Uncommon Pleasure

by Anne Calhoun

  “How about PBS?” Abby suggested as she went into the kitchen for forks and milk. Her father switched the television to a show about a talking dog. Abby brought two glasses of milk to the table by her father’s end of the sofa. Her father looked from Jeff to Lindsey to little Mikaela, then back to Jeff again. Tears shone in his eyes, and his lip quivered. He cleared his throat and put his hands on the arms of his recliner to get up. Lindsey gave Jeff a little nudge, and her husband crossed the room.

  “Don’t get up, Dad,” he said and sat down on the hearth. “Who did the cool design in the lawn?”

  Lindsey looked at Abby. “Do you want something to drink?” Abby asked.

  “Water,” Lindsey said. Abby got two glasses of ice water and led Lindsey into the dining room.

  “Sorry about the clutter,” she said as she cleared off two chairs. “I’m a little behind on the housework.”

  Lindsey looked around the disorderly, dusty room, then at Abby. “At Mikaela’s party you said you guys were doing fine,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t call it a lie,” Abby said. “Wishful thinking, maybe. I wanted us to be doing fine. I wanted to be able to take care of him on my own.”

  “Why?” Lindsey said candidly. “From what Jeff’s said and my own experience with your dad, he’s difficult on a good day and mean on the rest. Why would you be able to?”

  Because she had something to prove to someone who was ten thousand miles away. “I don’t think it was actually about him,” Abby admitted. “He and Jeff don’t exactly get along.”

  “He may not be easy to deal with, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do right by him,” Lindsey said firmly. “Family is family. He looks bad.”

  “He’s a horrible patient,” Abby said. “He won’t take his meds. He won’t eat. He won’t exercise or practice any of the breathing exercises. It’s exhausting. This disease doesn’t have to kill him next year, but at the rate he’s going, it will.”

  As she spoke Jeff appeared in the doorway, then stood behind Lindsey’s chair. “You can’t control him, Abby,” he said gently. “But you can break your heart trying to. He’ll choose to live as long as he can, or he’ll choose to die as soon as he can. It’s Dad’s world, and we’re just living in it.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “What do you need? Meals? Someone to take him to the doctor? A housecleaner? Backup?”

  “You and Lindsey are already so busy. You have a house, and you both work,” she started.

  “Standing right here, Abby, offering to help,” Jeff said a little stiffly.

  An excellent point. “I had a thing about not giving up,” she said.

  Jeff looked at her more closely, then loosened his tie. “It’s not giving up to ask for help.”

  He was the spitting image of her father as a young man, and Mikkie had their dark hair and eyes. She took a deep breath. “All of the above,” she said. “All of the above, but would you start with the lawn? I hate mowing the lawn, and he’s so picky about it.”

  He smiled at the intensity in her voice. “Lawn care. We’ll start there. I’ll call Cody, get him over here, too. I can’t copy your Marine’s work, though. I’m a straight rows kind of guy. Maybe diagonals.”

  “He’s not my Marine,” Abby said automatically, then amended her statement. “Yet. He’s not my Marine yet.”

  “I’ll come over next weekend and see if we can get some of this paperwork organized,” Lindsey said. “Mikkie can spend some time with her grandfather.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The talking dog show over, Lindsey carried Mikkie down the hallway. Her father was actually out of his chair, gasping with the effort to follow the dark-eyed little girl. As soon as Lindsey realized he was trying to keep up with them, she slowed down and turned so Mikkie could see her grandpa. “Did you like my cake, Grandpa?” she asked imperiously.

  He nodded. “I did,” he said, then coughed.

  “Can Grandpa come to my dance recital?” she asked her mom. “I wear a pink tutu and a crown!”

  Her father had no interest in girl stuff. Princesses, ponies, stars, fairies, crowns, makeup, glittery shoes, dances, party dresses, none of it. “We’ll see how Grandpa’s feeling,” Abby said. “Maybe your dad could record the recital and we could watch it here?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said the man who’d never once seen her cheer in high school or college. “I’ll be there.”

