Coming Home (Jackson Falls Series)

by Breton, Laurie

  “What is so wrong? You tell me. How will I explain this to Kim? How will I explain to his parents that my daughter has chosen to marry a white man instead of their son? You have disgraced your family.” She stood up abruptly, so that she was at eye level with Nancy. In a voice as unrelentingly rigid as her spine, she said, “I can no longer acknowledge you as my daughter.”

  Nancy gasped, and her face lost all its color. “Mother!”

  “Hey,” Rob said, “wait just a minute. Don’t you want to think this over, before you do something you’ll regret?”

  “There is nothing to think about. Please leave my home, Mr. MacKenzie, and take your wife with you.”

  Throughout the woman’s tirade, her husband had sat silent. “Dr. Chen?” Rob said. “Are you telling me you’re going along with this craziness?”

  All three of them turned to the doctor. “Father?” Nancy said.

  Dr. Chen’s face had gone pale, and he looked as though he’d aged a decade in the past ten minutes. “I have no choice,” he said, “but to agree with my wife.”

  The silence was overwhelming. “Fine,” Nancy said. “I’ll pack my things.”

  “No,” her mother said. “You will take nothing with you.”

  “But my clothes. My books—”

  “You have a husband now. Let him buy you new ones.”

  Nancy stared at her mother in disbelief. And then she raised her head. “Rob,” she said, “I believe we have been dismissed.”

  As he stumbled behind her to the door, her mother’s voice followed them. “Some day,” she shouted, “you will thank me!”

  chapter fourteen

  His homecoming marked the beginning of the greatest challenge Danny Fiore had ever faced: winning back the woman he loved. Both of them tottering on uncertain legs, they performed a guarded pas de deux, circling each other like wary beasts as alternating shades of trust and distrust shimmered in the air between them. While Casey remained cool and apprehensive, Danny served his penance.

  His was not the kind of gaffe that could be smoothed over with flowers or candy. The hurt went too deep for such trivialities. For the first time in his life, Danny set aside his ambitions and put his marriage ahead of his career. He spent every spare moment with Casey, watching old movies, playing Monopoly, going through family photo albums. He cooked and vacuumed, carted clothes to the Laundromat, scrubbed the floors and the dishes and the toilet. When she came home from the Montpelier with swollen feet, he massaged them, brought her warm water to soak them in. He took her to the movies, dancing at a succession of blues clubs, to several off-off-Broadway musicals. They took long walks in Central Park, where they bought roasted chestnuts from a sidewalk vendor and fed bread crumbs to the pigeons.

  And they talked. About their marriage, about the baby they’d lost, about the mutual feelings that had drawn them together in the first place. She told him what it had been like to nurse her mother through terminal cancer, and he told her what it had been like to see his mother walk out of his life and never return. They opened up to each other with an unprecedented intimacy, and gradually, like a broken limb, the pieces of their shattered marriage began to knit back together.

  They went home that year for Christmas, hitching a ride with an acquaintance of Rob’s, a Columbia student who took them all the way to Farmington. It had been three years since they’d last visited, and there were changes, not all of them pleasant. There was an obvious coldness between Colleen and Jesse, although both seemed to care deeply for their young son. Casey’s father had aged considerably. The hair that had remained jet black into his fifties was slowly turning a silvery gray. He had remarried in October, to a family friend named Millie Trudeau, and Danny knew how difficult it was for Casey to see another woman so comfortably ensconced in her mother’s kitchen.

  He had been saving money for months, and his Christmas gift to Casey was a small but tasteful diamond ring. He’d never given her an engagement ring, just the gold wedding band, and it had been eating at him for years. Casey understood the significance of the ring. Tears welled up in her eyes, and that night, the last barrier between them crumbled.

  His wife’s family had always done their best to make him feel like he belonged, but the truth was that he was an outsider with no understanding of these people or their way of life. The two days passed with agonizing slowness, and he was immensely relieved when the visit ended. After Christmas dinner, they caught a ride back to Boston with Travis, and spent Christmas night in Southie, tucked snugly into one of Mary MacKenzie’s spare beds.

