A Place Called Home (7 page)

“What do you want me to say, Thea?” Joel asked. “Do you want to hear that it won’t happen again?”

“I know it won’t happen again. I’m firing Avery Childers.”

Joel didn’t try to change her mind. She was every bit as stubborn as her father. No matter what she thought, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. “What about seeing the children? Are you firm on that?”

“Yes. I told Mitch that I would visit them in Connaugh Creek. I never suggested more than that, Joel. I’m sorry if you think I went back on our agreement by offering that much of my time to Gabe and Kathy’s children, but I made a promise to them, too. That means something to me.”

He held up one hand, palm out. “All right,” he said quietly. “I can accept that.”

Thea bit her tongue to keep from having the last word. There was nothing to be gained by telling him he’d
have
to accept it. She didn’t even know if it were true. Walking over to the wet bar she withdrew a bottle of water from the refrigerator and opened it. She drank enough to ease the dryness in her throat and then set the bottle down. There was nothing worse than not even knowing her own mind. Joel was probably right: she would have to call someone to help her. She couldn’t do this on her own.

Joel recognized that it was time to change the subject, at least until he was on firmer ground. “I have tickets for the symphony tonight.” He reached in his inside jacket pocket and withdrew them, fanning them open so she could see both.
“Water Music.”

Thea felt herself being drawn into that beautiful smile that was no longer entirely confident of her answer. She was careful to make sure he understood that it wasn’t their disagreement, or even him going to Avery before speaking to her, that was guiding her answer. “I can’t. I have a brainstorming session with the Blue Team in”—she checked her watch—“five minutes ago. It will last until at least six. And then I have a meeting.” She held her breath, waiting for him to ask her to skip the meeting, even though he promised her he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t, but she didn’t miss that the thought had crossed his mind. She tried not to blame him for that. “I think I need to go home after that, Joel. Alone,” she added in the event he thought he should come out to her house after the symphony. “Why don’t you meet Barbara at Heinz Hall? She loves the symphony and Jay never wants to go.”

Joel considered that a moment. His daughter-in-law would drop everything to come into town for the evening. He’d break the news to his son when he got back to the office. “Good idea. You know, you should really try working somewhere where they expect good ideas nonstop. I bet you’d be excellent at it.”

Thea heard her laughter and knew it wasn’t completely forced. She felt the tension of the last thirty minutes slowly seeping out of her. “I’ll think about that.” She stayed where she was as Joel rose to his feet. When he hesitated, uncertain of the reception he might receive if he tried to kiss her, Thea relented. She went to him and raised her face to his. “I don’t like fighting with you,” she whispered.

“That wasn’t a fight. Nancy and I fought. That was a skirmish.”

“In my house that was a fight.”

“I’ll remember that.” He bent his head and kissed her softly on the mouth. “I love you, Thea. Please say you know that.”

She nodded. “I know. Even when I’m not certain of anything else, I know that.”

“Good.” He kissed her again, briefly this time, but hard, leaving the imprint of his mouth on hers. “Think about me.”

Thea found herself inclining toward Joel as he backed away, her smile slightly bemused. “I have to think about Shine and Shield.”

Joel chuckled. “Of course you do.” He opened the door and started out, only to poke his head back in and tell her, “It’s all right. Mrs. Admundson is thinking about me.”

Shaking her head, Thea waved him out. She gave herself a few minutes to collect her thoughts before she pressed the intercom. “Tell the Blue Team to come in, Mrs. Admundson.” She’d given them ten extra minutes. They had better be brilliant.

Thea hit the mute button on the remote just as the commercial voiceover began. It was an unusual move for her. She was more in the habit of silencing the program and listening to the ads. Tossing the remote on the floor beside the couch, she let her head fall back on the cushion and closed her eyes. Blessed silence and complete darkness. It didn’t seem to help. She still felt restless and unsettled.

