Читать книгу Best Day Ever: A gripping psychological thriller with a twist you won’t see coming! - Kaira Rouda - Страница 11

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This monotonous stretch of highway, the section between Columbus and, say, the big Pilot Travel Center where we typically stop for gas, is boring: flat, semigreen farmlands, and few sights out the window to feed your imagination. Usually when we hit this point in the journey, I start daydreaming about the destination, thinking about that first moment when I’ll see the lake again.

I know what you may be thinking: Is this guy really daydreaming about Lake Erie? Yes, I am. If you’ve never been you’re probably envisioning the dead lake of the late 1960s fed by the burning Cuyahoga River. By that point, Lake Erie had become a toxic dump thanks to the heavy industries lining its shore, the sewage flowing into it from Cleveland and the fertilizer and pesticide runoffs from agriculture. Dead fish littered its banks. This poor lake was the impetus for the Clean Water Act in 1972, thank goodness.

Or, more recently, you may have heard of the toxic algae blooms that turn the lake water into green goo that looks like the slime they spray on people during that teen awards show the boys like to watch. But that doesn’t happen all the time. Sure, there are invasive mussels and some nasty, dead-fish smells in the air sometimes. But mostly I find, if I sit on a bench near the lake and just listen to the water playing with the boulders along the shore, I feel at peace. It’s hard to explain, I suppose, to someone who has never seen a Lake Erie sunset. But they’re beautiful. And, if you don’t turn your head too far left or right, you can almost imagine you’re at the ocean. It’s almost possible to believe that you could start your life over again, just as the sun drops into the water. And then everything would be simple, just like the little lakefront community where our lake house is nestled under a big oak tree. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it?

Our lake house is part of a special, gated community appropriately named Lakeside, a Chautauqua community started by Methodist preachers more than 140 years ago as a summer retreat for adult education and cultural enrichment, with a heavy dose of religion sprinkled in. Not that there’s anything wrong with religion, of course; it’s just that I didn’t grow up with it, and we’re not raising our kids in it. That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy the amenities these fine Christian souls have blessed the community with. Even an atheist like me can appreciate its many glories.

At one point or another, Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes stayed at Lakeside. My wife likes to note that Eleanor Roosevelt stayed here, too. Mia quotes that woman a lot. I don’t. I find her to be too ugly—I mean, that face of hers is hideous. I could never wake up every morning to a face like that. But Mia doesn’t care about that. Says Eleanor Roosevelt inspires her to do one thing every day that scares her. I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea. I tell her seeing that woman coming at me in a dark alley would have scared me and Mia doesn’t laugh.

The point is, it’s a great little community, and it’s located on a peninsula, halfway between Toledo and Cleveland. But don’t think of those big, dirty cities that the weather maps have forgotten. Imagine instead a place right out of Mayberry RFD. Remember that TV show? No, I’m not old enough to have watched it, of course, but just think about Ron Howard and freckles and simpler times—that’s this place. Its wooden cottages were originally designed to use the lake as the only air conditioner. Now with global warming, most of them have central air.

There’s a little main street with a pizza parlor, a shop selling the best glazed, potato donuts in the world, T-shirt stores and the rest. We have a historic inn built in 1875 that sort of seems haunted to me, what with its old, uneven wood floors, squeaky screen doors and musty smell others might call charming but that gives me the creeps. The windows are too tall, too narrow in my opinion, like inside there is something to hide. The place was supposed to be bulldozed in the mid-1970s, half of its rooms as unusable as the lake was polluted. It was saved from demolition by a group of Lakeside residents and they’ve been sprucing it up, slowly, ever since. Good for them, although I doubt they ever actually stay there. But it is right on the lake and it’s what they call gracious.

My favorite spot in the whole community is the dock and the boathouse. It’s so all-American with its decorative Victorian scalloped roofline, its prime position in the heart of the place. I can just imagine the important visitors arriving by boat back in the day. I like the way I feel when I stand at the end of the dock. The backdrop complements me like a movie set: oh, look, there’s handsome, wealthy city-dweller Paul Strom enjoying a carefree day of leisure at his lakefront community. Very presidential.

Not sure any current-day presidents even make it to Cleveland, our distant neighbor to the east, let alone to our little haven by the lake. But that’s just fine with me. Enough people have discovered it already. When the boys were tiny, we’d come up once a summer and stay with the Boones, our neighbors two doors down back in Columbus. That lasted about three summers or so, and then we started to rent our own place. When we saw the Boones at the pizza parlor after, it wasn’t even that awkward. They’d moved on, invited other neighbors to take our place at their huge cottage. We weren’t able to buy a place of our own until last summer and when we did, it was a cottage on the very same street as Greg and Doris Boone’s stately second home. Not as big, of course. Ironically, though, because we’re up the street we’re on a higher lot so we look down over their property now. It was a dream come true, especially for Mia.