  They returned home the next day to an ashen New York, groaning under a heavy burden of snow and sand and slush. They’d only been gone for four days, but already the cockroaches had mounted a territorial campaign, and Freddy Wong had shut off the radiators, turning the water in the toilet bowl into a solid chunk of ice. While Rob went downstairs to talk to Freddy, Danny took Casey by the hand and led her to the bedroom, where they huddled together beneath the covers and waited for the apartment to warm up to its normal fifty-eight degrees.

  “This isn’t fair to you,” he said, his breath hovering in the air above his head. “You shouldn’t have to live like this.”

  “I’m not complaining,” she said. Then amended it: “Well, not much, anyway.”

  “It’s a rotten life,” he said bitterly.

  She brushed a strand of hair away from his face. “I knew what I was up against when I married you.”

  “I’m not sure I can do it any more.”

  Her hand, still hovering in the vicinity of his face, froze. “What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  He threw aside the covers and got up out of the bed. Paced six steps across the room and picked up the framed photo of her mother. He studied it for a minute, then set it back down and turned to her. “All I’m doing,” he said, “is beating my head against the wall. We’ve been here almost three years, and I can’t get arrested. At what point do I face the fact that it isn’t going to happen? At what point do I tuck my tail between my legs and go home? Do you have any idea how tired I am of hearing, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’?”

  She sat up and wrapped the quilt around her. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

  He leaned against the dresser and folded his arms. “It’s been coming on for a while.”

  Still wrapped in the quilt, she slid off the bed and crossed the room to him. She opened her arms and folded the quilt around both of them. “Danny,” she said, “please listen to me. There is nobody out there who can do what you do with a song. You have a God-given talent, and it would be a crime for you to waste it.”

  “And it’s less of a crime,” he said, “for me to put you through this hell?”

  “I’m a grown woman, Danny. I’m with you because this is where I choose to be.”

  “It’s not just you,” he said. “I’m tired. It wasn’t like this in Boston.”

  “Did you think it would be easy?”

  “I guess I didn’t really believe it would be like this.”

  “You have too much passion in you to settle,” she said. “You’d end up regretting it. That’s not what you want. It’s not what I want for you.”

  He pulled her closer beneath the quilt. “This isn’t the response I expected from you,” he admitted.

  “How do you know success isn’t around the next corner? How would you know you hadn’t quit a month too soon? Or a day? Or even an hour? You’d spend the rest of your life wondering.”

  “But what about the sacrifices?” he argued. “We’re living like animals here.”

  “Everybody has to pay their dues.”

  “I’m tired of paying. And I’m tired of you paying.”

  “Then take some time away from it. Allow yourself to do something else for a while. But don’t give up. The time will come when somebody recognizes your talent. Trust me.”

  “Why is it that you keep on believing in me when I can’t even believe in myself?”

 
; She smiled and said, “Masochistic tendencies?”

  ***

  When Rob tiptoed into the apartment at two in the morning, he found Nancy hunched over a textbook at the kitchen table. She smiled up at him, but her smile didn’t hide the dark circles beneath her eyes. “What are you doing up so late?” he said, bending to kiss her. “You should be asleep.”

  “I will sleep later. This is the only time I have free to study. Was your evening pleasant?”

  He grimaced. “Don’t ask. Rick Slater’s starting to get on my nerves.”

  She rested her chin on her palm and studied him quizzically. “You do not like this man you work with?”

  Rob opened the refrigerator and took out a can of Dr Pepper. Sitting down across from her, he popped open the top. “It’s not a matter of liking him. He’s a talented musician. But he has a nose problem.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Nose problem?”

  Rob took a drink of soda. “He’s a cokehead. Among other things. When the last set was over tonight, the drummer practically had to carry him off stage.”

