Touching Stars (22 page)

“Brandy’s hard to ignore. But she’s all mine as long as I do what she wants.”

Eric crossed one problem off the list forming in his head. “I guess it’s going to be hard to leave her next year.”

“She’s not happy about it.”

He noted that Jared hadn’t said
he
wasn’t happy, either. “Can she join you at MIT when she graduates?”

“She won’t have the grades, and her interests run in different places.”

Eric was mentally patting himself on the back. “Oh. What does she like?”

“Kids.”

“She’s planning to teach?”

“No, she just wants to get married and have a bunch. It’s her life ambition.”

Eric sat back. “And not yours, huh?”

“Sounding familiar?”

Eric hadn’t tensed for the blow. He winced. “Not exactly. Your mom had an education and a lot of interests. And we were a little older. I didn’t get roped into anything.” He didn’t add that neither Jared nor Dillon had exactly been planned babies. That was not information you passed on to the next generation.

“Mom had lived all over the world. I guess she’d had a million experiences before she got married. Brandy just wants to stay here, have kids. Marry me.”

“Jared, if you go along with that, your whole life will be mapped out for you.” Eric hesitated, then decided to be brutally honest. “And you don’t want to be in the position I was in.”

“No? What position was that?”

“Of realizing you’ve chosen a lifestyle you aren’t cut out to live. Your mom and I went into our marriage with our eyes half-open. Neither of us saw the whole picture. By the time we did, we had three children and no workable compromise on the best way to stay married and raise you boys. And even if we were young, we were still older and more experienced than you and Brandy.”

Jared was silent.

Eric realized he needed to go further, but he was walking on dangerous ground. “Someday you’ll be a great dad, better than I’ve been. Hands down. But I guess I’m trying to tell you there’s no hurry. There’s a lot of world to see. This is the time for you to live out your own dreams, not somebody else’s. You need to be careful.”

Jared looked up. “Careful? You should talk. Why weren’t
you
careful?”

“I was young. I thought I could do everything, be everything, and I—”

“Not then. Now! While you were in Afghanistan. Why did you put yourself in danger like that? How could you have let yourself be captured that way?”

Eric felt as if the conversation had taken a nosedive. For a moment he couldn’t reorganize his thoughts.

“You must not have been paying attention,” Jared said. “All those years you stayed safe, then, suddenly, you just let them grab you?”

“I didn’t exactly let them. I mean, I didn’t stand on the corner with a sign on my chest saying Take Me, I’m an Infidel and a Sucker.”

“Dad, something must have been bothering you, or you wouldn’t have taken that kind of a chance! And I’m pretty sure I know what it was.”

Eric couldn’t get a handle on the conversation. “You’re going to have to speak plainly here. I’m afraid I’m really lost.”

“It was my letter.”

Eric stared at him. Jared had mastered his mother’s stoic demeanor, but now the mask had slipped. His eyes were haunted. His cheeks were flushed. He looked as if he was trying not to cry.

“Letter…” Then he understood. “Jared, you mean the letter about your graduation?”

Jared looked away, an answer as plain as any he could have given.

Eric had never felt like a greater failure as a father. He swallowed, and the taste was bitter.

“I had no idea you thought that,” he finally said. “It just never occurred to me you’d think there was some connection.”

Now he remembered the letter clearly. In one of their infrequent, difficult-to-arrange phone calls to or from Afghanistan, Jared had reminded him about his graduation and asked when Eric would be arriving home. Eric had told him the truth. They would celebrate whenever he was able to get back to the States, even if he was late. But his travel arrangements and work schedule were uncertain and Jared shouldn’t count on him.

Shouldn’t count on him. Exactly the way Jared had never been able to count on his father being at his side for any of the important events of a child’s or teenage boy’s life.

A letter in his son’s neat, careful handwriting had arrived two weeks later, adorned with colorful stamps, opened and resealed somewhere along the way. It was all right that Eric wasn’t planning to come home to see Jared graduate. Eric was never there for anything that mattered anyway, so why should he start now? In the future, Jared wouldn’t even bother his father when things were happening in his life. Then Eric wouldn’t have to search for new excuses.

The letter had shaken Eric. He’d scurried around trying to make arrangements to get back in time, until the opportunity to interview the Taliban connections had landed on his doorstep. In the flurry to find a way to make the interview happen, Jared’s letter had been tucked away to deal with later. And in the aftermath? In the aftermath, Eric hadn’t given it another thought.

“People who are worried or upset are careless,” Jared said. “I’ve always known that. I’ve always tried not to upset you. None of us want you to make a mistake. But you did this time.”

Eric wished for a time machine. Not one that would take him back to a phone call he had mishandled, but one that would take him back to the day Gayle had given birth to their first son. He wished he could try all over again to be a better father, but even as he wished it, he knew that even if he could, he would probably fail in many of the same ways.

All he could do now was tell Jared the truth.

“I
was
upset.” He cleared his throat. “The letter brought home to me what a loser I can be. But it never occurred to me that I couldn’t make it up to you, Jared. I love you, and you love me. I’m not the world’s most perfect father, but the love’s always been there. And I knew that the way we really feel about each other would get us through. So no, I didn’t go into that meeting distracted and worried about you. Because right or wrong, I thought things would be okay. We would talk. If I couldn’t get back for graduation night, I would find a way to make it up to you. Maybe I was wrong about that, but that’s what I thought.”

“You’re just saying that.” But Jared didn’t sound sure.

