The Fifth Stage Part 33

"I just meant... well..." I clear my throat and try to remember the speech I rehea.r.s.ed this morning in front of the bathroom mirror. "It's not you. It's me. I'm not in a position to get involved. I never will be."

Rebecca gazes at the stack of papers, blinks, and looks back at my eyes. "If that's the truth, the real honest-to-G.o.d truth, then I have no choice but to accept it."

"You think I'm lying?" A flash of anger rises within methat's better.

"I think you're kidding yourself."

There's nothing confrontational in her posture or tone, but I go on the defense. "I kidded myself for a lot of years, but now, if there's one thing I do know, it's how to face facts. I learned it the hard way."

She removes a single sheet from the stack, closes the folder, and steps past me.

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I follow her with my eyes. "Just out of curiosity, why do you think I'm kidding myself?"

She crams the folder back into the filing cabinet. "I shouldn't have said that. Forget about it. If you say you face facts, then you do."

"No, I want to know."

"Look. I'm sorry if I misunderstood what we've been doing for the past few weeks. Obviously you don't want the same thing I do, so let's just keep it friendly, okay? We had some fun together. I don't want to end up regretting it."

"Come on. You think you know me, so let me have it."

"Why are you trying to pick a fight? I heard what you said. I don't like it, but I respect it, okay?"

"But you don't understand, do you?"

Rebecca takes a few steps toward the kitchen before stopping. She shoots bullets at me with her eyes. "Are you going to explain yourself?"

When I don't reply, she says, "I thought not."

"Why do you say I'm kidding myself?"

"Since you're so determined, I'll tell you. I think you're so hung up on your ex that you'll never give anyone else a chance. You want to fight with me so you don't have to deal with the fact that you might have feelings for me. You'd rather not even try than risk getting hurt again."

"You've got it all figured out, haven't you?"

"No, there's one thing I don't have figured out. Why in h.e.l.l are you so attached to someone who obviously doesn't want to be with you? If she's so great and you two were so in love, then why aren't you snuggled up like bugs in a rug?"

Something inside me starts to boil. I shouldn't be standing here listening to this c.r.a.p. She doesn't know anything, and she sure doesn't know me. I turn toward the door.

"Wait, Claire, don't leave like this." She catches my arm. "I don't want to fight. I honestly don't understand what's going on, but I do care for you, probably more than you think."

I spin on her, ready to lash out, but the kindness in her eyes overwhelms me. I pull her close and hug her tight. "I'm sorry, Rebecca.

I should never have let this get so far. I knew from the beginning it could never be anything, but you're just so smart and kind, and..."

"s.e.xy. Don't forget s.e.xy."

"Oh, G.o.d, I could never forget that." With an awkward laugh, I step back and hold her at arm's length. "You're something else."

"And I'm going to make some lucky woman very happy, right?"

"That's not exactly what I was going to say."

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"Close enough. I don't know what it is about you, but I seem to know what's going on in your mind. I don't understand it, I just know it." Her eyes are wet. "I don't think you want to break it off. But for some reason, you're going to." She watches my expression, and when I don't reply, she says, "d.a.m.n. I knew it."

"I'm sorry, but I just can't be with anyone else." The confusion in Rebecca's swirling green eyes deepens. There's only one way to make her understand, but the demons are still alive, still jabbing at me after all this time. Can I show them to Rebecca? Can I let her see the person I really am?

"Talk to me. I'll try to understand."

"It's complicated. In my head, it makes perfect sense, but when I try to say it out loud..."

"Give me a chance. Let me try to see it your way. If you never want to see me again, I'll respect your decision. But at least tell me why. I mean the real why, not this other c.r.a.p you've been feeding me about not being in a position to do this."

She's right, I owe her this much. I take a deep breath and steel myself. "Her name is Lora."

CHAPTER 41.

The sky had gone cloudy, so when Lora punched the remote on the visor and the door rose with a moan, the garage remained dim. The beige towel around my cut hand was ruined. The bloodstain looked like an inkblot in one of Lora's psychology textbooks. Come to think of it, the pattern did resemble Mrs. Dally, my third-grade teacher, with its big fat center and wild hairy spikes shooting out from all sides.

Lora looked out the rear window as she backed the Camry out of the garage. Then she glanced at my hand. "Hold it up."

Keeping the towel in place with my left hand, I hugged my right hand to my chest. I didn't feel the same urgency to get to the hospital that she seemed to. Sure, there was a lot of blood, but the cut didn't seem deep. I could wiggle my fingers, and it didn't hurt that much, just felt like a bee sting.

We whizzed out of the driveway and onto Valley View Drive.

When we reached the first corner, Lora made a rolling stop and revved the engine as she turned left onto Lakebridge.

I was in a fog, trying to make sense of the day. I'd found the brochure from the lodge, decided to confront Lora, and gotten myself all worked up for the fight of my life. I was going to be cool and in control, but when she'd admitted to seeing the other woman, I'd gotten hysterical and made an a.s.s of myself by breaking a perfectly good bathroom mirror and slicing open my hand in one fell swoop.

