After That Night. Ann Evans
a real person at all. Just the family facilitator who made sure they got to school every morning with full stomachs and clean clothes. The one who carted them to soccer practice. The one who read them stories at night and cried silly tears over the pictures they drew. Just being a mom.
At the other end of the table, her father and Christopher remained judiciously silent, but Trent, never one to catch subtle changes in the air around him, couldn’t help grinning at her. “There you go, Jen,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Offer the guy some peach cobbler. He’ll spill his guts about romance faster than one of Christopher’s collars trying to beat a rap.”
This time all three men laughed. Even the boys joined in, not fully understanding the conversation, but tickled by the goofy face their uncle made.
Jenna ignored the laughter, refusing to make the discussion any more unpleasant with the boys present. She retreated to the kitchen to wash the dinner dishes while Trent helped Petey with his homework and her father flipped on his favorite television program. Perhaps sensing her irritation, Christopher made a half-hearted attempt to clear the table and help with the dishes, but she shooed him into the living room to join the others.
She usually ran the dishwasher, but tonight she filled the sink with hot, soapy water and slowly lowered the dishes into it. She wasn’t that eager to join the rest of the family. Maybe tonight she’d distance herself entirely from them. Even the boys.
It didn’t matter that some of the things they’d said were the same arguments she’d used at lunch with Vic. They should have been supportive. They shouldn’t have made fun of the idea. At the very least, they should have pretended to think she could do it. For heaven’s sake, she was a college graduate. A working mother. She wasn’t stupid.
She supposed it was her own fault if her family discounted her, tried to run her life. Growing up, she’d allowed her brothers to do most of her thinking for her. It was habit with them now. And since her mother’s death a few years ago, her father had become more protective of her, as well.
The circumstances of her failed marriage hadn’t helped. Jack Rawlins had been the sweetest-talking, handsomest man she’d ever met. He had dreams of running away from the ho-hum world of corporate accounting, living in wild, indolent grace on some tropical island. The unreliable heat of physical desire had sparked and flared between them, and over the objections of her entire family, they had eloped.
For a while, even after the boys came, they’d both worked toward that fairy-tale goal. Jack had bought a boat to fix up. He wanted to sail around the world, and Jenna could see herself on the deck, warmed by the sun, her hair tangled with salt spray as she kept a journal detailing their escapades. They would share a life bigger and grander than anything hot, humid Atlanta had to offer.
But by the fifth year of their marriage, Jenna had begun to modify that dream a little. The boys needed roots. They would be in school soon. The house they’d bought required repairs that were more crucial than the rotting, rusting boat sitting in drydock in the backyard. Could you really support yourself on a small island in the Pacific? Live on coconuts and fish? Maybe it was time to consider occasional vacations, instead of a permanent relocation.
Foolishly, she’d thought Jack had come to that conclusion, too. Passion became a missing ingredient in their comfortable, suburban lifestyle, but Jenna was certain that Jack still loved her. That whatever hopes they’d had to compromise, it would be all right. Sooner or later, didn’t everyone have to accept reality?
And then she woke up one day to discover that Jack hadn’t settled at all. That he’d emptied their bank account, run up their credit cards and booked a flight to Tahiti.
For two.
Evidently his secretary had similar dreams of an adventurous life.
The divorce had been painful, but mercifully quick. The boys had been spared the details of their father’s desertion. Jenna had sold the house, moved back in with her father and begun to rebuild her credit. Her family had closed ranks around her, and she’d been so devastated she’d gone right back to letting them take care of her.
Her one moment of spiteful retaliation? Jack’s boat, left behind because it simply wasn’t grand enough, had mysteriously burned to a crisp. She wasn’t a saint, after all.
Yet she couldn’t honestly say she missed Jack all that much. He’d been so emotionally distant for so long. The boys were finally getting used to the fact that he never called or wrote. Not even a card to them on their birthdays or at Christmas. Those were the only times Jenna thought she could really hate the man.
Perspiration beaded her forehead from the dishwasher’s steamy heat. She swiped it away with one arm. The moonless night had turned the window over the sink into a mirror. She caught her reflection in it, and her submerged hands stilled.
Who is that woman?
It had been years since she’d really evaluated her looks. Now she gave herself the most thorough once-over she could remember. And what she saw made her throat go dry with panic.
Because her mousy-brown hair lacked body, she’d always worn it short, a perky style she’d considered becoming to her long neck. But when had carefree become careless? And her eyes. It wasn’t just the unflattering overhead lighting in the kitchen. There were shadows under them that made her look downright unhealthy. In their dark depths there was no gleam, no energy. Only an unnervingly bleak, fenced-in look.
It was the sight of her mouth that troubled her the most. It had always been her best feature, and truthfully, she was a little vain about it. A lovely bow shape, it curved upward at the corners, the lower lip lush and mobile. In their romantic early days, Jack had told her that it just begged for a man’s kiss.
Of course, he’d probably told his secretary that, too.
But it didn’t matter. What she saw now was nothing she wanted to lay claim to. Her lips seemed thin and down-curving, as though she were the type who constantly manufactured grievances. And tight, as though her teeth were clenched on despair. When had that happened? And how could she have missed it?
She hardly noticed when the dishwater turned too cool to do much good. She kept looking at that stranger in the glass. She knew the divorce had left her pride in tatters, had left her feeling rudderless and finished, but she thought she’d finally come through all that. She was picking up the pieces, moving on with life, moving into life again.
You sure about that, Jen? If that was so, then who was this stranger who stared back at her? And how long before the years took an even greater toll? Once the boys no longer needed her… Once life was filled with more disappointment than fulfillment…
I’m not going to let that happen, she swore to the woman in the glass. I refuse. It’s not too late to change things.
She set the rest of the pots to soak and dried her hands. The family was engrossed in some sitcom blaring on the television and hardly noticed as she made her way upstairs to her bedroom.
She dialed Vic’s number before she could change her mind and was relieved when her friend picked up on the second ring.
“What are you doing?” Jenna asked.
“Packing, of course.” There were muffled sounds from the other end of the phone as Vic readjusted the receiver. “What will take hollandaise sauce out of a white cotton blouse?”
“Try some club soda mixed with baking powder.”
“I knew you’d know. So what’s the answer?”
Jenna didn’t hesitate. “I’ll go.”
Vic whooped with delight. “Terrific! I told Lauren that once you got home and really thought about it, you’d come up with a dozen reasons why you should go.”
Jenna couldn’t resist smiling. “Actually I couldn’t come up with a dozen. Only six.”
“And they are?”
“Dad, Christopher, Trent, Petey and J.D.”
“That’s