“I am a kid to her,” he said, looking nervous.
“You don’t owe her any explanations. She’s not your mother, and even if she were, you’re a grown man. All you have to do is tell her that we’re in love with each other, and this is the choice you’ve made.” Pattie was pushing again. He hadn’t made that choice. He had fallen into it, like a soft featherbed he enjoyed being in. But he had no idea how long he wanted to be there or what it meant. Pattie was making assumptions that were comfortable for her, but Ted wasn’t sure of anything yet except that he liked being with her. And in his own eyes, not just Annie’s, he was still a kid. He felt like one. And he didn’t want Pattie dictating to him any more than he wanted Annie to.
All he could say to Annie honestly was that he was involved with Pattie and had been since just after Thanksgiving. He didn’t know anything more than that. He wasn’t sure if that would frighten her or reassure her. But he wasn’t ready to tell her that this was a choice he had made, as Pattie wanted him to. Pattie had made that choice. He hadn’t yet. He was just having a good time.
He was very quiet on the walk back to Pattie’s apartment with the full basket of fruits and vegetables they’d bought. He set it down in the kitchen for her, and she didn’t like the way he looked. He had been silent and upset ever since they ran into his aunt.
“What if she doesn’t approve, Ted?” she asked him bluntly. They both knew she was asking about Annie. “What if she tells you to give me up?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t do that. She’s a reasonable woman and she loves me. But I don’t know if she’ll understand. Twenty-four and thirty-six is hard to explain.” He was realistic about it. His roommates had met her and thought he was crazy. It was a complicated situation for him to be in, with two kids, no matter how great the sex was.
“It’s not hard to explain at all,” Pattie corrected him. “We love each other. That’s the only explanation anyone needs, including your aunt.”
“Maybe I need more of an explanation than that,” Ted suddenly said, more harshly than he meant to. But he hated it when she pushed him. “I need to know why this would work, and it’s a good idea. I still have to finish law school, and you have two kids. We’re at different stages in our lives. Sometimes it’s hard to bridge that.” He tried to be honest with her, but she didn’t want to hear it. She had her own version of the story, which was different from his. To her, this was true love. To Ted, it was great sex, and he didn’t know how much more it was than that.
She looked panicked. “This isn’t hard to bridge,” she insisted.
“You’re older than I am,” he said bluntly. “Maybe you can handle it better than I can. To be honest with you, sometimes it scares me.” He was always honest with her, whether she liked it or not. And she never wanted to hear his side.
“What are you scared of?” she asked plaintively.
“That we’ve backed ourselves into a corner that we’ll never be able to get out of, if we want to.”
“Is that what you want?” Pattie asked him with a suddenly evil look. She was whispering so the kids wouldn’t hear her. But they had turned on the TV, and they were in the other room. “Is that what you’re saying to me,” she said, with a malicious glint in her eyes, “you want out, Ted? Let me explain something to you. I waited a whole lifetime for a man like you, and I’m not going to let you cheat me of what we have. If you ever leave me, I’m going to kill myself. Do you understand that? I’d rather die than live without you. And if I die, it will be because of you.” Hearing her say that cut through him like a knife, and he closed his eyes and turned away as though to erase from his mind that she’d ever said it.
“Pattie, don’t…,” he said hoarsely.
“I will, and you’d better know it.” It was more of a threat than a plea for him not to leave her. It was a promise to destroy his life, her own, and her children’s if he ever left her. They had been together for six weeks, and Pattie had him in a death grip. And worse yet, the life she was threatening was her own. And if she meant anything to him at all, he had to respect it. He couldn’t just sleep with her night after night and day after day, and have sex with her, and leave her. Who knew if she really would kill herself? But he didn’t want to take the chance. Ted was shaking when she walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room to her kids. Her message to him had been delivered and was even more powerful than his respect for his aunt. Pattie had won this round. Again.
And back in her apartment, after she came home from the farmers’ market, Annie was thinking about them. She had no idea who the woman was, or what she meant to Ted. She could see how engaged he was with them, but she hadn’t seen love in his eyes when she looked at him, she had seen terror. She wanted to know why, and what he was going to do about it. Everywhere she turned now, the children she loved had put themselves in difficult situations and were at risk. And she was helpless to stop them or even help them. All she could do was watch as they took chances, and they would ultimately have to learn from their own mistakes, just as Whitney had said. She walked back into the living room on her crutches and sat down on the couch. There wasn’t even anyone she could talk to about it. All she could do was worry and hope that in the end they made wise choices and everything came out all right. She had never been so sad or felt so useless in her life.
Chapter 14
Annie didn’t have to call Ted this time. He called her himself the next morning and asked to have lunch with her that day. He had stayed at Pattie’s the night before, so he hadn’t called her. He couldn’t. The kids had gone to their father’s for the night, and Pattie had threatened Ted with suicide again, and then made love to him as never before. The sex just got better and better, but there was something so intense and frantic about it that sometimes it frightened him. The hook she used to keep him close to her was sex. It was addictive, but the threat she had made the night before woke him up. He never wanted to have her suicide on his hands. And she sounded like she meant it. She had said it several times.
Ted looked somber when he met Annie at Bread, which she knew he liked. And when Annie saw him walk toward her, her heart ached for him. He didn’t have to say a word to her. She could see that he was in way, way over his head, and he knew it whether he admitted it to her or not. Annie was worried sick about him.
They talked about school and her ankle for a few minutes to break the ice, and then Annie got straight to the point.
“How involved are you with this woman? And what does she want from you? She must be close to forty, and you’re just a kid.” It was what he had expected her to say.
“She’s thirty-six. It happened right after Thanksgiving. She teaches my contracts class, and I got a shit grade on a quiz. She offered to have me come over so she could help me, and the next thing I knew I was in bed with her. I’ve been there ever since.” He was as honest as he always was. He never mentioned love. “But I got straight A’s in contracts,” he said with a rueful grin. And he tried to make light of the situation he was in. And didn’t mention that he was barely passing his other classes. He couldn’t cope with Pattie and the demands of law school too.
“Is this serious? Are you in love with her?” Annie looked at him intently. He didn’t look in love to her. He looked worried.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, and then he told Annie about Pattie’s threat the night before, to kill herself if he ever left her. He hadn’t planned to tell Annie, but Pattie had shaken him badly and he trusted his aunt’s advice. She was wise, and had always been there for him. Pattie was new to him and seemed a little unstable.