Читать книгу The Wedding Party - Робин Карр, Robyn Carr, Robyn Carr - Страница 8

Charlene racked her brain for any incident in which her mother had seemed confused or disoriented, but could think of none. She lost her keys, but who didn’t? She forgot the occasional name, as did Charlene. Although there was that time, not so long ago, when she put the yogurt and cottage cheese away in the rolltop desk and then couldn’t locate the source of the foul odor…. But they had laughed about it later.

When she arrived at the grocery store, she was directed to Mr. Fulbright’s office in the back of the store. She heard her mother before she saw her. “May I have a drink of something, please?” Lois asked in a small voice. Charlene was brought up short. She hadn’t heard that kind of meekness from her mother since Lois’s gallbladder surgery sixteen years ago.

Charlene peeked into the partitioned room. Lois sat hunched on the hard chair beside Mr. Fulbright’s desk. Though Lois Pomeroy was petite, she was such a formidable personality, Charlene tended to think of her as larger than she was. And Lois always sat or stood straight, her head up. She was prideful and pigheaded. In fact, she was a bossy pain in the ass, who at the moment looked stooped and cowed and…frightened. It was very disturbing.

“Anything you like, Mrs. Pomeroy.”

“Just water, thank you.”

“Be right back,” Fulbright said. He nearly ran into Charlene as he exited his cubicle. “Oh, my heavens!” he said, laughing nervously. He grinned at Charlene in a big, perfect Cheshire smile. “Go ahead in,” he said.

Lois raised her bowed head and saw Charlene. “Oh. He said he called you. I told him not to.”

“Mom, what happened?”

“I just got a little turned around, that’s all. It happens to people my age from time to time.”

“And has it happened before?”

“Well, no, not really….”

“But Mr. Fulbright said they’ve been having bag boys keep an eye on you until it appears that you know where you’re going. What does that mean?”

Mr. Fulbright brought the water. Lois sipped before speaking. “Well, there was one time last year—”

“Last month,” Mr. Fulbright corrected.

“It wasn’t last month!” Lois shot back. “Sheesh,” she added impatiently.

“Yes, it was, Lois. Remember?” he asked too patiently, as though speaking to a child. “You were all turned around in the parking lot. Driving in circles. You went around and around, then back and forth past the store. One of the boys flagged you down and asked if you needed something. Remember?”

“Oh, that was last year!” A little strength was seeping into her voice under the mantle of anger.

Mr. Fulbright rolled his eyes in frustration. He then connected with Charlene’s eyes, smirked and shook his head. “Well, if you say so,” he relented, but he shook his head. “You have some groceries, Lois. Let me carry them to your daughter’s car, okay?”

“Don’t bother yourself, I can do it.”

“Yes, I know you can, but it’s my pleasure. I’m afraid if I don’t take good care of you, you’ll shop at another store.”

“I’m thinking about doing that anyway,” she said. “Been thinking about it, actually.”

Charlene got her mother settled in the front seat of the car, the groceries in the trunk, and stood behind the car with Mr. Fulbright.

“This is an old neighborhood, Ms. Dugan. It’s an unfortunate part of the job that we see some of our best customers go through aging crises. Lois got lost about a month ago and couldn’t get herself out of the parking lot, much less find her house. She kept coming back to the store, driving around and around the parking lot, until someone helped her. She knows it happened—she started walking instead of driving, and don’t let her tell you it was for the exercise.” He rolled his eyes skyward, where heavy, dark clouds loomed, just waiting to let go. “Who would take that kind of chance in unpredictable weather like this? A person could drown! It’s so she doesn’t get too far away from home before she realizes she doesn’t know where she is.”

Charlene was absolutely horrified. “This is impossible! She just returned from the Far East!” But in thinking about it, Charlene realized that that trip, a tour, had taken place over two years ago.

“Nevertheless…”

“What happened this morning?” Charlene asked. “Exactly.”

“I had one of the boys watch her walk down Rio Vista to make sure she turned toward her house, but she walked right by. She could have been going to visit someone, so Doug stayed with her just in case. She went another block, doubled back past her street again and finally sat on a retainer wall, in the rain, looking dazed. He asked her if he could help her and she started to cry.”

