Four Times the Trouble (9 page)

“I think of a word—I’ll make it one you guys can spell—and draw blanks like this. Then you try to fill in the blanks by guessing letters. But each time you guess wrong, I get to draw another part of a stick figure up here. If he’s complete before you guess the word, then I win.”

“What happens if we guess the word before he’s done?” Jessie asked.

“Then we win, silly,” Allie said. “Okay, let’s start.”

“Be nice to your sister, Al,” Jacob said, relaxing just a bit. Michelle flashed him a quick smile—and the game began.

With Jacob as referee, Michelle kept the girls entertained for another fifteen minutes until their food came. And she helped dispense catsup and salt to the three plates of burgers and fries as naturally as if she’d been doing it all her life.

A second of silence fell over the table while the three children dug into their meals. Jacob figured there was something to be said for keeping their mouths full.

He’d just taken the first bite of his cheeseburger when things started to go wrong. “I have to
go,
” Jessie announced, bouncing in her seat.

Jacob groaned inwardly. What now? He glanced down the hall that led to the ladies’ room. He could stick his head around the door and make sure the coast was clear before he sent Jessie in, then stand guard outside until she came out. It wasn’t the way he liked to do things, but it didn’t look as if he had much choice. He’d just have to hope that he didn’t offend some poor woman in the process.

“I’ll take her,” Michelle said easily.

Jessie jumped up and slid her hand into Michelle’s. Jacob groaned again—audibly this time. Michelle was putting up a good front, but her food would be cold by the time she got back.

“Allie, Meggie, you go with them,” he said. At least he could insure that this only happened once.

“I don’t have to go,” Allie said, her mouth full of hamburger.

“Me, neither,” Meggie added.

Jacob gave the two his sternest look. “This is your only chance, girls. If you have to go, you better do it now.”

“I don’t,” Allie said, looking toward her sister for confirmation.

“Me, neither,” Meggie said again.

“I gotta go
now,
” Jessie said again, hopping up and down.

Jacob watched her head off with Michelle. Then, flagging down their waiter as he passed, he asked him to try to keep Michelle’s meal warm.

Three-quarters of the way through dinner, Allie had to go to the bathroom.

“Me, too,” Meggie said when she heard her sister’s announcement.

Normally patient with his daughters, Jacob had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at them. He looked across at Michelle, prepared to see the irritation or, worse, the resignation he’d come to dread seeing on Ellen’s face every time one of the girls needed something she’d just done for one of the others.

Michelle was standing there grinning. “Come on, you two. You won’t believe what’s hanging on the wall right outside the bathroom.”

Allie and Meggie jumped up, flanking Michelle as they traipsed off to the bathroom giggling excitedly. Allie was holding her hand, and Michelle was keeping Meggie within grabbing distance, as well.

Jacob stared after them, shaken by a wave of longing. Michelle’s obvious fondness for his girls moved him more than he could say. It almost made him believe he might yet find that happy-ever-after he used to dream about. Until he remembered Brian Colby.

“What’s the matter, Daddy? Don’t you like your french fries?” Jessie asked, putting her hand on Jacob’s arm.

“Sure, sport, I like them just fine,” he said, looking down at one of the females who owned his heart.

“Then why did you have such a bad look on your face? Like this.” She scrunched her eyebrows together and jutted out her chin.

Jacob smiled and tweaked the end of her nose. “Just to see if you’d notice,” he said.

Jessie didn’t look convinced. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, her small features solemn.

“And I love you, too, Jess,” he said, knowing he was lucky beyond belief to have his three beautiful daughters. Somehow he was just going to have to make them be enough.

* * *

J
ACOB
EXPECTED
Michelle to leave just as soon as they got back to his place that night. But she followed him into the house, offering to make him a pot of coffee while he got the girls tucked into bed. He could tell she had something on her mind. He wondered if she was about to turn tail, after all. Allie and Jessie insisted on hugging her good-night before they’d go to bed. Meggie didn’t hug her, but she smiled and thanked Michelle for the trip they’d made to the fabric store that day.

Michelle was gazing out the kitchen window when he came into the kitchen fifteen minutes later. “There’s diet soda in the fridge,” he said, pouring himself a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

Michelle whirled around as if she hadn’t heard him come in. “Thanks,” she said, and filled a glass with ice.

“The girls said to tell you good-night, again,” he told her when she joined him at the table. He’d had a talk with himself while he’d waited for the girls to get into their pajamas and brush their teeth. Whatever Michelle had to say, he’d deal with it unemotionally. If she was going to leave them, so be it. He’d find another way to get the costumes made. In fact, maybe that would be for the best. Her tears the night before when he’d tried to kiss her had really thrown him for a loop. But not as much as the guilt that had plagued him for coming home to her after going out with another woman. He’d actually felt like an unfaithful husband. Yeah, maybe it was for the best that she call it quits before he did anything foolish—like fall in love with her.

“Can I ask you something?” Michelle said softly.

“Sure.”

Her eyes were serious as she looked at him. “You seemed pretty on edge tonight, and I wondered if I’ve done something to upset you. Because if I have I think we should talk about it now before it becomes a problem.”

“No!” he said, setting his cup down so forcefully the coffee splashed over the rim. “I wasn’t upset with you.”

She shrugged. “Well, what then? I’ve never seen you so uptight before. If it bothers you having me around your girls, I can make the costumes myself at my house,” she said.

Jacob felt as if he was surfing on a wave that was about to become an undertow. “The girls have to help, I told you that.” He’d said the quickest thing that came to mind. Now that it seemed she wasn’t leaving, he forgot all about wanting her to go. After all, who else would he get to make those costumes?

She nodded, still looking serious. “I just don’t want you to think I’m trying to butt in, like when I came over last night.”

