Momentary Marriage(84)

He’d never loved her. Not like he loved Amy.

***

“Mr. Morton? Did you catch them? Did you make the meeting?” Doug’s secretary stood in his doorway.

Standing at the expanse of window in his office, he glanced over his shoulder and saw her dark, furrowed face, eyes peering at him over her glasses.

“They’d left already,” he said heavily.

Her appalled silence echoed his own feelings. He was reliable Doug. When had he ever blanked out on something as important as this? If they didn’t want a strike, the union     situation had to be settled.

And he’d stood them up. Left the union     representatives waiting over an hour for him. Jared would be furious, with good reason. It didn’t matter an iota that Clay Northrup had been handling the negotiation. Clay had been called away to his sick mother’s bedside and dealing with the union     had been left up to Doug.

“Shit!” He slammed his hand against the plate glass window, making his secretary jump. “I can’t believe I forgot that damned meeting! Shit.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hilda flash him an uneasy look. “Sir, have you been…ill lately? You haven’t been quite…yourself. Forgetting things can be a sign of a physical problem.”

Forgetting the meeting with the union     reps. Forgetting to return the overseas phone call yesterday. Next he’d forget where he worked. If he still worked here, he thought with a stab of bitter humor. Maybe he was losing his mind.

Maybe Hilda was on to something. His head was pounding, his eyes felt gritty. But he knew he didn’t have the flu. Maybe he was suffering from some strange mental disorder, a imbalance in his brain that required a lobotomy might be nice. Actually, it could be the answer to his prayers to end the confused suffering of the last few days.

Days of wondering if he actually knew anything about anything. Days and nights wrestling with the fact that he didn’t love Kelsey. Actually didn’t love her as a woman.

Nothing had been right since Amy dumped him. His world seemed to have tilted from its usual axis. Everything inside him was off-kilter.

Behind him, Hilda still hovered in the doorway.

“I’m fine,” he told the woman. “I’ll call Stewart and Shavely and reschedule the meeting. I’ll make some excuse for today.”

Hilda hesitated. “Of course, sir. Would you like me to get Mr. Stewart or Mr. Shavely on the phone now?”

“No!” Doug denied quickly, conscious of the pounding in his head. “No. I just need a few minutes here. I’ll get him…myself.”

“Fine,” she said, returning to her usual, clipped manner. “I’ll get back to my desk then.”

“Thank you, Hilda.” Aware of her leaving, he leaned his forehead against the cool glass, staring out at the city, unseeing. Everything had gone to hell since that afternoon Amy had told him to “fuck himself.”

He was beginning to think he already had.

What kind of idiot was he not to know which woman he really loved? How did a man get so messed up about something like that?

He’d had Kelsey in his arms two days ago, sobbing her heart out to him. For a fractional moment, she’d sounded like she was ready to divorce Jared and marry him. Of course, she’d quickly reaffirmed her love for Jared. But that wouldn’t have mattered to the old Doug. If he’d thought there was the slightest chance to win her, the old Doug would have offered to fly her anywhere in the world to get her divorced and securely hooked up to him before she returned to sanity.

But when she’d said the words “marry you,” all he’d felt was sick.

What a desperate idiot he’d been all these years. How long had he had such self-contempt that he’d chosen to grovel at the feet of a woman who didn’t want him? Was being “ordinary” so bad?

He’d watched his own father, an uninspiring man by most measures, go off to work each day and come home again beaten down. On weekends, he’d tended the yard. In the evenings, he’d sat in his recliner in his shorts, a beer in his hand, laughing at cheesy sitcoms.

Then again, he’d always come home.

Doug looked down at the people on the sidewalk below his office window. How many of them had had fathers who’d always come home? Maybe his ordinary father had fought and won a battle he’d never seen as important. Secretly ashamed of the man who’d put food in his teenaged mouth, Doug now felt the wetness burning behind his eye lids.

What a prick he was.

He’d spent the last ten years yearning for a woman to make him different than his father. As if his own mother was responsible for the man his father had become. And if she were, was that so horrible? They lived in Jersey now, the two of them retired, sitting on the porch and going to the movies.