The Guest Cottage (20 page)

Trevor thought Jonah was on the verge of tears. Without turning his head to face the boy, he said in a neutral tone, “All parents have secrets from their early lives. Parents were young once, too, you know.”

“Okay, but playing piano? And she’s so good! Why keep that a secret? If I were Dad, I’d feel shut out. Hell, I’m
me,
her kid, her first child, she’s changed my diaper, and when I heard her play the piano I thought:
I don’t even know who this woman is.
It’s freaking me out, if you want to know the truth. I can’t wait to see what happens when Grandma comes. She likes my mother, but I bet she’s never heard her play the piano. I mean, come on, man, this is total science fiction.” With that, Jonah jumped up from the blanket. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to bed.” He ran toward the house and a few seconds later, Trevor heard the slam of a door.

The sound of the door woke Connor. The older man made a few transitional snorts as he came into wakefulness. “I guess it’s time for bed. Thanks for not leaving me out here to get all covered with morning dew.” Knees cracking, he slowly got himself to a standing position.

“Connor, this was a great experience,” Trevor told the old man as he got to his own feet. “Thank you for calling us. I hope we can do it again sometime.”

Connor swept his arm through the open air. “Any time. Free admission.” Bent forward, his hand on his back, Connor limped toward his apartment.

Trevor lifted his son in his arms. Leo murmured and snuggled his head into Trevor’s chest. He stayed asleep as Trevor went up to the house and didn’t wake up even when Trevor deposited him on his bed and removed his summer clogs.

After seeing his son safely tucked in, Trevor went through the house, turning off the lights and double-checking that the doors were
locked—although
what he could keep out of this emotionally chaotic household, he couldn’t imagine.

Once again, he was awakened by the same four notes from the piano. As he stumbled, half asleep, out into the hallway, he saw Sophie standing at the top of the stairs, listening.

She held up her hand in a “stop” sign to Trevor. “Listen a minute.”

Trevor listened.
DAH dum dum dum.

“They’re always the same notes,” she whispered. “C-G-G-G.”

“What, you think Leo’s playing a code? He’s working for the CIA?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I do think it means something.”

“I think it means he’s waking us all up,” Trevor grumbled, and hurried down the stairs to interrupt his troubled child and carry him back up to bed.

L
eo’s Lego world had taken over the small front room called the library. Both Lacey and Jonah had bought kits for Leo—trucks, planes, and boats that could be painstakingly built to exist inside one of Leo’s great walls. Many times during the day as Sophie cooked or read, she would hear gentle murmurs as one of her children gently demonstrated to Leo how certain structures were put together. She knew that Jonah was having a wonderful time—he had always loved Legos.

But today she could not seclude her family in the library for her private talk. After asking Trevor if he would mind doing without the TV for an hour or so, she told her children at breakfast that she needed to speak to them and asked them to join her in the family room.

Jonah slumped in and collapsed at one end of the sofa. Lacey, full of morning energy and curiosity, sat at the other end. Sophie shut the door to the hall.

“Here we go,” muttered Jonah ominously.

Sophie heard him. She pulled up an armchair so that she could meet them eyeball to eyeball from the other side of the coffee table.

“Yep, kids, here we go indeed.” She looked at the faces of both her precious children. All night she had tossed and turned, attempting to put together the perfect announcement, such a perfect announcement that no one would be sad. But of course, that really wasn’t a possibility. “Jonah. Lacey. I have to tell you something that I’m afraid will be hard for you to hear. Daddy and I are going to get divorced.” She paused.

Lacey looked quickly at her brother, who did not turn his head toward her but stared stonily at the wall. “Will we have to change schools?” Lacey asked.

This was not the question Sophie had expected. She almost laughed in surprise. “I don’t know yet, honestly. Daddy and I haven’t discussed the details. I don’t know if we’ll get to stay in our house or if we’ll have to move.”

“I refuse to spend the night or any time at all with Dad and Lila,” Jonah said.

Sophie stared in amazement. “Jonah! What do you mean? Why are you mentioning Lila?”

Jonah balled his hands into fists and set them carefully on his knees in a sign of forced restraint. “Get real, Mom. I’ve known about Lila for months. I saw Dad with her. Plus Dad has hardly ever been home.”

“Who’s Lila?” Lacey asked, looking confused.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jonah snapped at his sister. “You know Lila. She’s an architect, Dad’s partner. He’ll probably marry her next.”

