To Protect and Serve (4 page)

             
As Nancy and Kate drove over to Blake’s house to get Christy, Nancy realized that she hadn’t slowed down for one instant since Jonathon had asked for the divorce.  She’d been there when her dad had come out of surgery and two days later she had been the one to drive him home and get him situated at her folk’s house.  Thank goodness the surgery had gone so well. 

             
He’d sure given the family a scare, though.  He’d never complained about anything.  When he’d gone in for his angiogram, the doctor had treated the family like this was no big deal, and probably was all for nothing.

             
It wasn’t until the doctor had come out of the room where he’d just finished the angiogram, looking slightly shaken but trying to hide it, that Nancy and her family knew that something was very wrong.

             
Her father had immediately been scheduled for heart surgery and had been transferred by ambulance over to St. Bernardine’s Hospital, where the best heart surgeons were available for the triple bypass.

             
The next time her dad said he was feeling a little tired, the family was definitely going to pay closer attention.

             
Luckily, her dad was also a fast healer and was up in record time, giving the nurses a run for their money.   ‘
There was this polar bear that walked into this bar…’”

             
When they’d realized her dad needed heart surgery, she’d taken a short leave of absence from the school, and she and the girls had stayed in Redlands while her dad got back on his feet.  But now that he was feeling better, Nancy’s folk’s house had seemed to grow smaller, and she started feeling like they were in the way.  So she and the girls headed home before they overstayed their welcome.

             
Home.

             
Not anymore.  Now it just seemed like a house.  A house with too many memories.

             
Time to move on.

              That was it!  They could sell the house and she and the girls could move right away.   She and Jonathon had been looking for a new house anyway, so she’d just call the realtor and have her put their house on the market sooner than planned.  Nancy felt slightly in charge of her life again.

             
As they pulled into Blake’s driveway, Christy came running out the front door yelling “catch ya later” over her shoulder.  She yanked open the door to the backseat, threw in her karate bag and jumped in behind it.

             
“Hi, Mom!”  Christy never seemed to do anything at less than full throttle.  It always made Nancy smile.  And for some weird reason, it always irritated Jonathon.  Oh, well.

             
“Hi, sweetie!  Have fun?”

             
“Yeah.  We went down to the creek and caught some frogs.”

             
“You didn’t bring any in the car, did you?”  Kate was half laughing, half serious.

             
“Nope.  We let them go after one of them peed on Blake’s hand.”

             
“Oh, gross!”  Kate was laughing hard.

             
“We’re going shopping, want to come along?”  Nancy laughed along with her two girls.  They made everything she’d been going through worth it.

             
While at the grocery store, it seemed to Nancy that the only people shopping except for her and the girls were couples.  Young couples.  Old couples.  Middle age couples.  Everyone was part of a couple except her.  It made Nancy tired just thinking about what had gone wrong with the marriage.  She was so absorbed in her own thoughts, that she missed the look that passed between Kate and Christy.  Then she had no more time

to think when her girls started telling her about everything they’d done

that day, in great detail and with much animation.  They brought a smile to her face.

             
Later that afternoon, while Nancy was putting groceries away in the kitchen, Jonathon walked in from the garage, wiped his feet on the small mat at the back door and started to head upstairs to his home office.

             
“Jonathon.  Do you have a minute?”  Nancy was secretly pleased with herself at just how calm she sounded.

             
“Uh, sure.” 

             
He had been treading sort of lightly around Nancy.  After getting back from her parents house, she’d made the living room couch into her bed.  She supposed she should have made him sleep on the couch, but she just didn’t want to have to put up with his complaining after his back was sure to go out if he wasn’t able to sleep on his expensive “orthopedic” bed.

             
They must have gone through six different beds in Jonathon’s search for the perfect night’s sleep.

             
She remembered how he’d insisted on using a waterbed during the time she was pregnant with Kate.  She had tried explaining to him that she wasn’t comfortable in the bed; that she just couldn’t move easily because she couldn’t get any sort of leverage to shift from one side to the other.  However, Jonathon’s back took precedence over her state of pregnancy and Nancy somehow made it through the pregnancy without too much difficulty.  That was the first time she’d moved to the living room couch for any length of time.

             
Now Nancy watched him walk back to the kitchen area and sit tentatively on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter.  He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands and after several uncomfortable

attempts, finally settled on putting them on top of the counter in a loose grip.

             
Was it only a year ago that they’d gone shopping for those barstools?  Everything had seemed fine then.  What had happened?

              Nancy tried to suppress her sigh.  She’d be damned if she’d let him see that she wasn’t doing well.

             
“I was thinking that we should put the house on the market right away.  I really don’t want to stay here with the girls.  We’ll move closer to the school before the new school year starts.”  Nancy was pleased that her voice sounded pleasant.  She felt slightly more in control.

             
‘Um.  I meant to tell you.”  Jonathon’s eyes flitted everywhere but at Nancy.

             
“Meant to tell me what?”  Okay.  Good so far.  Still sounded normal.

             
“I already, uh, called the real estate lady.  She’s coming over tonight to have us sign the papers to sell the house.”

