'Tis The Season: Under the Christmas TreeMidnight ConfessionsBackward Glance

by Robyn Carr

  Leigh actually looked away. She rarely let her emotions show, was actually still in the learning stages of even allowing herself to have emotions. Jess thought it had a lot to do with returning to Durango. “Let’s not go over that again, Mom. I don’t have a father to offer them, and I can’t help it.”

  Well, I can, Jess thought. “I’ll need your advice with something, darling. I want to have a huge party this summer, partly to welcome you and the boys home and introduce you to all my friends, and partly because I don’t know if I’ll ever feel this well again. I’ve wanted to landscape the whole blasted yard for years now—make it a wonderland. You’ll help me, won’t you?”

  “When did you start reading this?” Leigh asked, picking up a copy of a bridal magazine. What on earth was her mother doing with a bridal magazine?

  “That? Oh, I think Abby or Peg left a lot of them here. We planned both their girls’ weddings together... What fun. Abby’s daughter even left her gown here... You’re about the same size. You ought to try it on sometime.

  “Now, I want flagstone walks, a gazebo and a big barbecue pit. I’d like a couple of birdbaths or statues...maybe even a fountain. Can you design something like that on your little machine?”

  “I think so...yes. I’ll have a go at it in the next day or two.”

  “When you have some plans, I want you to see this man who sometimes works for me—John McElroy. He’s a very good builder and a landscape specialist. In fact, he’s also great on skis and heads up the ski patrol. This winter I’ll talk to him about teaching the boys.”

  Leigh focused an unusual amount of attention on the magazine, not responding to her mother.

  “Why don’t you make my last days easier and just marry him? I think he’s stable enough to take care of you and the boys when I’m gone. He even looks a bit like Mitch.”

  Leigh was silent for a long time. “What an imagination you have,” she finally said, sipping her wine and flipping the pages.

  Three

  “Hello, John.”

  He dropped a fifty-pound bag of compost on a pile of identical bags and whirled around to face her. All the anticipation and anxiety that had surrounded the thought of seeing her again seemed to drain out of him when the moment actually arrived. There she was. Beautiful as ever. Hardly aged. He was instantly self-conscious about whether he smelled of sweat and cow dung. This was not what he had planned. He’d known he would run into her at some point, but he hadn’t been able to prepare for the experience. “Leigh,” he said quietly. “Dr. Brackon.”

  She half smiled when he said her name, then flinched just slightly when he used her title. “I...ah...didn’t mean to startle you. I’m sorry. I’m—”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m just surprised. It’s been a long time.”

  “I’ve been back a couple of weeks. I’m living with my mother for now, maybe for good. She needs me, and I need a new kind of lifestyle. Jess...my mom...she has some kind of—”

  “She told me.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “She said she has a heart problem and was forcing you home.”

  “She didn’t actually have to force me. I was ready to come. I wanted to come. I’ve been planning to for years. I just kept putting it off.”

  “This can’t make your husband very—”

  “Didn’t she tell you about Max? Oh, my... I divorced him a long time ago and Max...well, he passed away about six months ago. He was sixty, Mom’s age... Far too young.”

  “I didn’t know,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t know why I thought you’d know,” she said in that slightly baffled, absentminded way of hers.

  “How would I know?” he asked a bit more peevishly than he intended. Leigh had always been able to imply that everyone should be able to keep up with her thoughts. I guess I thought we talked about that, and I didn’t mean to take it for granted that you already knew when you didn’t. But he didn’t want to get into all that again now. “What I mean is, we do a little work for Jess now and then, but she hasn’t mentioned you... Not once. In fact, I’m sure she just mentioned your children for the first time when I took out a tree to her. Congratulations. I know children were one of the things you wanted.”

  “That’s impossible, her not mentioning the boys. She never shuts up about them. You must not have noticed.”

  “I would have noticed!”

  “Uh-oh,” she nervously replied.

  “So, you’re back to help Jess and learn a new kind of lifestyle,” he said, the edge to his words unmistakable. “Haven’t you already done that one?”

  “Look, John, my mom wants some work done in the yard. And she wants it to be you who does the work. She obviously doesn’t know how testy you can get, or she’d hire someone more agreeable.” Leigh reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper that had a long list of items on it. “The job would mean you and I would run into each other quite a bit, since I happen to live there now. If you’d rather not, say so and I’ll just get someone else.” She stared him down. Maybe she didn’t seem older, but she had gotten tougher somehow. Tougher underneath. More sure of herself. “So?”

  After some long and serious eye contact he churlishly snapped the list out of her hand. He concentrated on it for a second. Brick gazebo, barbecue, flagstone walks, a birdbath with a fountain. He whistled. “A few things,” he muttered. These people, it seemed, never ran out of big ideas, brains or money. It could get downright irritating.

  “Yes, well, I realize it’s quite a lot. My mom is so spontaneous. When she gets an idea like this, she wants it, and she wants it fast.”

  “For what? She isn’t selling, is she?”

