A Place Called Home

by Jo Goodman

  Thea put the figurative brakes to her thoughts when she recognized they were not taking her anywhere she wanted to go.

  Coming out of her reverie, she experienced several disorienting moments. She could not immediately identify her surroundings. Nothing about the landscape seemed familiar and she tried to think if she had missed her exit, projecting the image of the landmarks she should be seeing against the ones she was. When the Volvo completed a wide turn on the highway and Thea was confronted by the sign ahead of her, she finally realized she hadn’t passed her exit but taken the one before it. Connaugh Creek was now only fifteen miles north of where she was. It was not particularly surprising, she thought, that her preoccupation on the subject of neglect should lead her to take this route. This, at least, was a place she was willing to go.

  Activating her phone with the button on her steering wheel, Thea called Mitch. There was no answer and she couldn’t think of any message she wanted to leave, so she hung up. Glancing at the clock, she realized Mitch and the children were probably all at church. By the time she reached their house, they would be getting out. It only took Thea a moment to decide to go on.

  She parked in front of the house and kept the engine idling so she could have heat. Again and again her eyes strayed to the rearview mirror in anticipation of their arrival. She had no idea what she would say when she saw them; her mind remained a blank in that regard. She stopped trying to rehearse something in favor of letting things play out as they would. Maybe Mitch would think tongue-tied was charming.

  Thea’s concentration on the view behind her was such that she was blindsided. The tap on the passenger window made her jump in her seat.

  “Sorry,” Mitch said.

  Thea was not given to dramatic gestures so the hand she placed over her heart was truly meant to keep it in her chest. She leaned back in her seat slowly; her head swiveled toward the window. Mitch did not look particularly apologetic. In fact, he looked as if he were trying to keep from laughing. Behind his glasses, his eyes were bright and there was the faint hint of amusement in the line of his mouth. Thea found the button for the passenger-side window and pressed it. “Where did you come from?” She winced as she realized how accusing she sounded. “I mean,” she said more gently, “where did you come from?”

  Grinning openly now, Mitch leaned into the open space. He used one thumb to point over his shoulder. “I live here, remember? Why didn’t you get out and ring the bell?”

  “I didn’t think anyone was here. I was waiting for you and the kids to get home from church.”

  “I’m playing hooky again this week, trying to get some work done. Mum and Dad have the kids.” His brow creased momentarily. “That was you on the phone? Four rings, no message?”

  She nodded. “Do you mind?” she asked. “Is it all right that I’m here?”

  “It’s more than all right. It’s perfect.” He made a gesture that indicated the interior of the Volvo. “Unless you don’t want to go car shopping with us. That’s what we have on the agenda today. The kids are kind of looking forward to it.”

  “Then that’s fine.”

  “Great. Turn off your car and come in. It’ll be about ten more minutes before they get here. There’s no sense in waiting out here.”

  Thea rolled up the window and depressed the ignition button. Mitch waited for her to get out and come around the car, and then he walked with her into the house. Thea joined him in removing her shoes in spite of his protest that she didn’t have to. “I was riding this morning,” she told him. “Trust me, you don’t want what I might have on them tracked on your carpets.”

  Mitch took her jacket and regarded her jeans and cable-knit sweater with some skepticism. “Riding? I thought people like you wore those funny balloon pants when they rode.”

  “Jodhpurs.”

  “Yeah. Balloon pants.”

  “I do when I want to amuse people like you.”

  He grinned and closed the closet door. “Let’s go in the kitchen. Can I get you something to drink? I have orange juice in a carton. You don’t have to work for it.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Mitch went to the refrigerator and removed the carton. He hefted it once in his hand, making certain he really had something to offer, then poured her a glass. “Here you go.”

  Thea accepted the glass and sat down at the table. She thought she would feel uncomfortable in his kitchen, the site of that disturbing kiss, but the only thing that disturbed her was how uncommonly comfortable she felt. “You don’t have to entertain me,” she said. “Go back to your work if you like.”

