Darling obstacles

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

own kids had had their definite food preferences at age four too.

It was eight-thirty when Dr. Wilder finally arrived. The children were gathered in the small living room watching the annual presentation of The Wizard of Oz on television. Maggies ironing board was set up in the corner of the room and she occasionally glanced at the TV as she ironed. She was wearing cutoff jeans and a sleeveless yellow blouse in concession to the unseasonably high fall temperature. It had reached eighty degrees that afternoon and the little frame duplex would be a long time cooling down. Her dark auburn hair was pulled up high on her head in a ponytail that just skimmed the nape of her neck. Although her brother often teasingly told her that she looked more like twelve-year-old Kristin's sister than like her mother, Maggie thought that she looked every one of her thirty-two years. She certainly felt it.

The doorbell rang twice in quick succession. Not one of the children looked away from the screen, although Kristin did call out, "Someone's ringing the doorbell, Mom."

Maggie unplugged the iron and went to the door. Greg Wilder stood on the step, resplendent in a black tuxedo and frilled white shirt. He was quite tall, at least two or three inches over six feet, and had the hard, disciplined body of an athlete. He somehow managed to make his fancy suit look ruggedly masculine, Maggie noted wryly, in spite of the white frills. His hair was light brown, streaked blond by the sun, and he wore it short and parted to the side. Maggie knew that the Wilders owned a sailboat and a high-powered speedboat and spent many of the summer weekends on the water. All the Wilder children had that same sunstreaked blond-brown hair.

"Hello, Maggie. Sorry I'm late." Greg Wilder smiled at her, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. His eyes were the most unusual color of blue that Maggie had ever seen—light and clear, the color of

aquamarines—and they were surrounded by a fringe of long, thick, dark lashes. His younger daughter Wendy had his eyes—large and wide-set and absolutely striking. Maggie's heart began to beat a little bit faster. It often did in Greg Wilder's presence.

"I was held up at the hospital," he continued, "and then had to rush home and change and pick up Francine." He inclined his head toward his impressive burgundy Cadillac parked along the curb. Maggie squinted into the darkness and saw a shadowy figure in the front seat of the car. His date for the evening, Francine. She would be gorgeous, Maggie knew. All Greg's dates were.

"Are the kids ready to go?" he asked.

She nodded with a smile. "Yes, they're watching television. Ill call them." He made a slight move forward and Maggie, who was holding the screen door ajar, quickly closed it. "Ill send them out right away, Dr. Wilder," she said.

Greg Wilder remained outside on the doorstep. He always waited on the doorstep for his children, except in bad weather, when he would return to his car to wait. Maggie had never invited him inside. Their conversations were always, inevitably, held in the doorway.

"Your daddy is here," Maggie announced to the group in front of the TV set. The Wilder children— nine-year-old Joshua, seven-year-old Wendy, and four-year-old Max—seemed not to have heard her. They didn't move a muscle or glance away from the screen.

"Max, Wendy, Josh!" Maggie made her tone as cheerful and bright as the voice of the Good Witch of the North. "Daddy is waiting to take you home."

"I wanna watch the show," Max said, tightening his arm around his bedraggled teddy bear.

Maggie caught Kristin's eye and sent her a silent appeal for reinforcement. Sometimes Max listened to Kristin when he wouldn't obey anyone else. Kristin

picked up her cue. "You can watch the movie at home, Max. On your great big TV."

"No!" Max said, scowling fiercely. "Ill miss the good parts driving home. Teddy and me are staying here."

Kristin shrugged and turned her attention back to the program. The ball was back in Maggie's court. "Max, honey, I'm sorry but you can't stay here," she said firmly. He looked so cute, sitting cross-legged on the floor clutching his bear. Maggie had an admitted soft spot for him and keeping her tone firm wasn't easy. But she couldn't keep the child; his father was outside waiting to take him home. "Your daddy is waiting for you, Max. He has to go out tonight and—"

"Go out?" Joshua turned his head at that. "On a date, you mean?"

"Well ... I guess so," Maggie hedged. She knew so, but the thunderous expression on Joshua's face kept her from making a completely affirmative reply. Coward, she accused herself.

