Finding Home (7 page)

“No.
Absolutely not. I forbid it.” Brad's raised voice echoed about the living room.

Stacey stared at him. She'd been at a loss as to what to say.

Until he had uttered the final sentence.

Unconsciously squaring her shoulders like a woman bracing herself to step into a major battle, Stacey raised her chin, unaware of exactly how defiant she looked. But Brad wasn't.

“This is not the Middle Ages,” she informed him, “or even the 1960s, Brad. You can't say words like ‘forbid' and expect to be taken seriously anymore. At least, not by your spouse.”

His eyebrows drew together as if he couldn't follow what she was saying. Angry, Brad looked dark and formidable. “Stacey, we talked about this.”

She didn't know whether to laugh or scream. The worst part of it was, he believed what he was saying.

Dog watched her as if he expected her to rise to the occasion. She rested her hand on his head. Since the animal was approximately the size of a miniature pony, she didn't have to bend to do so.

“No, Brad,” Stacey replied wearily, “you talked, everyone else listened. Or you expected them to.” She could tell by
the expression on her husband's face that he didn't see the difference. “And besides, that was in general.”

Brad's unenlightened look lingered. “So?”

“So, this is specific. When you nailed your edict to the Brandenburg Gate, there wasn't another dog standing in the middle of your living room, in need of a home.”

“And there won't be one for long.” He pointed to the closest phone, the one beside the sofa that faced the large bay window. “Call the animal shelter, they'll take him off our hands.”

The animal shelter in Irvine was one of the few shelters that did not dispose of strays two to three weeks after they'd been taken in. She doubted Brad knew that when he made the suggestion. She doubted he even knew where the animal shelter was.

“I don't want Dog ‘off our hands,'” she informed him, throwing his words back at him. She could see the surprise that registered on his face. Brad was used to her agreeing, to her giving in after only a few words of protest. But not this time. With Dog, there were promises involved. Silent ones, but that didn't make them any less valid. By taking Dog with her, she'd agreed to Uncle Titus's terms to care for the animal. She didn't intend to go back on that.

“Uncle Titus asked me to look after the dog in his declining years.”

Brad's frown deepened and she could tell what he was thinking. That Dog would grow incontinent and ruin the rugs. “Your uncle is gone, Stacey,” he pointed out tersely. “He's not exactly going to know if you take the dog to the shelter.”

“No,” she agreed, not giving an inch, “but I'll know.” And she would hate herself for it. Besides, over the course of the day,
she and Dog had bonded. It was nice having an animal who made her the focal point of the world for a change. “Look—” she gestured to the Labrador, who had shadowed him the moment he'd walked through the door—just before he first laid eyes on Dog “—if Rosie can accept him, why can't you?”

He looked at her uncertainly. “Are you comparing me to the dog?”

You'd come up wanting if I did.
“No, just comparing your compassion to Rosie's.” She didn't see what the big deal was. They weren't dealing with allergies. Brad had a number of them, but none included dogs. Only cats. She thought herself fortunate that Uncle Titus hadn't asked her to watch over a feline. “Brad, you're hardly ever home, anyway. What does it matter if we have another dog?”

By the look on his face, she had given him something else to fight about.

“I'm hardly ever home, as you put it,” Brad informed her tersely, “because I'm working to provide you with a home.”

Stacey looked him squarely in the eye. “That's secondary and you know it. You love what you do—”

Brad immediately took umbrage at the tone she was using. “And that's a crime?”

Where did he come off with that idea? She wasn't saying that at all. “No—”

“Would you rather that I was miserable, going off every morning to a job I hated?”

The dog drew closer to her, as if to shield her from the words. She stared at Brad, mystified. How had they veered so drastically off course? “No, of course not. I want you to be happy—”

“Okay, if you want me to be happy, then get rid of the dog.
We don't need two. One is more than enough and Rosie was here first.”

Hearing her name, Rosie came alive and trotted over, waiting to play. After a moment, as if realizing it had been a false alarm, she sighed, spreading her paws out before her as she got back down on the floor. The dog's eyes fluttered shut and she resumed her impromptu nap.

“I can't,” Stacey insisted. “It was one of Uncle Titus's dying wishes.”

Blowing out a breath, Brad shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He moved restlessly around the room. This was clearly not how he had envisioned his evening going. For once, he'd gotten home early enough to have dinner with Stacey. Which meant that he could also indulge in the single drink he allowed himself. One was his limit, not because he couldn't hold his alcohol, but because he felt that more than one might impair his keen reflexes.

