A Family Affair(50)

And I was lonely, she remembered. And didn’t really know it until Joe became my friend and lover.

“I can’t put off telling the kids any longer,” she said. “If I wait any longer, who knows how much I’ll have to lay on them at one time! It started out with a secret sibling, now it’s a sibling with a child and their father’s old friend has become their mother’s boyfriend. Oh, and there’s a hint of a missing uncle out there somewhere. I don’t dare wait another month.”

“The leaves are changing,” Joe said. “On Saturday, let’s take a long drive north. We can talk about it in the car and stop for seafood. If you want support, I can shore you up when you tell them.”

She rubbed her temples. “It gives me a headache just imagining it.”

“Stress is no one’s friend,” he said. “Can you sneak away this weekend?”

“I’ll check with Phoebe, but I think I can. I really need this over with.”

The early October sun was bright and warm on Saturday. Joe got up early to make the drive to Mill Valley to pick up Anna. The afternoon before he bought a few snack items and drinks at the grocery store and assembled them in a basket and cooler for the road.

He called her from the car. “I realize I’m a little early and I don’t want to rush you. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready!” she said. “I can’t wait.”

And Joe realized they’d never spent a whole day together since they had attained this new status. When she opened the door for him, the bright shine of happiness on her face just melted his heart and he grabbed her in an embrace and kissed her till she laughed against his lips.

“I looked forward to this all week,” he admitted.

“Should we put together a little something to snack on while we drive or if we should stop?”

“I’ve already done that,” he said, grinning like a boy.

“What a guy. Then let me get my purse and let’s head into the hills.”

They chose to drive through the coastal towns north of San Francisco and into Sonoma where there were plenty of vineyards and restaurants because eventually they’d want to stop for a meal. The scenery was amazing on this bright fall day and they encountered dozens of groups of cyclists enjoying the cool fall air. The hillsides to the east of them were starting to color beautifully.

But the best part of the drive was being together in the car. When they crossed over some road construction, they had a conversation about infrastructure and what it might entail in California. When they saw a group of about a hundred cyclists gathered in a park as a resting stop, they talked about what they might have in common when it came to outdoor exercise. When they were driving through Sonoma, they talked about vineyards and wine and even stopped at a winery to buy a few bottles for later.

They talked about their parents, their kids, their jobs. They even spent a few minutes discussing catalytic converters on cars. They pulled into a rest stop but passed the picnic tables and opted for a grassy spot under a big tree.

“I feel like I’m getting to know you all over again,” Joe said.

“After we’ve been on the phone for an hour or spent an evening together, I wonder if there will come a time when we have nothing to talk about. It doesn’t seem so today.”

“There will never be a time we have nothing to say to each other, but I look forward to the time we can be quiet together. I read all the time and so do you—you can’t talk while you’re reading. But you can be together just the same. I’ve been divorced for a long time, since my kids were little, but that’s something I never had with my wife. We never had companionable silence.”

Anna laughed. “Nor did Chad and I. Chad always had a lot to say.”

“Didn’t he play the counselor card and ask you how you felt about things?”

“Very rarely,” Anna said with a laugh. “Chad always wanted to make sure I understood how he was feeling.”

“Yeah, that was Chad,” Joe agreed.

“But he did know empathy well. There were times I needed him and he could comfort like a pro.”

“Which is what he was,” Joe reminded her. “Let me ask you something. If you could wave a magic wand and have anything you want, what would it be?”

“Ah, you might have found my fatal flaw,” she said. “Not that I would wish for too much, but that I want too little. All I ever wanted was someone to be tender with. Someone to trust and love and believe in. I learned early on that my husband wasn’t perfect, but then neither was I so why would I judge? I had always hoped that if I could be thrilled with the love of a simple, honest, dependable man, that he would therefore be grateful for me. Even with the rough patch we were traveling through, I still believed it was possible. But now he’s gone and I’ll never know.”

Joe leaned toward her and kissed her. “It’s still possible, Anna,” he said. “I’d like to apply for the job.”



ELEVEN


Michael called his mother at about ten in the morning, respectful of the fact that it was Saturday and she had been working late every day. “I thought I’d swing by the house and make sure everything is handled—like trash collected, yard and pool clean and serviced, you know. Things Dad would have done.” Though even Michael knew that Chad wasn’t that great with household chores.