  “I don’t like.” Mitch picked up his coffee mug and joined her at the table. “I was taking a break when I saw you sitting in your car. Now it will be a longer one. I’m working ahead anyway.”

  “Isn’t that a little risky for a political cartoonist? I thought your work had to be timely to be effective.”

  “A day or two ahead doesn’t usually catch me off guard. A catastrophic event, something like a terrorist attack, for instance, is immediately in the public’s conscious and requires a timely response, but satirizing or commenting on broader issues, say, partisan politics or this administration’s domestic policy, doesn’t necessarily require the same reaction time. In fact, sometimes the public needs a few days to assimilate an issue so the cartoon’s point of view makes sense to them. They don’t have to agree, but they do have to understand the context.”

  “You like your work, don’t you?”

  Her question surprised him because of the hint of a pensive quality in her voice. Until just this moment Mitch would have put money down on the fact that he and Thea Wyndham enjoyed their careers equally. Now he suspected it would have been a sucker’s bet. “I’m very happy doing what I do.”

  Expecting that answer, Thea nodded. “It shows—in your work and in the way you talk about it.” Before he could ask her about advertising at Foster and Wyndham, she changed the subject. “Will Gina be looking for cars with us?”

  “On a Sunday? Never. Sundays are reserved for open houses. I think she has three scheduled today. She’ll be with clients, pitching their homes to prospective buyers all afternoon and probably into the evening.” Turning the discussion to Gina and real estate reminded Mitch that he still hadn’t apologized for his boorish behavior the night before. He regarded Thea frankly. “One of these days I’m going to learn that if I didn’t behave badly I wouldn’t be saying I’m sorry so often.”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “I’m talking about last night. I was not exactly the Good Humor Man. Gina would say I was a regular pain in the ass, but then she doesn’t like to mince words.” He lifted his coffee mug, shrugging slightly in the same motion. “Soooo,” he said on a sigh, “I’m apologizing. Again.”

  Thea smiled. “I’m not keeping score.”

  “Good.”

  “Not on the number of apologies,” she said. “I like to judge them in terms of form and degree of contrition.”

  “How’d I do?”

  “Not bad. I give it a seven.”

  He laughed. “I hope that’s on a ten scale. I lost points for my late delivery, didn’t I?”

  She nodded. “You appeared properly abashed but there was a certain lack of responsibility in your language. For instance, backhandedly describing yourself as ‘not exactly the Good Humor Man,’ instead of saying you were surly, and using terms that Gina would use, rather than acknowledging the ass thing yourself.”

  “Wow. There’s a lot to this judging stuff.”

  Both of Thea’s brows lifted. “Hmmm.”

  Mitch laughed again at her butter-wouldn’t-melt expression and he realized quite suddenly how glad he was that she showed up. On the heels of that thought it occurred to him that she had never explained her presence. “So what brings you here?” he asked. “Not that I’m not grateful for the help today. Until you showed up I was going to have to take my mother’s minivan out to the car lots. Frankly, it was killing me.”
>
  Thea gave him a quick, unaffected grin, the corners of her wide mouth lifting in appreciation. A single man who owned a restored Chevy truck and an Indian was understandably reluctant to get behind the wheel of a vehicle that symbolized family values, suburban settlement, and carpooling commitments. If it didn’t kill him, he would at the very least be shaken. “Then I’m glad I was moved by impulse,” she said. “I don’t have a better explanation than that.”

  Mitch lifted his mug toward Thea. “To impulse.”

  She touched the mug with her glass and drank. “So why are you looking for a new car now?”

  “I don’t want to keep depending on Gina,” he said. It was not a lie but it was limited as far as explanations went. “It isn’t fair to her. The kids love her SUV, though. The banana car is all that and then some as far as they’re concerned.”

  “Understandable. What are you looking for?”

  “Something big enough to hold us comfortably that is not a minivan.”

  “Put a sidecar on your Indian.”

  “Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me,” he said dryly. “I’m open to most of the possibilities. The kids get a vote and I have the veto.”

