Finding Home

She poured a glass of orange juice for Jim and set it down next to his plate. “I’ll call the plumber from work today.”

He shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He left it hanging there. She resisted the temptation to push back his hair, knowing that would somehow only lead to accusations that she was “inflicting her judgments” on him. Meaning that while her generation liked to see a person’s eyes, his didn’t see a reason for it.

“Doesn’t need a plumber, it needs last rites,” he informed her glibly. He raised accusing eyes to her face. “Bathroom’s ancient, Mom. Why don’t you do what you’ve been talking about and finally get the damn thing renovated?”

“Don’t curse at the table,” she told him.

Jim pushed his chair back from the table roughly a foot. “Why don’t you get the damn thing renovated?” he repeated.

She sighed, giving up the argument. Someone had told her that all sons went through a phase like this and that he would eventually turn around and be, if not the loving boy she remembered, at least civil.

“Your father—”

The sneer on Jim’s lips leaked into his voice. “Right, God says no.”

There were times when she could put up with it, and times like now, when her patience was in short supply, that she could feel her temper threatening to flare. “Jim, a little respect—”

He lowered his eyes to the plate, as if the French toast suddenly had all of his attention. “As little as I can muster, Mom. As little as I can muster.”

It was an old familiar dance and she had no time to go through the steps today, or to point out in how many ways Brad had been so much of a better father to him than her own had been to her. It only fell on deaf ears, anyway. Besides, she’d promised to go in to work early today to start implementing the new software program.

Stacey had worked at the Newport Pediatric Medical Group for the past fifteen years as their office manager, beginning as their all-around girl Friday—she really preferred the term “girl” to “woman” as she got older. All seven doctors associated with the group depended on her to keep things running smoothly. That included making sure that the new software package helped rather than hindered.

Still, she couldn’t just leave the house on this note. Brad might drive her crazy at times, but that had no bearing on his relationship with his son. “He’s your father—”

Jim shrugged as he continued communing with his breakfast. “Not my fault.”

“No,” she said sharply, “but your attitude certainly is.”

Jim raised his head. He smiled at her with Brad’s smile, tugging at her heart even as he infuriated her. “Tell him to change his toward you and maybe we’ll see.”

This, too, was familiar ground. Jim claimed he didn’t like the way his father treated her. “Your father’s attitude is fine, Jim.”

The smile became a sneer. “Yeah, for someone out of the Dark Ages.”

“Last time you said he was like someone out of the fifties.”

The look he gave her said he knew so much more than she did. “Same thing. This is a partnership, Mom. Seems to me he treats you like a junior apprentice.”

Come back after you’ve been married awhile and then we’ll talk. Out loud, she said, “Marriage is more like a work in progress—”

“So,” Jim cut in, “where’s the progress?”

He made her tired. Arguing with Jim always made her tired. It was like boxing with a shadow and trying to knock it out. “I’ll talk to you later.”

She was at the back door when he said, “I’ve got a possible gig.”

Stacey swung around. She knew he practiced with a band, had even heard them rehearse a few times. In her opinion, they had potential, even though they weren’t playing anything she could remotely hum to. “That’s wonderful. Where?”

He gave her a serene smile and offered her back her own words. “We’ll talk later,” he said before disappearing from the kitchen with the last of the French toast.

CHAPTER 3

Stacey glanced at her watch. Okay, so she was going to be a little late. What was more important, getting to the office or having a few more words with her son?

Jim won, hands down.

It was no contest, even if there was a sliver of guilt attached. But then, she was raised Catholic and the blood of both Italians and Jews flowed through her veins. There was always a sliver of guilt attached. To everything.

Crossing to the threshold that led out into the hallway, she called after Jim. “You’re going to miss these long, lengthy talks when you move out.”

Jim had just gotten to the foot of the stairs and he turned to look at her. He knew what she was really saying, no matter how much humor she laced around her tone. She didn’t want him moving out. He’d come home every weekend while attending UCLA. And only gotten more estranged from the rest of the family during those years.

