Intentions - SF9

  Intentions

  Jamie tries to acclimate to her changing relationship with her father, Jim. Despite his promise to honor and respect her and Ryan’s relationship, she has her doubts—both about his sincerity and his ability to follow through. It certainly seems that he’s trying, though, and that means the world to her.

  Ryan’s even more suspicious of Jim, but she has good reason to be. She doesn’t have the same familiar bond that Jamie has, and she’s seen a side of him that Jamie’s never personally faced.

  Catherine has seen her husband at his worst, and years of apathy are starting to fade away, replaced with an anger she’s never expressed to Jim. She has to contend with these unpleasant feelings while trying to maintain a civil atmosphere for Jamie’s sake. It proves to be harder than she would have guessed.

  Meanwhile Jordan and Mia have been making sparks with their flirting and late-night make out sessions. The issue is whether Mia can be, or even wants to be, in a relationship with a woman. She can clearly play the game, but it’s not clear Jordan views this as a game. Still, their sparks could easily start a romantic flame.

  Part One

  The stately black BMW 735i sat in the circular drive for a long while, the occupant reluctant to leave the cozy confines of his leather-appointed cocoon. Something about the car--practically any car, for that matter--made him feel safer, and more in control, than nearly any home he had ever lived in.

  His hands gripped and released the steering wheel, uncertain as to whether or not he would be welcomed, or even allowed, into his own home. Accuracy is your business, he upbraided himself, let's be accurate. It's not your house. It's never been your house. It's Cat's house…bought with her money…decorated with her money…maintained with her money…all hers.

  He looked up at the imposing edifice, where he had spent the better part of the last 22 years. The best years of my life, he admitted, sadly. And now, now I don't even know if I'll ever sleep another night in my bed. Taking in a calming breath, he exited the car and walked up to the front door, his shoes crunching loudly against the stone drive. Don't even think about using your key, he reminded himself. That would not be appreciated.

  Ringing the bell, he stood awkwardly at the entrance to the home, hoping that Catherine was home. Afraid of being rebuffed, he hadn't called ahead. The door opened and he cocked his head a little, unfamiliar with the woman who stood in the doorway.

  "Is Catherine at home?" he asked, not knowing what the accepted practice was for an estranged husband trying to visit his wife.

  "Who is calling?" the woman asked, a trifle formally.

  "I'm uh…" he paused, unsure of his correct title. He finally opted for, "I'm her husband," then noted the slight widening of the woman's eyes.

  "Please, come in, Mr. Evans," she said immediately. "I'll see if she's home."

  Well, it's obvious that she hasn't given the staff an order to shoot me on sight, he decided, but she also didn't tell them to welcome me with open arms.

  He cooled his heels for several minutes, wandering around the living room, picking up photographs and staring at them as though they contained the images of strangers. He didn't recognize the seemingly happy family that gazed back at him from pictures spanning the years of his marriage. Did these represent the truth? he wondered, holding a photo of him, Catherine and Jamie, taken when their child was around three. Or is this the truth? He looked around the house that he was no longer welcome to explore, thinking that the previous happy times had probably been illusory.

  "Hello, Jim," Catherine's soft voice called out as she crossed the room. "Did I know that you were planning to visit?"

  Ouch! "No, I uh…I'm going to the airport to leave for Washington, and since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I'd stop and say goodbye."

  "That's nice," she said, wearing the same face she had pasted on for the last 22 years to meet every one of his clients. "Well, goodbye."

  She started to guide him to the door, but he stopped and gave her a pleading look. "Have you talked with Jamie since yesterday afternoon?"

  "Yes, as a matter of fact I have," she said, the pleasant half-smile still affixed to her face.

  "Did she tell you that she and I are going to try to start over?"

  "Yes, she did, Jim. I'm glad for that, to tell you the truth." Continuing to politely, but determinedly, push him towards the door she said, "I don't see what that has to do with us, but I'm glad for it, nonetheless."

