Chocolate Kisses by Judith Arnold Page A

“Where’s Tom Petty when I need him?” he lamented before heading
upstairs to change his clothes. “The waiting is the hardest part.”
    Dinner
was the usual—Danny rambling about the intrigues of his classmates and Michael
griping about how his meat was too dry. Lila picked at her own food, her
appetite gone. Tired and old , she thought, trying to tune out Michael’s
long-winded criticism of her cooking. Tired and old.
    After
dinner the boys repaired to their bedrooms and Ken buried himself in the
newspaper. Lila cleaned the kitchen, oversaw the boys’ preparations for
bedtime, tucked them in and returned to the den, where she settled in the
recliner to watch television. She waited, glancing occasionally at Ken,
wondering whether he had remembered but comprehending, deep in her heart, that
he hadn’t, that the day was lost, that this was her life and nothing was ever
going to change.
    He
was a handsome man, his body trim and fit in a pair of jeans and a cotton
sweater, his thick auburn hair swept across his forehead and dropping to his
collar in back, his eyes framed by faint laugh lines and the skin beneath his
jaw as smooth and taut as that of a man half his age. He looked younger than
she did, she thought. Despite his preoccupation with his status at work he
looked young and rested and at peace with himself.
    She
waited, resolutely dry-eyed but aching in her soul.
    At
ten o’clock he tossed aside his reading, stretched and grinned at her. “How’re
you doing over there?” he asked, patting the sofa beside him.
    “All
right,” she said, refusing to move from her chair.
    “I’m
about ready to head upstairs. How about it, Lila?”
    Sex,
she thought. Her reward for having endured another long, hard day. Making love
with Ken would be pleasant, but tonight it would be too little, too late. “I’d
like to stay downstairs a while longer,” she said.
    He
measured her with his gaze, then shrugged apologetically. “I know, Lila—I’ve
been awful lately. It’s just so annoying, watching them parade all these
outside prospects through the office—”
    “I
know,” she murmured.
    “And
I’m sitting there, thinking, ‘Come on, guys, how can you bring someone in from
outside the company when I’m right here under your nose?’”
    “I
know.”
    “It’s
just…it’s frustrating, that’s all. And I’ve been a real bastard. But I
promise I’ll make it up to you.”
    “That’s
all right. You haven’t been a bastard.”
    “Then
come upstairs,” he cajoled, moving across the room and circling her chair. He
dug his fingers into the knotted muscles at the nape of her neck and massaged.
    She
smiled sadly, her eyes growing damp. Even now, after so many years, his hands
could work wonders on her. It would be so easy to say yes, to go upstairs and
tumble into bed with him. He would make love to her and she would forget
everything for a while. She would forget her exhaustion and anger and
disappointment.
    She
didn’t want to forget, not tonight, not on this day of all days. “I’m sorry,
Ken,” she said, swallowing the tremor in her voice. “Okay?”
    He
stopped rubbing her neck. “Okay. I’ll see you when you come up.” He leaned over
and kissed her cheek, then forced a smile and wandered out of the den.
    She
remained where she was for a long time, listening to his footsteps on the
stairs, to the hiss of the shower and the creaking of the radiators and the
mechanical laughter from the television set. Eventually—hours later,
perhaps—she rose, turned off the TV, and crossed to the desk. In the side
drawer she found a pad, in the center drawer a pen.
    Dear
Ken , she wrote, They
say that life begins at forty. Well, now I’ve turned forty, and it’s time for
my life to begin.
     
    ### 
     
     
    About the Author
     
    Judith
Arnold is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than eighty-five
published novels. A New York native, she currently lives in New England, where
she indulges in her