Mending Fences

“Certainly not in our house,” Emily agreed unapologetically.

Marcie marveled at the exchange. Derek’s tone hadn’t held even a hint of implied criticism of his wife and Emily’s response had been just as easygoing. Why couldn’t Ken speak to her or about her the same way? And why couldn’t she make herself speak up if his attitude bothered her so much?

Knowing she wouldn’t find an answer to that tonight, she pushed the topic aside and went inside with Emily to cut the cake. At least she’d gotten that right.

Chapter 3

“Mom, can Caitlyn spend the night?” Dani asked Emily on Friday. “Please. It’s not a school night and her mom says it’s okay with her if it’s okay with you.”

Emily thought of her plans to try to bring some order to the chaos around the house. She’d even had some crazy idea about enlisting the kids to clean up their own messes before their dad came home tomorrow after two weeks on the road for business. She gazed at Dani’s hopeful expression and sighed.

“Sure, why not?” she said. “We’ll order pizza.”

“And we can watch videos and have popcorn?” Dani asked.

“I assume that means a trip to choose the movies,” she said, resigned to going back out on the hot, humid evening. Late September was just as bad as July when it came to the Miami weather.

Dani grinned. “Uh-huh. She gets to pick one and I get to pick the other one. That’s what we decided.”

Emily shook her head. Dani always had a plan and it was always fair. “Fine. We’ll go as soon as Caitlyn gets here.”

Dani threw her arms around Emily’s waist. “Thanks. You’re the best! I’ll call her now.”

Emily watched her daughter race up the stairs. She was nine now and she’d overcome all her reservations about being friends with a girl two years younger. She and Caitlyn were as close as sisters. That they chose to spend most of their time here, rather than in the Carters’ far more organized household still bemused Emily, but she had to admit that most of the time she enjoyed having all the kids underfoot. Caitlyn and Evan were both polite and well behaved. They set a good example for her own kids.

She glanced out the back door and saw Josh and Evan horsing around in the pool. Sliding open the back door, she called to her son, who trotted over.

“Caitlyn’s spending the night with Dani. Do you want to ask Evan to stay, too?”

“Awesome,” Josh said at once. “Hey, Evan, Caitlyn’s staying over and Mom says you can stay, too, if you want to.”

“Count me in,” Evan called back.

“Ask your mom,” Emily reminded him. “As soon as Caitlyn gets here we’re going out to get videos to watch. You guys can come, too, and pick your own.”

“Thanks, Mrs. D,” Evan said. “I’ll be right back.”

Already tall for his age, Evan pushed himself out of the pool with an athletic grace that Josh didn’t possess. Much as her son enjoyed sports, he didn’t have the raw talent that Evan had. Thankfully, though, the two boys weren’t especially competitive. Josh just enjoyed playing the game, whatever it was on any given day, and was happy enough to see his friend excel at it. Josh seemed to have inherited her laid-back personality, rather than his dad’s competitive, ambitious one.

As she stepped back inside, Emily heard the phone ringing. Before she could reach it, Dani apparently grabbed it upstairs, then shouted, “Mom, it’s for you! It’s Mrs. Carter.”

Emily picked up the portable phone and sat at the kitchen table. “Hey, Marcie. How are you?”

“Fine, but wondering why on earth you’d let yourself in for having Evan and Caitlyn over after working all week. You must be exhausted and sick to death of kids.”

“I don’t mind. And your kids are never any trouble.”

“You’re sure you weren’t trapped into going along with this? I know how persuasive Dani can be when she’s on a mission.”

“Absolutely not. What are you and Ken up to this evening?”

“Ken has a business dinner, so I’m on my own.”

“Then come on over with Evan and Caitlyn. You and I can watch our own movies and drink some wine.”

“Really? You’re not too tired?”

