The Family Doctor (8 page)

Kate nodded. “Marie's older than I am, married to a lawyer. They live in San Diego.”

“Any kids?”

“Two. I only see them once a year or so. I don't really know them as well as I'd like to. Marie's a very reserved person, super smart, but emotionally removed. She wanted to be a lawyer, but she got pregnant with Sara before she graduated.”

Tony nodded. “Shot herself in the foot, you think?”

“I can't help wondering about that.”

“I watched Georgia do that, get married because she wasn't self-confident enough to go back to med school. I guess we've all done that from time to time, taken one road when we should have gone down the other.” He gave his own foot a rueful look and muttered, “And then some of us wreck ourselves on a mere candy wrapper.”

Should she say what she was thinking? What did she have to lose? “I'm grateful to that piece of foil, Tony.”

“Oh yeah? Why's that?”

She was heading out on a limb here, but she did believe in being honest, didn't she? “I wouldn't be sitting here eating cream buns with you if you hadn't slipped. I like it.”

He tipped his head back and laughed. She laughed, too, relieved that he hadn't read more into her remark than she'd intended.

“I guess I owe the damned thing a debt of gratitude myself, looking at it that way.” Their eyes met, and the expression in his belied the lightness of his words. Kate felt again that indefinable tug that happened each time they really looked at each other.

“More coffee?”

About to agree, Kate glanced at her watch and
did a double take. “Omigod, the kids' class is over. We're ten minutes late picking them up.”

“They'll wait.” He didn't seem concerned. “We're gonna have to stop meeting like this.”

“Think so?” She felt absurdly disappointed.

“Absolutely not.” He grinned. “I don't know when I've enjoyed an hour more. Same time, same place, next class?”

“I'll be here.” She probably should have given it some thought, but her acceptance was immediate and instinctive.

When Kate drove up in front of the dance studio, Eliza and McKensy were sitting on Eliza's red sweater on the grassy lawn.

Tony stuck his head out the window and called, “Hey, ladies, sorry we're late.”

“Hi, Kate, hi, Daddy.” McKensy came skipping over to greet him. She kissed him and helped him rescue his crutches from the back seat.

Eliza followed much more slowly. Kate got out of the car and came around to introduce Eliza to Tony.

“Hello, Eliza,” he said, smiling and putting out a hand to her. “It's nice to meet you at last. Your mom's been telling me all sorts of nice things about you. I see you and McKensy know each other.”

“How do you do,” Eliza mumbled, staring at her feet and ignoring his outstretched hand. She shot Kate an accusing look and then climbed in the front seat of the car and shut the door with a bang.

Kate gaped at her. Eliza wasn't usually rude. Maybe something had happened in class to upset her.

Remembering what Tony had said about the bus, Kate asked, “Would you two like a ride home?”

“Thanks, but Georgia's coming to pick us up,” Tony said. Then he added with a grin, “She's always late—she'll be here in a minute or twenty.”

Kate got in the car, noticing that Eliza didn't respond to McKensy's cheerful wave. The little girl sat staring straight ahead, slouched down so her head barely showed above the window.

“What's wrong, Eliza?” Kate asked as they drove home. “Did you have problems at dance class?”

There was a recital coming up, the finale of the term. Maybe Eliza hadn't been chosen for a part she wanted.

But Eliza shook her head and remained mute.

“You were rude to Mr. O'Connor, Eliza. When you act that way it embarrasses me.”

“I didn't know you were friends with McKensy's daddy.” The words sounded more like an accusation than a comment.

“He's a doctor at St. Joe's, of course I'm friends with him. Does that bother you?” Kate was still confused as to what this was about.

Eliza shook her head, but her mutinous expression belied the denial.

Kate pulled into the drive of her house.

“I want Daddy to take me to class next time,” Eliza blurted out as she scrambled from the car. She didn't wait for Kate the way she usually did. Instead she ran around to the back of the house, to the entrance to the apartment.

