“YOU GOTTA BE the man of the family!” His father’s parting words on the phone echoed in Drew’s ears as he made his way through town.
And Drew wanted that. Now that he’d gotten closer with Ria, he really wanted that. He thought about her all the time, remembering her warm eyes, her lush lips and body, the little sighs she always let out when she felt pleasure.
Problem was, he’d already showed, clearly, that he wasn’t good at relationships. Just basically defective. Now, in addition to his character inadequacies, he had a major disability. And he didn’t have a job.
Well, not a real job. Although he had to admit he was starting to enjoy his interviews with the watermen. After a rocky start, a couple of them had begun to open up to him. Especially Bisky, who was meeting him today in front of Goody’s, where they had agreed to do an interview in more comfort than they could find down at the chilly, windy docks.
He was curious about how she held her own in such a male-dominated world, and he wanted to interview her about her life on the water. But he also wanted to pick her brain. What did she think about a blind guy in a relationship? From her point of view as a woman, did something like that even seem feasible?
“Hey, Martin.” Bisky greeted him in the same friendly way she greeted the men she worked with. She also touched his arm when she reached him, which he appreciated. It was good to know where the people around you were actually standing, and he wasn’t yet real good at sensing it, like those who’d been without vision for a longer time than he. From his work with his new orientation and mobility specialist, he was learning more about the subculture of the visually impaired, and on his better days, he actually found it interesting: the young people who made videos and used their social media prowess to advocate for disability awareness, but also those who’d lost their vision as older adults and were learning to cope, just as he was. There were so many different types of visual impairments and so many styles of coping. The more he learned, the less alone he felt.
They went inside, and immediately the lunchtime smells surrounded them. Goody’s had a very limited menu, but what they sold was good: crab-cake sandwiches, burgers and giant vegetarian hoagies, all with crispy, greasy French fries on the side. Goody’s didn’t even stock sodas, forcing everyone to drink milkshakes with their lunch; it was that or water.
Having tasted Goody’s milkshakes, Drew was pretty sure that no one ever chose water.
They both ordered crab-cake sandwiches and then Bisky found a table by the window. It was bright over here, and Drew found he could see more blurry shapes than ever before.
Hope rose up in him. Maybe he’d... But no. He wasn’t going to go there, to that la-la land where he regained his vision and lived happily ever after. His doctors thought he’d regain minimal sight, at best. Not enough to drive. Not enough to be a cop.
The little dining room was half-full, from the sounds of it. Lots of murmured conversations, good lunch smells, the occasional sharp laugh or high giggle. Goody’s was a happy place.
At least, it felt this way now. He could only imagine the change that would take place when those nasty middle and high school kids started to fill it up. His fists clenched, remembering the teasing that Kaitlyn had endured, teasing that might have been a part of her decision to take a handful of pills.
Their food arrived, and Drew welcomed the distraction of the hot, spicy crab cake on a homemade yeast roll. He dunked his fries in ketchup and sucked down a large chocolate milkshake. He’d have to hit the gym hard after this lunch, but it was worth it.
He could tell from the sounds across the table that Bisky was enjoying her lunch, too, even though she didn’t say much. Maybe it was because she spent so much time with men, but she was a comfortable person, easy to be quiet with.
She could talk, though, too, and once they’d eaten their fill, he started asking her questions about life on the water. How long had she been working it, how long her family had been here in Pleasant Shores, what she looked forward to in the future, since the Chesapeake Bay was changing so fast. Since taking on the oral history project and talking with some of the watermen, Drew had listened to a couple of audiobooks about the bay’s history and ecosystems. Complicated stuff, lots of science involved, but he was enjoying it.
She talked about all of it, including the erosion that was eating away at the shores of this area and especially of the islands out in the bay. “Put that together with the fact that my kids aren’t real interested in crabbing and oystering, and I’ll probably be the last generation of my family to work the water.”
“It’s a loss, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded philosophical about the whole thing. “Would I like my kids to take over the business, live the same life my grandparents did? Sure, but things change. And we can’t know the future.” Her voice lowered a few notes. “Speaking of, what’s your future? You going to stay in Pleasant Shores? Remarry your wife and help raise your girls?”
