The man was sexy enough to eat. I can’t resist men who do the right thing, especially when my guts are strewn on the tiles all around me.
“How did you know?”
“They called me.” He sighed and exhaled. “Is he okay?”
I shrugged. “Chipped hip bone, wounded pride. He’ll get over it, but they don’t want him to go back to the house alone.”
James watched me carefully, no doubt reading all sorts of nuances in my answer. “They said they called because there was nobody here with him.”
“What? Right! Who did he call when he fell?” I laughed, though I sounded a bit hysterical. My voice rose with each sentence. “Who picked him up off the floor? Who called 911? Who rode in the goddamned ambulance with him? Am I that fucking invisible?”
James put his hand over mine and squeezed hard. He said nothing.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and enjoyed the sense of not being all alone for a heady moment. Then I shook off his grip and wrapped my arms around my chest. I was amazed to realize that I was shaking, but I put a bold front on it. Surprise. “I mean, bureaucracy is one thing, but that’s ridiculous.”
“Oh, I think the nurse meant well,” James said. “Your father told her that he was alone and directed her to my phone number in his trousers. I’d called him last night to give him our new address.”
“Ah.” I stared at the opposite wall, a hard knot in my gut. I ought to be getting used to this story by now, but it always shocks me.
“He’s probably confused, Maralys,” James said gently.
“Confused, my ass! He called me, he knows damn well that I’m here. I’m just not good enough for him, though I’ll do when he’s in a jam.” I got up to pace the corridor and let my bitterness show a bit more than usual. “It’s the same old shit.”
James said nothing. Maybe he knew I was right. Maybe he thought it didn’t matter whether I was right or not, because I wasn’t in a mood to listen to alternative views.
Whatever. I stalked to the end of the hall, stared out at the city with my hands shoved in my pockets. I fought back my tears, called myself a weeny, then paced back. I sat down beside him with a thump.
I was glad to have some company and though he didn’t look inclined to move, I wasn’t quite ready to scare James away. I tried to make conversation.
“So, you moved then.” I wasn’t going to be disappointed that he didn’t tell me about it, because I’d said I didn’t want to know and admitting that I did indeed want to know would make him leap to false conclusions. I didn’t want to know, even if I forgot that part sometimes. So Johnny could have peace of mind. That’s all.
James smiled a crooked, exhausted kind of smile. “Well, sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head, grimaced and looked very boyish. “I had no idea we had so much crap in that house.”
I smiled despite myself. “Good thing you’re gainfully unemployed.”
He chuckled and leaned back, closing his eyes as he stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I could sleep for a week. Muscles hurt that I forgot I had.”
“Ah, it’s good for you.”
He smiled, his eyes opening just enough to reveal a bright green slit. “Just playing that ‘anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ theme song, are you? Do you know any other tunes?”
I resisted the urge to smile back. Barely. “No, I don’t. How’d the returns go?”
He shook his head with concern and for a moment I thought my advice had tanked. “Did you know that there’s a shocking shortage of Bolivian cockatiels in this city? It’s incredible.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Damn. And that’s the only thing that she wanted for her birthday. What’s a guy to do?”
“Yeah, it’s no wonder she left.” We chuckled together, though I was surprised that he could kid around about my sister’s departure. I concluded that things really had been dead in the water there for a long time.
And yes, I was glad. It was quite nice sitting like this. Easy but slightly electric too. I felt much better than I had just a few minutes before, though nothing much had changed. Okay, a handsome man was flirting with me. That had changed. And yes, I’m woman enough that I enjoyed it.
“You owe me, by the way,” James said, his voice deliciously low.
“For what?”
“For not warning me about that store on Mass Ave.”
I fought my smile. “Bad?” I asked with all the innocence I could muster.
James gave me a look that told me he wasn’t fooled. I grinned but he shook his head, solemnity personified. “They could make a fortune, bottling that hostility and selling it to trial lawyers.”
“Is that a joke?” I studied his features, but there was no hint of laughter. Still, I was thinking of that mouse and had the definite sense that he was messing with me.
“Can’t be. It’s a matter of record that I have no sense of humor.” The man turned a smile on me that was as dazzling as sunshine after a storm. “Gotcha!” he whispered, his eyes twinkling.
“You didn’t fool me.”
James snorted. “Big talk, Maralys. What are you going to do when someone finally calls your bluff?” He slanted me a glance that set everything in me to sizzling and I couldn’t think of an answer. I couldn’t think of much but him, as a matter of fact, and whether he intended to be the one to do the honors.
Never mind what the heck I’d do then.
I tried to make us both remember the link between us. “Has anyone heard from Marcia? Is she okay?”
James smiled. “There you go, protecting your own again.”
“I am not!”
“You certainly are.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and watched me. “Come on, admit it. You’re worried about Marcia, aren’t you? Is there a little chink in your armor there? Some vestigial concern for your own blood? Go ahead, ‘fess up, Maralys. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Well.” I fidgeted. “It’s a big scary world out there. Lots of sickos. Who wouldn’t be concerned?”