  She looked worried. “This does not bode well for your future,” she said.

  “Not if we can’t keep him upright.” He slid the textbook away from her, turned it around and riffled through a few pages. Frowned, and checked the cover of the book. At two in the morning, she was studying advanced chemistry. He slid the book back across the table. “How’s the job going?”

  Nancy sighed. “Terrible,” she said. “I felt so stupid tonight.”

  “Come on, Nance, you’re about as far from stupid as it gets.”

  “I am very good at academics,” she said. “But as a waitress, I am afraid I’m a dismal failure.”

  “What happened?”

  She tapped her pencil on her notebook. “With academics, I have always taken my time. It is difficult to be thorough if one is hurried, and a physician must be thorough above all else. But a waitress must be all things to all people, all at the same time. I believe this goes against my natural inclination. I am by nature a tranquil person.”

  “And you’re going to make a wonderful doctor.”

  “Perhaps.” She smiled ruefully. “But not a good waitress. Tonight I gave a pu-pu platter to a couple who had ordered Kung Pao Chicken, then served hot and sour soup to a gentleman who had asked for egg drop. I spilled a glass of water in a woman’s lap, and forgot to give another couple their bill. I’m afraid that my tips tonight were a reflection of my capabilities.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” he said, taking her hand. “You haven’t been at it very long.”

  “Two months,” she said. “If I cannot learn something as simple as waitressing in two months, how will I ever learn anything as complex as medicine?”

  He squeezed her hand. “We’ll hire you a tutor.”

  Her smile was faint, but it was there. “You are so kind to me,” she said. “Rob, I have a problem. I don’t know how to solve it.”

  He’d known something more than a bad evening at Wong’s was bothering her. “We have a problem,” he corrected. “What is it?”

  She opened another textbook and pulled a piece of paper from it. He took it from her and studied it. “This is your tuition bill,” he said, and shot her a quick glance. “Your parents didn’t pay it?”

  “I would not have known, except that my chemistry instructor said that I was not on her class list. So I paid a visit to the registration office. It seems that my parents returned the bill to the university. In this envelope.” She pushed it across the table. Stamped on the front in red were the words Addressee Unknown.

  “I saved some money during the semester break,” she said, “but not nearly enough to pay the entire bill. I managed to give them enough money to stall them, but if the balance is not paid within three weeks, my enrollment will be canceled.”

  He flung the bill down on the table. “I never thought they’d go this far,” he said. “How could they do this to you? Jesus Christ, Nancy, you’re their daughter!”

  “Hush, please, Rob. You’ll wake the entire household.”

  He began pacing, running his hands through his tangled hair. There was no way he could scrape together the kind of money she needed, not in three weeks. “They’re the most cold-blooded human beings I’ve ever run across,” he said. “How can they call themselves parents?”

  “I told you they would make it as difficult as possible for us. I shouldn’t have married you. I should not have brought you into this.”

  He paused in his pacing. “I’ll call my folks,” he said. “First thing in the morning. Maybe they can give us a loan.”

  “I would not ask your parents for that kind of favor,” she said. “This is my battle, not theirs.”

  “You’re my wife,” he said, “and their daughter-in-law, and you’d damn well better believe it’s their battle. Family sticks together.”

  “I would not ask this of you!”

  “I’m your husband,” he said. “Damn it, Nancy, I won’t have you dropping out of school because those two old goats are too stubborn to pay your way. You’ve been planning to be a doctor since you were eight years old. I won’t let them take it away from you!”

  She touched his hand. “Please, can we talk about this tomorrow? It’s very late, and I have an early class.”

  He melted. He always melted when she touched him. He drew her, warm and slender and solid, into his waiting arms. “Anybody who wants to hurt you,” he said, “will have to go through me first.”

  In bed, he pulled her close. As usual, she was stiff and unresponsive. She and Casey had turned a corner of the living room into a sleeping alcove, complete with privacy curtain, but it failed to lessen Nancy’s paranoia over their lack of privacy. Unless they were alone in the apartment, she froze the instant he touched her. “Rob,” she protested, “they will hear us.”

