The Parent Plan

by Paula Detmer Riggs

As though pondering her words, he pulled on one glove, then the other. She’d worn those same gloves once, while helping him with an injured calf. They’d all but swallowed up her fingers, just as his personality had all but swallowed up hers.

  “You get settled at your mom’s okay?”

  “Yes.” She took a breath and caught the familiar scents of hard work and cigar smoke coming from his clothes. Cassidy rarely smoked, and only when he was under an unusual amount of stress. “I saw that attorney I told you about. He’s drawing up the papers. All he needs is the name of the person you want to handle your side.”

  He glanced up, then away, toward the east. “I trust you, Kari. Whatever he sends me, I’ll sign.” He brought his gaze down slowly, then shifted it her way. “If that’s what you really want.”

  “It’s what has to be.”

  His mouth thinned. “I blew it big-time, didn’t I.”

  She shoved her hands into the pocket of her apron and managed a sad smile. “We both did.”

  He nodded. “For what it’s worth I’ll always be here for you, Kari.” With that, he took the porch steps at one powerful leap.

  Chapter Twelve

  The hospital cafeteria had closed at eight. The tables had been wiped, the stainless steel warming table and salad bar scoured and disinfected. Now, at a few minutes before nine, only the squat, gray-haired custodian industriously waxing the floor and a few sleepy-eyed visitors and staff members remained.

  Slumped in her chair at one of the corner tables, Karen poked at the dried-out remnants of her tasteless ham-and-cheese sandwich and wondered if Cassidy had hired a cook yet. Vicki had come home on Sunday night after her first weekend with her father to say that her daddy’s cooking was “rank.”

  From what Karen had been able to glean from the hyper confusion of her daughter’s comments, they’d eaten mostly steak and eggs with an occasional feast of peanut butter and banana sandwiches—and “gross” store-bought cookies for dessert. Not exactly haute cuisine, but reasonably nourishing. For Vicki, anyway. Cassidy worked so murderously hard most days that he needed a tremendous number of calories to sustain him.

  She pinched off a piece of stale crust, popped it into her mouth and reminded herself that his intake of power foods—or lack thereof—was no longer her concern.

  It had been two endless weeks since she’d left the ranch, and life post-separation was not progressing at a tranquil pace. In fact, she could count the things that were going right on one hand and still have enough free fingers to make a fist. On the other hand, the list of things that were going wrong seemed to grow hourly.

  Usually as reliable as the sunrise, the Rover had developed an oil leak, she hadn’t had time to get her tax records to Cassidy’s accountant, who’d taken to calling twice a day with tactful reminders, and so far, Vicki had hated every rental they’d looked at.

  “Mind if I join you, Dr. Sloane, or would you rather brood in peace?”

  Karen glanced up and smiled at the pleasant—and she, ruefully admitted, welcome—surprise.

  “Sit, please,” she urged, sitting up straighter.

  Lindy Chung had piercing black eyes, a figure that had strong men stepping on their tongues when she passed, and the softest heart of anyone Karen had ever known. Past forty now, she had been practicing psychiatry for fifteen of those years and had never shied away from tackling the hard-core cases her fellow shrinks generally—and some said wisely—avoided.

  “Thanks.” Lindy deposited a paper cup filled with rancid-smelling coffee onto the table before settling into the hard chair with a heartfelt sigh. “Would you believe this is the second night in a row I’ve had to get dinner from a machine?” she muttered, pulling a plastic container from her expensive leather tote bag.

  “Another emergency?”

  “Same one. Postpartum syndrome.” Lindy broke the seal with one long red nail and flipped open the lid. She took a delicate sniff of the contents, then wrinkled her patrician nose. “Lord, what do those food service people put into these things, anyway?”

  “Noah Howell swears he got boar meat in one of his sandwiches last week.”

  Lindy chuckled. “That man’s so besotted with his new wife he couldn’t tell boar meat from shoe leather.”

  It was an effort to smile, but Karen managed somehow. “If ever I saw two people who were meant to be together, it’s Noah and Amanda.”

