The Ocean Between Us (25 page)

Grace drove home from her fitness class and showered, ignoring the creaky plumbing. She was just getting dressed when she heard Brian yell, “I’m home.”

Shaking her damp hair, she went downstairs. Brian stood with his elbow propped on the refrigerator door while he drank directly from the milk carton.

Grace opened her mouth to scold him, as she had for years, knowing even as she spoke that it wouldn’t take effect. But something stopped her, a flash of memory so vivid and strong that she caught her breath. Here he was, a grown man who would soon be leaving home, yet she could picture exactly how he had looked as a little boy, standing in the glow of the refrigerator light as he foraged for food. She still remembered his favorite red plaid cowboy shirt and hat, the sagging holsters he used to fill with golf balls instead of guns. Each time she’d catch him helping himself to something from the fridge, he’d turn on that glorious smile and declare, “I’m the hungriest boy in the world.”

He was gone, that little boy, and in his place was a tall man straining toward his own future.

When he finally noticed her, he stopped drinking and offered her that same smile. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hey yourself. How about you get a glass from now on?”

He tossed the carton into the trash. “It’s empty. Anyway, I need to go.”

“Go where?”

He hesitated, shuffled his feet. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

She frowned. “What errand?”

“I need to mail something.” He took a deep breath, then set his jaw. He went to the dining room table and showed her a large, flat cardboard case with a handle on top. “I’m sending my portfolio to RISD today.”

Grace was speechless with pride and hope.
RizDee,
he pronounced it, just like its artistic alumni. The Rhode Island School of Design. It was where he’d dreamed of going to college. “Good for you, Brian. Do you mind if I take a look?”

“Go ahead.” He stood back while she studied samples of his work—dreamy pastels, precise etchings and fantastically detailed drawings in pen and ink.

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ve always loved your artwork.”

“Dad’s going to have a cow.”

She stiffened. “This is your decision. Your life.”

“He’ll say we can’t afford it. This school doesn’t even offer athletic scholarships.”

Brian knew his father well. But Grace felt compelled to say, “Go ahead and get your materials in. Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

“Do you think he’ll freak because I didn’t apply to the Naval Academy?”

“Totally,” said Katie, coming into the kitchen and setting her clarinet case on the counter. “Boy, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when he gets home.”

“Why don’t you just—”

“Don’t start,” Grace warned them both.

“He’s already got a son in the Navy, anyway,” Brian muttered.

“Oh, Brian. He doesn’t consider Lieutenant Lamont—” Grace
stopped. For a moment she thought about falling into her old habit of answering for Steve, explaining her absent husband to his children. That was what she used to do each time he was away. But no more. Steve was going to have to answer for himself from now on. It was up to him to convince Brian he wasn’t losing his place in the family. “You should talk to your dad about that.”

“No way.”

“I talk to him about it all the time,” Katie piped up. “He says he feels bad that he never knew about Lieutenant Lamont. But that can’t be changed. He’s glad the guy grew up with a nice dad, and that’s that. But
we’re
his family. And he
will
freak if you don’t go to the Naval Academy.”

Grace was relieved that, like her, Steve wasn’t going to let their differences interfere with his relationship with the kids.

She heard a car door slam and glanced out the front window to see a stranger coming up the walk. Then she realized it wasn’t a stranger at all.

“Holy crap,” said Brian, and Grace didn’t bother to correct him. “What did she do?”

“Don’t say a word,” Grace cautioned him as the front door opened. “Brian, don’t you—”

“Jeez, Em, you hacked off all your hair,” he said the second she stepped inside.

“Brilliant observation, genius,” she murmured, putting her backpack on the stairs.

“You look—”

“Totally butch,” Katie said in a scandalized whisper. “Oh, Emma—”

“Quit making such a big deal about it, already. It’s just hair.” Emma’s cheeks were red.

“Can I…touch it?” Katie reached out and brushed her hand across the dark blond bristles.

“Back off, pest,” Emma said. She went to the refrigerator and took out a carton of yogurt.

“It’s absolutely great,” Grace said, masking her shock. Emma’s
yard-long silky hair was now an inch all over, if that. She looked like a just-hatched chick.