  "But, Catherine," he said, trying not to lose any further ground, "our problems were mostly because of the problems with Jamie. Can't we start again, too?"

  She cocked her head quizzically, asking, "Did you ever see that doctor I suggested? You really shouldn't rule out a physical cause for your delusions, Jim."

  Turning on the heel of her handmade Italian shoes, she started to walk back in the direction she had come, traveling just a few feet before his pleading voice stopped her once again. "Catherine…Cat…please, don't throw me out. I came here to apologize…really."

  Turning only her head, she gave him a pointed glance and said, "That wasn't your stated purpose."

  Shoving his hands into his pockets, he let out a frustrated sigh. "For God's sake, Catherine, I'm nervous. Give me a chance, will you?"

  She turned completely and gave him a weary look. "When is your plane?"

  "Not until one," he said. It was currently 10:30, giving him a good hour and a half to kill.

  "Would you like some coffee? Perhaps some juice?"

  "Coffee would be great," he said, his relief evident at being offered some level of hospitality. "I've missed Marta's coffee."

  "Marta's not here, Jim," she said over her shoulder. "She's out shopping. Helena will make it for us."

  When she returned, he was sitting on one of the couches, feeling like it was all right to get comfortable. He gazed at her somberly and launched into his spiel immediately. "I want to apologize to you, Catherine," he said, his eyes locked onto hers. "I not only treated Jamie terribly, I used information that I had obtained about you to try to make her hate you as much as she did me." He looked down at his hands, feeling so adrift that he barely recognized them as his own. "I know that what I did is unforgivable, Catherine, but I swear that I would do anything in the world to make it up to you."

  "I don't think that's possible," she said softly. "Trust is a very fragile commodity, Jim. It can only be broken so many times before it becomes irreparable. I think we've passed that number this time."

  He looked over at her, seeing so many familiar items scattered about the room--some they had purchased together, some of them gifts from him--and felt as though he was sitting in a stranger's home. His wife suddenly looked like a very different woman as well, all of the familiar warmth gone from her brown eyes. "Is there nothing left?" he asked, unable to look at her again. His head had dropped, and he gazed at his shoes as he awaited the pronouncement of his fate.

  "Of course there is," she said immediately, sending his heart soaring, but it fell back to earth when she qualified, "We'll always be connected through Jamie."

  "I see," he acknowledged, feeling the tears coming and knowing that he would be unable to stop them. He stood and fumbled in the inner pocket of his suit, pulling out two sealed envelopes. "I know that Jamie and Ryan will be here this weekend for the volleyball tournament. I haven't had time to contact Ryan personally, but I'd appreciate it if you'd give these to her and Jamie."

  He handed the envelopes to his wife, then began to turn for the door, knowing that his composure would dissolve if he had to see the absence of any connection in her eyes once again.

  "Good luck in Washington, Jim. I'd appreciate it if you'd do your best to support the arts in any way you can."

  He bl
inked at her, amazed at the formal, businesslike tone. "I…I'll do my best," he said, not having any idea what else to say. His feet moved, and he got halfway across the living room before his eyes made the mistake of landing on one of their wedding pictures. It was a posed, formal portrait, taken at Catherine's parents' home, the site of their wedding. The innocent, joyous looks on their faces grabbed him and he stopped abruptly, reaching out with a shaking hand to grasp the picture. "Can I…can I have this?" he asked, unable to turn around.

  She didn't respond immediately, instead, coming up along his side to look at his face. "Why do you want it?" she asked softly.

  "I want to remember who I was," he said, the words nearly incomprehensible through his tears. "Who we were." He began to cry so hard that he had to lean against the piano to support himself.

  Catherine's veneer of disinterest collapsed, and she went to him, gently running both of her hands down his back, trying to offer some comfort. "It's okay, Jim," she soothed, turning to scowl at Helena when she tried to enter with the coffee. "It will be all right."

