Worthy Opponents(35)

He hired a van and driver in the morning, dropped everything off at the apartment, and then went to work. He was smiling when he walked in.

“How’s your cold?” Renee asked him when she saw him. “You look a lot better today.”

“I am,” he said. He felt lighter. He didn’t tell anyone at work. He wasn’t ready to. And he booked a ticket to San Francisco for the weekend, and told Jenny he was coming out. He said he had work in San Francisco, and she said she was free for dinner on Saturday and could spend time with him in the afternoon too. He dreaded telling her, fearing she’d be upset.

It went better than he expected. They took a walk on the Stanford campus on Saturday, and they sat down on a bench under a tree. The weather was warm and it was a beautiful day.

He hesitated for a minute before he told her, and then he jumped in.

“Your mom and I made a decision,” he started seriously, and she finished the sentence for him.

“You’re getting a divorce,” she said quietly. He searched her face to see if she was heartbroken, but she didn’t look surprised or upset. He thought Maureen had told her and didn’t warn him.

“Yes.” He had made the decision to divorce and not just separate in the past few days. Maureen agreed. “Your mom told you?”

“No, Dad. She didn’t. It’s been coming for a long time. I’ve been expecting it since I was about fourteen. It’ll be better. Can I stay with you when I come home?”

“Don’t you want to stay with your mother? It’s your home.” He was surprised by her question.

“I can go back and forth. Mom and I fight a lot. She thinks I’m on your side, and I guess I am. She’s so mean to you.” And she often was to Jenny too. It struck him as sad that there were sides at all.

“I don’t want to tell Zack till he comes home,” he said, and Jenny nodded. She was tall with jet-black hair like his, and she had his smile and blue eyes. It was all so reasonable. “You don’t have to take sides, Jen. None of this is your fault. Our marriage just died a long time ago. I wasn’t home enough, for any of you.”

“You were busy, and you were great to us when you came home. Don’t let Mom tell you that you weren’t. She’s always mad at something or someone. She’s an unhappy person. Maybe this will be good for her. She’ll have to figure out her own life and stop blaming you for everything.” Jenny was fair about it, and he was impressed by how mature she was and how well she had taken the news.

“I hope you like the apartment. There’s a gym and a pool in the building.”

“I don’t care what there is or if we live in a barn. I love you, Dad.” She kissed his cheek and hugged him, and he smiled with tears in his eyes. Not over what he’d lost. Over what he’d gained. It had gone so much better than he had expected. His daughter was terrific. He had always known that, and now she’d proven it to him.

Over dinner that night, Jenny asked him about what had happened with his plan to invest in Brooke’s.

“It didn’t work out. The owner doesn’t want to give up control or sell it. I don’t blame her, it’s a cool place.” Jennifer looked disappointed.

“I was hoping I’d get a discount. I love that store.”

“Me too.” He smiled at her, thinking of Spencer. He would have liked to introduce Jenny to her.

Mike and Jenny spent a nice evening together, and he felt relieved when he left her. She was solidly on her feet and well grounded. She didn’t say it, but he had the feeling she was relieved about the divorce too. It was more honest than the lie he and Maureen had been living for years, which didn’t fool anyone, not even the children. He was glad he had come to tell her in person, and they had had some time together. It was always quality time with her.

He slept all the way back to New York and felt energized when he got back to the apartment. He unpacked all the clothes he had brought there and hung the four paintings Maureen had let him take. He put the photographs around the apartment, and the place looked a little more lived-in. It all still felt very new. A new chapter of his life had started. He hoped it would be a good one. He had learned from past mistakes. Now he wanted Zack to come home, so they could be a family again.





Chapter 8


Spencer continued to use the makeshift office in the basement of the store. The workmen were around all day. She checked their progress regularly, asked questions, sought out the contractor, and made constant decisions about what to keep in terms of design and what to change. It was a perfect opportunity to refresh everything.

She brought in the architect to make some changes to the restaurant and the top floor. The smell of smoke on the lower floors was gone within a week. The merchandise had been aired, and only a few things were too damaged to repair. Spencer had cleaning crews working throughout the building. Within three weeks, it looked more like a remodel than the aftermath of a fire. Spencer didn’t want to go overboard, but she wanted no evidence of the trauma the store had been through to remain.

She walked around the store in overalls and working boots and a hard hat, with a clipboard, and Paul Trask followed her with a list of the estimates they’d signed and the bills they’d received. The restoration of the store was costing a fortune, but it was going to be beautiful, and Spencer was doing all she could to keep the costs down. Insurance was paying for most of it, but there was still a margin of expenses that fell into the no-man’s-land between the insurance and what they had to pay for themselves, and there were a lot of those items.