  From the expression on Jeff’s face, he was familiar enough with their father’s frequently broken promises to temper Mikkie’s expectations. “Let’s see how you feel, Dad,” he said easily.

  Jeff and his family left, and the house suddenly felt empty. “Pretty little girl,” her dad said, his breathing loud in the silence.

  “She looks like Jeff, and you,” Abby replied. “She’s going to be striking when she grows up.”

  A grunt, then her father shuffled back down the hallway. When he turned for the family room and his recliner, Abby said, “Hey, Dad? The recital’s in four weeks. If you want to be able to go, you need to do some of those breathing exercises.”

  He paused for a long moment, then turned for the kitchen and the breathing machine.

  Abby smiled. A lifetime of broken promises, hurt feelings, missed events, and yet there was always a new start. Someone walked through a door with a piece of cake, or offered to mow a lawn. She remembered her heart’s response to a knock at her door, and found that the terrible, wild night with Sean burned away her anger. New shoots of love pushing through the devastated earth of her soul.

  But she waited. First she helped her dad with his breathing exercises and fixed him a plate for dinner, then she called one of the part-time waitresses at No Limits and offered up her prime Saturday night shift. The girl jumped at the chance. Abby changed into jeans and a decent blouse, then scuffed her feet into flats.

  “I’m going out, Dad,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I left you a plate in the fridge,” she said.

  He looked at her. “Thank you,” he said gruffly.

  “You’re welcome, Dad. See you later.”

  When she got to Sean’s borrowed house and rang the doorbell, a woman answered. “Can I help you?”

  The bottom dropped out of Abby’s stomach as she looked into the woman’s eyes. “I’m looking for Sean,” she said.

  “I’m Camilla,” the woman said. “He’s gone home for his last night before he leaves for Virginia.”

  “Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Are you Abby?”

  She turned back. “I am.”

  “He said if you came by to tell you to come over to the house. I think his mother planned a tailgating party to disguise his going-away party. Knowing Sean, he’s probably desperate for a break. He’s so outnumbered by girls at home. He said to tell you he’d be waiting for you.”

  Her heart knocked so hard against her breastbone she reached for the railing to steady herself. “Okay,” she said inanely. “Thank you. I’ll go over.”

  Camilla closed the door. Abby got in her Celica and floored it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sean had to admit his parents knew how to throw a party. He’d refused to have a big fuss made over leaving for Quantico, so his mother covered it as a Saturday football tailgating party that started at eleven and at five in the afternoon was only picking up speed going into the Texas game at seven. Half the neighborhood was watching television on the flat screen set into the brick patio wall, and his four sisters were there. Bronagh and Bridget drove down from Houston with several friends from work, and Kiera and Naeve invited a whole pack of girlfriends from high school and college that thankfully did not include the girl from the drive-through at Wendy’s. Between friends of his sisters and his mother, women outnumbered men in the house and in the yard three to one. He did his best to cope politely with the press of chattering females ranging in age from fifteen to sixty, but when the chips, beer, and hard lemonad
e ran low and his father nudged him and asked him if he wanted to run to the store for fresh supplies, Sean jumped at the chance.

  “You drive,” he said to his dad, and tossed him the keys to the Mustang on the way down the steps. “Take the long way around.”

  His dad just laughed. Sean slumped in the passenger’s seat, letting the engine’s rough purr lick over his nerves like a mama cat’s soothing tongue. They stopped at a superstore on the outskirts of town and loaded a grocery cart full of chips and salsa, sandwiches, salads, drinks, an array of alcohol that would have made an entire platoon whoop for joy, and a big cake. There was a brief skirmish over wallets when the checkout clerk rang up the total, but Sean got a few twenties into her hands before his dad could stop him. They filled the trunk with the contents of the shopping cart, keeping a bag of Doritos for the drive, and slid the cake into the backseat.

