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CHAPTER TWO

Lauren knew she’d be going to the church gardens on Tuesday after work even though she thought it could be foolhardy. Becoming attracted to a man was not a part of her plan. In fact, it could be a major inconvenience. But she liked him. She liked that he read a lot and wanted to talk about what he’d read. She enjoyed how flustered he was meeting Sylvie. She adored the way he sloshed the drinks he carried. And it moved her that he was there to support a scholarship recipient who’d lost her father.

Of course he was there. She saw his back moving through the plants and shrubs. He was pulling off dead leaves and dried flowers. And putting them in his pocket!

She noticed there were some things on the bench—the one she had occupied the last time. A bag containing something and two Starbucks cups. It made her smile. He shouldn’t have known that Starbucks would make her happy.

She cleared her throat. He turned toward her with a smile, shoving a handful of dead leaves and buds in his pocket.

“Hi,” he said. “I brought you a mocha with whipped cream.”

Perfect! Of course. “That’s very thoughtful,” she said, just standing there, feeling awkward.

“And something else,” he said, lifting the bag.

“Oh, why did you do that? You shouldn’t be giving me things. You should sit and relax and enjoy the flowers. And you were tidying up.”

“I’m always grooming plants. Maybe it’s a nervous habit.” He pulled a handful of dried leaves and small sticks from his pocket, dumping them in the trash can. He handed her the bag. Inside was a book. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

“This is great!” she said. “I actually went looking for this book! But I didn’t ask for it, just looked in the psychology section.”

“I had to find it at the used bookstore...”

“Did it change your life?”

“No, but it was enlightening.”

She sat down on the bench, looking through the book. He handed her a coffee and stood at the other end of the bench. “I guess it didn’t make your wife any happier,” she said.

“No,” he answered with a laugh. “She has always wanted something more. Something else. Listen, full disclosure, my wife and I are separated. We’ve been living apart for six months. We’re getting divorced.”

“Ah,” Lauren said. “And you’re getting back in the game.”

He looked stricken. “No! I mean, that has nothing to do with you! I’m not looking for anything. You’re a complete surprise. I might’ve done this even if—” He shook his head, looking embarrassed. “You just seem like a very nice person, that’s all. And you complimented my flowers. This divorce—it’s long overdue. It’s not our first separation. And no, I haven’t been known to mess around on the side. I have a couple of sons. Stepsons, actually. I wanted to keep their lives stable for as long as possible. They’re seventeen and twenty. I think they understand we should be divorced and that I’ll always have a home for them. If they don’t know they can count on me by now, they never will. I’m not going anyplace.”

“And their mother?” she asked.

“She loves them, of course,” he said. “Maybe because they’re boys, they’re closer to me. Or maybe it’s because their mother is hard to please.”

“Oh God,” she said. “It is not a good thing that we have this in common.”

“You’re separated?”

“Not yet,” she said, hesitantly. “I have a difficult situation. I’m not ready to talk about it. But can you tell me about yours? Unless it’s too...” She shrugged.

He settled in, sitting on the bench with his coffee. “Okay, I’ll give you the short version. I’ve been married twelve years. We lived together first. The boys were four and seven when we met. They have two different fathers. Disinterested fathers. Pamela wasn’t married to either of them. They hardly came around and when they did, they took only their son, not his brother. That just didn’t make any sense to me. They’re adults. Don’t they realize little boys would be upset by that? Feel left out? Have self-confidence issues? So if I knew one or the other was coming to get his son I tried to have something planned for the one left behind. It didn’t take much—just a little extra time to throw the ball around or play a video game. Just attention, that’s all.”

“That’s so...nice,” she said.

“No it’s not,” he said, almost irritably. “It’s what an adult should do. It just makes sense. Doesn’t it?”

“What did their mother say? About one son being left behind?”

“She was in conflict with their fathers over lots of things, so it was one more thing. But that didn’t matter to me. Mike and Drew were little kids. They had enough trouble, you know? The school was saying Drew had learning disabilities and they tried to pin ADHD on Mike because he was restless. He was restless because he was a boy with a lot of energy who was kind of bored with school. Pamela would get mad, which didn’t seem to resolve anything so I started going to some of these meetings at the school with her and we worked out programs for them. Pretty soon I was going to the meetings alone.” He stopped and ran a hand around the back of his neck. “On our good days, she was very grateful I was willing to take them on. On our bad days she accused me of thinking I was their father and she reminded me I had no authority.”

