Days Like This Read online

  His eyes met hers, and she watched as the fight drained out of him and he said with quiet resignation, “Fine.”

  Jesse returned with a shot of Jim Beam. “Thank you,” she said, and put the glass in Rob’s hand and wrapped his fingers around it. “Drink,” she told him.

  He upended the glass and took the shot in a single swallow. Closed his eyes and let her peel the glass from his fingers. She handed it back to Jesse and took Rob’s hands in both of hers. “You okay?” she said.

  His fingers slowly curled and tightened around hers. “I will be,” he said. “Eventually. I’m just a little overwhelmed.”

  “And rightly so. It’s been quite a day. Now, apologize to your sister.”

  His eyes opened and stared, a little unfocused, into hers. “What?”

  “You heard me. Apologize for being a jackass.”

  “You’re on her side now?”

  “I’m on your side. In everything, always and forever. But you had no business going off on her like that. Maybe she didn’t do the right thing. I’m not qualified to judge. But if she did the wrong thing, she did it for the right reason. Because she loves you, and she cares about the welfare of your daughter. And you’re acting like a spoiled brat. I love you more than I can say, but I don’t particularly like you when you’re a brat.”

  He gaped at her in disbelief, glanced over at his sister, who was still scowling at him, then at Jesse, who was deeply involved in counting the floor tiles in his kitchen. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough,” Casey told him. “Say it like you mean it.”

  He glared at her and said, “Who do you think you are, my mother?”

  “No, my friend, but I am the woman who can withhold all, ah—intimacy—from you if I don’t get my way.”

  “Hah! With a teenager in the house, there won’t be any more intimacy, anyway.”

  Jesse glanced up from his study of the floor tiles. “Try three teenagers and a four-month-old. Maybe once you’ve had your teenager for a few weeks, we can compare notes.”

  Rose snorted, and just like that, the tension was broken. “Ah, hell,” Rob said, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand. “I’m sorry, Rosie. I promise I won’t scream at you again. At least, not until the next time we have something to fight over. I’m even sorrier now that I know you’re not getting any.”

  Rose’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Devon, walked into the room just in time to hear his last sentence. “Is no place in this house sacred?” she said in exasperation. “Not even the kitchen? Just three more weeks. Three more weeks, and then I can leave this House of Crazy for college. I cannot wait!” And she turned and stalked back out again.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Rose said, as though Devon had never been there. “Mom and I really did think we were doing the right thing.”

  “Mom. Ugh.” He grimaced and rubbed both hands over his face. “You’ll have to talk to her. Right now, I’m afraid of what I might say.” He glanced up at his sister. “You have to understand that I’m scared to death. This morning, I was just me, living my life, and everything was normal. And tonight, I’m somebody’s father, and I didn’t even get the requisite nine months of prep time. Just—boom. Instant dad, without any warning.”

  “You guys will do fine,” Rose said. “Casey’s a whiz with kids of all ages, and you’re still a kid yourself. Jesse and I will do anything we can to help you through this. Between the two of us, we have an encyclopedic knowledge of teenagers. If there’s anything we don’t know, Trish will. If Paige gets out of hand, just send her to Trish for a day or two. She’ll whip the kid into shape.”

  Trish was Jesse’s sister, married for more than two decades to Casey’s oldest brother, Bill. Trish was kind-hearted and wise, and the nearest thing Casey had to a big sister. But at times, her sister-in-law could be bossy and overbearing, and a little too interested in other people’s lives. Sometimes, behind her back—and Bill’s—she was known as the Drill Sergeant.

  Rob grinned, then sobered. “I know. It’s just—hell, I don’t even know what to say to her. The kid just lost her mother. She’s bound to be fragile right now. No matter what I do, I can’t make that go away.”

  “She’s not expecting you to, hon. She’s old enough to know her mother isn’t coming back. Casey will probably be better at helping her with that, anyway. She’s been there. She understands. And kids are remarkably adaptable. You’d be amazed by what they can survive. Just don’t push her too hard. Let her adjust to you in her own way and her own time.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Casey said. “The three of us will get through it together.”