  “Me, I’ll reserve my judgment until they make it past the first seven years.” Lindy bit down on one corner of her sandwich and grimaced. “Noah might be on to something here.”

  * * *

  Karen decided she didn’t want anything more to eat and shoved aside her plate in order to rest her forearms in front of her. At least once per shift she made it a point to call Vicki and chat for a few minutes. Tonight, when she’d called, Vicki had refused to speak with her. Another snit, her mother had informed her with more than a little exasperation in her usually unruffled tones.

  “Guess Cassidy and I beat the odds, then, because we almost made it to ten,” she mused aloud.

  Lindy put down her sandwich and reached for her coffee. “Are things smoothing out yet, or are you still in that shell-shocked state?”

  “A little of both,” she admitted. Telling her co-workers about her separation had been easier than she’d expected. It seemed that many of them had suspected problems in the Sloane marriage. “Most days I don’t have much time to brood. Vicki, on the other hand, seems to be doing nothing but.”

  “Adjustment problems?”

  “Big-time.” She raked her hand through her hair, a gesture of agitation Lindy acknowledged with a measuring look. “Her teacher has called twice in the past two weeks to ‘communicate her concern’ about Vicki’s behavior. She was very nice about it, but bottom line, my darling, headstrong, bullheaded daughter had better shape up—and fast—or she’s about to become well acquainted with the principal’s office.”

  “I take it you’ve had a talk with Vicki about this?”

  “Several, in fact, and I’ve discovered that my sixty-pound bundle of joy has inherited Cassidy’s ability to stonewall along with his temper.”

  “Now, that is worrisome,” Lindy muttered with a grin designed to soothe rather than mock.

  “Phil Potter, Vicki’s psychiatrist, assures me it’s normal behavior in children with newly separated parents.”

  “Acting out.”

  “Yes.” Karen drew a breath. More and more she was feeling disconnected from her body, as though trying to escape a reality she couldn’t bear to face. “He told me to give her plenty of reassurance but not to give into her when she had one of those tantrums.” Karen sighed. “Easy for him to say, since he’s not the one battling wits with a determined eight-year-old.”

  “Phil’s an excellent kiddie shrink. And for what it’s worth, I agree.”

  “Yeah, well I know how you therapist types stick together.”

  Lindy pushed aside the half-eaten remains of her dinner and settled back in her chair. “Similar to the way you resident types stick up for one another, I expect.”

  “Touché,” Karen allowed with a tired smile.

  “Karen, Vicki’s in good hands, yours included,” Lindy declared before snatching a napkin from the dispenser on the table. “I’m more worried about you.”

  “I’m coping—just,” Karen replied as the other woman blotted her lips. “Work helps. And Mother and Frank have been there for me from that first awful moment.”

  “And Cassidy?”

  She shrugged. “According to our…his foreman, he’s driving himself and everyone else into the ground. Billy claims the ranch has never looked better or been more productive, and yet Cassidy finds fault with everything and everyone. A couple of the hands have spoken privately to Billy about taking other jobs if Cassidy doesn’t ease up.”

  Karen dropped her gaze to the table with its dull Formica top and collection of scratches. Slowly, she reached out to press her fingertip to an errant crumb, which sh
e carefully deposited on her abandoned tray. Across the table, Lindy watched and waited.

  “He swears he doesn’t love me, and yet he’s acting like he’s the one with the broken heart,” she declared indignantly. “I could strangle the man for making me waste precious time worrying about him.”

  Lindy grinned. “You could always stop.”

  “Ha. A lot you know!” She took a breath, and her indignation slipped away like so much hot air. “Damn him, why does he have to be so pigheaded? He works as many hours as I do—more, sometimes, especially in the spring when the babies are being born. I spent a lot of nights alone because he was busy, but I understood. And I never, ever tried to make him feel guilty for putting his work first.” She took an angry breath, her stomach in turmoil and her energy coming back in jerky spurts. “Does that sound like the behavior of an emasculating bitch to you?”