He'd needed the drink to unwind, but he made it a policy never to drink when he was angry. He'd seen his father do that. Had seen the man's temper flare, turning him into a man he didn't recognize. He'd vowed never to let that happen to him. He never wanted to be threatening to Stacey the way his father had been to his mother that one time.

He shook his head in disgust. “Titus always was a weird bird, having you travel all that way, only to come back with a mangy animal.”

“He's not mangy,” she said defensively. Brad looked at her sharply. She ran her hand over the dog's head. “He was better taken care of than a lot of people I know.” If telling him about
the dog was hard, this next part was going to be even worse. Because she had to shut him out. “And Dog wasn't the only thing Uncle Titus left me.”

Brad spun around on his heel, alert. Listening for strange sounds. “What? Is there a chimpanzee in the bedroom?”

She frowned at the flippant question. She'd thought he was serious. “No—”

Brad cut her off, pointing to the far left. “A giraffe in the garage?”

She braced herself. “He left me money.”

Brad frowned again, disgusted. “What, to buy dog food with?”

Stacey paused, pressing her lips together. “Not exactly.”

Something in her tone caught his attention. Brad eyed his wife. “So how much was it?” When she made no answer, he crossed to her. “More than a couple of thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

His eyes held hers. She couldn't tell what he was thinking.

“How much more?” he asked.

Stacey built on the word her husband had handed her. “Much.”

Sums of money began to bounce around inside his head. No one knew exactly how much money Titus had, but the man
had
owned an island. Brad stopped to stare at her. “Define
much.
”

Maybe it was childish—okay, it
was
childish—but she didn't want to tell him how much just yet. “How would
you
define much?”

“Twenty-five thousand.” He drew closer to her. “Am I right? He left you twenty-five thousand dollars to take care of the dog?” The thought seemed incredulous to him, but
people were strange when it came to their pets. It was getting on in years, there were going to be vet bills. At least this way, the animal wouldn't cost them anything to care for.

Stacey took it one layer at a time and peeled away. “No, Uncle Titus didn't leave me the money to take care of the dog.” She took a breath. “And it was more than twenty-five thousand.”

His patience was in short supply and ended abruptly. “Stop playing games, Stacey. How much did your uncle leave you in his will?”

She raised her eyes to his. “Ten times that.”

Startled, Brad widened his eyes. “Your uncle left you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Stacey nodded. Brad's voice dropped an octave, becoming almost a whisper. “A quarter of a million?”

Again, she nodded.

And saw Brad smile for the first time since he'd entered the house ten minutes ago. The greeting he'd been about to utter then had been swallowed up when Rosie had come bounding over to greet him, closely followed by her newfound friend, Dog. The call for an explanation had come immediately, followed by what could only be referred to as a less-than-friendly interrogation.

But now there was a smile, a genuine smile. Money was not Brad's king, but it definitely existed within the royal family.

Brad placed both hands on her shoulders, as if to hold her still, even though she hadn't moved a muscle. “Let me get this straight. Your uncle left us a quarter of a million dollars?”

“Yes.”

Brad pulled her into his arms and hugged her. Hard. And
briefly. When he released her, his brain was racing. He began crossing to the nearest phone. “I've got to call our accountant, have him look into that new IRA I saw—”

He'd taken her completely by surprise. “What?”

“The new IRA—do you realize how far this will go toward financing our retirement? You're not incorporated,” he allowed, “but I am and we could—”

She had to stop this before he went any further. “No.”

Lost in thought and calculations, Brad looked at her blankly. “What?”

“No,” Stacey repeated.

The word didn't compute. “No what?”

“No,” she said slowly, “we can't put this money into an IRA.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we can. It'll take some doing, some planning on our part—my part, I guess, but—”

She needed him to understand. “Uncle Titus said that the money was mine.”

“Of course it is. You can take a few hundred—maybe even a thousand—and do something frivolous, but the rest is going into the IRA,” he informed her. “Look, I'm not trying to take it away from you, Stacey. I'm trying to plan for your retirement.”

She was so tired of him thinking of them as old before they had a chance to be young. “I'm forty-seven, Brad. I'm not retiring, I'm remodeling.”

Flabbergasted, he stared at her. “What did you say?”

“Uncle Titus said I was to keep the money on the condition that I did with it what I wanted, not what anyone else wanted. You or the children,” she said, hoping that by including Julie
and Jim, Brad wouldn't feel as if she was singling him out. “And what I intend to do with the money is remodel the house.”

The silence was deafening.

