by Lynn Murphy
“Don’t waste your time. John hated Alise. Almost as much as she hated him. Talk to Kel. That’s who you should be talking to. Figure out a way to get the story written by Monday. We need to put out this fire. They’ll be home this weekend.”
“I’m aware of that Bobby. I talk to Kel almost every day.”
“Yes, well maybe you shouldn’t. I hired you to cover his campaign, not to date him.” He stormed out of the room. Ouch, she thought. If Bobby was this angry, she wondered what her father was thinking right now.
Being at home, Kel thought, was supposed to be relaxing, but in some ways this weekend was turning out to be as stressful, if not more, than being on the road. He had been besieged by reporters the last three days asking questions about Tara. At an informal town meeting style debate with the other two contenders, every question he was asked was about her, most of them implied that the relationship was staged and one asked outright if he intended to marry her before or after the election. Ever since he had walked into George and Lily’s house he had been in debates with Bobby over the coverage of his romance, listened to Tara rant about an over aggressive photographer who had even followed her into the restroom at the Newsworthy offices, and had been cornered by Janet to pin down wedding details. His head was pounding but it had nothing to do with his insulin levels.
Debby had joined him and Janet and was trying to push Janet to serve her food choices and Janet was pleading with him to tell Debby why that choice was unacceptable. He looked across the room and Tara and Bobby were in a heated conversation. John came over to where he was and asked him a question about the debate that would be the next evening in Boston. It was all he could take. At that particular moment, he had simply had enough.
“I can’t do this anymore!” He wasn’t aware how loud he had made that comment. The whole family went silent collectively and stared at him.
“What can’t you do, Kel?” John asked. He laid a calming hand on Kel’s arm and Kel shrugged him away.
“Any of it. Not this wedding, this relationship, not the campaign. I just can’t do any of it.” Without looking at any of them he stormed out of the house, got into his vintage yellow Jaguar convertible and drove away, fast.
Skip asked John, “Are we or are we not going to Boston?”
John said, “I’ll have to get back to you on that Skip.”
Tara turned to Bobby and said, “I’m resigning, effective now. I loved working for Newsworthy and I’m sorry I can’t work a notice, but I just can’t.” She fled from the room and raced up the stairs.
Lily crossed the room to Bobby and said, “Where is she going?”
Bobby looked stunned. “She just resigned. I never suggested she resign.”
Lily hurried up the stairs and found Tara packing her suitcases. “Darling, where are you going?”
Tara hugged Lily. “I don’t know. But I can’t stay. I’ve loved being here with you, but I can’t do this anymore either. Kel made it quite clear that he’s done with us. Bobby won’t let up on the story about Alise. I’ll just go home and look for a job, I guess.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“I know, but I think its best.” Lily helped her pack and then said, “I don’t care what Bobby or Kel think. You are welcome here anytime. I’m going downstairs and see what everyone else is doing and you can slip out the back.” They hugged again.
Lily went into the living room and said, “Well, this is quite a mess you’ve all created.”
Janet was sobbing on the sofa while Kimberly and Alan tried to console her, Bobby and Debby sat apart from everyone else, John paced back and forth and Skip leaned against against a wall, Ross and George were talking quietly. Jim was sitting at the piano, but not playing. Molly came and stood by Lily. “Is Tara really gone?”
“Yes, I’m afraid she is.” She turned to oldest son. “John Lansing, what are you going to do to make everything all right again?”
John said, “Mother what makes you think I can fix everybody’s problems?”
“At least you can go find Kel.”
“Great, I don’t even know where he went and I doubt he’ll be taking calls right now.”
George said, “John, just go try to find him. There aren’t that many places he’d go.”
John looked at his parents for a moment and went to go look for Kel.
Tara drove down Ocean Avenue and took in the glorious view one last time. She had no idea where she was going. She had no flights scheduled. She just wanted to be out of Newport. She realized it was the first time she hadn’t been followed by a photographer in weeks. She drove out of the city limits and pulled over, and thought, “What should I do, Lord?” And almost as soon as she asked the thought came. Call Mary Katherine and Evan.
