The Empty Nesters

by Brown, Carolyn

  “Because you started out with a foundation of trust,” Joanie answered. “Eli threw a hand grenade on that, and it’s all shattered. Now you’d have to start with distrust, with wondering if he’d ever cheat on you again.”

  Diana nodded with every word. “That’s what my therapist told me. It’s not like starting from ground zero. It’s more like digging a six-foot hole and trying to climb out of it after a hard rain.”

  Carmen kept rocking. “It doesn’t mean I’m instantly over his cheating, but let’s move on. What about this little spark between you and Luke?”

  “It hasn’t disappeared, but neither have the reasons for not encouraging it.” Diana stood up. “Break time is over. Back to work. Have to get another several hours in before I can borrow Luke’s gadget and send the files to the office.”

  “In other words, you’re not going to talk about the vibes,” Joanie teased.

  “You got it.” Diana waved as she went across the hallway to her bedroom.

  Joanie remembered those first few flirtatious days with Brett. They both thought they were the first ones to ever discover love. Maybe that all-powerful emotion was what men craved when they were looking middle age in the eye. It definitely would make them feel young again. Was Brett looking over his shoulder at the past, like Eli, and wondering if he could re-create his youth? Was that why he was so rushed lately when he called? Previous deployments had allowed for time on the phone.

  “Hey,” Tootsie yelled from the bottom of the staircase, “anyone up for a game of dominoes?”

  “Be right down,” Carmen shouted and then turned to Joanie. “You comin’?”

  Before she could answer, her phone rang, and she nodded. “It’s Brett. He lately only has a few minutes, so don’t start without me.”

  “Hello, darlin’,” she answered the phone.

  “Hello, I’ve got maybe five minutes at the most,” Brett said. “So how’s living in the backwoods?”

  “It really is great except when there’s no electricity. We’re without power here for the second day now. I’m just glad it’s not winter,” she answered. “What’s goin’ on in whatever neck of the woods you’re in?”

  “Classified, for the most part. It seems like I’ve been keeping secrets forever,” he said.

  Joanie held her breath, fear gripping her heart. He was about to tell her that he wanted a divorce, too.

  “Are you still there?” Brett asked.

  “Yes, I’m here,” she whispered. “Go on.”

  “I’ll have my twenty years in about the same time as Zoe gets out of basic training. I’m thinking about retiring,” he said. “I didn’t want to mention it until I’d thought it over.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. He and Eli were both leaving the military, and his next words would be that he had a new woman, too.

  Stop it! That niggling voice in the back of her head screamed at her. He’s never given you any reason to doubt his fidelity.

  “Joanie, I know this is a lot to spring on you, but I had to think it through first. The team is splitting up since Eli and Kate are both leaving anyway,” he said.

  “Okay . . . ,” she stammered.

  “You sound like you’re about to cry. Are you disappointed?” he asked. “It’s just that I’ve been offered a civilian job. It’s a nine-to-five teaching job at a private security firm, and it pays very well. Our plan was to stay until I had thirty years in, but . . .” He paused.

  Joanie was speechless. She opened her mouth to talk, but words wouldn’t come out. She’d dreamed about the day that Brett would retire from the service, but she’d never let herself think about that day coming sooner than another decade. There was no other woman. He’d been distant because he was trying to figure things out.

  “If you don’t like the idea, I can turn down the offer, but it’s a good one and seems like a sign coming right now,” Brett said.

  “I love it,” she spit out in a hurry. “I’m teary eyed, and, God, I wish you were here so I could show you how much I want you to do this. Where’s the civilian job located?”

  “That’s the kicker, darlin’. We’d have to move away from Texas. I’d be working out of Washington, DC. I’ve been looking at apartments in Arlington, Virginia. That’s only about three miles from one place to the other. You’d have to leave Carmen and Diana,” he said.

  “You are serious about this?” She pinched her leg to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “Have you told Gerald and Eli?”