"He goes out too much!" Joshua burst out with sudden ferocity. "Every Friday and Saturday night that he isn't on call at the hospital. And then he gets in late and is grouchy the next morning and misses my soccer games—"

"He doesn't always miss them, Josh," Kevin interrupted. "He was there last week, remember?"

Maggie gave Kevin a fond smile. Her nine-year-old diplomat. But Josh wasn't prepared to be reasonable. "We lost last week, so that doesn't count!"

"Be quiet! I can't hear the TV," complained six-year-old Kari. "Why don't you go home now?"

Definitely not a diplomat, thought Maggie with a sigh, and wondered how to extricate the Wilders gracefully from her living room. She knew from experience how stubborn and irascible they could be. Josh and Max could be, she mentally corrected herself. Wendy was quiet and passive and almost too docile. Sometimes it unnerved her, the way the little girl never expressed preferences or choices or any emo-

DARLING OBSTACLES • 5

tion at all. Wendy stood up now, her small face impassive as usual, and stared from Maggie to her brothers with those big beautiful aquamarine eyes of hers.

"Wendy is all ready to go," Maggie said hopefully. "Come on, boys, let's see you two race to the car."

Maggie congratulated herself on her clever psychological strategy when Josh jumped to his feet and headed for the door, 'ill beat you, stupid!" he called over his shoulder to Max.

"Bad move, Mom," Kristin said dryly, eyeing Max. The little boy's face was contorted with fury and he stretched himself out on the floor and began to kick his feet and scream "I'm not stupid! I'm not going home!" over and over again at the top of his lungs.

Kristin, Kevin, and Kari watched him, far more fascinated with the tantrum than with The Wizard of Oz at this point. Maggie suppressed a groan. None of her children had ever had temper tantrums, not even during the "terrible twos." And though Josh sometimes made reference to his little brother's tantrums, Max had never had one while in Maggie's care. Now he appeared to be making up for lost time. Momentarily nonplussed, Maggie simply stood and watched along with her children.

"Daddy says Max is too old to have tantrums," Wendy said in a half-whisper. Maggie was inclined to agree, but that didn't solve the problem of what to do with the furious, howling, and kicking child.

"Mom, do you want me to ask Dr. Wilder to come in and get Max?" asked Kevin.

Maggie glanced around the small, crowded living room, littered with cups and doll clothes and GI Joe paraphernalia. Her ironing was in two big plastic baskets in the middle of the room. She visualized Greg Wilder in all his masculine elegance wading through the mess and shuddered. For some stupid reason— misplaced pride perhaps—she was loathe to have him see her looking tired and disheveled in the thoroughly untidy room. If and when Greg Wilder ever did come into her house, she wanted everything to be in perfect

order—herself, the house, the children, everything. Right now the house was a wreck and she didn't look much better. Maggie grimaced. The contrast between her and his beautiful date sitting in the front seat of the air-conditioned Cadillac would be excruciating. She quickly pushed the thought aside.

Max was continuing to shriek and Kevin took matters into his own hands. 4 T11 get Dr. Wilder," he said.

"No, Kevin," Maggie said quickly, nervously. "Let's give it a few more minutes."

She knelt beside the screaming child and laid her hand on his head. He was perspiring and his small face was wet with tears. What must it be like to be four years old, she wondered, the youngest of four children, with an extremely busy father and no mother? To have spent the last two years, half of your life, being shunted between baby-sitters and pre-schools, every day a different place with different people, and no routine or structure to depend upon? Maggie's heart suddenly wrenched for this small bundle of protesting fury.

She remembered Max's mother well. Alicia Wilder had been an attractive brown-eyed blonde who was always elegantly dressed and groomed to perfection. Maggie had met her four years earlier when Kevin and Joshua were enrolled in the same morning kindergarten class. Woodland was a planned community, halfway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with neighborhoods for all income groups. Its public schools were excellent and used by all the children in town. That's what is wonderful about Woodland," Maggie had once heard Alicia Wilder say to another mother. "The children have an opportunity to mix with other children from all walks of life. Greg and I briefly considered sending our kids to a private school, but we decided that Woodland schools would definitely broaden their outlook."