We like visiting Lakeside best just before and after season. Season is the ten weeks in the heart of the summer when the place is crazy packed with tourists and the gates are down. Even homeowners have to pay the stupid gate fees during the summer. That doesn’t make any sense to me, but it’s the way it is.

But, on the plus side—and today is a day for positivity, I remind myself—Lakeside is wonderful, especially during the relatively deserted off-season times like now. I remember our first trip up here, back when we were newly married, the Boones having invited my wife and me up to stay for the weekend. We were thrilled for a chance to leave baby Mikey at home with my parents and have a weekend on our own, just the two of us and some other young parents. It was the start of the good times at Lakeside, and it was all thanks to the Boones. We’d play card games, especially euchre. Drink too much, eat too much, and then the guys would smoke cigars on Greg Boone’s back porch while the women relaxed in oversize white wicker chairs with pink cushions on Doris Boone’s front porch and gossiped. We could hear them, laughing and making fun of things, probably us, from the back porch. Us guys all rolling our eyes; women will be women, you know.

If you ask me, I’d tell you I’m still not really sure what happened, why the Boones stopped inviting us up, but it doesn’t matter. We managed to take ourselves up here every summer, no invitation necessary, and rented great places all on our own. And now we actually own a cottage, perched on a grassy lot above the Boones’ place. If I sit on my screened-in porch at night, I’ve noticed I can even watch Greg on his back porch, with his male guests du jour, smoking all his smuggled-in Cuban cigars. But who needs lung cancer? Not me. No, I think it all worked out beautifully.

Like the Boones’, our primary residence is located in the highly coveted Grandville suburb of Columbus, the city’s nearest northwest suburb, and is approximately two hours south of Lake Erie. All of what we own in the world is in Ohio, in this politically decisive, coastally deprived state. I am a native, born in the suburb we are raising our family in. Don’t tell anyone, but it wasn’t considered upscale back then. No, Grandville has grown into its—well, grandness, to use an apt term—as the Ohio State University and Columbus grew in prominence and wealth. Before, Grandville was a community filled with butchers and factory workers and the like. Now it’s filled with country-club brats and men like me who don’t ever have calluses on their palms. It’s like my dad and me, actually. Callous versus refined. But as far as picking a place to call home, not only did the apple not fall far from the tree in my family, but our crab apple tree was actually started by a seed from the apple tree in the next yard over. Literally my parents had lived right next to us. Before the accident.

Yes, I bought the home next to my parents, even before I met Mia. I knew where I wanted to live, and when it became available, I was there. Life requires planning, don’t you agree? My wife had grown comfortable with the arrangement, though of course, like any new bride, initially Mia had her concerns. She wasn’t from here, so she didn’t understand how close family can help you out, how nice it would be for the kids to know their grandparents and be able to toddle over to their home. She came to appreciate the setup, after our home was whipped into shape. Naturally, I let Mia and her mom completely renovate the place. You wouldn’t even recognize it from my primitive man cave days. But that was all part of the plan. I provided the shell, a “fabulous 1931 masterpiece,” according to the Realtor’s brochures, “that just needs some TLC.” Mia and her parents provided the TLC and much more. Our wedding gift. As a thank-you, I presented Phyllis, Mia’s mom, with a vintage Italian Mosaic pillbox.

“This is fabulous, thank you. I’ll add it to the collection, next to the other one you gave me. You are just so thoughtful. And I don’t have any mosaics, how did you know that, Paul?” Phyllis’s bony arms had wrapped around my waist. I tried not to flinch.

“Just a lucky guess, Phyllis,” I managed, although of course I knew. I’d saved a photo Mia took of Phyllis’s collection, the little trophies displayed on a mirrored table in Phyllis’s dressing room. It’s very important to keep your mother-in-law on your side.

On mornings like this, before my parents died, we would have walked the boys across the green grass of our lawn and then over to the front walk of my mom and dad’s one-story house, depositing them for safekeeping for the weekend. My boys weren’t old enough yet to notice how small their grandparents’ home was, compared to the rest of the street. I’m just waiting for the new owners to smash it down, build a McMansion.