She took out her phone and made the call. Mary Katherine answered.
She hoped she wasn’t catching her in the middle of a chemo treatment, but she decided Evan would have answered in that case.
“Kel and I are done, and I quit my job and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Mary Katherine said without hesitating, “Come stay with us.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m completely sure. I’m scheduled for the last treatment on Thursday and Casey has exams she’s pretending she doesn’t have to study for. How far are you going tonight?” It was a seven hour drive.
“I’ll drive as far as Philly tonight. I’ll drive in there sometime tomorrow morning.”
“Good. I have tons of media connections. We’ll find you a job.”
“Thank you.” Tara told herself she would not cry. Resolutely she punched in the Jones’ address in her GPS and started driving toward Washington.
John found Kel’s car in the driveway of his house after about an hour of driving around. The front door was unlocked, so he let himself in and walked through the bottom floor and when he didn’t see Kel, he headed upstairs. He was out on the balcony of the master bedroom, looking out over the bay. A thunderstorm was rolling in from a distance. Kel had designed the house to have this view from the bedroom. John stepped out on the balcony and leaned on the railing beside him.
“You left a lot of things unsettled Kel.”
Kel almost smiled. “And Lily sent you find me and fix it all.”
John laughed softly. “Mother just wants everyone to be happy.”
“So, the general assessment of the aftermath of my temper tantrum?”
John sighed. “Janet was sobbing hysterically when I left and Tara resigned and packed her bags. I guess when you said you couldn’t do the relationship any longer she took your word for it.”
Kel said, “She’s already gone?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess I ended that.”
John hesitated, and then said, “Are you sure you want to just accept its over?
“If she can’t handle it now, then how could I expect her to handle the White House?”
“I thought you had just quit your bid for the White House.”
Kel sighed. “Yeah, about that. I don’t think we can just quit now.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“What do I do about Janet?”
“She doesn’t really want you to make all the decisions, she and Lily will do that. She just wants you to be involved, she just wants to talk to you about her wedding the way she’s always talked about everything else important with you. Why don’t you bring her along with us for a week, then she’ll have some time alone with you.”
“It occurred to me while I was waiting on you to show up that I don’t have a clue what Jim’s been doing either. I manage to catch him on the phone about once a week and that’s not enough.”
“So he gets to campaign a little too. Since you don’t have a wife, let them see you with your children. Let them speak for you.”
“And Tara?”
“I don’t know. I just have a feeling that maybe that chapter’s not finished yet.”
“I told her at the very beg
inning that she had to decide if she could handle all of it-the public life, the politics, the diabetes. I guess she made her choice. She didn’t even try to fight for us.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes. But I seem destined to spend my life tilting at windmills and chasing rainbows.”
John said, “I compared Alise to Dulcinea, not Tara. I actually think Tara might be good for you.”
The sun was setting over the water and Kel wondered where she had gone. He hoped she was okay. He said a quick silent prayer for her safety. He wanted to call her, but decided that it was better not to. “I never talked to her about Alise. I think she has this idea that I’ve been carrying a torch for my late wife all these years.” “I wonder where she got that idea.” John said and they both knew he meant Bobby and Debby.
Kel was silent and watched the rest of the sunset. He realized he’d been wasting time long enough and there were some fences to mend with his family. He wasn’t sure right now what he was going to do about Tara, but he wasn’t going to take any action on that tonight. “Let’s go, John . I have some things to take care of.”
Tara checked into a hotel in Philadelphia and went to her room. She ordered room service and sat on the bed and pondered the events of the last several hours. She had argued with Kel about the photographer, and now she regretted bringing that up. She had contributed to his blowup, but she couldn’t forget him clearly saying that one of the things he couldn’t do anymore was ‘this relationship.’ This relationship. The way he’d said it still hurt. As if it was just an irritation that he would rather not deal with. Something that could just be discarded. She had saved him the trouble by quitting her job without notice and packing her bags and running away. She had reacted to his words without waiting to see if he meant them. But he didn’t come after me and he didn’t try to call. She turned on the television and flipped through the channels. Her dinner came and she watched a movie as she ate, and because there was no reason to stay awake, went to bed fairly early.
