An Irreconcilable Difference

by Lynda Fitzgerald

  “Greg, that’s warm.”

  “It’s good that way. Reminds me of Mexico.”

  I let it pass. “What are you doing here two days early? Why didn’t you let me know when you were getting in? I could have picked you up at the airport.” And prepared myself for the encounter.

  “I didn’t need a ride from the airport. I was going to rent a car, but I ran into Diane Jarvis. Did you know she’s a flight attendant now? She gave me a ride here. God, she looks hot. I can get dad to run me over to rent a car tomorrow.”

  His head was in the cabinet where he was putting away cans, so he didn’t see me turn to stone.

  “And I’m two days early because we finished the project I was working on two days ahead of schedule. The bosses said to consider them as bonus vacation.” He turned and grinned at me. “So here I am.”

  If my throat hadn’t already been clogged with fear, it would have been with love. Greg was a beautiful young man, and that wasn’t only through the eyes of a loving mother. He had Darren’s height and build, although not quite as muscular as his father. Broad, intelligent forehead, generous mouth. His brilliant blue eyes had to be a throwback to a long-forgotten ancestor, and his enviably thick head of near-black hair formed the perfect frame for it all. He was a junior architect with a firm in San Diego that lured him west with promises of big money and liberal benefits after he graduated at the head of his class from Georgia Tech a year ago. So far they were making good on their promises. When he first told me about the job, I was appalled at how far away from home he would be. On further reflection, though, knowing that the divorce was looming in the not too distant future, my secondary feeling had been one of relief.

  I watched him as he grouped the cans on the shelf. He had always been orderly. Well, maybe not with his clothes when he was younger, but his books on the bookshelves were arranged alphabetically by author, his model cars by size and color. As I watched him, tears threatened. He was such a beautiful boy. Man, I corrected automatically.

  “The house—” I prompted to cover my emotion.

  “Oh, yes. The house was dark because I came straight through to the kitchen hoping to snag a snack before I head out.”

  “Head out?” I felt a faint stirring of hope.

  Suddenly he looked sheepish. “Yeah. I kind of asked Diane to have dinner with me. I mean, since she gave me a ride and all,” he said with his most engaging grin. “I didn’t think you and dad would mind. I didn’t figure you’d have a big dinner planned since you weren’t expecting me.”

  “No—”

  “Great. You don’t mind, do you? Hey, where’s dad? Don’t tell me he’s working crappy hours again. He works too damn hard.”

  “You know your father.” Evasive maneuver.

  “Yeah. Well, tell him for me that he’s going to be the richest architect in the graveyard, will you?” He shuddered. “I hope to hell—”

  “Greg, your language.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew what I’d said.

  He dimpled. “Sorry. Been away from my best girl too long. Forgot to watch my mouth. You want to wash it out with soap?”

  I couldn’t resist smiling back. “I might if you aren’t careful. You were saying?”

  “Was I? Oh yeah, I hope to—heck—that I never get to be like him in that way. I’m so much like him in every other way.”

  I turned back to the groceries. I had also bought two brands of chocolate milk and chocolate syrup. Cookies. Along with the four flavors of ice cream. My subconscious mind had been in charge while I was shopping, all right.

  “How’s grandma?” Greg asked, closing the cabinets and heading to the refrigerator.

  “She’s fine. Dying to see you, of course. I had dinner with her last night. She has a new hairdo.”

  “She always has a new hairdo. What color is it this week?”

  I laughed. “Some kind of blonde. Very attractive, really.”

  “Yeah. Well, I liked it when it was gray.”

  Very conservative in his own way, my son.

  “And Grandpa?”

  “He’s a little worse, I’m afraid. He doesn’t recognize any of us anymore.”

  “Geez, mom. That’s tough.”

  He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture so like Darren’s, it ripped at my heart.

  “I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if something like that happened to Dad. Do you think it’d be okay if I went to see grandpa while I’m here?”