“To watch a chick flick that Derek would rather eat worms than see?” Emily asked. “Never.” Besides, she’d heard the note of loneliness in Marcie’s voice and recognized it all too well. She’d learned to cope with Derek’s absences, but Marcie was completely at sea when Ken was out of the house. She’d tried to talk to her once about finding some interests aside from Ken and the kids, but Marcie always claimed she was perfectly content and had more than enough to keep herself occupied.

“Where is Derek, by the way? Won’t he object to all the commotion?”

“He’s still in Brazil. He won’t be home till late tomorrow.”

“Great!” Marcie said. “Gosh, that sounded awful. I know you miss him. I meant it was great that we can have an evening to ourselves. I’ll bring the chocolate. I baked brownies today. A lot of brownies. I was bored.”

“Good luck for me,” Emily said with enthusiasm, though the further evidence of Marcie’s discontent struck her once more. “See you soon. You can come with us to the video store to pick out the movies.”

By the time she’d hung up, Emily already felt rejuvenated. Movies, wine and chocolate with a friend and her kids and their friends upstairs. What could be better than that? It would certainly be a huge improvement over the lonely evening she’d been anticipating, one in a long string of lonely evenings that had become the norm as Derek’s job kept him away for longer and longer periods of time. She might have adjusted to the stretches of being on her own with the kids, but that didn’t mean she liked it. And unlike Marcie, she knew that sooner or later she was going to have to do something about fixing it.

“What on earth are you doing?” Emily demanded a few weeks later when she found Josh in the backyard with a pair of hedge clippers attacking the bougainvillea that separated their yard from the Carters.

“Evan and me need a path,” he explained.

“Evan and I,” she corrected automatically.

He looked up at her, his expression blank. “Huh?”

Emily sighed. It was a wonder she kept her job, when she couldn’t even get her own kids to speak proper English. “Why do you and Evan need a path? You can walk around the block.”

“It’s too far. We’ve been trying to crawl through the hedge, but this stuff has thorns.”

“So you decided to chop it down without asking permission?”

“Dad said it was okay,” he replied, snipping away more of the thick hedge with its brilliant fuchsia flowers that thrived in the South Florida heat and humidity.

She doubted Derek had any idea what he’d agreed to. He’d probably been on the computer or absorbed in paperwork, which was how he spent the few days he was at home anymore. Whatever he’d said to Josh was more conversation than she and her husband had had lately. She was growing tired of feeling like a single parent most of the time, only to have her authority usurped the moment Derek made a rare appearance at home. It was something they needed to discuss, but she couldn’t even figure out how to manage that when he rarely came to bed before midnight and fell asleep the second his head hit the pillow. They hadn’t had a night out on their own for months now. If he’d been a different kind of man she’d have wondered if he was having an affair, but she knew his work was his only mistress. Accepting that didn’t seem to stop the increasing resentment she was feeling.

She took one more look at the gaping hole in the hedge and shook her head. On the bright side, it would take her less time to wander over to sit in Marcie’s pristine kitchen with a cup of her special-blend coffee and a slice of her homemade key lime pie. Lately that had become her refuge from the emptiness she felt every day when she got home from school and faced one more night on her own.

On her bad days, she envied Marcie. She was everything Emily was not. She thrived on being a housewife, a roommother in her kids’ classrooms, an officer in the PTA. Her spotless house could have been a designer showcase. There wasn’t a speck of dust that Emily had ever seen, much less a magazine out of place, a dirty glass in the sink or smelly socks or sneakers tossed on the floor. By comparison, the best that could be said of Emily’s home was that it looked lived in. The last time she’d baked, she’d burned the chocolate-chip cookies. Dirty clothes overflowed the baskets in the laundry room and dishes were left wherever anyone set them down until Emily rounded them up.

Back inside, she headed for Derek’s office and found him punching numbers into a calculator. When she spoke, his head snapped up and he muttered a curse at the interruption.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought maybe we could talk.”

“I’m in the middle of something.”

“You’re always in the middle of something. Do I need to make an appointment to get on your calendar?” She couldn’t seem to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.