"Just tell me why," I said.

She shook her head. "There is no why. These things just happen."

"That's a sucky answer. Quit being a f.u.c.king a.n.a.lyst for five minutes, will you? Just tell me how it happened."

"How?" She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "I don't know for sure. It's complicated."

She started in on one of her drawn-out explanations about how the brain works, but I cut her off. "Okay, skip the details. Just tell me this. Is she better than me?"

"Who? Better how?" Lora gunned the engine.

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"I want to know if she's a better lover than me."

Lora snapped her head around and looked at me. "A better lover?

What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"I figure this Z must be one spectacular f.u.c.k. Or maybe I just got boring after all this time." Bitterness lingered on my tongue. I shrugged and looked out the window so she wouldn't see the tears in my eyes.

Lora slammed on the brakes and steered the car to the shoulder.

"You think I'm sleeping with Zola?"

"So that's her name? Zola? She sounds old. What is she, about sixty?"

"She's seventy, for Christ's sake, and she's my therapist." Lora grabbed my shoulder and pulled me around to face her. "I wouldn't f.u.c.k Zola Hart, or anyone else for that matter."

"Zola Hart?" The Z, the drawn heart. Was it just shorthand for her therapist's name? Had I been wrong all this time? I was stunned, caught between wanting to believe her and dismissing her lies. "But the phone number, the late nights, and that receipt from Damron's... I know you weren't with June that night."

Lora closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "You're right, I wasn't with June. I invited Zola out for drinks, and we talked. That's all, I swear."

"The receipt wasn't for your credit card. So you invited her out, and she paid?"

"That's right. She's very wealthyher husband sold some kind of software design to Microsoft for a bundle. She never lets anyone else pay for anything, and she just takes on special cases in her spare time.

That night at Damron's was when I asked Zola if she'd take me on as a client."

"But all the other... I found receipts..." I stammered, trying to make her explanation fit, wiggling the new sc.r.a.p of information in and out of the puzzle I thought I'd already solved.

"Baby, I know I've been acting weird, but I've had a lot of things to take care of. I swear, I've never cheated on you."

She s.h.i.+fted into park and leaned across the armrest. We fell into each other's arms, kissing, crying, laughing, repeating the words we'd said hundreds of times. "I love you, honey. Never be anyone but you.

Only you. Please forgive me."

I don't remember who said what, but it didn't matter. For the first time in weeks, I knew Lora was telling the truth. I had been wrong, she wasn't having an affair, but it still didn't add up. She had no reason to keep therapy appointments a secret. It was routine for mental health 220 workers to undergo therapy. If listening to other people's problems all day wouldn't drive you nuts, what would?

But hard as I tried, I couldn't get the puzzle to come together. She was upset about something, and it had nothing to do with my distrust or insecurity.

I pulled away and stared at her. "Look, I know there's more to this.

What is it?"

"I thought you knew. Zola said you'd figured it out." Lora put her hand on my leg. A tear trickled down her cheek. "G.o.d, I didn't want it to be this way. I wanted us to have a nice weekend at the lodge." She looked at my hand. "It's still bleeding. We'd better go on."

Lora pulled back onto the road and swerved to miss a squirrel, nearly losing control of the car. "Remember that inner-ear infection I had about two months ago that I couldn't seem to shake?"

A strange tingling started up my legs. "Sure. You had to go through three rounds of antibiotics."

"It wasn't an ear infection." She signaled right and skidded onto Bingham Road. "How's your hand?"

"Forget my hand and slow down. If it wasn't an ear infection, what was it?"

"Dr. Powell ordered a series of brain scans, just to be safe." Lora's lower lip trembled, and she bit down hard on it.

"Brain scans? You mean an MRI? A CAT scan? You never told me that."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"Worry? I'm worried now. What the h.e.l.l is going on?" I could barely speak around the lump in my throat.

She didn't look at me. "We've got a little problem."

"How little?" My stomach tightened.

"About the size of a grape." She tapped the right side of her head.

I couldn't bring myself to envision anything other than a soft, sweet fruit. A grape wasn't threatening. Grapes were good, tiny surprises that rolled past my tongue alongside slivered almonds in my mother's chicken salad.

More tears flowed down her cheeks. "It's inoperable."

Lora's words drifted past me, falling impotently around my ankles.

I wrapped the towel tighter around my hand. "I think the bleeding is slowing down."

"Claire, did you hear me?"

"Probably won't take more than six or seven st.i.tches."

"I have a brain tumor."

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"Guess I won't be playing racquetball for a while."

"It's growing."

"Hope it doesn't leave a scar."

"They can't stop it."

"I hope Jared's working. Elizabeth says he can sew you up better than a tailor."

"Claire, listen to me!" Lora's voice boomed and bounced off the steel roof. "I'm dying."