Dating The Mrs. Smiths

“It’s not that late. Well, maybe it is. Traffic was—” I did not have to justify my children’s eating habits. One look at them would assure anyone that I wasn’t raising underfed waifs. And tomorrow was Saturday, so there was no harm in letting them sleep in a little if our evening ran behind schedule. For that matter, it would mean I got to sleep in a little, assuming stress didn’t have me awake again in the murky predawn hours.

“I didn’t mean to sound critical, dear,” Rose said. “It takes time to properly prepare a good home-cooked meal, and I applaud you. Too many parents nowadays rely on fast food. What are you fixing?”

Glad I’d called her tonight and not after last night’s take-out kids’ meals, I glanced at the empty cardboard box and the plastic bags. “Um, lasagna.” Lasagna-flavored, anyway. I saw no reason to elaborate and find out whether or not the fare met Rose’s criteria for “home-cooked.”

“Wonderful! One of Tom’s favorites.”

My stomach clenched again. I wasn’t used to other people mentioning him so flagrantly, dredging up twenty years of memories each time his name was spoken. Dianne always waited for me to broach the subject. With the kids, I didn’t avoid talking about him—it was important they knew their father loved them—but I didn’t want to push, either. And, I admit, not discussing him sometimes made it easier for me to get through the day.

When I thought about him too much, wishing he were here to hug me and say everything would be okay, to reassure me I would somehow be enough for the kids, that I’d find the answers to the tough questions, that I’d—

“Mommy! Fire, Mommy, fire!”

I jumped at Sara’s presence as much as her announcement. I’d been too lost in thought to notice her wandering into the kitchen, so her voice at my elbow came as a shock.

As Rose demanded to know what had happened, I glanced toward the stove. My pan of simmering food had boiled over just enough that some of the noodles had fallen onto the burner and ignited. Pasta flambé. But nothing that would require actual firemen at the scene.

“Everything’s fine,” I assured my mother-in-law as I turned off the stove. “No reason to worry. I just ran into a snag with dinner. We’ll call you back tomorrow, if that’s all right.”

“All right? It will be the highlight of my weekend! Two calls, after months and months of not hearing from you? It’s a grandmother’s dream come true.”

I hung up feeling thoroughly chastised, not realizing until I was loading the dishes later that, hey, wait a minute, Rose had a phone, too. She could always call us if she wanted to talk to the kids…or further criticize the way I was raising them. A pocket of resentment bubbled up in me, despite the noble intentions I’d had when I’d first dialed her number. Ten minutes of Rose went a long way.

What would weekly—or, gulp, daily—interaction be like?

Oh, yeah. Moving to Boston was out of the question.

CHAPTER 2

“I can’t believe you’re moving to Boston!” Dianne, who’d waited until my daughter and her giggly best friend were out of earshot, looked suspiciously as if she might cry.

“No waterworks,” I warned, feeling shaky myself. “If you start, we’re both doomed.”

Bawling in my kitchen was not how I wanted to commemorate my fortieth birthday. Giving Martin my final decision this morning had been difficult enough. Still, Di’s recent announcement had made accepting the transfer a no-brainer.

Determined to be happy for her, even though I would miss her, I smiled. “You’re moving on to bigger things yourself. I didn’t even know lounge acts had talent scouts. And they want you to be headliner!”

“Yeah, but the cruise-ship thing is only temporary. I’m just subletting my place. And when I come back, you…” She turned away, unbuckling a newly scrubbed, fresh-faced Ben from his high chair. There for a while, it had been touch or go whether we’d ever find him underneath a layer of frosting.

“My son certainly appreciated your baking efforts,” I teased. When I’d come home for the evening birthday celebration we’d promised the kids, Dianne had greeted me with the announcement that she’d made a cake but doubted it was edible.

“Ben mistook it for face paint and didn’t know it was food. You were kind to have a slice, but face it, I lack your domestic-goddess skills.”

I thought about the accumulated fast-food dinners in the past few months and the fact that my bedroom had become a wildlife refuge for dust bunnies. “Fallen domestic goddess, you mean.”

She set Ben down, her gaze sympathetic. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, babe. You’re doing the best you can.”

That’s what worries me. What if it didn’t get better? Or, what if moving to Boston made things even worse?

I obviously didn’t hide my concerns very well because Dianne’s expression filled with guilt.

“It’s all my fault you have to go.”

“You’re not responsible for the company’s falling profits of the last two quarters and Kazka being edged out by the competition here in Florida.”

