“Your husband?”
“Four years next month.”
“Congratulations.”
Kathleen took the picture back and studied it herself for a brief moment. “I hope you find as much happiness with Mark as I have with Donald.”
Jo tilted her head slightly. “Do you mind if I ask how…”
“This isn’t a business, don’t you know. It’s actually a very efficient rumor mill.” Kathleen shook her head. She sat back and studied her arched fingers as she pressed them into a triangle. “So, this thing with Becca?”
“She wanted to make me start going through the complaints each week the way the secretaries have been doing since before I came here. I told her it would take too much time from my regular duties.”
“And she suggested giving some of your regular duties to Beth?”
“Yes.”
Kathleen nodded. “Becca has been doing quite a few surprising things since her promotion. But that doesn’t give you the right to behave insubordinately toward her. She is still your immediate supervisor.”
“I know,” Jo said with a slight tilt of her head. “I’ll apologize on Monday.”
Kathleen nodded her approval. “Is that all?”
“No,” Jo said before she could talk herself out of it. “I heard a rumor that you plan on presenting a proposal to the CEO to begin a daycare center in-house at BerCo.”
“That’s true.”
Jo gestured with the file folder she still clutched in her left hand. “If you recall, last fall I suggested the same idea. I thought you might like to take a look at the proposal I worked up then.”
“As I recall, I shot that plan down.”
“You did,” Jo admitted. “But it was a good plan and I thought maybe it could help you design your own plan.”
“You’d be willing to share credit with me?”
“Or blame, depending on how it’s received.”
Kathleen leaned forward and held out her hand for the report. She silently looked it over, then studied Jo for a long second. “I think I may have underestimated you, Jo,” she said with some amusement in her voice. “In fact, I’m almost positive.”
Jo spent the afternoon working with Kathleen on the daycare plan, enjoying the collaboration more than she had ever imagined she would. Kathleen was actually a lot more laidback than anyone at the office had given her credit for. She had a sense of humor that was intelligent, sometimes making droll jokes that were so subtle that it took Jo minutes to catch the punch line.
They managed to put together a proposal in less than four hours, between Jo’s previously written plan and Kathleen’s well-organized ideas. It was a strong proposal, based on a great need and with a financial plan that would defer most of the company’s cost. Jo had confidence that the CEO would at least take it under consideration, which was the most they could ask for at this point.
When Jo finally packed up to go home, she checked her phone for email messages and discovered that Emily had called several more times during the day. Jo quickly called her back and arranged to meet at a local deli.
Jo could see something was wrong the moment Emily walked through the doors.
“Where have you been?” Emily groaned as she fell into a chair across from Jo.
“I went into the office for a while. Why?”
Emily shook her head before burying it in her hands. Jo reached over and smoothed a hand down Emily’s arm. “What’s going on?” she asked softly.
“Mom’s driving me nuts,” she said in a muffled voice. “She’s obsessed with this wedding.”
“What is she doing now?”
Emily sat up and looked around the room, as though afraid of someone overhearing. “She just…she is so focused on the perfect way to do things. We have to have it at the perfect church, have the reception at the perfect hotel, have the perfect flowers and perfect food at the reception. It seems like every time I suggest something I want for the wedding, Mom disagrees.”
“She’s just excited, Em. She’s been waiting for this day since you were born.”
“That’s another thing,” Emily said, glancing almost guiltily across the table at Jo. “It’s like she’s built this whole ideal around me, this world that I don’t even fit into. I use to dream about all this with her, too. But somewhere along the way my dreams changed, but hers didn’t.”
Jo bit her lip, a thousand words jumping to the tip of her tongue, but none that would be helpful at this particular moment. Emily had always been their mother’s prize child, the feminine little girl who made up for Jo’s tomboyish ways. Jo could remember watching from the sidelines as Emily imitated their mother as she put on her makeup, preparing for a night out on the town. Mother used to laugh and call Emily her “special little fashionista.” They were always more like sisters than mother and daughter.
“What does Ryan think?”
Emily sighed. “He keeps telling me that it doesn’t matter, that he will marry me anywhere at any time. But I know it bothers him, too. The cost alone—”
“Weddings are expensive.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t have to be this expensive.” Emily reached into her handbag and showed Jo a contract from a local caterer. The down payment alone was enough to pay Jo’s rent for three months. “We wanted to buy a house.”
Jo set the contract aside. “Tell me something.”
“Anything,” Emily said, looking at Jo with wide eyes and a wistfulness Jo hadn’t seen from her in years.
“What kind of wedding do you want?”
“Something simple,” she said quickly. “Just family and a few friends and a preacher somewhere romantic. On the beach or in the park. And a nice party afterward with cake and music. I always wanted to dance at my wedding.”
“Then that’s what you should have.”
Emily smiled at the picture that had formed in her head. But then the smile disappeared and she bit her lip, as though punishing it for the happiness it revealed so briefly. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Jo reached over and took Emily’s hand. “It’s your life. You can’t let Mom tell you how to live it forever.”