The question came out of left field, but Drew supposed he deserved it after asking her so many personal things. “There are a few issues standing in the way of that.”
“Such as?”
“Such as I barely have a job, I’m still adjusting to being legally blind, and I wasn’t the best husband and father even when I had my vision and some money.”
“You’re there,” Bisky said, raising her voice a little over the increasing noise of conversation and laughter. “You’re available for your kids. That’s worth something.”
He lifted a shoulder and shook his head. “I can’t take care of them, not the way I used to. Can’t protect them.”
“Seems to me you’re pretty protective,” she said. “Anyway, that’s not what we want you men for. Macho stuff, it’s overrated. Hey, there’s...” She paused. “Never mind.”
Something had come into her voice. “What is it?”
After a beat of silence, she sighed. “Your ex-wife is here.”
“Ria?” His heart did a little dance and he couldn’t keep the happiness out of his voice. “Where?”
“With someone else,” she said.
Drew’s happiness rushed out of him like air from a punctured balloon. “Wait—don’t tell me. Blond guy? Rich looking, wearing a suit?”
“Yeah.”
Drew’s head dropped and he sighed. “Can they see us?”
“Do you want them to see us?”
“I don’t know.” Drew scraped a hand over his face. He wanted to teleport home without having to walk by his wife and her lunch date.
Bisky scooted her chair. “There. You’re kind of behind a potted plant and now I’m blocking the rest of you, too. Just until you decide whether you want to try to make her jealous or not.”
That surprised him. “I don’t want to make her jealous. I’m not playing games.”
Bisky laughed. “Don’t you know that love is always a game?” she said. “It might be interesting to see how she reacts if she sees us together.”
“Thanks, but no. That’s not my style.”
Just then, he heard the rich peal of Ria’s laugh, accompanied by a baritone version, certainly Ted’s.
Heat rose in Drew’s chest and adrenaline clenched his fists. Another man was making his woman laugh.
And he couldn’t be that type of caveman; it was the twenty-first century. Drew fumbled for his cane as a huge sense of inadequacy came over him.
It wasn’t going to work between him and Ria. He wasn’t enough for her, couldn’t give her enough. Ria deserved so much more than he could offer.
He needed to make sure he didn’t rouse the girls’ hopes that they could be a family again, because they couldn’t.
For his own mental health, he needed to douse his own hopes, too.
He stood and snapped open his cane. “Thanks for the interview,” he said to Bisky. “Are you walking out now?”
“Sure,” she said. “Take my arm if you want to.”
He didn’t want to and started to walk toward the door, but his leg banged into a chair, knocking it over. He could see, just barely, that Bisky righted it. What he couldn’t see, but could imagine just fine, was that everyone was looking at the clumsy blind man. Including his ex-wife and her new squeeze.
He took Bisky’s arm and kept his face expressionless while emotions churned inside him. How could he compete with a man like Ted when he couldn’t even get across the room without a woman’s help?
THE DAY AFTER meeting with Ted at Goody’s, Ria pulled into Drew’s driveway and turned to her extremely cranky daughter. “You can—” But Kaitlyn was already out of the car and slamming the door.
Their mother-daughter outing had been a complete bust.
Ria climbed out of the car, back aching, mentally exhausted. It had seemed like a good idea, spending the afternoon bonding with her daughter. There had been an early dismissal from school, and Kaitlyn needed new clothes. Initially, Kaitlyn had been enthusiastic.
But within half an hour, she’d gotten sulky and uncooperative, not wanting to try anything on, not wanting to take a walk together, wanting to go back to Pleasant Shores and to Drew’s place.
Ria’s gut twisted as she watched her daughter’s head-down rush away from her. She wanted so badly to help Kait, and it just wasn’t happening. She was making things worse.
If only it had been a bright, sunny day to improve Kait’s mood, instead of gloomy November weather. If only the Chesapeake would sparkle, rather than toss gray waves at the shore.
Kait was almost at the door of Drew’s cottage when he came out and intercepted her, reaching out and gripping her by the forearms. “What’s wrong?”