“I’m sorry,” Lauren said.

“Drew graduates with honors in a few weeks,” he said with a smile. “So much for his learning disability. Mike’s in college with a nice GPA. He’s got a great girlfriend, plays baseball, has lots of friends. Wants to be an architect,” he added with a proud but shy smile.

“When did you know?” she asked. He gave her a perplexed look. “When did you know the marriage wouldn’t last?”

“Almost right away,” he said. “Within a couple of years. But I wasn’t giving up. The guys... They might have two different fathers but they were going to have one stepfather. We did fine. We managed. I might still be managing but Pamela wanted to leave and I didn’t put up a fight. At all.” He laughed uncomfortably. “Then she wanted to come back and I said, no.”

“I guess you’re done,” Lauren said.

“My mother says I’m a peacekeeper. She didn’t consider it a compliment.”

“Shame on her,” Lauren said. “We could use a little more compromise and cooperation in this world!”

“Spoken like a true peacekeeper,” he said. “As military ordnance, a Peacekeeper is a land-based ICBM. A nuclear missile. Maybe all those people who take us for granted should look out.”

“Indeed,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

Then they both burst into laughter.

“How long have you been friends with Sylvie Emerson?” Beau asked.

“I’m not so sure we’re really friends,” she said. “We know each other because of our husbands. I’m sure we like each other. We run into each other at fund-raisers and social events. We’re friendly, that’s all. My husband served on the foundation board of directors for a few years and got cozy with a lot of Andy’s friends. It’s not that he’s passionate about the cause. He’s passionate about being connected and about Andy’s billions and influence, though what he hopes to do with either is beyond me. That’s why I run into Sylvie a lot—Brad hangs close. He would deny that, by the way. I’ll be surprised if she calls me for that lunch date—she’s very busy. But let me tell you something. What I know of the Emersons is they’re both sincerely good, generous people. Sylvie has mentioned that of all the work their foundation is able to do, she’s partial to the scholarship fund. She and her husband might not have identical priorities, I’m not well acquainted with Andy, but Sylvie has told me more than once—we have to feed and educate the next generation, that’s the only way we leave the world better than we found it.”

“I wonder if they even realize how great a gift that is—giving an education. I don’t know about you, but my family wasn’t exactly fixed to send me to college.”

“Nor was mine,” she said. “I grew up poor.”

“What’s poor?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I have a younger sister, Beth. Three years younger. When she was a baby our father went out for the proverbial pack of cigarettes and never came home. My mom worked two jobs the whole time we were growing up. My grandparents were alive and lived nearby, thank God. They helped. They watched us so she could work and probably chipped in when rent was late or the car broke down.”

He smiled. “I have a large extended family. The six of us—my mom, dad, brother, two sisters and I lived in an old garage my parents converted into a small house. My mom still lives in that house, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last—she’s getting a little feeble. My dad was a janitor, my mom served lunch at the junior high and cleaned houses. We got jobs as soon as we were old enough. But my folks, under-educated themselves, pushed us to get decent grades even though they couldn’t help us with homework. We did our best. We might’ve been competing with the cousins a little bit.”

“Nothing like a little healthy competition,” she said. “Did you know you were poor?”

“Sure, to some extent. But we had a big family on that land. A couple of aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins. Sometimes it got crowded. But if the heat went out in winter there were plenty of people to keep warm with. Heat in summer—no relief.” He drank a little of his coffee. “We didn’t have any extras, but it wasn’t a bad way to grow up. Thing about it was we might’ve been poor but we were never poor alone.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“You can always ask, Lauren...”

“How do you think your life’s going to change, getting divorced? Does this begin a whole new adventure of some kind?”

“Adventure?” he asked. “God no. My life doesn’t have to change. I love my life today. I have work that makes people happy, good friends, amazing family. I have enough predictability every day so that it’s not very often that something throws me off balance. I sleep well. My blood pressure is good. I don’t know if I could have a better life. I just don’t want it to change back.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Finally she said, “Life must have been difficult... Before...”