“But Jo, she would be so disappointed.”
“Yes, but she’ll get over it.” Jo sat back and glanced at the window into the dark street beyond, not really seeing the busy intersection but her own struggles with their mother. “If you don’t put an end to this stuff now, it’ll just continue. Do you really want Mom to tell you how to take care of your husband? Or how to raise your children?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said again.
“Just think about it,” Jo said.
Maybe, Jo thought to herself, I should, too.
Chapter 22
“I’ve got the kids tonight, or else I would already be there.”
Jo settled back on her couch, the phone pressed to her ear. “I know,” she told Mark. “It’s okay, really.”
“For you, maybe,” Mark groaned.
Jo chuckled. “Having a bad day?”
“Let’s just say, I would much rather be in bed with you than dealing with the reality of my life.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
Jo could hear the sound of cartoons in the background as Mark said something indecipherable to someone in the room with him. A second later, silence floated through the phone speaker. “Sorry about that,” Mark told her. “Missy thinks she shouldn’t have to go to bed as early as her brother. I’m learning there are some battles that just aren’t worth fighting.”
Jo smiled, memories of many late nights, sitting at the kitchen table sharing a glass of milk and a handful of cookies with her dad. She never liked to go to bed on time, either.
“I can’t wait to meet your kids,” she said on a sigh, lost for a minute in her memories.
There was a long hesitation. “Someday,” he finally said.
There was an edge to his voice that made Jo’s heart skip a beat. She told herself it was the custody battle with his ex
that was holding him back, making it so hard for them to even talk about the kids. But it didn’t make it any easier to know that he was purposely keeping such a huge part of his life from her.
“Jo, I—” he began when she didn’t immediately respond.
“No, Mark, it’s fine.”
“Don’t do that with me, Jo.”
“Do what?” she asked, sitting up slightly at the anger she could hear in his voice.
“Don’t brush off your hurts. I know this is unfair, you don’t have to pretend it isn’t.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to be understanding.”
He was quiet for a long minute before he said, “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Tell me about your day,” Jo said.
He groaned. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
“Why not?”
Jo could hear him adjusting his position in a chair that squeaked with his movements. Leather, maybe? Then he said, “Danielle was there when I went to pick my kids up at their grandparents.”
“Danielle?”
“My ex.”
Of course, Jo thought, trying to imagine that scene. “Did she cause trouble?”
“No, she was perfectly agreeable. But before I got there, she had filled the kids with anticipation of going to the zoo. As a family. It’s not her weekend, but I would have been the bad guy if I had refused. So we went.”
“That must have been awkward.”
“That’s an understatement.” Jo could hear the squeak of his chair again. She imagined him leaning forward, rubbing his temples with one hand, the phone in his other. “She suggested that rather than drag the family through a court hearing that I should agree to some visitation schedule her lawyer has worked out. It would give us both equal time with the kids, four days on and three days off.”
Jo wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say to that. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, she simply didn’t say anything.
“I wish there was an easy solution to this,” he said on a sigh. “I wish we could share joint custody. But I trust Danielle as far as I can throw her.”
“Can I ask why she didn’t get custody in the first place?”
“She didn’t want it,” Mark said. “She always said that I was the one in love with the idea of a family, but I think it was really her. During our separation, she found custody of the kids to be too confining, too restrictive to her newfound freedom.”
“Then why is she suing for custody now?”
Mark sighed. “I wish I knew.”
“Do you think this is some ill-guided attempt to get back with you?”
He was quiet for a minute. The silence allowed doubts to take root and begin to grow in Jo’s heart. So much had happened, and yet, she still worried that maybe she wasn’t what he wanted, that their relationship was more about rebounding from heartache than something real, something with potential. Jo began to chew on her fingernail, quickly tearing it down to the nub.
“I don’t know.” Mark finally said. “The divorce was hard, hard on all of us, especially the kids. But even if that’s what she’s up to, I know I can’t go back to the way things were.”
It wasn’t quite what Jo had been hoping to hear.
But then, he wasn’t finished.
“I don’t love her, Jo,” he said in a voice suddenly turned husky. “I’m not even sure I ever really did. I loved the person I thought she was. But all the lies, all the deceit, it woke me up to who she really is. I don’t want that. I never did.”
“So now?”
“Now I’m looking forward to the future. And I hope you are a big part of that.”
Jo lay in bed early Sunday morning, still thinking about her conversation with Mark the night before. He had whispered words she had never thought she would hear, promising her a future and a life that up until now had only been a dream. It made her smile again and again each time she thought of his words. As careful as she had been all this time to keep herself from looking too far into the future, she suddenly discovered that he had thrown that door wide open and she couldn’t keep herself from walking through.
