The Challenge(12)

Tom was quietly thinking about it as they drove away. It was a sad story, and they were clearly a group of very close-knit friends, who had some really lovely children. Bright, respectful, and well behaved.

They had all been kind to Juliet all day, and there was a nice spirit of camaraderie between them, even with a pretty girl in their midst. Peter seemed the most interested in her, but hadn’t crossed any lines. Mostly, he had been a good host, and saw to it that she had a good time and everyone was nice to her. He even showed her his favorite video game, which was wasted on her. She had proven herself to be a good rider that day, as good as any of the girls they knew who had grown up on horses.

They had invited her to go fishing with them in the next few days, and she had invited them to go to the rodeo with her and her father, which was always good fun. Peter had added that his mother had been the rodeo queen two years in a row before she married his dad. Juliet liked her. She seemed like a warm, kind, loving woman, and it was obvious that she was crazy about her son and provided a warm welcome to his friends. Tim and Matt were spending the night with Peter that night, as they often did. Noel needed to be home with his dad, in case something happened. They were quietly waiting for the end to come now, which could be anytime. Marlene had encouraged both boys to go out and see their friends and not sit around the house, which was too depressing. Bob slept most of the time now, and was on heavy medications with a nurse to tend to him, while Marlene went back and forth to the office, and nursed him herself when she was home. It was the hardest thing she’d ever been through, watching the man she loved slowly slip away, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. They had already lost the fight. It was just a matter of time now. How much time, no one knew.



* * *



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On Saturday, after the picnic at the lake a few days before, Pitt Pollock and Bill Brown took the four boys fishing, as they had promised. Peter invited Juliet to join them, and her father let her go. They caught plenty of fish, and Pitt had invited Tom to join them for dinner that night. The Pollocks were going to cook the fish and plenty of other food. Juliet caught two fish, and was proud of them, and took the hooks off herself. The boys were filled with admiration. She wasn’t like most of the girls they knew. She was braver and fun to have around. She didn’t squeal and scream at the worms they used as bait, and did everything her father had taught her when she had gone fishing with him earlier. Peter was more and more impressed with her, and Anne smiled and chuckled about it at dinner that night. She sat next to Tom, while the boys and Juliet were playing kickball on the lawn, in the light from the patio. They had a beautifully built home and extensive grounds.

“I think my son is having his first serious crush,” Anne whispered to Tom as Pitt walked over to join them. He had cooked a delicious dinner, and they had all enjoyed it.

“I think she’s having fun too,” Tom admitted. “She’s never been too interested in boys before. She worked hard on her grades last year, so she could get into the very challenging high school she’s going to in the fall. She’ll have to work even harder this year. I’d like her to enjoy her childhood too, but her mother sets the bar pretty high for her.” She had for him too, but he didn’t say that. He had run away as a result. He wasn’t proud of it, but he was happy to be out of the rat race he’d been a part of in New York.

“They’re sweet together,” Anne commented. “And it’s harmless. None of them are ready for serious romance at this point.” Pitt hooted at her when she said it.

“How quickly you forget,” he teased her. “We were their age when I fell for you, hook, line, and sinker, and how many years ago was that? Twenty-three?” he reminded her. “Don’t underestimate the power of the human heart, or of teenagers in love. We were both fourteen too.”

She smiled at the memory. “The world was different then. Everything was more innocent. Kids are more sophisticated today. But I still don’t think any of our kids are ready for all that. These kids would rather play video games and go fishing than get in too deep with romances.” She sounded convinced of it.

“Give them a few months, or a year,” Pitt commented. “It all changes when they start high school, and that’s only a month away for them. That innocence will be gone pretty soon. If your father hadn’t been breathing down my neck all through high school, I wouldn’t have been nearly as well behaved with you. I was scared to death of him,” he told Tom, and all three of them laughed. “I was sure he’d kill me if I did anything I shouldn’t. That all changed when we went to college.” He grinned at Anne and she leaned over and kissed him. They had their secrets too. “At least we held out ’til college. I’m not sure kids do that anymore.”

“You’re scaring Tom to death,” she scolded her husband, and Tom laughed.

“I’m not worried about Juliet right now,” he said. “And I can’t imagine people falling in love as freshmen in high school today and still being together twenty-three years later, like you two.”

“It doesn’t happen often,” Pitt admitted. “We were lucky.” Tom could see that they had a strong marriage and a good relationship. He envied them what they so obviously shared, instead of the hostility he had with Beth now, and the arguments before that.

“It didn’t happen for me that way in my marriage,” Tom said. “It did for a while, and we were both on the same page when we started out seventeen years ago. And then it started to come off the rails about ten years into our marriage. She got more and more ambitious and caught up in her work. I got more and more disenchanted with what I saw going on around me on Wall Street. I saw the sacrifices you have to make to get ahead, and after a while it didn’t seem worth it. I felt like I was being strangled by ambition and politics and lies. When I saw a chance to escape and start my own consulting business, I leapt at it. I didn’t need to be in New York to do that, and all I wanted was to get the hell out of Dodge. My wife is the queen of Dodge. She couldn’t live without it, and I couldn’t live with it anymore. I wanted to get out before it ate me alive. So here I am,” he said quietly. He sounded at peace but sad about it. He felt like he had lost a war, and a marriage, in order to save his soul.