A Bungalow For Two

“We’re sleeping,” Andrew called out, stifling his vexation.

“Not anymore!” The door eased open and Frannie peeked inside, her long blond hair flowing around her shoulders. She was wearing a tank top and cutoffs that showed off her golden tan. “Time for breakfast, you sleepyheads. It’s almost nine, and you never go past 8:00 a.m., Daddy.”

Andrew released Juliana, and she slipped down modestly under the covers.

Andrew cleared his throat uneasily and folded his arms over his bare chest. “We were thinking of skipping breakfast this morning, sweetheart.”

“No, Daddy, it’s not good for you to skip a meal. Besides, I have a surprise for your first morning home.” Frannie breezed inside with a serving tray and set it on the bedside table.

As Andrew hoisted himself up, he caught the inviting aromas of bacon and coffee. “Honey, it smells wonderful, but—”

Juliana sat up, too, tucking the sheet around her shoulders. “Breakfast in bed? Oh, Frannie, you shouldn’t have.”

Frannie beamed. “It’s nothing really. Just bacon and eggs and cinnamon toast. Daddy’s usual.”

Juliana gave Frannie a stricken look. “Oh, dear, your father shouldn’t be eating such things! Think of his cholesterol!”

Andrew reached for a slice of toast. “My cholesterol is fine and dandy, thank you.”

Juliana lifted her chin truculently. “I don’t care what you say, Andrew. A man your age should not be eating such fatty foods!”

“What do you mean, a man my age? What’s wrong with my age?”

“Nothing is wrong with your age. But I intend to see that you live several more decades.”

“By depriving me of bacon and eggs?”

Frannie snatched up the tray. “Listen, I could get you both something else. How about some cereal and yogurt?”

Juliana tossed back her waves of coal-black hair. “Thank you, Frannie. I will tell you the truth. I rarely eat breakfast. Maybe a little fruit now and then.”

Frannie stepped back toward the door, her countenance darkening. “I’ll remember that tomorrow, Juliana.”

“Dear, please do not worry about your father and me. I will get our breakfast from now on. I am sure you have more important things to do.”

“Nothing more important than taking care of my dad.”

Andrew winced at the disappointment etched in his daughter’s face. “We just don’t want to put you out, honey.”

“Your father is right. You work too hard. From now on I will fix breakfast.”

“That’s not necessary, Juliana. Daddy likes me to get his breakfast. Besides, I know just how he likes it.”

Juliana flashed her most winsome smile. “But now it is time for me to learn.”

Why did Andrew have the uneasy feeling he was witnessing a battle of wills, and he was the prize? With her trained voice and Italian accent, Juliana’s words sounded almost lyrical. But Andrew could see them hitting Frannie like barbs. “You have had to take care of your father long enough, dear girl, and you have done a wonderful job. But you have your own life to live, and it’s time your father let you live it.”

“Wait a minute!” Andrew declared, raising his hands in a conciliatory, if not defensive, gesture. He could see trouble coming at him like a stampeding bull. “Hold on! Let’s get this straight. I’ve never said Frannie couldn’t live her own life. And I certainly never asked her to stay home and take care of me.”

The misery in Frannie’s eyes deepened. “You didn’t have to ask, Daddy. I did it for Mother.”

Andrew groaned. His awkward attempt to defuse the situation was igniting a firestorm too hot to handle. “Doll baby, your mom never would have expected you to sacrifice your life for me.”

Frannie’s big blue eyes clouded. “Sacrifice? Is that what you think I’ve been doing? Daddy, I thought you liked the way I took care of you!”

“I did, honey. I do! But I want so much more for you. Juliana’s right. You need a life of your own.”

Frannie balanced the tray and gripped the doorknob. Her lower lip quivered. “Don’t beat around the bush. Just say it, Daddy! Now that you’ve got a new wife and daughter, I’m not needed around here anymore!”

Before Andrew could muster a reply, Frannie pivoted and marched out the door, slamming it so hard behind her, the walls rattled.

He threw back the covers and was about to go after his daughter, but Juliana stopped him and coaxed him back into bed. “You can’t go after her dressed like that, Andrew. Let her be. She will get over it. We are a new family now. We all have adjustments to make. It will take time.” She snuggled against his chest and he caught the delectable scent of her hair.