  “If you need us,” Rose said, “call. Any time, day or night.”

  Rob stood and hugged his sister. “Thanks. And I really am sorry for losing it. None of this is your fault.”

  “You’re an idiot,” she said, “but you’re still my baby brother and I still love you. Even when I want to strangle you.”

  “Touching,” Casey said. “So touching, the two of you, when you’re not trying to kill each other.”

  “Look,” Rose said to Casey, “I didn’t mean to imply that you’d done anything wrong, taking Danny back after the separation. It’s just that Rob was in such bad shape afterward, and—”

  “Rose,” Jesse said quietly, “zip it.”

  “Oh, hell. Fine.” And she zipped it.

  Rob

  The bathroom door opened, and his goddess of a wife stepped into the room, dressed in her blue silk robe and carrying an open bottle of wine. She closed the door silently, then leaned against it, while on the tinny-sounding clock radio, the Delfonics sang La-La-La-La-La. Green eyes met green eyes and shared a wordless conversation. She untied the belt to her robe, shrugged it off, and let it fall to the floor. Naked, she crossed the room and handed him the wine bottle. She leaned over the tub, gravity exerting its pull on those perfect breasts she always insisted were too small, and trailed slender fingers through the bath water.

  Satisfied that she wasn’t about to be scalded, she braced a hand on the rim of the massive claw foot tub, stepped over the edge, and lowered herself to her knees between his outstretched thighs. Eyes locked with his, she gave him one of those Mona Lisa smiles and leaned in to kiss him. Then she turned around and lowered herself to a sitting position, settling between his thighs. He wrapped an arm around her, pulled her close, her back silky-smooth against his chest. She rested her head against his shoulder and he cupped her breast and leaned back against the tub, sliding them both lower until the hot water reached her chin.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “Wine, please.”

  He handed the bottle to her. She raised it and took a slug, then passed it back to him. He took a drink and propped the butt of the bottle against the rim of the tub. And sighed. “I’m so sorry about the meltdown. It was not my finest hour.”

  “Shush.” She reached up, found the back of his neck, and began rubbing it, the way she knew he liked. He closed his eyes and shut up. He’d violated their unspoken agreement to leave all negativity on the other side of that door. In their bedroom, they talked about anything and everything. But the tub was sacred and inviolable. This was the place they came for comfort, for connection, for healing. For re-centering. Not for rehashing what had brought them here.

  “This is nice,” she said.

  He nibbled her shoulder. “You’re nice.”

  “It reminds me of Paris.”

  They’d spent three months in Paris, the honeymoon of all honeymoons, staying in a shabby little rental flat in the 3rd arrondissement with outdated plumbing and the deepest bathtub he’d ever seen. How many hours had they passed in that tub, drinking cheap French wine and eating baguettes smeared with country butter, while the pipes clanked and thudded and spewed water that was sometimes icy, sometimes scalding?

  He raised the wine bottle, took another sip, and said, “We’ll always have Paris.”

  “Funny boy. Unhand
that bottle, son.”

  “Lush.”

  “You’ve made me what I am today.” She took a sip of wine. “I could’ve just stayed there forever, you know.”

  “In vino veritas?”

  “In Paris, idiot.”

  He nuzzled the back of her head, inhaled the scent of woman and faintly floral shampoo. “Maybe we can retire there. A couple of grizzled old ex-pats, living on faded memories of youth and glory.”

  “Grizzled? Speak for yourself, my friend. I intend to be a fabulously gorgeous and well-preserved woman of a certain age. Think Zsa Zsa Gabor or Barbara Cartland. With snow-white hair tinted pale pink.” She handed the bottle back to him. “I’ll be known across the Continent as the glamorous vielle américaine. The one with the grizzled husband.”

  “And my Zsa Zsa will open her own little patisserie, where she’ll introduce all of Europe to the pleasures of genuine Maine whoopie pies.”