“Cry? My mother doesn’t cry! For God’s sake, this is crazy!”

Mr. Fulbright touched her arm and Charlene snatched it back as though burned. “She should see her doctor. It might be just a fluke, a medication screwup or—”

“She doesn’t take medication!”

“Well, maybe it’s something more serious. But Ms. Dugan, it’s something.”

The passenger door opened. “Are we going?” Lois wanted to know, that impatient edge back in her voice. “I could have been home by now!”

Mr. Fulbright crossed his arms. “Or in Seattle,” he muttered under his breath.

“Yes, Mom. Coming.” Then, feeling protective of Lois, she glared at the grocer for his cheek.

“Goodbye, Lois,” Mr. Fulbright said. “See you soon.”

“I doubt it,” she said, slamming the door.

“Well, thank you,” Charlene said. “Though I really think—”

“When you run a neighborhood market in an area with a large retired population,” he said, “there are some things you learn to watch for. They’re my charges. It won’t be that many years before I’ll benefit from having people watch after me now and again. Just as the postman keeps track if the mail stacks up, merchants keep an eye out for their regulars.”

“Thanks, but—”

“Get your mom to the doctor now. We don’t need a senseless tragedy just because it’s hard to think about Lois getting older.”

As Charlene fastened her seat belt, she muttered, “God, he’s annoying.”

“Tell me about it,” Lois said.

“I guess he knows what’s right for everyone, huh?”

“I never could stand that guy. He’s a hoverer, you know? Always looking over your shoulder when you pinch the grapes. Probably a pervert. I’m not shopping there anymore.”

“I can’t say I blame you, Mom. Especially if you’re going to find yourself held hostage in the back room.” Charlene shuddered, but not for thinking about Mr. Fulbright’s back-room office.

“The rhubarb stinks. Smells like fish and tastes like rubber.”

“Rhubarb?” Charlene couldn’t remember ever having rhubarb at her mother’s house.

“Let’s get moving. I think I have a hair appointment.”

“When did you start caring about rhubarb?”

“My mother always had a rhubarb cobbler on the Fourth of July. I wish I could remember if I made that hair appointment for today or next Tuesday. Damn!”

Charlene drove in silence for a moment. Then, with a sigh, she asked, “Why did you decide to walk to the market today of all days? It’s cold, and it’s drizzled on and off since morning.”

“I needed the exercise.”

“Really?”

“Why else would I walk?”

“Well…I don’t suppose a checkup would hurt,” Charlene suggested.

“I just had a checkup.”

“Well, another one won’t hurt.”

“I’m not going to the doctor and that’s the end of it.”

“Mom…”

“I said no.”

“Mom, I’m not going to argue with you—”

“Good! That will be a refreshing change.”

“I’m worried, that’s all.”

“Waste of energy. Worry about something you have some control over. This is out of your hands.”

She pulled up in front of Lois’s house, parked, killed the engine and turned to regard her mother. “Why are you acting like this?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“I’ve had a rough day,” Lois said, looking away from her daughter, out the window.

Haven’t we all, Charlene thought.

“I have things to do, Aida, so let me get my groceries and get busy.”

“Aida? Mom, you called me Aida. I think I’d better get you in the house and—”

Lois groaned as if in outraged frustration and threw open her car door. She pulled herself out with youthful agility and, once extracted, stomped her foot. “You’re starting to get on my last nerve! Get me my things and get out of my business!”

That’s when she knew. She wasn’t sure exactly what she knew, but she knew. The only Aida Charlene had ever known was an old cousin of Lois’s who’d been dead over thirty years. And while Lois was admittedly a frisky character, Charlene was unaccustomed to such anger and temper in her mother. Lois was going through some mental/medical crisis.

Trying to remain calm, she went to the trunk, pulled out two bags and handed one to Lois. She followed her mother up the walk to the front door. Lois got the door unlocked easily enough, and they went inside and put the groceries away without speaking. When the bags were folded and stowed on a pantry shelf, they stood and looked at each other across the butcher block.