“Change your clothes and come and have some soup—I made that carrot stuff you like,” Kate called after her. So she
was
a little jealous, Kate realized with a pang of sympathy.

Seeing McKensy with Tony had probably done it, Kate realized. Scott hardly ever took Eliza to her lessons. Her heart ached for her stepdaughter. Eliza had such difficult situations to come to terms with, and she was only a little girl. Scott had disappointed her so many times, and would again. And there was nothing Kate could do to prevent it.

She sighed and went inside. Walking into her house never failed to give her pleasure, even when she was feeling sad. She'd painted and decorated her home exactly as she wanted, using various shades of yellow for the living area, from a cheerful sunny color in the kitchen to muted amber in the living room. She loved plants and flowers, and greenery spilled down from an ornate old ladder she'd rested against the kitchen wall. The bamboo table and chairs she'd bought secondhand and then painted white looked inviting in the eating alcove.

It had taken her a long time to decide what she wanted her home to look like. Married to Scott, she'd been too busy earning their living to pay at
tention to her surroundings. When she'd bought this house, she'd spent money first on making the basement suite comfortable and bright, particularly Eliza's bedroom, so the little girl could invite friends home for sleepovers.

But in the last two years, Kate had begun to work on her own surroundings, and she'd found she enjoyed the process. She haunted secondhand stores and made use of inexpensive items to turn her house into a home. She'd planted a vegetable garden out back, and flowers along the borders, taking heed of the advice in women's magazines not to wait for a man in her life before making a home for herself.

Somewhere in the past few years she'd pretty much given up on the idea of ever marrying again. The fact that she couldn't have children and the situation with Scott and Eliza didn't enhance her appeal as a desirable partner.

But tonight, as she heated the soup she'd made that morning and waited for Eliza, she admitted how lonely her life was at times.

Eliza was wonderful, but Kate longed to have an adult to talk with, to exchange ideas, to confide memories. Being with Tony, even for one brief hour, had emphasized that longing. She missed having a sex life. She knew she'd be passionate with the right man. What happened to passion if it didn't get used? Did it just dry up and disappear?

Before she could get too maudlin, she reminded
herself that she had Eliza, she had her work, she had her friendship with Leslie. She had a great deal to be thankful for.

Cultivate an attitude of gratitude here, Lewis. You've got another date with him on Thursday, while the kids have dance class.

It wasn't a real date, though, she reminded herself.

It was just a way to pass an hour while the girls were in class. She mustn't make too much of it.

She liked it, though. She really liked it.

 

“I
LIKE
E
LIZA
, P
APA
. She's got a sense of humor.”

Tony was sitting on McKensy's bed. She was bathed and ready for sleep, wearing an old rugby shirt of his as a nightgown.

“A sense of humor's essential, all right.” Tony had to struggle not to smile. McKensy had been assessing various friends and members of the family for weeks now, gauging their possession of, or lack of, a sense of humor, after seeing a television special on how humor affected illness.

“Does Kate have a sense of humor?”

“Yeah, she does.” The memory of Kate teasing him with that engaging twinkle in her eye pleased him. Sitting with her and hearing her talk about her family had been interesting. Her view of people's actions and her acceptance of their differences was both touching and endearing.

“Do you like Kate, Papa?”

“Yeah, duchess, I do. I like her a lot.” Kate's wide smile and endearing dimples came to mind. There was a softness about her voice and her manner that he found seductive.

Of course, he wasn't about to explain the seductive aspect to McKensy.

“So are you maybe gonna
date
her?”

Here there were dragons. Tony knew all too well the desperate need his daughter felt for the kind of family that included a mother and a father, and more children than just one.

He didn't want to raise McKensy's hopes at all.

“I don't think so, sweetie. We're good friends, but dating's not on the agenda.”

She tipped her head to one side and gave him an exasperated look. “You're gonna stay single your whole
life
unless you date
some
body, Papa.”

Her logic was sound. “I'll get around to it one of these days.”