  “How’re you doing?”

  Sean tore open the bag of chips as he considered how to answer that question. All things Marine considered, he was fine. He was home, his men were home, everyone was alive. No one seemed to be struggling, but he’d keep in touch with all of his men for…well, forever. But not a word from Abby since she walked out of Camilla’s house days ago. “Fine,” he said. “I guess.”

  “Want to talk about it?” his dad asked as he headed south on the Gulf Freeway.

  He pulled his cell phone from his cargo pants pocket and ran his thumb over the screen. Nothing. “I screwed something up,” he said. “Then I screwed it up worse, trying to fix my first screwup. Now I just have to wait and see what happens.”

  “Takes a strong man to admit his mistakes,” his dad offered stolidly. “Is this about the girl from last year?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want my advice?” His father wisely didn’t wait for an answer. “After thirty-six years with the same woman and fathering four girls, my advice is to be patient. They usually come around, but you can’t rush them if they’re not ready to be rushed.”

  “Where were you weeks ago when I started all of this?” Sean muttered as his cell phone rang. “Probably Mom, wondering where we are,” he said as he pulled it from his pocket. But the picture on his screen wasn’t of his mother crossing the finish line at the Houston marathon.

  It was a smiling bright-eyed redhead on a picnic blanket. “Abby?” he said.

  “Where are you?” she demanded. In the background he heard the noise and laughter of his parents’ party. “Because I’m in your parents’ backyard with about sixty other people. I have a beer and a sandwich, and I’m under orders to sit here until you get back. One of your sisters, Bridget or maybe Bronagh, told me not to leave until you got here. She’s really quite fierce, and a little scary.”

  “That’d be Bronagh. I apologize for Bronagh. I’ll be there in less than five minutes,” he said, and gestured to his father to hurry the hell up. “Don’t leave. Please.”

  “I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’m going to eat a sandwich and drink this beer and pretend there aren’t fifty women looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. But hurry. I really want to see you.”

  “We’re on our way.” He hung up, sat up straighter in his seat. “Step on it,” he barked before he remembered the man beside him was his father, not the lance corporal who usually drove him.

  “Patience,” his father said. “This car’s a cop magnet. If Bronagh’s got her, she’s not getting away.”

  They pulled into the driveway, and his dad loaded him up with four cases of beer and two bags of groceries stacked on top. He came through the front door of the big white house to a rousing round of cheers, set everything on the kitchen counter, looked around for Bronagh, but found only Naeve.

  “Backyard,” she said as she dug through the chip sack. “No Cheetos? You didn’t buy Cheetos? Sean! How could you?”

  He chucked her the keys to the Mustang and his wallet. Her squeal of delight followed him through the sliding glass doors to the expansive brick patio, where he found Abby sitting on a chaise, Bronagh sitting next to her, both of them pretending to watch the pregame show. When he appeared Bronagh stood up to make room for him. “You’re welcome,” she said, and swept into the house.

  “Hey,” he said. “Want a burger? Potato salad? We have chips now.”

  She looked at him, wry amusement shining in her eyes. “You’re always showing up and surprising me. I thought I’d turn the tables. I was going to leave when I figured out you weren’t here, but Bronagh felt I should wait for you.” She looked around, then leaned a little closer. “It’s like being in a fishbowl. Everyone’s watching us.”

  “I have four sisters,” he whispered back. “They find my personal life very interesting.”

  “Do they know about us?”

  “They know I broke up with you and I regret it,” he said. “Nothing about what happened this month.”

  She looked at him, no challenge, no shutters, just Abby in those spring-green eyes. “About that…I know you don’t have much time left with your family, but can we go somewhere else and talk? Just for a little while?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But you have to drive. I just gave my sister Naeve the keys to the Mustang to get her off my back about forgetting Cheetos.”

  He took her hand and towed her through the melee, out the front door, where he found seven teenage girls trying to cram into the Mustang. He took a moment to ruthlessly evict all of the girls except Naeve, then leaned into the passenger window. “One passenger, Naeve.”

