Private Lives

by Karen Young

  “Pancreatic cancer six months after my dad.”

  “Oh,” she murmured with more real sympathy.

  “Yeah, it was pretty hard to accept.”

  She had a brief vision of a grief-stricken boy. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for Ryan Paxton, but how could she not? “Some of the most touching letters that I receive are from children who have lost a parent,” she told him, thinking to turn their conversation into less personal territory. “It’s utterly bewildering to them. Of course, most of the time their loss is as a result of an accident or incurable illness, as in the case of your mother. Sometimes it’s inner city violence, but the result is often the same no matter what the reason. They’re angry and resentful, blaming the dead parent for being so cruel as to leave them.”

  Ryan turned from the wall of memorabilia. He smiled, but it had a grim edge. “I didn’t blame my father so much as the man who drove him to it.”

  Elizabeth now felt certain she’d missed something significant, but still couldn’t imagine what. Of course, the loss of parents in childhood was traumatic. Nobody knew that better than she. But it had been a long time ago. Could be he felt the same reluctance to stir up old memories as much as she did. Still, he’d been the one to bring up the subject. And to reveal painful details.

  He had moved to her bookcases and was examining the titles. “Do you remember much about your father?” he asked.

  “My father?” Changing the direction of her thoughts, she frowned. “Not very much, just vague…impressions more than memory.”

  “How much is much?”

  The nightmares. Fire and chaos. The flash of red lights and sirens. Sympathetic adults. Caseworkers. One after another until Iris. And the letters with never a reply, because for years as a child she couldn’t believe her father was gone. Wouldn’t believe it. What made her plight worse was that there had been very little left of the household contents after the fire, and nothing worthwhile had gone with her into the system. She remembered having no clothes and going with someone to a department store—probably a caseworker, not Iris, not then. She was bought new things, but nothing for her sisters. She’d worried about that. They hadn’t told her until later that she wouldn’t be seeing her sisters again. Then, a few years ago, she’d been notified by her father’s aging secretary, Millie Wainwright, that there were some things from the judge’s chambers that rightly belonged to Matthew Walker’s family. The certificate was one of them, as well as the judge’s law school documentation, his college diploma, and several snapshots of him taken with various political figures in the seventies. She’d been so pathetically glad to get anything. Anything.

  “Can we get back to the subject of Gina?” Determined now to change the subject, she watched him pull out a tattered edition of The Secret Garden. “I’ve been over and over the possibilities and it seems to me that there’s no better option than putting it back in the hands of Austin’s lawyer, whoever he is, and Maude Kennedy.”

  “There is one possibility,” Ryan said, carefully replacing the book. “It wouldn’t be in Austin’s best interest for the senior staff at the firm to learn what’s going on. Of course, his relationship with Gina is no secret, but the details of their split aren’t generally known. Right now, it’s assumed that Austin is in the process of breaking up with Gina and they’re experiencing the usual contentious issues of any divorcing couple. If it got out that Austin is accused of roughing up Gina, there would be uncomfortable repercussions for him.”

  Now Elizabeth was on her feet. “Are you saying you’d be willing to use such a tactic to force him into real negotiations?”

  “Eventually, if it came to that.” Ryan faced her, his hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. “Actually, I don’t think it’ll come to that because Austin will back down just at the possibility.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “Trust me.”

  Jesse scooted her tiny rear end onto the cushioned glider while holding cookies in a plastic bag high enough to avoid Archie’s eager nosiness. Beside her, Jennifer sat with arms crossed in the corner of the glider, wearing attitude and a sulky look. Jesse took one of the cookies from the bag and offered it to the teen, who had a blunt refusal ready, but her rude retort died after one look into the kid’s big eyes. She took the cookie reluctantly and got a delighted smile in return. Jesse, oblivious to the teen’s attitude, turned to share with the dog. “My mommy makes really good cookies, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Can your mommy make cookies?”

  “She doesn’t cook anything.” Jennifer craned her neck toward the house, but her dad was nowhere to be seen and she was stuck out here with this kid until he decided they could leave. She didn’t know why he had insisted on coming over here in the first place. From the way the writer person had looked when she opened the door, Jennifer had expected the door to be slammed in their faces.

  “But if she doesn’t cook,” Jesse said with a frown wrinkling her forehead, “what do you eat?”

  “We eat out.”

  “Oh.” Jesse’s small head bobbed in understanding. “McDonald’s. I love to get a Happy Meal, but Mom and Aunt Lizzie say I can only have it for a treat.”

  “Good. You’ll stay healthy that way.”

  More bobbing of the head. “I’m healthy. I’m very healthy, everyone says so. I had a bad cold a long time ago and it got okay really fast.”