“I’m very sorry,” Lois said. “I’m sorry you were bothered, sorry I was rude to you and sorry about what’s happening.”

“What is happening?” Charlene asked.

“Well, isn’t it perfectly clear? I’m losing it.”

Charlene went back to the office in something of a trance. Was it possible that even though she spent a great deal of time with Lois, she’d been too preoccupied to notice these changes?

She threw herself into the accumulated work on her desk, plowing through briefs, returning calls, writing memos and dictating letters. She also spent some time on the Internet, researching dementia in the elderly and Alzheimer’s disease.

It was getting late and she should have gone home long ago, but she wanted no spare time between work and evening—she wouldn’t know how to handle it. She could research Alzheimer’s, but she couldn’t think about her mother suffering from it. Tonight was dinner at her place with Dennis. And until she could talk to him, until she could take advantage of his cool-headed appraisal of her problem—not to mention his medical expertise—she couldn’t allow herself to focus on it. But when the intercom buzzed and she looked at her watch, she realized she wouldn’t even make it to her house ahead of Dennis, much less have time to cook him dinner. “It’s Dennis,” Pam intoned from the outer office.

If he cancels, Charlene thought, I will kill him and hide the body. She picked up. “Dennis, I lost all track of time. I can leave here in just a—”

“Listen, if you have to work late—”

“What? You aren’t going to cancel, are you?”

“No,” he said calmly. “I was just wondering if you’d like me to pick anything up.”

“Oh.” The perfect man. The most stable and reliable thing in her life. With Lois falling apart and Stephanie making her crazy, maybe the only stable and reliable thing in her life. “Did I just bark at you?” she asked him.

“Pretty much. Bad day?”

“Well, I would reply ‘the worst’ except that I stopped by the hospital and I know you had a terrible day yourself, one that included fatalities. So…”

“Yes, you were gone by the time I realized you had just made a rare unannounced appearance. I was so distracted at the time. So, what is this? Professional or personal?” he asked.

She thought about dodging the question, but then, after a pause, she slowly let it out. “Personal.” It might as well have been a dirty word.

“I should have guessed. I can hear the tension in your voice, and you’re working till the last possible minute. I know what that means.”

She leaned back in her leather chair. “You do? What does it mean?”

“That you’re upset, and you don’t want any time on your hands during which you might think too hard, because you’re afraid you might become distraught. You never have, but you’re still always afraid of that. Of losing control.”

Embarrassingly, unbelievably, she began to cry. The tears had been there all day, just below the surface, but this was the last straw. They suddenly welled up in her eyes, her nose began to tingle and her face reddened and flooded. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, but it did no good. She accidentally let out a wet, jagged breath. She couldn’t remember when she had last cried. Probably years ago; certainly pre-Dennis, but he seemed to know what was happening anyway because he said, “Hey, hey, hey. Charlene, honey, what’s the matter?”

Of course she couldn’t speak. She put the phone down on the desktop, grabbed a fistful of tissues and tried to mop her face quickly and efficiently. She did not want Pam to come upon her sobbing. She blew her nose and picked up the phone. “I can’t talk about this yet,” she whispered into the phone. “Will you…will you pick up something for me?”

“Yes, of course. What shall I pick up?”

“Dinner,” she said. And hung up.

Thank God she had her own private bathroom. She flushed her hot, red face with cold water, but it was a while before her tears subsided. The strange thing was that she wasn’t sure what brought on the flood. She couldn’t tell if it was the picture she had in her mind of Lois sitting hunched and frightened in the warehouse-like office, or if it was Dennis giving voice to her fear of losing control. Or could it be a mental image that she couldn’t let come into clear focus of Stephanie fetching her from the grocer’s back-room office?

When she was finally leaving, Pam was standing behind her desk, putting some things away and other things in the tote she carried to and from work.

“See you tomorrow,” Charlene said, ducking.

“Char?” Pam queried, leaning over her desk to get a closer look at Charlene. “Have you been crying?”