  I walked over to where he stood and gave him a hug. “I think that would be wonderful, sweetie, although he probably won’t recognize you. Just watch out for his new doctor. He’s a tough one. His name is Proctor.”

  “Doctor Proctor? No way.” Greg was nothing if not quick.

  “I’m afraid it’s true.”

  “Poor sap.” He grabbed a carrot out of the bag before I could get it in the refrigerator. “I’ll try not to laugh in his face.”

  I grimaced. “If he shows you the same face he showed me, you won’t be tempted to laugh, believe me.”

  A horn honked out front. Greg looked toward the front door, then back at me. In a second, I was again swinging in the air. “Gotta run. Give dad a hug for me and tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. I’ve missed you two so much. I’ll kick my suitcase out of the way so dad doesn’t trip over it when he comes in. And don’t wait up for me. I mean, Diane looks real hot.” He gave me a squeeze and put me on the floor. “God, it’s great to be home.”

  With that, he was gone, and it was as if the kitchen lights had dimmed to half their brightness. It wasn’t merely that I was a neurotic, doting mother, although there was that. Greg had a positive energy, an enthusiasm that encompassed everyone who came in contact with him. It wasn’t something he developed over the years the way you develop, say, a speech pattern or a certain way of walking. It was something he was born with that grew as he grew. It was unearthly and precious—and I was very much afraid that in the next twenty-four hours, I was going to damage it irreparably.

  As I trudged up the stairs with Greg’s suitcase, I said a little prayer of thanks for the reprieve, not only for myself, but for Greg. Let him have one more night of ignorant bliss before his world evolved into something he didn’t recognize. My mother would have said I was being dramatic, but I didn’t think so. Family was important to Greg, even his sister, with whom he had been at war for the last ten years.

  I didn’t quite understand that war, although I’d witnessed enough of its battles. It seemed to stem from the deep-seated disapproval of each for the other. Granted they were polar opposites. Greg was air and Jana, earth. Greg was Peter Pan and Puff the Magic Dragon, where Jana was Little House on the Prairie. Still, I didn’t understand why they couldn’t respect each other’s differences instead of using them as weapons.

  The phone rang when I was almost to the top of the stairs. Since Greg was out with ‘hot’ Diane, I was afraid it might be Jana. I didn’t want to talk to her. To be truthful, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but I could never let a phone go unanswered.

  “Hello,” I answered breathlessly after racing into my bedroom.

  “Mrs. Graham, please,” said a vaguely familiar male voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Graham, this is Dr. Jules Proctor from Bradford Manor. I met you this afternoon.”

  I held the phone away from me and stared at it, incredulous.

  Chapter Five

  After a moment, I put it back to my ear. “Yes, doctor?”

  “I was hoping you would call and set up an appointment with me to discuss your father and his treatment. Since you didn’t, I thought I’d better call you.”

  I felt my cheeks begin to burn. I glanced at my watch. “Doctor, I’ve only been home for half an hour. I haven’t had time to call you,” I added with some exasperation.

  “I know. Your busy life,” he said, his voice brusque. “Now, if you’ll get your calendar, we can set up that appointment.”

  I ground my teeth together. Woul
d nothing satisfy this man? I opened my bedside drawer and riffled through the contents, making as much noise as I could. “Yes,” I said in my sweetest voice, “here it is. How about—oh—how about tomorrow afternoon?” I knew I’d be through with my other appointment by three—an appointment I dreaded, but owed it to my mother to keep. Since I knew Greg would undoubtedly sleep until long after I left in the morning, meeting with the good doctor would effectively put off my telling him at least another hour. Maybe Diane would be so hot that he would go out with her tomorrow night, too. Then maybe—

  “Mrs. Graham?”

  It didn’t sound like it was the first time he had said it. “Uh—yes?”

  “I asked what time would be convenient for you.”

  “Oh. Three-thirty? Four o’clock?”

  “Four o’clock would be fine.” Silence. Then, “You will show up, won’t you?”