  "No it won't," he gasped. "It will never be all right again. I'll be lost without you, Cat. I swear I can't make it alone."

  "Of course you can," she insisted, having a better grip on reality than her husband appeared to. "We've basically been alone for years. We've barely been roommates for the last year."

  "That's not what I want," he sobbed. "That's never been what I wanted. I was just trying to give you the space that you wanted."

  She cocked her head thoughtfully and let his words sink in. "Maybe the way we've been hasn't been the way you've wanted it to be," she conceded, "but I refuse to be the woman that you come home to when you can't do any better." Some of the rage that she had kept carefully bottled up started to erupt, and she continued, her voice growing stronger and more forceful. "I've been giving you second chances again and again since Jamie was five years old! She's grown and gone now, Jim, and we don't have to keep up the façade any longer. She knows about you-she knows about me, thanks to you," she added bitterly. "It's over!"

  Her rising anger seemed to quell his sorrow, and he was soon able to stem his tears. "Why can't we go on like we had been?" he asked in a pleading tone. "We always had a nice time together when we went out, Catherine. I was always proud to escort you to every function that you asked me to go to-isn't that worth something?"

  Having a hard time believing that he was serious, she gazed at him for a long minute, finally shaking her head in disgust. "I don't want an escort, damn it! I want a husband! I want someone to love me, and care for me, and want to share my bed! I want to be desired again, Jim. I will have that again. Or for the first time, if you were never sincere in your affections." She knew this last statement was a little unfair, but at the moment she honestly wasn't sure if he had ever loved her or if it had always been a marriage of convenience and opportunity.

  He looked as though she had slapped him, actually staggering a bit as he stared at her with wide eyes. "How can you even say that? I loved you enough, and I loved our unborn baby enough, to get married a good five years before I wanted to! I discarded every bit of my youth to be the best damned father that I could be! I didn't do that just for Jamie, Catherine! I did it for us! How can you look at me and say that I didn't love you? My God, Catherine, how can you say that?" He looked more wounded and more distraught than she had ever seen him, and she immediately regretted her harsh statement.

  "I'm sorry," she said softly. "That was wrong of me. I know that you loved me as well as you could…it just didn't last long."

  "That's not true!" he cried. "I loved you then and I love you now! Just because I slept with other women, didn't mean that I didn't love you! I know you have a hard time believing that, but it's true! The sex that I've had with other women is no reflection on you or the love I still have for you."

  She turned on him, her eyes blazing with anger. "How can you say that! How can you have the nerve to say that cheating on me has nothing to do with me? How can you say that?" She was nearly panting, her rage spilling out in waves. "You've destroyed my self-confidence, Jim Evans! You've made me feel unattractive and old before my time! I've squandered my youth on you!"

  In all of their years together, they had never, ever, yelled at each other like this. Throughout all of their arguments, there had always been a level of civil restraint that had characterized their interactions, and neither of them had any idea how to deal with the maelstrom of feeling that was flying around the room at the moment.

  Feeling like a small boy being scolded by his mother, he mumbled, "I…I didn't know that you felt like that."

  "You didn't know?" She grabbed his lapels and gave him a good shake, her anger shocking him speechless. "You didn't know?" She continued to glare at him, fire sparking in her brown eyes, her hands still clutching his suit.

  "No, no, I didn't know," he insisted, backing away from her to escape her reach. "I knew you were angry and disappointed at first, but you never really seemed to care that much."

  "Didn't care." She said the words like they were foreign to her. "Didn't care," she said again, shaking her head in amazement. "I was a 25-year-old woman with a five-year-old daughter who thought the sun rose over her daddy's shoulder. You and I didn't have the closeness or the intimacy that I had always dreamed of having, but I believed we were happy, Jim. I believed that you desired me." She faced him and stared intently into his eyes. Unconsciously he shrank back from her, the pain that he saw reflected in the brown depths too much for him to bear. "The first time I caught you, I honestly thought that I would have preferred to die than face that rejection." Her voice was quiet, but filled with fifteen years worth of unexpressed misery.

