But it was a start.

Caleb was silent for a moment. "If we were the trustees, we could ensure the money was used how it was meant to be."

Neither of them had to mention their fears that Lara might have succumbed to drugs. But, so far, she'd never harmed her kids, apparently being a devoted mother.