She wondered if she should have just stayed at the office. Her sofa unfolded into a relatively comfortable bed and she had long ago stocked her private bathroom with all the important amenities. In addition, the closet held several choices in day and evening wear with shoes to match. It was difficult to stop second-guessing her decision to drive home. She had made a promise to herself to spend less time in the Foster and Wyndham headquarters. She also made a promise that she would not keep running on empty, in the figurative sense of the phrase. Well, she was out of the office, but the thirty-five minute drive home had left her with no purposeful energy.

What she felt now was just edgy.

Thea stood, cinched her robe around her waist, and padded softly to the kitchen where the phone was. Except for the flickering images from the TV, the house was dark. She hovered beside the base unit for a moment, staring at the phone as if she didn’t know quite what to do with it. Joel would still be at the symphony so there was no point in calling him. She tapped her index nail against the smoky granite countertop as her mind raced.

God, she hated this feeling! Arching her back, she stretched so that her vertebrae popped. She rolled her neck, first clockwise, then counter. The refrigerator captured her interest briefly but when she opened the door and saw that her choices were rancid orange juice, an assortment of condiments, something green that might have been a dairy product, and congealed Chinese takeout from better than a month ago, she closed it again.

Where was her phone book? She absolutely needed to make the call and she realized she shouldn’t have put it off until she was practically unhinged. Why hadn’t she asked for the number when she had a chance? Now she thought she would be lucky to find it.

Hands shaking, Thea found the directory in one of the cabinets and dropped it on the breakfast bar with a resounding thump. She opened it randomly and began flipping through the thin pages, softly reciting the alphabet song as she made her search. She had no clear idea of how long she spent on this task before she was forced to conclude the number wasn’t there.

Thea shoved the book away. It was so heavy that it didn’t go very far but the act of pushing it, the pent-up violence inherent in the movement, frightened her. This is not the way she wanted to be.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose. On the second inhale/exhale she closed her eyes. The simple relaxation technique actually worked and she wondered why she had always resisted these little tricks when they were suggested to her. With the third breath she didn’t think about it anymore and tried to clear her mind instead.

For a few brief moments calm embraced her. Thea felt it like something thick and heavy and liquid that slipped over her skin and then was absorbed by it. It was an uncertain state but while it lasted Thea learned that she had the capacity to appreciate it. She had not known that about herself.

Picking up the phone, Thea walked to the sliding glass doors that opened on the rear deck. She spent a minute contemplating what she was going to do before she stepped outside. It was cold and she was barefoot, but the moon was full and the outdoors were better lit than the tomb she’d allowed her home to become. Holding the phone so she could make out the touch pad, she punched in directory assistance. It didn’t take long to get the computer-generated voice to give her the numbers she needed.

Thea sat down on one of the Adirondack chairs that she had never bothered covering for winter and pulled her feet up under her. It was a balmy night for February, but it was not exactly deck weather. She pressed the numbers before she lost her nerve.

“Hello?”

The phone was picked up so quickly Thea wasn’t prepared. The fact that it was picked up by a woman also caught her off guard.

“Hello?”

The voice was impatient this time. Thea cleared her throat. “I think I have the wrong—”

“Mitch! I think this one’s for you!”

In the background Thea could hear Mitch calling back, “Take a message.” There was some grumbling about getting caller ID and then the woman’s clear voice was back on the line again. “I’m sorry,” Gina said. “Were you calling for Mitch?”

“I ... this was a mistake,” Thea said. “I didn’t mean to disturb—” She hung up before she said anything else. In spite of the cold, her palm was sweating. Thea practically launched herself out of the chair and into the house. She was putting the phone back in its base when it rang. Startled, she almost dropped it. Her thumb reflexively hit the talk button before she was certain she wanted to have a conversation with anyone.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Thea?”

It was Mitch. Thea had no difficulty recognizing the pleasantly deep, slightly gritty timbre of his voice. She could picture him standing with the phone in one hand, the other making a raking motion through his hair. “Er, yes. It’s Thea.”

“Did you just call me?”

“Umm, yes. Yes, I did. How—how did you ...” She sighed, impatient with herself for this hesitancy and stumbling. “It’s just that the woman who answered the phone said something about you needing to get caller ID.”