             
Nancy just stood there, a box of cereal in one hand and a bag of chips in the other, and stared at him.  Just about the time she thought that she had pulled it all together, he broadsided her with something new.  He’d already contacted the realtor without consulting with her.  Typical Jonathon.

             
“Uh, okay.”  Nancy swallowed.  “When is she due?”  Forget trying to sound normal.  Just get through this conversation.

             
“What time is it?”  Jonathon looked around the kitchen as though he didn’t know damn well where the clock was.

             
Nancy started to tell him the time, just like she’d always jumped whenever he’d asked for something throughout their whole married life.  This time, though, he’d have to get it himself.  Within seconds some door inside of her soul slammed shut.  It no longer mattered to her what Jonathon thought about her.  It actually felt good to just stand there and make him do something for himself for once.

             
Jonathon waited, still stuck in the habits of the past.  When he looked over at Nancy, waiting for her to tell him what time it was, he was stunned to find her humming and putting away the groceries!  He wasn’t upset, just surprised.  Usually Nancy was pretty reliable in what she’d do.

             
“I think she might be due right now.”  His voice sounded smaller.

             
“Now?  As in 6:00 o’clock?”  Nancy frustration started to show in her expression and voice.

             
“Aw, come on, Nancy.  Don’t go getting all upset!  You always do this!  She’s just coming over to sign some papers.  It’s no big deal.  You always make such a big deal out of nothing.”  Jonathon had gone back to offense-mode.

             
Usually at this point in the conversation, Nancy would say that she wasn’t upset, really.  She’d apologize for her outburst, and then she’d try to move the conversation back into safer waters.

             
This time, however, she didn’t care.  She ignored him while she finished putting away the groceries and started dinner.  Okay, okay, so she slammed some cupboards while doing it.  Grilled chicken, fresh veggies, potatoes, but no rice - Jonathon was allergic to rice, unless his mother made it - and a tossed salad.  Nancy smiled to herself as she hand-shredded the lettuce – imagining each piece was a piece of Jonathon.

             
What the heck, Nancy added a pot of rice.  She supposed that some TV guru would say that she was being “passive-aggressive” but she just didn’t care.  The simple truth was that she and the girls liked rice.  She just never made it for dinner because Jonathon made such a big fuss over the fact that he was allergic to it.  He didn’t swell up or get hives or anything that drastic.  He just had digestion problems.  No one was forcing it down his throat.  He didn’t have to eat the rice. 

             
Nancy set an extra plate at the table.  If the real estate lady showed up during dinner time, she’d probably be hungry.  There was no sense in stopping dinner just for business.

             
At some point while Nancy was cooking, Jonathon must have wandered off to his computer.  It felt good to not feel that she had to answer to him.  There was a kind of freedom in it.

             
In fact, Nancy was feeling so perky that she went into the garage and found an old am/fm radio, brought it into the kitchen and tuned in a 1940’s swing station.  Dinner was easy to cook while humming along with Benny Goodman.

             
The lady showed up, papers in hand, at 7:00 o’clock. 

             
“Please join us for dinner.  There’s plenty.”  Nancy was actually glad to have someone else at the dinner table.

             
To Nancy’s surprise, the woman accepted.  She smiled and said that she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch and was starving.  As the meal progressed, Nancy and the girls had a wonderful conversation with the realtor.  Nancy could tell that Jonathon was becoming disgruntled because they were wasting time with what he called “chitchat.”  And for once, she didn’t try to soothe him.

             
Finally, the real estate lady finished dinner as well as the conversation they were having, and handed Jonathon the papers to sign.

             
“Why are you selling?” the woman said while looking in her briefcase for a pen.  She finally looked up when her question was met

with silence.  She looked over at Nancy.  Nancy was stunned to learn that Jonathon hadn’t said anything to the lady.

             
“We’re getting a divorce.”  Jonathon’s voice seemed almost sincerely sad.  Nancy couldn’t believe that he was trying to make it sound as though this was a mutually agreed upon decision!

             
“Jonathon asked for a divorce a couple of weeks ago.”  Nancy tried to keep her voice neutral.  For some reason it was important to Nancy that it be known that Jonathon had wanted the divorce, not her.

             
The lady paused, looking between Nancy and Jonathon’s faces, trying to decipher the tone of conversation.  Nancy took pity on her and moved along with the papers.

             
The rest of dinner was an odd affair.  The girls became unusually quiet.  No more stories of the exploits of that day graced the dinner table.  Nancy and the woman haltingly discussed the new Mayor and his daughter’s latest escapade with the local authorities.

             
When the front door was finally closed after all papers had been signed in what seemed like ten copies each, Nancy went to the kitchen and started doing dishes after she’d sent the girls off to get ready for bed.

             
Jonathon came into the kitchen as she was loading the dishwasher, and leaned against one of the counters.  She had to move around him to get some of the dirty pots and pans from the stove.

             
He just leaned there, not helping as usual, with his arms crossed.

             
“Do you want to talk?”

             
“No, not really.”  Nancy was rinsing out the glasses before putting them into the top rack.

             
“Well, then what was that all about?”  Jonathon sounded edgy.