Family Ties

Chapter 17

Tom called Annie at her office two days after Pattie’s attack on Ted with the steak knife. He’d been working on a breaking story the day before, about a political scandal in Washington that had just been revealed, involving two senators, and he hadn’t had time to call her. Annie had learned by then that when Tom didn’t call her, it was for an important reason. He wasn’t dealing with domestic crises or unreliable contractors, he was reporting on major events in the news, or international crises, or being sent halfway around the world on short notice.

“How’s Ted doing?” he asked in a quiet moment, which he said was usually the calm before the storm in his line of work. But it was obvious that despite the stressful moments, challenging demands, and network politics, he loved what he did, and Annie was fascinated by it. He existed in such a broad world, and he knew everything that went on behind the scenes in world events. She loved hearing about it from him. But she sounded discouraged when she answered. Her life was so much smaller than his, and her focus now was on Ted and the dilemma he was in.

“I don’t know. He was with her yesterday, the minute I left for work. Katie says she called him, and he said he had to see her. He never came back last night. I’m sure she wouldn’t let him. And now every time I don’t hear from him, I’m scared to death she’s going to hurt him.” In Annie’s eyes, the incident with the steak knife was no small thing, and Tom agreed with her. Pattie had crossed the line, and having done that once, there was no way to predict how far she would go, or where she would stop. Ted had fallen into the clutches of an unbalanced, dangerous woman, possibly a sociopath. She sounded psychotic to Annie, and Ted had ten stitches to prove it.

“I was afraid he’d go back,” Tom said quietly, sorry for him and for Annie. He knew how worried about him she was. “I was in a situation like that once, at his age. A gorgeous lunatic of a girl who was on hard drugs. Situations like that are so abusive, and it’s hard to get out once you’re in them. You keep waiting for things to calm down, and they never do. People like her thrive on chaos.”

“And he’s so naïve,” Annie said mournfully. “He’s way out of his league. And now with a baby on the way.”

“He’s a bright kid. He’ll get out of it eventually,” Tom reassured her. “But it may take a while, and I know it’s hard on you.”

“It’s a lot harder on him.” She and Katie had talked about it the night before until the wee hours, hoping he would come home, but he didn’t, and he wasn’t answering his phone. He had answered a text from Kate at one point, saying he was okay, but that was all they had heard. At least they knew he was alive.

“I was actually calling to ask you if you’d like to have dinner. There’s a new restaurant I want to try. It might be fun.” She didn’t feel very lighthearted, but she appreciated his calls, and she liked spending time with him.

“I’m sorry my life is such a mess right now,” she said apologetically. “We were all sane a few weeks ago, or a couple of months anyway. Now Ted is being held hostage by a psychopath and having a baby, and Katie is threatening to go to Iran. The only sane one at the moment is Liz,” despite the breakup with her boyfriend, which she seemed to have weathered well. She had been very sensible about it and said she was taking a break from dating for a while, until she felt ready to make a commitment herself. “And I’m not feeling so sane myself with all this going on.” She was worried sick about Katie’s prospective trip, but at least they hadn’t set any dates yet. For now it was just an idea, which Annie viewed as a threat. She was hoping they’d change their minds. But none of it was an atmosphere conducive to her being happy and relaxed, or enjoying a new man in her life. And it couldn’t be easy for him, Annie knew, trying to get to know her and figure out who was on first. But so far Tom had rolled with the punches pretty well.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tom said calmly, “it happens. It’s called real life. No one’s life can be smooth all the time. And usually when things go wrong, they come in bunches. It happens to me too. My mother died unexpectedly while I was getting divorced, and my father had Alzheimer’s and I had to put him in a home, while trying to unwind my life with my ex-wife. It wasn’t fun for me then either.” He’d also had a brief romance then that had gone right down the tubes because of it. He couldn’t concentrate on that many things at once. He had broken it off with her, and when he called her again a few months later, she had met someone else. It was just the way life worked, and he knew Annie was under a lot of stress at the moment.

“How about dinner tonight?” he suggested. “I know it’s short notice, but it might do you good.”

“I’d love it,” she said, determined to make it a pleasant evening and not tell him all her problems. She wanted time to enjoy him too. And for the rest of the afternoon, she tried to concentrate on lightening her mood. She almost succeeded-until a burst pipe in one of the houses she was designing caused a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damage and destroyed an important piece of art. And she had to deliver the news to the client, who went through the roof. She was still upset about it when she got dressed for their date that night and there was no news from Ted. She tried to release that from her mind too, for now, since there was nothing she could do about it. However naïve he was, Ted was an adult and had gotten himself into this mess in the first place. Now it was Annie’s turn to enjoy a quiet evening and a good dinner with a man she liked. It didn’t seem like too much to ask.

