Chapter Twenty-Five

Mark Is Never Coming Home

Alex startled when she heard the shrill toll of the telephone echo around the silent house like a death knell.

“Mark?” Alex cried frantically, heart pounding, knuckles locked in a death grip around the receiver. “Is that you? Where are you? I want you to come home. Come home now. Whatever you’ve done, it doesn’t matter. We need to talk.”

“Sorry, Alex, it’s Zack. I’m calling to check on you. We saw you leave the gallery early, and we were worried. We wanted to make sure you got home safely.”

“Colonel,” Alex said, her voice dropping. “I’m fine…well, not exactly fine, but I’m home.”

“Mark’s not there with you?”

“I’m not sure he’s coming home.”

“What’s the matter?” the colonel asked gently. “Do you want to talk to Vicky?”

“No, I—well, it’s a long story.”

“There’s a hurricane outside. We’re not going anywhere. I’m a good listener. Are you crying? Alex, answer me this minute. That’s an order. Do you want me to come over there?”

Alex sighed.

“If you’re alone in this storm, you shouldn’t be. I’m coming right over there to get you and bring you to our house. I won’t be a minute. Let me just—”

“No, Colonel, wait. I’m expecting Mark. I am. He should be here any minute. And then everything will be okay.”

“Are you sure? Do you have everything you need? Water, extra batteries? Are your storm shutters up?”

“No, it’s too late for that anyway. I’d rather just stay and wait for him. If he comes home and I’m not here, he’ll be worried. We just have some things to work out.”

“Have you heard from the girls?”

“They called to check on me. They’re fine at school. They aren’t experiencing any bad weather.”

“It’s you I’m worried about.”

“That’s sweet, and I appreciate the call, but I want to stay right here and wait for my husband.”

“If the phone lines go down, I may not be able to reach you later.”

“I’ll be fine. Please stop worrying, and tell Vicky I’ll call her in the morning.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. We’re just around the corner, if you need us.”

“I’m sure. And Colonel, thanks for caring. It’s very reassuring.”

“We both care for you a great deal. Don’t shut us out.”

“I promise I won’t. Bye.”

Alex placed the telephone in the cradle. She was alone and scared. She hated storms. She should have taken the colonel up on his offer, but she wanted to wait for Mark.

She could have insisted Nick come back to the house with her, if only to offer him a safe place to ride out the storm. She probably could have used his help. Fighting a hurricane was hard work. It wasn’t a one-person job.

But the thought of inviting a man, even a friend, to stay with her alone in the house didn’t seem right. In the end, she was glad she hadn’t let Nick drive her home.

She wondered how Nick was faring out there all alone. Nobody could survive a storm like this outside and unprotected. The storm wailed on her roof. Hail rained down. The incessant knocking of the tree branches against the side of the house added ghostly sounds to an already frightening tableau.

She hoped Mark would be home soon, although that was shaping up to be an unlikely possibility.

She had never weathered a hurricane by herself. If her children had been at home, she knew she could be strong for them. She would organize a hurricane party like her parents did when she was growing up. The three of them would eat ice cream before the power went out and everything in the refrigerator melted. They would consider the experience fun instead of frightening.

She would offer them her loving arms and calming words so they wouldn’t be scared. But they weren’t here. She was grateful the girls were safely tucked away in their dorm room, out of harm’s way. Which is where she should have been. She would have evacuated, but then she would have missed the gallery opening, one of the most important nights of her life, and of Nick’s. The night had turned out to be a roaring business success but a personal disaster for her.

As a married woman she took the words “to have and to hold” to mean her beloved would be there to protect her from life’s inner turmoils as well as the unforeseen rampages of the outside world. This hurricane certainly qualified as an unforeseen rampage. However, her inner rage made the wrath of the wind and the rain seem fiercer. This so-called husband of hers was nowhere in sight when she needed him most.

“Where are you, you cowardly bastard?” Alex yelled into empty space, as the wind chimed in to punctuate her outrage.

Alex knew exactly where he was. He was cuddling up to Bitsy Diamond, protecting the woman who had wrecked their marriage. And Mark had let it happen.

Thump! Thump, thump, thump, crash! That sounded like a huge tree limb had fallen on the roof, rolled down, and hit the ground with a vengeance. The wind whipped up menacingly and howled maddeningly through any open space it could find, as if seeking refuge from itself.

Rain bands came in unsteady, unpredictable waves just to torment her and underscore her unsettling feeling of dread. Hail was pelting the window like thousands of locusts that had lost their way in the dark only to inadvertently smash into the glass. Water seeped under the doors, soaking the hardwood floors, and crept under the windows to drip onto and spill over the sills.

She remembered her parents stuffing towels under the inside of the doors and windows to cut down on the flooding. Her father would prop a large shovel up under the front doorknob to lend strength against the pressure of the wind. Now it was Alex’s turn, alone, to do these things to protect herself and her home.

Outside, the rain and wind kept up its measured fury, lashing out like an unleashed hound foaming at the mouth and fighting for a bone. Joplin was still in her cage on the pool deck, so Alex brought the frightened rabbit inside.

Sensing something was wrong, Joplin ran in wild circles around the house. Alex swooped down to pick her up. The animal’s heart was pounding. She cuddled the rabbit for a few minutes, then gently placed her on the monogrammed towel in the bathtub, where she seemed to calm down and settle in. The bathroom was the safest room in the house. That’s where Alex and Joplin would spend the night.