“Time?” he murmured, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. That heady, intoxicating feeling was sweeping over him again. “My darling bride, do you suppose we have time for…” He let his words trail off as Juliana raised her face to his and kissed his lips with an ardor that left him breathless.

“My darling Andrew,” she said in that throaty, beguiling voice of hers, “for you, there is always time!”

Chapter Two

Panic was growing inside Frannie like mushrooms in the dark. In June she had received a handsome commission to sculpt a bust of Longfellow for the La Jolla Children’s Museum—due by the end of summer. It was already July, and all she could do was sit and stare at a mound of lifeless clay.

Try as she might, Frannie couldn’t muster a shred of creativity. Her mind felt dry, numb, dead. She wondered if she had ever had a creative thought in her life. Had she ever experienced that flaming impulse to create something from nothing, or nearly nothing? Had she in the past actually molded fine sculptures—not masterpieces, of course, but still quality work—from heaps of wet, shapeless clay?

Where was the artist she had been just a few short weeks ago? How could her talent have fled so swiftly, so completely?

Every time she thought of sinking her fingers into that formless mass, she remembered something else she needed to do—some mindless chore or task that wouldn’t usually demand her attention. With a sigh of resignation, she would drape the clay with a wet cloth, as if covering a dead body with a shroud. Then she would escape to another part of her house and fiddle with something, or busy herself in the kitchen, or stare out the window, or pester her father in his study—anything to keep from facing the task at hand, the challenge of pulling life and form out of that silent blob of gray earth.

Today held the same lack of promise. Right after breakfast, Frannie had gone to the sunroom to work. She had pored over a dozen drawings of the old poet and sketched several hurried renderings of her own. Then she had kneaded the clay until her fingers ached, until she admitted at last that she wasn’t in the mood to create. God help her, she had lost her vision for the work.

Once, days or weeks ago, she had felt that creative impulse in her fingers, in her mind, in her heart. But now it was gone. An empty place remained, a vacuum, a hollow in her soul that nothing seemed to fill.

She had heard of writers and artists hitting a dry spell, suffering writer’s block and questioning their talent. But it hadn’t happened to her. At least, not for several years. Not since…yes, she remembered now…not since her mother’s death seven years ago.

For two years after her mother died, she hadn’t been able to create a thing. She was seventeen at the time, fresh out of high school and just beginning her freshman year at San Diego State. Majoring in art, of course, as she had always planned. But every time she thought of creating something—a painting, a drawing, a vase or a piece of sculpture, she felt a knot of pain in her heart.

It was as if the idea of creation, even producing something as mundane as an object of art, signified a birth. The paradox was that her heart was deluged with the reality of death. But at last, praise God, when she began her junior year of college she experienced a breakthrough. Her creativity returned in a rush. She changed her major from art education to fine arts and completed her B.A. two years later.

And in the five years since then, her skill and reputation as a sculptor had grown. She was even teaching a night class at San Diego State…and the commissions were coming often enough that she had bankrolled a tidy sum in her savings account.

Yes, her life these days had been good, very good. Even though her evenings were devoid of romance, her routine had been satisfying and stable…. Until the last few weeks, when Frannie’s world turned topsy-turvy—the day her father brought home his new bride and stepdaughter. Since then, nothing had been the same.

Take today, for example. In the past (B.J.—before Juliana), Frannie would have risen at seven and fixed her father’s and Brianna’s breakfast. The three of them would have sat around the table chatting about their plans for the day. They would have held hands and prayed together before going their separate ways.

But now that Brianna was married and setting up housekeeping in her own country estate, Frannie was lucky to see her once a week. And Cassie, with her new baby, stopped by even less often. Even when her sisters dropped in to visit, they chatted only about their happy new lives and then were quickly on their way. They were so busy and preoccupied, they were totally unaware that Frannie felt lonely and left behind.

It wasn’t that the house was empty now. Frannie could have tolerated that. She had never minded long periods of solitude. The silence sometimes even stirred her creative juices. Peace and quiet were welcome friends.

But, in fact, the old Rowlands’ homestead wasn’t silent; it was as bustling as ever. It reverberated with noise and voices and music and laughter. But except for her father, the sounds belonged to strangers, not to the people Frannie loved.