  “How presidential.” She hesitated a moment, uncertain how to pose her question without insulting him. Her lips pressed together as she mulled it over.

  “What is it?” he asked, reading her expression.

  Thea glanced at him. “Well, I was wondering ... since you have to buy this car because the children are living with you ... I’d like to help you finance it.”

  Mitch paused deliberately before he answered. He knew her offer was sincerely meant, but he couldn’t help feeling that she didn’t think he was able to provide for the kids on his own. “It’s been a long time since I needed a cosigner for a loan,” he said finally.

  She reached across the table to touch him but let her hand fall short of the mark as she realized what she was about to do. “I wasn’t thinking you needed help, Mitch. I was only thinking that I’d like to help. I’m not making this offer to salve a guilty conscience.” Thea watched Mitch’s brows rise another notch above the thin frames of his glasses as he greeted this statement with skepticism. “All right,” she admitted, “not entirely because of that. My other reason is pretty straightforward: I want to provide for the children, too. I hope you’re not going to deny me that at every turn.”

  Mitch’s eyes narrowed faintly as he considered what she’d said. He studied her unshuttered expression and concluded that she was in earnest. Her hesitation in broaching the subject reminded him of how he had reacted to a similar offer at Wayne’s office. It took some courage for her to bring it up to him again, especially since his instinct was to respond in exactly the same way. “Look, Thea,” he said quietly, “if it’s a choice between the kids seeing you or you helping to support them, then I’m going to pick the former. The kids will, too.”

  Her eyes widened. “No! No, it’s not like that. Not one or the other. I understand why you don’t believe me, but I’m not setting this up as a choice. I want to do both.”

  Mitch believed she meant it, but he was not as certain as Thea that she could follow through. “What does Joel think?”

  There was a slight pause, then, “Joel supports what I want to do.”

  Which wasn’t precisely an answer to his question, Mitch realized. He let it go because if Joel supported her, it didn’t really matter what he thought about her decision. Outside, Mitch heard a car pull into the driveway. “Let’s see what kind of cost I get into with the car,” he said, getting to his feet. “There’s insurance money from Gabe and Kathy’s accident. Their vehicle was totaled. I think Wayne said I could expect a few thousand from that.”

  Thea wanted to protest that he was missing the point, but he was already moving away from the table to the side entrance. She had also heard the car and knew it signaled the kids’ arrival. What remained of their discussion would have to wait until they were sequestered in a cubicle at the car dealer’s.

  Thea got as far as the hallway when Emilie rushed in. The little girl threw her arms around Thea and hugged her hard. “I knew you’d come back,” she said, her face buried against Thea’s thick sweater. “I told them you would.” Emilie released her hold and looked up at Thea, her expression solemn. “You promised to do my nails.”

  It was the perfect reminder of how important it was to keep promises, even those hastily made. Thea felt something stir inside her, an anxiousness that came with the weight of the responsibility she was accepting, and conversely, a lightening in the region of her heart that felt very much like joy. She could not remember ever having such a keen awareness of opposing feelings, let alone being able to manage them both.

  “Why are you smiling?” asked Emilie.

  “Because you make me happy,” said Thea. And scare me to death. “I have the polish with me. It’s in my glove box. Come on. We’ll get it out of my car.” Thea got her purse and she and Emilie headed outside. The twins and Mitch were still in the driveway talking to Mitch’s parents. Mitch was standing by the driver’s side listening to what his father was saying while Case and Grant hovered by Mrs. Baker’s window, holding out their hands for loose change from the bottom of her purse.

  Mitch glanced at Thea as she walked out. “Here she is,” he said to his dad. “Thea? You remember my father?”

  “Of course.” She handed her purse to Emilie and gestured toward her car. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Baker.” Thea held her hand out to him. “It’s been a long time.”

  Bill Baker reached through the open window and took Thea’s hand. “So how’s my favorite redhead?”

  “After Lucy, you mean.”

  “Goes without saying.”

  Thea laughed. “I’m well, thank you. And you?”

  “I’m not complaining.” He released Thea’s hand and cocked his head toward his wife. “I leave that to Jennie.”

