A White Picket Fence

by Laura Branchflower

  Over the course of the next thirty minutes, Lina noted that Phil and Wayne barely interacted, conversing with the other couples in attendance—two other partners and their wives—but not with each other, so when they disappeared into Wayne’s study before dinner, Lina asked Diane what was going on.

  “I didn’t notice anything,” Diane said. “Are you sure you’re not imagining it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lina answered. They were alone in the kitchen and although she hadn’t planned to, she blurted out the suspicions she had been harboring since the night before, telling Diane about the tie, the text and the sudden drop in their sex life.

  Diane’s eyes widened as she faced Lina, her hands on her hips. “You can’t be serious.”

  Lina lowered her chin to her chest, sighing. “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.” Diane gave an exaggerated nod. “You’re being ridiculous. This is probably your reaction to Megan turning eighteen. It’s your version of a midlife crisis.”

  “So Wayne hasn’t mentioned anything about a Kim?”

  “Lina!”

  “Sorry.” She held up her hands. “I just—I had a bad feeling when I saw the tie and then all these things kept coming to my mind.”

  “The man loves you. I promise you, he isn’t cheating.”

  “You’re right.” Lina nodded. “I’m being silly.”

  When the last of the dinner dishes were cleared away, the group moved to the patio to enjoy the cool May evening, sitting around a fire pit as music flowed through outdoor speakers. Whatever chill Lina had thought she witnessed between Phil and Wayne earlier was no longer evident, and she decided Diane was probably right. She’d been imagining it.

  “Did you see the pitcher the Orioles pulled up? He almost had a no-hitter last night,” Wayne said.

  “No.” Diane waved her hand. “We are going to go one evening without the conversation digressing to sports.”

  “Seven innings isn’t bad,” Phil said. “If he—”

  “Did you hear Diane?” Lina said, squeezing Phil’s thigh. “No sports talk.”

  “Let us just finish this conversation,” Wayne said.

  “It will never end,” Diane said.

  “I just want to make this one point,” Phil began. “If—”

  “No,” Lina interrupted, coming to her feet. “Dance with me.” She held out her hand.

  As Phil pressed his body to the length of hers, leading her around the patio, their bodies swaying to the beat of the music, Lina forgot where they were, so when the song ended and there was light applause and whistling from the other couples she was momentarily surprised. And when Phil dipped her backwards and kissed her until her knees were weak she was even more surprised. “We’re in public,” she said breathlessly when he finally lifted his head.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” Gina Smith said to Lina after the men disappeared to the other side of the deck to enjoy cigars. “After all these years, you still act like you’re in love.”

  “We are in love.” Lina’s gaze traveled to Phil, who was laughing at something one of the other men had said.

  “We are too,” Diane insisted. “But with you and Phil it’s out there on display. You just have to look at the two of you to know.”

  “If Bob looked like Phil, I might still be in love too,” Gina said, eliciting laughter from the other wives.

  “I just wish he wasn’t working so many long hours. And the travel—it feels like he’s gone more than he’s home lately.” Lina looked around at the other women when no one seconded her complaint. “Is Phil the only partner traveling?” When they all nodded, Lina’s eyes again traveled to Phil, her unease returning.

  2

  “I’ll try to keep an open mind,” Dr. Drayton was saying to Katie as they stepped out of his office and into the waiting area a few days later, “but if it’s anything like the music my son listens to, I probably won’t like it.”

  “It won’t be,” Katie promised. “And you’ll get him—everyone doesn’t. He’s pretty deep. But I know you will.”

  “Well, I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

  Lina observed their light exchange, feeling the same mixture of awe and envy she always felt when she witnessed the easy rapport Katie shared with her psychiatrist. She wished she and Phil could experience this happier version of their daughter instead of the hostile, argumentative one they dealt with most of the time.

  Lina’s eyes shifted to the man responsible for breaking through to Katie. Baltimore magazine referred to him as a leading authority on the adolescent mind and one of the premier child psychiatrists in the country. When Lina had initially called his office eight months earlier she’d been told he wasn’t taking new patients and was offered the name of one of his colleagues. Over the next eight weeks, Lina watched helplessly as the other psychiatrist failed to reach Katie and she slipped further into what he was diagnosing as adolescent depression.

  Lina again called Dr. Drayton’s office, this time pleading for an appointment but was again told he wasn’t taking new patients. At that point, Lina did what any desperate mother would do. She drove to Dr. Drayton’s main office at Johns Hopkins Hospital and told the receptionist she wasn’t leaving until she spoke to him. It took three hours. He came out into the waiting area after his last morning appointment.

  “Mrs. Hunter, I’m Nicholas Drayton,” he’d announced. “What can I do for you?”

  She’d been momentarily surprised by both his sudden arrival and his appearance. She’d expected him to be older, but he looked close to her own age and, with a head of unruly sandy-colored hair falling to his collar, a golden tan, and green eyes that seemed to radiate warmth, he looked more like one of her mother’s hippie friends than a doctor.

  “I read that you’ve never met a patient you couldn’t reach. I need you to reach my Katie,” she’d told him.

