Finding Home

“That’s just it, I was talking. To you. Not to the toaster or to the dog, although God knows that she’s the only one who listens to me at times, but to you. And you didn’t answer.”

The shrug was careless, dismissive, as if her complaint was unimportant. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

A sigh escaped, dragging her hurt feelings out into the open. “You never hear me.”

The frown on his handsome, lean face deepened. Not to the point of making lines, but just enough to register his annoyance.

“You’re exaggerating again.” He glanced at his watch. “And I am running late.”

Between his going in early and coming home late, she hardly ever saw him, much less had conversations with him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to be growing closer together, not further apart.

Stacey nodded at the large, round, silver-faced clock on the wall. “It’s only seven-thirty.” Which was earlier than he usually left.

“I know.” He folded the paper and carefully closed his magazine. This was the same man who left his shoes, socks and shirts wherever he shed them. But his journals were in perfect order, unmarred by crumbs or coffee stains, and their pages never even marginally bent. “I have surgery at eight-thirty at the surgicenter. What kind of a message would I send to the patient if I got there late? That his surgery doesn’t merit my attention?”

At times she was convinced he made a better doctor than he did husband. She didn’t always feel this way, she thought with a pang.

“The hospital is twenty minutes away,” she pointed out. “Fifteen if you don’t drive like an old man.”

His eyes narrowed. “I drive safely.”

“You drive slowly.” And sitting next to him drove her crazy at times. He never went through a yellow light. The moment a hint of anything amber arose, he came to a dead stop. Driving since he was sixteen, he hadn’t so much as a warning to look back on.

Not like her, she thought ruefully.

“Not all of us were born with a lead foot,” he told her matter-of-factly.

He’d have a lead foot, too, if he had to be in a dozen places at once, she thought. But she bit back the retort. Voicing it would only lead to a meaningless argument.

She watched her husband rise to his feet. At forty-eight, Brad Sommers looked young for his age. He had the same build from when she’d fallen in love with him more than thirty years ago. Though his career was demanding, his hours at times grueling, there were no undue lines or wrinkles on his face. The Southern California sun he’d once worshipped had had no chance to do any damage to his skin in the past two decades. The last time they’d been to the beach, she recalled, Julie was five and Jim was three. Other that a few gray strands weaving through Brad’s thick, deep-chestnut-brown hair, there were no indications that time was advancing on him, or that it even knew where he lived.

She was the one who’d changed, Stacey thought, not for the first time. She was the one who’d had twenty unwanted pounds stealthily sneak up on her over the past fifteen years. The one who no longer looked as if an agent from Playboy magazine might be interested in making her an offer.

It wasn’t so much that she’d let herself go. God knew she still tried to look and dress attractively, mostly for a man who no longer noticed. It was more that a silent attacker had set siege to her body. When she was driving home from work, she sometimes thought about going to one of those expensive spas where someone could reknead her body back to its former self again.

As if that was possible, she thought, silently laughing at herself. She hadn’t the time. And the spa probably couldn’t work miracles, anyway.

“So what do you say?” she asked as she followed Brad to the front door—directly behind Rosie.

Brad glanced at her over his shoulder, perplexed. “To what?”

“To my idea. About getting away this weekend,” she added when his expression still remained blank.

For a moment, Brad had her going, had her hopeful that he might actually remember it was their anniversary.

“Sounds good.” But then he halted at the door. “But I can’t,” he recalled. Was that disappointment in his voice, or was she just wishing it into existence? “I’ve got a conference to attend. A local one,” he added. They both knew how much she hated having him go away for a conference.

“Can’t you—?”

Stacey never got a chance to finish her question. His cell phone rang, interrupting her. Brad held up his hand to stop her in midsentence as he listened to whoever was on the other end.

He mouthed “Goodbye” to her as he walked out.

And left without kissing her.

Again.

CHAPTER 2

That was happening more and more frequently these days, Stacey thought as she turned away from the closed door. She made her way back to the kitchen, trying to remember the last time Brad had kissed her goodbye without her first having to throw herself directly in the path of his outgoing lips.

That long ago, huh?

Once in the kitchen, which was sunnier than she felt at the moment, Stacey began to clear away Brad’s plate with its only half-eaten piece of French toast. She supposed, in her husband’s defense, for the most part she’d stopped waiting for him to make the first move, to lean forward and kiss her. Because, in her own defense, she didn’t want to take the chance on winding up staring at the back of a closed door, feeling as if she’d just been kicked by a mule.

Feeling hollow. Just like this.

Is that all there is?

Damn it, why couldn’t she get that stupid song out of her head?

Stacey felt a sudden, overwhelming urge just to cry.

Hormones.

They always picked the worst time to attack, she thought, fighting to reach equilibrium and some semblance of calm. Stacey looked down at the dog, who, with Brad gone, had shifted her allegiance as she did every morning and followed her back to the kitchen.

Rosie was now wagging her tail, a hopeful look in her eyes.

“You just want another treat, you furry hussy.” She stroked Rosie’s head and went to the cupboard where she kept the dog’s wide assortment of treats. After taking out something that resembled plastic bacon, she tossed it to the animal. With a semileap, Rosie caught the treat and devoured it in the time it took to close the cupboard doors. “At least he talks to you,” Stacey said wistfully. “Someday, you have to tell me your secret.”

“Talking to the dog again, Mom?”

Stacey turned, surprised to see Jim enter the kitchen. Now that college was over, unless something out of the ordinary happened or the house was on fire, Jim did not acknowledge that any hours before eleven-thirty even existed. As he stumbled barefoot into the kitchen, wearing the ancient torn gym shorts he slept in, his deep blue eyes were half closed.

Six foot, one inch and still filling out his gangly torso, at twenty-two Jim looked exactly the way Brad had at that age. But carbon-copy looks were where the similarities between her two men ended.

At that age, Brad had been driven to make something of himself and to provide not just for himself and the family they’d hope to have, but for his ailing mother as well. Back then, she’d thought of him as being almost a saint.

Except for the sex.

Her mouth curved as she remembered even despite her efforts not to at the moment. The sex had truly been without equal.

And she missed it like hell.

Their son, as Brad was wont to point out over and over again whenever they did have a conversation, was not driven. After much pleading, Jim had attended UCLA, emerging after four rather lackluster years with a degree in fine arts. He’d gotten the degree, they both knew, purely to drive his father crazy.

“Damn it, he’s a smart kid, Stace,” Brad had complained loudly enough for her to close a window. “We all know that. His SAT scores were almost perfect. Why is he throwing his life away like this?”