  “I suppose a good marriage needs a division of labor.”

  “Exactly.”

  Thea was beginning to feel the cold seep in through her sweater but she bent lower to look in the window and greet Mitch’s mother. “Hello, Mrs. Baker.”

  Jennie shooed the twins away, closed the window, and swiveled in Thea’s direction, all with the fluid motion of a woman used to doing several things at once. “I thought that was your car,” she said. “I told Bill it was as soon as we turned the corner. How are you, dear?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  Bill rolled his eyes. “She’s shivering, Jennie. Let’s let her get back in the house. You can grill Mitch later.”

  Jennie gave her husband a playful slug in the arm. “I don’t grill my son,” she told Thea.

  Behind her, Thea thought she heard Mitch snort. “I’m going to the car dealers with them,” she explained, trying to save Mitch the third degree later. “My Volvo’s been commandeered. Apparently Mitch has some issues with your minivan.”

  Bill grunted in agreement. “Don’t I know it. That’s Jennie’s car. Which is why, since we’re going antiquing today, and I’m driving, we’re in this one.”

  Thea suspected from the way Bill said it, that he and Jennie had been over that ground earlier in the day.

  Jennie pulled a face. “Don’t you listen to him,” she said. “We’re not in the van for one reason only, and that’s because he thinks I can’t buy anything bigger than a breadbox if we can’t haul it home. What? He thinks I don’t know about UPS?”

  Thea gave a start as Mitch’s hand lightly wrapped itself around the nape of her neck and applied gentle pressure to get her to step back from the car.

  “Trust me,” he said. “You don’t want to get involved in this.” Releasing her, he took her place at the window. “Have a good time,” he said. “Love you both. Don’t spend my inheritance.” He straightened, tapped the hood, and his father took his cue to put the car in reverse and back out of the driveway. Mitch waved at his mother who waved back gaily and blew kisses to the
twins and Emilie. “That was close,” he told Thea. “They almost had you.”

  Thea wasn’t entirely sure what Mitch’s parents had wanted her for but she knew he was right. “Then, thank you.”

  “If you really understood, your thanks would be a lot warmer than that.” He placed his hand on the small of her back and gave her a nudge toward the house. “Inside. Before you freeze. C’mon, guys. Everyone in.”

  Emilie and the boys needed no further encouragement. Case and Grant raced inside, Sunday school papers flapping in their hands. Emilie followed a little more slowly, holding Thea’s purse above her head like the Stanley Cup.

  “What’s she doing?” Mitch asked.

  “I promised to paint her nails the last time I was here,” Thea said. “And I never got around to it. I let her get the polish out of my car. I suppose she put it in my purse. We have time, don’t we?”

  “Sure. I’m going to make them lunch first. You can do it then.”

  Thea and Emilie retired to Emilie’s room for girl talk and a manicure while Mitch made sandwiches and the twins played cars on the carpet road map in the living room. Emilie flashed her neon pink fingertips for everyone to admire during lunch. She had a hard time eating and watching her nails at the same time. Each time she raised her sandwich she went a little cross-eyed.

  The children piled into Thea’s Volvo as soon as the dishwasher was loaded. Thea pointed Mitch in the direction of the driver’s side door. “You know where you want to go,” she said. “There’s no sense in me driving.”

  Mitch accepted the duty gratefully and slid behind the wheel. “Thanks,” he told her. “I appreciate this.”

  Thea just smiled and leaned back, enjoying having someone else in the driver’s seat. They drove out of town to a strip of car dealers on the main throughway. At each location they spilled out of the car and began a search of the lot. Thea realized that Mitch had not been kidding when he said he was open to just about anything. They looked at American cars and foreign models, high-end and low-end in terms of cost and features. Thea showed the boys how to kick the tires while Mitch rolled his eyes; later she questioned salesmen as to why there were no cars in a color that matched Emilie’s nail polish. Each time Mitch caught the gist of their conversation he buried his head under the hood of the nearest showroom vehicle and investigated engine mounting.