She put on one of the new outfits Liz had picked for her, and she was starting to feel better, when Kate walked into her room with a serious expression.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked as Annie hesitated and looked at her.

“Why does that sound ominous to me?” Annie asked her as she put on lipstick. Tom was due any minute. She wondered too why kids always broached important subjects just as you were walking out the door, or the phone rang with the crucial call you’d been waiting for for weeks. Murphy’s Law. “If it’s something pleasant, you just say it, you don’t ask for my permission to talk to me.” Katie smiled at what she said. “Which tells me that this might be something I won’t like hearing.” Katie didn’t deny it.

“Yeah, maybe that’s true,” Katie conceded with a rueful look.

“Is it important?” Annie asked as she put her lipstick in her purse.

“Sort of,” Kate admitted.

“Then let’s talk about it later or tomorrow. I’m just about to walk out the door. I want to pay attention to whatever this is. And right now I have a date with Tom, and I want to focus on that and enjoy him.”

“Okay,” Katie said glumly. She didn’t look pleased to be put off, but she could see that Annie was going out. “You look pretty, by the way.”

“Thank you. I’m hoping to have a decent evening with Tom, without anyone getting stabbed, announcing that they’re pregnant, or scaring the hell out of me. I think he’s beginning to think we’re all crazy.”

Tom appeared on schedule, looking handsome and relaxed. And he smiled broadly when he saw Annie. The new additions to her wardrobe were working well for her. The contractor at the flooded construction site called her just as they were walking out the door and told her that they had discovered a second painting that had been damaged. This one was a Picasso. And Annie said calmly that she would call him about it tomorrow. There was nothing she could do about it now. It was her time with Tom.

“Something wrong?” He had sensed her tension when she took the call.

“We had a flood at a construction site this afternoon, and two very valuable paintings got damaged. The client was upset, to say the least. That was the contractor. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

“I never realized how stressful architecture can be,” he said as they got in the elevator.

“It’s always stressful when you’re dealing with deadlines and high-powered clients. And building a house or remodeling one brings out the worst in people. About one in five of my clients, or even one in four, get divorced. If you have a shaky marriage, the last thing you want to do is build a house together.”

“Actually, that’s true,” he said pensively. “I’d forgotten about it, but the last straw for us was a remodel we decided to do on our apartment. It cost a fortune, which pissed me off, and she was mad that I was never there to talk to the contractor. When we decided to break up, we sold it, and I was thrilled.”

“See what I mean? I feel like a marriage counselor sometimes. Perfectly sane people turn into monsters when they redo houses, and if they have a good marriage, they take it out on me. In the bad marriages, I get caught in the crossfire.”

“Have you considered retiring?” he teased her. He knew she couldn’t do that.

“I’d be too bored,” she said honestly, “and I worked too hard to get here. Besides, the insurance money for the kids started to run out a few years ago, and I want to help them.” She was paying for Ted’s law school.

“They’re lucky they have you,” he said as they got into a chauffeur-driven town car he had hired for the evening since it was so cold. He didn’t want Annie freezing while they waited for cabs. And she couldn’t walk long distances with her crutches. He tried to make things easy for her. No one else ever had before.

The new restaurant he took her to was beautiful, and the food was delicious. Annie wasn’t hungry after all the crises she’d been dealing with, but she was happy to be there. She picked at her food, and Tom noticed it and asked her if she didn’t like it. He looked disappointed. He had wanted to take her out for a special evening, and he could see that she was tired, although she made an effort to keep up the conversation with him.

“I’m just not used to having a social life,” she admitted. “I usually get home late from work and fall into bed. I can manage kid problems and work and all that goes with it, but I’m not used to getting dressed up and going out too.” He had the same trouble socializing at the end of a long day, but he hadn’t wanted to wait until the weekend to see her.

“I have an idea,” he said to her as they shared a dessert. It had been a beautiful meal, and the chef had sent them several treats and surprises to impress them. Restaurants often did that when he dined out. “I know it’s a little soon, and we wanted to be sensible and move slowly. But we’ve been going out for nearly a month now, and I don’t think we’re going to get any peace and quiet around here. What do you say we go away for a weekend? If you prefer, we can get separate rooms. But I’d like to take you away somewhere. How does that sound to you?” It sounded both wonderful and a little nerve-racking to Annie. It was a step she hadn’t been ready to take yet, but she could see that he was discouraged by the chaos in her life and by having to fight for her time and attention. She was lucky he was even willing to hang in. She wasn’t sure she would have in his shoes.

“It sounds fantastic,” she said softly. “Where were you thinking?” With Ted in such a volatile situation, she wasn’t sure if she should go far away, but he wasn’t five years old either, and she didn’t want to say it to Tom. He was trying so hard to please her and give them the best chance he could for success. She couldn’t have asked for more from any man. And he genuinely liked her and wanted to give their relationship a decent shot. For a moment she thought it was more than she deserved.