Grace was dying to know what her daughter was thinking, but a girl’s self-esteem was a fragile thing. Proceeding with caution, Grace added, “In fact, I wish I had the guts to do something daring with mine.” She touched her damp hair, which hadn’t changed in decades, except that now it was streaked with coarse gray threads.

“Speaking of change, I need to tell you something, Mom.”

“What is it?” asked Grace. Good Lord, first Brian and now Emma.

“She wants to wear Jockey shorts,” Brian said.

“Shut up, Brian. Just shut up,” Emma snapped.

“Brian, disappear,” Grace ordered. “Go do that errand.”

He didn’t need any further encouragement. He grabbed the portfolio and the car keys and headed out the door.

“Mom, what I need to tell you is that I’m dropping my PE class.”

“The one you’re in with Shea and Lindy and Cory?” Katie asked. “What are you, nuts as well as bald?”

“Katie, maybe you should disappear, too.” Grace gave her a gentle shove toward the stairs.

“But—”

“March.” Grace wanted to know what was on Emma’s mind, and she knew she wouldn’t find out with the other two hanging around.

“Is this about Cory?” she asked.

Emma’s head came up. “I’m not seeing him anymore.”

“I noticed that he’s stopped calling. I was waiting for you to say something. Why, baby? Was he a jerk to you?”

A dry laugh escaped her. “He’s a jerk in general.”

Kill him, thought Grace. Kill him now. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. What happened?”

Emma looked out the window. “Nothing. We called it quits, that’s all. It’s no big deal. I’ve broken up with boys before.”

Grace gave Emma a hug. She smelled of soap and exotic hair dressing. “I hate to see you hurting. Is he the reason you cut your hair?”

“No way.” Emma stepped back and took a bite of her yogurt. “Are you, like, really good friends with his mom these days?”

Grace thought about all the Officers’ Spouses meetings she’d skipped lately. Quite likely she was not Allison Crowther’s favorite person these days. “No. Don’t worry about that. Is Cory giving you a hard time in PE class? Is that why you want to drop it?” she asked softly.

“I just want to drop it, okay?”

“Can you do that, so late in the year?”

“My adviser says I can as long as I add another PE class. I’m going to do independent study.”

Grace stared at her daughter’s pale, slender neck, the spiky hair a crown of thorns on her head. “What are you going to study?”

She scraped out the last of her yogurt. “I haven’t decided.”

Grace hated to see Emma looking so lost and hurt. She wanted to like the new hair, but it just looked…mutilated.

When the kids were little, Grace used to kiss their hurts and send them on their way. Helping her grown daughter was more of a challenge. “Swimming?” she suggested.

“I practically live at the pool as it is.”

Grace glanced at the Totally New Totally You schedule on the refrigerator. “Come to my fitness class. That would count for independent study. There’s at least one other high school girl who is taking it for credit.”

“Your class?” Emma snorted. “Come on, Mom. You don’t want me in your workout class.”

“Sure I do. It’d be special. Just because they let old ladies like me in the class doesn’t mean it’s not challenging. You find your own level.”

Emma shrugged. “I’ll check with my adviser.”

The phone rang in the study—Grace’s business line. She stood where she was, still sensing that Emma needed…something. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

“Go ahead and get it,” Emma said.

“The machine will pick up.”

“Just get it, Mom. I need to e-mail my adviser and schedule a meeting. I’m okay. Okay?”

Grace nodded, then hurried to beat the answering machine to the draw. “Grace Bennett.”

“It’s Ross Cameron.”

“Hey.” A smile eased across her face. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a list. But first, I want to tell you that my CFO is thrilled with the school you came up with. Thanks for that. I would have hated to lose her.”

“You mean if she hadn’t liked Briarwood School, she would have given up her job?”

“What can I say? I admire a woman for putting her kids first. So how are you?”

“Putting my kids first, as a matter of fact.”

“I bet that’s not as easy as it sounds.”

He had a knack for detecting the slightest emotion in her voice. She leaned over and pulled the door to the study shut. “With three teenagers, there’s always something.”

“What is it this time?”

“My older daughter—”

“Emma.”