Evan came home from the hospital and found Mary Katherine on the sofa in the living room reading. She smiled at him as he came and sat beside her. “How was your day, dear?”
“Very busy. Lots of appointments. I didn’t know I had that many regular patients.”
“You are the great physician,” Mary Katherine said.
“That was St. Luke in the Bible,” Evan said, laying down and putting his feet up and his head in her lap. “and I’m hardly a saint.”
“You are in my book,” she said. “So, what’s for dinner?”
“Oh and I thought it was your turn to decide,” Evan said.
“And I’m sure it was yours,” she said, twisting a lock of his hair.
He looked up at her with a boyish grin and a twinkle in his blue eyes. “Pretty sure I did dinner last night.”
“That was definitely me.”
“Okay, but we’re going to order from somewhere that delivers because I’m not going out anywhere tonight. One of us really should have learned how to cook. It’s a wonder we haven’t starved to death over the last twenty years.”
They finally decided on pizza and an antipasto salad and Evan went upstairs to change clothes. Mary Katherine had the food spread on the coffee table and had poured them both a drink by the time he came downstairs.
“Sometimes I wonder why we even have a dining room,” he said, picking up his plate and settling on the couch again.
“Enough about our culinary lapses,” Mary Katherine said. “I made a decision today without consulting you.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said.
She smiled. It wouldn’t. “Tara called me late this afternoon and said that she and Kel were done, not sure what that means, and that she had quit her job and didn’t have a clue where she was going next. So I invited her to stay with us.”
“When is she coming?”
“She’ll be here tomorrow . But I got the impression that she didn’t want anyone to know she was here, at least not Kel. And I know you’ll be talking to him.”
“I won’t volunteer the information, but if he asks me outright if I’ve heard from her, I won’t lie,” Evan said.
“Fair enough.”
“I wonder why they broke up. I was really hoping it would turn into something permanent. She seemed perfect for him.”
“I hoped so too. I looked at some of the photos I took of them after she called and even in those you can see how attracted they are to each other.”
“There was that,” Evan admitted, “but she seemed so willing to take on the other stuff too.”
“Maybe she’ll tell us.”
“Or maybe Kel will.”
Kel stood on the balcony again and stared at the moonlight streaming over the water. The last time he had stood here at the end of a relationship he had felt defeated and crushed, but he had managed to crawl back up and go on. Tonight he didn’t feel betrayed but he was overcome with an acute sense of sadness and loneliness. Several times he’d picked up the phone to call her, but changed his mind. He had, he had to admit, become as the song said, accustomed to her face. To the sound of her voice and her laugh. He would miss the playfulness that their relationship had brought to his life. He would miss the anticipation of seeing her again and of what the future might bring. He had allowed himself to think that they might have a future together and in the span of three minutes it had all ended. Rash actions on both their parts, fueled by stress of circumstances that had gotten out of control. The right song at the wrong time, he thought, and then wondered why phrases of songs always came to him in times like this. I said something I shouldn’t have, he thought, and then I didn’t take it back. He had at least been able to assure everyone that the campaign was still on and then worked out a plan to have each of his children spend a week on the campaign with for some much needed one on one time. He knew he had really blown it with Tara and wondered if there was any hope of salvaging what they had. He resolved to give it a little time and then see if could figure out some way to win her forgiveness. He really had to, because he had, in the last few hours realized one thing. He was very much in love with her.
Chapter Seventeen
Tara was in the kitchen when Casey let herself in Evan and Mary Katherine’s house. She stepped out to greet her and Casey followed her back into the kitchen. Casey gave her a hug. “So what happened?
“A lot of things, I guess. Kel said he couldn’t handle the relationship and threatened to quit his campaign, I panicked, resigned from my job and ran away.”