She stopped short but didn’t turn. “What makes you think I’ve been crying?”

“Your eyes are red, your nose is red, your eye makeup is making tracks down your cheeks, I heard a tugboat horn come from your office and—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. And she left quickly.

Charlene lived in a new home in a small, gated neighborhood just east of the city. It was under thirty minutes to her office or the courthouse if traffic was reasonable, and only a half mile from the freeway. This gave her quick access for convenience and no traffic noise for peaceful living. The length of drive was perfect for making cell-phone calls, thinking through a work problem or giving herself a stern talking-to.

Tonight’s self-talk was about keeping perspective. About staying cool. She was accustomed to giving herself pep talks—she was a hardworking single mother, after all. She took her issues one at a time, sorting them out calmly, logically.

First of all, the Samuelsons were a perfect example of the bad-divorcing couple. She decided to write them off as the cruel, ignorant people they were and place them in the chilled mental compartment in her mind that she had labeled icebox. She’d freeze out their influence over her mood.

Second, Stephanie was a wonderful girl, a jewel of a daughter, but she was a tad spoiled. It wasn’t her fault, exactly. Between Charlene, who always worried about doing a good enough job as a mom, her ex-husband, Jake, who was a very doting father, and Peaches, who was destined to have only the one granddaughter, Stephie was doomed to play the royal chick. So, she was spoiled. She liked having her way and having people cater to her. She wanted to graduate from princess to queen, and in order to do that she had to find a prince, marry him and turn him into her king. It looked as if she was going to succeed, too. Unless she drove the prince away with all her imperial demands.

Grant Chamberlain was a remarkably good choice for her daughter; Charlene wished she’d been that lucky twenty-five years ago. He was twenty-seven, a disciplined ex-army noncommissioned officer from the Special Forces, getting his degree on the GI Bill and supporting himself by tending bar. He was handsome and genuinely kind. Charlene admired him and approved of the way he treated her daughter, which was with respect and more patience than she usually deserved. Charlene was not totally unsympathetic. She could understand some of Stephanie’s problem, what with their conflicting work schedules. Stephanie got up early to teach English to surly eighth-graders while Grant slept in. When she got home, he had already gone to work, where he stayed until the wee hours. Grant took his days off during the week, which he filled with classes and study groups while Stephanie worked. When Stephanie was off on the weekends, Grant worked his longest hours…and made his best tip money. So this was hard. Work in the adult world was hard. There you have it. Who among us, she thought, isn’t working hard? Long hours?

She let go a huff of laughter. She doesn’t want to end up like me, huh? I’ll bet she doesn’t. I work like a farm hand! But she not only loved her work, she loved her life. She’d much rather be tired at the end of the day than whining that she wasn’t having enough fun or getting enough attention. And that was that.

Next, she thought about Dennis and Dr. Malone, but by now she was in command of her senses again. It had clearly not been passion with which Dennis had touched the young woman. It was comfort. Paternal. There had been a fatality. A child. Barbara Benn had said Dr. Malone was a pediatrician. That explained everything. She settled her mind on that matter as well, and let it go.

But on the matter of Lois, she was at sea. She could feel the sting of tears come to her eyes at the smallest thought of her mother stooped and confused and lost. It was more than she could bear. Had she taken her completely for granted? She was in her late seventies, after all. Charlene knew she was lucky to have had her for so long, and in such excellent health of body and spirit. This time of life, she reminded herself, eventually comes to everyone. As some wise old sage had said, old age is not for wimps.

She pulled off the interstate onto the access road that led to her neighborhood. Within a quarter mile of her house, her car seemed to lurch oddly to the left and drag as if being tugged from behind. It was an ominous sensation. She slowed and pulled onto the soft, muddy shoulder. As she did so, she could feel the left rear tire go flat.