  I felt the insult almost before I heard it. “Yes, doctor,” I said, my voice icy. “I will show up.”

  After I hung up the phone, I sat on the side of the bed without moving, my hands balled into fists, wishing his face was no farther away than the length of my arm. Of all the insufferable gall, first to call and demand that I come to talk to him, then to imply that I wouldn’t show up after I made the appointment. I was beginning to dislike this Dr. Jules Proctor more with every contact.

  I got to my feet, intending to brush my teeth and go to bed. Then I remembered that it was only a little after seven o’clock. That realization brought back Mother’s words about me of having a pleasureless life that consisted of working and cleaning house. It was sad how close to home her words hit.

  A dog barked somewhere outside. I looked around the bedroom, the scene of some of the happiest and unhappiest moments of my adult life. The room wasn’t overly large, but it had nooks and crannies enough to make up for it. A window seat was built into one of the dormers; a desk tucked in the other, a treasure I’d picked up at an antique shop called Pieces of the Past. My lonely king-size bed took up most of the rest of the floor space, but since the dressers were built into the closet, that wasn’t a problem. It was warm and charming and, at the moment, offered me no comfort at all.

  At one time, it had. Darren and I had fallen in love with the house the moment we saw it. It was over seventy years old then and jammed with personality. We moved in not long after Jana was born. That would make it—a hundred years old this year. “Happy birthday, house,” I whispered, heading back downstairs.

  We looked at a lot of other houses before we decided to take the plunge, but the newer homes, with their tidy rectangular rooms opening off a central hallway and their orderly rectangular windows left us cold. We kept coming back to this one. It was a patchwork, really, red brick and sprawling, with rooms tacked on by previous owners as their families and needs grew. True, there was little order or logic to its layout, but that was part of its charm. We couldn’t really afford it then, but we scrimped and struggled to make the mortgage payments until Darren’s earning power caught up with our dreams.

  It seemed so huge and grand back then. I trailed my fingers along the well-worn banister as I made my way back downstairs. I thought it would always be too large for us, with its five bedrooms and three baths and finished basement. Then, seemingly overnight, two of the bedrooms were filled with babies. A third became a home office for Darren. The master bedroom became our own private space, and the fifth evolved into a guest/sewing/storage room. Suddenly the bedrooms were all used. The basement became a playroom, and then a rec room as the kids got older. Our lives were tied up in this house, our history etched—in some cases literally—into its walls, like in the basement where little notches in the wall had marked the kids’ height as they grew. The years passed, and just as we had claimed the house for our own, the house claimed us.

  Since it was only twenty or so minutes from downtown, the neighborhood experienced a fruit-basket turnover of residents more intent on building a career than a life and home. As a result, I knew few neighbors except in passing. I didn’t mind as long as their constant coming and going kept boosting the property values.

  But now I would have to let it go. It depressed me to think of strangers moving through these rooms and maybe not loving them as I did. They would have to learn for themselves that the back door swelled and stuck when it rained and that the little attic window fell out of its casing if you tried to force it open. Or maybe they would get them fixed.

  I shook off the mood descending on me. Not since that time three years ago when Darren and I had admitted to ourselves and each other that divorce was inevitable had I allowed myself to get this maudlin. Frankly, I preferred my earlier irritation.

  I made a point of lightening my step as I headed down the hall toward the kitchen. After all, my larder was no longer bare. I could fix myself a meal. The problem, I realized as I opened and closed the refrigerator without taking anything out, was that it wasn’t a meal I wanted. I wanted life to be simple and easy again.

  I decided I couldn’t shake this depression because the house was too quiet. I switched on the little color TV mounted under the kitchen cabinet. Sound filled the room, “And the northeast is expecting another winter blast….” I flipped the channel until I found a movie, a musical comedy that was probably older than me. That thought was a bit depressing, too, so I turned the sound up—loud.

