The Homecoming (19 page)

“Those shows were black-and-white.”

“True. But in my fantasy the apron was always pink. Not that obnoxious Barbie pink, but a soft pastel. Like that shrimp.” She pointed a fork at Kara’s salad. “I’d get the percolator going and start the bacon sizzling in the pan and put Wonder bread in the toaster. Just as I’m putting the bacon and fried eggs—”

“Which you only ever let Dad and me have on our birthdays. Or Father’s Day.”

“Cholesterol is a killer,” Faith said mildly. “Fortunately, people didn’t know to worry about it back then. So, just as I’m putting the artery- clogging breakfast on the table, you and your father come downstairs. Your father is dressed in a gray flannel suit.”

“Funny uniform for a small-town sheriff.”

“True. But he’s not a sheriff. That’s too edgy. Police work can be dangerous.

“No, in my fantasy Ben would work in an office downtown. I’m not quite sure what he does, but it’s a job that requires he wear a suit and tie and carry a briefcase, but doesn’t stress him out so much that he has a heart attack at his desk and leaves me a widowed mother with a young child to support.”

She winced at that, and reached out and put her hand on Kara’s. “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless.”

Kara shrugged. “Fantasies aren’t supposed to be politically correct. If they were, they’d be boring. So.” She took another bite of salad. “I’m in need of a little fantasy R and R myself, so continue on.”

“Well, while I’ve been bustling around the kitchen, without a single argument over why you can’t go out looking as if you stepped out of a Madonna video, instead you’ve dressed yourself in a charming little angora sweater and poodle skirt and put your hair in a perfect, perky ponytail.”

“It wasn’t Madonna.” Her mother’s taste had always tended toward the classics: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. And Tchaikovsky. Which had Kara thinking how strange it was that her mother and Sax would have anything in common. “It was Cyndi Lauper,” she corrected. “Girls having fun sounded like, well, fun.”

The phase had lasted all of two weeks her sophomore year. Then, realizing she wasn’t the Cyndi Lauper fun-girl type, she’d gone back to her boring old lack of style.

“Easy for you to say. You didn’t have to try to keep your daughter from leaving the house looking like she was about to audition for a porn movie. Thank heavens Shelter Bay Elementary had taken a page from the Catholic school handbook in those days and required uniforms, which kept you looking decent on school days.”

Since they were getting along so well, Kara decided against mentioning that a
decent
uniform of plaid skirt, white blouse, and knee socks was a popular porn film staple.

“You greet me with, ‘Good morning, Mother, darling.’ I respond, ‘Good morning, my beautiful pet.’ ”

“Okay. You’re coming really, really close to my gag reflex with that one.”

“We all smile benevolently at one another as we sit down for a lovely, leisurely breakfast. Of course, your father will be reading the paper, but you and I discuss your plans for your sleepover. I promise there will be fresh-baked cookies and cupcakes, which makes you smile. I hand you your lunch box—”

“Annie Oakley,” Kara remembered.

“That’s a bit of reality that’s allowed to stay in,” Faith agreed. “I kiss you good-bye and watch as you skip out the door and down the sidewalk to school. Then I hand Ben his briefcase, kiss him on the cheek as well, and stand in the doorway, watching as he walks out to the car and drives away. I wave across the street to my neighbor Janice, who’s doing exactly the same thing. Because, of course, our lives all mirror one another’s.”

“Spookily like Stepford wives.”

“That’s not a problem because the book hasn’t been written yet. Since no one has told us we’re supposed to be unhappy, we believe all the glossy magazines that reinforce our comfortable domestic bliss.”

“So, in this fantasy, you’ve all drunk the fifties happy-housewife Kool-Aid.”

“True.” Her mother sighed. “But it’s such damn tasty Kool-Aid.”

“God, I hate to admit this,” Kara said, dragging a hand through her hair. “But it’s coming in a close second place to my own fantasy of Gerard Butler showing up at my door with a can of whipped cream.”

“Ah, the ubiquitous whipped cream.” Faith sighed. “I used to have a similar one about Robert Redford.”

“No way.”