  “No, no. She plans for me to have that house one day. She says she wants to throw a big summer party and invite half the town. She has two reasons. Reason one—because I have returned to live in Durango with the boys. Reason two—which I do not much like—she isn’t sure how good she’ll feel next summer. What do you know about this heart condition of hers?”

  “How would I know anything?” he asked, walking to the countertop that he used as a desk. “I’m the handyman, Leigh, not her priest.”

  “Pardon me,” she returned, just as cranky. “I’m only trying to find out what I can. She wouldn’t tell me anything, and I’m worried.”

  John felt a bit contrite. “Sorry.” The last thing he wanted was to get all nasty with her. “I don’t know anything, though I did ask. It seems Doc Meadows doesn’t even know about it. Which means, I guess, that she’s seeing someone else, but I wouldn’t even hazard a guess as to who. I thought Doc was taking care of all the widows. But I guess not medically.”

  “She said she doesn’t see Tom professionally because they’re good friends. But when I called him and asked him if he had recommended a cardiologist, he was silent a long time before he said he hadn’t. Then he suggested I quiz the widows’ brigade on this alleged heart condition. Alleged? She’s acting very strangely. I think there’s more wrong than her heart, although I can’t get a drop of information out of her. I’ve snooped through all her cupboards and can’t find any prescription bottles, insurance receipts, anything. She’s being absolutely impossible and won’t let me get involved.”

  “What did the widows tell you?”

  She shrugged. “To mind my own business and let Jess have her way for once. Abby West said that mother thing. ‘Now, dear, your mother made many sacrifices for you as you were growing up. Why not just indulge her for a while?’ To forestall an enormous fight, Mother promised me that if I would leave her alone and get settled in, she would tell me all about it later, before her next checkup. She’s adamant that she will not discuss her condition this summer.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Mighty pigheaded, isn’t she?”

  Leigh tapped the
list. “I think she’s getting some of these repairs and improvements out of the way so as not to leave anything—you know, undone.” She swallowed and looked away.

  “What a thought,” he mumbled.

  “Jess is that way—efficient, compassionate. I just hope she’s completely wrong about this heart thing. I don’t think I can live without her. She’s my anchor. The lead in my shoes. You know...I just don’t have anyone to turn to the way I can turn to Jess.”

  “Let’s not bury her yet. Let’s think about her yard before we worry about her plot. This is a lot of new landscaping and building. Expensive.”

  “Can you do all this? A brick gazebo with a shake roof? Brick barbecue pit? Flagstone walks? If I give you a blueprint to follow?”

  He made a face. “No, Leigh. I’m the builder and landscaper. I give you the plans, and you approve or alter them. See, this is my business.”

  “It’s my yard.”

  “For gosh sakes,” he blustered, “do we have to argue about the damn air?”

  Deep breath. Times two.

  “Okay,” she relented. “Your plans, my alterations. Can you do it?”

  “You’re in luck. We’re having a special.”

  “What kind of special?”

  “The one where we do anything for money.”

  She smiled indulgently.

  “It’s going to cost a lot if you want it to look good.”

  “Mom doesn’t care about money. She’s very well-fixed and still getting royalties from my father’s books. John? Does my mother...could she...have you...?” She gave up, then started over more slowly. “Does she know about that summer?”

  “I don’t know how she could. Why?”

  “She asked me to ask you if you could either supervise or do most of the work yourself. She also happened to ask me if I couldn’t just marry you and make her life easy.”

  He didn’t think that was funny. “Did you tell her we’ve been over all that?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “That wouldn’t be true. We never actually talked about marriage. We talked about being together, and even that was too much.”

  “Well, one of us was married, if you recall,” he flung back.

  She rolled her eyes in irritation. She’d been afraid of this, that he would really make her mad. She tried a change of subject. “You’ve really made something of this operation. The last time I saw it, it was a garage surrounded by a big old cyclone fence.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember the date,” she lied. She remembered exactly. “You weren’t here. You were on your honeymoon.” Nuts. It was no longer going to be all his fault if they moved from general sniping into a full-fledged battle. So much for good intentions.

  “My honey—! You came here? No one ever told me you came here!”

  “Well, I didn’t leave a message. You weren’t here. You were indisposed, so to speak. So I left. Back to the yard—this whole thing is typical of Jess’s spontaneous—”

  “Why did you come here?” he asked.

  “I said I would. I said I was going to get things together, straightened out. Don’t you even remember?”

  “That isn’t what you said. You said you couldn’t live here with me—I wasn’t challenging enough!”

  “Not you. There wasn’t any work for me here. I had to have some kind of—”

  “You said you had to go back to Stanford because—”

  “Because that’s where I lived. That’s where my job was. My stuff. All my stuff was in Los Altos. I’d been offered a grant—I had to accept a grant to have a job. One of us had to have a job. You were a ski bum who occasionally cut grass for people. Besides, you said you were glad I was going away.”

  “Ski patrol, if you don’t mind. Ski patrol and landscaping. It wasn’t a big, fancy job maybe, but a couple of little, decent, ordinary jobs that regular people do. And I only said I was glad because I was too proud to say I couldn’t stand it that you would just leave like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Without a backward glance!”

