to this.”
She spoke quietly as she stood up. She was ready to leave. “So am I. And I would assume that you're the one who's made up his mind. You don't even call to make excuses anymore. You just don't come home at all. I'm surprised you haven't just moved your clothes out yet. I keep coming home at night, expecting to find your things gone.”
“Nothing has reached that point, Faye.”
“I don't see how you can say that. You've already walked out, you just haven't bothered to explain it yet.” It seemed wrong to be fighting when Anne had just been found. They should have been shouting with relief, except that there was so much bitterness between them now. And they had avoided each other for so long.
“I haven't known what to say to you, Faye.”
“Apparently. You just walked right out of our lives.”
He knew it was true, and it was the second time in their life he had done that, but he didn't have the strength she had. And Carol had come along, and it had made him feel like a man again. It softened the blow of his son turning out to be gay … it was no longer a reflection on him … he was okay … but in the process he had walked right over her. He saw that now. But how could he explain it to her? There was no way that he could, and she walked past him to the office door.
“Ill call you as soon as we're back.”
Ward looked at her sheepishly. “I made a reservation on the three o'clock flight too. I figured that was the one you'd be on.”
“There's no point in both of us going up.” She really didn't want him along. She had enough on her mind, especially with Lionel saying Anne might be on drugs, and the pregnancy they'd have to get rid of as soon as possible, all she needed was Ward making excuses for what a sonofabitch he'd been. She didn't want to hear it now. It just wasn't the time. She looked at him in exasperation and he begged with his eyes.
“I haven't seen her in five months, Faye.”
“Couldn't you wait another day?” He didn't move from where he stood, and she looked at him and sighed. He was just making this more difficult. She looked suddenly resigned. “Fine. I have a studio car downstairs.” She turned and walked out the door, and he followed her. He said not a word to her on the way to the airport, and it was clear that she had no desire to talk to him. Their seat assignments were not together on the flight, and when the man at the desk attempted to do them a favor and shift some other people around, she discouraged him. There was no doubt in Ward's mind as they boarded the plane separately, that his marriage to Faye was over. And the bitch of it was that the other girl didn't mean a damn to him. She had just been a way of confirming his own masculinity to him and soothing the pain, but it was too late to try and explain that to Faye. She agreed to share a cab to Lionel's hotel with him, although she looked him straight in the eye and laid down the law to him.
“I just want to make things clear to you, Ward. Those two boys have just devoted five months of their lives to finding her. They gave up a term in school, and they've gone looking for her every day. If it were up to the police, we still wouldn't know where she was. So if you say one ugly word to either of them, I am never ever going to see you again, and I will sue you for every dime you've got, just to get even with you. If you want a friendly divorce, my friend, be decent to your son and John Wells. Is that clear?” Her eyes were rock hard, and his wore the same look of sorrow she had seen in them all day. He looked like a beaten man these days, but it was his own damn fault as far as she was concerned.
“And if I don't want a friendly divorce?”
“Then don't even try and ride into the city with me, Ward.” She raised an arm to hail a cab for herself and he pulled it down harder than he had meant to, but he was desperate