“That’s a hard question,” he said. “Difficult? There were days I thought it was hard. Unbearable, really. But those days passed. What didn’t pass was irritation. Unbalance. Never knowing what would be coming at you today. But ask anyone—you’re not allowed to bail out because your wife has mood swings. Or because she yelled and now and then threw a glass at me. Hey, she missed, and cleaned up the shattered glass. But she wasn’t a drunk, she never came at me with a knife, didn’t sleep around...not counting those separations, when the excuse was that we were separated. According to the rule book, if you’re able to work it out...” He shrugged. “So I stopped asking myself if I could live like this because I could, but that was the problem. I started asking myself if I wanted to live my life like that. And the answer was no. Fortunately for me, Pamela needed a little time to think again, to determine what she wanted from life. She needed another separation. Our fourth in a thirteen-year relationship. It was the perfect time for me to say, me, too.” He chuckled. “Her separation was very short after hearing that. Mine was not. I decided I was happier on my own. I think I could be a happy old bachelor.” He grinned. “I wouldn’t have a boring or lonely day in my life. I think the boys might look in on me sometimes, make sure I haven’t broken a hip.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Forty-five,” he said.

She snorted. “I don’t think you have to worry about that broken hip for a while yet.”

“I’m just saying, my life right now is fine. More fine than it was wondering which Pamela was coming home to dinner. But being sick of living with a volatile, angry, unpredictable person is not moral grounds for divorce. For better or worse, right?”

Lauren identified with so much of what he said but her first thought was, it’s so much easier for men. They’re not expected to have to put up with moody, angry women but women are supposed to put up with difficult men. She really wanted to let loose and complain about what it was like to live with a controlling, angry man. A man who could keep an argument going for days. A man who cut the line of people waiting to purchase movie tickets, loudly accused maître d’s of losing the reservation he never made, shortchanged maintenance workers on their bills because he assumed they wouldn’t dare come after him because they were undocumented or spoke poor English. Once while they were vacationing in Turks and Caicos he found some lounge chairs by the pool that were desirable, but they had towels on them—someone had already claimed them. There were a couple of pool toys as well, indicating they belonged to children. He threw the towels and toys on the ground beside the chairs, claimed the chairs for himself and his family and when a young man with two small children appeared five minutes later, he briskly told him, “You can’t save chairs with towels. You have to be using them.”

Brad was a bully who thought he was better than everyone else.

But Lauren didn’t say anything to Beau. Unless people really knew Brad, they would never understand. So she changed the subject and asked Beau to tell her about rooftop gardens.

“My specialty,” he said happily.

After an hour of pleasant conversation she decided she’d better leave. He asked if he’d be seeing her the following Tuesday and she said, “Very doubtful. This isn’t a good idea.”

He chuckled softly. “Oh. I wouldn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position,” he said. “You didn’t say it but I already know. You’re in the same spot as me. Maybe not identical, but close enough. I sympathize. And if you want someone to talk to you know how to find me.”

She nodded sadly. Of course he didn’t know how to find her. And she didn’t tell him.

* * *

Beth Shaughnessy was spending her Sunday cleaning up the remnants of the party she and her husband Chip had thrown the night before. Chip had a new smoker and had treated many of their friends to a barbecue. While she had made good progress in the kitchen and great room, the patio and grill were still a disaster. Chip, whose given name was Michael, pleaded a slight hangover and promised to get out there with the boys to clean up after they watched a little of the US Open on the big screen in his den. The last time she looked in on them, Chip was flipping between basketball and golf and women’s beach volleyball.

When Beth’s sister, Lauren, had called earlier and asked if she could get away for lunch, Beth had said she had chores. Lauren said she’d go to the gym for a while then head over to Beth’s. She needed to talk.

When Lauren most needed Beth and the phone wasn’t good enough, Beth suspected marital angst. When you were married to Brad Delaney, angst was the kindest word one could apply. It took several deep breaths for Beth to remind herself to be careful what she said. The only serious and alienating fight the sisters had ever had was over Beth’s low opinion of Brad and her sister’s marriage. Well, sort of. It was more Beth’s strong opinion that Lauren should get out, no matter what it took. Yet Lauren had stayed on. And on. And on.