He nodded once, then looked away. “Well, don’t worry. She’s apparently been calling your dad.”
Hmm, I wondered how James felt about that. No matter how dead things were, it had to be insulting that she talked to her daddy instead of her husband. No less that she was probably wanting to know about her kids.
Why wouldn’t she call them, at least? I remembered how concerned Johnny had been and felt a new surge of anger at my sister. “So, where is she?”
James shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t ask. She’s fine evidently, she’s made her choice, and we’re all moving on.”
I stared at him, amazed at his noncommittal tone. I touched his arm gently. “It really stunk, didn’t it?”
“It always stunk, Maralys.” He spoke with a heat that surprised me, as if he felt cheated. “It stunk from the day we exchanged our vows, maybe it even stunk before that. I tried, I really tried, you have to believe that I did. Marriage is important. But my trying never mattered. It was never enough. I was never enough. I always thought things would get better, that they had to get better with time.”
“But they never did.”
James shook his head once, firmly. Case closed. Soliloquy over.
“Then didn’t you want to get divorced?”
He heaved a sigh. “At first, because I thought marriage was supposed to be for keeps.”
“For better or for worse.”
He nodded. “Then there were the boys.”
“You didn’t find them under a cabbage leaf.”
“Maybe we thought children would make things easier between us. Maybe we thought that was what was lacking.”
“And?”
“They made life busier, that’s for sure. And they added obligations, which made it harder to think about splitting up, for me at least. I thought it would be better for the boys to have us together. The illusion of a normal family, at least. I wanted
them to have a sense of security, if nothing else, no matter how it screwed up my own life. I made my choices, after all, and I was ready to live with them.”
“Hero sacrifices all chance of happiness for children’s self esteem.”
“You can joke about it all you want, Maralys, but it’s important to me. The most important thing anyone can do is raise their kids well.”
“Even at your own expense?”
He shrugged. “That seems to be how the deal works out. And you know, you don’t mind surrendering something yourself to give them a better shot. Maybe that’s part of good parenting. Trying to leave something lasting in your kids. The world’s tough enough without worrying whether your parents are behind you.”
“Guess you’ve lived that.”
“Mmmm. You have to remember that I grew up in a family that looked good on the outside but was a mess on the inside. Maybe I assumed that was how it had to be.”
“Liar.”
There was that smile again. “Okay, maybe I thought we were better at hiding the truth from them than we were.”
“They’re smart kids.”
“Don’t I know it. At least there’s that blessing in all of this.” There was a flicker of pride in James’ voice.
“You left them alone tonight?”
“No, even though Jimmy is itching for authority. Philippa and Nick were over, helping us with the move, and decided to stay the night.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes. She’s pregnant and fell asleep on the couch because she was so wiped out. Nick didn’t want to wake her up to drive back to Rosemount.”
“You like him.” I could hear it in his voice.
James shrugged. “I judged him by appearances for a long time, but he’s shown me the weakness of that strategy. He’s really good to Philippa and she’s happy. That’s what really counts.” He sighed and wove his fingers together and I guessed that Nick had not been a family-endorsed marital choice. It said a lot for James that he was trying to get past that preconception.
I changed the subject for him, trying to inject a lighter note. “Jimmy wants authority? What, he figures at ten that he’s all grown up?”
James grimaced, then tapped his pocket. I saw the outline of his cellphone and the dim glow of the ON light. “He’s fed up with recounting the cellphone number. He’s too cool for such parental details. And I think he’s fed up with me.”
I smiled, remembering my own rebellions too well. “You’re probably a tougher sell than Marcia was.”
“It’s change. I have to remind myself that he’s rebelling against change and I’m just the messenger in the way.” He leaned forward and I knew it wasn’t an easy thing to remember sometimes.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Really?” James turned that bright gaze on me. “The worst part is that I know I’m not helping. Every time I say something to my boys, I hear Robert Coxwell in my voice. Every time I try to discipline them, every time I say “no” and get attitude, I’m afraid that I’m repeating his errors, shaping them into men that they don’t want to become, men that I don’t want them to become.”
He folded his arms across his chest, venting parental frustration. “It doesn’t help that they challenge me on every little thing and push push push to find my limits. Reminding them to wear socks is a global crisis prompting the launch of nuclear warheads. Telling them to get to school on time makes me the evil overlord and the worst father alive.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and I realized just how stressful recent events had been for him. James made it look easy and it was too simple from the outside to forget the magnitude of the changes he’d shouldered his way through.
“There are mornings,” he admitted unevenly, “when drowning Jimmy in his Cheerios looks like good financial planning.”
“Huh?”
He spared me a glance. “One less university tuition.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” James took a deep breath. “But it frightens me, Maralys. It frightens me to see any echo of my father’s harsh attitudes in myself.”