She was pleased that he remembered. “She’s sort of had a chip on her shoulder lately, and I can’t figure out why. And today she came home with her hair all whacked off and said she was dropping her PE class.” Grace eased into conversation with him, as she often did. He was a charming man with an infectious laugh and an understanding manner. Although they’d never met in person, she felt as though they knew each other well.

“Anyway,” she concluded, “I don’t really know what’s up with her. She seems so…distant and unmotivated. I haven’t seen her mail off a single application to college, and every time I remind her, she says she’s taking care of it.” Grace hesitated. This was probably far too personal. But somehow, his friendly, open silence invited honesty; he was like the anonymous priest behind the con
fessional screen. “Maybe I haven’t been a good role model, being nothing but a wife and mother.”

“Hey, the world turns because of wives and mothers.”

“But I want her to get an education, find a life for herself.”

“Which is exactly what you did,” he pointed out.

“Well, yes.”

“What does she want?”

“I can’t tell. We’ve always had a terrific relationship. But sometimes I wonder…” Grace gripped the receiver and studied the framed portraits of her children on the wall.

“Wonder what?”

The silence was heavy, waiting. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m failing with my kids.” The whispered admission was torn from her.

“Of course you’re afraid,” he said. “It proves you’re human. I’ve never had kids, but I’ve got a mother, and I know she had the same worries about me and my brothers as you do with your children.”

“Sorry,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean to dump my worries on you.”

“You didn’t,” he assured her. “I asked.”

In the spring, Grace got a dog. She didn’t mean to, but once she saw Daisy, she lost her heart. She’d hardly slept at all the night before, tossing and turning and missing Steve so badly that she ached in her bones. At sunrise, while the kids were still sound asleep, she got up and went for a walk, savoring the chilly morning quiet of the neighborhood. Dew clung to the camellia and ligustrum hedges, and towhees flitted in and out of the verges, foraging for food. As she passed a yard fenced in chain link, a pack of dogs rushed at her. Grace jumped back, startled but not afraid. They were half-grown mongrels, stumbling over one another as they tried to get closer to Grace. Near the gate, she noticed a hand-lettered sign: Free Puppies.

A moment later a woman in a bathrobe came out of the house. At her side was a yellow dog with worn-out dugs. The four puppies veered toward them, leaping at the mother, who turned baleful eyes to her mistress.

“I didn’t mean to stir up your dogs,” said Grace.

“Everything stirs them up,” the woman said as she let the grown dog in while holding back the pups with her leg. Deprived, the
puppies fanned out across the yard, sniffing around, chewing the potted flowers on the porch. “I need to find homes for them before they drive the neighbors mad. You need a dog?”

Reflexively, Grace shook her head. Steve always said a dog was too much trouble for a Navy family.

But then it struck her. What a crock. A dog was one more thing this family had been deprived of for too long.

“On second thought,” she said, “I’d love to take one of your puppies.”

The woman’s face lit with a grin. “Then you’re my new best friend.”

They introduced themselves, and Grace couldn’t stop smiling. A dog. She was really getting a dog. She’d had one when she was a girl, but it had run off and her parents forbade her to get another. Now a dog seemed a perfectly natural addition to the family. Her neighbor, Carla van der Pol, told her the dogs were half yellow Lab, half white German shepherd.

“It’s a lot of dog,” she said apologetically, “but they’re bound to be smart and great with kids.”

Grace made a kissing sound with her lips and the smallest one, a female, looked up and wagged its tail. “I know which one I want,” said Grace, her heart filled with a sweetness she’d been missing for far too long.

The pup had one of Carla’s gerbera daisies in her mouth, so Grace didn’t even have to pick a name for her. Carla provided a shot record from the vet and a length of baling wire for a leash, and in just a few minutes, Grace was on her way.

By the time she got home with the puppy, Katie was up. She took one look at Daisy and burst into tears. “Oh, Mommy,” she sobbed, sinking to the floor and letting Daisy lick her face, “I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“Me, too,” Grace said, watching her daughter and Daisy falling in love instantly and irrevocably. “She’s going to be a lot of work, though.”

“She’s going to be a lot of fun,” Katie said, tickling Daisy’s belly. “I can’t wait to tell Dad.” She grew serious for a moment. “Or do you want to tell him?”

“Why don’t you send him an e-mail?” Grace suggested.