  Jennifer moved restlessly on the glider. “So, do you live here with your mom and your Aunt Lizzie?” She glanced at her watch and felt like going inside and yanking her dad out of there. Melissa was going to call her right after school and if she didn’t get back to the condo soon, she’d miss the call. Not that her dad would care. He had taken the cell phone as punishment for the hit and run and he was simply deaf to all her arguments that she needed it to keep in touch with her friends in Dallas. She didn’t know anybody at Memorial. Well, nobody except Rick. She felt a little leap of something inside just thinking about Rick Sanchez. He said hi to her in the hall today and almost stopped to talk to her, but one of his friends pulled him away. Rick was the only thing that was good about being here. It was so different living with her dad than she’d imagined. Plus, he had discontinued the maid service and now it was her responsibility to do the job, all in payment for Rick’s stupid bike. He even made her do the bathrooms! Yuck. It would probably be ten years before she got out of debt.

  “I’m going to live here forever,” Jesse said, carefully picking out a chocolate chip and offering it to Archie.

  “You mean here with your mom and Aunt…ah, Lizzie?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What about your dad?”

  Jesse’s small fingers went still. Her pink sneakers had been beating a monotonous rhythm against the glider as they sat. Now all movement stopped as Jesse thought hard. “I don’t think there’s room for us with him anymore.”

  “Why, did they get a divorce and he got the house?”

  “What’s a divorce?”

  “Uh, never mind.” Jeez, she didn’t want to say something to upset the kid. Maybe it was a divorce, maybe something else. Whatever, it was none of her business. “You get to visit your dad anyway, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t want to.”

  “You don’t want to visit with your daddy?”

  “Uh-uh. He yells and throws things. I have to get under the bed when he does it. Then my mommy cries.”

  “No joke?”

  “Did you think that was funny?” Face upturned, Jesse looked puzzled.

  “Funny? Oh. Oh! A joke.” Jennifer managed a smile. “No, that was just an expression.”

  “What’s a ’spression?”

  “An expression is a ummm…a brief way of saying something.”

  Not quite getting it, Jesse moved on with another thought. “I think I need a new daddy now,” she said decisively.

  “Really,” Jennifer muttered in total agreement. “But you can’t j
ust get a new dad the way you go to Toys “R” Us and pick out a new bike.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…well, just because. Dads are people, not things.”

  “Well, maybe I could share your daddy. Would that work?”

  Hardly, Jennifer thought. She herself wouldn’t be living with him right now if she hadn’t screwed up royally with the hit and run and everything. But she felt momentary sympathy for the kid. It was awful when your mom and dad split and it was even more painful when your dad had no room in his life for you. What she didn’t know about was living in a house where you had to scramble under the bed because your father was on a violent rampage.

  “Tell you what,” Jennifer said, reaching over to tie the kid’s dirty sneaker, “you can visit me and my dad sometimes if it’s okay with your mom.”

  “Really?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Jesse’s smile was almost too big for her little face. “You want another cookie?”

  Jennifer buckled herself in beside Ryan a few minutes later and struggled to keep quiet until he backed out of Elizabeth’s driveway. Both her parents treated her like a baby and she knew she’d get nothing out of her dad if she just burst out with what the kid said. She would have to be real cool going about it. “Ah, Elizabeth Walker writes children’s books. I guess you know that.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know until lately, but I’ve seen her current release and I was impressed. She won a prestigious award, did you know that?”

  He’d seen Elizabeth’s latest book? It dawned on Jennifer that her dad might have the hots for the woman. “Jesse told me the story.”

  “Cute kid, huh?”

  “Uh-huh.” Maybe he was interested in the divorced mom.

  He glanced at her, smiling. “How were those cookies?”

  “Good. Her mom made them.”

  “Gina.”

  She gave Ryan a quick, shrewd look. “Is she a client?”

  “Gina? No.”

  “Well, it can’t be Elizabeth because I don’t think we’d have been invited inside if she were. It was only after Jesse’s mom said okay that we got in the door, Dad.”

  Ryan gave a playful tug to her hair. “You noticed.”

  She ducked away. “So neither one is a client.”

  “Neither is a client.”

  “Then why were we there?”

  Finally he realized she was going somewhere with the questions. He turned onto Westheimer before looking at her. “Is there some reason for all this curiosity? I recall I had to drag you kicking and screaming when I wanted to stop there. Were the cookies that good?” He was smiling.

  “Are you interested in one of them…as, you know, dating and stuff?”

  “No, honey, it was a business call.”

  She turned her gaze straight ahead, frowning. “Then I don’t get it. You don’t represent either one of them, but—” She gave a little gasp and bumped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh, I get it now! It’s a divorce thing and you represent Jesse.”

  He stopped for a traffic light. “Wrong again. What is this, Jen, twenty questions?”

  She stared momentarily at her hands. “Dad, would you just please answer the question? If it’s business that made you stop there, then you maybe should hear what Jesse said.”

  He studied her face in silence, then said, “Jesse’s dad, Austin, is my client. You saw him the other night when we were leaving to go see Rick.”

  Her mouth fell open and she quickly covered it. “Now I remember. And he was acting really hyper. I even said to you that he seemed out of control, didn’t I?”

  “You did.” He pulled into the parking lot at Le Peep and killed the engine before turning to face her. “Now, what did Jesse say that’s got you upset?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me.”

  “She said she and her mom had to move out of the house, that there was no room for them there. She also said he has a mean temper, that he yells and throws things. She hides under the bed when that happens and he makes her mother cry.”

