Danielle Steel - The House on Hope Street

“Are you coming for Thanksgiving next year?” Jamie asked with interest.

“I was planning to, but now I'm not so sure,” he snapped at the child and then hated himself for it. He reached out and touched Jamie's hand, and lowered his voice again so he didn't scare him. “I'm sorry … I'm just upset.”

“Megan was rude to Mom,” Jamie said matter-of-factly. “And so was Annie. Don't they like you?” He looked sad for his friend, and Liz saw Bill's jaw tense when he answered.

“I guess not. I guess that's the crux of it, isn't it?” He directed his question at Liz, who wanted desperately to reassure him. “I guess I'm persona non grata here, and I'm kidding myself if I think it's ever going to be any different. As Megan said so succinctly at the beginning of the meal, I'm not their father, and I never will be.”

“No one's expecting you to be,” Liz said in the calmest voice she could muster. “All you have to be is their friend. No one's expecting you to fill Jack's shoes,” she said softly, fighting back her own tears, as he glowered at her.

“Maybe I am, Liz. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I was deluding myself that I could be important to you, and to them, instead of just an interloper, always playing second best to him. What was it Megan said, ‘a brute and a moron’?”

“She was just trying to provoke you.” Her loyalty was to her children, but to him too. It was a ghastly situation for her.

“Well, she succeeded very nicely. In fact,” he stood up and put his napkin down on the table, “I think I'll give you all some relief, and myself. I think it's time for me to go back to work.”

“I thought you weren't working today,” she said, looking confused and upset. He had told her he was off for the holiday, which was how it had all started.

“I think I'll go back anyway. At least I know what I'm doing there. I think family scenes, particularly on holidays, aren't my strong suit.” In truth, he had done fine, but the deck had been stacked against him, and he knew it. It had been a no-win situation right from the beginning. He looked at Liz from where he stood, and neither of them moved, but she knew that something terrible was happening, and they were both afraid to say it. “Thanks for dinner, Liz. I'll call you.” And without another word, he walked out the front door and slammed it behind him, as she sat staring at it.

Jamie looked up at her then, having finished his pie, and commented on the situation. “He forgot to say good-bye to me. Is he mad at me?”

“No, sweetheart. He's mad at me. Your sisters were very rude to him.”

“Are you going to spank them?” She smiled at the question. She never had, and she wasn't planning to start now at their age, but the suggestion was certainly tempting.

“No, but someone should.”

“Santa Claus is going to put coal in their stockings,” Jamie said with a solemn look, and Liz smiled sadly. Just thinking about Christmas made her shudder. It was the anniversary of Jack's death, and she realized that under no circumstances could she include Bill in what they were doing. The Thanksgiving they had just experienced had taught her a painful lesson.

She and Jamie cleared the rest of the table then, and afterwards she went upstairs to talk to her daughters. Peter was sitting with all of them, and it was obvious that Megan had been crying.

“I hate him!” She spat at her mother, but Liz managed to stay calm in spite of the havoc she had caused. She knew what was behind it.

“I don't think you do, Meg. What's to hate? He's a nice man, even if he did play football in college. What you hate is the fact that your father's gone. So do I. But there's nothing we can do about it. And it's not Bill's fault. I shouldn't have invited him to join us today, and I'm sorry.”

Peter touched her arm with a gentle smile. He admired her so much, she was always straight with them, and he knew how much she loved them. She had been there for him in every possible way after his accident that summer. And he was sorry for her that their Thanksgiving had been such a disaster, and that Bill had been Megan's scapegoat. Like Liz, he understood perfectly why it had happened. Better than Bill did. In his opinion, Bill had overreacted, and he said as much to his mother when he walked her back to her own room.

“I'm not sure I blame him. The kids hit pretty hard, and he's not used to that. He doesn't have kids, he hasn't been married in a long time. I think his feelings were hurt. He feels like he can't measure up to your father.”

“Give him time,” Peter smiled. “They'll get used to him,” he said hopefully.

“I hope so.”

She lay on her bed in the dark for a while, in her brown velvet suit, with her shoes off, thinking about Jack, and Bill, and her children. It was a complicated situation, and she had her own grief and feelings to contend with. There was hardly room for them, she was always too busy dealing with other people. And as she lay there, she started to cry as she thought of her husband and how much she missed him. He had left a huge hole behind, and sometimes it seemed like there was no way to fill it. She loved Bill, but not the way she had loved her husband. At least not yet, but she thought she might someday. It would always be different because they were different people.

The phone rang while she was still lying there in the dark, and she reached out a hand to answer it, without turning the light on. It was Bill, and he sounded stressed. He didn't sound any better than he had when he left. In fact, he sounded slightly worse, but he said there was something he had to tell her.

“What's that?” she asked, with her eyes closed, still missing Jack, and feeling terrible about what had happened. She still felt as though she had Everest to climb, and she had been climbing for eleven months now.

“I'm sorry, Liz. I can't do this. I've thought about it, and I don't know what happened to me. I think I went kind of crazy for a while. I met you and fell in love with you, and your family looks so wholesome from the outside, and you were so vulnerable, I just fell into it like a trap. But it's not me, and I want out now.” Her eyes opened brusquely and she stared into the darkness as she listened.

“What are you saying to me?” But she knew. He had already made it clear, she just didn't want to hear it.

“I'm saying that I made a mistake, and it's over. I love you, and your kids are great. But I just can't do it. Megan did us all a big favor today. It could have taken us months or even years to see it this clearly. I had blinding clarity after I left. I went running, and it all came clear to me. I was insane for awhile, but now I'm not … Liz … I'm sorry … but it's over.” She couldn't even find words to say to him. She lay there feeling as though someone had hit her in the chest and knocked the wind out of her. She was speechless. And all she could think of were the waves of panic that had engulfed her when Jack died. And now she was losing Bill. She had barely had time to get used to him, to let him into her heart, but he was lodged there in spite of it, and now he was prying himself out. It was over. In one fell swoop, she had lost him. Thank you, Megan.

“Don't you want to think about this for a while?” She tried to reason with him, as she would have one of her children. “You're panicking, and your feelings are hurt. They'll get used to you, you know. All they need is time.”

“There's no point, Liz. This isn't what I want. I see that clearly now. We should both be grateful.” But she wasn't grateful. She was devastated. “I'll call in a few days to see how you are. I'm sorry, I really am, but this is the way it was meant to be. I know it.” How did he know? And what did he know? Two of her daughters had been rude to him, but they were just children, and they missed their father.