The
silence grew, mushrooming and separating them like some vast, invisible wall.

She was just about to urge him to say something when he did.

“And who is going to know that you don't want to put that inheritance money into an IRA? Titus?” he asked. “It isn't as if you can just call him to tell him what your plans are.”

I'll know, Brad. I'll know.

The words remained lodged in her head, flashing in huge neon lights. Vivid, but unspoken.

Finally, in self-defense, Stacey said, “I've already told Ian that I was going to use that money for the house.” It was a lie. She hadn't said anything to anyone. She'd been too overwhelmed by the amount to be chatty. But she hoped that it would end the discussion that, even now, she sensed was threatening to get ugly.

“Ian?” Brad's eyes narrowed into small, green slits. He squinted at her, as if that could make him absorb her words better. “Who the hell is Ian?”

Her voice was as calm as his was agitated. As soft as his was loud. It was as if every time he became angry, Brad just assumed that everyone around him had grown deaf and
couldn't hear him if he spoke in a regular voice. “Ian Bryanne. He is—was—Uncle Titus's lawyer.”

Frost formed in his eyes. He was shutting her out. Shutting her out because she wasn't agreeing with him. “I see.”

Oh, God, was he going to sulk again? “See what?”

He said nothing. Instead, he walked past her to the kitchen. Once there, he bypassed the stove where she had a pot of chicken gumbo simmering and opened the refrigerator.

Utterly ignoring her, Brad took out an already opened package of cold cuts, a head of partially used lettuce, a jar of mustard and what was left of a loaf of rye bread. Digging into the utensil drawer, he took out a knife and began to make himself a sandwich.

Stacey held her tongue for as long as she could. She lasted half a minute. Men could be so infuriating. “Why are you making a sandwich?”

He didn't even bother looking her way. Rosie was between them, her attention completely focused on Brad. She was eagerly shifting from foot to foot. Brad took a slice of ham, tore it in half, then held out first one half, then another to the animal. It was gone in less time than it took to tear the slice in half.

“Because I'm hungry.”

What would he do if she just started choking him? Just gave in to a wild urge to shake sense into his head by wrapping her fingers around his throat and depriving his brain of oxygen?

Stacey savored the thought for a second before discarding it.

“Dinner's on the stove,” she pointed out needlessly. “I just made it. Why aren't you taking some of that instead?”

Again, Brad didn't even glance in her direction, gave no
indication that he heard any of the words. Instead, he placed a lettuce leaf on top of the mustard-slathered ham and capped it off with a second piece of rye bread.

He shrugged carelessly. “I don't know, you might have other plans for it.”

She hated it when he threw back her words at her. Hated it when he cut her off like this. “Brad, you're being silly.” Which, in her opinion, was putting it damn mildly.

Brad went about his business as if she hadn't said a word. Taking a can of soda out of the refrigerator, he closed the door with his shoulder, leaving the lettuce, bread, mustard jar and what lunch meat he hadn't used or fed to Rosie out on the counter where it would remain a silent testimony to his having to forage for his own dinner until such time as she put it away.

Slighted, Dog whined and looked up at her, waiting for some kind of treat since Rosie had gotten one. Brad walked out of the kitchen without so much as a glance in her direction or a comment in response to her words.

For a moment, Stacey struggled with her inner earth mother. She was tempted to go after Brad, to try to reason with him and at least get him to eat a better dinner than a ham sandwich on rye. But he was obviously into giving her the silent treatment for now. She knew from past experience that it would be futile to try to make him see things her way. He was so accustomed to getting everything
his
way, she was pretty certain he didn't even realize there
was
another way to do things.

With a sigh, she began to clean up and put things back into the refrigerator. She paused to give Dog a thin slice of ham. Eager, acting as if she hadn't eaten for days instead of minutes, Rosie tried to edge the other dog out of the way.

“No, you big bully, you've had yours. It's time for Dog to get a treat.”

That made two of them, she thought silently.

 

“A quarter of a mill? Wow! Cool.”

The delighted pronouncement came from Julie in between forkfuls of the salad that she insisted on referring to as her lunch.

Once every week, twice if she could swing it, Stacey and her daughter got together for lunch at one of the restaurants located near UCI Medical Center where Julie put what she'd learned at medical school to practice. The simple lunches were almost the only time she got to see Julie, certainly the only time she got to see her alone. When Julie came to the house and her father was there, he monopolized her.