In fact, young Joshua Wilder's outlook had been so broadened that he had chosen Kevin May for his

DARLING OBSTACLES • 7

best friend. The relationship between Joshua, from upper class Woodland Heights, with its elegant stone and stucco homes on acres of wooded land, and Kevin, from low-income Woodland Courts, with its frame duplexes and adjoining communal yards, could have served as a perfect example of Woodland's liberal social promises. Alicia Wilder frequently told Maggie how much she liked Kevin and how glad she was that he was Joshuas friend. But Maggie couldn't help noticing that while Kevin was often invited to the Wilders' to play, Joshua was seldom allowed to play at the Mays'. She suspected that Alicia Wilder didn't care for her son to be involved in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Woodland Courts. It was only after his mother's death a little over two years ago that Josh had begun to spend most of his free time at the Mays'.

Poor little Max, Maggie thought. The image of the lovely Alicia faded from her mind as she stroked the child's hair. "Max, I know you're tired and upset and very angry." She spoke in calm, soothing tones. "And you must feel that you—"

"What's all this about, Max?" The deep masculine voice seemed to fill the room. Max momentarily stopped screeching to glance up. His father was standing on the threshold of the living room, his arms folded across his chest, his sandy brows arched, and his lips drawn together in a tight line. He looked very big, very authoritative, and very angry. Maggie scrambled to her feet, feeling oddly breathless. Greg hadn't waited to be asked inside. He had entered on his own initiative.

"Mommy," Kari whispered as she carefully moved behind her mother. Kari, usually so feisty and funny, was timid around men, a fact of which Maggie was becoming increasingly aware. Unlike Kristin, who'd known a loving father until the age of six, Kari had never lived with a man in the house. John May had died just one week after the birth of his youngest child.

Greg Wilder crossed the room to stand over his small son. "We're going home, Max." His voice brooked no argument. At least it didn't to Maggie, but Max merely turned his head and resumed his tantrum.

"That's enough, Max," Dr. Wilder spoke in tones that Maggie guessed would have set the hospital staff scurrying to do his bidding. Max Wilder completely ignored him.

Maggie watched a dark red flush stain the doctor's neck and spread upward to his face. "He could stay here tonight, Dr. Wilder," she suggested quickly. "There's an extra bed in Kevin's room. He has bunk beds."

"If Max gets to stay here, then so do I!" Joshua was back and he glowered belligerently at his father. In his ire, the boy was a smaller image of the man, except for his eyes which were a light brown. Josh had his mother's eyes.

"You are all going home," Greg Wilder said through clenched teeth. "Joshua, Wendy, go to the car! Right now!" Wendy snatched Max's teddy bear and scooted out of the room. Josh followed, his face sullen. Greg leaned down and picked Max up in his arms. To the Mays' collective, fascinated horror, the child proceeded to punch, kick, and scratch his father, his screams of rage never abating. Greg Wilder strode from the room, carrying Max while attempting to fend off his blows. Maggie and her children followed them out to the car.

Joshua and Wendy were already in the back seat. Francine, a striking brunette in a low-cut red cocktail dress, was scowling in the front seat. Greg stuffed the shrieking Max into the back. "Maggie, I'm sorry about this," he said, turning to her. He appeared totally harassed. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a gold monogrammed money clip. Maggie watched all three of her children's jaws drop as he produced the thick roll of bills. She was sorely tempted to turn them away from the sight.

Greg peeled off a twenty dollar bill and handed it to her. "I hope this is enough, Maggie. I know youVe had them since they got out of school at three-thirty."

"They had dinner here too," Kevin piped up.

Maggie felt her cheeks turn scarlet. Greg handed her another ten and she drew back, refusing to take it. "That's too much, Dr. Wilder. You—"

There was another shriek from the car, but this time it came from Francine. Max was in the front seat, attacking her. "Good Lord!" Greg muttered. He raced to the car and flung open the door to attempt to remove Max from his victim. Francine's hair was mussed and there were scratches on her slender neck and slim bare arms. Greg succeeded in prying Max loose, but not before he'd sunk his little teeth into the woman's hand. She gave an outraged howl of pain. The doctor roared at his son and began to spank him, all the while dodging the boy's flailing fists and feet.

Max continued to wail at the top of his lungs. Several interested neighbors converged upon the scene to observe and comment on the situation. Life in Woodland Courts was like living in the proverbial glass house; everyone felt free to mind everyone else's business. Joshua hopped out of the car and joined the group.