“No, but my being away for six months leaves you without a much-needed babysitter. Maybe if—”

“I’m sure you spent all those years in dance class so you could become an inadequately compensated nanny. Besides, you might have noticed I’m also without a much-needed job.”

She bit her lip. “There is that.”

In the two weeks since Martin’s “road diverging” speech, I’d been on several interviews with varying degrees of success. Two companies expressed polite disinterest, one company had offered a salary that wasn’t going to cover mortgage and child care, and the last interviewer was a sleaze who’d stopped one suggestive question shy of my reporting him to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Luckily, our office in Boston sounded happy to have me. In diametric opposition to their Floridian counterpart, Kazka’s northeastern division was doing so well that they’d expanded the sales force, promoting the woman who’d served as sales coordinator, the position I’d held here and would fill for them.

Moving was the logical step, even if I hadn’t yet found a place to live…or the courage to tell the kids. I’d put it off as long as possible, not wanting to upset them until I’d exhausted every option. The thought of telling Sara she’d have to leave the only home she knew filled me with dread.

You can’t shelter her from everything. Isn’t that what I’d told Tom on more than one occasion?

Rather than be faced with his daughter’s tears of frustration, he practically offered to tie her shoelaces until she was in high school. Like me, Sara had been blessed with a father who absolutely adored her. I’d never known my mom—her post C-section infection had been fatally complicated by diabetes—but my protective dad had tried hard to be the perfect parent. He’d done an admirable job, yet there were pains and losses from which even he couldn’t spare me. Especially after the stupid fall that had killed him while he’d tried to help a neighbor patch her roof.

I swallowed back a lump of emotion and jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’d, um, better check on the girls. All I need for them is to get lipstick all over the carpet before we put the house on the market.”

Ben grinned up at me, cherubically unalarmed by the words house and market. As Martin had cheerfully pointed out today, I had a ton to do, and finding a real-estate agent was at the top of the list. I would also need to tell Rose about the move and probably beg her to help us find a place in Boston. Assuming anyone wanted to buy this place and that I could get us all packed in less than a month.

I’d barely finalized the decision to transfer and was already wondering how to accomplish it all, how to find a good school for Sara, wondering if I’d given up the job search here too early. It was funny—in that decidedly un-humorous way—how I’d been the one to make the bulk of day-to-day parenting decisions when Tom had been alive, but now that he wasn’t here I keenly felt the burden of responsibility. What if Sara never got better at math? Who was going to teach Ben to pee standing up? If either of them grew up to be a serial killer, guess whose fault it would be?

I supposed I could look into some sort of single-mother support group for my occasionally neurotic thoughts, but how was I going to find the time and energy to commiserate with other moms about my lack of time and energy?

With a mental shake, I poked my head into Sara’s room. She and her friend Callie both wore the traditional cardboard cone party hats, held in place with elastic chin straps. Sara had also placed one on Ellie, her beloved pink stuffed elephant.

“Hi, Mommy.” My daughter beamed up at me, pink lipstick smeared around her mouth and green shadow circling her eyes. “Callie doesn’t hafta go home yet, does she?”

“No, I was just checking to see if you were still playing beauty parlor.”

Sara shook her head. “Nope. We got pretty for a princess ball, and we’re going to that now.”

I grinned, glad Callie’s mom wouldn’t mind the “princess makeup” when I took her daughter home. “You guys have fun. I’m going to go say goodbye to Dianne.”

My friend had to work tonight, but it had been sweet of her to stay to have an early dinner and cake with me and the kids. I found her on the back patio, pushing Ben in his outdoor toddler swing. Even though we’d reached the end of September, it was still warm outside. Yesterday, the air-conditioning window unit in my office had crapped out and I’d felt as if I’d been trying to finish filing in a sauna.

“You know,” I said slowly, “it might be nice to live somewhere where they have actual seasons.”

Dianne sent me a comically blank look. “What are those?”

We definitely didn’t get a lot of white Christmases in these parts, and while I had nothing against palm trees, they don’t provide spectacular autumn foliage.

I snapped my fingers, remembering Rose’s birthday gift last year. “And sweater weather!” Just not army-green ones, no offense to those who were being all they could be.

Unflattering colors aside, I’d much rather be seen in a soft knit turtleneck than a bathing suit. Sure, some women looked good in swimsuits even after multiple pregnancies, but clearly they’d struck some sort of Faustian bargain.