Tom stopped on his way to the refrigerator and looked at the digital clock on the stove. It said 5:30. He shrugged, opened the refrigerator door. The look of absolute alarm on his face mirrored her own, but for a different reason, and he said, “What, no beer? Do I have to go get some?”
“It’s going to be dark in two hours,” she said, wiping her hands on a paper towel. “I wonder if I should call somebody.”
Three place settings were on the table. Lasagna-Annie’s favorite-was baking in the oven. The kitchen smelled of garlic, oregano, tomato sauce, and cheese. Tom had pointed out that she needed another plate. “No,” she said, “I don’t.”
Against her better judgment, she’d let him in the house when he showed up after work and said he was there to apologize for not leaving early that morning. He said when he got up he didn’t want to leave. He was trying to flatter her.
He was good at flattering her. That was part of the problem-she liked being flattered, even when she knew better. She’d first heard about Tom when she started work as the manager of her store. The three women who worked the registers out front tittered like schoolgirls when they described the UPS man. His arrival at three-thirty was the highlight of their afternoon, they said. Monica learned why. He was tall, well built, charming, chatty, and single. As he carried the shipments in through the back door, he made a point of flirting with each of the women in turn, complimenting them on their clothes and hair, telling them it looked like they’d lost weight. Monica was on to his act instantly, but she admired his endless good cheer, undeniable charm, and transparent élan, which he soon turned full force on her. Although she tried to deny to herself what she was doing, she found herself checking her hair and lipstick to make sure both were in order before three-thirty. She didn’t object when he lingered after his delivery, engaging her in small talk, offering to help stack boxes, move displays, or shovel snow from the sidewalk. Once, he caught a bat that had somehow gotten into the storeroom and impressed her by releasing it outside, unharmed. When the employees on the registers started gossiping about the amount of time Tom was spending in the store, Monica asked him to stick to business. He would, he told her, if he just wasn’t so darned attracted to her. When she said she had kids at home, he said he liked kids, and would love to meet them, and hey, how about dinner sometime? That was four months and a dozen dinners ago. Her eyes were open the whole time, until last night, when she deliberately closed them, looked away, and allowed herself a soft moan.
Tom shut the refrigerator door and turned toward her with his arms crossed. His forearms were massive. “I wouldn’t worry so much,” he said. “When I was growing up here people didn’t worry so much. I remember staying out after school fishing, shooting hoops, generally fucking around, until all hours. I’d get home when I got home. If I missed dinner, well, that was my fault. Now, it’s a damned federal case if kids just get out of sight for a minute.”
“Are you talking about me?” she asked.
He started to say yes, she could tell. But he caught himself. “No, not necessarily. I just mean people in general. Everyone’s so goddamned paranoid. We live in such a nanny state now. If a kid is late getting home from school, they put out an Amber Alert. It didn’t used to be like this around here. We trusted each other, you know? It pisses me off, is all. She’s probably just staying away to make a point,” Tom said. “She’s a prickly little number.”
“Tom,” Monica said, measuring her words, “Annie and William had early release today. They should have been home at two if they couldn’t go fishing with you.”
Something washed over him, the look of a guilty man.
“What?” she asked. “You showed up at the school, didn’t you? I assumed they weren’t there.”
Tom took a deep breath, closed his eyes. “We had two guys out sick today, so they gave me extra routes. I was busier than hell. I guess I forgot.”
Monica’s face tightened.
“I said ‘maybe,’” he pleaded. “I didn’t promise anything.”
“William thought you did.”
He shrugged. “Things happen, Monica.”
Monica had spent the day at work in a kind of stupor. All day, her throat felt constricted, and she excused herself to go to the back room and cry. She’d thought about calling the school, asking for Annie. She would explain what happened with Tom, but how could she possibly put it?
Your mom screwed up.
Your mom broke her word.
Your mom drank too much wine with Tom after you and William went to bed and invited him up to her bedroom. He swore he’d get up early and be out of the house by the time you and Willie got up. He promised!
But she could hear Annie reply that Monica had sworn she’d never let a man-a stranger-into the family unless it meant they’d really have a father. Annie didn’t ask for the vow; Monica had volunteered it. Now she’d betrayed her own children with this man. How could she let herself do it? How could she ever fix things?
Annie was tough and smart beyond her years. The girl was grounded in bedrock and would forgive her eventually. But she wouldn’t forget. Willie, though, poor Willie. This was the kind of thing that could scar a child, send him down the wrong path. A breach of trust was a serious thing. Dashed expectations were just as crippling. She’d give anything if only she could somehow erase Willie’s memory of the morning when Tom joined them at the breakfast table.
And Tom’s way of dealing with it was to say, “Things happen, Monica.”
He was an idiot, and it would be easy to blame him for what had happened. But she was the one who’d brought him into their home.
“I need to be alone and wait for my children,” she said. “They are probably the only thing I’ve ever done right.”
He responded by visibly softening, and approached her, wrapping his arms around her. She remained stiff, refusing to give in to his physicality. With his grip on the back of her head, he pushed her onto his hard shoulder.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, cooing into her hair. “They’re your kids, so they’re important to me, too. Of course you’re worried about them.”
“I’m sorry, too, Tom,” she said. Sorry she’d ever met him.
As he hugged her she opened her eyes and saw her reflection in the glass door of the microwave oven. She was still slim, blond, with oversized eyes and a wide mouth, and an overbite most men liked. She knew she didn’t deserve her looks; she had done nothing to earn them. It was the fault of genetics that she looked ten years younger than she was. She wanted to push away and run somewhere. How could he not read her in the slightest?
Tom was talking, saying, “I’d like to think you consider me one of the things you’ve done right.”
She didn’t respond, hoped he wouldn’t press her for an answer. He didn’t.
“It’s not often we’re alone without your kids here, honey,” he said. “We could, you know, use this time just for us.”
Of course, she knew what he meant, but she couldn’t believe he’d said it. She could feel him getting hard against her. He had moved his hips so his erection rubbed her abdomen.
She looked at the clock above the stove-5:45.
“Tom…”
He didn’t let go.
“Tom,” she said, pushing away with more force than necessary, alarmed at the revulsion she felt for the same man who had been in her bed the night before, “why don’t you go home now? I need to talk with Annie and William. You shouldn’t be here. You’ve done enough for today.”