Michael’s Wife by Marlys Millhiser Page A

There was a snap that made her release her breath and again lightning flared, momentarily flooding the room with its cold light and glinting in Michael’s eyes.
    She watched the play of expression on his mobile face, his eyes widen with surprise and then narrow. Did she bring back some memory of Maria sitting in this chair? There was a tightening in her breasts as excitement mingled with fear. Life with this man could be frightening, chaotic, dangerous, but it would never be dull.
    What sounded like enormous drops of rain pelted the tiled roof for a bare minute and the storm was over. It had taken all day to build to nothing.
    The tension in the room seemed to ease with the passing of the clouds. As Jimmy stirred in his sleep, replacing the thumb that had slipped from his mouth, she looked down, breaking the current that had sizzled between them when Michael’s eyes held hers.
    â€œI thought Jimmy should have the rocking chair. No one was using it.”
    Michael walked to the dresser and put his cap beside the portable TV and with his back to her looked up at the ceiling, his shoulders hunched. “What am I going to do with you?”
    The hopelessness in his voice made her aware that hers was not the only untenable position in this strange relationship. She could almost feel the agony of this intense man with a wife he could not endure and would not divorce.
    In May the days grew so warm that lunch was moved into the coolness of the dining room. The saguaro sprouted creamy little flowers with thick, waxy petals. It looked a bit silly, this giant, with the small circlet of pale flowers on its top and on the top of its arms while tiny cacti that had sat unnoticed behind rocks bloomed with brilliant blossoms that sometimes dwarfed the plant itself.
    During the week Laurel settled into a routine, dining with the family and, when Jimmy was alone, spending her time with him. On weekends when Michael could get to Tucson, he and Claire took Jimmy on walks or outings in the car and continued the swimming lessons. Jimmy was not learning to swim, but he was learning in a brave, resigned way to undergo the torture without crying. Weekends were the loneliest for Laurel.
    The first time Jimmy called her “Mommy” she realized that she had taught him that. Little slips like, “Mommy will get that for you” or “Come sit on Mommy’s lap.” It hadn’t happened often but he’d picked it up very fast. Their relationship deepened, growing beyond just a friendship into an almost uncomfortable clinging tie that made his wide dark eyes look a little less lost, the only eyes around her that weren’t full of reproach. To him she was not an unwanted encumbrance, an embarrassing reminder of family misfortune. He needed her love, her arms as a harbor from Claire’s scolding, her reassurance against the coldness of his aunt and uncle, her comforting when he scraped a knee or when Michael left for the base. His need for her fed her own need for self-respect.
    In this time Laurel came to know that she could never give up Jimmy. And she knew that only as Laurel did she have any right to him.
    Michael did not come to Tucson for several weekends and she had Jimmy to herself. She slept less as the Denver trip drew nearer. By the time Michael reappeared she was in such a state that she walked the halls and covered walkways until early morning and felt drugged and listless during the day. She would wait in her room until it was late and the house was quiet before starting out on her nightly prowls.
    One unusually warm night she left her coat in the wardrobe and threw a peignoir over her nightgown. She descended the stairs to the courtyard and was halfway across it before she noticed Michael standing in the shadow of the walkway on the other side. It was too late to turn around. She would have to confront him sometime; it might as well be now. But she wished she’d worn her coat.
    There was a glass in