“Why aren’t you here to help me, Mark, you lying snake!” she screamed in frustration as she rolled up large bath towels and went down on her hands and knees to place one under each of the open spaces around the house where the water was rising. After she placed her last towel, she returned to the bathroom, lay on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, and cried for a long time, until the rain and tears soaked her once-favorite towel, one with an “A” and an “M” for Alexandra and Mark embroidered onto it.

She realized she wasn’t just crying about the hurricane but the dissolution of her marriage. It felt good to release her feelings, but she couldn’t afford to feel sorry for herself. Not while her life was in danger.

After a while, Alex sat up slowly, her mind numb, her body exhausted. She wondered why Mark hadn’t even tried to call and check on her. The phone lines must be dead or the cell signals blocked due to the large volume of calls into the area. Maybe that’s why the colonel or Vicky hadn’t called back, and why her mother, who was safely away from Ponte Vedra Beach visiting out-of-town relatives, hadn’t called to check on her.

Alex couldn’t understand what had happened to her marriage. It wasn’t ideal, but she didn’t think it warranted Mark cheating on her like he had. Alex had been the one who’d suggested Mark buy a new car. It hadn’t occurred to her he’d go out and buy a sporty red chick magnet.

Maybe she should have let him fiddle with his old car to keep out of trouble—instead of fiddling with his mistress. He fancied himself a carpenter, an electrician, and a plumber. He couldn’t even fix the toilet when it was running. Looking back, she wondered if it might have made a difference if she had fed Mark’s ego and commended him on even the slightest household accomplishment. She hadn’t thought she needed to resort to that game after all their years of marriage.

No doubt Elizabeth knew just what she was doing. Alex could just hear her saying, “Oh, Mark, you’re so handy around the house.” And he would probably puff up his chest like the cock he had become.

Now Alex needed to calm down. She needed to work on something to keep her mind occupied, because at this point her emotions ran from worrying about Mark to wanting to fight for him to wanting to rip his beautiful head off with her bare hands. She needed to harness that restless energy.

Alex was convinced Mark was never coming home. Maybe he was too afraid to face her. But Alex wanted to take both Mark and Elizabeth Diamond on. She was anxious to find out just what that back-stabbing bitch who had taken her husband and insulted her work had to say for herself.

If Elizabeth did have the nerve to come to the Newborns’ house, she’d be coming from the gallery, still wearing the designer black dress she’d worn at the opening. Alex remembered clearly how the witch had smiled while she stood there stripping her husband naked with her eyes, practically devouring him with her collagen-enhanced lips, and teasing him with the biggest breasts money could buy.

Her husband and his mistress had toasted each other across the room, making public displays of themselves while their pictures were mounted all over the gallery walls. Sketches that showed them cavorting and Mark practically mounting Elizabeth right there, in plain view, for everyone she knew to see.

She was an artist. She was supposed to be observant. How could she not have seen it? She had missed the warning signs when they were posted all around her. She had studied every one of Dominick Anselmo’s sketches countless times—without having a clue she was looking at her husband and his mistress.

Nick had tried to warn her, and she hadn’t picked up the signals. And all the while Mark and Elizabeth were laughing behind her back, flirting with disaster and threatening to blow her world apart.

She had to get those obscene thoughts of Mark and Elizabeth out of her mind. But first she was going to get Mark out of her life. A man that disloyal had no business being a husband. She didn’t want him to come home. If he didn’t have the sense to see the difference between his wife and Elizabeth, he didn’t deserve her.

Like light and shadow on a painting, she and Elizabeth were full of contrasts. Elizabeth was deliberate, ambitious, her every move calculated for maximum effect, for preservation, for security. Elizabeth was interested in the fame and fortune that work would bring.

On the other hand, Alex was a hot-tempered and turbulent brunette, messy and impulsive, more at home with her paints and brushes than with people. Alex was driven, but she derived her satisfaction from the work itself, from her innate talent, not from the notoriety she could receive from it. Compromising her values by forcing Elizabeth to give her a show was eating her alive. None of it meant anything, because she hadn’t earned it.

The two women were locked in an unspoken but inevitable battle over Alex’s husband—a battle Elizabeth had apparently won. So be it. Alex didn’t want anyone’s leftovers. She and her children were a package. A woman like Elizabeth probably didn’t want children, and she was never going to let that homewrecker near her girls.

Alex needed to vent. And when she was angry she found solace in her artwork. But representing an abstract concept on canvas was difficult to achieve. She knew how to paint forgiveness and gratitude. But anger and betrayal were unexplored territory for Alex. Thanks to Elizabeth and Mark, those were emotions she was forced to face. This wasn’t the time for paint on canvas. There was only one thing that would provide the release she needed, short of murder. She was distressed, so she’d take her aggression out by distressing a kitchen table for a client.

Alex startled at the sound of glass shattering in her living room. Something had slammed through the window—a tree downed by the storm, or perhaps Mark breaking in. He couldn’t stay at Elizabeth’s. They would have evacuated the beaches by now.

If Mark were here right now, or worse, if he dared to bring his lover here, she would kill him. She would kill them both.