More Than Friends (36 page)

"I try," she said, and reached for Michael's plate, which she filled to overflowing while the others helped themselves. She then proceeded to cut Michael's food into manageable pieces, but all the while, in a silence that was filled with the click of utensils, she felt a deep sadness. The smell of cooked turkey mixed with the smell of defeat. By the time she sat on her own chair, she was afraid she would cry if someone didn't speak fast.

So she said, "Tell us about the game, Leigh." Leigh told them about the game. Jana put in a word here and there. J.D. even asked a few questions.

Teke kept an eye on Michael. He could handle a fork, but neither smoothly nor efficiently. It was painful to watch. Teke would have helped if it were allowed, but the center personnel had been clear on that. Feeding himself was therapy. Every forkful that he brought to his mouth would improve his coordination. Teke kept telling herself that. It brought her little comfort.

Silence fell again. Teke moved down the list of

topics she had compiled for just such an eventuality. "Jana's been named to represent her class in the inter town debate in January. Did you tell your father, Jana?"

"I did. Last weekend."

"Then tell me. I barely got the gist of what you're debating." Jana talked for a bit. She finished with, "Pass the black olives, Dad?"

J.D. passed the black olives.

"Do you have enough gravy, Mike?" Teke asked. Michael nodded. "Dad says they'll let me play on the team next year even though I didn't play this year, but I don't think they will. Everyone else will be playing better but me. I won't survive cuts."

"You'll survive cuts," Leigh said. "You're the best player they have."

"Not now. Maybe not ever. What if I can't run?"

"You'll run if you want to," Teke told him. "That's what the doctors said."

"Is it warm in here, or is it me?" J.D. muttered, pushing away from the table. He went out into the hall. "This thermostat is set at seventy-two! No wonder it's like an oven!" He returned to the dining room and asked Teke, "Why was it set at seventy two?" She set down her fork. The little food she had eaten lay like lead in her stomach. "I've been keeping it there so that the sunroom stays warm. That's where Michael spends most of his time."

"Speaking of sun," Leigh asked, "since you're both here, there's something I want to discuss. A group of us wants to do spring break somewhere warm."

"Take the sunroom," J.D. said. "Mike'll be out of there by then."

"I'm serious. We're thinking of going to Nassau."

"No," J.D. said seconds before he forked a piece of turkey into his mouth.

"Why not?" Leigh asked.

He chewed, swallowed, asked, "Do you have a chaperone lined up?"

"No."

"That's why not."

Leigh looked to Teke for help, but Teke didn't know what to say. Somehow "Don't worry, Leigh will have birth control by then" didn't seem right. Nor did "Virginity isn't an issue" or "No sweat, she drinks light beer." She wished Leigh had broached this with her first. They might have thought up a better way of approaching J.D. Unfortunately approaching J.D. was necessary. He was the money man. Aside from half a dozen good pieces of jewelry, a fur coat, a life insurance policy, and a joint checking account, Teke had nothing. Only now did that strike her as wrong, unfair, even a little frightening.

"This is my senior spring break," Leigh was pleading, having returned to J.D. when she realized Teke would be no help. "Everyone goes somewhere for senior spring break."

"And you will, too," J.D. said, "but when you're in college, not high school."

"What if I pay for it myself?"

"With what?"

"Money from my savings account."

He shook his head. "That money stays where it is until you're twenty-one."

Michael looked up. "I thought you said I could take some of mine to buy an editing deck and a controller."

"If he can, why can't I?" Leigh asked.

"Spring break isn't exactly an investment in your future."

"That's not fair, Dad."

J.D. shrugged. When the phone rang he shot a testy look at Teke.

"Who's calling in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner?" Jana jumped up from the table. While she dealt with the call in the kitchen, Teke asked Michael, "Where are the twins having dinner?"

"At their grandfather's in Springfield. They always go there."

"How about Nat?"

Michael scowled. "He's home. His dad's taking him to shoot hoop at the gym as soon as they're done eating." He prodded a piece of lettuce with his fork, dropped the fork, picked it up again, and prodded his stuffing.

Jana slipped back onto her seat.

"Who was it?" Teke asked to make conversation.