  As a five-inch Gene Kelly tap danced across the tiny screen, I got a can of soup out of the cabinet without looking at the label, other than to register that it was red and white. I dumped it and an equal amount of water into a saucepan and switched on the burner. Then I looked in the refrigerator with the intention of finding sandwich makings. As I pulled out the mayonnaise and cheese from their appointed places, the phone rang.

  Jana, was my first thought. I cringed inwardly but made myself answer it.

  “Mrs. Graham? This is Gideon Klee.”

  “Glee?”

  “No. Klee. I met you at your office today as you were leaving.”

  It took a moment for the name to register. Klee. Sam’s Klee? Why in God’s name was he calling me?

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  I could barely make out his voice over the TV, so I stepped around the corner into the dining room. “Uh—of course not, Mr. Klee.”

  “It’s Gideon. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you more today, but you seemed to be on your way out.”

  Sorry he didn’t get a chance to talk to me? Like we were old friends meeting again after a long absence? I’d never laid eyes on the man before.

  “I did speak with Sam, though,” he was saying in his lazy Texas drawl, “and he tells me you only work part-time.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I come begging a favor. I find myself in need of your services.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He chuckled. “As a notary, Mrs. Graham. Sam tells me you’re a Notary Public.”

  “Oh. I—yes. I am.”

  “You see, I brought some papers to town with me that need to be notarized, and I was hoping I could impose on you…” His voice trailed off.

  “Of course you can—or you could if I was going to be in the office tomorrow, but I’m afraid I won’t be back in until Monday.”

  “Why, that stinker told me you were going to be in the office Thursday.”

  “I usually am, but not this Thursday.”

  “That’s a darn shame. I was thinking of getting them signed and mailed tomorrow. Hey, I know. Why don’t I take you to lunch tomorrow and you can notarize them then. I promise I won’t take up much of your time.”

  To lunch so I could notarize some papers? Was the man mad? “I’m sorry, Mr. Klee. I have an appointment. Any bank—“

  “Later then? For drinks.”

  “No, I—“

  “I know what we can do,” he broke in. “Why don’t I drop by your house tonight?”

  I looked around in panic. There was no way I was going to
have this stranger who was driving my bosses nuts drop by my house. “I’m sorry, but—“

  “Breakfast then. A quick bite tomorrow morning. Sam said he was sure you wouldn’t mind, and I really would consider it a personal favor.”

  It suddenly came back to me how Sam had said Klee wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was beginning to have firsthand experience of that. I would kill Sam when I saw him again, but for now, it seemed easier to go along with Klee. I couldn’t keep the sigh out of my voice, though. “All right, Mr. Klee. Where would you like to meet?”

  “How about nine o’clock at my hotel. It’s not five miles from your house, so it wouldn’t be far out of your way. I hear they make a mean eggs benedict,” he tacked on like some kind of added inducement.

  “Your hotel,” I repeated, suddenly suspicious.

  “The Middleton Northlake. You know where it is?”

  “Yes, Mr. Klee,” I said, frost dripping from my words. “I know where it is.”

  “Gideon. I can meet you in the dining room.”

  “In the dining room?” My voice must have given me away.

  “Why, sure in the dining room. You didn’t think—Why, Mrs. Graham, what kind of a man do you take me for?” he asked on a chuckle, then without waiting for an answer, “Great. Nine o’clock. I sure do appreciate this.”

  As I hung up the phone, the smell of scorched tomatoes hit my nose with force. “Oh, my God.”

  It was all over the stove, tomato soup, running down the oven door, puddled on the tile floor. I grabbed a towel and raced across the room. I yanked the pot off the stove, sloshing tomato soup all over the floor before I could get it to the sink. What was left in the pot was beginning to smoke. Quickly, I ran cold water in the pot, and the smoke became steam. As the sizzling of the metal quieted, I registered Gene Kelly still singing in the rain.

  I looked around at the disaster that was my kitchen. The wall behind the stove was splattered red. The stove. The floor. It would take an hour or more to clean it up. With a glance at the clock and a little smile, I reached under the sink for the cleanser and a rag.