  “Yes, I’m very serious, and no, I haven’t told them. Don’t intend to until I get your thoughts on it. I was approached last year, but I had another year to put in before retirement. A couple of days ago, I got called again, and . . .” He paused and then went on. “And something you said about family affairs with Gerald and Eli and their new women stuck in my mind. I asked myself which was more important to me—my family or my friends? You came out at the top of the list.”

  “When do we put our house up for sale, and when do I start packing?” she asked.

  His laughter was like honey to her soul. “I won’t start the job until March first, but I have to give them an answer in the next two weeks.”

  “Do you need to think about it?” Joanie felt as if she were floating on air.

  “Not since I’ve talked to you, but to be on the safe side, let’s both do some serious thinking about it for one week anyway,” he suggested. “And now, after laying that bomb in your lap, I really have to go. I’ll call when I can, and I hope the power comes back on real soon.”

  “Love you so much, Brett.” She wanted to kick herself for doubting his faithfulness, even for a minute.

  “Love you,” he said.

  She held the phone to her chest for a long time. Just the idea of Brett being home every evening would be the best Christmas present ever. Then suddenly the feeling disappeared. How in the world was she ever going to tell her two best friends that she was moving more than a thousand miles away from them?

  Old habits die hard. On Friday afternoon, Diana flipped on the light as she started into the bathroom, then quickly switched it off, fussing at herself the whole time because she knew that there was no electricity. But she could have sworn the light fixture above the sink had come on.

  “Figment of my imagination,” she muttered. It had to be that the flickering candle she had carried carefully into the room had flared up because of a draft. She tried the switch again, and there was light. She tried it three more times, flipping it on and off, on, off, on, off, before she blew out the candle and washed her hands.

  She went back out to the dining room, where the rest of the folks were deeply engrossed in a game of Monopoly by lamplight, and turned on the light fixture above the table. “Look what I discovered. I wonder how long it’s been on and we didn’t know it?”

  Luke pushed back his chair. “I’ll go take care of the generator. And I betcha we’ll all be looking for places to recharge our laptops and phones.”

  “Praise the Lord!” Tootsie raised a hand toward the ceiling. “And I mean that in a very serious way. I’ve been wondering if I was going to have to show up at the Colbert family reunion on Sunday with store-bought food. This will be the first reunion I’ll attend without Smokey, so everyone will be looking to see what I brought.”

  “Aunt Tootsie, we all know your talents are not in the kitchen,” Luke said on his way out the door.

  “Well, I’m still glad that I don’t have to go with a can of corn and a loaf of bread,” she said. “Now, you three girls tell me what we’re taking.”

  “Chicken and dressing. I’m going to put the chicken in a slow cooker right now and let it cook all night so the broth will be rich,” Carmen said.

  “Cranberry-orange salad and a chocolate cake,” Joanie offered.

  Tootsie rubbed her hands together. “You should make a sample cake tonight just so we can be sure the oven is baking just right.”

  “I’ll be glad to.” Joanie pushed back her chair.

  To
otsie looked up at Diana. “And what are you making for us to take?”

  “Marinated vegetables and taco casserole.” Diana smiled. “I’ll do the vegetables tomorrow morning and the casserole Sunday morning so it’ll be fresh.”

  Tootsie clapped her hands. “We’re going to have so much fun. I can’t wait to introduce y’all to all Smokey’s relatives. He’s been talkin’ about y’all for years.”

  “I didn’t know we were invited,” Diana said. “We can just cook and send it with you and Luke.”

  “Oh, no.” Luke came in from the garage. “Y’all have to go with us, and one of you has to pretend to be my girlfriend so Aunt Mary Lou will stop trying to fix me up.”

  “I’m married.” Joanie held up her left hand to show off her rings.

  Carmen shook her head. “I’m not even divorced yet.”

  Luke looked over at Diana and wiggled his eyebrows. “I guess it’s you. Wear that pretty outfit you wore to the funeral.”

  “Oh, no!” Diana threw up both palms.

  “Why not? It’ll only be for a few hours, and he’s right. Mary Lou has been drivin’ him crazy for years.” Tootsie said.

