When the tears had run their course, even temporarily, she spent a few minutes soothing Moxie and then washed her face. She turned on the radio to keep the silence at bay and then she grabbed a few of the empty shopping bags she always shoved under the kitchen sink and started gathering his belongings. There was no sense in having Justin’s clothes and toiletries and miscellaneous belongings lying around when he was never going to crash on her couch again. Or sleep in her bed.
Unfortunately, the pain didn’t ease over the next several days. With Christmas bearing down, it was an especially depressing time to be alone and nursing a tender heart. Concentrating on work helped and, with tax season right around the corner, there was plenty of that. Not having to leave her apartment much also helped, as did talking to her family on the phone. But she missed Justin too much to have more than a few minutes pass without thinking of him. Even Moxie seemed to miss him, judging by the way she’d pace in front of the door and then rub against the legs of the kitchen chair that had been “his.”
Judy Rutledge called her bright and early Christmas Eve morning to invite her to meet for breakfast and Claire considered pleading a headache. But in the end she showered and got dressed, even putting on a little makeup, and headed down to the diner to meet her mother-in-law.
Judy had beat her there and Claire smiled as she slid into the booth. “I hope they’ve got a lot of coffee brewing.”
She was rewarded with a look that could only be considered a maternal scan. “You look like you need it.”
“You know how it is. Holiday exhaustion. And half my clients just realized it’s the end of the year and they’re panicking about taxes.”
“You’re not so busy you can’t stop by the party tonight, I hope.”
The party. Claire managed not to groan out loud, but she knew she’d be lucky to escape the diner without spilling her guts. Her mother-in-law had uncanny emotional radar and she didn’t take “fine” for an answer.
“I’m not sure if I’ll make it or not,” she said honestly. She hadn’t decided yet if she could face it. Either Justin would be there and she’d feel like crap seeing him again, or he wouldn’t be there and she’d feel like crap knowing she’d come between him and the people he considered a second family. Neither really filled her with holiday spirit.
“I hope you’ll try. It won’t be the same without you.”
Claire was saved having to respond to that by the waitress appearing to take their order, which required her to pretend she had an appetite. She figured an omelet and home fries would be easy to mangle on the plate, making it look as though she’d eaten more than she actually had.
Halfway through the meal and inane small talk, though, Judy set down her fork and gave her a hard look. “Tell me what’s going on, Claire. Don’t make keep trying to guess while imagining something horrible.”
Looking her husband’s mother in the eye made it seem a lot more horrible than it had seemed before, though. It was going to hurt, no matter how much she tried to hedge around the truth of the situation.
“Justin and I…we’ve had a falling out of sorts.”
“I thought it might have something to do with him. He hasn’t quite been himself, either.” Judy took a sip of her coffee, looking thoughtful. “It must be especially hard having a falling out with a friend at Christmastime.”
It was, though Claire only nodded, because it could always be worse. They’d both seen hard. Hard had been Judy’s hand gripping hers at the funeral so tightly she thought their bones would crack.
“Claire.” Judy said nothing else until she stopped fiddling with her home fries and looked up. “I hope you know Phil and I love you like a daughter, but that doesn’t mean we expect you to spend the rest of your life mourning Brendan. You can talk to me, sweetie. I want you to talk to me.”
“It’s too messy.” Claire shook her head, looking down into her nearly empty coffee cup. “It was just…I guess we were both lonely and we went to a Christmas party and had too much to drink and…it’s just too messy.”
She hated playing the alcohol card because it was a lie, but it was easier than trying to explain the tangle of emotions her relationship with Justin had become.
“You love Justin.”
The statement, made so simply and without accusation, made Claire’s throat close up and it was all she could do not to break down into tears. Her feelings for Justin were so complicated she hadn’t thought it could be summed up so easily.
“But Brendan’s coming between you,” Judy continued.
“Brendan’s not between us,” Claire said, a little more sharply than she intended. She wouldn’t share Justin’s confession with Judy-that he’d loved his best friend’s wife-because it might damage Justin’s relationship with the Rutledges, but it was never far from her mind. “He’s with us. In our hearts and our thoughts and he always will be because we loved him. I miss him every day, you know. So does Justin.”
“I do know.” Judy reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I lost my son, but I don’t know how it feels to lose my husband so I don’t know the right words to say. But I hope you don’t give up on Justin-or yourself-just because it’s hard right now.”
Sometimes it was too hard, but she didn’t want to drag Judy any farther into such a depressing topic. Especially the morning of her Christmas Eve party. “I’m not giving up on anything yet. But let’s talk about something else. Since you always figure it out, what did Phil get you for Christmas this year?”
Justin stood with his hands shoved in his coat pockets, staring down at the block of polished granite. Brendan Rutledge. Beloved Son, Husband, Brother and Red Sox Fan.