What little sun there was behind heavy clouds was almost gone, so she grabbed the flashlight from the glove box, got out of the car and shone it on the flattened rubber. “I can’t believe this,” she said aloud. At that very moment, she felt the first drop quickly followed by the second. Then the heavens opened up in earnest and a deluge poured down on her, drenching her to the bone. As she stood beside the disabled car, practically drowning, she saw the glare of approaching headlights. The car slowed, pulled to a stop behind her. There was not so much as a single house on this half-mile stretch of road that led from the interstate to her subdivision, so the odds were excellent that this was one of her neighbors, on his way home. Then she considered how her day had been going and thought her chances of being murdered were better.

A man got out of his car. She shone the flashlight on his face—and groaned. She was only slightly happier to see her ex-husband and not a serial killer.

“Charlie?” he said. “What the hell you doin’ out here?”

She almost laughed, but it was more a sputter, given the heavy rain. “Oh, gee. Thinking,” she replied.

“Well, Jesus, think in my car!” he said, grabbing for her arm.

“I can’t,” she resisted. “I’m soaked.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Come on.”

“I’ll ruin your upholstery.”

“Oh, that’s funny. My upholstery? I’m way ahead of you. Come on!”

For lack of a better option, she went to the passenger side of his car and got in. She had to kick aside what appeared to be dirty clothes and a pair of running shoes, while he lifted a stack of file folders spewing loose papers off the seat so she could sit down. He pitched some fast-food bags into the back seat, pulled a blanket from same and drew it around her shoulders. The car was only a couple of years old at worst, but the interior was a wreck. Like his little house. His life.

“Why would you have a blanket in the back seat? Dates?”

“You’re a riot, you know that?” he replied irritably. “This is a stakeout car—I practically live in it. There’s also a first-aid kit, water, pick and shovel, fire extinguisher and other emergency items. You never know what’s going to develop. Or what you might have to dig up.” He pulled the blanket tighter around her. “So, what were you thinking about, Charlie? That flat tire?” he asked. “Wishing you could say ‘April Fools’?”

God, she thought, it was. April first! How sad that none of her stuff could be joked away.

He was the only person who called her Charlie. Well, he and his cop friends. “What are you doing out here?” it finally occurred to her to ask, but she knew the answer. He had to be coming to see her. The question she couldn’t answer yet was whether he was going to make her laugh or piss her off. There was a fifty-fifty possibility.

“I stopped by your office, but you were already gone….”

“I know I gave you my cell-phone number,” she said.

“I had to see you in person for this,” he said.

“Is it about Stephanie?” she asked.

“No, it’s a favor. I need your help on something. But what about Stephanie?”

“You didn’t hear from her today?”

“Not a peep. Why?”

“Well, wait a minute. I don’t want to breach a trust. Does she usually talk to you about her relationship with Grant?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. She complains about Grant. She whines about Grant. She snivels, gripes, moans and groans, but no, I can’t say she has ever talked to me about Grant.”

A chuckle escaped Charlene. Jake also had a way with the unvarnished truth.

“There are times, Charlie, when I think I almost like the boyfriend better than my own daughter.”

She shrugged and chuckled again. Guiltily. “She’s been a little high-maintenance lately,” Charlene commiserated.

“Y’know, I forbade her to move in with him. I absolutely forbade her,” he went on. “She totally blew me off, called me old-fashioned, overprotective, the whole bit. Told me she knew what she was doing. And now what? All she does is bitch. Things just aren’t going too well for the little couple. I guess Mr. Grant isn’t courting her enough, huh?”

“Well, what do you say to her when she lays all the whining on you?” Charlene seriously wanted to know.

“I tell her to grow the fuck up.”

God, he was a clod. “Oh, that’s sensitive. You don’t really say that, do you?”

“No, I think that, but I don’t say it. If I said it she would cry. And you know what happens to me when she cries. It takes the bones out of my legs and I crumble. But I’d like to say it. I gotta tell you…I’ve been thinking it a lot lately.”

“I’ve even thought that about you,” Charlene taunted.

“You look good, Charlie,” he said. “You put on a little weight?”

She ground her teeth. She wanted to kill him for that. “About Stephanie—”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t be too hard on the kid. She going to learn about successful relationships with us as role models?”

She let out a huff of indignant laughter. “You weren’t so hot, maybe. I think I was a fine role model.”