  “You owe me. I’ve been letting you use my device to send in your work. I can always refuse to let you have it anymore,” Luke teased.

  “No PDAs.” Diana held up a finger.

  “Done,” Luke agreed.

  “No telling my age.” Another finger shot up.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Why, Aunt Mary Lou might pass clean out at the thought,” he teased.

  She laughed in spite of herself. “And no telling anyone about me falling on top of you.” The third finger joined the other two.

  “You got it, but I really hate giving up that last one. It would have my uncles all in stitches.” Luke winked.

  “Okay, we’ve got that settled, and the power is back on, so I can really see y’all’s faces.” Joanie motioned for everyone to sit down. “I’ve got news.”

  “Is it about Eli?” Carmen melted into a chair.

  “Are you pregnant? You’ve been acting strange the past few days,” Diana said.

  “No, it’s not about Eli, and I’m definitely not pregnant, thank God,” Joanie answered. “I have to admit that I’ve been worried. Brett has been so abrupt when he calls that I was afraid that—”

  “That he was following in Eli’s footprints,” Carmen finished for her.

  “It’s understandable that you’d have doubts,” Diana said.

  Joanie rolled the dice and moved ahead five spaces. She landed on the Go to Jail space. “I feel so guilty about not trusting Brett that I deserve to be in jail. Okay—here’s the deal. Brett has an offer from a civilian firm to teach survival skills to private security recruits, and he thinks he’s going to put in his twenty-year retirement papers.”

  “Oh, my gosh!” Diana squealed. “That’s amazing news.”

  “When? Where?” Carmen jumped up to hug her and almost knocked the Monopoly board on the floor.

  “He’ll be home for good after Zoe gets out of basic, and . . .” She dreaded saying any more, but these were her friends. “And we’ll be moving to a suburb of Arlington.”

  “That’s not so very far away,” Tootsie said. “It’s only a couple of hours from Sugar Run over to Dallas, and Arlington is right there. You can come back to see us every week.”

  “Arlington, Virginia. He’ll be working out of Washington, DC, but we won’t move until spring,” Joanie said all at once and watched their faces turn from happy to sad in an instant. “Please be happy for me. I can’t stand it if you’re not.”

  Tears rolled down Carmen’s face. “I’m happy for you, but I’m sad at the same time. We’ve been through so much together, but I’d have gladly moved with Eli if it would have saved my marriage.”

  Tootsie’s chin quivered. “I moved many times with Smokey. I’d never hold you back, but at the same time, I’ll miss you so much.”

  Diana’s world took another downward spin. She couldn’t say that she didn’t want Joanie to go, because that might be the very thing that kept her marriage intact. And yet she couldn’t bear to think of not seeing her again. Finally, she leaned down, hugged Joanie, and said, “All I got to say is that you’d better rent or buy a house with a couple of extra bedrooms and make sure your phone is charged at all times. I refuse to ever say goodbye, but when the time comes, I will say ‘See you later’ and mean it with my whole heart. We will make a way to visit at least every other month.”

  “That’s good,” Tootsie said. “Delores and I have decided that we need to stay in touch more often than we have in the past. You girls hold to that every-other-month idea, and make it work.”

  Diana patted Tootsie on the shoulder. “Not only us. You’re part of this family, so you have to make time for visits, too.”

  “Thank you.” Tootsie’s voice broke. “We are family, aren’t we?”

  Diana hugged her. “Of course we are. We’re all here right now living under the same roof.”

  “And it takes more than blood and DNA to make a family,” Carmen said from across the table.

  “Well, then, we’ll take the motor home anytime y’all want to. Maybe we’ll meet in the middle, like somewhere around Nashville part of the time. That way none of us have to go as far.” In her usual manner, Tootsie was already making plans for them, and Diana loved her for it. “And Luke can drive us so we can all be together a few times a year.”

  “I’m sure willing,” Luke said.

  “If we move in March, then we could plan a Nashville trip in May,” Joanie said.