“Way.” Her mother looked just like a cat that’d been lapping at top cream. “And Paul Newman. He and Robert and I are in Brazil, where it’s very hot and very, very steamy.”

The idea of her mother fantasizing a threesome with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was mind-boggling.

“I believe we’ve just entered the TMI zone,” Kara said, trying to scrub the unwanted erotic image from her brain. “Can we get back to the fifties, when women’s lust revolved around the perfect Jell-O mold?”

“That’s probably safer,” Faith agreed. “So, while I’m watching you skip down the sidewalk, and your father drive down the tree-lined street, although I know it’s petty, I allow myself to think how you are prettier than Janice’s child, and how my husband is handsomer than hers.

“I quickly tidy the house while humming happily to myself. Something theatrical. Perhaps from
South Pacific
. Then Janice and Helen, from next door, drop in for our morning kaffeeklatsch. Helen has brought her frosted pecan cinnamon coffee cake.”

“Because carbs and calories don’t exist.”

“Of course not. After they leave, I’m not sure exactly what I do, because it was never shown. Perhaps read some thought-provoking novel.”

“Like
War and Peace
.”

“That works. Though
Anna Karenina
was actually a better book. Anyway, the day just breezes by and you come home from school and we both sit down to a plate of brownies—”

“Which you baked after whizzing through
War and Peace.
”

“Exactly. Then, after valuable mother-daughter bonding time, you obediently run upstairs to do your homework while I cook dinner.”

“Meat and potatoes.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t feed Ben take-out pizza. Pot roast is his favorite. With Parker House rolls and a fresh green salad. As I hand him his martini, he tells me how good dinner smells. I love it when he compliments me.”

This time her mother’s smile was spookily reminiscent of Donna Reed’s.

“I put the dinner on the table, take off my apron, light the candles, and we all sit down to dinner to discuss one another’s days.”

“Not that you’d have all that much to add to the conversation,” Kara pointed out. “Except for perhaps a book report.”

“True. But that doesn’t matter. Because just being together, the three of us, ending our day in my homey kitchen, makes me feel complete. And satisfied with my lovely, perfect life. And my lovely, perfect family.”

Faith sighed again.

Kara echoed the sigh. Then she said, “I honestly don’t know what’s scarier: that the outdated, antifeminist scenario is, at this moment, immensely appealing, or that you thought it up.”

“I didn’t. All those TV writers, who were undoubtedly males, did. And while it’s admittedly horribly chauvinistic, as I said, it got me through some tough times when I found myself juggling too many balls.” She took a sip of water and eyed Kara over the rim of the plastic glass. “But I never faced anything as difficult as you’ve had to go through.”

Was that actually a compliment?

“I’m doing okay.”

“I’d never expect less. Because you come from tough stock. What’s even more admirable is how you’ve managed to keep Jared’s death from having a devastating effect on your son. I’m not sure that, at your age, I could have done as well.”

The fork that had been on the way to Kara’s mouth dropped to the table. No mistake about it, that had
definitely
been a compliment.

“You’ve no idea how much that means to me.” She’d never uttered a more truthful statement. “To hear you say that.”

“You’ve no idea how bad it makes me feel to hear that you needed so to hear me say it.” Faith pinched the bridge of her nose. “Watching you with Trey, I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t a very good mother.”

“Don’t be silly. You were great. Okay, maybe you weren’t Donna Reed or Margaret Anderson, which, quite honestly, would’ve weirded me out, but you were definitely a role model.”

“Yet you became a sheriff. Not a doctor.”

“Ah.” Kara lifted a finger. “But you showed me a woman could be anything she wanted to be. Including a sheriff.”

Faith’s expression softened. “Well, that’s something, I suppose.” She glanced up. “John’s here.”

Faith followed her gaze to the man weaving his way between the tables, which were surprisingly crowded for this time of night.

“He’s got a crush on you, you know,” she told her mother.

“I know. Ben knew, too. He told me . . .”

“Told you what?” Kara asked when Faith’s voice drifted off.

“That if anything ever happened to him, I ought to consider marrying John O’Roarke. He felt he’d take good care of me.”

“Oh, God. That’s just too weird.” It had been a long, exhausting day.

