Momentary Marriage(55)
“Except when you were working,” her mother agreed in her happy, little-girl voice.
“Can’t you stay a while longer?” Kelsey asked. She was torn between wanting to avoid questions about her marriage and desiring time with her mother.
Her mother shook her head, her face sorrowful. “Armando wouldn’t like it. He made me promise. I’m not to spend any more money than necessary. I would have flown home already but I just had to see you when you got back from your honeymoon.”
Kelsey let her gaze fall to her menu, feeling her mood shift. Had it only been yesterday that she and Jared had flown home, still wrapped in the golden glow of a week alone together? She’d hated coming back to the city. Back to normal. The dream had to fade sometime, she supposed.
A waiter came and took their orders. Chloe handed her menu back with a sweet, almost child-like smile. “Thank you.”
“So are you keeping busy these days?” Kelsey asked, not wanting her deflating mood to dampen this brief visit with her mother. “Amy’s had time to catch up on all the news, but I haven’t. Are you still decorating the new house?”
“I suppose.” The older woman fidgeted with her silver. “It’s all very difficult. Armando insisted on this decorator and I can’t tolerate the woman.”
Kelsey glanced at her sister with foreboding. “She’s hard to work with?”
Her mother paused. “I think she’s having an affair with Armando.”
A sinking sensation settled in Kelsey’s stomach as she met Amy’s troubled gaze. “Are you sure? Maybe they’re just friendly.”
Chloe adjusted the vase of flowers in the center of the table. “That’s what your sister says. I know they’re friendly, all right, but I’m sure it’s more than that. I’m having him followed. It’ll break my heart if I’m right.”
“Oh, mother,” Kelsey said, reaching for her hand in an attempt to comfort. “Maybe you’re wrong. It could be nothing.”
“He’d be crazy to cheat on you,” Amy said stoutly. “You’re the best thing in his life.”
Drawing a hankie out of her tiny purse, Chloe wiped at the corner of her eye.
“Such good daughters. Always such a comfort to me,” she hesitated. “Dearest girls, I’m afraid I might have made another mistake. I thought he was different.”
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, so Kelsey didn’t try, although it wrenched her to see her mother so sad.
“You’re so lucky, Kelsey” her mother sniffled, smiling bravely. “I’m so thrilled for you that you’ve found Jared. He’s the perfect man. So attentive, so masculine. A man you can really rely on. He’d never have an affair with his decorator!”
“Maybe Armando isn’t either,” Amy reminded her, obviously trying to buoy Chloe’s spirits.
Kelsey sat across from her mother, silently conscious of the irony of the moment. The golden sheen of the last week glittered in her memory like sunlight on frost. So glorious, so easily evaporated.
She’d allowed herself a week of fantasy with Jared, a week of feeling loved and hopeful for something she didn’t even dare think about.
But this was real life. People loved and lost. Over and over again.
“Armando’s a great guy,” Amy declared. “It’s just a friendship, I’m sure.”
Their mother wiped at her eyes again with her fluttering handkerchief. “No. I think he’s fallen out of love with me…and me with him.”
“You’re sure things aren’t going to work out with Armando?" Kelsey asked after a long pause in which neither she nor Amy spoke.
“He was different in the beginning,” Chloe said sadly. “He brought me gifts, showered me with attention. He’d hardly let me out of bed. He was so passionate.”
Kelsey glanced down. Definitely more than she needed to know, but there was no denying that her mother was an affectionate woman.
“Everything’s different now. We hardly have two words to say to each other. I’m afraid…,” Chloe’s voice caught, “I’m afraid we might….”
Again Kelsey reached out to comfort her mother, the moment achingly familiar. “It’ll be all right, mother. You’ll always have us.”
With Amy’s arm around her, Chloe sobbed silently, discreetly, into her handkerchief.
What would it feel like to be divorced herself? The thought streaked through Kelsey’s mind as she murmured reassurances to her mother. In less than a year, she and Jared would split up, just as they’d planned. And she’d get a divorce.