He’d been sitting between Judy and Claire in the funeral director’s office, holding their hands, while they went through the long, painful process of planning their goodbye. But it had been Phil, sitting with his arms wrapped around Brendan’s sister and who’d been quiet up until the moment came to order the headstone, who had said his son would have wanted the world to know he was a Red Sox fan. The three women had laughed-weak, startled amusement that pierced through the suffocating blanket of unexpected, bone-deep grief.
Claire had wanted to add friend, for Justin’s sake, but the funeral director was concerned about the amount of space on the small stone. Justin had squeezed her hand and told her brother said everything important about his relationship with Brendan.
He stared now at that word etched forever into granite. Brother. “I slept with your wife.”
There was no clap of thunder. No lightning strike or howling winds or deluge of icy rain. Just silence and the beating of his heart.
“I tried not to. I tried so damn hard not to.” He swallowed hard. “We tried to blame the booze at first. But we weren’t drunk. It was just the excuse we used to make it okay. And…then we did it again.”
He stopped. Blew out a breath. “I hurt her. You worshipped her and you made her laugh and smile and…I made her cry. I think, more than anything, you’d kick my ass just for that. God, I wish you could kick my ass right now.”
Justin heard a strangled sob behind him and turned to see Judy Rutledge standing a short distance behind him. Her face was pale and streaked with tears as her leather-gloved hands strangled the stems of a small Christmas bouquet. The guilt of hurting another woman Brendan had loved almost crippled him.
“He considered you his brother,” she said in a small voice that hit him like a wrecking ball.
His shoulders hunched under his coat as he waited for the accusations and recriminations from the woman who’d been a second mother to him. He wouldn’t try to defend what he’d done or hide from the pain. He deserved to hurt as much as she did. More. Because he’d betrayed her, too.
“I’ve loved you like a son, Justin. The boys. That’s how Phil and I always referred to you. The boys. You were probably closer than any real brothers could have been. And he’s gone now.”
The agony in her voice and in her eyes made his heart clench and his throat close up until he could barely breathe. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
“But I still have you. I still have one of my boys and I have Claire, who will always be a second daughter to me. And seeing the two of you like this hurts me.”
He shook his head, his hands curling into fists in his pockets. He didn’t want her soft words and compassionate tears. She should be angry. She should pound her fists on his chest and yell at him for betraying her son’s memory-for betraying Brendan’s friendship.
Instead, she stepped forward and opened her arms, but he shook his head again. His vision blurred with unshed tears as she cradled his cheek with one of her hands.
“I get through each day by believing my son is in some wonderful better place,” she said softly, but firmly. “I believe he can feel my love for him and, since I believe that, I also have to believe he can feel your pain. He loved you and Claire so much. Both of you hurting would make him unhappy.”
“I slept with his wife,” he whispered, and she dropped her hand.
She stepped around him and set the bouquet of cheery flowers at the base of her son’s headstone. He watched her shoulders move under her coat as she took a deep breath and ran her fingers over Brendan’s name.
Then she shoved her hands in her pockets and faced Justin again. “You have to stop telling yourself that. You have to stop believing it. You slept with Claire. You slept with the woman you love and who loves you and, as trite as it might sound, Brendan would want you both to move on. To be happy.”
He might as well tell her the rest of it. Before she wished him any more happiness, she deserved to know it all. “I’ve always loved her, Mrs. R., even before he…before the accident.”
“If I believed for a second you had in any way betrayed my son, I wouldn’t be able to look at your face, Justin McCormick. You know that, don’t you?”
He nodded until she held his face between her hands again and made him look at her. “You can’t choose who you love. And you can’t will it away.”
“I tried. I tried not to love her.”
“And look where you’ve ended up. Both of you are miserable. Brendan might have been your best friend and Claire’s husband, but he was my boy and I know-I believe in my heart-that he would consider the two of you being happy together a blessing.”
He wanted to believe her. But he’d spent so many years telling himself his feelings for Claire were wrong, and the guilt wasn’t a switch he could flip because Brendan’s mom said it was okay. He wanted to, though, and for the first time he allowed himself to imagine telling Claire he loved her.
Mrs. Rutledge sniffed and then seemed to gather herself up emotionally. “Are you going to stop by the party tonight?”
“Probably not. I’m not very good company and I’m not really up to pretending I am.”
“That’s more or less what Claire said, too. You should go see her, Justin.”
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure he could give her what she needed.
The smile Judy gave him was warm, with only a hint of sadness. “You both lost Brendan. Do you really want to lose each other, too?”
As he drove home, that parting question wouldn’t leave him alone. It echoed through his mind, over and over, until he wanted to beat his head against the steering wheel just to make it stop. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but there was one thing he knew for damn sure. He didn’t want to lose Claire.