  “Without a—” She ran a hand over her hair. “Sorry if I offended,” she sarcastically replied. “I needed a paying job somewhere. I was pregnant! The grant was offered by UCLA. I had to move, John.”

  “Oh. Oh, I get it. So, you just came by to say hello. It wasn’t like you came back to see me or anything.”

  Leigh stared for a second and opened her mouth to speak, but it turned into a huff. She began again. Another huff. She put a hand on her hip. “I came back to see my mom and you. My divorce was final. I thought I’d ask again if you wanted to try L.A. But...if you didn’t, I thought maybe we could work something out.”

  “Work something out?”

  “A commute. I don’t know. What’s the difference, John? You weren’t available. You were on your honeymoon!”

  “I was on my honeymoon because I got married, which I did four months after you couldn’t be bothered to answer any of my calls or letters.”

  “Calls and letters? You dummy! I didn’t get any calls or letters!”

  “I left messages! I wrote!”

  “Well, I went back to Los Altos, packed up and moved. I didn’t know I was supposed to somehow keep you unmarried. Most people get married because they want to, not because someone else doesn’t answer the damn phone!”

  “No one told me you moved! And don’t call me a dummy! You know I already feel like a dummy just being in the same town with you, since your IQ is around four thousand and something! So, is there any particular reason why you didn’t try writing or calling or something?”

  “No, no particular reason,” she shouted back. “Except I was a little busy. I was working on a scientific project, pregnant with twins and visiting with a psychologist to find out how in the world I had managed to be so smart and still mess up my life so badly! Now, I’d love to hang around and fight with you, but I have things to do! Are you going to do the damn yard for my mother? Or what?”

  “Yes!” he shouted. “I’ll be out tomorrow!”

  “Great!” she shouted back, turning so dramatically that her long blond braid swung out so far behind her that it hit him in the nose. She stomped out the door.

  John felt the scorching heat of red anger on his cheeks. Oh, boy, how he remembered the steam in their arguments. He pounded the counter twice, hard enough to make all the pencils bounce.

  He put his elbow on the counter, lowered his forehead into his hand and took a few deep breaths. Boy, did she look good. Twenty-seven was pretty and nubile, but there was something about a few years on a woman. A couple of kids, a little maturity, and something a bit more steady settled around the chest and hips. She had changed from lovely to lush. What kind of dummy would fight with her? He could have been a nice guy and maybe asked her out. They were, after all, both single now.

  Was he crazy? Wasn’t that what had started all this? Dating? The two of them came from two completely different worlds.

  “John?”

  He looked up. “I...ah...locked my keys in my car... I must not have been...you know.”

  A small laugh woofed out of him. He should have known. “You weren’t paying attention. You were thinking about the mating cycle of the whooping crane or iambic pentameters.” Or me. Could you have been thinking about me, Leigh? “Don’t worry, I can get anything open.”

  “And I’m sorry about what just happened. The fight. I really didn’t think that would happen,” she said. “Anymore,” she added.

  “You weren’t the only one at fault,” he said. “Leigh, maybe we’d better get together, meet for a drink or dinner or something. We have this really messed-up karma, me and you, and if we don’t get some of this straightened out, we’re going to meet again in the next life as deadly enemies. Which would be okay if we ended up on opposi
ng football teams, but if we’re twin sisters or something, it could be disastrous. Maybe we ought to get it all talked out so we can press on as... friends. Huh?”

  “Yes,” she said in a breath, relieved. “Yes, that’s what I wanted to do from the start—to make up and be friendly somehow. But you’re the married one now.”

  “Me? No, I’m divorced, too. I’ve been divorced practically since I got married.”

  Her shocked expression was unmistakable. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “It was over before it started. We only lived together for a few months. Ski season,” he added quietly, with the good grace to be somewhat embarrassed.

  “Children?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh. Well, you said you didn’t want children, so you’re probably all right about that.”

  “I didn’t want them back then. I was twenty-seven and self-centered. I was a skier with no ambition, for gosh sakes. I never thought about anything or anyone but myself. Surely you remember that.”

  She nearly smiled. That was the closest to an admission of imperfection or an apology as John had ever come. “We don’t seem to have the best luck in romance, do we?”

  “Well, how about if two unlucky people meet later?”

  “I don’t know...”

  “You have someone? Some guy?”

  She laughed in spite of herself. There were never any guys. Colleagues, project managers. Probably the only reason she’d accidentally married Max was fatigue; they had worked so hard and long together, marriage had seemed a natural progression. John was practically the only “guy” she’d ever had. Briefly. “I have a couple of guys. Four-year-old guys,” she said.

  “How about if, for now, it’s just you and me?”

  Leigh sighed. “I’m still not very good at this sort of thing, John. I’m so clumsy in relationships. I don’t mean to be, and I don’t want to be... I’m very quick with mathematical problems. I just—ugh—I’m a mother now. I have to be more careful, because when I get in over my head, the boys can get hurt.”