  “Ah, hell.” Ryan released a sigh and rubbed a hand over his face wearily.

  “Why would you represent someone like that, Dad?”

  “He’s a partner in my law firm, honey. It’s customary to use representation in a firm for a colleague who’s in need of it.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like a bunch of baloney to me.”

  “You may have a point.”

  Eleven

  “I wish you’d reconsider, Gina.” Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed watching Gina wiggle into a pair of skin-tight jeans. “You know what happened the last time he talked you into meeting with him alone. And if he finally gets the message that you’re really not going to be talked out of this, only the devil knows how he’ll react.”

  “I’ll be all right, Lizzie. I’m not getting in the car alone with him. I told you, I’m driving my own car. We’re meeting here and going to a safe place, a restaurant or a coffee shop. Since Jesse’ll be with us, it might even be Mc-Donald’s. Just someplace where there will be other people around.”

  “That worries me, too. Do you have to take Jesse?”

  “He does have visitation rights, even if we haven’t formally agreed as the judge requires. Refusing would just get his back up.” She sucked in a breath and finally managed to zip the jeans.

  “His back is already up. He’s desperate, Gina. Desperate people do crazy things.”

  “Tell me about it,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Gina looked around in distraction. “What did I do with that sweater? I had it in my hands a minute ago.”

  “You were steaming the wrinkles out in the bathroom when I came in here.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment. It worried Elizabeth that she was taking such pains to look her best if this was simply an opportunity for Austin to spend some quality time with Jesse, as he claimed. She wouldn’t expect Gina to wear something unflattering, but the outfit she’d chosen was special, chic and sexy. What would Austin assume when he saw her? What was Gina’s intention?

  Lately, other things had been troubling Elizabeth. Gina had been oddly distracted for several days. What was that all about? And it was unusual for Gina to be so unforthcoming as Elizabeth gently probed for information. Usually, to Elizabeth, she was open and candid to the point of embarrassing frankness. They’d shared secrets for years. Maybe she was simply nervous over another one-on-one date with Austin, considering how the last encounter ended. Yet, the plan had just come up today when he’d reminded her of his legal right to see Jesse, or so Gina said. Elizabeth hoped she wouldn’t have agreed to see him at all otherwise.

  “I’m having to brush off doggy hair, would you believe,” Gina complained, emerging from the bathroom with the sweater in one hand, brush in another. Hands, Elizabeth noted with concern, that were shaky as she fumbled trying to rid it of Archie’s hair.

  “Jesse and Cody like to play hide-and-seek in that closet,” Elizabeth said. “And, of course, they can’t do anything without including Archie.”

  “Tell me about it.” The brushing done, Gina pulled the sweater on, then stood at the mirror and adjusted it over her hips. “Will you fix this collar for me?”

  Elizabeth stood up and adjusted the cowl collar of the sweater, tucking the label, which had reversed, out of sight. Then, with her hands resting on Gina’s shoulders, she met her eyes in the mirror. “You’re trembling, Gina. What’s wrong? If you’re not worried about going with Austin, then why the case of nerves?”

  Gina’s laugh was brief, forced. “You know me, if I didn’t have something to be nervous over, I’d invent something.” She leaned forward to outline her lips with a peachy gloss, fluffed her hair one more time, then stood back to survey the result. “How do I look?”

  “You look good, as always.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Just
good?”

  “You look chic, smart, spiffy.”

  Now Gina’s laugh was genuine. “Okay, okay.”

  “I recognize those jeans. Neiman’s, right?”

  Smiling wryly, Gina smoothed her hands down both thighs. “Austin bought them for me. The sweater, too. For my birthday last year.”

  “Belated, as I recall. Didn’t he lock you out of the house that night, then refused to let you in the garage to get your car?”

  “And you had to come pick me up.” Her smile faded. “Me and Jesse.”

  “The outfit was an expensive peace offering.”

  Another brief shrug. “It was over a baby-sitting screwup. I got real busy at work and waited until the last minute to try to find someone to stay with Jesse. When I finally did, the restaurant had canceled our dinner reservations. You know how they are at some restaurants in Houston if you’re a few minutes late. Austin freaked.”

  “What a guy.”

  Another shrug. “He lost his temper, Lizzie. It happens.”

  Elizabeth simply looked at her. They stood before the mirror in complete understanding for a long moment. Elizabeth felt a dark foreboding down deep. Gina’s continued resistance was bound to aggravate Austin’s dicey temper. If she planned to hold out against him, it was downright dangerous to be alone with him.

  “Don’t go, Gina,” she said again.

  Gina smiled…sadly? “I have to, Lizzie.”

  “Then are you absolutely sure you want to take Jesse?” Gina was an adult. Subjecting a child to Austin’s uncertain temper was another thing. Elizabeth felt temper stirring in her own breast. It was frustrating to watch Gina make mistakes that might harm her, but to expose Jesse was—She searched for a word and the only thing that came to mind was immoral. To put your own child in harm’s way was immoral.

  Gina seemed to focus on the flame of an aromatic candle that burned on the vanity. “Do I have a choice?” Dropping her gaze, Gina began sorting through a maze of glitter in her jewelry box.