Danielle Steel - The House

“Nope. I have no fatherly duties. I've been dispensed with.” His son had left for UCLA in August, for his first year in college, and both his girls were busy with their friends every weekend. With his son gone now, he had far fewer sports events to attend for his children. His daughters were more interested in boys than sports, which made life easier for him. His older daughter was a powerhouse in tennis, and he enjoyed playing with her. But at fifteen, the last people she wanted to spend time with on weekends were her parents, so he was off the hook. And the youngest one had never been athletic. Sports seemed to be the only way Phil interacted with his children. “Anything you want to do?” he asked Sarah casually.

“I don't know. Maybe a movie. There's a great photography show at the MOMA, we can take a look if you want.” She'd been wanting to see it for weeks, but they hadn't gotten to it yet. She was hoping to see it before it closed.

“I have a lot of errands to do tomorrow,” he suddenly remembered. “I need new tires, I have to get my car washed, pick up my dry cleaning, do my laundry, the usual garbage.” She knew what that meant. He would leave her early the next morning, after they woke up, and return in time for dinner. It was a game he had played often, first he told her he had nothing to do, then stayed busy from morning to night, doing things he said she didn't need to bother doing with him. He preferred doing his chores on his own. He said it was quicker, and why waste her time, too. She would have preferred doing them with him. It made her feel more connected to him, which was what he avoided at all cost. Too much connection was uncomfortable for him.

“Why don't we spend the day together? You can do your laundry here on Sunday,” Sarah suggested. She had machines in her building, though not in her apartment. They were no better or worse than the ones in his building, and they could watch a movie on TV together, or a video, while he did it. She didn't even mind doing his laundry for him. Sometimes she liked doing little domestic things like that for him.

“Don't be silly, I'll do it at my place. I can even go out and buy more underwear.” He did that often when he was too lazy to do his laundry, or too busy. It was a trick most bachelors did. He also bought shirts when he didn't have time to pick up his dry cleaning. As a result, he had mountains of underwear, and a closet full of shirts. It worked for him. “I'll get the tires in the morning. I want to do it in Oakland. Why don't you go to the museum while I get all my stuff done? Photography really isn't my thing.” Neither was spending Saturdays with her in the daytime. He preferred his independence and doing his own thing, and then coming back to her in the evening.

“I'd rather be with you,” she said firmly, feeling pathetic as the doorbell rang. It was their dinner. She didn't want to argue with him about his errands, or what they'd both be doing the next day.

The food was good, and he stretched out on the couch again, after they ate. She put away the leftovers, in case they wanted to eat them later in the weekend. Sarah sat down on the floor next to Phil, and he leaned over and kissed her. She smiled at him. This was the nice part about their weekends, not the errands she didn't get to do with him, but the affection he shared with her when he was with her. Despite the distance he kept between them much of the time, he was a surprisingly warm person. He was an interesting dichotomy, both independent and sometimes cozy.

“Have I told you today that I love you?” he asked, pulling her closer to him.

“Not lately.” She smiled up at him. She missed him during the week, so damned much. Things just got good between them on the weekends, and then on Sunday he was gone for five days. It made the contrast of his absence more acute. “I love you, too,” she said, returning the kiss, and then stroking his silky blond hair, as she nestled against him.

They sat there, watching the eleven o'clock news together. Friday evenings always went by quickly. By the time they had dinner, unwound for a few hours, chatted about their weeks, or just sat quietly together, the evening was over. Half of their weekend was already gone before she had a chance to catch her breath, relax, and enjoy it. She could never believe how fast it went.

They woke up relatively early on Saturday morning. It was a cold, gray November day. A drizzle of rain was misting up her windows as they got out of bed, he went to shower, and she went to cook breakfast for them. Sarah was always the breakfast chef. Phil said he loved her breakfasts. She made great French toast, waffles, and scrambled eggs. She had more trouble with over easy and omelettes, but had made fantastic eggs Benedict once. This time she made scrambled eggs, heaps of bacon, fried crisp and lean, and English muffins, with a big glass of orange juice for him, and a latte she made with expertise from her own espresso machine. He had given it to her for Christmas their first year. It hadn't been a romantic gift, but it had served them well for the past four years. She only used it when he was there. The rest of the time, when she was running to work, she stopped at Starbucks and bought herself a cappuccino, which she took to work with her. But on weekends they luxuriated in the sumptuous breakfasts she prepared.

“This is fantastic,” he said happily as he ate the eggs and gobbled the bacon. She reached outside her door for the newspaper and then handed it to him.

It was the perfect lazy Saturday morning, and she would have loved to go back to bed with him and make love. They hadn't made love since the week before. Sometimes they missed a week, when one of or both of them were too tired, or sick. Most of the time she loved the regularity and dependability of their love life. They knew each other well, and had had a great time in bed with each other for the past four years. It would have been hard to give that up. There were lots of things about him she didn't want to lose: his companionship, his intelligence, the fact that he was a lawyer too and was usually interested in what she was doing, at least to some degree, although admittedly, tax law wasn't as exciting as what he did.

They had a good time together when they saw each other, liked the same movies, and enjoyed the same food. She liked his kids, though she saw little of them, maybe a few times a year. And whenever they went out with her friends or his, they seemed to like the same people, and had the same comments to make about them afterward. There was a lot that worked about the relationship, which was why it was so frustrating that he didn't want more than they had. Lately, she had thought that she might like living with him one day, but there was no chance of that. He had told her right from the beginning that he was interested neither in cohabitation nor in marriage, only dating. And this was dating. It was more than enough for him, and had been for her for four years.

Lately she felt a little too old for this kind of arrangement of nearly total noncommitment. They were sexually exclusive, and had a standing weekend date. Beyond that, they shared nothing. And sometimes she felt she had been dating for too long. At thirty-eight, she had dated too many people for too many years, as a teenager, a student, a law student, a young lawyer, and now a partner of the firm. She had moved up the ranks in business and life, but she still had the same kind of relationship she had had when she was a kid at Harvard. There was nothing she could do about it, given Phil's stubbornness on the subject and the firm boundaries he set. He had always been completely clear about the limits on the relationship he wanted. But doing the same old thing year after year made her feel like she was trapped in the twilight zone sometimes. Nothing ever moved backward or forward. Nothing ever changed. It just hung in space, eternally, while only she got older. It seemed weird to her. But not to him. In Phil's mind, he was still a kid, and he liked it that way. She didn't want babies and marriage, but she definitely wanted more than this, only because she liked him, and loved him in some ways, although she knew he was selfish at times, self-centered, could be arrogant and even pompous, and had different priorities than she did. But no one was perfect. To Sarah, the people she cared about always came first. To Phil, he did. He always reminded her that in the safety video on the airplane, they told you to put on your own oxygen mask first and help others later. But tend to yourself first. Always. He considered that a lesson in life, and justification for the way he treated people. The way he put it made it hard to argue with him, so she didn't. They were just different. She wondered sometimes if it was the basic difference between women and men, and not anything particularly deficient about him. It was hard to say. But there was no hiding from the fact that Phil was selfish, always put himself first, and did what was best for him. It gave her no wiggle room at all to ask for more.