  He’d considered her for a long moment and then he was glancing down at his watch. “If you don’t mind sharing me with a chicken panini, I’m all yours for the next hour.”

  She wasn’t sure whether it was his quiet confidence that day, or his focused attention, but as she left his office with an appointment scheduled two days later, she knew if anyone could get through to Katie, it was him.

  “Mrs. Hunter?”

  Lina brought her mind back to the present, realizing Katie had taken the seat beside hers and Dr. Drayton was speaking to her. “Sorry.” She smiled. “I was a million miles away.”

  “Shall we?” He held his hand towards his office.

  “I really wish you would call me Lina. Is there some type of ethical rule against you using first names?”

  “Something like that.” He watched her walk across his office and then slowly followed, lowering himself into a chair opposite her spot on the couch.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” she teased. “Your reputation will remain above reproach.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement.” A smile played at the corners of his lips. “I was pleased with our session today. I’m lowering her Prozac again.”

  “So soon?”

  “The goal is to have her medication free by the end of the summer.”

  “I know. It’s just—what if she reverts back or—”

  “She won’t.” He leaned forward and held out a slip of paper. “That’s the new dosage.”

  Lina took the paper, glancing down at his barely legible handwriting. “You write like a doctor.” She laughed. “I mean, I know you’re a doctor. It’s just strange the way your handwriting fits the stereotype when the rest of you doesn’t.”

  He leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg casually over the other. “No? I don’t fit your vision of a doctor?”

  “Not exactly,” she answered, looking up from the paper. “You don’t look conservative enough.”

  “That’s probably because I’m not conservative, but I can assure you we come in all types.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed she�
�d shared her thoughts aloud. “I shouldn’t generalize.”

  “You can generalize all you like. No offense taken.” He smiled then, and she thought, not for the first time, how handsome he was. “Tell me about Katie’s week. Is she continuing to interact more with you and your husband?”

  “If arguing is interacting, then yes.” She sighed. “She’s definitely interacting more.”

  He laughed. “That’s actually positive. Katie is in the process of deciding who she wants to be. Part of that process will be rejecting beliefs she determines have been imposed by her parents. Expect more of that in the coming weeks. I think you could benefit from a book one of my colleagues just wrote.” He paused as he scribbled down the name of a book on his prescription pad. “Hopefully you can decipher my handwriting.” He winked at her as he held out another slip of paper. “This book offers methods for handling argumentative teenagers. It’s important to have a dialogue with her, to listen to her demands and if you don’t agree, logically explain why. No ‘because I said so’ or ‘this is the way it’s done in this house.’ She’s intelligent. Treat her that way.”

  “Great.” She hated the idea of more conflict.

  “Be patient. We’re in the home stretch. I don’t think I need to remind you of where we were six months ago.”

  “No.” She shook her head, not wanting to rehash even for a moment the dark period in Katie’s life. “Definitely no.”

  “Okay, I just want you to see how well she’s doing. She’s ready to start socializing with her peers again outside of school, and I’d like you to encourage it.”

  “She said that?” Her eyes swung to his. “She wants to go out?” It had been ten months since Katie had gone out socially with friends.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s great, isn’t it?”

  “It is. We’ll take it slow at first. No sleepovers away from home. And hold her to her curfew. Pay close attention to the friends she’s spending time with. But it’s time for her to get back out there.”

  “Okay.” Lina dropped her eyes to her hands, her thoughts turning to Phil and his reaction to Katie leaving the house.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “I was just thinking about my husband. I’m not sure he’s going to agree. I think if it were up to him, he’d keep her from going out until she was eighteen,” she said, only half joking.

  “Would it help if I spoke to him?”

  “No, I’ll talk to him.” They’d been closer since Friday night, and she hated the thought of fighting with him about Katie.

  “Are you sure? You don’t look very convincing.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just been a tough week.”

  “Is there something I should know?” The gentle timbre of his voice rolled over her.

  “My husband cheated on me,” she burst out before quickly covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what compelled me to share that with you.”

  His eyes widened, and there was no mistaking his surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, coming to her feet. “I’m just going to leave and we can pretend I never said that.”

  “Please sit down.” His eyes were full of concern. “Lina?”

  She drew in a deep breath in an attempt to settle her nerves and slowly sat back down. “You used my first name.” She tried unsuccessfully to smile.

  “Tell me what makes you think your husband was unfaithful to you.”

  She looked into his eyes—eyes she’d looked into so many times over the past months—and began to talk, telling him of the long hours, the travel Phil was suddenly taking for work, the tie, the text message, the cell phone she could no longer access and Diane’s opinion. “All of the stress with Katie—it pushed us apart. I neglected our relationship.”

  “So if he indeed cheated, it was your fault?”

  “In part I think, but everything has been better since Friday. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it.”

  “And yet you did.”

  “I feel comfortable with you,” she admitted. “It just came out.”

  “What changed on Friday?”

  “I made a conscious effort to put him first. And I’ve started instigating, you know…” She trailed off.

  “Sex.”