"It was for me."

"Was it Zoe?"

"No."

The silence that descended again was thick and unhappy. Teke cut a piece of turkey and ate it, cut another piece and ate it. It occurred to her that attempts at conversation were as awkward as Michael's movements. Like him, the family had suffered a severe blow. They, too, were trying to figure out how to function in a debilitated condition.

She looked at J.D." wishing he would initiate some harmless discussion. But his face was tense. He was watching Michael's struggle to eat. She prayed he wouldn't comment. She didn't trust him to be supportive.

Desperate to divert him, she asked, "Who are your parents eating with today?"

The tense look remained on his face when he returned to his food. "Sid and Beverly Wyatt. They invited me, too. J.S. can't understand why I wouldn't go."

"What's hard to understand?" Jana asked. "We're your family. You're supposed to be with us."

"Under the circumstances," J.D. told her in what Teke thought was an arrogant voice, "fathers often eat elsewhere. I wanted to be with my children. He could understand that. What he didn't understand was why I wanted to be with my wife."

Teke's stomach clenched. She shot him a look of dismay, unable to believe he had said that in front of the children.

"Does Grampa hate Mom?" Leigh asked.

"He's protective of me," J.D. answered. "He sees that I've been hurt, so he's angry at the cause."

"Protective of you or of himself?" Teke couldn't resist asking, because the thought of J.D. making J.S. out to be noble was too much to bear. "The fact is that I'm an embarrassment to him."

"Does that surprise you? He has high standards!"

"For everyone but himself," Teke argued.

"What does that mean?"

It means that I know about Mary McGonigle. So don't talk about those high standards in front of me, J. D. Maxwell, or I'll tell your children about them. Enough is enough. I do not have a monopoly on wickedness.

When she said nothing aloud, J.D. told Leigh, "Your mother can't stand my parents. She's threatened --"

"I am not!"

"--because they are who they are. They're established. They're influential. They're society."

"I am not threatened," Teke insisted. "I don't aspire to be like your parents. I never have."

J.D. turned on her. "No? I've heard you asking my mother for advice--"

"Because I thought it would please her. People like to be admired. They like to feel that other people

respect them, and I do respect your parents, but that doesn't mean I want to be like them."

"You could do a hell of a lot worse!"

"This suck sT Michael cried suddenly. His fork sailed halfway across the table before tangling in the spider mums that served as the turkey's feathers. "It's not any fun! You hate each other! I want things back the way they were! I wish I'd never seen anything! I wish I'd never said anything!"

Teke was up from her chair in an instant and leaning over him. "Oh, sweetheart, it's not your fault."

"It is," he said. His eyes were filling fast. "No one would've known if I hadn't run in. Grandma and Grandpa would be here, and Sam and Annie and Jon and Zoe and Papa Pete." He started crying into the back of his hand. "I--want--all--that--again."

Teke wrapped her arms around him. She buried her face in his hair and cried with him, partly because his unhappiness was breaking her heart, partly because she wanted everything he did, but mostly because, at that moment, she knew in her gut that her marriage was over. She could fight until she was bone-tired and blue in the face, but it wouldn't work again. The damage was too extensive. It couldn't be repaired. For a woman who had always put home and hearth on a pedestal, that realization was a blow.

Much later that night, Annie stood at the kitchen sink washing the last of the dishes and feeling an overwhelming guilt. The Popes'

Thanksgiving had been really nice. Granted, she thought the turkey had looked ragged and the table had lacked the extra sparkle Teke might have put there, but no one commented on either of those things. Everyone ate,

everyone talked, everyone smiled--which, apparently, was the opposite of what had been at the Maxwells'.

Sam came through the back door, shook off the cold along with his parka, and reached for a dish towel.

"How is he?" Annie asked.

"Pretty glum. Seems like Jana and Leigh weren't exaggerating. Things started out shaky and went downhill. Poor little guy. His world has fallen in on him."

"Would he talk to you?" she asked, but she knew the answer. She could see Sam's distress.

"He needs a fall guy, and I'm it. I wouldn't mind so much if everything else in his life was running smoothly, but things are so awful. He needs the friend I was. Maybe he's finding it in Grady, but not today. Michael was hating 'most everyone today. I think they ought to see a family therapist."