It was time for him to fly the coop for good. Way past time.

“Forget it, Mom.” He grinned as he proclaimed, “I’m not staying. The end of the week, I’m gone.” And then, because at bottom he didn’t like being the source of hurt for her, he added, “There’s always the telephone.”

She looked at him knowingly. “Which you won’t use.”

He shrugged. “You never know, maybe I don’t have any of Dad in me at all.” He stuffed the remainder of the French toast piece into his mouth. Powdered sugar rained from both corners of his lips.

His comment was a not-too-veiled remark about all the times she’d waited in vain for a call from Brad, telling her he was delayed, or had an emergency surgery. All the times dinner got cold and carefully made plans got canceled.

It was all true, but she still didn’t like the stance Jim had taken against his father. Despite all his rhetoric explaining his attitude, she still didn’t understand, still couldn’t reconcile the loving boy she’d known to the cynically combative one she found herself confronting over and over again.

“Jim—”

Jim held up hands that were dusty with sugar, stopping her before she went any further. “I can’t stay here. He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” she insisted with feeling. “He’s your father, he loves you.”

Standing on the second step of the staircase, he towered over her. And used the image to his advantage as he looked down at her with a masterful sneer. “The two aren’t a set.”

A part of her wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him. “In this case, they are. He does love you, Jim, he just doesn’t understand you.” And neither do I, she added silently.

The look in Jim’s eyes had a hint of contempt in it. “That makes two of us.”

She jumped at the first thing that struck her. Because she could vividly remember how unsure of herself, of her choices she’d been when she was only a little younger than he was. “You don’t understand do you? That’s only natural at this point in your life.”

Jim was quick to set her straight. “Him, Mom, him. I don’t understand him. Me, I understand.” The affirmation was made so casually and comfortably, Stacey realized that her son actually meant it. “I just want to make music. My music, my way.”

His way.

The words echoed in her head. And how often had she heard that, in one form or another? Silent or implied. Brad’s mantra. “There’s more of your father in you than you think.”

She saw the annoyed frown and knew how much he hated being compared to the man he was trying so hard not to be. The man he so often so closely resembled in looks and in spirit. But there were times she just couldn’t keep quiet, couldn’t refrain from pointing out the obvious. And hope that she could get through to Jim. And he would stop thinking of himself as some sort of an island and realize that he was part of the family.

Stacey glanced at her watch again and winced inwardly. She should have already been behind the wheel of her car, stuck in traffic for the past ten minutes.

“To be continued,” she promised.

Jim spread his hands before him, giving her a little bow like the performer he felt destined to be. “I’ll be here all week, folks. Till Friday. And then I shall be liberated.”

She shook her head. “I have no idea how you managed to survive all this cruelty heaped on your head all these years,” she remarked as she hurried back to the kitchen to get her purse.

Jim raised his voice so that it would follow her into the next room. “Me, neither.”

“Well, you certainly don’t look like a happy camper. The new software giving you trouble?”

Kathy Conners’s new perfume preceded her as she leaned over Stacey’s shoulder to glance at a screen that made absolutely no sense to her. Although she was better at it than the doctors she worked for, the computer was definitely not her best friend.

Stacey was.

Ten pounds heavier and two shades lighter blond than she had been in her wedding pictures, Kathy Conners was just half an inch over five feet. It was a fact that had annoyed her no end until Stacey had convinced her that petite was a far better description for her than “runt of the litter,” which was the way her older brother used to refer to her. She had known Stacey even longer than Brad had and it was Kathy who had gotten this job for her.

Stacey turned away from the screen. Despite her late start, she’d gotten to the office half an hour before everyone else. Early enough to begin installing the new program without having a gaggle of well-meaning but computer-illiterate doctors hovering over her shoulder, asking questions that only impeded her progress. Once patients began showing up for their appointments, the new software was put on hold.

“The software is being software,” Stacey replied. “Resisting having its code cracked at first go-round.” She shrugged. Since she’d become office manager, she’d learned a great deal about computers and software, all out of necessity. Trial by fire, so to speak. “But that’s nothing new. Shouldn’t take long to have everything up and running.”