  “Yes.” She blushed. “Phil has a high sex drive, and if I had been paying a little attention, I would have noticed the sudden drop in our sex life.”

  Dr. Drayton shifted in his chair. “Communication is the key to a healthy relationship. If you’re truly concerned there is someone else, talk to him.”

  “I’m not. I mean I think there may have been, but there couldn’t be now. He’s been too…” she paused, searching for the right words, “attentive to me all week.”

  Dr. Drayton gripped the arms of his chair. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  Lina sensed he was ready for their session to be over. “No, I think I’ve shared enough for one week.”

  Moments later, he was following her out into the waiting area. “Five minutes, Scottie,” he said to a boy of about thirteen who was waiting with his mother and then, after a quick goodbye to Lina and Katie, he was stepping back into his office.

  He closed the door, leaning his forehead against it. “Fuck.”

  3

  “He’s amazing,” Lina told her sister, Adele, as they stood in the living room of a house about to go on the market a couple of days later. “He brought her back to life. I just feel so grateful to him, I could kiss him.”

  “Really?” Adele’s eyes opened wider. “Is he good-looking?”

  Lina laughed. “Actually, he is good-looking. Here, take the other end,” she said, pausing as she gripped the end of a couch. “We’re going to slide this beside the window and then move the two chairs here.” Moments later, Lina stood back, inspecting the change to the room. “Perfect.”

  “Oh my God, it opened up the whole room. You’re like a decorating savant. Are you sure you don’t want to make money doing this?” What had started as a favor to Adele, looking at a few homes she was preparing for resale and suggesting ways to best showcase them, had resulted in an almost-weekly job offer from the owner of the real estate firm where Adele worked.

  “Maybe after Logan starts high school in the fall. Help me move this,” Lina said, taking the end of a coffee table.

  “So back to this good-looking doctor,” Adele said several minutes later as they walked towards their cars. “Is he single?”

  “No more Dan? I liked Dan.” Unlike most of Adele’s recent boyfriends, Dan had lasted long enough to warrant an introduction to the family.

  “Dan was too blah, too predictable. Seven months was three too many with him.” Adele went through men like shoes, constantly finding a new favorite. At forty-two, she was twice divorced but still determined to find Mr. Right, a feat Lina saw as nearly impossible considering Adele seemed to lose interest after the infatuation stage of a relationship. “Why are you avoiding my question? Is the doctor single?”

  “I think he’s married, and even if he wasn’t I would never let you near him. He’s done too much for me to pay him back with a broken heart.”

  “You could be standing in the way of true love. Speaking of which—is Phil still working an insane amount?”

  “Not so much,” Lina said, avoiding her eyes. “The trial in New York ended, and he’s been working less.”

  “That’s a relief. Do you still have to take sleeping pills when he isn’t with you?”

  “Yep.”

  “You beat me home,” Lina said after finding Phil in the kitchen. “Why are you so early? It’s barely five.”

  “Are you complaining?” He returned her kiss.

  “No, definitely not.” She kissed him again, running her hands up the lapels of his suit jacket as she leaned into him.

  The sound of the door opening preceded the entrance of eighteen-year-old Megan, and Lina reluctantly dropped her hands as Phil turned away to greet their oldest child.

 
“There’s the graduate.” He smiled as he gave her a hug.

  “Guess what?” Megan’s gaze swung between her parents. “The class elected me to give the keynote speech at graduation!”

  “That’s fantastic!” Phil pulled her back into his arms, kissing her on the side of her head. “I couldn’t be more proud of you.”

  “Congratulations.” Lina forced a smile, trying to muster enthusiasm for Megan, who seemed to have a new accolade to share daily. “That’s great.”

  “Will you help me write it?” Megan asked Phil.

  “You don’t need my help, but I’ll read it over after you have a draft.”

  “You’re the best.” She gave him another hug. “I just ran into Kelly Donnelly and Mike Stevens,” Megan said. “He’s the one who asked me to prom but I turned down,” she added when she saw the confusion on Phil’s face. “Anyway, he’s taking Kelly, but everyone knows I was his first choice, so it was really awkward.” She scrunched up her face. “I felt sorry for her. I could feel him staring at me. We were at the deli near school, so everyone was there.”

  “Watch the ego, Megan,” Lina said.

  “What? I’m just telling you what happened.”

  The door leading in from the deck opened, and Logan, at fourteen the youngest of the Hunter children, stepped into the kitchen. “Hey, Dad!”

  “Logan, you’re wet,” Lina said after seeing the trail of water between the door and the refrigerator. “How many times do I have to tell you to dry off before you leave the pool area?”

  “Sorry. I’m thirsty.” He lifted up a water bottle, and gave her a grin that rarely failed to dissipate her anger. Standing a smidgen over six feet and still growing, he was her gentle giant with dark, wavy hair that he was constantly pushing out of his eyes and a smile that seemed to always light up his face.

  “You want to play catch?” He was looking at his father as he tossed the water bottle from one hand to the other.

  “After dinner,” Phil said.

  “Megan,” Lina said, eyeing a bag of chips she’d pulled from the pantry, “we are going to eat soon.”