A Perfect Homecoming

“Let me give you a hand.” Kyle came to his aid before Ashleigh could rise from the sofa.

“I got it,” Mark insisted, breathless.

Shortly after, the house became quiet as Ashleigh stared blindly at her client folders, unable to make sense of her notes.

She leaned her head back on the tweed sofa and closed her eyes. The sound of voices carried from Paula’s room. It sounded like Kyle and Paula were talking.

“She’s going to find out,” Paula was saying. “Whether you tell her or she hears it from someone else, there are no secrets in this town.”

“She just arrived today.” Kyle was clearly frustrated. “I thought there’d be more time.”

At first Ashleigh assumed they were talking about the lawsuit he refused to discuss, but then she wondered if there was something else. Was he involved with someone?

She was suddenly light-headed. Was someone sharing his life, his bed? Maybe even his heart? Her throat closed and her breath nearly choked her.

“Why don’t you tell her?” Paula was saying. “Then it’s all out in the open.”

Ashleigh strained to listen. She never eavesdropped and now she’d done it twice in the same day.

“I don’t want her in the middle of it.” His words made Ashleigh’s heart clench. “She made her choices and they didn’t include me. She has her own life and so do I.”

He had no clue about her solitary life back in Richmond. Her clients, mostly hospital boards and large nonprofit corporations, were her main providers of interpersonal communication. She didn’t date, didn’t want to date since that could result in a relationship and she couldn’t do a relationship.

What would she lead with? This can’t go anywhere because I’m unable to bear children. Where did that piece of information fit? Right before dessert on the first date seemed a little presumptuous. After the third date? The eighth?

There was way too much to consider.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a social life. She had a few casual friends she hiked with and this past winter they’d skied a few times. She’d even gone to dinner with a former medical school classmate when she was in San Francisco last fall on business. Unfortunately, he’d gotten the wrong idea, leaving her to explain how she wasn’t looking for a relationship, not even a one-night stand.

When he took offense to her noncommittal explanation, she finally spilled her real reason and left the restaurant in tears.

That was when she made the decision to never date again. Period.

The oven buzzer went off and Kyle’s hurried footsteps sounded as he came down the hallway from Paula’s room and into the kitchen to turn it off.

He stepped out of the kitchen to call up the stairs to the boys, “Dinner in five.” He glanced over at Ashleigh a mere second, then called to the boys again, “Get washed up.” Laughter and scuffling accompanied their nephews as the water flowed through the pipes until Mark and Ryan came bounding down the stairs.

After she put her files away and washed her hands in the powder room, Ashleigh entered the kitchen to find Paula sitting at the table, her boys on either side of her.

“What are you doing out of bed?” The words had sounded much less accusatory in Ashleigh’s head.

“I invited her to sit at the table to eat,” Kyle said, taking sides against her. Not surprising but painful, nonetheless. “Much less stressful than having the boys eat in the bedroom with her.”

“We enjoy eating meals together,” Paula explained as if Ashleigh was some clueless twit when it came to family dynamics. “Especially with Scott gone.”

Ashleigh pinched her lips shut to keep from saying something snarky in front of the boys. Kyle and Paula had made their positions clear. It was the two of them against her.

Well, game on.

* * *

IF NOT FOR HAVING the boys at the table, dinner could have been a disaster.

Mark and Ryan took over the conversation, eager to tell how Ryan could climb up to the top bunk in Mark’s room with just one good arm.

“We took the sheets off Ryan’s bed,” Mark said. “And Uncle Kyle helped us put clean ones on. He said we made the bed perfectly. Like Dad does on his sub.”

“You guys are going to a lot of trouble for me,” Ashleigh told them. “I’m supposed to be here to help out, not make more work.”

“That’s okay, Aunt Ashleigh,” Ryan said. “We had fun with Uncle Kyle.”

“Yeah,” Mark agreed. “We always have fun with him.”

Ashleigh blinked several times, her demeanor projecting sadness if you knew her well enough to read it. Which Kyle did.

After dinner, Paula returned to her bedroom, herding the boys with her to finish their homework.

Ashleigh worked alongside Kyle as they cleaned up the dinner dishes and put away the leftovers. There was no need for conversation. They worked silently, diligently avoiding any possibility of physical contact. Nevertheless, his fingers itched to touch her while they were in such close proximity, causing him to be extra wary. The adage “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” repeated over and over in his head.

Relieved to be done without incident, Kyle was about to make his escape when Ashleigh spoke up.

“Kyle?”

He turned to her.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” she asked.

The subject could be anything and he wasn’t up to getting into a battle with her.

He opened his mouth to say just that when Ryan and Mark came running down the hall.

“Mom asked if you’d start the shower for us,” Mark said.

“Sure,” Kyle agreed, thankful for Paula’s timing. “I’ll be right up. Let me grab a plastic bag to wrap Ryan’s cast.” As the boys ran up the stairs, Kyle turned to Ashleigh. “Our discussion will have to wait.”

He didn’t stick around for a reply and left the kitchen with the plastic bag and no remorse. He stayed upstairs while the boys took turns showering so he wouldn’t have to deal with Ashleigh again.

“This is ridiculous,” he mumbled to himself, and slowly descended to the first floor to find her.

She was on the phone in the living room. From the little he could make out on her side, it sounded like a personal call.

Not that he cared. She could have a hundred boyfriends. It was none of his business.

Yeah, that’s why the sudden weight on his chest made breathing a chore.

With Ashleigh on the phone it was the perfect opportunity to get the boys tucked into bed and vamoose. So he did just that.

He took a minute to check on Paula and nearly made it to his truck.