A month ago she had been resigned to a life of loneliness and now, suddenly, she had a man who wanted to be with her. He had already met her sister and hadn’t looked twice at her. He knew most of Jo’s quirks and insecurities and yet he hadn’t run for the mountains. He wanted a life and he wanted Jo to be a part of it. It was overwhelming in its potential.
However, there were still doubts that wiggled in Jo’s mind. She tried to ignore them, but when it was quiet like now they seemed to be the only thing she could think about. His ex-wife would always be a part of his life, like a sword hanging over their necks. What would that be like, living in the shadow of the past? And his kids. What if he never felt comfortable introducing her to them? What if he did introduce them and the kids didn’t like her? Would they see Jo as a threat?
Jo got up and moved slowly through her morning, making a beautiful eggs Benedict she wished she could share with Mark, and taking a long, luxurious soak in a bubble bath. Her thoughts continued to move round and round, but the more she thought of Mark’s promise of a future, the quieter her doubts became. By the time she was dressed and ready to face the day, she was filled with optimism for the future.
Jo drove across town, bought a coffee and walked to the big bookstore on Parkway she had always loved, but never seemed to have the time to just browse through. Although she owned an eReader like most everyone else, there was never anything that could replace the feel and smell of a new book in hand. Jo browsed the non-fiction shelves, trying not to become overwhelmed by the number of books on parenting. Just out of curiosity, she picked up a book on step parenting, but then decided she was jumping too far ahead and put it back. Instead, Jo bought a couple of novels by her favorite authors and a fashion magazine she thought Emily had once recommended.
Bag in hand, Jo left the store and decided to have lunch in an outdoor, Parisian-style diner down the street. It was the first time in a long time she had felt the desire to treat herself and it made her almost giddy when she ordered a creamy, decadent cake she would normally pass up in fear of the load of calories it delivered.
Jo’s cell rang just as the dessert arrived. Jo glanced at the caller ID. Normally, she would grow tense at the sight of her mother’s name, but instead she decided it was time to finish the list she had started, to follow her own advice. It was time to deal with her mother.
“Hello, Mother,” Jo breathed into the phone.
“Jo, where are you? I called the apartment a half dozen times and no one answered.”
“I’m out shopping. What can I do for you?”
“Oh,” her mother said with a touch of surprise in her voice. “Well, I…the rent’s due next week.”
“It usually is, mother,” Jo said.
“Yes, well, I’m running a little short this month.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well,” her mother hesitated. “Well, you know with the wedding and everything.”
“I already made all the deposits for your part of the wedding.”
“Does it really matter, Jo? I’m short and I need some more money.”
Jo dipped her finger in the custard smeared across the top of her cake. “Didn’t I give you money a couple of days ago?”
“You did. But it’s gone now.”
“Do you realize that I give you a little more than half my paycheck every month, Mother?”
“Really, Jo—”
“No, Mother, this time you listen to me. I know Daddy’s death left you in a bad place and that you needed help. I was more than willing to pitch in and do all I could. But that was ten years ago.”
“I’m your mother. You owe me.”
Again Jo swirled her finger in the custard and moaned with pleasure as she sucked it off her finger. She opened her eyes and caught a man at a couple of tables over watching her with great interest. Jo automatically looked behind her, sure he
was looking at someone else, but there was no one else this late in the afternoon.
“If I owe you anything, Mother, it’s love and respect. And with all the love and respect I have I am telling you this: I will no longer allow you to take advantage of me.”
“Jo—”
“No, now it’s my turn.” Jo shifted in her seat, trying not to encourage the attentions of her new admirer. “I will pay your rent, directly to your landlord. But beginning next month I intend to only give you what you need to pay your rent, your utilities, and to buy groceries. For the rest, I think it’s time for you to get a job.”
“Do you realize how old I am? There aren’t a lot of jobs out there for sixty-year-old women.”
“You’re only fifty-two, Mother.” Jo glanced over her shoulder and was greeted with a wink from the guy across the way. She smiled, just to be friendly, and turned again. “And if I hear that you went to Ryan and Emily for any money, I will stop giving you that much. Do you understand?”
Silence filled Jo’s ear. She just waited, picking at the edges of her cake, determined not to give her mother the satisfaction of saying another word. Finally a croaking sound crossed the waves between them. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Jo.”
“I know it seems harsh, Mother, but it’s time you learn to be self-sufficient.”
Jo hung up the phone and turned her attention to her cake. A moment later, her admirer came over and took a seat across from her. “You make eating cake the most sensual thing I have ever seen.”
Jo looked up at him. “Thank you, I think.”
“I have to go now,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to another man Jo hadn’t noticed before. “But I was wondering if I could have your number.”
“Sorry,” Jo said. “But I have a boyfriend.”
Genuine disappointment crossed the man’s face before he nodded. “I should have known,” he said softly, reaching across to touch her arm lightly. “I hope he knows what a lucky man he is.”
Chapter 23
From Now On Page 10