As Cisco lowered her arthritic body into the steamy water, she thought about how quiet the house was. Where are the girls? Curled up on one of the beds telling each other their secrets. And she knew there were secrets.
The moment she saw Freddie’s ears perk up she knew Sam was home. Maybe the volunteers in town had gone home for the night? She shrugged. Sam needed to be with his sisters. He was part of the secret, and trouble always came in threes.
Always.
Sara and Hanny were wide-eyed when Sam blasted through the door. Sam never entered a room, he blasted through. “They had the night shift covered. Dad sent me home. Jeez, when was the last time we had a sleepover like this?”
Hanny tugged at the pajamas she was wearing, which were at least six sizes too big for her. Her voice was sad when she said, “The last time was when we wanted to spring Cisco from the assisted-living facility Dad stuck her in. We really pulled together that time.
“Why is Sonia leaving you, Sam?” Hannah asked bluntly.
Sam sat on the floor Indian fashion. “Why don’t we just say I blew it and let it go at that.”
Sara picked up one of the pillows with little purple flowers on it, and said, “Because I don’t believe it. Didn’t you see it coming? You aren’t that dumb.”
Sam hung his head. “Well, guess what, I am that dumb because, no, I did not see it coming. Sonia can’t…she said she couldn’t adjust…to life here in a small town. She wants more. Action! She wants life. Activity. At least that’s what she told me. I told her to do some volunteer work. She misses her parents. She misses her friends from school. I did everything I could. I took her out to dinner three or four times a week. We went to the movies. We went away for weekends. I gave her a good life. She has her own car, I made no demands on her. She had charge cards, and she used them. She wanted a baby right away. I wanted to wait. To answer your question, no, I didn’t see it coming.
“Now that you’ve picked my brain, what’s with you two? I’ve seen misery, and then there’s misery, but nothing like what I’m seeing in you two. You should be sitting on top of the world. Literally.” His voice was so cool and flat his sisters just stared at him.
Sara crunched the pillow even tighter to her chest. “My husband is sitting on top of the world. I’m at the bottom. He is the most-sought-after pediatrician within a hundred-mile radius. He leaves the house at five in the morning and doesn’t get home till midnight. You tell me what kind of life that is for a newly married couple. If I gave Joel an ultimatum, his practice or me, which I would never do, he’d pick his practice. I haven’t had a life for the past year. Yes, I know I married a doctor, and yes, I expected late hours once in a while. But when Joel is home, he spends all his time on the phone checking up on his patients because they’re important to him. I want to be important to him, too. I want to be able to talk about my day, my family, us. He doesn’t want to hear it. I don’t like unsatisfying sex at four o’clock in the morning. On top of that, I think he’s harboring some kind of secret. There, that’s my story.”
Sam and Hanny digested this confession, their eyes glued to their sister. Their heads bobbed up and down to show they understood and that, right or wrong, they were on her side.
Knowing it was now her turn, Hanny burst into tears. “My story is the same as Sara’s. Zack is never home. There are so many demands on his time because he’s such a fine surgeon. He has office hours all the time. I never see him either. But there’s…there’s something else.”
“Oh, my God, you’re pregnant!” Sara squealed.
“I should be so lucky. I think Zack is having an affair, and I think Joel is, too!”
Sara blinked.
Sam’s eyes were so round they looked like balls of blue fire. “Where…how…You’re nuts! Those guys don’t have time to have affairs,” he blustered in his brothers-in-law’s defense.
Sara pushed the pillow into Hanny’s face, and hissed, “You’re lying! Tell us right now, this second, that you’re lying, or Sam won’t have to kill you, I’ll do it myself. This is not funny, Hanny.”
Hanny cried harder.
They were on her then, like white on rice, kissing her and hugging her, saying comforting words none of them would remember later.
“What makes you think such a thing?” Sara finally managed to gasp.
“Tell us,” Sam said.