“Hey, hey, hey, I didn’t mean to say you were a bad parent. Jesus, Charlie, you were the best parent in the world. There is no better mother than you. Hell, I wish you were my mother! I just mean about relationships. We weren’t, either one of us, able to make one stick.”

“Yeah, well, I only tried once, remember. You tried, what? Five times?” She shivered. She was cold, miserable, wet and a quarter mile from a warm fire, a glass of wine and stable, consistent Dennis. For some reason it didn’t occur to her to ask Jake to just drive her home.

“Four. I don’t think you can say five since I married the same woman twice. You remember Godzilla? What a disaster that was. But I was married to Stella for seven years, you know. That would almost be considered a success.”

“I still can’t imagine why you left Stella. You must be crazy.”

“Me, crazy? Gimme a break. It’s Stella who doesn’t have too many arrows in the old quiver, if you get my drift.”

“Stella? She’s mother earth!”

“Yeah, she’s a good kid at heart. It’s just all the yoga, natural food, crystals, wood-nymph music, beads, bangles and fucking affirmations. People can be too positive, you know. It’s wearing. But never mind, she was always great with Stephie.”

“Maybe Stephanie can move in with Stella,” Charlene said.

“What’s’ a matter, Mom?” he said, jostling her with an elbow. “The little chick threatening to move home?”

“She suggested she might….”

“And if I know you, you talked to her about her commitment to Grant because there’s no way you want Stephie, who is an even bigger slob than me, back in your tidy little nest.” He slapped his knee and giggled. His laugh was contagious but his giggle was positively repellent.

“No,” she lied. “I told her she should consider moving in with you.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Y’know, I admit I regret the way I played it.”

“Played what?” she wanted to know.

“I wish I’d done what you did. Stayed out of the game altogether. Refused to hook up at all, with anyone. Just flat-ass refused to get together with anyone who wasn’t absolutely perfect. Period.”

“That isn’t what I did! There wasn’t anyone…starting with you!”

“We don’t have to sing the ‘Jake was a lousy husband’ song again. We’re all getting a little tired of that one. I was young, you were young, we were stupid.”

“You were stupid,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah. So what we have here is me, getting married all the time and never able to make it stick, and you, with an obvious fear of marriage—”

“I’m not afraid of marriage!”

“Oh, really?” he asked, eyebrows arched sharply.

“Not at all!”

“Afraid of commitment, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Dennis and I are totally committed.”

“Just afraid to take the next step and make it legal? I mean, I can understand, it’s only been, what, five years or so….”

“For your information, we’re planning to get married, we just haven’t—”

She stopped suddenly. She had no idea she was going to say that. Or what she was going to say next.

“Just haven’t what, Charlie? Picked the century yet?”

She stared at him blankly for a moment. Her life flashed before her eyes. Well, maybe not her life, but certainly her day, and the way it had seemed to happen to her through a series of random disasters. April Fools’? Maybe she was the only fool.

“And that’s why Stephie is all fucked up about marriage,” he said. “Because between the two of us we can’t come up with one decent relationship. Know what I mean, Charlie? Admit it, you’re as reluctant as I am impetuous. Huh?”

“You know what?” she said to him. “I had to coparent with you, but the baby has grown up. She’s an adult, whether she likes it or not, and while she might need her parents, she has had plenty of time to adjust to the divorce. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to talk about this whole thing with you for another quarter century! Leave me alone for a while, will you?”

She opened the door and got out of his car, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and dragging through muddy puddles behind her. His ability to insult and enrage her had not lessened in twenty-five years. She went to her car and retrieved her purse and briefcase, locked the door and started walking. Stomping.

“Charlie, what the hell are you doing?” he called out of his opened window. She stomped on, muttering incoherently to herself. He could still, with such ease, provoke her into irrational behavior. Here she was, walking down the soft, muddy shoulder of an isolated two-lane road in the dark, in the rain. It was worse than irrational, it was suicidal. But right that moment it made more sense than sitting in the car with him.

“Charlie, this is stupid!” he yelled.