  “It’s two o’clock in the morning, Nance.”

  “They could still hear.”

  “We’re married,” he told her. “It’s legal.”

  “I could not face them across the breakfast table.”

  He rolled away from her and fell back against the pillow. He had never forced himself on a woman, and he wasn’t about to start now. But his wife was making him crazy. How many nights could she expect him to lie beside her, awash in the scent of jasmine and warmed by the closeness of her body, before the dam burst and his emotions surged forward and shoved chivalry aside?

  ***

  Six weeks after Danny made the decision to take a year off from music, Rick Slater suffered a near-fatal cocaine overdose.

  The instant Slater’s condition stabilized, his wife carted him off to an upstate rehab facility, leaving his band without a lead singer. Rob convinced the other band members to give Danny an audition, and at Casey’s urging, Danny reneged on his vow and joined Slater’s band.

  It was a marriage made in heaven. He and Rob had played together for so many years, there was a telepathy that happened between them on stage, a psychic energy so visible it had them striking sparks off each other. Within a few days, he’d learned all of Slater’s material, and by the end of two weeks, they’d squeezed several of Casey and Rob’s originals into their sets. Word on the street was that the band’s new lead singer was hot, and night after night, it was standing room only at Delaney’s, the East Village club where Slater and company were house band.

  It soon became obvious to everyone that it was Danny who was drawing the crowds. When Slater’s doctors predicted a long-term stay in rehab, the band went into an intensive huddle, emerging with a new name: Danny Fiore and the Rick Slater Band.

  And the fickle public forgot Rick Slater had ever existed. Night after night, as Danny stood silhouetted in the spotlight, the women in the audience openly yearned for him. The more aggressive tucked their telephone numbers into his pockets, tossed their unmentionables on-stage, blatantly propositioned him between sets. Although he made sure his wedding ring was clearly visible, none of them seemed to
care. Each one fancied herself the woman who would topple Danny Fiore from his matrimonial pedestal. And each one left the show in acute disappointment, because every night, as soon as the gig was over, Danny went directly home to his wife.

  In April, the band was booked for two nights into a hot new club on 42nd Street. Audience response was tremendous, and on the second night, the manager asked them to return for a three-day gig on Memorial weekend. So Danny was pumped, his adrenaline running high, when they started breaking down and packing up after the last set. Taking a deep drag on his Marlboro, he unplugged his mike and began coiling the cord. “Hey, Wiz?”

  “Yo?”

  “I’ve got five big ones that say we can have it all packed up in ten minutes flat.”

  On his knees beside his open guitar case, Rob grinned. “Thinking of a career as a roadie, Fiore?”

  Danny flicked an ash. “A man has to make a living.”

  Josh Taylor, the drummer, sidled up to him. “Don’t look now, man,” he said, “but those chicks from NYU are still hanging around.”

  “Go for it, Jocko. I’m slightly married.”

  “Don’t let him kid you, Josh,” Rob said. “He’s very married.”

  Danny put out his cigarette, grinned, and turned to unplug an amp. He found himself face to face with a youngish guy in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. Tourist, he thought automatically. Probably got lost on his way to the john. “Excuse me,” he said, squeezing past.

  “Wait a minute,” the guy said. “Mr. Fiore?”

  He paused. “Yes?”

  The man held out his hand. “Drew Lawrence.”

  Lawrence’s handshake was firm and brisk. He patted his breast pocket and drew out a business card. Handing it to Danny, he said, “I’m with Ariel Records.”

  Behind Lawrence’s back, he met Rob’s eyes. They stared at each other for a fraction of a second, and then Danny looked at the card in his hand. “Ariel Records,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve heard of you.”

  “We’re small. And constantly on the lookout for new talent. I think you and I might be able to do business.” Lawrence paused. “Interested?”