Kathy shed the sweater she’d thrown over her shoulders and held tightly to her cup of coffee. “So why the frown?” She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Trouble in paradise?”

Stacey laughed softly to herself. “Today, playing the part of paradise will be hell.” The second the words were out, a faint, rueful smile gave the slightest curve to her lips. “Actually, that’s not fair.”

Kathy stopped sipping her giant-size iced coffee. “That’s your problem, Stacey, you’re always thinking about being fair. Stop that,” she chided. “Nobody else is thinking about being fair. Life isn’t fair. The world isn’t fair,” she insisted heatedly. “Why should you be so concerned about always being fair?”

Something was up, Stacey thought, studying her friend. Kathy sounded way too bitter. “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Besides, I’m not nearly as pessimistic as you.”

“Don’t see why not.” Kathy took another long sip through her straw. “You’re married, too.”

Stacey debated asking what was wrong or waiting until whatever was bothering Kathy came pouring out of her. “Marriage is not the end of the dream, Kathy.”

“It certainly isn’t the beginning of it.”

Stacey turned in her chair, her eyes following Kathy as the latter moved around the office. Were those tears shimmering in her eyes, or just a trick played by the lighting? “You seem unusually bitter this morning.”

“Thanks for noticing.” After dragging the last bit of coffee down her throat, Kathy crushed her cup before throwing it into the trash with enough force to slam dunk a basketball in a championship game. “Ethan wants a divorce.”

Stacey looked at the calendar on the side of her desk. “It’s the middle of the month. Doesn’t he usually ask for a divorce around now? You get the end of the month, he gets the middle. You both realize you can’t live without each other around the first?”

Her words didn’t evoke a smile from Kathy the way they usually did. “This time, I think he’s serious.”

On her feet, Stacey drew closer to her. Her voice was soft, compassionate. “Why?”

Kathy raised her head, shaking it a little like a kewpie doll about to stonewall anyone offering the slightest bit of sympathy. Her eyes were even brighter with tears.

“Because he didn’t shout it. He just said it. Quietly. Like he’d been thinking about it and just said it out loud to see how it sounded.”

Stacey slipped her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Do you want to divorce him?”

This time, the tears became a reality. “Of course I don’t. I’m forty-eight years old,” she snapped, pulling away. Wishing she had something to punch that wouldn’t hurt her knuckles. Like Ethan’s soft midsection. “I don’t want to have to start over again with someone else.”

“There has to be a better reason to stay in a marriage than that,” Stacey told her kindly. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard Kathy bandying the word divorce about. But before, it was Kathy who was vocal about leaving Ethan.

“Maybe.” She brushed the back of her hand against her damp cheek. There was a smudge of mascara across the skin. She murmured a curse. She was going to look like a bat and it was all Ethan’s fault. “But that’s all I got.”

Stacey didn’t believe it for a minute. Taking her best friend by the shoulders, she forced Kathy to look at her. “And you don’t love him?”

Kathy tossed her head. “What’s love got to do with it?”

“Everything, Tina Turner.” Stacey laughed. “Everything.”

Kathy went on the offensive—or thought she did. “After all this time, you still love Brad.”

There wasn’t a single moment’s hesitation on her part. “Yes.”

“Even though living with him is like being stuck in a reenactment of Where’s Waldo?”

It was second nature for Stacey to defend her own, no matter what she felt to the contrary. “I see him more often than that.”

“This is me you’re talking to, Stacey, the woman you’ve poured your heart out to.”

Stacey laughed softly to herself. Served her right for talking. “My bad.”

Kathy looked at her, confused. “What?”

She’d forgotten. Kathy and Ethan had three dogs and no children. Popular slang bypassed them all the time. “Something Jim says. It means my mistake. My error.”