  “I can’t choose between my six best friends,” she wailed.

  Behind him, Abby stifled a laugh. Sean took a deep breath, counted to five, then turned to the gaggle of girls clustered on the front lawn, twisting hair and whispering. “Throw for it,” he said. Fifteen seconds of rock paper scissors and a preening brunette slid into the passenger seat.

  “Seat belts,” he barked as the Mustang backed out into the street.

  “You sure you’re okay with this? We can wait until she gets back,” Abby said.

  “She’s a good driver,” Sean said. “I taught her to drive a stick in that car. She’ll be fine. It was the six chattering BFFs with cell phones that worried me.”

  After the party and his sister’s friends, the silence in the Celica rang in his ears, but still he waited. Abby drove them to the park. “You want to go for a walk?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said. “I just want to talk to you. I want to know why you came looking for me at Ben’s.”

  She looked at him, and in her calm, serious gaze was Abby, ready to be wooed again. Very, very slowly. He pointed at her foot and beckoned. She shifted in the driver’s seat so her back was to the door and her feet rested in his lap. He tugged off her flip-flops and dropped them on the floor, then put his thumbs to the soles of her feet in slow, rhythmic strokes. “Because even though I cut you out of my life, I couldn’t cut you out of my soul. I could keep you out of my mind for days,” he said as the sun set. “Then I’d be on night patrol, looking up at the stars. They lay in a swath across the sky because there’s no light pollution, and every time I looked up they reminded me of your freckles. And I felt better. Less alone. Less lonely.”

  “It’s hard to forget someone when the night sky reminds you of her,” she said.

  “It’s hard to forget someone when she’s carved into your soul,” he replied. “The stars just reminded me of what I’d thrown away, and what I wanted back.”

  She gave him an absent little smile. “Now tell me everything that happened after you broke up with me,” she said.

  “Everything?”

  “As much as you want to tell me,” she amended.

  “That’s everything,” he said. “This could take a while.”

  “All night?”

  He slid her a quick glance. Abby was flirting with him. Very gently. Very tentatively. Flirting. “At least,” he said.

  “Better get started,” she said lightly.

  So he did. He t
old her everything he could remember, impressions and sounds and stories about life on base, patrols, his men, their families, missions, the details that comprised everything while night fell around them. During the foot massage she’d gone boneless in the seat as she watched him. When the darkness registered in his awareness, he checked his watch.

  “Do you need to get back?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I just realized I’ve done all the talking.”

  “I think you needed to get some of that out,” she said.

  To her. To the woman he wanted by his side forever. “I think you’re right,” he replied.

  Another flashing little smile in the dusky light. She opened the door and got out of the car, stretching with a soft, satisfied sound. “You’ve got more stories, right?”

  He walked around the hood of the car and stood in front of her. “I do. Do you want to hear them?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “So we’re not done?”

  “We’re not done,” she replied.

  “Then I need to talk to you about something,” he said. “John Langley, the former Marine who owns Langley Security, offered me a partner position in his firm. Another guy from the Corps is coming on board to head up personnel. They want me for research and strategy. It’s here in Galveston. There’d be travel, but at least I wouldn’t be stationed in Virginia while you were here.”

  She blinked. “Are you asking me if I think you should resign your commission and go into the private sector?”

  “That’s what I’m asking, Abby. At the very least, I want you to know the option is there.”

  “Go to Quantico,” she said without hesitating. “The whole point of deploying was to gain insights into modern-day warfare, then apply them to help keep Marines alive. That’s who you are.”

  “Are you sure?” he said, peering into her eyes for any hint of resistance.

  “Yes, I’m 100 percent sure I don’t want you to give up your dream, your plan, and your future just because I’m here and you’re there,” she said tartly. “We would have survived you deploying to Afghanistan. We’ll surely survive you living in Virginia while I finish school. After that, we’ll figure it out.”