“Because I hear him whispering on the phone with Joel. Some woman called the house, and when I asked who she was, she refused to identify herself. I’m not stupid. I called the hospital many nights when Zack said he was working. Well, guess what, he wasn’t working, and neither was Joel because I asked. Then I called you, Sara, and you said Joel was on call at the hospital. I tried following Zack one night, but once we hit the interstate, I lost him. He didn’t come home that night until after midnight. On top of that, Zack bought new underwear. Colored. Calvin Klein. I always bought his underwear, and he liked white Fruit of the Loom. Now, what do you have to say?”
Sara swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks. “They say the wife is always the last to know. I can’t believe Joel would do this to me. Are you sure, Hanny? I mean are you really sure?”
“What other explanation can there be? Zack has been so…so secretive these past four months. Every time I ask him what’s wrong, he withdraws or picks a fight. That’s a clue right there. The underwear is the clincher, though. I read in Cosmo about how men start paying attention to their underwear when they have extramarital affairs.”
Sam stared at his sisters, bug-eyed, as he wondered about his wife’s fidelity. He voiced the thought. His sisters glared at him. “Of course it’s the same for women. They buy lacy underwear and get new perfume. That was in Cosmo, too,” Hanny snapped.
Sam started to pace the bedroom. “Why didn’t you confront Zack? Why are you stewing and fretting when you can get it out in the open and deal with it?”
“Why didn’t you confront Sonia instead of believing that cockamamie story she handed you, Sam? Because you don’t like confrontations any more than Sara and I do. If I know for sure, if there is absolutely no doubt in my mind Zack is having an affair, then I have to…do something about it. A divorce is so…so final. I don’t know if I’m ready for such a drastic step.”
“I wish you hadn’t told me this, Hanny,” Sara said, crying into her pillow. “I don’t need this right now. It does explain things, though.”
“The three of us are a mess,” Sara whispered. She reached for the soggy pillow she’d pushed at Hanny earlier and hugged it to her chest. “How did all this happen to us? One day we’re all fine, happy in love, then this whole nightmare. There has to be a black cloud hanging over us. If it was just one of us, it would be different, but it’s all three of us.”
Hannah moved closer to her sister for comfort. “Do you want to hear something weird? The minute I realized Cisco’s house was gone, I didn’t think about Zack and the affair until we came up here to put the sheets on the bed. She is so devastated. I’m so glad she has Ezra. Look, guys, I feel better. I really do. It helped to talk about it.”
“I’m sleeping in here with you guys,” Sam said as he rummaged in the closet for a spare comforter to lay on the floor.
Sara leaned over the side of the bed and crooked her finger at her brother. “No, no, no. You sleep at the bottom of the bed to keep our feet warm. Ezra has the heat turned so low we’re going to freeze.”
It was exactly what Sam did not want to hear. The truth was, he didn’t even want to be there, but they’d been inseparable from the moment they’d learned to walk. He knew in his heart it would always be that way unless he had the guts to change things. Maybe that was what their problem was. Separation anxiety. Being married was a completely different lifestyle, one they obviously hadn’t adjusted to. He voiced the thought aloud, and followed up with, “God, I love her so much.”
“Well you must have done something wrong,” Hard-Hearted Hannah snapped.
“Yeah, like you two did someth
ing wrong that drove your husbands to have affairs,” Sam snapped back.
Hannah stretched out her legs and kicked him off the bed.
They went at it then, the way they always did, until they could make things right, at least in their own minds.
When they finally calmed down, Hannah looked at her sister and brother before she turned off the light. “Not a word of this to Cisco, okay?” Her siblings nodded. “Okay. Night, sleep tight.”
“You’re a sadist,” Sam said as he tried to get comfortable at the foot of the bed. “My life is in ruins, and you tell me to sleep tight. You both know damn well we aren’t going to sleep, so why are we doing this? Let’s go downstairs and get something to eat. I’ll fry the eggs, and you can make the cocoa, Sara. What do you say?”
“Best offer I’ve had all day. Now that you mention it, I didn’t eat today. I meant to get a hot dog but got sidetracked. Come on, Hanny, hustle.”