“No, I’m not. It’s true. I started making arrangements to come home right after I heard from you, then that interview came up, the one that got me in trouble. I put the letter and the arrangements aside, and I focused on what I was about to do. Completely. Stupidly, as it turned out. But the only people who had any fault in capturing me were me, for believing a friend would never betray me, and the men who wanted to kill me. Never you. If anything, knowing you and your brothers were here waiting for me to come home helped keep me alive. It gave me that much more of a reason to escape.”

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

Eric shook his head. “If you want, you can be angry at me for not being more upset by your letter. But don’t be angry at yourself for writing it, and don’t worry that it affected anything that happened. I promise I’m being honest with you.”

Jared searched his face. Then, as Eric watched, his tension seemed to ease, and he actually smiled a little. He shook his head. “You’re a selfish bastard, aren’t you?”

Eric sighed, then smiled, as well. He wasn’t particularly good at knowing the right things to say to his sons, but this time he had calmed the waters. “Sometimes self-absorption is a good thing. You can let go of this now, right? Knowing I was selfish enough to put my work ahead of you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I may be selfish and a bastard, but I promise that before all the other stuff intervened, I was trying hard to make it home for your graduation.”

“Well, you did make it home, after all.”

“Right, only next time you write me a letter like that one, I’m going to hop on the first airplane out of wherever and not wait to get kidnapped. It will be easier on both of us.”

In the past, Gayle had rarely had to struggle to figure out what she was feeling. Since Eric’s arrival, those days were gone. This morning she had a choice of quandaries. Did she have any right to feel annoyed that Eric had begun demolition on the garden-shed apartment without asking her permission? After all, he had done it as a surprise, a favor. Was she overreacting to simple kindness?

And second, had she done the right thing by asking Eric to intercede with their son? Would he be sensitive, or would he go after Jared like a journalist who couldn’t take no for an answer? And was this last concern really about Jared, or about sharing the rewards of parenting?

She was straightening the morning room, wondering if she’d really faced how complex this summer might turn out to be, when Eric found her again.

“I thought you had a housekeeping crew.”

She looked up from gathering newspapers and piling coffee cups on a tray, and tried to evaluate his expression.

“I just wanted to clear out the debris before the quilters get here. The crew will clean the room later.” She decided it was safe to continue. “Did you find Jared?”

He rubbed his chin, as if trying to decide whether to shave again. He hadn’t for a few days, but on Eric, it was a look that worked.

“Did you know he blamed himself for what happened to me?” he asked.

She listened as he explained that their son had felt responsible for the kidnapping because of an angry letter. Once he finished, she was immeasurably thankful she had given him the opportunity.

“That explains a lot, but Jared never said a thing.”

“I think it was just between us.”

“You set him straight?”

“I think it’s squared away.”

She wished she could find Jared and give him a hug, but that kind of sympathy wouldn’t be appreciated. The days of gathering him in her arms and kissing boo-boos had ended.

She picked up the last cup and set it on the tray. “They’ve all taken the events of this summer so differently.”

“I’ve always been lousy at remembering how important rituals and holidays are.”

“It’s funny, too, because nobody likes a party better than you do.”

She had already noted that Eric had gradually cranked up the warmth of his smiles since his arrival. Now the one he sent her heated the air.

“I know somebody who needs a party and a celebration.”

“Oh, no. Don’t even think it.”

“Forty’s a big birthday, Gayle. And I’m not so far removed from your life that I don’t remember that
your
fortieth is right around the corner. As Jared duly pointed out to me, I need to start paying attention.”

“My birthday is right at the end of camp, so I’ll be busy anyway. The boys will give me books and CDs. They’ll probably cook dinner and make me a cake. That’s all I want.”

“That’s no way to celebrate.”

“I prefer to celebrate this one by forgetting its existence.”

He moved closer and put his hand on the back of her neck. He began to knead it. “You can’t bury your head in the sand. I’m past forty and still alive to tell about it.” He paused. “Even if it was a close call.”

Eric was a physical person, a toucher. She knew there was nothing to this; still, the unexpected pleasure of being touched by a man radiated through her. She looked up and saw Noah frowning in the doorway, and she had a sudden impulse to push Eric’s hand away, even though the contact was casual.

Eric dropped his hand anyway. “You’re not getting off that easily,” he told her.

She shook back her hair and straightened her shoulders. “I mean it, Eric, I just want to be with family.”

She watched as he passed Noah going out of the room. Noah stepped back to be sure his father didn’t touch him. Eric made a point of clapping his hand on Noah’s shoulder briefly anyway.

Noah didn’t look at Gayle. She could feel the animosity radiating from him. “I’m done with my part of lunch,” he said.

She wanted to explain, but she didn’t have a chance. Helen came through the door, along with Kate Brogan and Cathy Adams. The women already looked wilted by the heat and glad for the air-conditioning.

“Just the man I wanted to see.” Helen wiggled a finger at Noah. “Time we started those quilt lessons, don’t you think?”

Noah glanced at his mother, his expression still sullen. “I
am
done in the kitchen for now.”

“Go ahead. We don’t have to leave until eleven. I’ve got things I need to do.”

“Not so fast.” Helen pointed to the quilt. “Don’t you want to try again?”

Gayle couldn’t honestly say she didn’t have the time. Both Cissy and Paula were working this morning, and several of the guests had already checked out. Noah had done the prep work for the campers’ lunch. It was too hot for the gardening she’d planned. She searched for another excuse, but Helen was on to her.

“My mama always said if at first you don’t succeed—”

“Try, try again,” Gayle finished.