“The error,” Kathy said with feeling, “is that God didn’t make disposable men. You know, like disposable cameras. You get what you want out of them, then throw them away.” The thought really pleased her as she rolled it around in her head, picturing Ethan in a giant wastepaper basket. “Kind of like the Amazons. Those Amazons, boy, they had the right idea when it came to men. You fool around with them, and then you kill them. Neat, clean. No muss, no fuss.”

Stacey smiled. She knew Kathy inside and out. Knew what was behind this display of anger. Coming up behind her, she whispered in her friend’s ear. “He doesn’t want a divorce, Kathy.”

Kathy gave up the ruse. Turning, she covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, God, I hope not.”

“Why don’t you go home early today?” she suggested. Granted, this was Monday, which was always busy, but this was an emergency. She could cover for Kathy as long as no one wanted her to give a shot. Besides, there were two other nurses to take up the slack, provided there was any. “Make something special for dinner, put on something sexy, lower the lights—”

A self-deprecating snort escaped her lips. “The way I cook, I’ll have to lower the lights so he doesn’t see what he’s eating.”

“Then bring home takeout and warm it up. The meal isn’t the main thing. You are.” Stacey squeezed her hand. “It’ll be all right.”

Kathy raised her chin a little, half hopeful, half pugnacious. “Thanks, Dear Abby.” And then her smile softened. “I hope you’re right,” she all but whispered.

Me, too, Stacey thought. Me, too.

“I’ve got to get back to this before the patients start coming,” she said, sitting down at her desk.

The front door opened and a child was heard wailing.

“Too late,” Kathy announced.

The words sounded more like a prophesy.

Stacey held back a shiver. God, I hope not.

CHAPTER 4

She wasn’t going to tell him.

As the weekend inched closer to reality, Stacey swore to herself that this time, she wasn’t going to tell Brad that their anniversary was coming up. Wasn’t going to spend her time dropping broad hints that even a cerebrally challenged person to whom English was a completely foreign language could pick up on. She’d done that once or twice before, but not this time. This time Brad was on his own when it came to remembering their anniversary.

She was still arguing with herself when Friday finally arrived, settled in and drifted into afternoon. The argument continued as she drove home that evening. She had a lot of time for it. MacArthur Boulevard had turned into a pricey parking lot with cars lodged nose to bumper.

A new element had entered her mental tug-of-war. The very real fear of disappointment. She’d given no hints, left no pictures of brides and grooms or wedding cakes. Left the ball entirely in Brad’s court.

Can you stand the disappointment when he doesn’t remember?

Given how preoccupied her husband seemed to be these days, there was more than a fifty-fifty chance that he would forget.

Fifty-fifty? Hell, she really was an optimist, wasn’t she? The odds were more like five to ninety-five. That he would forget. Because their anniversary no longer meant anything to him. It was just something that came and went, like Arbor Day. A date on the calendar, but not something of any great consequence—except maybe to a nurseryman here and there who wanted to move a few trees and used the day as leverage.

Who remembered Arbor Day, anyway?

That wasn’t fair, she argued, jockeying for position in the right-hand lane. Their anniversary meant something to Brad.

When he remembered.

Blowing out an exasperated breath, Stacey shook her head. It was catch-22 reasoning and she was going to wind up going in circles and getting a headache. A bigger one than the one she already had.

The opening in the right-hand lane disappeared. She resigned herself to remaining in her current lane. When the time came to turn off, she hoped she would be able to get over.

A song played on the radio, but it was only so much noise in the background. None of the words penetrated.

Kathy had called in this morning, saying that she and Ethan were taking off on a romantic weekend, thanks to her. A romantic weekend. She would have killed for a romantic weekend.

Why was it that she could give everyone else advice, see the way to solutions for other people, but when it came to her own life, everything became this horrible, tangled mess? It hadn’t always been that way. Once upon a time, everything had been crystal clear, spread out before her like the waters beneath a glass-bottom boat. It had come to her almost like an epiphany. She was going to marry Brad, have a couple of kids and be the best damn wife and mother ever created.