  “And we can do coffee together every morning like always, only on FaceTime.” Carmen still didn’t look happy, but she was trying. Bless her heart, she’d been through so much the past couple of weeks.

  “We’re so lucky to have been able to raise our girls on the same block all these years,” Diana said. “Most army wives would have moved half a dozen times in thirteen years. We’re just lucky that the team got to stay at Camp Bullis all this time.”

  “And that the government wanted to keep it together.” Joanie paid her phony money to get out of jail. “I wonder what will happen to the team now that Eli and Brett are both retiring. Will they just start a new one, or will they get replacements and maybe let Gerald be team leader?”

  “Who knows? It’s the government. But on driving y’all, I’m glad to do that anytime you want,” Luke offered.

  Diana had forgotten that Luke was in the room. She whipped around to find him standing so close to her that she could see the small crow’s-feet around his eyes. The scruff on his face was a little longer than usual, but then he couldn’t really keep it well groomed without his electric razor.

  “That’s so sweet of you, and we may take you up on that more often than you realize,” Tootsie said.

  “Thank you.” Diana held her hands behind her back to keep from reaching up and touching his face to see if the light-brown hair was as soft as it looked. “Now that we have power, I’m going to go upstairs and get to work. See y’all at suppertime. Whose turn is it to cook? We’ve gotten off schedule with the funeral and no electricity.”

  Luke raised his hand. “I’ll take care of it tonight, and we can start all over tomorrow with Carmen, then Joanie on Monday, since we have the reunion on Sunday, and you on Tuesday, Diana. How’s that?”

  “Great,” Diana muttered as she escaped to her bedroom and picked up an old magazine to fan her face. Lord have mercy! She had to get over this infatuation with Luke.

  A rap on her door startled her so badly that she threw the magazine halfway across the floor. “Come in,” she said, expecting it to be Carmen.

  Luke slung open the door and held his Wi-Fi device. “Thought you might need this.”

  “Thank you,” she muttered as she took it from him. Warmth spread from her fingertips through her body when her fingers brushed across his palm. She took a step backward and laid the device on the bedside table. She figured she’d see his b
ack as he left the room when she looked up, but he’d taken a couple of steps closer.

  He traced the edge of her face with his forefinger, sending heat waves all the way to her toes. “You were named right, Diana. She was the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature in Roman mythology. She even had the power to talk to animals.”

  It was downright geeky and nerdy but yet still the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. Before she could say a word, his lips closed over hers in a searing-hot kiss that weakened her knees. Age, time, place—the universe stood still, and the only people occupying the whole world were Luke and Diana. She felt like a goddess when his arms went around her and drew her even closer.

  One kiss led to another and still another. They were both panting when they heard someone coming up the stairs, and they stepped back from each other. “How long are we going to deny this thing between us? Something stirred in my heart when we shook hands the first time.” Luke locked eyes with her.

  Diana heard Carmen’s door open across the hallway, so she took another step back. Then Carmen rapped on the door and stuck her head inside. “Hey, can I come in, or are you busy?”

  “Let’s talk about it later,” Diana whispered to Luke.

  Luke nodded. “I’ll come back and get the device in a couple of hours. I’ve got a couple of things to do before I need to see what’s going on in the cyber world today.”

  “You really like him, don’t you?” Carmen cocked her head to one side once he was gone.

  “No. Yes. Maybe it’s just lust, but right now, no matter what it is or isn’t, we have too much on our friendship platter to deal with this. You’re going through a divorce. Tootsie’s still in mourning, and now Joanie is probably moving away from us. That’s enough drama for now. I don’t need to add romance to it.” Diana flipped on the light. “I’ll never take being able to do that for granted again.”

  Carmen sat down on the edge of the bed. “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Yes, I am, and now I’m doing it again. How are you with Joanie moving?”

  “Horrible. I can’t imagine life without her there every day,” Carmen admitted. “But I’m not telling her that, not when it means that she can be with Brett every day and there’ll be no more deployments or missions.”