Hannah hustled. Life was suddenly looking just a tad brighter.
Cisco sat up in bed when she heard the Trips tiptoeing down the hallway. She got up to let Freddie out. She debated following the dog downstairs but decided not to. Something was up with her beloved Trips. Something they didn’t want her to know about. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected it was serious. She would wait. If they needed her, they wouldn’t be shy about asking for her help.
She turned off the light and folded her pillow under her head. Now, there in the darkness, with Ezra sound asleep, she could cry for her loss.
Chapter Three
DR. ZACK KELLY WAS RELIEVED WHEN HE ENTERED the doctors’ lounge to see that it was empty. A half-full pot of coffee sat on the burner. It looked black as coal. He had no doubt in his mind that it would be thick as mud. He passed it up, as well as the dried-out sugar donuts. A glance at his watch told him it was 9:50 P.M.
It was supposed to have been an early day. A day when he could have gone home at three-thirty. Weeks ago he’d arranged to have a fellow doctor take over his afternoon and early evening shift so he could take his wife out for a romantic dinner and possibly a movie. It was time to make peace with Hannah and confess to buying the boat. But ten o’clock this morning, Hanny had called and said she was going with Sam and Sara to New Jersey to visit their mother’s grave. There was no way he wanted to interfere with that trip, so he said nothing about his plans for the evening. Then at noon, things had gone awry, with a bad car accident on the interstate, in which one of the passengers in the four-car pileup suffered trauma to both his eyes. After that it was a free-for-all.
At the moment he was so tired he couldn’t see straight. And, he was starved. For one brief moment he debated the pros and cons of sleeping at the hospital. With Hanny gone, what was the point of going home? He heaved himself out of the comfortable chair to shrug into his down jacket. He needed to go home, even if the house was empty.
The door opened just as he was about to reach for the knob. “Well, howdy, pardner,” he drawled.
Dr. Joel Wineberg grimaced as he bent down to take off his pointy-toed cowboy boots. His ten-gallon hat sailed across the room with his neckerchief. Joel always dressed up for his patients. It was probably one of the reasons he was so popular with the youngsters, and their parents as well. “I was Darth Vader yesterday. What the hell are you still doing here, Zack? I thought this was your early day. All those kids in that accident are going to make it. Thank God.”
“Yeah, well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men. We had the same emergency you did around noon, and it was downhill all the way after that. I am bushed. Wanna grab a pizza and beer at Molino’s?”
“I’m your man. I think I had a muffin this morning and a lollipop around three. I’m in no hurry to go home. I’ll follow you. Do you have any idea what triggered the Trips’ visit to New Jersey? Kind of spur-of-
the-moment if you want my opinion. Do you think they’re up to something?”
Zack leered at his friend. “You mean are they harboring a deep, dark secret like we are, and they went to New Jersey to buy guns so they could shoot us both. Yeah.”
Joel grimaced as he picked up his ten-gallon hat and plopped it on his head.
Fifteen minutes later both men slid into a booth at the popular watering hole all the doctors and nurses frequented after-hours. It was almost empty, though. Within seconds they gave their order to a tired waitress, who just wanted to go home. “A large pizza with the works, skip the anchovies, and two Bud Lites,” Zack said.
Joel stared across the booth at his friend. “Did Hanny call?”
“If you want to call it that. She left a message around ten. I tried calling her back, but her cell phone must be off. I don’t even know where they’re staying. Do you?”
“At least you got a call. Sara didn’t call me, she called my nurse and she left a message with her. I checked the messages at home, too.”
Zack’s voice sounded lame when he said, “I guess they’re too busy for chitchat.”
Joel’s eyes popped at Zack’s words. “You mean busy like we’re busy or wanting to appear busy in order to make a point.”
“Take your pick.” Zack reached for the Bud and guzzled half of it in one gulp. Joel did the same thing. “I might have four more of these since I’m off tomorrow. Really off. It took me weeks to convince Stevens to take over for me. I promised him Knicks tickets for this weekend. I was going to surprise Hanny.
