A Family Affair(33)

“If you want to get dressed and dry your hair, I’ll poke around the kitchen and see if I can throw something together for dinner. For both of us.”

“I think maybe I am a little hungry.”

“Now that I’ve found you safe, I’m suddenly starving,” he said. “Take your time.” He turned her around so she faced her bedroom doorway. “Here,” he said, handing her the purse.

He stood there for a moment as she went into her room and closed the door. He shrugged his shoulders. He wondered if she had any inkling of what might be happening with him right now. Unlikely, given the amount of confusing information she was juggling in her mind.

Joe had always loved her but had never put a romantic spin on it. She was married and not just married to anyone, but to his best friend. Truthfully, he hadn’t really noticed those feelings until he had survived his divorce. Then he realized he liked her, appreciated her, felt she wasn’t getting the love she deserved from Chad. He kept it tamped down. It never in a million years occurred to him that she would one day be single, even though he knew Chad was not the best of husbands.

He went to the kitchen and began checking out the contents of the refrigerator and pantry, coming up with a nice breakfast for dinner of sausage, eggs, Tater Tots and English muffins. He whipped up some hollandaise just to impress her. He could hear the distant hum of a hair dryer and he set their plates and utensils on the breakfast bar and lit a couple of candles.

He poured himself a glass of wine and waited for her. When she came out, he could feel his eyes warm at the sight of her. She had put on a pair of yoga pants and an oversize shirt, very stay-at-home casual, but to him she looked ravishing. No makeup but Anna didn’t really need makeup. She had pulled her shoulder-length hair into a simple bun on top of her head.

“Wow, you went to some trouble,” she said, eyeing the place settings and candles.

“It was no trouble at all. I hope you like breakfast.”

“It’s my favorite meal, even if I don’t indulge every morning. I’m usually in a hurry.”

“Wine with breakfast?” he asked.

“Why not? Sounds like an adventure. You couldn’t have come all the way from your house when you called. Where were you?”

“I was on my way home from Melissa’s in Bodega Bay. I try to see her every couple of weeks. It’s harder for her to get to me in Palo Alto with the little kids and her husband’s work schedule. After you hung up I just took the next exit.”

“Thanks, that was really nice of you. I’m sorry I worried you. I was having a bad day.”

He pulled a clean dish towel off the serving platter, which was nicely laid out with the meal he had prepared. He pushed the platter toward her and poured her wine. “Was there more than your mother’s confusion?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, dishing up her plate. “At one point she said, in all innocence, that she had given up the boy but decided to keep the girl. She didn’t realize she was talking to me. It sounded like she was saying she had given up a baby before me. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out. I can’t exactly count on her to tell me the truth.”

“Then again, she might. Or there are those DNA search firms. If there was a child and he decided to look for his family, it could be even easier.”

“I’m trying to figure out why she wouldn’t have told me,” Anna said. “Me, of all people. She should know better than anyone I wouldn’t judge her.”

Anna told him what she had learned from Amy that afternoon, which had been more about Amy’s childhood than about Chad, and then repeated her visit to the nursing home. Eventually they got around to talking about Chad again.

“Did you know he was unhappy?” she asked Joe.

“Yes and no,” Joe said with a shrug.

“I can’t wait to hear you explain that answer.”

“When Chad was happy, there was no happier guy. When he was unhappy, which was not infrequent, he was dour and depressed. And there was always something nagging at him. I always wondered if he got into psychology because he wanted to fix himself. Because he wanted peace.”

“Well, he found it,” she said somewhat sadly.

“But what about you?” he said. “Over thirty years with him?”

She laughed ruefully. “Believe me, I knew when he was unhappy. Every time.” She got up and walked around the breakfast bar and began to rinse their dishes and slip them into the dishwasher. “That was always the great challenge with Chad. When he was content, he was the best man in the world. He was a perfect partner in almost every way. When he wasn’t, he was flailing around looking for where to place blame. Pretty often the blame fell on Max Carmichael, the CEO of their practice. Sometimes it fell on a client who was challenging him. And then of course there was me. I was a frequent whipping post. But I was used to it. I signed up for it, after all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Over the years we fell into a routine. Chad was mostly supportive—he was definitely committed to his kids, which certainly helped me when they were younger. And if he was struggling, I found a way to prop him up. But as he got older and I became busier, I grew impatient, and I didn’t want to put my work on hold while we worked on Chad’s latest crisis. I suppose it was very selfish of me, but I was ready to concentrate on my career. Chad was not. He needed a full-time wife and caretaker. I was the one to first suggest a separation. I thought it was time we went in our individual directions. One of our pivotal events was an argument about his rafting trip.”