But anyway, back when the boys were little the smell of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies would have greeted us at the door and the comforting sound of cheers from fans at some sporting event would be blasting from the television set my dad turned up too loud. The rocking chair my mom had used to calm me as a child had been returned to the corner of my parents’ bedroom. The tub of wooden blocks I’d played with as a kid magically appeared in my parents’ family room as soon as Mikey was old enough to start creating forts.

Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Just as life should be for my privileged sons. Doting grandparents next door, a luxurious home to live in filled with pricey furnishings, a stay-at-home mom and a hardworking dad. My boys had it made. And they loved my parents, especially my mom. As for me, as long as my dad and mom both followed my rules everything was perfect. Family is family. Family first, and all that. If you aren’t needed, then fine, make other plans. But grandkids come first. They only violated that rule once, my parents. In my book, you always make time for your favorite son’s kids, no matter what. I’m sure you agree.

Of course, now that my parents are gone we rely on babysitters of varying skill levels. In retrospect, my parents, despite their age, probably would have done a better job of keeping my sons safe than the gangly teenagers we now employ and overpay.

My parents would have been a better choice for this weekend, for example, undoubtedly more effective than Claudia, who arrived this morning looking overwhelmed. Big dark circles hung below her wide eyes and her nails were bitten to the core. Maybe she’s on drugs, I think suddenly, wondering if I should ask Mia her opinion. Better not, though. She’d want to turn around and rescue the boys. We need this time together, this great day together. Claudia isn’t the only one who is overwhelmed; she just looks the most like it.

I’m pretty adept at covering my emotions. For instance, my wife always wonders if it bothers me, living next to the ghosts of my parents. She doesn’t put it that way, just says things like it’s odd seeing the new family painting the front door a different shade of brown. I think it’s odd they haven’t torn the thing down, but I don’t say that. Things like that, the little things, don’t get to me. Big things, those bother me, but still I might not show it. “Poker-face Paul,” my friends called me growing up. I’m proud of that. It has served me well in sales.

A natural born salesman, that’s me. I’m not bragging, not at all. I know, in fact, that many people don’t even like salespeople. They think we’re unsophisticated and lowbrow, no matter what we sell. Me, I don’t care, not as long as I’m making the big money. And I have. It has been a great ride. Even Mia, when we first met, may have considered herself above me. She was a copywriter on the creative team and I was just a client services guy. Now she knows what’s what. It didn’t take long for me to teach her how the world works.

“Paul, I need to use the bathroom,” Mia announces, closing the magazine on her lap as if she could just pop out of the vehicle and relieve herself along the side of I-71.

“Oh, okay, I’ll pull off at the next exit and try to find someplace acceptable,” I say. The facilities on this road are subpar at best.

“Make sure it looks clean,” she adds as if I have X-ray vision capabilities. Typically, we do not take bathroom breaks on the drive to the lake house. The boys know this, Mia knows this. But in her weakened state, and on this, the best day ever, I will make an exception without shaming her. I’m in a loving, flexible mood.

“Right. Gas station or fast food? Your choice,” I offer. I’m not about to be blamed for choosing the wrong bathroom for her. This I say with warmth in my voice although I do not want to stop at all.

“I’ll let you know when we see the options,” she says, reopening the magazine. I’ll let it go, my disdain for the fact that she isn’t more appreciative of my willingness to stop for her. I glance at her, engrossed in the meaningless celebrity drivel opened on her lap.

She should stop reading that trash.

“You know that magazine is all gossip. The stories about celebrities are completely made up. Nobody is as happy or as sad as they make it seem in there. Life is lived in the middle. In middle America, like here, in the middle of nowhere, like now, and in the middle of life, like us,” I say. I’m feeling poetic today, although I don’t believe for a moment that I am normal, or in the middle of anything.

“Paul, I’ve never heard you call yourself middle-aged.” I think Mia is teasing me but there is an edge in her voice.

“I’m not,” I say. “All those guys are older than me in there. They get airbrushed. If you saw them on the street, you’d be disgusted at how old they are. It’s not real. That’s all.” I’m tired of this subject. I’ve never been a gossiper, or a reader of tabloid magazines, of course, but I know how the world works. People are always talking. Heck, a few years ago Mia heard from somebody back home that people think we aren’t happy. And just recently, the rumor has something to do with me flirting with a saleswoman at the mall. Ridiculous. I hate malls. As a rule, I shop at boutiques or online. Not that the gossips care to take a little thing like facts into account.

