Desert Gift (6 page)

From her undying determination to do things correctly—
“A doctor should have his own professional space in the house, not a corner in the dining room!”
—came a place of solitude. In recent months he had rediscovered that aspect and sought it out often. With Connor seldom at home, the dryer thumped only occasionally and there were no male teen voices booming around the pool table or at video games.

Jack stared at the e-mail on his laptop, reading it for the umpteenth time since he’d first seen it on Thursday, the day Jill left. It was from their son, copied to both his and Jill’s addresses.

Hey, Mom and Dad. Well, you’re probably in sunny SoCal by now. Just wanted to let you know Prof Isola is taking us to Prague. I’ve told you what a fanatic she is. Free time? E-mail? Phone calls? Not on my watch! So I’m OOT for about ten days. Later.

“OOT” was Connor’s shorthand for “out of touch,” a phrase he made frequent use of. Jack figured it was code for “love you guys, but hey, I’m twenty-three, in Europe, got better things to do than chitchat.”

Jack smiled. Connor was all Jack could ever hope for in a son. He was a great kid, a good human being, never a source of grief or despair. A graduate of the University of Illinois, he was now studying in Italy for his master’s in art history. What did it matter he would never make a dime working in a museum? So what if most of his study time now meant touring Europe and discussing art in every café from Paris to Prague?

His smile faded. Like Jack, Connor was an only child and close to his parents. As it did for Jack, the word
close
meant taking on too much responsibility for their well-being. Divorce would hit him hard.

Jack moved the cursor over the Reply tab and hesitated. Tell him in an e-mail? Pretend all was well? Just a quick “luvya”?

He shook his head and signed off. Connor’s schedule had granted him a reprieve.

* * *

Not up to a public airing of his dirty laundry, Jack felt no qualms about skipping church. His solo presence would have provoked questions. Jill’s Sunday school women would have bombarded him for answers he did not have.

He opted instead for a private airing. His parents lived at an assisted-care facility in a neighboring suburb, a short drive.

“Jackson, dear.” Katherine Galloway stretched across the couch and laid a shaky hand on his head. “You can brush your hair over and people will hardly notice this horrid laceration.”

Jack smiled at her attempts to finger-comb his hair. “It’s too short.”

“Oh, it’s long enough. What is this? Silver?” She yanked out a strand.

“Ouch!”

“Good grief, Kate.” Charles spoke from the padded rocker. “Our son is old enough to have gray hairs.”

“He is not. He’s only forty-five. No, that’s not right. Forty-six.”

“And how old was I when I went completely bald? Hm? Forty-two.”

“You were not.”

Jack tuned out his parents. He’d given up refereeing them soon after they moved into this small apartment. Their forced togetherness escalated a nitpicking hobby into a full-time activity.

Was that why he wanted a divorce? Because he did not want to end up bickering with Jill, day in and day out?

But he and Jill never nitpicked. They liked each other.

Didn’t they?

“Jack.” His bald father set the rocker in motion. “Weren’t you supposed to go somewhere?”

Good news, bad news. One of them remembered the plan he’d informed them of last week. “Yes. I was going to go with Jill to California for her book tour. But here I am, considering a divorce instead.”

They gazed at him, two sets of uncomprehending, rheumy eyes.

“I thought you should know.”

Even if they had not recalled his schedule, Jack would have told them. In spite of their failing health, Charles and Katherine remained his first line of offense and defense. They had provided a stable, privileged life for him. The three of them had honestly enjoyed his growing-up years. Although his mother had snooty tendencies, she and his dad were always fair and open with him. Their list of ultimate taboos was short: do not live with a girl before marriage and do not loan money.

Naturally he had committed both crimes during college and not shared that information with them. The girlfriend living arrangement was a semester thing when he was an undergrad. The money was a large sum, never repaid, to a friend in med school. Jack recovered from both, no worse for wear really. Why upset his parents? The past was the past. And besides, his self-imposed responsibility to keep them happy dictated that he keep his mouth shut.

A choice he did not now have the privilege of making. They would notice Jill’s absence eventually.