“Butt in already. It’s working out okay, isn’t it?” he asked, suddenly wondering if this was a roundabout way to get out of helping him.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know if it’s working out or not. You never tell me what you’re thinking, and it’s driving me nuts to keep guessing, wondering if I’m getting in your way. It wouldn’t kill you to open up a little bit, you know.”

He wasn’t so sure. But he didn’t want her to walk out that door and never come back, either. Even if she was only in his house as a friend. He wanted her there. He’d finally admitted it. To himself at least.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, cradling his coffee cup. “The last time Ellen and I took the girls out to dinner, we’d barely been seated when Jessie spilled her drink. They’re good kids most of the time, but they’re still kids. And Ellen seemed to bring out the worst in them. That night, Jessie had to use the bathroom before we’d even looked at the menus. Then when Allie started to cry because we wouldn’t let her have ice cream for dinner and her sisters joined in, Ellen insisted that I take them home, get a sitter and take her—Ellen—out for a real dinner. She yelled at the girls all the way home, telling them that they didn’t have the right to publicly embarrass her, that she deserved to be able to sit down and enjoy a meal at least once in a while, that she wasn’t going to let them steal her life away. They were only three at the time, and I don’t suppose they understood half of what she was saying, but they knew she was angry and was blaming
them.
And when I intervened, Ellen went ballistic. She claimed I always sided with the girls, and she took that out on them, as well. There was no reasoning with her. I drove as fast as I could, but the girls were all crying hysterically by the time we got home. It took me the rest of the evening to get them calmed down enough to eat a sandwich and climb into bed. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I should have seen it coming, should have been able to do something more than I was doing, but I had no clue what that was.”

When he realized how much he’d just revealed, Jacob clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t even known he remembered that night in such detail.

“She ought to be hung.” Michelle’s fierce look brought a smile to his lips.

“I gotta admit to having had that thought a time or two myself, but it was a lot more complicated than that. She was partially right. I did side with the girls a lot.”

“It sounds like you may have had good reason.”

“Some of the time. But Ellen wasn’t a bad person. She just wasn’t mother material.”

“Then she shouldn’t have had children.” Michelle’s voice was as fierce as her expression. She reminded him of a mother bear protecting her young. Except they were
his
young she was defending. It was a new experience for him, one he could probably get used to with very little effort.

“You’re right of course. And she probably wouldn’t have had children if I hadn’t pressured her into getting pregnant. I wanted kids. A whole houseful of them.”

“Didn’t you two talk about raising a family before you got married? I know Brian and I did.”

“Yeah, we talked. I told her how badly I wanted kids. She said okay. What we didn’t talk about, until after she was pregnant, was that she wanted a baby to show off but not to care for. Her idea of parenting was as far from mine as it was possible to get. She’d been raised by a nanny. Her mother was a social butterfly who always looked immaculate, who only saw her child when she stopped home in between appointments. I’d thought that Ellen of all people would understand how hard it is to grow up with parental neglect. Instead, she thought that was the only way to raise children. She was shocked when, once she got pregnant, I refused to consider hiring a nanny. Frankly I didn’t have the greatest childhood, and I was determined that my child was going to be raised by his parents, not by strangers.” Jacob knew that ultimately the fault for his divorce—for his children’s motherless state—lay with him. He’d been too unbending. He expected too much. But where his children were concerned, he wasn’t going to change. And he wasn’t sorry for that.

Michelle laid a hand on Jacob’s forearm. “It’s not wrong to expect your wife to help raise your children.”

“No, but I was so busy listening to my own needs I never really considered hers, or at least not honestly. I kept telling Ellen that once she held her baby in her arms everything would change. I was banking on that old mother’s instinct kicking in. I hired someone to help her as soon as we knew the triplets were coming, but I insisted that Ellen and I would be the primary caregivers. I really thought she’d want it that way, too, once the babies came. She never did.”

“How could anyone look at those three precious little girls and not love them instantly?”

“That’s just it. She did love them. More than she imagined she would, I think. But their care was just too overwhelming for her. She didn’t find any satisfaction in it. She told me once that she was choking on ABC’s. She wasn’t fascinated by all the simple things that I found so exciting. When Jessie blew bubbles, it wasn’t cooing to Ellen, it was drooling. When the girls started to walk, they weren’t taking first steps, they were constantly on the brink of falling and hurting themselves. She was repelled by dirty diapers, and the girls’ crying made her nervous. And to further complicate matters, they kept Ellen from doing the things she enjoyed, like shopping or playing tennis or heading up some committee. She felt like life was passing her by. And I couldn’t agree to putting the girls in day care so young or having a live-in caregiver. They weren’t going to be shoved aside like I was. I kept telling myself that Ellen would adjust in time, that once the girls got a little older she’d start enjoying them. My immediate solution was to take her out more, but while she enjoyed that, our late nights left her tired the next day, which meant she had even less patience for the girls.”

Jacob fell silent, thinking back over those days, wondering where he’d made the first mistake, looking, always looking, for the solution that would have been right for both of them. And he came to the same conclusion as always. Maybe they’d found it.

“All women aren’t like Ellen, you know.” Michelle’s words fell softly into the silence.

He thought of Jenny, his former on-air partner. She’d said she loved him, but she needed time to herself, too. Not just an evening without the girls, but evenings at home alone in front of the television set. Jacob had never understood why they couldn’t watch television together. And she’d grown tired of having the triplets as part of the package. She’d liked the girls. She just hadn’t wanted them on a full-time basis. And then there was Katie Walters’s mother. What was it the triplets had heard? Something about how she’d have left, too? Apparently wanting a full-time mother for his children was asking for too much. But then he always had wanted more than he should. His own mother had told him so often enough. Couldn’t he see she had other children to care for besides him?