  Lindy’s beautifully formed lips twitched. “I take it that’s a direct quote.”

  “I’m paraphrasing, but in essence, yes.”

  “Sounds like the man has a great many unresolved issues from his childhood.”

  “What he has is a mean temper and a blind, self-centered, arrogant, chauvinistic attitude about a woman’s so-called place, and I’m sick of it.” She didn’t exactly stamp her foot, but she thought about it.

  Lindy blinked, her mouth twitching. “You’ve certainly got me convinced.”

  Karen glared at her, then burst out laughing. “Oh, Lord, Lindy, I think I’m losing it.”

  “Hmm, it occurs to me that father and daughter aren’t the only Sloanes in Grand Springs with a hot temper.”

  Karen felt her anger slip away and the dull misery surge back. The two emotions were equally strong, but the one protected while the other clawed at her raw insides. It occurred to her that she would do just fine if only she could live the rest of her life in a constant state of simmering rage. On the heels of that bemused observation came another, far more disturbing suspicion.

  Was that Cassidy’s way of protecting himself from the pain of his past? By turning an angry face to the world whenever he felt threatened? And if he did, was that anger directly proportional to the depth of the pain he was fighting?

  “What?” Lindy prodded in a quiet voice.

  Karen turned her thoughts outward as a frown tugged at the network of tiny muscles surrounding her eyes. “Lindy, I think I’ve just had one of those epiphanies you shrinks talk about all the time.”

  “I’m listening, if you want to run it by me.” The other woman shifted her tray to the side, then leaned forward and crossed her arms on the table. Something about the angle of her chin and the contours of her mouth had Karen suspecting that her friend had just slipped into her professional persona.

  Karen took a breath, then as succinctly as she could, laid out her theory.

  “Very possible,” Lindy said after a moment’s thought. “In my practice I’ve treated a great many men who grew up equating tenderness and sensitivity to weakness.” She tapped one finger against the tabletop, clearly lost in thought. Then she nodded and said, “I know it sounds hackneyed, but it’s been my experience that a man’s ability to handle the softer side of his psyche is directly related to his relationship to his mother.”

  Isn’t everything? Karen thought with a weary sigh. “I was afraid you were going to say that,” she muttered before going on to tell Lindy everything she knew about Cassidy’s early years. When she was finished, Lindy sat with her chin propped on one fist, her gaze focused somewhere to the right of Karen’s left shoulder.

  “Not the prettiest story I’ve heard, but far from the worst.” With a small sigh, she lifted her head and sat back. “I assume he wouldn’t agree to counseling?”

  Karen made a show of shuddering. “Not in a million years. He’s the most private man I know.”

  “Understandable. Issues of trust are quite common with traumatized children, compounded in this case, I suspect, by his history of losing everyone who mattered to him.”

  Karen took a moment to think about that. As she did, she idly watched a gray-haired couple walking toward the exit. The woman’s step was faltering and she was leaning heavily on the man’s arm. His concern was obvious as he matched his steps to hers, and his gaze was soft when he turned to look at her. Though both appeared well into the twilight of their lives, Karen sensed that the bond between them was as strong and as vibrant as a new day in spring.

  The weight pressing her heart grew heavier. “And now he’s lost his wife,” she said softly, achingly.

  “Did he? Or did he deliberately drive you away?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Impatience crossed Lindy’s lovely face. “Of course there’s a difference. Think about it. If he makes it impossible for you to stay, he’s still in control, still making the rules. In other words, he’s safe.”

  Karen tested that in her mind and couldn’t find a flaw in the logic of it. But her heart wasn’t so sure. “In other words, he was willing to sacrifice our marriage in order to keep from feeling too much?”

  “That’s one possibility, yes.”

  Karen noted her friend’s careful phrasing and smiled sadly. “On the other hand, we just might be making excuses for a man who’s exactly as he seems—a decent, hardworking guy who got a virgin pregnant and did the honorable thing by marrying her, but when he finally got tired of putting up with a woman he didn’t love, he took the easy way out and pushed her into doing exactly what he wanted all along.”