  "I didn't know," he whispered, wishing he could turn back the clock and make it up to her-anything to take away the pain that filled her eyes. "You seemed more upset about the…other thing."

  Her eyes flickered closed as she shook her head in amazement. "Forgive me for having a tough time deciding what was worse," she spat, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Finding out that my husband was snorting cocaine, or realizing that he was getting high in another woman's bed!" She advanced on him again, standing toe to toe as she said, "I loved you enough to spend all of my energies helping you overcome your drug habit without anyone finding out. I honestly believed that the drugs led you to make choices that you wouldn't have otherwise made. You proved me wrong, Jim, time and time again."

  His eyes were tightly closed, and he looked like he wanted to put his hands over his ears to block out her words. "I know I did. I know that you don't believe me, but I honestly thought that you understood my…need. The other women didn't mean anything, Catherine. You're the only woman I've ever loved!"

  "Given the choice," she said dryly, "I might have preferred to be one of the women that you didn't love."

  His shoulders slumped dramatically. "I suppose this means that you'll file for divorce."

  She shook her head, saying, "Not yet. I'm not in the mood for a fight right now. And knowing you, that's exactly what I'll be in for."

  His head started to shake, increasing in intensity until his hair was flying around his head. "No, no, no," he insisted. "I won't fight you, Catherine. I would like my cars, but you can have the rest. I would never be able to enjoy Pebble Beach without you, and this place has too many memories to even think about living here alone."

  "I'd love to have that statement in an affidavit," she said, her tone harsher than she wished.

  The hurt that filled his green eyes was nearly palpable as he quietly said, "All right." He turned to leave, one hand still clutching the photograph.

  Surprising herself, Catherine reached out and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Wait, Jim. Please." He turned, regarding her with grief-suffused eyes, his head cocked a little in question, and she said, "Stay and have coffee with me. I hate to think of you sitting in the airport alone."

  He nodded, surprised and somewhat heartened by her offer. While Cat
herine went to fetch the coffee, he dried his eyes with his handkerchief, wondering where his legendary control had disappeared to.

  She had obviously decided that a change in topics was called for, because when she returned, she focused on his move to Washington. "Where will you be living, Jim?"

  Just the question caused tears to form again, and he silently cursed himself as he swiped at his eyes in frustration. "I'll be at the Hay-Adams for a while…It's easier than having my own place."

  "That's a nice hotel," she said, finding the conversation more than a little strained. "Will you take anyone with you?"

  "Yes. I'm bringing two associates from the firm. I doubt that I'll sponsor much, if any, legislation, but I'll still need to conduct a lot of research. I need people that I can trust, who don't have an agenda to foster."

  "That's good. At least you'll know someone."

  He gave her a look of incredulity, amazed that she would even think that associates of the firm could make up for the loss of his family. "I regret agreeing to do this," he said softly, staring at the carpet.

  "Really? I would have thought that this would be quite beneficial for the firm."

  "It is," he said somberly, his eyes boring into hers. "Sometimes the firm isn't the biggest consideration, Catherine."

  Since when? she wanted to say, but bit her tongue since they were trying to be civil.

  He saw the look of doubt in her eyes and added, "I'm learning-for the first time-that my life can't be fulfilling if it's centered around work. It's just not enough."

  She cocked her head again and gazed at him for a moment, trying to gauge his sincerity. "I'm sorry that you had to learn that the hard way, Jim, but it's a valuable lesson."

  "Yeah," he mumbled. "As though it matters now."

  "It will still be good to know, Jim. I know you're upset now, but you will go on. I hope you enter your future relationships with that perspective."

  "I don't want future relationships, Catherine," he said earnestly. "I want us back."