“Mom’s wrong!” Kait gestured back toward Ria. “She wants me to walk, like, ten miles on a horrible day and wear nun clothes to cover up how fat I am! Make her stop, Dad!” She broke away from him and rushed into the house.
Drew stood on the steps, facing Ria’s direction, arms crossed. If she hadn’t known him so well, she’d have thought he was flexing his muscles for her benefit, but he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t vain; in fact, he had no idea how good-looking he was.
She took a deep breath, trying to quell her automatic visceral reaction to him. “Hey, I’m here,” she said to orient him. “Sorry to bring her over in an upset state.”
“What happened?” His tone was cool.
She thought of the friendly way he’d walked with Bisky yesterday, holding her arm. Was he moving on?
She stifled her feelings about that. “I just wanted to take a walk with Kaitlyn, do some shopping,” she explained.
“Why does she think you think she’s fat?”
Ria blew out a sigh and sat down on Drew’s front step. “Because I screwed up. Talked about my step goal on my pedometer, which she interpreted as me saying she needed more exercise because she’s fat. Which she’s not, of course. She’s beautiful.”
“Is that all?” He sat down beside her, but a good arm’s distance away.
“No.” Her stomach clenched with the shame of making such a bad mother-choice. “I also talked about how to dress to de-emphasize...” She trailed off, then decided she might as well finish the thought. “To de-emphasize her chest.” Her face heated as she said the words, remembering how Drew always loved it when she wore clothes that showed a little cleavage.
Drew frowned. “The counselor said not to mention her weight at all.”
“I didn’t! It’s just that she was complaining about how her chest is all that boys look at, and I sometimes have the same issue, so I thought...” She trailed off as Drew went rigid. “I did some bad parenting today. Thank heavens she has you to turn to.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“I will, too,” she promised. “As soon as she’s speaking to me again. I mean it, Drew. I’m so glad you’re here to help with her. I grate on her nerves like squeaky chalk.”
“Does Ted Taylor look at your chest?” he asked, his voice tight.
“What?” She tilted her head, studying him.
“Does he look at your chest? When you’re out on your lunch dates.” Then he waved a hand. “Never mind. I know the answer to that question.”
Ria did, too. She’d caught Ted looking a few times, more than she remembered him doing when they were dating before. Of course, she’d gotten more voluptuous. Maybe looking at her chest was hard to avoid.
“It was business,” she said uneasily. “Our lunch date was just business. Ted’s probably going to invest in my motel.” Except that he wanted a lot of involvement in the running of it, which she didn’t think was a good idea.
“Uh-huh.” He blew out a disgusted breath, obviously not believing her.
“If you want to be that way...why were you out with Bisky Turner?”
Surprise showed in the quick twist of his head in her direction. “You saw us?”
“Goody’s is a small place.”
“I’m interviewing her for my job. And that’s all.”
Relief washed over her, and she impulsively reached out and took Drew’s hand.
He squeezed it and tugged her closer. “You’re perfect as you are, you know,” he said with that telltale little growl in his voice. “Don’t ever feel self-conscious about the looks God gave you.”
This was bad. His touch, the sound of his voice were sending warmth through her entire body. She tried to pull her hand away. “We shouldn’t...”
He held it captive, squeezed it. “We shouldn’t have started a fire if we didn’t want it to burn,” he said.
“That’s true,” she whispered. “But I still don’t think it’s a good idea.” Because if they got close again, they’d still have the same problems they’d had before.
Because you have problems, a little voice in her head said, and she knew it was true. She couldn’t trust a handsome man like Drew not to run around the way her father had, couldn’t trust him not to judge her body as it changed throughout all the stages of a woman’s life.
Besides, if he knew about her miscarriage, he’d hate her for causing that, too.
But would he? She wondered. Drew had become more accepting than he used to be.
She thought of the women she’d shared a meal with on Sunday, how they’d talked about body image. Every one of them seemed to have a healthier one than she did.
That negative way of looking at herself had affected her marriage, for sure. Now it was affecting her mothering, as well. And if she didn’t work on it, she’d continue to mess up in both areas. “I have to go,” she said, standing and pulling her hand from Drew’s, hurrying away before he could say or do anything to try to keep her here.
She had some self-examination to do.