  “But of course, dahlink. And you’ll sit cross-legged and barefoot on a street corner with your guitar, and you’ll take off the little black beret you wear to cover your bald spot—”

  “Hey!”

  “—and you’ll play beautiful tunes for the tourists, who’ll toss coins into the beret so you can buy your next bottle of wine. Because, you see, by this time, we’ll both be winos—”

  “We’re already winos.”

  “Stop interrupting. And when we get bored and need a change of scenery, we’ll hop on a jet and fly home to visit our grandkids.”

  “Grandkids?”

  “Lots and lots of grandkids.”

  “I like that part of the story.”

  “Me, too.”

  She let out a sigh of contentment. He adjusted their fit, stretched out a leg and, with his toes, turned on the hot water. “Not too much more,” she said. “We’re already lapping at the edges. I don’t want to drown.”

  “I won’t let you drown.”

  “You haven’t yet, have you? Not in two decades.”

  “You came close a couple of times.” He turned the water back off, eased them both a little higher. Slowly, so he wouldn’t flood the place. “But I always pulled you back to shore.”

  “My hero.”

  “Am I your hero?”

  “You are. More wine.”

  “I’m not too sure about me,” he said, giving her the bottle, “but you’re definitely a lush.”

  “See what you’ve done to me? I may need a twelve-step program.”

  He let out a soft snort of laughter at the idea of his straight-laced wife needing substance abuse intervention.

  “There. I made you laugh. Mission accomplished.”

  He tightened his arms around her. “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “Indubitably? You do like your sixty-thousand-dollar words, don’t you, Fiore?”

  “Are you having trouble keeping up, MacKenzie? Should I get you a dictionary?”

  “Witch.”

  “I’m just trying to be helpful. Accommodating the handicapped.”

  “Woman, you are so going to pay for that later.”

  “But not right now.”

  “Nope. Not right now.”

  She turned on one hip, her movement sending a soapy wave sloshing over the rounded edge of the tub. It hit the floor with a splash. “Oops,” she said.

  “Watch it. We’ll have water dripping all over the dining room table.”

  “We have plenty of money. We can buy a new table.”

  “You get too much water on these old floorboards and we’re apt to end up in the middle of that table. Tub and all.”

  She pressed her cheek to his neck and wound an arm around him. “We can’t be having that, can we?”

  He set the wine bottle on the floor, wrapped both arms around her, closed his eyes and smiled. “Nope. We can’t be having that.”

  Lesley Gore was singing now. “Have you ever actually listened to the words of this song?” she said. “I’ve always liked Lesley Gore. But who on earth wrote these dreadful, misogynistic lyrics?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.”

  “It’s okay that he’s cheating, because she knows that deep down, he really loves her? And she’s sure he’ll come around one of these days? Good God.”

  “That was the Sixties, babe. It’s a whole new world now.”

  “We must be talking the Brill Building. In that era, everything that didn’t come out of Detroit came out of the Brill Building. But which of our oh-so-talented predecessors is responsible for this travesty?”

  “I’ll buy you the record. We’ll read the fine print together. Then we’ll know.”

  “Whoever it was, it seems they had a skewed view of love and life. Good thing you didn’t share their viewpoint when we started writing together. I would’ve very quickly disabused you of such a ridiculous notion.”

  “Not to mention after we got married.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “I’m nobody’s fool. I know just how sharp you keep that filleting knife.”

  “It’s a very effective tool, isn’t it?”

  “Hush now,” he said. “Just cuddle.”

  “How lucky am I, to marry a guy who actually likes to cuddle?”

  “Wait a minute. Am I missing something? Men don’t like to cuddle?”

  “Not in my experience. Which, admittedly, isn’t vast, but to my understanding, enjoyment of cuddling is not among the top traits of most manly men.”

  “I guess I never got the memo. Better keep it to ourselves, then. Wouldn’t want to destroy my studly reputation. The last thing I need is for anyone to think I’m not a manly man.”

