Day to an empty bed, a raging headache and dark thoughts about his wife. Push was coming to shove between the two of them. He didn’t know when or how, but it would. Soon. He was tired of waking up alone in bed. He was tired of being pissed off about the things she hadn’t told him. Susanna and her secrets.
He’d celebrated last night with his daughters and about a million of their friends. No alcohol. They were under twenty-one, and he had to drive a bunch of them home. He was in bed by one. Alone.
Last year was better. Maggie and Ellen had gone to a friend’s house, and he and his slim, dark-haired, green-eyed wife had headed straight for the bedroom. He supposed they should have worked on some of their “issues” then. But they hadn’t. The emotions between them—the anger and frustration—were still too volatile. They were locked into their silence, stubborn. And it had been too many weeks without making love.
Jack gritted his teeth. There was no point in dwelling on last year, but the truth was, he’d thought a night in bed with him would at least keep his wife from going back up to Boston. Wrong.
Steeling himself against his pounding head, he rolled out of bed and pulled on jeans and an ancient sweatshirt. With Susanna in Boston making her damn gazillions, he tended to keep his jeans and sweats in a heap on the floor. What the hell difference did it make?
He headed down to the kitchen for aspirin. Maggie and Ellen, wide awake and dressed, whirled around him, pots and bowls out, the mixer, eggs, milk, lemons, a five-pound bag of sugar. Then he remembered their New Year’s Day Jane Austen fest. Tea, scones, lemon curd, clotted cream, watercress sandwiches and one Jane Austen movie after another. It was an all-day event. They’d invited friends.
Jack stifled a groan and gulped down two aspirin. He could feel his headache spreading into his eyes.
Ellen pushed past him with the scone bowl and set it in the sink. She was athletic and pretty with chestnut hair that was so like Iris Dunning’s before hers had turned white. Ellen’s eyes were dark like his, and she was better-tempered than either parent, a people person and a rugby player with a perpetual array of bruises on her legs.
She turned on the water into the bowl. “We’ve decided to start with the Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice. That makes sense, don’t you think, Dad?”
Jack nodded. “Sure.”
“You can watch it with us if you want—”
“Ellen.” Maggie swung around from the stove. She was dark-haired and willowy like her mother, hardheaded like both parents, but, somehow, she’d managed to inherit Kevin and Eva Dunning’s artistic streak. She, too, had her father’s dark eyes. “Dad is not invited. Remember? You know what he’s like. He’ll make comments.”
Ellen bit her lower lip. “Oh, yeah. What was I thinking? Dad, you’re not invited.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll go for a run and make myself scarce.”
He headed back to his bedroom and changed into his sweats, drawing on years of training and self-discipline not to fall back onto his bed and dream about his wife. He could hear East Coast tones slipping into Maggie and Ellen’s speech. At least they’d done Jane Austen fests and high teas before they’d moved north. He hadn’t objected to a semester in Boston, a chance for them to live with their great-grandmother and really get to know her. Iris Dunning was a special lady. But he did object to Susanna heading up there—not that he’d asked her to stay or come back. Not explicitly. But she knew what he wanted.
He hadn’t expected Susanna to last past the first hard frost. She was used to life in south Texas. It was home. She knew she belonged here, but she was just fighting it, hanging in up in Boston, because it was easier than fighting him. Easier than admitting to her fears, dealing with them.
Easier than coming clean with him.
He knew he’d contributed to the impasse between them. He’d tried to deny it for months, but now he couldn’t. He was still contributing by not talking to her, not telling her what he knew. What he feared—not that he was supposed to be afraid of anything. He definitely had his own sorting out to do.
He pushed thoughts of his wife to the back of his mind. Maybe some action was called for on his part, but he didn’t know what. The status quo was aggravating, but doing something stupid and losing Susanna altogether—that was unthinkable.
He slipped out into the bright, warm San Antonio morning, breathing in the slightly humid air and making himself hear the birds singing. He started on his ten-mile route through the pleasant suburban neighborhood where he and Susanna had raised their twin daughters. Everything about his home said “family man.” Husband, father. Their house had a big family room, a nice laundry room, pictures of sunflowers and chickens in the kitchen. He remembered teaching the girls how to ride bikes on this very street. Maggie hadn’t wanted any help whatsoever. Ellen had accepted all help but still managed to bust herself up a few times.
He hated to see them fly back to Boston in a couple of days. He knew he could go with them. He was due some time off.
His headache dissipated after the first agonizing mile of his run. Then he went into a kind of zone, jogging easily, not thinking, just putting one foot in front of the other. That was what he’d done in every area of his life for the past fourteen months. Put one foot in front of the other. Steady if not patient, pushing ahead but always coming back to where he started, never getting anywhere.
“Damn it, Susanna.”
He wasn’t waking up next New Year’s without his wife. Hell, he didn’t want to wake up tomorrow without her.
Probably he should tell her as much.
He came home sweating, breathing hard, purged of his bad night and recharged to enjoy his last two days with his daughters. He peeked in the family room, where Maggie and Ellen and two friends had set up their Jane Austen fest. They all held crumpled tissues and had tears in their eyes. Jack smiled. They’d be running the world in a few years, but right now they were crying over Darcy. Maggie shot him a warning look. He winked at her and retreated to his bedroom.
He showered, put his jeans back on and turned on a football game. If he could make it to the kitchen and back without someone offering him a watercress sandwich, he’d fetch himself a beer.
Ellen knocked on his door and told him they’d voted to invite him to tea, after all. “We all agreed we want to see you try lemon curd.”
“I went to Harvard,” he said. “I’ve tried lemon curd.”
“Come on, Dad. We feel terrible having tea without you.”
There was no way out of it. He’d had two perfect weeks with his daughters. He’d taken time off and did whatever they wanted. Shopping, visiting colleges, going to movies, tossing a rugby ball around the yard—it didn’t matter. They’d spent Christmas Day in Austin with his in-laws. Kevin and Eva didn’t understand what was going on with their daughter’s marriage, but they determinedly stayed out of it.
“Do you want Earl Grey or English Breakfast?” Ellen asked.
“There’s a difference?”
He was kidding, but she took his question seriously, as if her father couldn’t possibly know tea. “English Breakfast is more like regular tea. Earl Grey has a smoky flavor—”
“English