Beth had been only twenty when Lauren and Brad were engaged to be married. At first she thought Brad handsome and sexy, but soon her impression of him changed. She heard and saw things that just weren’t right. More than once, she’d heard Brad call Lauren an idiot. She saw him squeeze her hand so tightly it caused Lauren to wince and pull away. She wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong but she knew it wasn’t right. Even at her tender, inexperienced age Beth had said, “Lauren, what are you doing?”

“I’m marrying a handsome and successful doctor!” Lauren had said, beaming with joy. Lauren was seeing all those things they’d never had growing up—financial security, a beautiful and spacious home, cars that didn’t break down, dining out, vacations... But behind the brightness of her eyes, something else lurked. And of course they hadn’t even gotten through the wedding without tears of anguish and serious doubts. As anyone close to the couple could see, Brad, ten years older than Lauren, was temperamental, self-centered, grumpy and an egomaniac. He had a widowed mother, Adele, who was just an older version of her son. Adele was a controlling and temperamental sourpuss who had very firm ideas about what exactly was good enough for her entitled only child. Except Adele didn’t know how to be charming. While Lauren and Beth had grown up in relative poverty with their single mother, Honey Verona, Brad had grown up well-to-do.

Right before the wedding Honey said, “Lauren, don’t do it. You must see he won’t even try to make you happy.”

“But everything is planned and his mother paid for it all!” Lauren protested.

“It doesn’t matter,” Honey said. “You can walk away. Let them sue us.”

Lauren almost didn’t marry him. It was a last-minute melodramatic moment when she said, “I can’t. I’m just not sure.” Beth almost threw a party. But then she and the other bridesmaids were banished from the room while Brad’s mother took over, having a heart-to-heart with Lauren. Dame Delaney was a force to be reckoned with...

And the wedding proceeded.

Beth and Lauren were nothing alike and yet they were vital to each other. Beth was a professional photographer. She did a lot of weddings, anniversaries, parties, even funerals. She also shot bridges, fields, wildlife, flowers, children, elderly people, beaches, sunsets... Beth was an artist. But she photographed a lot of people and she had learned to recognize who they were in their eyes, their expressions, their body language, their smiles or frowns. She could read people.

She had read Brad right. He was an asshole.

Lauren was more scientific. More pragmatic. A plotter and planner.

Beth had been married to Chip for sixteen years. They weren’t able to produce children on their own so they had adopted a couple. Ravon was thirteen; they’d had him since he was four. Stefano was nine; they’d had him since he was two. Both came through the foster care system. Chip was a cop and big-time sports enthusiast, particularly golf. He taught the boys to play and the three of them were doing something that involved a ball every free second. Beth lived in a kind of rough-and-tumble house with a husband in a high-risk profession; she was always fighting that testosterone poisoning that created messes wherever it passed.

But Beth was not wired to take the kind of shit Lauren put up with. She rode the men in her family hard, insisting they pitch in and help, demanding courteous behavior. And she was just a little thing. A little thing who could haul forty pounds of camera equipment everywhere she went. Ravon was already taller than her, but that hadn’t made her meek at all. She could bring all three men in her house to their knees with one killer stare.

Lauren showed up looking sleek and rich in her workout clothes, her thick chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail. Lauren didn’t ever seem to sweat, either. She sat at Beth’s breakfast bar with a bottle of water while Beth dried the last of the serving platters. “How was your party?” Lauren asked.

“Loud,” Beth said. “Bunch of cops and their spouses and kids. All the usual suspects. They stayed too late and disturbed the neighbors. It was great, in other words.”

“We went to a cocktail party for a retiring doctor. I overheard Brad tell a couple of men he had to take the management of the finances away from me before I ran us into the poorhouse. Now he lets me keep track of my little paycheck while he manages the rest.” She sighed. “I don’t recall ever being in charge of the finances.”

“I was just about to ask when you were in charge of the money...” Beth wasn’t surprised by this mean little dig from her brother-in-law. “If he poked at me like that, he’d pull back a bloody stump,” Beth said.

“He doesn’t realize this, but he doesn’t have much longer as my jailer. I just don’t want to stress Cassie. I’ve put up with him for twenty-four years, I can put up with him a few more weeks. Get Cassie out of college.”

The sound from the den erupted in a roar—someone made a basket, goal, or hole in one and Beth’s men yelled. “I wouldn’t have been married to him long enough to get my babies out of nappies, much less college,” Beth said.

“They can’t hear us, can they?” Lauren asked.