Sophie was baffled. Somehow she had lost control of the conversation. “Jonah, how do you know about Lila?”

“Mom,
why
don’t
you
know about her?” Jonah shot back. His left leg was jiggling up and down rapidly.

Sophie recognized this as a sign of stress and knew she had to at least act as if she were in charge. “Jonah, Lacey, I want you to listen to me carefully. Children don’t know everything that goes on between their parents. Your father and I have been discussing our future for some time now.” Okay, she thought,
some time
was only a matter of weeks, but for the sake of remaining in authority and providing a sense of protection for her children, she was going to fudge the issue. “Daddy and I love you both very much.”

“Yeah, that’s why we see so much of him,” Jonah spat.

Sophie continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “Daddy and I married when we were awfully young. We were so happy with you children and our family. But things change. People change. It’s true, Daddy really likes Lila. I think they’ll probably be happy together because they both are architects. So we’re going to get divorced, but that won’t change the way Daddy and I love you.”

“We’ll probably get to see more of Daddy now,” chirped Lacey.

Who were these children? Where did they get these attitudes? “Lacey, I don’t want you to be sad.”

“I don’t think I am sad, Mommy. Lots of kids in my school have divorced parents.” Lacey’s face crinkled with worry. “But I totally hope we don’t have to move. I want to go to the same school. And maybe the court will force Daddy to spend more time with us.”

“Who wants to see more of him?” Jonah said bitterly.

“Have I entered the twenty-fifth century?” Sophie walked around the coffee table and plunked down on the sofa, reaching out to pull her children close to each side. “You two are way too sophisticated for me. I thought you would cry and ask a thousand questions. I’m shocked, frankly, by your reactions.”

“Mom,” said Jonah, “we’re not babies anymore.”

Lacey nodded eagerly. “That’s true. We are not babies anymore.”

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings. That doesn’t mean you aren’t experiencing all kinds of
emotions—sadness,
even grief, that your family is breaking up. Maybe even anger, but really, this divorce isn’t anyone’s fault.”

“So are you going to date that Bulgarian?” Jonah demanded.

Sophie’s head was spinning. “What? Wait. You are moving entirely too fast. Could we focus for a minute on the fact that your father and I are getting divorced?”

Both children went silent. Lacey leaned against her mother, welcoming Sophie’s encircling arm. Jonah sat rigidly, neither pulling away from Sophie’s embrace nor accepting it.

“I don’t know what to say,” Lacey confessed. “I always thought we had a kind of funny family. I mean, Dad is nice, and he’s there for Christmas and our birthdays, but he really likes his work. Lots of dads are that way. Moms, too. I guess I always thought that when I got older, Dad would be more interested in me.”

Sophie’s heart hurt to hear her child say such things. “Oh, sweetie, Daddy has always loved you.”

“I know that, Mom. Jennifer’s dad is like our dad, always working. Michelle’s dad is that way, too.”

“You kids are being champions,” Sophie said. “Still, I think you are going to experience all kinds of feelings about this divorce. You can call your dad or talk to me, or I’ll get a counselor for you if you want to talk to someone outside the family. For sure this divorce is not going to happen with a snap of the fingers. It’s going to change our lives. You may think Daddy hasn’t been there much, but it will feel strange for you when he’s not in the house at all.”

“There are all kinds of families,” said Lacey.

Sophie laughed. “Learned that in a school lecture, did you?” She squeezed her daughter tightly.

“So next you have to tell Grandma,” Jonah said.

“That’s true. Thanks to you, Jonah, you traitor.” Sophie knocked her son lightly on his shoulder.

“Why am I a traitor?” Jonah demanded, suddenly angry.

“It was you who called your grandma. It was you who told her I was kissing another man. She is your father’s mother. He should be the one to tell her about the divorce.”

Jonah pulled away and stood up. “Grandma likes you. And I like Grandma.”

Lacey added quickly, “I do, too. She’s all huggy and sweet. Your mother just orders us around.”

Another emotional knife wound of hurt stabbed Sophie’s heart. “Grandmother is a physician. She saves lives. She’s used to giving orders and taking care of people. She works hard and she’s sensible. She’s quite a different personality from Grandma, but she loves you just as much.”

“When is Grandma coming?” Jonah asked, walking a few steps away.

“This afternoon. And since you called her, you are going to ride out in the car with me to pick her up at the airport. And while we’re at it, Hristo and I were not making out.”