Katherine pursed her lips. “Jackson, dear, Galloways do not divorce. No matter what she’s done, you make it work.”

Jack expected that. His mom had never wholeheartedly approved of Jill. “Mother, she hasn’t ‘done’ anything. It’s not like that.”

His dad put his elbows on his knees. “What’d
you
do?”

“Nothing.”

“Jackson.” Katherine squeezed his arm. The morning sunlight shone in her neatly curled, stiff hair, casting shades of blue. “There is no such thing as a midlife crisis.”

He couldn’t help but smile at how his mother’s conclusion mirrored Jill’s. “Well, there is evidence for it, but I feel fine. There’s no crisis in my life. There’s nothing I need or want except not to live with Jill anymore. I want the best for her, wish her all the success in the world. But I’d rather not be with her.”

His dad nodded. “I felt like that on occasion. Not about Jill. About—”

“Oh, Charles. You did not.”

“I did, Kate. I most certainly did.”

Now he and his mom stared at his dad.

“Each time, I had a good stiff drink and it went away.” Charles chuckled. “You’ll get over it, Son. Odd feelings and daydreams are just part of life. You don’t want to start messing with wills and trust funds and dividing up property and bank accounts.” That was his dad, the former bank president, speaking.

His mom said, “Perhaps this separate vacation time will help. Now before we go down to the church service, tell me about my grandson. He sent us a postcard last week.”

“Kate, it was this week.”

“No, I distinctly remember. What is today?”

“Sunday. Which explains why we’re going to church.”

Jack went deaf again.
Good grief.
Was their entire relationship built on disagreement? Granted it was always civilized, no shouting or throwing things, no swearing or crying. But he remembered plenty of stomachaches as a kid. Jill had been the one to finally help him see that it was not his job to keep the peace between his parents.

And yet . . . he had kept the peace in his own marriage, hadn’t he? He had kept it by sticking to a promise he’d made to himself as a teenager: he would never relate to his wife like Charles and Katherine did to each other.

Which basically meant that the first time he knowingly introduced conflict into his marriage was three days ago.

* * *

Jack went with his parents to the church service held in the common room. He ate lunch with them in the dining room and said his good-byes before their naptime.

Now he sat in his car, warmed by bright sunshine streaming through the windows and glinting off the snow piled around the parking lot, and debriefed himself.

There had been no further mention of his situation with Jill until they parted, and then it was only cursory.

His mother had held his chin in her hand, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “Make it work.” Then she kissed him on the cheek.

His father hugged him and suggested the brand name of a good Scotch.

Jack had not expected or wanted more from them. He just wanted to keep them in the loop. He owed them that much.

What took him by surprise was his intense reaction to their bickering. It hadn’t affected him for years. He heard it, of course, but no longer internalized it.

He pressed on his stomach. The ham and scalloped potatoes were not setting so well. He knew better than to have eaten two helpings of the cafeteria food.

His thoughts turned again to Connor. Imagining how he himself would have felt to be told on the telephone that his parents were splitting, he cringed at the thought of putting his son through that.

Could it wait until May, when he was due home?

Where would Jack be in May? Single?

Obviously they could not tell Connor after the fact.

Jack glanced at his watch. If he correctly recalled Jill’s itinerary, she was at that very moment speaking to a women’s group at a megachurch. She would not be answering her phone.

Perfect timing for a coward.

He pulled out his cell and hit the speed dial. “Hi. Uh, I assume you got Connor’s e-mail? About being out of touch? I’m just wondering how to, uh, tell him about, um, us.” He took a breath. “About what I’ve done. It just seems that we shouldn’t tell him long-distance. Do you mind if we hold off? He’s busy anyway. And he thinks we’re busy. I hate to not answer his e-mails or a call. Not that he calls all that much.”

Jack heard his incoherent rambling and paused to order his thoughts. “Let me think on this for a week, okay? Or tell me if you have a better idea.” Like she wouldn’t. “I hope things are going well. I’m sure the women there at that big church think you’re the cat’s meow.” He rolled his eyes.
Lame.
“Be safe. And take off those heels.”