“That's what you always say.”

Time to change the subject. “So is your class getting all prepared for the big dance recital coming up?”

Her gray eyes widened, and her face lit up. “Guess what? I nearly forgot. You'll never guess.”

“You got the part of the princess?” He had no idea whether or not there even was a princess in this one, but judging by the two recitals he'd sat through already, it was inevitable. McKensy had
wanted desperately to be the princess in the last production.

“Phooey.” She blew a raspberry and shook her head. “Who wants to be a dumb princess? I get to be the
troll.
There's only one and it's such fun, and I got it.”

The troll? For an instant, his protective hackles rose and he wanted to blast the idiot who'd cast his enchanting daughter as a troll.

“I'll show you how I'm gonna do it.” She started to climb out of bed, and he restrained her.

“Better wait until tomorrow, honey. It's pretty late, and you need music to do it properly.”

She lay down again and she was silent for a moment. “You're right, Papa. No music tonight. In case Grammy's headache still hurts.”

The lightheartedness Tony had been feeling crashed like a suddenly becalmed kite at the mention of his mother. His brother Wilson had paid them a visit that evening, and although McKensy was in her bedroom when the argument started, Tony suspected she'd overheard a good part of it.

“Tony, I want you to reconsider this ridiculous business of having a dinner for Ford and that woman,” Wilson had pontificated in his loud voice.

Dorothy had made coffee, and she was pouring mugs for the men and herself. Her lips tightened and her face took on a martyred expression as she took her place beside them at the kitchen table.

“You and Margaret can come or not, just as you
choose,” Tony replied, keeping his voice as even as he could. Kate's words echoed in his head.
Assertive people repeat the same thing calmly until the other person realizes they mean it.

“I don't know how you can be so pigheaded about this,” Wilson continued in his pompous voice. “You're insulting Mother by having anything to do with him.”

Wilson obviously hadn't read the same books Kate had.

“The dinner isn't open for discussion, and neither are my actions,” Tony said, holding up a warning palm.

His older brother was oblivious. “Just out of respect for Mother, you ought to cancel,” Wilson insisted.

Tony was hanging on to his temper by a thread. “That's not gonna happen, Wilson,” he reiterated in an even tone. “And like I've said already, the dinner isn't open for discussion.”

“You're deliberately causing trouble in the family over this,” Wilson accused. “And you're causing Mom a lot of pain.”

That was Dorothy's cue, and she didn't miss a beat. “Goodness knows I've done my best all these years for all of you,” she whined. “And I don't see how you can go behind my back like this and even think of speaking to that horrible man. He deserted us, he walked out when Georgia was little more
than a baby. He has no right to come back now and cause trouble like this.”

Tony couldn't stay calm any longer. “He sent money to help support us all,” he stated, knowing that his voice was rising. “You always leave that little detail out, Mom. He could have just disappeared, but he didn't. He wrote letters and tried to keep in touch.” The usual frustration and anger were building in him. He'd been through this countless times with his mother, and it typically ended with her in near hysterics and him wanting to put his fist through the nearest wall.

He could have repeated word for word her next salvo.

“What kind of father leaves his family and goes off to Australia without a backward glance? And takes a precious ring that doesn't belong to him? My father gave me that ring, and now that floozy your father's shacked up with is probably wearing it.”

As happened whenever this subject arose, Dorothy's voice vibrated with angry passion. “And now you plan to greet him with open arms, as if he never did anything wrong. How can you do this to your own mother, Tony? After all I've done for you?”

He had to bite his tongue until it nearly bled to keep from telling her that the doing was a two-way street. She'd raised them, and she'd worked hard to do it, he didn't discount that. But for years now he
and his brother and sisters had done whatever they could for their mother, financially and emotionally. They'd paid for a trip to Hawaii for her birthday, they'd surprised her with special dinners on Mother's Day, they'd made certain she had enough money in her pension plan to more than provide for her needs.