  She shifted position again, rising to her knees and sending another gush of water over the side of the tub. Took his face in her hands and kissed him. “Trust me. There’s no question in anybody’s mind about your manliness.”

  He reached up and cupped a wet, soapy breast. “Good to know.”

  Casey

  The dream began the way it always did.

  They were in the BMW, snow falling around them so thick and fast it nearly obscured visibility. They were bickering, the way married couples do in stressful situations, and he was trying to keep the car on the road and still put some miles behind them. When she told him he was driving too fast for the conditions, he asked her if she wanted to drive. That shut her up. The car slipped, lost traction, and began to skid. Her heart slammed into her throat. He steered into the skid and brought it back under control. And she said, “I swear to God, Danny, if you kill us, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “I’m not going to kill us,” he said. “I’m not going to crash and burn. I’m going to be right there beside you in your dotage.”

  Then, from out of nowhere, there it was, the tanker truck, lying on its side, blocking the highway directly in front of them. It all happened so quickly, yet at the same time she could feel it unfurling in slow motion, like a movie where the director wanted you to experience a potent, gradual build-up of terror. He pumped the brakes and they began to spin, at first slowly, then faster and faster. Just before they reached the truck, he pulled out of the spin and they tore through the snow bank instead, came out the other side, and she thought, We made it. We’re okay.

  Then they started falling, rolling, side to side and end over end, small objects catapulting like crazed pinballs around them. She screamed his name and reached out into nothingness, unable to find him in the confusion, and it really was true that your life flashed before your eyes, because she saw it all so clearly, saw everything she’d done wrong in her life, everything she’d done right, saw all the people she’d loved, even those who had already passed on: Mama, and Grandma and Grandpa Bradley, and then there was Katie, her Katydid, gazing solemnly at her with Danny’s blue eyes, the color of a summer sky, and she understood she was going to die, and she didn’t mind dying, because dying meant she’d be with Katie again.

  They slammed hard against a bou
lder and came to a creaking, shuddering halt. Something hit her in the face, and the world went black. And cold. So cold that at first, she thought she really had died. Until something soft and wet and insistent kissed her cheek, and she forced her eyelids open, licked a flake of snow from her bottom lip.

  The windshield was shattered, broken glass everywhere, snowflakes falling cottony and silent all around her. A thin layer of smoke hovered on the air, and she panicked until she realized it was powder from the deployed airbags. In the distance, she heard voices shouting. She turned her head and gazed impassively at the hideous Thing that had been her husband. Blood. So much blood, it mingled with the snowflakes drifting through the open windshield and ran in crystalline rivulets down his face. Blood trickled from his nose, from his mouth, from the massive chest wound where the steering column had impaled him. Instantly, she knew he was gone, knew the man she’d loved for her entire adult life was no longer in there, knew there was nothing left of him but this broken, bloody shell.

  And then, in the way of nightmares, he opened his eyes, and they weren’t Danny’s eyes at all. Instead of that summer-sky blue, they were hard and evil and yellow. The hideous Thing-That-Wasn’t-Danny reached out a bloody hand toward her, and it had claws where there should have been neatly manicured fingernails, and she had to get away, had to escape from this monster before she suffered the same fate.

  She yanked frantically at the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Tried to roll down the window, but it was jammed. She began kicking at the passenger-side window, kicking harder and harder as the Thing drew ever closer, until she felt its hot, rancid breath on her neck. But the window refused to break, and the Thing smiled, showing razor-sharp teeth, and it was going to tear her to shreds, and she couldn’t escape, couldn’t do anything but scream and scream and scream—

  She awoke with a jolt, her heart hammering, her breath coming in short little gasps. Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God.

  Trying to slow her breathing, she glanced around the bedroom to orient herself. The room was hot and sticky, and the fan they’d put in the window, its whirring blades fluttering the curtain, wasn’t doing much more than redistributing the thick, humid air. Parched, she desperately needed a drink. Beside her, Rob slept hard and peacefully, the way he always did.