“You don’t understand.” He leaned toward her in his intensity. “I meant it when I said you’re right. I’d have made the same decision.” He spoke faster and faster. “I swear I won’t expect you to abandon your family, any more than I’d ditch mine. We can work it out. Support each other.”
“But, you see, I don’t believe you. It was…unreasonable of me to be so hurt, since we’d barely started anything personal, but I guess that’s how I’m made. Which should tell you how wrong I am for you. You’re a man who doesn’t want more family, while me, I do want that—a husband and children. See the disaster in the making?”
“I’ve been falling for you. Hard.”
“I’m sorry.” She kept her head up, and her eyes stayed dry. “Tony, I’m really beat. If you don’t mind…” She gestured toward the car.
He moved aside. Even as she unlocked the door, he said, “How can I convince you?”
“I don’t know.” Sitting behind the wheel was an enormous relief. She reached immediately for the door. “Goodbye.”
Beth didn’t want to look at him but, even from the corner of her eye, she saw how stunned he looked. That hurt, knowing she’d done it to him, but her instinct was to run. And, of all people, he should understand. Wasn’t that exactly what he’d done?
He hadn’t moved when she drove away.
* * *
THAT WENT WELL.
Even after Beth turned out of the parking lot and disappeared from sight, Tony stood where he was.
In one way, he’d known how she’d react, but he still hadn’t really expected her to say No way, I’m done with you. During the night, he’d convinced himself she’d been falling for him, too. Feeling desolate now, he realized she had. That was why he could hurt her as much as he had. Good going. No wonder she wasn’t up for more.
Shit. Now what?
Trying to find a grain of optimism she hadn’t stamped underfoot, he latched on to her answer when he asked how he could convince her to give him a chance. She could have said a flat You can’t. She didn’t. There might be a small opening. I don’t know wasn’t as final as You can’t.
No matter what, his first priority was doing his job, arresting her mother’s murderer and allowing Beth to feel safe stepping outside her door. The strain on her face had almost killed him. He wanted to kick his own ass for making what was an already horrendous week worse. It had taken remarkable strength for her to decide to return to work, to spend her days helping other people solve their problems. He imagined her warmth, how she’d comfort complete strangers, supply common sense and resources, without ever letting them see the shadows over her own life.
Hearing himself making an odd sound, Tony let his head fall forward. His shoulders and neck ached, as if he’d spent the day hauling hay bales, as he’d done one long-ago summer.
Finally, he took the few steps to his truck and got in. Tomorrow, he’d do his job. Tonight, he needed to talk to his mother like the man he was, not the boy he’d been. And then he just might spend the night in his truck outside Beth’s townhouse. He wasn’t sleeping anyway, and his gut said her assailant had to be freaking as the days passed.
* * *
HIS MOTHER WAS so delighted to see him, Tony felt a stab of guilt.
“And for you to bring dinner, too!” she exclaimed, speaking Spanish which, even after spending all of her life in this country, was still most comfortable for her.
Embarrassed, he said, “It’s not as if I labored in the kitchen for hours. All I did was stop at Tia’s.”
“Ropa vieja? I smell it.”
“With rice.”
They sat to eat at the table in the kitchen of his childhood home. A typical ranch style built in the late 1970s, it wasn’t so different from his own. Despite having lived here, he marveled at how his parents had raised such a large family in a three-bedroom house.
When he looked around, he could see the wear and tear. Flooring had all been replaced, courtesy of one of her sons-in-law, but otherwise not much had been done. Mamá resisted change and didn’t like accepting what she considered charity. His role was to mow her lawn or paint the exterior of the house, but she couldn’t accept new kitchen cabinets.