Anyway, back when the first wave of rumors started a few years ago, Mia launched what she called the “rebranding” effort on Facebook, posting photos of the two of us in various places, laughing and smiling together. Some of the shots are really old, but as long as I look good, I’m fine with it. She says it has worked, because she hasn’t heard the rumors anymore. I don’t tell her I have, and I certainly don’t mention the mall rumor, because she’d ask me when and where, who and in what context and I wouldn’t be able to tell her that, of course. I’m not a gossip.

I glance over and see my wife is reading an article about one of the late-night television hosts. Now, that’s a job I could nail. I mean, sitting behind a desk, talking with famous people about nothing but fluff and getting paid like a king. I don’t even know how you get a gig like that. As I look a bit closer, I realize the guy in the magazine looks a lot like Buck, our neighbor at the lake. Kind of a refined look, I guess you’d say. Lean but muscular build, dark brown eyes, a strong, manly jaw. It’s the type of look you see in New York, on Wall Street, or on television, not something you see around here. That’s what makes it odd that Buck lives at the lake year-round. Hardly anybody does because it’s cold and miserable in the off-season and nobody else is around. It’s like he’s a spy and he’s hiding from something or someone, that’s what I think.

He seems successful, though. I heard through the grapevine that he sold his big home somewhere in Connecticut when his wife died, and now he’s here “regrouping,” whatever that means. The woman who told me doesn’t know much, though she’s the designated neighborhood gossip for our block up at the lake. Every street has one. She’s just not very good at her job. Google knows a lot more about Buck than she does. And that’s not much.

“McDonald’s or BP?” I say as I pull to a stop at the stop sign. We’re in the middle of nowhere. The town of Kilbourne is several miles west down Route 521. A right turn will take us to a McDonald’s, a left is the gas station. And as far as I can see, there is nothing else.

“McDonald’s,” Mia says with that tone of disgust she uses for all things—people and situations—that are below her. Recently, Mia has become a firm anti-GMO, anti-fast-food mom. She was leaning that way before her recent illness, but now she’s militant. I applaud her for the herculean effort it takes to say no to two boys who will, as soon as they are old enough to hang out with friends at malls or go to the movies alone, be the first ones in line at every fast-food restaurant in town, stuffing themselves with all things nonorganic and fried. I also have pointed out, at least once each year as we drive to the lake, the fields as far as the eye can see of Monsanto Roundup Ready corn and soy proudly framing the highway. It’s almost un-Ohioan, Mia’s stance on the issue.

We should embrace what we are, don’t you think? We’re a no-till farming, profracking, pro-GMO, pro-Monsanto state. It’s our heritage, I tell her. Did you know Columbus is a fast-food mecca? It’s true. We are the test market for most major fast-food chains. Us folks are the definition of America. We are the barometers of taste, at least the kind of taste that comes when you can buy an entire “meal” for under a dollar. We’re the hometown of Wendy’s and White Castle and of several others like Rax that have come and gone. Remember Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips? Yep, that started in Columbus, too, thanks to Wendy’s Dave Thomas, who made his fortune as a Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee. Makes me hungry just thinking about that battered British fish. Not that I regularly partake in any of these low-class foods myself. When I do it’s just a guilty pleasure. Everyone has his occasional vice.

“Do you want anything?” Mia asks, her hand already opening the door.

“Fries?” I ask, just to get a reaction. It works.

“Honestly, Paul? I meant do you want water or coffee or something. You know how I feel about this so-called food. A poor diet leads to a shorter life, all the studies agree. I’ve been reading a lot about this, remember? I’m trying to get healthy and it wouldn’t kill you to work on that, yourself.” She leans forward and points her finger at me like I’m a child. I feel her eyes on my stomach. I suck in.

The magazine ruffles in the wind from the open door and the blonde female singer on the cover looks as if she’s waving to me. She’s cute, I notice. I reach out and smooth the cover with my hand, touching the cool, glossy paper.

My wife softens her tone. “I’ll get you a water. Hydration is key to health,” she adds and then slams the car door before I can reply. I watch her walk away. From behind, she looks like the same woman I married a decade ago. Her hair still swings halfway down her back. Her butt is small and firm and perfectly toned. She looks very much the same, but she’s not. Not at all. None of us really stay the same, though, do we?