“It’s on the to-do list. Mostly I use my cell,” he said. “I took a guess.” He paused a beat, then added, “Actually, I hit star sixty-nine.”

“Oh. Then I’m glad I didn’t lie.”

Mitch caught himself before he let his smile seep into his voice. He’d called her back out of curiosity, not because he was feeling in a particularly forgiving mood. “What do you want?” he asked bluntly.

At her end, Thea started. His initial friendliness was gone. It was not even that he was wary; just that he was cold. “I was wondering ... that is, you mentioned that I might be able to ...” She realized her heart was hammering in her chest and there was a softball-size lump in her throat. “I’d like to visit the children,” she said in a rush. “I thought I might come out. I could be there in under an hour.”

Mitch blinked. He held the phone away from his ear and stared at it a moment, not quite believing what he’d heard. Slowly, he returned it to his ear. There was silence on the other end. “You still there, Thea?”

“Yes ...”

“Do you have a clock nearby?”

She glanced at the one on the microwave. “Yes.”

“You can read it, can’t you? Big hand. Little hand. If it’s digital it should be—”

Thea hung up. She was walking away when the phone started ringing. She let it go. If it was Joel, he’d think she had gone to bed. If it was Mitch, he’d learn soon enough that she had no intention of talking to him. Whoever it was gave up by the time Thea reached her bedroom. She turned on the bedside lamp long enough to turn down the covers and remove her robe. When she lay down she knew immediately that sleep was not going to happen without help. This is what she had been afraid of all day. Thea looked toward the bathroom. The door was open and she could see the reflection of her medicine cabinet in the mirror above the sink.

She picked up the phone instead and scrolled the database for the number she needed. This time when a woman answered, she expected it. “Hi,” she said softly. “It’s Thea.”

“Hey. When I saw you tonight I thought you might be calling.”

“You should have told me. It took me a long time to figure it out.”

“You got me now.”

“It’s not too late?” Thea recognized the pause in the conversation as Rosie looked around for a clock.

“Hell, it’s only a little past ten. Early in my book. What’s up?”

Thea took a deep breath. Her voice shook slightly when she spoke again. “I’m exhausted and wound up at the same time. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep on my own.”

“Go make yourself a cup of tea. I’m on my way.”

Chapter 3

Thea’s cell rang as she was merging into rush hour traffic on Route 28. She had little patience for the intrusion, but it was her weakness that she was as well-conditioned as one of Pavlov’s dogs. Her car came with Bluetooth, and she was almost helpless to keep from answering when she heard a ringtone. She waited until she was safely in line before she began talking. “I’m here. What do you need?”

“It’s Joel, sweetie.”

Her voice softened. “I thought you were someone from the Blue Team.”

“I take it they weren’t exactly on their game yesterday.”

“That’s an understatement. Where are you?”

“On Greentree Hill, crawling toward the tunnels. You?”

“Ready to grind to a halt on 28.” She applied the brake as she was speaking. “I should have left earlier.”

“How did you sleep?”

Thea knew that’s why he had called. “It was tough at first. I had to call Rosie.” Joel’s silence let her know he wished she had called someone else. “She helped me, Joel. I don’t think it would have been a very good night without her.”

“Well, that’s all right, then.”

“You don’t like Rosie, do you?”

“I don’t really know her.”

Thea eased on the gas as traffic started to move. In the rearview mirror, she caught the disapproving look of the driver behind her. He looked as if he wanted to report her to the phone police for driving under the influence of conversation. If they had been going more than ten miles an hour she wouldn’t have blamed him. “That’s right,” she said. “You don’t really know her. She’s a very nice person.”

“You hardly know her yourself.”

“That’s going to change, Joel. Last night wasn’t the last time I’ll be calling her.”

“I just wish—”

“What?” She glanced in the mirror again and saw the driver behind her was picking his nose. Now
there
was a reportable offense. Shaking her head, she let someone slide into the lane in front of her just to piss him off.