  “True, in which case it would be fairly easy to prove that hypothesis, wouldn’t it?”

  Karen rubbed her tired eyes. “It would?”

  “Sure. If the guy is out dating night after night or whistling while he works, or celebrating the fact that he’s free again, it’s a good bet he was never emotionally attached. On the other hand, if he looks anything like you, I’d say he’s pretty much dying inside and fighting it the only way he knows how—with anger.”

  Karen inhaled slowly and exhaled the same way. “Does driving himself and his men into the ground count as celebrating?”

  The look Lindy sent her way was comprised of both humor and compassion. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m going to have to take some time to mull this over.”

  Lindy leaned forward, her expression earnest. “Fight for him, Karen. Find a way to shock him into seeing what he’s doing to himself and to you. Make him face whatever demons he’s battling.” Her voice softened. “Help him see that for once in his life he’s not alone.”

  Karen drew a shaky breath. “What if he won’t let me?”

  Lindy pushed back her chair and reached down for her belongings. “Think of it this way,” she said as she rose. “Do you really want to hang on to a guy who’s too emotionally crippled to appreciate what you’re offering?”

  Yes! Karen wanted to shout, but deep down she knew Lindy was right. Much as she hated to admit it, she wanted more for herself than a man who was too frozen inside to love.

  * * *

  Karen Sloane was still mulling over her friend, Lindy’s, words a week later while sitting alone in her mother’s kitchen at midnight after a hectic Saturday night helping out in the ER.

  She’d seen her soon-to-be ex-husband, Cassidy, only once since the conversation in the cafeteria—this morning when she dropped Vicki and Rags off for the weekend. His face had been impassive beneath the familiar Stetson as he’d nodded in her direction. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t exactly pining for her. In fact, he looked magnificently confident as he stood in the small training corral adjacent to the big barn, working an unfamiliar black gelding on a lunging line.

  Though it had been early by her standards, only a few minutes past eight, his jeans and buckskin vest were streaked with grime and sweat.

  Stifling a yawn now, she forced herself to take another bite of the quiche she’d heated in the microwave and thought about the meeting she’d had that afternoon with the divorce lawyer. Terse to the po
int of rudeness, the man had asked a series of questions, then asked her to compile a list of assets she considered exclusively her own, and those she shared with Cassidy.

  Assets, she thought with a sad shake of her head. Property. Things.

  But what about her dreams? What about the threads of her life that were so firmly braided into Cassidy’s dreams?

  And what about her daughter?

  The attorney had sounded almost bored when he’d asked what kind of custody arrangement she wanted to set up. As though Vicki, too, was an asset to be divided.

  She felt pressure in her sinuses, a sudden difficulty with her breathing. As she’d done too many times in the past few weeks, she banished the need to cry to the list of things she would do later, when she had some spare time.

  Time? To spare? she thought glumly. What was that?

  A nasty, sadistic gnome with a whip who hated her, she decided with a whimsy that was far from comforting.

  “You look like a lady who could use a slug of my famous double strength cocoa,” Frank said, flashing that rogue’s smile of his as he came into her mother’s spotless chrome-and-glass kitchen, bringing a rush of vitality and leashed power with him.

  “The man is a saint,” she said, fashioning a smile of her own as she straightened her slumped shoulders and made an effort to force down another bite.

  “Not even close, darling Kari,” he said as he rattled through the pans in the cupboard until he found one he liked.

  “No doubt that’s a big part of the reason Mom is so crazy about you.”

  A chuckle rumbled from his deep chest. “That and the fact that I’ve never tried to change a hair on that gorgeous head of hers. Not that I’d want to, you understand.”

  “A refreshing attitude in a male,” she muttered.

  Frank let that pass as he opened another cupboard and took down three mugs, then fetched the cocoa, sugar and the milk—all with the easy familiarity of a man very much at home in the kitchen in spite of the aura of lethal toughness surrounding him.

  “Of course, your mom is wise enough to offer me the same courtesy,” he said, prying open the lid on the cocoa tin.