Unlike the women around her, she had no burning ambition to leave her mark on the world, to cure some dread disease, write the great American novel, have a rose named after her or break fresh, new ground. She wanted the old ground. She wanted home, hearth, husband, kids to love and to love her back. She’d never been ashamed or embarrassed by the fact that all her goals seemed so old-fashioned, so out of step with today’s modern woman. Her mother had wanted more for her, but to her, this was more. Brad, Julie and Jim had been everything she’d ever wanted.

But somewhere along the line, she hadn’t been allowed to enjoy being a wife and mother. Or rather, hadn’t been allowed to enjoy just that part in her life. Because there were mouths to feed and Brad’s loans to pay off, and they couldn’t get by on what he was earning as a resident. So she’d left the kids with her mother and went back to work for a little while.

A “little while” stretched out until it became her life. Until she could hardly remember when she wasn’t working. And when money was no longer of paramount importance—to everyone but Brad—she continued working because she liked the people, liked the contact. Liked having the patients talk to her, asking her for advice. She was, she supposed, a people person. A people person who liked helping others.

So why couldn’t she help herself? she silently demanded again as she narrowly managed to get her car over in time to make the turn onto University Drive. Why couldn’t she get the people she loved the most in the world to do what she needed them to do?

Her advice to Kathy had certainly gotten the desired results. And her assurances that Ethan really didn’t want a divorce turned out to be right on the money as well. Ethan had been feeling a little neglected. The romantic dinner had been exactly the right move on Kathy’s part.

Kathy had come into the office half an hour late the next morning, with a very goofy smile on her face and a dreamy look in her eyes. The latter remained in place all day and part of the next. And then she’d announced that they were going away together on a romantic weekend.

Her romantic weekend, Stacey thought with more than a little tinge of envy. A little romance, just a little romance, that was all she wanted. No grand gestures, no protestations of undying love shouted from the top of the Eiffel Tower. He could murmur it from the sewer if he wanted to. Just something to let her know that she still mattered in Brad’s world. That he didn’t take absolutely everything she did for granted. That he didn’t just notice her whenever she did something to irritate or displease him.

That sometimes he noticed her just to notice her.

Was that asking for too much?

Stacey blinked back the tears, calling herself an idiot. She was wasting time, feeling sorry for herself like this. Brad probably had something planned and she was going to feel like a fool for wallowing in self-pity like this.

The road opened up as she took the turn off. Stacey pressed down on the accelerator.

Ten more minutes found her home. In time to watch Jim pack the last of his belongings into the trunk of his car. Stacey suddenly realized that the loneliness that threatened to explode inside of her had only intensified.

Julie was already out on her own, living off campus in student housing that the UCLA Medical School helped subsidize. She didn’t want Jim to leave, too. Because that would leave her alone in the house. Alone, waiting for Brad to come home. And even when he would come home, somehow, having the kids gone would just make the growing separation between the two of them that much more prominent.

There was a time when she cherished being alone with Brad. But now, just thinking about that, thinking about coming face-to-face with the fact that they had nothing to say to each other, was filling her with a sense of dread.

Damn, where were all these negative feelings coming from?

She didn’t want to be one of those women who had to be medicated with three different colored pills just to face the day. She was made of stronger stuff than that. Stacey couldn’t shake the uneasiness. She tried denial. And didn’t get very far. Only as far as Jim’s car as she helped him carry a box of his things.

“You know, this isn’t really practical,” she told him, easing the box into the fold-down space he’d created in the rear of his vehicle. “You only have that part-time job of yours.” Dusting her hands off, she leaned against the side of the car. “How are you going to manage paying for everything?”

Jim gave her a mysterious look. “I can always sell my body.” And when he saw the horror on her face, he ran his hands up and down her arms, as if to reassure her. “I’m kidding, Mom. I’m kidding.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m a musician. I’m supposed to starve.”

She laughed shortly. “Said the boy who has never lived more than fifty feet away from a fully stocked refrigerator.”

He took offense instantly. “Man, Mom. I’m a man.”

“Sorry.” She held her hands up in mute surrender. “Said the man who has never lived more than fifty feet—”