Chapter 7

Maeve began to get uneasy after Sam had gone back to the Lunsford trailer to change for dinner. She sighed and picked up the scattered paintings and drawings. Never had she felt so good about her work or so sure of where she was going with it, but she could not put off any longer the nagging worry about Carl.

Logically he would arrive either tonight or in the morning. She hadn't called him as Sam urged her to. She couldn't. She just couldn't! Not after what she'd done and felt and been since she'd last seen him. The thought of facing him in the flesh soon turned her insides to quaking knots of tension.

She must have been completely out of her mind! Her guilt was far worse than his. She'd... twice... with different men! He'd only been with one scheming slut who must have seduced him. And Maeve had given herself to two men... a double vengeance for Carl's single transgression. Hell had no wrath like a woman scorned!

Woodenly she showered and pulled on a faded old calico gypsy skirt and a fresh white peasant blouse and soft espadrilles with comfortable rope soles. She moved slowly, her head beginning to ache and her stomach still tense with anxiety.

Absently she opened the refrigerator door, remembering she'd hardly eaten all day. The clock ticked loudly on the shelf, and the sight of its old-fashioned face in the round brass frame brought tears to her eyes. The children had given it to her on her last birthday. How could she ever look at their lovely, trusting little faces again when she wasn't even worthy to be Carl's wife any more?

Savagely she hacked away some ham from the piece she'd brought. She tried to remember all the comforting things Sam had said to her... about instincts and philosophy and middle-class morality... but they only seemed like rather poor justifications now.

She clung to the central fact of Sam's approval of Carl's work and his promise that Carl could have the research money. At least she could be happy about that and feel that maybe she'd had a tiny part in making it happen.

Then her hand stopped spreading the slices of bread. How would Carl take it if he found out that his precious research money had been bought with her own body. Oh, God! She hadn't thought of that before. Carl would be destroyed... completely destroyed... by his stupid, weak and wanton wife. She could hear the gossip now.

Oh, God in heaven, what had she done! She slid onto the bench at the postage stamp dining table and put her arms on it and let her head sink down in bitter sobs. It was hopeless... completely hopeless. It wasn't Betty who had taken her husband. Maeve had killed her own marriage with no help from anybody. She'd done it herself. Her husband, her children, her life... gone.

Finally the racking sobs shuddered to dry heaves and then to long painful breaths. She stood up and put the food away. She couldn't eat. It would only be regurgitated by her clenched stomach. Her head was splitting now, and the guilt and shame were gnawing at her vitals to produce a sharp physical pain in her abdomen.

With her hand on the refrigerator door, she froze to a breathless agony, for she heard the redwood gate open and close. Her eyes went to the door and watched in terror as it opened and Carl came into the trailer.

She looked so fragile and drained, her little face white as parchment and her eyes enormous brown pools of hurt. Carl felt a stab of guilt that knotted his very guts. He'd done this to her. Oh God! He rushed in and gathered her to him, burying his face in, her soft throat.

"Oh, baby. Don't look like that. I can't stand it." He squeezed her close in his arms, and her beautiful little body had never felt so small and defenseless. His hand came up behind her to clutch the small round skull through her silky brown hair, and his lips were buried against her slender throat.

Carl's chest was so tight and constricted he thought he was going to make a fool of himself and cry. His throat worked, closing and aching. He kissed her neck and cheeks and temples and nose.

"Please, darling. I can't stand it if you won't forgive me. You've got to." His arms closed even more fiercely around her. "I've been a goddamned fool and a bastard... but I promise you it will never... never happen again." He caught her mouth and kissed her passionately. "I love you. I love you so damn much... I got roaring drunk last night alone in the house... and I realized that when you were gone... there was nothing... nothing.... Oh God, baby... say something. Please... please forgive me."

Maeve stood in his arms as though dead, feeling his lips and his arms and listening to him beg for forgiveness, and it all seemed to be happening to another woman... one she had been a long time ago. Someone Carl had loved. Someone the children loved.

He was begging for her forgiveness! And she had done so much worse to him... and he didn't even know! The tears welled up from the pain that clutched her gut, like the sweat from unbearable agony, and they poured from her eyes in a cloudburst, and the sobs racked her with choking hysteria that was ripped from her lungs like flesh tearing.

"Oh God, honey. Please don't cry like that... please... I can't stand it... I've done this to you... don't... don't!" Carl dropped his head to her neck again, and the tears poured from his eyes as they hadn't since he was seven years old.

They stood crying and sobbing, holding onto each other to keep from falling... and hoping the flood would somehow wash them clean and fit again.

The sky was almost dark now, and Harry stood with the Admiral looking at the deepening shadows devour the running river. Their drinks made tinkling noises as the ice hit the sides of the glasses, and there was a distant hootowl questioning the night air.

"How was the fishing this morning?" Harry asked slowly, for he'd played all his other cards and hadn't gotten to first base. The bastard thought Carl's work more "exciting" and innovative than his! Oh, he hadn't said so in so many words, but the message had come through loud and clear.

"I think that's a rather irrelevant question, Harry. Certainly unworthy of a man in your position as a department head," Sam said casually, sipping on his drink and looking at the far shore of the river.

"But..." The nerve of the guy! He knew! Harry could tell he knew that Harry knew about his hay sessions with Maeve in the woods, and he had the effrontery to reprimand Harry Neil as a department head! Harry swallowed hard and gave it one more try.

"But, sir... Carl's theories have only been tried with a very few civilian corporations with a handful of executives. There's been no test case at all for any of the services... such as the Navy."

"That's true," Sam agreed, and did not ask Harry to drop the "sir" this time.

"Well..." Harry had to press this advantage while he could, and pray that Carl would muff it. "Wouldn't it make sense to have such a test case?"

"There's an element of time, Harry."

"I realize that, sir. That's why I suggested it. Well, I mean... if this is going to revolutionize the interpersonal relationships of community, family and officers... well, we've got a pretty good sampling of that right here. The Lunsfords... he's a young officer who'll be down with his wife tomorrow. The Crandalls, Jo and myself, and Farleigh Flynn, the camp manager to represent the community. Why... well, I mean, don't you think it might be possible to have a test off-site here tomorrow?"

"Possible. Yes, I should think it might be." Harry could see him calculating the whole thing swiftly in his head to some time schedule and superiors to answer to that Harry could only imagine.

The Admiral drained his drink slowly... and then turned to look at Harry. "Good thinking," he congratulated him. "That's why you're a department head and a good one." With one hand he knocked him down, Harry thought weakly, and with the other he lifted him up.