“Why don’t you leave it to me? I’ll see if I can find someplace fun for us to go, where we’ll have peace.” He smiled at her and put a hand on hers on the table. So far their physical explorations with each other had involved only kisses. “What would you prefer? Two bedrooms or one?” She wanted to say two but didn’t have the courage. And she knew she would be nervous about it whenever they took the plunge.

“One,” she said so softly he could barely hear her, and he smiled and put an arm around her.

“How about two, and we can play it by ear.”

“How did I get so lucky?” she asked, looking at him in amazement. “You could just tell me to go to hell.”

“Yes, but think of what I’d miss. Love can be messy, and at our age it takes a little organizing and adjusting. My life isn’t always such smooth sailing either.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully, and he leaned over and kissed her.

“Don’t ask me why, but I knew the minute I saw you in the waiting room at the ER that you were a very special person, and I wanted to get to know you better.” And so far he didn’t regret it, and neither did she. “We just have to figure out how to make room in our lives for each other.” They both knew by then that it was no small feat. But she had waited a long time for this. Sixteen years. She had lost Seth because of her commitment to her sister’s children, and she had had no choice then. But sixteen years later it wouldn’t be right to give Tom up for them. She just had to figure out how to be available to them, do her work, and be there for him too. She knew she owed it to herself to try. Whitney had been telling her that for years. And she had finally met someone who was worth it. She hadn’t told Whitney about him yet. She and Fred had gone on a cruise for two weeks, and ever since they got back, Annie had been too busy to tell her what was going on in her life. It was strange to realize that she had been seeing him for nearly a month and her best friend had no idea. But she hadn’t taken it seriously at first and thought they were just friends. With his invitation for the weekend, it confirmed to her again that that was not the case.

Tom took her home after dinner and brought her upstairs. He asked her what weekends she was free so he could plan their trip, and he kissed her lightly on the lips. She thanked him for dinner, and he left. As she let herself into the apartment, she saw that Kate was waiting up for her. She had an expectant look on her face, and Annie could sense that if she had come home at two in the morning, Katie would still have been sitting there.

“Whatever it is must be important,” Annie said as she hung up her coat with a sigh. It would have been nice to have one evening without drama. She was looking forward to going away with Tom now. And she didn’t want Katie to spoil it, but she was beginning to realize that anything was possible at the ages they were now. And Katie and Paul were deeply in love. Annie walked into the living room and sat down on the couch and looked at Katie. “Okay. What is it?”

“I just want to give you a heads-up,” Katie said with a serious expression, and Annie could see that she was prepared to put up a fight. Annie waited to hear what it was about. “I’m going to Iran for two weeks with Paul. I got my visa, and we paid for our tickets. I just want you to know. You can’t stop me, and I didn’t want to lie to you. So I’m telling you. We leave two weeks from tomorrow.” There was dead silence in the room after she spoke. And the reaction she got from Annie was not the one she had expected. Her aunt spoke to her in a low, calm, controlled voice. Maybe the evening with Tom had helped. The time she spent with him gave her perspective.

“I’m going to be totally honest with you,” Annie said calmly. She was unhappy about it but not crazed. “I think it’s an incredibly stupid idea, to the point of being dangerous. Not only will you be in danger there, but you’re going as a mixed couple to a country where you’ll both be ostracized severely for being together. I think what you’re doing is foolhardy, and I’m going to worry like crazy about you while you’re there, and Tom told you the same thing and you don’t want to listen to him either. He knows a lot more about Iran than I do, or even Paul. But you’re right, you’re an adult. I can’t stop you. You have a right to make your own choices, decisions, or mistakes.” Annie’s eyes filled with tears then as she spoke to her. “The bottom line for me here is not some kind of power trip. I’m not trying to control you. I buried my sister. I don’t ever want to bury one of her kids. I just hope you’ll be okay,” Annie said as she stood up, picked up her crutches, and walked to her room.

Katie sat staring at her and didn’t say a word. She had expected a pitched battle, and hours of screaming and threats. Instead, Annie had done what she knew she had to do-she had respected her niece’s right to make her own decisions and let go. She thought Katie was wrong, but she didn’t even try to stop her. Now they both had to live with it: Annie with the worry, and Kate with the full responsibility for being an adult. What Annie had just done was much more impressive, Kate realized, than if she had yelled and forbidden her to go. And now suddenly Kate was worried too. But she had promised Paul she would go. He wanted her to know everything about his world. The hardest part for Katie was if Annie and Tom were right. And as she walked to her own bedroom, two tears of terror slid down Kate’s face. In this case, for the first time, the victory of adulthood was not so sweet.