Home. Not for much longer, she thought as she looked around their bedroom. They had gone antiquing to find the bedroom set for their room. The sleigh bed was so solidly built. Not like what was made today. The tongue and groove drawers of the armoire, nightstand, and the bureau were sturdy and thick like the construction of most of the homes she reconstructed. She loved that. She’d spent a month stripping each piece down and refinishing it with an oak stain and then applying three coats of lacquer, sanding with finer and finer sandpaper between each coat to get a perfect finish as smooth as glass. No matter what else she had to give up in the final settlement, she would not give up that bedroom set. It even had a matching small table, taller than a nightstand with a hole in it for a water basin. They scoured more antique shops and barns and found a basin and matching pitcher to set in the table. She kept fresh flowers in it. One or the other of them refilled it with new flowers whenever the others began to wilt. She looked carefully and could see even in the darkness that the next day, she’d need to stop and buy a new bouquet.
With that thought, she finally drifted off to sleep, just a few hours before she was to be at the Harris home to work with Rex.
Chapter Seven
“What’s up, Ashley? You look like something the cat dragged in,” Rex said as she pulled into the driveway, and he met her there with a steaming cup of hazelnut coffee with just cream, just as she liked it.
Ashley saw no reason to mince words with her best friend. “Brody and I are getting divorced.”
Rex gasped and his eyes widened. His hand shook and some of his coffee slipped over the lid.
“What the hell? You flew down for a getaway weekend and came back divorced? What’s up with that?”
“There was a lot going on that I didn’t know about,” she admitted. “But let’s work while we talk. I need to be doing something. My adrenaline is so off the wall high that I need to use some of it for something useful.”
“Are you sure?” Rex asked.
“Absolutely. Are we still working in the library?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She placed her coffee on top of her car and then reached into the back and grabbed her utility belt and attached it to her waist.
“Let’s get to it, then,” she said as she headed to the house, unlocked the front door, stopped to slip on booties, and walked into what would be the library.
Rex was nearly as stunned as she had been when she recounted every detail of what had happened in Miami.
“I’m so sorry, Ash. I never saw that coming,” he said.
“Me neither. That’s what makes it hurt so much. I never cheated on him. Never wanted to. It’s killing me. But, there’s no turning back. No forgiving. If he’s done it once, and really, I don’t know how many hundreds of times he may have done it, he’ll do it again. So, I’ve already got Mitchell Westmore working on the papers. He’ll serve them when Brody returns.”
“Attorney Westmore is who Gary used when he and his wife split.”
“Yes, that’s why I called him.”
“Good. Sounds like you’re handling this well. Is there anything Liz and I can do?”
Ashley had been using a hand sander on the molding around the two doors of the room and, as they often did, they spoke above the noise of the machines they were using to get through her story. But she stopped then.
“Nothing yet, I guess. Just be here for me for now,” she said and cried. Rex crossed the room and held her close until she calmed down and wiped her eyes with a tissue from her jeans.
“Thanks, I’m okay. Let’s get this job done. We want an A+ from this professor,” she said and laughed.
They worked pretty much in silence with Rex lost in thoughts of how he could not have seen the issues that Brody and Ashley faced. They and his wife and kids spent enough time together celebrating as each project finished that he felt he should have been more aware that there was trouble brewing. Why had he not? Apparently, Brody had hidden his dissatisfaction with the marriage well.
Ashley in the meantime, tried as hard as she could to work away thoughts of the demise of their marriage. She had thought their marriage was possibly losing some spark, but was still solid. She could not manage to erase the questions that plagued her. When did his cheating start? Did he cheat with both men and women? How, how, how did he get away with it? Love is blind, they say, she thought. Certainly, she’d been blind. For how long? she wondered. Then she wondered if Brody would ever be truly honest with her and give her the answers that pestered her. But the biggest, hardest question of all, the one that perhaps she didn’t want the answer to was why she wasn’t enough?
They shared friends they both loved, they both liked each other’s families, they both appreciated their home and neither was a slob that bothered the other by leaving messes everywhere. Each had special talents that kept the house in the best condition. They enjoyed many of the same forms of entertainment—antiquing, attending fairs and country markets, watching sci-fi movies, ballroom dancing, jogging, and reading. They had sex. Not as frequently as they’d had when they first married, but regularly. Why, she wondered, was she not enough for him? And worse yet, as she moved on, would she ever be enough for someone else? Hell, would she ever want someone else? She had trusted Brody with every fiber of her being, and he’d betrayed her. How would she trust enough to love again? That thought had tears dropping down her cheeks, but she just wiped them away with her arm and kept working.
Getting the job at hand done was the only way to get past the pain. Three hours into their labor, Rex said, “Quitting time. I promised Liz and the kids they’d have me for the day. Let’s go.”
“That’s great. You go. I’ll stay and get some more finished.”
“Why don’t you join us?”
“No, I wouldn’t be good company. I’ll just put in a few more hours, and then I’m going home to paint Brody’s office. The realtor said that’s pretty much all we have to do to put the house up for sale.”
Rex whistled. “Already a realtor’s involved?”
“There’s no turning back from this. I might as well rip the Band-Aid off quickly,” she said.
“Well, Liz and I are here for you. Pick up the phone if you need us. We love you, Ash,” he said.
“I know. Thanks.” She hugged him then and waved as he drove off the site.
That wasn’t so hard, she thought. Now, I’ll just have to tell my mom and my brother and his family. The kids won’t be thrilled that Uncle Brody won’t be in their lives anymore, but they’ll have to get over it. Yes, I’ll hold my head high and not let anyone talk me back into that farce of a marriage.
Chapter Eight
Brody, as promised, returned on Wednesday while Ashley was at work. Douglas, who had been his ride to the airport all along, dropped him off in their driveway. Not ten minutes later, just after Brody noticed that his office was freshly painted a pale grey that Ashley would likely have some erotic name for like “oyster grey” or “steely bright,” the doorbell rang.
When Brody answered it, there stood a young man in a buttoned-down shirt and khakis.
“Brody Gage?” he asked.