Jack closed the phone and sighed. He should have skipped the inside joke.

But how did one start skipping inside jokes with a close friend of twenty-five years?

Probably as slickly as he’d skipped mentioning the past seventy-two hours. Grocery shopping, cooking a new recipe for salmon, getting upset enough to inadvertently scrub open the gash on his head, working on a Saturday with Baxter, visiting his parents . . .

He’d always told her the minutest details.

Except . . . except about the accident that totaled his car. There were a few particulars that seemed irrelevant at the time. Or something.

He shook his head and started Jill’s car, cracked open a window to air out the scent of her perfume, and mentally put
car shopping
on the agenda.

* * *

Later that evening Jack picked up his ringing cell from the kitchen counter, saw Gretchen’s number, and stirred the risotto in the saucepan.

He had spent most of his life answering telephones and pagers at inconvenient times. His service would call when he was off duty because even patients with nonemergency foot problems needed his attention. He was always on duty for his aging parents. Ditto for Connor, of course. Typically Jill phoned him several times a day.

He had never minded. Being available was a doctor’s way of life. But Gretchen, two days in a row? Overkill.

The phone’s doorbell chime ring continued.

He sighed, set down the wooden spoon, and put the lid on the pan. She was calling because Jill wasn’t. Had Jill listened to his voice mail? “Hello.”

“We’re in the middle of a crisis here.”

“It’s my fault. Blame me.”

“No question about that.” Gretchen exhaled loudly. “Jack, she lost it today. Totally and irrevocably.”

He turned off the stove. Today was Jill’s big day, the most important one in her schedule, the one she’d been giddy about for months. That big church, Coast something or other, was a feather in her cap. “I already said it’s my fault. What else do you want from me?”

“Your help.”

“Gretch, you two do just fine without me. You always have. Please, I don’t want to be involved.”

“She was talking at that big kahuna of a church to maybe a hundred women and she announced that you want a divorce.”

He closed his eyes.
Dear Lord, I’m sorry.

“Tell me, Jack, how am I supposed to fix it? Huh? With one little sentence she blew every speck of her credibility to smithereens.”

“How is she?”

“Galloway, give me a break. She’s a mess. I’ve never seen her so furious. She—”

“What is she doing right now?”

“What do you think?”

“Working out in the hotel’s fitness center.” At least that was his hope.

“Yes.”

“Then she’s okay. She’s handling it. If she were comatose in a corner and not eating, then we might want to consider—”

“Oh, stop being a doctor for one minute and be her husband!”

At Gretchen’s high-pitched voice, he held the phone out from his ear.

“It hasn’t hit her yet that her future is over! She ended it today.”

“That’s ridiculous. She knows how to interview. She knows everything there is to know about communication skills. None of that involves me or—or us.”

“Where have you been for the past twenty years, Jack? That’s the whole premise of her work! You two communicate and you make marriage work. You know the secret of keeping each other happy.”

“Now that is totally ridiculous. Nobody makes someone else happy or sad.”

“Then why have you left her? Huh? Because you are not happy with the status quo, which is being married to her. Living with her. Dialoguing with her.”

“You can’t reduce my decision to that.”

“Whatever. I don’t know how much longer she can keep up this charade. She may not have to. Once the gossip gets going, people are either going to cancel her appearances or gawk at her like she’s a circus freak and want to ask questions like ‘What all can you do with that third arm?’”

“Gretchen, you’re being absurd.”

“Just trying to catch up with you. And oh, by the way, you will always be involved. She’s your wife and no papers will ever change that fact. Good-bye.”

The line went silent.

He slid onto a stool, laid his phone on the countertop, and crossed his arms.

“You two communicate and you make marriage work.”

It was true that he and Jill thrived on talking about everything under the sun. But was that the same as communicating?

People always commented on how well Jack and Jill got along. They noted that their many years together were an anomaly. But was that the same as making marriage work?

Given the present circumstances, he’d have to answer both questions with a no.