Page 128 of Devil in Disguise
Owen was a calm guy. A good-natured guy. But even calm guys could blow, it seemed. “Yeah, better call The Hague, because that’s a pure human rights abuse right there. What, I was doing all that to hurt you? Let me tell you something. I sat over here and cried the night Ashley walked out. The twins had just started to walk, and Icried.Because I thought I’d never have somebody love me like Amy loved you. Because I’d tried, and I’d failed. Everything I had, everything I’d done, and I didn’t have those babies taking their first steps. Taking them to me,because I was their dad. You envy me? I’ve got news for you. I envyyou.I did then, and I do now. Dude, everybody’s got something somebody else wants, and everybody wants something somebody else has. Everybody in this world. So what? You going to let it eat you up? You going to let it wreck your life?”
“It’s not any kind of comparison,” Dane said. “Who owns my house?Who owns mytruck?Everything belongs to the ranch! Everything Ihavebelongs to you! Who works for who, huh? Who works forwho?”Shouting, now, his face going red, like thirty years’ worth of envy and rage were blowing out in one mighty eruption.
“Fine,” Owen said. He was so tired, suddenly, it was like the air had leaked out of his body. He’d laid himself bare about one of the worst nights of his life, and his brother had kicked that aside. He had no fight left. He sat down. “Nothing’s holding you here. I don’t want to make anybody miserable. I thought after a while, it’d work out, but it’s not, is it? You don’t want to work for Dad? You don’t want to work for me? Go on and go.”
Dane hesitated a moment. Standing there alone, his mother white, his father looking tired, and Dyma with her hands at her mouth. Dane looked around at all of them, then said, “Fine.Fine.”And walked out.
54
Impasse
Dyma couldn’t breathe.She couldn’tthink.
Yes, she could. She could think. She just didn’t want to.
She told Owen, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Waylon said. “Sometimes, things need to come out. That’s been boiling up for a long time.”
Joan said, “Give him time to think it through. Give him time to talk it over with Amy. Nothing bad’s happened yet. Nothing’s even been said except what we all already knew.”
Owen, though, didn’t say anything. He just sat there, looking at his hands. There was no tremble in him, but there was a tremble inside. Dyma could feel it. She could all butseeit.
Waylon sighed, stood up, clapped a hand on Owen’s shoulder, and said, “Wait and see.” And he and Joan left.
A long, long moment. The ice cream was melting in the cartons, and Dyma got up and put it away. She shut the freezer door and realized something. That was exactly what her mother would have done: taken care of what was in front of her. She got another of those moments of vertigo, when the world tilted on its axis.
You stood in the moment and did your best to fix things. You did what you could, because you couldn’t just blow things up and walk away, not if it mattered. Is that what she’d done? She’d thought she was helping, or maybe she hadn’t thought at all. Was it just arrogance again?
She came back to the table and asked Owen, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” he said, and tried to smile.
“Do you want a hug?”
This time, he laughed. She sat in his lap, put her arms around his neck, and said, “Want to give me a spanking? What I said was pretty bad, I think.”
He smiled. A little painfully. “No.”
She didn’t know what to do. Her heart hurt, and she wanted to let him know. How kind he was, and how strong. She’d seen him tell his brother, his parents, something that must have ripped him open to admit, and then not hit back even when he had all the weapons in the world to do it. He didn’t respond to hurt by hurting. Who else could you say that about? How good was a man who did that?
She didn’t know how to say any of that, so she kissed his mouth instead, and then she kissed his cheeks. His neck. Her hands in his hair, her body pressed up close to his. His hands were on her waist now, and he was kissing back, so this couldn’t be too wrong.
He carried her to bed. He came down over her and kissed her until they were both breathing hard. He took off her clothes and ran his hands over every inch of her like he needed to feel it, like he needed to know she was there. And then he loved her, hot and slow and deep and forever.
He held onto her like he needed her, and when he came, it was her name he groaned out.
She cried all the way through it.
* * *
He was stillon top of Dyma, was kissing her cheeks, her forehead, brushing her hair back from her face.
You know how they said, “He loved her so much, it hurt?” That was how this felt. It should have been wonderful. It should have been magic, the way you could be inside the right woman and feel like you were reaching all the way to her heart. And still, his chest hurt. Still, it was like something was ripping away from him, like she was here, but she was already gone.
He didn’t realize that the wetness on her cheeks was tears until he tasted the salt. When he did, he said, “Dyma. What? What’s wrong?”
She took hold of his wrist and turned her face into his palm. He felt the deep, shuddering breath she took, and he rolled to his side and got his other arm around her better. “Baby. What? Dad was right. That’s been coming forever. Probably should’ve happened a year ago. You brought it out, that’s all. And he’s not …” He had to take another breath for this. “He’s not gone from the family. Maybe he needs to leave for us to get the family back.”
