Claire Knows Best (20 page)

“I’m sorry, Greg.” It’s all I can think to say.

Silence is the name of the game for the last ten minutes of our drive. But when we pull into the parking lot of my apartment
complex, Greg’s face darkens into a scowl. “Look, how long is that guy going to take fixing your house?”

The way he says “that guy” leaves no doubt in my mind that Greg’s not a bit happy about Van.

“He says a couple of months.”

“You don’t want to live here a couple of months, do you?”

Not sure what he’s getting at, I shrug. “I really don’t have a choice. I wouldn’t want to stay much longer than that, but
until then I can put up with it.” Hopefully Penny’s petition will do some good, and the party guys will cut it out. Judging
from the noise coming from my building, though, I highly doubt if anything short of eviction is going to convince those guys.

“You could stay at my house.”

“Come on, Greg. I know you want to look out for me, but you don’t have to worry about it anymore. I can take care of myself.”

“I know.” He looks at my building. The redbrick apartment building holds two townhouses. But they were built at least twenty
years ago, and the wear and tear is more than apparent. But at least they’re clean and bug-free. “I don’t want to leave the
house empty for a whole year. You could stay there free just to keep it lived in.”

“But it’s not practical. The kids and I are going to be back in our house in two months. Leave me a key and we’ll keep an
eye on it. Make sure it doesn’t look empty so no one will break in.”

“My things are going into storage anyway.”

So, he
was
just offering for my sake. Something inside of me shrivels. I swallow hard before I reiterate my refusal. “Thanks anyway.
But it’s not necessary.”

“All right.”

I take the silence that follows as my cue to get out of the truck. I open the door. “Thanks again.” I turn just before sliding
out. “I’m really happy for you. It’s gutsy to give up a career and someone you love to do what you’re doing. I hope…”

For the record, I was going to say “I hope you find someone to make you happy.” But that’s not true. I mean, I want him to
be happy. But happiness doesn’t necessarily mean
married
and I’m not going to bring that up again. Ignoring the inner voice reminding me that “it is not good for man to be alone,”
I look into his expectant eyes. “I hope you have a safe trip.”

Tenderness sweeps over his face. He looks at me as though memorizing every line (and believe me, there are plenty) and every
contour. Tears well in my eyes. Before I can avert my gaze, his expression changes and I know he saw the tears. “Bye, Greg.”
My heart feels like it’s being ripped from my chest as I walk the twenty yards to my doorstep.

I feel his eyes on me and, mustering as much determination as I can, I squeeze my hands into fists. Like a well-trained soldier,
I force my attention forward. Everything in me screams to turn around and run back to him. But I stand firm.

I can’t be a pastor’s wife. The price is just too high.

“Claire, why didn’t you call us? We would have come and picked you up.” Darcy’s voice scolds me over the phone.

I’ve been trying to be really nice to Darcy lately. During her last ultrasound, her doctor said she’s a few weeks further
along than they originally thought. Which is not fair. I always knew about two weeks after I was pregnant. Good for beginning
prenatal care, but gee whiz, it makes the wait that much longer. This new date means Darcy was three full months pregnant
at Christmastime when she found out. Which means she’s eight months along, raging with end-of-pregnancy hormones, exhausted
from lack of sleep, and prone to unexplained and unprovoked tears. Which is why I have been trying to be nicer than usual.
“To tell you the truth, Darce, I just called the first person who came to mind.”

Oh, shoot. There’s zero chance she’ll let that pass without comment.

“See? You still love Greg.”

Do I know Darcy or what? I hate being right all the time. “What’s love got to do with it?”

Hesitation gives silence a chance. I smirk.

“Are you joking?”

“A little bit.” But I’m serious, too. “Love isn’t the issue with Greg and me. It’s about where we want to be ten or twenty
years from now. And our visions of tomorrow don’t match.”

“A wife should adapt to her husband.”

Excuse me while I barf.

“Precisely why I will not be walking down the aisle with Greg.”

“Oh, Claire, honestly. Sometimes you’re so stubborn.”

Okay, enough of this. “Yes, well. I mainly called to let you know about my car situation. You’ll have to bring the kids home
after church tomorrow.”