"J.D. would never--"

"Not J.D. Teke and the kids. They're on their own." More quietly he added, "Makes me feel guilty."

Annie felt the same.

"It was fine today, Annie. You did everything so well."

"I had help." He had been by her side every step of the way.

"But you ran the show." He slipped an arm around her waist and warmed her temple with a kiss.

Annie allowed herself to rest a minute against him. She loved him. She wished she trusted him as much as she had once. She wished she trusted herself as much as she had once. But she did love him.

"We have so much," he whispered. "Not everything yet, but so much. I still have a ways to go with

Zoe and Jon, but that'll come, I know it will, because I won't give up. Then I look at Teke and J.D. and the kids, and I don't think it will come. It's very sad."

Annie moved her forehead against his chin. Sam had always been sensitive when it came to causes at work. Now, since Teke, he was more sensitive at home. At times she wondered if he was doing it deliberately to win her back, at other times she wondered if the why of it mattered, as long as he wanted her.

Zoe came in the back door, hung her jacket on the hook, sank onto a chair at the table, and sat with her shoulders hunched. Annie drew back and exchanged a worried look with Sam. She left his side and slipped onto the chair beside Zoe's. "What's wrong?" Zoe moved her head in a small, unhappy gesture. Her eyes were on the edge of the table. She picked at the oak with her thumb. "Jana and I got into another fight. She keeps blaming Dad for everything that happened, but it isn't fair. Teke's just as much at fault."

"Jana's upset. It was a difficult day for her."

"Does that give her the right to say that Dad broke up her parents'

marriage? Does it give her the right to tell Leigh that she'll be asking for trouble if she marries Jon? Does it give her the right to call me a loser just because I stick up for my own father?" Sam, who had come to stand behind her, put a hand on her hair.

"Jana hasn't been herself lately," Annie said.

"Maybe this is her real self," Zoe argued. "She's acting just like J.D. She's always trying to blame someone, but what good does that do except make me feel bad?"

Annie took her hand. It felt small and lonely,

which was very much how Zoe herself had seemed lately. "Misery loves company."

"It isn't fair."

Annie pulled her close. "I know, sweetie."

"She's turning the other kids against me."

"No, she's not."

"She is. She goes out with them and doesn't ask me along. She has to be giving them a reason for it, and it can't be good. So who's going to be my friend?"

"You have other friends. There's Amy and Lisa and Leslie."

"Jana was always my best friend."

"And she will be again. You both go back too far not to make it through this."

"Will you and Teke?"

Out of the mouths of babes, Annie thought. She glanced at Sam, who looked as if he were bleeding inside. "Teke and I will make it," she told Zoe.

"And you and Dad?"

Sam spoke then. "We will. I love your mother too much to let one bad time come between us." He bent over her, bracing his hands on the table. "But that's the difference between your mother and me and J.D. and Teke, and it's why Jana's wrong in blaming me for the bad time her parents are having."

Zoe looked at Annie. "Teke and J.D. never had trouble before."

"That doesn't mean their marriage was strong," Annie said. Zoe thought about that for a minute. "If I say that to Jana, she'll really tear me apart."

"Then don't. It could be that Jana knows it, and that when she lashes out at you, she does it out of envy."

Zoe thought about that, too. "I guess. Know what she said tonight?"

"What did she say?"

"She said that she hoped we were using the ski house at different times this year, so that there would be plenty of room for her to invite friends."

Sam grunted. "She's angry, Zoe. Don't pay her any heed."

"That's fine for you to say," Zoe said. "You're not the one losing all the friends." She slipped from Annie's grasp, ducked under Sam's arm, and ran from the room.

Sam started after her but stopped. "I'll only upset her more. You'd better do it. I'll finish up here."

Annie went after Zoe. She sat with her, talking softly, repeating the things she had said before. She wished she had remedies, but she hadn't when she had felt ostracized as a child, and she didn't now. Telling Zoe that her parents and brother loved her was just fine--and Annie did it over and over again--except that family was different from friends. Teenagers wanted friends.