My transformation is more apparent, I realize, as I look down at my middle-aged, small beer belly and sigh. It’s comprised of something called internal fat, I’ve discovered, a fat that appears suddenly, like an army of ghosts, and then digs in to stay. It’s distasteful to think that fat isn’t just sitting in a layer on top of my belly, like I’d imagined, but is actually tucked in beside all of my organs, oozing around them like it’s a part of the whole, not an addition to the top. It’s in the ice cream, it’s not the cherry. Basically, they can’t liposuction it off and they can’t freeze it away. The only way I can shed this thing is through hard work—less food, more exercise.

I plan to tackle this unwanted midsection addition soon. It’s next on my list. I’ll eliminate it as I do anything I set my mind on. It’s just a matter of willpower and mental fortitude. I’ve got those, don’t worry. When I suck in my stomach, as I did for Mia, it doesn’t follow my command, not nearly enough. I’m on it, soon.

Unlike me, in the last six months or so, Mia has really thinned out. She’s shed the baby fat even though I swear she eats more, and more often, than I do. And though she looks fit, she’s also a bit worried about the weight loss. I tell her that’s crazy, most middle-aged women would die to have their weight melting away despite eating anything they like. And she looks good. She took up jogging a year or so ago, but cut back on that. Just doesn’t have the stamina these days. Mostly, she uses the free weights in our basement. Sometimes she’ll still walk around our block, if she has the energy.

Maybe she’s so thin because she stopped eating meat—excuse me, “animal protein.” That could be, but I attribute it more to stress; you know how parenting can take a toll on your intestines sometimes. Worry ties your system up in knots, or so I hear, not being prone to worry myself. They checked for ulcers, but she didn’t have any. Just a mystery, I guess.

She even went to this one doctor who had her hold different vitamins and minerals in her hand, and then pushed on her arm. I mean really? What does that do? Spend your money is what. Mia came home with hundreds of dollars’ worth of herbal treatments. None of it has helped, of course. She’s big on drinking water now, too. Staying hydrated. She tries to drink only from glass bottles. Good luck with that here, honey.

Mia has pulled her hair into a ponytail, I notice. I can see her standing at the counter, placing her order. The other thing I see is the other customers, the men, checking her out. Yes, guys, she still has it, I confirm with a nod to myself while watching them all watch her. She is walking toward the car now, a plastic water bottle in each hand and a big tooth-whitened smile eclipsing her face. She was voted best smile in high school, and it’s still there, that smile. Although it’s bigger now, I suppose. Our gums recede with age, making all of us long of tooth, and Mia especially. But don’t get me wrong, only I would notice such a thing. Her bright blue cotton sweater, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes make her stand apart from the rest of the people going in and out of the McDonald’s parking lot. Everyone else seems more muted, a black, gray and navy composite of people dressed for business, farming or trucking. It’s an eclectic yet monochromatic bunch this morning, except for my wife and her bright blue.

Mia pulls open the car door and slips inside. “Good choice. Cleanish bathroom. Short line. Here’s your water,” she says as she hands me the cold bottle. The plastic is cheap and crackles in my hands. It’s the type of water bottle that will spill out half its contents when I open it, I know it is. The bottle will have a label explaining why this cheap, shitty plastic is better for the environment than any other, more sturdy plastic. I know it’s just cheaper. I also know I should have gotten out of the car to open the bottle. I should have gotten out, just to stretch. Perhaps I should have gotten out of the car and opened the door for my wife. I’ll do that when we stop for gas in a little while. We have all day and she could use a reminder that chivalry is alive and well thanks to Paul Strom.

“So you think Taylor Swift is cute, huh?” Mia asks as I pull out of the McDonald’s parking lot.

“Who?” I ask. I know who the pop starlet is, everyone does. I even like her song, “The Story of Us.” But why would my wife ask such a random question?

“I saw you checking out the cover.” Mia holds up the gossip magazine while tilting her head. Her eyes are shining as if she has caught me drinking milk out of the jug. I love drinking milk out of the jug, but alas, if my wife catches me, it’s that same disappointed, shiny-eyed look I receive. Usually, she adds a hand on the hip, but that’s hard to execute in the front seat of a Ford Flex.

“Why would I check out some magazine when I could be checking out my beautiful wife?” I protest, pushing the accelerator hard to merge back onto the highway. I’m glad they finally finished the fifty-million-dollar project to widen this freeway to three lanes on either side. I slide back into the flow of traffic without a problem. They have spent more than a billion dollars on this road since it opened in the 1960s. What I would do for a billion dollars. Taylor Swift has a billion dollars, I’m sure. “She’s a very talented young woman, but I had no idea that was her on the cover. They all look the same with the makeup and airbrushing and all.”