“They couldn’t hear us if we were talking right into their dense male faces,” Beth said.

“I put a deposit on a rental property that will be available July 1. I’m going to talk to the girls and move out. I’ve scheduled my vacation for after Cassie graduates and the first week of July. I suppose it will be sweltering.”

Beth’s mouth hung open for a moment. “This isn’t the first time you’ve said this,” Beth said.

“It’s the first time I’ve rented something,” Lauren said. “I’ve been to the lawyer, planned this out carefully. Listen, I’m sorry you’ve had to put up with me and my rotten marriage, my vacillating, my lack of courage and my mean husband. I’m a load and I know it. And now I need a favor.”

“You know you’re welcome here,” Beth said.

“That’s not what I need. I’m going to pack up some boxes and suitcases. I also have to buy a few things—new linens, some new kitchenware, that sort of thing. I need a place to store it. Someplace no one will notice.”

“The guest room,” Beth said. “We’ll close the door. Can I say one small thing? Can I say, please God, please really do it this time! There’s still time for you to have a life.”

“I’m going to do it,” Lauren said.

Beth gave a heavy sigh. In spite of all the bad things, Brad and Lauren had also been generous. He’d loaned them twenty-five thousand dollars to try in-vitro fertilization; he’d loaned them another twenty-five grand to build onto their house to make room for the boys. He and Lauren stepped up when Beth and Chip needed an expensive tutor for Stefano because he had a learning disability. Of course, Beth had long suspected Brad liked giving people loans they would take a long time to repay because it gave him power over them.

“Honey would be ecstatic,” Lauren said. And immediately her eyes filled with tears.

They’d lost their mother two years ago. She’d been killed in a car accident; a truck driver had a medical episode, lost control of his huge truck and struck three vehicles, killing three people. Honey had never known what hit her—her death was instant, thank God.

“I miss her so much,” Beth said. “It’s just the two of us. I’m there for you. You’re there for me—let’s remember that. You’ve been to this lawyer how many times?” Beth asked.

“Leaving a man like Brad takes very careful planning,” Lauren said.

“Are you afraid of him?”

“Of course. Not afraid he’ll physically hurt me. He never does that...”

“A pinch here, a squeeze there...” Beth said, inexplicably rewashing a perfectly clean serving tray.

“He calls it affection gone a bit rambunctious,” Lauren said.

“Because he’s a liar. An experienced gaslighter.”

Lauren sucked in her breath.

“All right, all right,” Beth said. “I’ll try to say nothing and just hope for the best.”

“Once Cassie has graduated, there’s really nothing more to hold me back.”

Beth looked into her sister’s beautiful lavender eyes. Lauren looked like pure perfection. She was elegant, smart, nurturing, compassionate, talented in so many ways, yet somehow held captive by an arrogant asshole. But she wouldn’t call him that. Putting Lauren on the defensive might prevent her from freeing herself. Why her brilliant, loving, educated sister had chosen Brad eluded her. Why she stayed with him had confused her even more.

She had been young. She’d had stars and Wolf appliances in her eyes.

“Okay, tell me what you rented,” Beth said.

“It’s small and quaint, a Victorian, on a street that almost looks like the Seven Sisters in San Francisco,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Three bedrooms and a loft, a long porch and deep yard on a lovely old street in Alameda. The owner lived a long and happy life there, building a lovely garden. There are big, healthy trees. Her son is keeping the house as a rental so it’s being remodeled—new flooring, patching, texturing and painting the walls, new kitchen and bathroom cabinets, new appliances. I’m signing a one-year lease with an option to have first right of refusal if he decides to sell. He let me have some input on the materials... Or, let’s say, I told him I did videos for Merriweather and he assumed I was a great homemaker...”

“You are,” Beth confirmed.

As Lauren described the house, she became animated and Beth had hope for the first time in a long time. Only her rich sister would call a Victorian on the island of Alameda “quaint.” It was probably a million-dollar property.

They talked about the house, the fact that Lauren could get back and forth to work more easily, that she’d have a say in how the yard looked, that it would be homey and all hers. She would have room for the girls when they visited. She hoped they would but it wouldn’t surprise her to find they preferred their rooms at her current house. “The most important thing is that they know both their mother and father love them,” Lauren said. And then she shuddered.