“Hell, I never even got a chance to tell her.” He guzzled the remainder of the beer and thumped the red, Formica-topped table for another. Joel did the same thing.
“I’m off, too. What are we going to do, Zack?”
“Nurse our hangovers and complain to each other about what jerks we are. We are, you know. What did those two wonderful girls see in us, Joel?”
“We’re good-lookin’. We’re successful doctors. The possibility looms out there that one day we may discover a cure for something. We’re caring individuals. And we clean up good.
“Oh, yeah, we’re sneaky, and we told a few little fibs to our wives. Did I forget anything?”
“If we’re such hot stuff, how come you and I are sitting here swigging beer and waiting for pizza while our wives go to New York to shop. Shop my ass. They used that excuse about going to the cemetery because it sounded good. They’re going shopping. Those triplets are up to something. I know it as sure as I’m sitting here. I bet you they’re talking to some fancy New York lawyer who charges seven hundred dollars an hour about divorcing us.” Zack thumped his bottle on the tabletop again. Joel did the same thing. More beer arrived with the pizza.
Joel felt light-headed. The beer was going right to his head. “Oh yeah, well, I’ll…I’ll contest it. So there. Love has to count for something.” He picked up a slice of pizza, chomped down, and immediately burned his tongue. He dropped the pizza, the topping sliding down his shirt. He yelped at the burning sensation on his chest.
“Stop being such a baby, Joel. Suck it up. I’m a doctor. When we get home, I’ll put some burn ointment on it. You aren’t going to die.”
Joel squinted at his friend. “You are a callous bastard! How do you know I won’t die? People die from burns all the time.”
“I’m not happy, Joel.”
“Well, guess what, Zack, I’m not happy either. We’re also getting drunk, so we shouldn’t be talking about something so important when we’re in this condition. We should have confessed a long time ago, but you said not till we had all our certificates in hand. Well, we passed all our courses, and where are the damn certificates?”
“Shut up, Joel. Just eat the damn pizza so we can go home.
“How could you forget, Joel? I told you yesterday that Marylee called and will hand-deliver our certificates tomorrow evening. Then she called back and said she wasn’t sure if the certificates would be ready or not. I already committed to dinner, so we’re stuck, with or without the certificates. So we eat out again, what difference does it make? I no longer remember what a home-cook
ed meal tastes like.” Zack heaved a sigh of frustration. “Since we are both drunk, I say we get a cab, and you bunk at my house since I live closer than you do. We could go to New York tomorrow.”
Joel shoved half a slice of pizza into his mouth and chewed, his eyes crossed as he tried to digest what his friend said. “You go. Hanny didn’t use the D word with you. Yet. I’m not stepping on Sara’s toes. You think about this, you eye surgeon. What happens if the three of them gang up on us. It won’t be pretty. They’re tough! Remember how they beat each other up that Christmas we met them. They were bloodied and black-and-blue. And we still thought they were beautiful. I’m afraid of them,” he said pitifully.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Okay, we won’t go to New York. It would be a waste of time anyway since they’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll stay home and hatch a plan to make them want us.”
“You must be drunk. They hate our guts! What kind of plan?” Joel asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know. We have to hatch one. We’ll come up with something. Trust me.”
The owner of Molino’s, who also doubled as the bartender, suddenly appeared at their table. “Come on, Docs, I’m driving you home. It’s closing time, and I don’t want you giving my place a bad name.”
Zack looked up at the chubby man, then he looked around and didn’t see anyone but the tired waitress. “No one is here, Mo.”
“News travels fast in the medical community, Doc. Upsy-daisy. You can pay me tomorrow. Come on now, let’s do it the easy way. My wife is waiting for me.”
“You hear that, Joel. This fine man’s fine wife is waiting for him.” He fixed his bleary gaze on Mo, and said, “I hate you.”
Joel stumbled out of the booth. “Yeah, I hate you, too, because he hates you.”
“Tomorrow you’ll love me. Zip up those jackets, it’s cold out there.”
Family Blessings (Cisco Family) Page 4