“You’ve got a point there,” she says. She has opened the magazine on her lap, to a different story now I see. She twists open her bottle of water and, as I could have predicted, spills a fourth of it on the magazine. “Darn it.”

How adorable. Mia’s ban on swearing in front of the boys has resulted in this childlike response from my wife, even though the kids aren’t around. I should tell her to express herself freely in my company.

Before I can think to stop her, she has popped open the glove compartment and she’s rummaging around in it. “I don’t have any napkins in there,” I say quickly. I feel my palms begin to perspire. I check myself in the rearview mirror and notice my forehead is shiny, suddenly damp. It’s so hard to keep secrets these days. People can find out anything, ruin all kinds of plans. Sometimes, all it takes is just opening the wrong door. “Just close that back up. Here...” I know my voice sounds terse but I can’t help it. I reach into the back seat to grab my gray cotton sweater, and toss it into her lap. “Use this.” My voice has returned to its normal tone. That pleases me.

“You’re acting weird,” she says, instead of thanks. I’m going to let it go, though. She doesn’t know I have a surprise hidden in there, part of our special day. I can’t tell her that so I say nothing as she mops up the magazine with my sweater. She could have simply ripped out those two pages. Maybe there is someone important in there. All I see is another guy with a two-day beard, sparkling brown eyes and a thick head of hair. Another Buck look-alike. There really aren’t any men in her magazine that look like me, not now anyway. Actually, that’s not quite true. I could give George Clooney a run for his money, and I’m taller, too. When I was younger, watch out world. I would have been on the cover, you know, Sexiest Man Alive, if I had wanted to be. But I hate all that celebrity garbage, as I told you.

“I’m going to call Claudia. Can I use your phone so it’s on Bluetooth? I want her to have the boys call us after school, just to check in,” Mia says. We have been gone for about an hour so far. This is ridiculous.

“We haven’t been driving for that long. The boys are at school, and I guarantee you they’re having too much fun with their teachers and their little friends to spare us a thought. We can call them this afternoon. We don’t need to talk to Claudia.” Sometimes my wife acts like the kids are still babies in playpens. That bugs me; them, too. They’re big guys, both in elementary school. They’ll be men before we know it. My parents started treating me and my brother, Tom, like grown-ups as soon as we started school. Dad wanted us to toughen up, fend for ourselves, especially me since I was older. Ah, the good old days. Speaking of Tom, I wonder if I should tell Mia that I think Claudia is on drugs, but decide not to rev her up further. “You need to relax, let go a little.” I pat her thigh for reassurance.

I feel her eyes on me. “I know. But the thing is, they’re my life. You encouraged me, begged me, not to work outside the home, so I quit my job at the ad agency, the job I loved, and built my whole world around the kids. They just don’t need me so much now that they’re in school most of the day.” Her voice is quiet, her eyes shiny but this time it’s because they are filling with tears.

“You raised them well. Now it’s time for them to learn independence so they can tackle the world. Boys pulling away from their mommy is natural. It’s how they become young men,” I say. “You still baby them too much. But that’s part of what makes you a great mom, the kind of mom I knew you would be when we first discussed your staying home. Don’t cry, honey.” Honey, such an interesting word to apply to a person. I guess she is dripping, sappy, syrupy, her tears like actual honey drizzling from a spoon. “This is our weekend. The boys are fine.” With their druggie babysitter, I don’t add.

I flash Mia my biggest rectangle grin, adding my signature wink, the account-winning combination. It’s the smile that launched a thousand new accounts for the advertising agency—until it didn’t. I swallow, holding the smile to reassure Mia that this is a joyful day filled with fun. “This isn’t a day for tears,” I tell her softly. I am a kind, loving husband. I understand her pain, I do. “This is our special day, a day for reflection and for being thankful for everything we created. A day to enjoy being together.”

“Of course,” she says, taking a big drink of water from the crinkly plastic bottle. Hypocrite. She reads my mind, a wifely skill I can’t say I’m overly fond of, and says, “They didn’t have any glass bottles, Paul. I need to start grabbing my glass water bottles for road trips. I don’t even know if I have any at the lake.”

“I don’t think you realized the peril of plastic water bottles last season,” I comment mildly, and now she smiles.

“Well, you know I’m right,” she says.

“Every woman’s favorite phrase,” I tease. We’re back to happy ground, I notice. She’s even tapping her right thumb on the bedraggled magazine, keeping time to one of our favorite songs, “Still the One.”

Until.

“So how is Caroline doing? Still flirting with you?”

I take a deep breath and squeeze the steering wheel.