God, he was following her. In the car.

A car going in the opposite direction whizzed by. The splash off the tires provided a fine spray of mud to add to the rain, which had lessened to a heavy drizzle, but was not quite enough to wash the streaks of mud off her face and coat.

All the stuff she thought she had handled began to come back one at a time. The Samuelsons, Stephanie, Dennis and Dr. Malone, Peaches—and Jake, his timing as bad as ever.

“Charlie!” he yelled. “Hold up, will you? I need to ask you something. I need a favor.”

“In your dreams,” she muttered to herself. If I am afraid of commitment, she thought, Jake Dugan would be a good enough reason.

A flashing red light throbbed over her head and she turned to see that her ex-husband had attached his portable police beacon to the top of his car. He followed her at a safe distance, slowly, so that if a car approached from behind, she wouldn’t be mowed down. But then again, she wouldn’t need this service if he hadn’t shown up in the first place, which was the cause of her walking home in the mud and rain when she had a perfectly good cell phone in her purse.

She made the right turn into her neighborhood in ten minutes. She could have been faster if the weather had been decent. The flashing red light disappeared and Jake’s headlights strafed the houses as he made a U-turn and departed. It was then that she realized she wore his blanket around her shoulders. She shrugged it off on the front walk and hung it over the wrought-iron entry gate.

She stepped into her house and stepped into sanity. The lights were dimmed, the table set, candles lit, fire in the hearth and two cups of something steaming sat on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. Dennis, having heard her come in, appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a dish towel. The sight of all this peaceful domesticity warmed the heart of the drowned rat and without stopping to consider the ramifications Charlene heard herself say, “Dennis, do you still want to get married?”

Stephanie moved a cherry around in her Coke with the straw, staring into the mix, daydreaming. She sat at the far end of the bar near the cash register, and when Grant was between customers, he spent a few minutes leaning across the bar talking to her.

This was how they’d met. She’d been at the bar with a couple of girlfriends and had flirted with the cute bartender. That was two and a half, almost three years ago. It was a lot more romantic then than it was now.

A guy, carrying his drink, sauntered over and sat down beside her. “Tell me you’re not waiting for someone,” he said to her.

“Okay. I’m not waiting for someone.”

He smiled. He wasn’t bad-looking, with a nice shape to his face, curly hair and friendly brown eyes. A sharp dresser. He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Thank you, God.” He refocused on her face. “So, tell me your heart’s desire and I’ll bring it to your feet.”

I must be getting old, Stephanie thought. Bar talk used to be fun…and now it only sounds stupid.

“Hey, Freddy,” Grant said, slapping a cocktail napkin down in front of him. “You meet my girl?”

“Your girl? Shit.”

“Freddy, meet Stephanie. Stephanie, meet Fast Freddy.”

“Fred,” he corrected with a casual sneer directed at Grant. “Darlin’, if you’re mixed up with this guy, you’re making a huge mistake. Let me take care of you.”

“What can I get for you, Freddy?” Grant asked. Grant had that look—narrowed eyes, forced smile, sunken cheeks. He was working on being polite. This was not a good sign for Stephanie. If Grant had appeared to actually like Fred, Stephanie might have shunned the man. But Grant’s dislike provoked her into overt friendliness. It was all about the way things had been going lately. The squabbling. The complete failure of compromise. The need to do something to perk things up, to get Grant’s attention.

“I’m good,” Fred said, lifting his half-full glass. “Fix up the lady, here. My treat.”

“You think she buys drinks at my bar?” Grant asked with a mean laugh.

“You mean she’s really your girl?” he asked, incredulous.

“Really. As in, we live together. Another Diet Coke, Steph?”

“No, thanks. So,” she said, turning her full attention and sweetest smile on Freddy. “How long have you two known each other?”

“From the Stone Age, man.” He sipped. “Like, high school.”

“Jeez, I thought I’d met all Grant’s high-school pals,” she said.

“That should tell you something,” Grant said, turning away to serve other patrons.

“He’s always been the jealous type. I get all the girls. But until this moment it meant nothing.”