Even though she was in medical school, preparing for a career that on occasion could mean the difference between life and death, Julie would drop by from time to time, always with a bag of laundry in tow. Time, Julie had learned, was a very precious commodity. She would use that portion that would have otherwise involved doing her laundry at a laundromat, to come home and touch base.

“Base” was always absorbed by Brad, who wanted to know every detail of what she was studying, what she was doing at the teaching hospital where she was working toward a degree that would eventually lead to her becoming certified in internal medicine.

Julie, who looked like a female image of her father, right down to the soul-melting green eyes and his dark brown hair, added with a wide grin, “Too bad Uncle Titus had to die for you to get it. But it's still very cool,” she repeated.

Stacey sipped her iced coffee, trying to get her system into gear. She'd been dragging all morning at work. She absolutely hated it when she and Brad were having “difficulties” as he would refer to this impasse.

“Is that word back?” Stacey asked, setting the frosted glass back down on the beige tablecloth. “‘Cool?'”

Julie shrugged. She was nonconformist in every way except for the path she had chosen to follow for her life's work. There she was so straitlaced and focused, it was like watching Brad all over again.

“I don't know. Maybe.” And then Julie smiled again. “But the word fits.”

“Yes, I suppose it does.” She glanced down at her plate. The steak she'd ordered was gone. When had that happened? She couldn't remember eating it. “It also describes the way your father's been reacting toward me since I came back.”

The words had just slipped out. She didn't ordinarily complain about Brad, not in an actual sense. But this had really been bothering her. Stacey pressed her lips together. A matter of closing the barn door after the horses had escaped, she thought, mocking herself.

Julie watched her, mildly confused. “That doesn't sound like Dad. He likes money.”

Stacey laughed shortly. Now, there was an understatement if she'd ever heard one. “Yes, I know. He wants me to put it into this brand-new IRA that he's been reading about.”

Finished with her salad, Julie moved the plate aside as she nodded. “Now, that sounds like Dad.” She paused for a moment as she studied her mother's face. “I take it you don't want to.”

Stacey noticed that Julie said “you don't want to” not
“you're not going to.” As if it was a foregone conclusion that, like it or not, she was going to do it Brad's way. Well, what else could Julie think? The kids had seen her as being pretty much of a pushover all these years. Her capitulation to whatever it was that Brad wanted had become an accepted fact of life.

It made her angry.

“No, I don't,” Stacey told her daughter with feeling that surprised Julie.

A glint of respect entered Julie's eyes. “Have any idea what you do want to do with the money?” Julie asked her casually.

Someone else overhearing might have taken the question to be a veiled hint. But it wasn't. Julie had no need to lobby for any part of Uncle Titus's bequest. The cost of her education had already been seen to. Unlike some of the other students around her struggling through medical school, all of Julie's bills were paid by her father—at times over Stacey's protests.

Stacey had always thought working hard to pay for something you wanted helped build character. Remembering his own years in medical school, Brad maintained that it just wore you out.

As if she hadn't worked her tail off to put him through school, Stacey thought ruefully as she wrote the checks that were mailed out to the University of California, Irvine.

“Yes, I have an idea,” she told Julie. “I want to remodel the house.”

Finishing the last of her diet soda, Julie laughed. “Bet Dad hit the roof.”

“In several places,” Stacey confirmed.

She paused, looking down at the small plate to her right.
Without realizing it, she'd been shredding the roll she'd taken earlier. There was absolutely no room in her stomach for it. But she had this need to take something apart, bit by bit, and the roll had had the misfortune of being right there in front of her.

After dropping what was left of it onto the plate, she dusted off her hands and then looked at the young woman she had raised. In a moment of weakness, she put the question to her, curious to hear her daughter's answer.

“What do you think I should do, Julie? Your father seems pretty adamant.”

Julie didn't even take any time to consider. “I think you should do what you want to do, Mom. If you want to remodel, you go right ahead and remodel. It's your money, right?”

Her money. That sounded so odd. There'd never been “her money” or “his money” before. Just their money.

The wording in the will had made all the difference in the world, she supposed.

“Right,” Stacey replied quietly.

“Well, then, there's your answer.” Wiping her mouth, Julie dropped her napkin in her plate. “That was good and this was fun, but I've got to dash,” she apologized. “Got a paper due tomorrow and the instructor's a brutal, mean son of a bitch. He likes flunking eager, would-be doctors.” Rising, she moved over to her mother and kissed her. “Stick to your guns, Mom. I think the idea of remodeling the house is great.” She winked just before she hurried off and raised her fist in a minipower sign. “You go, girl!”

Stacey found herself grinning back. And belatedly raising her fist in response.