“Want me to come get you for service? Rick is covering for Sam at the hospital, so he can’t go.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say yes, then I remember Greg said they’d be announcing his departure tomorrow. If I know
Pastor Devine, he’s going to make a big deal out of the whole thing. I would spend the entire service in tears.

“I think I’ll pass. I’m not feeling real great.”

“Claire,” she says softly. “You’ve missed several services in the past few weeks. Are you all right spiritually?”

“What?” Irritation builds in me. “Yes, I’m fine. There’s just been a ton of stuff going on. You know that.”

“Yeah.” It doesn’t take a mind reader to figure out that she’s not exactly convinced. I just can’t face Greg. But there’s
no way I can tell Darcy.

“Hey, look. Since Rick’s working, come in with the kids and I’ll fix us a great Sunday dinner, okay?”

“I thought you weren’t feeling great.”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Darcy.” Okay, starting to lose cool. Must end conversation before gasket-blowing commences.
“Do you want to stay or not?”

“You know I’d love to.”

So we leave it at that.

The next day Ari shows up driving her dad’s Benz while Darcy drives her SUV. I stand at the door so that not one of my children
can get past me without a hug. After all, I haven’t seen them since Friday.

“Does your dad know you’re driving his car?” I ask after I turn Ari loose.

“We dropped him at the hospital this morning.”

“Why did you do that?”

The boys give their obligatory hugs and run off to do their own things.

Darcy holds out a set of keys. “Rick and I agree you need a car worse than I do right now. I hate to even get out of bed.”
She struggles to sit. “I know Ari isn’t supposed to be driving, but Rick thought under the circumstances it would be okay.”

I give a “that’s fine” nod, and Ari grins with victory. But no time to deal with Missy Smug-girl. “I can’t drive your SUV.”
I can’t believe she’d even loan it to me.

Shoving herself back so that the recliner footrest flies out, she stretches and grunts. “Don’t be silly. I can barely even
fit under the wheel anymore. Rick’s been after me to stop driving until after the baby’s born anyway.”

I stop just short of an insistent “What part of
no
don’t you get?” But the practical me realizes this is the ideal solution until I figure out what’s wrong with my van.

I nod, and from the delicate lift of Darcy’s brow I can tell she expected more fight from me. A smile stretches her lips.
“Oh, good. I didn’t feel like arguing.” The smile turns into a yawn. Her eyes close. “Do you need help with dinner?” she asks
sleepily.

I can’t resist a little laugh. The mother-to-be is already asleep, she just doesn’t know it yet. “Lay there and rest,” I say.
“I’ll call you when it’s time to eat.”

“Mmm… ’kay.”

In a moment I can only attribute to gratefulness over Darcy’s loaning me the SUV, I slip her shoes from her swollen feet and
set them next to the recliner. Then I snatch a light afghan from the couch and spread it over her. Being right under the air-conditioner
vent, I assume she’ll cool off pretty quickly.

“That was really nice, Mom.”

I turn in surprise to find Ari at the bottom of the steps.

“Well, Darcy’s really nice, too.” I smile at my girl. “Come to the kitchen with me while I finish dinner.”

To my surprise and delight, she does so without so much as a rolling of the eyes, unless she does it behind my back—which
is possible. “So,” I ask, pulling out the ingredients for a salad. “Did you have a good weekend?”

She gives a little shrug and to my utter shock heads to the cabinet and pulls out the large white ceramic bowl I always use
for salad. “I went out with Paddy last night.”

“You two back together?”

“I guess.” She takes a knife and the cutting board and sits at the table. I’m wondering if we’re in a real-life version of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
because this is
not
the daughter I left at Rick and Darcy’s house on Friday.

“Are you happy to be back with him?”

She grins slowly. “Yeah.”

Small talk takes over the conversation for the next few minutes until we finish making the salad. I stand and turn toward
the oven. I figure the lasagna (homemade, not Stouffer’s) is just about ready.

“Hey, Mom?”

Trying to concentrate on not burning off my fingerprints, I give her a distracted “Huh?”

I kick the oven door closed and feel panic rising as the heat begins to seep through the pot holders.