“He’s not technically your father,” I felt obliged to remind him.
That impatience flashed again. “Robert Coxwell raised me. He instilled values in me. He paid for my education, my clothing and my housing, he used his connections to get my career started and to keep it building. Whether or not he’s technically my father is immaterial - he’s the only father I’ve ever known.”
“Can you learn from his mistakes?”
“You’d think so.” James looked at the floor. “But so far I can only be the tough guy and the disciplinarian.”
We sat in silence for a moment. I understood, but I really didn’t know what to say to him that would make it easier. It’s not as if I have a graduate degree in parenting. This was seriously out of my league.
I touched his hand though as we sat there, sympathizing with the challenge he faced. We sat there in silence for a long time.
“Do you ever think,” he asked softly without looking at me, “that the people who find it tougher to say what they’re feeling are the ones who feel things more intensely? As if they’re the ones who really understand what it means to love someone? As if they have to keep their defenses high, because they care too much and have too much to lose?”
And James turned suddenly, studying my features, his gaze searching for some hint of comprehension in my expression. I couldn’t look away. The entire world dropped away from us and there was nothing, no one, but James and his question.
I knew exactly what he meant. Surprisingly, in this moment, I had no urge to deny it. That was a good thing, because I suspected that he could read the truth in my eyes.
I’d worry about that later.
“The softest hearts always have the toughest shields,” I whispered.
We studied each other, two tongue-tied souls who couldn’t admit the truth.
“Or maybe the biggest chickens cluck the loudest,” I added, pulling my hand back and making a joke in an attempt to break free of his spell.
James snorted and looked away, folding his arms across his chest. His shoulder still bumped mine, still sent a tingle to my toes. He glanced toward my dad’s room before I could think of anything else to say. “When are they sending him home?”
I seized the change of topic like a drowning woman cast a line. “They don’t want to. The doc wants him to go from here to a seniors’ home or to some kind of supervised care.”
“Well, he can’t go live with you.” James spoke as if there was no question of that happening.
Even though I agreed, I was insulted by his tone. “You think I can’t take care of my own father?”
“He’d never manage that elevator, he’d hate the neighborhood, he’d be away from his cronies and his doctors. You’re on opposite schedules, so you’d get no work done.” I started to argue, but James held up a finger. “And last but not least, you two would kill each other if left together in a confined space for any length of time. Be realistic, Maralys. Can you afford the kind of care they recommend? Can he?”
I stared at the toes of my boots. “I think the house is pretty much the only asset there.”
“That’s what I thought.” James frowned and stared at the opposite wall now, thinking. The cogs they were a-turning.
I was seriously tempted to let him solve this, which said a frightening thing about how much I trusted him. I mean, I usually solve everything myself because I know then that it will get done right.
But James was showing a remarkable ability to get things done in a reasonable way, and with a minimum of fuss. He’d lost his job, his inheritance, his marriage, his money and his house, but other than some understandable frustration, he seemed to be doing just fine.
A nurse came by, her shoes making a squeaky sound on the linoleum, one that echoed loud in the quiet. She spared us a thin smile, then wheeled a cart into my dad’s room. I glanced at my watch - they
were checking his vitals every two hours.
We said nothing, both clearly aware that my dad’s future wasn’t going to be resolved easily. The nurse left, moments later, her smile prim, and continued to the next room.
“So, what else is new?” I asked, ready for a change of topic and feeling the weight of the silence between us.
“Nothing, other than that I stink at parenting. We’ve been over that.”
I gave a very glum James a playful punch in the shoulder, recognizing that he was due for another kick. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve only been doing it for a couple of weeks.”
James snorted in surprise, then turned to look at me. “Aren’t you a bit old to still be kissing the boys and making them cry?”
“Peter Pan syndrome.” I grinned at him, noting that his dimple was making an entrance. “I’m never going to grow up. House policy.”
“Bull. You’re more of an adult than any woman I’ve ever known.”
It didn’t sound like a compliment. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“That you take care of things. You expect nothing but you give a lot. You slip in, get stuff done and disappear.” He shot a sidelong glance my way. “It’s disconcerting that you’re so self-sufficient, if you want to know the truth.”
“What? I’m supposed to be one of those Victorian heroines, wailing “save me, save me”?” I rolled my eyes. “Puh-lease.”
He chuckled to himself. “I’m having a hard time imagining that.”
“And what’s the matter with being self-sufficient? You’re better at it than I am,” I retorted without meaning to make any such confession. “Look at all the stuff you’ve gotten done. Look at all the changes you’re making, just as easy as 1-2-3.”
“Someone had to do it.”
“I didn’t think you’d make so many changes so fast. I didn’t think you could.”
“Me or just anyone?”
I shrugged. “Either way.”
“You do what you have to do. If anyone understands that, it ought to be you. I followed your advice, made my list and checked it twice. It seems to be working out pretty well.”
“Just like I know what I’m doing.”