She laughed at his absurdity. “These come-ons, Freddy. Stale. Old. Completely transparent.”

“I know. I’m thinking of getting a writer.”

“Ah, the Cyrano de Bergerac syndrome.”

“Spoken like a movie buff….”

“English teacher.”

“No kidding?” He seemed to relax into himself. “I’m a history major. I taught for two years. I really liked the kids, but the pay sucked.”

“So I’ve noticed.” She glanced at Grant and saw him glowering. Her eyes went back to Fred. “What do you do now?”

“I’m a day trader. Stocks. Commodities.”

Her eyes actually lit up at the word day, but Freddy might have thought she was responding to trader. “Really? Sounds interesting. Tell me all about it.”

On the night Charlene and Dennis decided to get married, they changed a flat tire in the rain, traded their wet clothes for warm terry robes and then spent a quiet evening talking about the day’s events over a light dinner of hot soup and cold salad. “You go first,” she said to him. He, somewhat reluctantly, told her about an auto accident that had taken two lives—a grandfather who might’ve had a coronary at the wheel and a nine-year-old boy who wasn’t buckled in and upon whom the emergency team had exercised every gift modern medicine had to offer before they let him go. It was Dr. Malone’s first fatality as a pediatric resident.

“Now you,” he said, and she skipped the Samuelsons and Stephanie’s remarks and went straight to her mother’s crisis. Tears threatened again. Charlene honestly didn’t know if she was going to get through this without endless crying.

When she was finished, Dennis said, “You know, it could be a number of things—from the predictable old-age dementia to Alzheimer’s. It could even be small strokes…or maybe she was just very tired or had other worries on her mind. Then again, maybe it only appeared she was confused and lost when she was daydreaming.”

“Do you think it’s possible?” she asked hopefully.

“I think she’d better see a doctor, a specialist. There’s a good geriatrics doctor at St. Rose’s. People like him. If you can get Lois to go, I can get her a quick appointment. He owes me.”

Dennis always made everything all right. No matter what the crisis, he could be counted on. “I would be so lost without you,” she said.

“So that was what had you crying? Worrying about your mother?”

“Yes. Silly, isn’t it? I usually check things out before I overreact.”

“And were you so overwrought that you walked home from your car in the rain?”

She grimaced. Ah yes, there was something else she hadn’t mentioned. “Jake was on his way here to ask me a favor,” she said. “He pulled up right behind me, moments after the tire went flat. It started to pour so I got in his car to sit it out. Then he asked me if I’d put on a little weight.”

Dennis couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh.

“I wasn’t amused,” she said.

“I don’t imagine you were.” He had no trouble envisioning her as she jumped out of his car and, furious, walked the rest of the way in the rain. “Just tell me one thing. You didn’t suggest we get married because Jake made you feel fat, did you?”

“No,” she said. “But by the time I got here, soaked and mad, I realized that the one thing in my life that I have always been able to count on is you. And I’m stupid not to tie you down and get you off the market.”

“Charlene, I’ve been off the market for five years.”

“And I’ve been crazy to let you run around loose. Dennis? Do you think it’s a bad idea? Because—”

He covered her hand with his. “I think it’s probably about time.”

She sighed in relief. For some reason, all she wanted was to have this one part of her life settled. Mapped out, covered, secured. Done.

“Why don’t you take a soak while I clean the dishes,” he said. “Then I’ll start the bedroom fireplace and meet you in there.”

She had a moment’s hesitation. “Dennis—”

“It’s all right, Charlene,” he said, reading her mind. “We’ve both had rough days. I’m thinking along the lines of a little CNN before sleeping.”

By the time she got out of the bath, he had already nodded off on top of the comforter. At 5:00 a.m. she felt his lips touch her forehead as he prepared to leave for his early start in the emergency room. She could smell the coffee he’d made, and although he was clean shaven, there would be no evidence that he’d used the bathroom sink; Dennis was as immaculate as she. She couldn’t have asked for a better night’s sleep, all her worries and anxieties put to rest by the best companion of her life.

Yes, it was probably about time.