“Have you talked to Kel since?”
Tara sighed. “No. And he hasn’t called me either.”
“I hate that. I thought we were going to get to keep you in the family.”
Tara hugged her again. “Thanks. It’s nice that you wanted me.”
Casey saw that Tara had fixed a glass of ice water and one of iced tea. “How is she today?”
Tara shook her head. “Not very good. The doctor told them it would be a stronger dose since it’s the last one and she’s been really sick. But then I don’t have anything to compare it to. Maybe you can be a better judge of that. Evan is so patient and gentle with her, isn’t he?”
“That’s why his patients love him, that extraordinary bedside manner. That’s the main reason he became so close to the family. When Kel was in his coma, Dad says he sat with them almost nonstop and prayed for Kel. He and Dad and Ross all became very close in that week. But I think he’s even more caring with Mary Katherine.”
“Evan seems very sure of himself and his own abilities, but he never comes across as arrogant.” Tara picked up both glasses.
“No. He’s a lot like Kel in that way.”
Tara smiled sadly. “Yes. He is. Come see how she’s doing and tell me if it’s worse or about the same.”
They went upstairs and quietly entered the bedroom. Mary Katherine lay on her side on the bed, while Evan sat next to her and gently stroked her hair. It was an image Casey had
gotten all to use to and would be glad to be done with. She went to the side of the bed and placed a kiss on the top of Mary Katherine’s head and leaned across her to kiss Evan’s cheek. Then she pulled the ottoman up close and sat down and took Mary Katherine’s hand. Tara sat down the glasses on the bedside table and left the three of them alone.
Casey asked Evan, “How are we doing today?”
Evan answered, “It’s been pretty intense so far. This is the worst it’s been, but at least after this we’re done.”
Casey wondered if he was certain of that or just being positive for Mary Katherine’s sake, but didn’t dare ask.
Mary Katherine was so pale that her skin looked almost transparent.. She seemed too tired to talk. Evan told her that she needed to try and drink some water and lifted her while Casey held the glass for her. Then, as even sipping water was too much of an effort, she sank back down on the bed and closed her eyes.
When it was obvious that she had fallen asleep, Evan slipped off the bed and walked to look out the window. A thunderstorm was rolling in and he stood there watching it. When he didn’t turn around for several minutes, Casey went and stood beside him and saw that he was crying, as she had suspected . She put her arms around him and he held her close and wept, without making any sound that would awaken or alarm Mary Katherine. He let her comfort him until he stopped crying.
He raised his head and said, “I’m sorry Case.”
“For what?”
“Falling apart on you again.”
“I don’t mind letting you cry on my shoulder.”
He kissed her lightly on the forehead and let her go and sat on the ottoman she had abandoned and watched over Mary Katherine while she slept. Casey sat down in the chair by the window and drew her knees up to her chest and admired Evan from across the room. She really, really hoped that somewhere out there was another man that kind, that understanding, that handsome, that spiritual. She kept trying to compare the guys she dated to him and they always came up short. It would be hard, she thought, to find anyone with whom she had such a connection with. Ever since she had been a little girl Evan had been her favorite person. If there was such as things as soul mates, Evan was hers. He could read her expressions, anticipate her actions, understood her like no one else. She could do the same with him. She wasn’t sure when the shift in how she felt about him came about, but it was probably around sixteen or seventeen when, in addition to her deep friendship with him, she had started to feel a romantic kind of love for him too. She had let that information slip to Sara, who confided in her that she too found Evan crush worthy and kept her secret. They had both admitted a physical attraction between them the night he had come to her house after his fight with Mary Katherine, but it hadn’t happened again since, and as she watched him sit by Mary Katherine, she knew it never would. He wouldn’t change being flirtatious and affectionate with her, he’d always been that way. But Evan had values and a strong commitment to his marriage vows and Casey wouldn’t want him to be any other way, because then he would not be the Evan she loved. And her own values didn’t allow her to be any other way either.