“You find it strange that your father would be thinking of my welfare?”

“No. What’s strange is that that’s exactly the same thing Jared did when he went off to the Marines. He essentially handed me over to Sax for safekeeping.”

Her mother arched a brow. “I never knew that.”

“Sax was always a sore topic with you, so I never shared my suspicions back then. But he admitted it the other day.”

“And here I always thought he was trying to make time with his friend’s girl.”

“He never tried anything.”

Which was true.
She’d
been the one to initiate that kiss. Which had started out as a kiss of gratitude. Then it had turned into something else. Something that could have turned out dangerous, if Sax had let it. Which he hadn’t.

At the time she’d been embarrassed. But grateful. Now she realized that despite his devil-may-care attitude, even then he’d possessed a steely self-discipline and sense of honor that must have served him well during his years as a SEAL.

“Well.” Her mother blew out a breath, touched her napkin to her lips, then put it on the table as she stood to greet the man who’d nearly reached them. “Perhaps I misjudged him on that issue. But he’s just back from war. And he doesn’t, from what I can tell, even have a job. Daniel Sullivan would still be far better husband material.”

“I’m not in the market for a husband.”

Which was definitely true.

But with all her attention directed toward Kara’s deputy, Faith didn’t hear the denial. Or more likely chose not to.

This was getting to be a habit Sax could get used to: sitting out on his covered porch, strumming his Gibson Kristofferson SJ to the accompaniment of the night rain on the roof, watching Kara Conway coming up his driveway.

He was thinking that a gentleman would go racing out to the car with an umbrella. Unfortunately, while no one had ever referred to him as a gentleman, it was a moot point, since he didn’t own an umbrella.

Neither, apparently, did she. Or else she was in too much of a hurry to bother with it, because after opening the cruiser’s door she dashed across the drive and up his steps.

“I’m sorry.” She swiped her damp bangs off her forehead. “I didn’t expect it to be so late.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He put the guitar aside. “It’s not like I had anything real important to do, anyway.”

She glanced past him into the dimly lit cabin. “Is Trey asleep?”

“He was out like a light before we got here. I put him to bed in the upstairs guest room, and checked him a couple times, but he’s still sawing some serious Zs.”

“It was a busy day for him,” she said. “The parade, all the food, the fireworks, then Danny’s shooting . . . And it’s not that I don’t trust you, but would you mind if I checked him myself?”

“Of course not. I guess you remember the way?”

Although she’d never been one to blush, a tinge of color lit her cheeks. “I suppose I can find him,” she said mildly.

With that, she disappeared into the house, leaving him wanting to bang his head through the white siding.

Hell
. Could he be any stupider? Letting her know that
he
knew this was where she and Jared had sneaked away once back when they were in high school. His grandparents had been down in Louisiana, visiting relatives. Having promised to look after the house for them, Cole had given his best friend the key so they could have themselves a romantic evening.

Sax wondered what she’d say if she found out he also knew that this was where she and Jared had given their virginity to each other. Although Jared had never been one to kiss and tell, it hadn’t taken a genius to recognize the signs the next morning when they’d all gone out surf fishing for stripers together. The kid couldn’t stop grinning like a damn fool, even after he’d lost his rod and reel to a shark who’d snapped up his bait and swum away with it.

Although Sax had already been enjoying the pleasures of local girls for some time, he’d never felt the way Jared Conway had looked. Not then. Not since.

“Forbidden fruit is what you’ve got here, son.” Cowboy, who was leaning against one of the porch pillars, repeated what Sax had already considered. “Gotta definitely be the most succulent, sweetest flesh.”

“But she’s not forbidden anymore,” Randy pointed out. “ ’Cause her Marine husband took himself a bullet.”

“Which was a crying shame,” Jake allowed with uncharacteristic sympathy. “But if she’s been celibate all this time, the lady’s definitely gotta be ready for blast-off.”

And wasn’t this just what he needed? “If you guys aren’t going to go back to wherever you came from, would you just shut the fuck up?”

“You think we like hanging around here, watching you look like a pussy-whipped fool?” Cowboy retorted.