“Can I go with Paddy and his parents to Mexico?”

Good thing I am so close to the rack. I drop the lasagna onto the counter. “You want to go to Mexico?”

Ari’s hopeful expression clouds over. “They’re going with a couple of other pastors’ families. They’re going to be building
a church from the ground up.”

My skeptical nature rises, along with the disappointment of knowing her true motives for being so nice to me. Darn it. Oh
well, it’s not like I’ve actually lost anything. And I got a salad made.

“If your dad pays for it, I don’t have any objections to you going with them. It’s in July, right?”

Her face brightens about six shades. How can I be so happy for her after she blatantly set me up with her goodness to me?
When she grabs me in a fierce hug, I know why.

And who knows? Maybe the trip will do her some good.

This week Emma and I are focusing on my feelings of inadequacy as a parent. Fifteen minutes into the hour-long conversation
and I’m still talking about Ari.

“I just don’t know how to be close to her,” I’m complaining. “I look at Linda and Trish and they adore each other and sometimes
I’m so jealous.”

“Why’s that?”

“You mean, why am I jealous?”

“Yes.”

“Linda has a way of taking bad situations and turning them into learning experiences that Trish actually responds to.”

For instance, the whole pizza situation. Trish has been good as gold ever since that night. Linda didn’t even have to ground
her. Ari was livid with Rick and me about the fact that Trish was only reprimanded. I tell this to Emma.

“Can you understand why she might be upset when her punishment is so severe and her friend’s is so light for the same offense?”

I hesitate, because I do see why Ari would be upset. But the girl has done some crazy things. Sneaking out. Changing boyfriends
like you’d change socks. I’m worried about her.

Not the best thing to tell Emma.

“I think Ari senses you don’t respect her or trust her to make the right decisions. So she automatically chooses the things
she knows you wouldn’t want her to do.”

“What do you suggest?”

She pauses a second. Then: “You might sit her down and tell her you’re ungrounding her because you believe you can trust her
not to behave so irresponsibly in the future.”

As we hang up, a battle is raging inside of me. A war I have a feeling Ari is going to win.

When a person’s phone rings at three in the morning, it can mean any number of things—rarely good. So, when mine rings, yanking
my subconscious from a warm, comforting, passionate Greg-dream, I’m sorely tempted to ignore said ring. Especially when caller
ID won’t reveal the caller.

I really want to bury my head under my pillow and sink back into Greg’s arms. But then I wonder: Do hospitals show up on caller
ID? What if Mom has had a stroke? The thought sends me popping up like a jack-in-the-box. I make a dash for the cordless before
the hospital gives up.

“Hello?”

“Mom?” A young girl’s voice greets me from the other end. Definitely not a hospital. I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing my
own little girl is safely tucked away in her own bed, just down the hall from me, sound asleep.

“I’m sorry,” I say, in my most sympathetic and motherly (because, doesn’t it take a village?) voice. “I think you have the
wrong number, hon.”

“It’s me, Mom.” I hear tears in this child’s voice. And something familiar in the way she sniffles.

Ari?

I never knew it was possible for fear to grip every muscle and tendon of your body in one split second. But that’s what it
does as my mind wraps around the fact that while I’ve been blissfully dreaming of being in Greg’s arms, my daughter has not
been in her bed where I thought she was.

“Where are you?”

A sob bursts from her and she begins to babble, slurring her words and I have not a clue what she’s trying to convey, other
than the fact that she’s apparently hammered and in some sort of trouble.

“Ari! Ari, stop crying and talk to me.”

She’s so hysterical, she’s making me hysterical, and that’s not going to do either of us any good.

“Ms. Everett?”

A male voice. Also familiar.

“Who is this? If you’ve hurt my daughter, I’ll…”

“It’s me, Ms. Everett. Patrick Devine.”

“Paddy? What the heck is going on? Why is my daughter calling me crying in the middle of the night instead of sleeping like
I thought she was?”
And what do you have to do with it, bucko?
But inwardly, I’m relieved to hear she is with Paddy. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill them both, but at least I know
she’s safe. “Never mind. Just put her back on the phone.”

“Uh, I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? You’d better do as I say right now.”