Lacey piped up. “I think it would be cool if you married Hristo. Then Desi and I could be sisters and live in the same house.”

“Honestly, kids, I’m astounded. I bet you’re both hiding feelings, trying to be all grown up and blasé.” Sophie glanced from one child to the other.

“We’ve had years to practice,” murmured Jonah.

Sophie rose and went to her son. She placed her hands on his shoulders and stared into his face. She had to tilt her head back because now he was so tall. “Jonah, you don’t have to be grown up. You don’t have to protect me. I’m still your mother and I want to protect you. I want you to understand that marriages can last. I want you to know that in a way your father and I will always care for each other. Please don’t get all distant and bitter. Promise me you’ll speak with your dad about all this. Promise me you’ll come to me if you ever feel like it’s all too much for you. I’m really okay about all this—I need you both to know this. I’m really okay.”

Jonah looked at his mother, his expression unreadable. “I know you are, Mom. I wish you would believe that when I say it. I’m really okay, too.”

From behind her, Lacey said, “I just got a text from Desi. Can I go to her house today?”

Sophie threw up her hands. “No wonder there are so many television shows about zombies these days. My children are zombies.” But she agreed that their private session was over. Now the day could begin.

Trevor was in the kitchen finishing the breakfast dishes while Leo played underneath the kitchen table. When the Andersons came out of the family room, Leo jumped up and ran to Sophie.

“Can we play piano now?” his son asked.

“Sure,” answered Sophie. She took Leo’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“I’m going to get ready to go to Desi’s house,” Lacey announced as she ran up the stairs.

Jonah didn’t speak, but trudged up the stairs with a face like one of the living dead.

Trevor stood in the door to the music room, listening to his son’s careful scales. Then—he wasn’t sure why—he walked upstairs and stood outside Jonah’s door. He thought he heard muffled crying. He knocked on the door.

“Go away!”

Trevor hesitated, remembered their conversation outside the apartment last night, opened the door, and went in.

Jonah was lying on his bed, his face buried in his pillow. Trevor sat down at the end of the bed and put his hand on Jonah’s ankle.

“So tell me.”

Jonah sat up, pulling his knees to his chest and rubbing his eyes with his fists. “She told us they’re getting divorced. Oh, man, I don’t want to live with that Lila. She’s such a slut. At last year’s Christmas party, she kept bending over to serve me punch so she could give me a good shot of her big boobs. I don’t want to live with that Hristo guy, either. I don’t want to move to Bulgaria.” Jonah’s shoulders shook as he cried.

“You’ve moved from point A to point Z way too quickly,” Trevor said quietly. “The bad news and the good news about something as enormous as divorce is that you have to go through it day by day. Hour by hour. Somewhere I read that human beings are the only creatures to spend the present driving themselves crazy about the future. Think about today. It hasn’t changed. You don’t know what’s going to happen with your father and Lila. And I’m pretty sure your mom’s not going to move you guys to Bulgaria.”

“Well, why is Mom teaching Leo piano when she never tried to teach us?” Jonah demanded.

“I guess the time was right. Or maybe the place. I mean,” Trevor thought with a spark of inspiration, “did you even have a piano in your house?”

“No. But why didn’t she get one?”

“Ask your mother. If she’s ready to play piano, maybe she’s ready to talk about her passion for it.”

Jonah looked up at Trevor with a wry smile on his blotchy face. “You know, dude, you’re a smart guy, but maybe you’ve forgotten no guy likes to hear the words mother and passion in the same sentence.”

“Right. Forgot.” Trevor returned Jonah’s smile, his entire rib cage filling with warmth and pride because this boy was opening up.

“It’s all so complicated,” Jonah said. “I don’t understand. Why do so many people get married only to get divorced?”

Trevor thought about that for a while. “Well, I don’t suppose anyone has the absolute answer to your question. But I kind of think people marry the wrong people to get the right children.”

Jonah squinted his eyes, thinking about what Trevor said. After a while he announced, “I’m going to wait a long time to get married.”

“Good idea.”

“But what if I can’t wait a long time to like a girl?”

“Geez, Jonah, what am I, a Ouija board? I don’t know the answer to everything. You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Jonah got off the bed, grabbed a tissue, and blew his nose. “I’m okay now. I’m gonna go watch TV until it’s time to pick up Grandma.”