Chapter 3: The Lunch

We talked late into the night, the next day being Saturday and no need to be up early for any of my new family. I know Con and I were not yet married, but my own family back in Colorado would have welcomed me home from the wars just as warmly as Maeve and Alex did and just as blithely as Sean.

I woke the next morning to the smell of fresh bread and jelly, bacon and eggs, orange juice and coffee. I hauled my weary body out of bed, feeling every hour of my extended day yesterday, and sought the warm embrace of the shower calling to me so seductively. After letting the hot water pound me for a few minutes, I quickly ran some soap over my body, got dried off, dressed, and hurried down to breakfast. The kids were already done and were simply discussing what they had planned for the day. Apparently soccer practice and science projects.

"Morning, Aunt Shameera!" Alex quipped brightly when she saw me, jumping up to hug me then dragging me to the seat next to her. "What are you going to be doing today? Wanna come watch me practice? It will be our last practice before the game Monday."

I smiled and shook my head with genuine regret. "I think your mom and I have a long overdue talk coming and she said something about taking me out to lunch for it," I replied.

Alex looked over at her mother with a suspicious gaze. "Where you going to take her, mom?"

Maeve grinned wickedly at her daughter and mumbled, "Pazzo Pazzo," around a bite of toast.

The girl's pretty face fell and outrage spread across her features. "No fair! You haven't taken us there in ages!"

Maeve swallowed and laughed. "We were there for your birthday barely two weeks ago!"

She flushed and muttered, "Oh, yeah."

"Oh, yeah," Maeve chuckled, shaking her head. "Besides, I am sure we will probably go for dinner before Shameera leaves, assuming she likes it."

"Oh, you'll love it, Aunt Shameera. The food is great!" Alex gushed, practically bouncing in her seat.

I savored breakfast while Maeve dressed and then packed the kids into her car to drive to Sean's friend's house and Alex's soccer practice. Maeve and the kids gone, there was a final story my London editor wanted from me before I called it quits on Britain and focused on American news. The story was about treatment of British vets by their National Health Service following their return from Iraq and Afghanistan and discharge from the service. The story had been interesting but not my usual area of interest. A little tame. Part of my recovery from almost being gang-raped and being saved by Con had been admitting that I was a bit of an adrenaline junkie. If a story didn't include the possibility of violence and death, it seemed a little meek and boring to me.

An hour flashed by and the story was as good as it was getting. An e-mail was zipped off to my editor and then the shower beckoned. It seemed as if the water washed away my London self, leaving the girl who grew up in Aurora and got her first taste of the life of a war correspondent by covering 9/11 for the Columbia University Daily Spectator. It was startling to realize that while that event shuffled me down the path of journalism, it played a part in making Con such a proficient operator in Special Forces that they at first tried to hide him from the world and then, for their love for him, pointed me in his direction. Fate is an odd mistress.

After the cleansing shower, I had put on a nice, long-sleeved, rose silk blouse, ankle-length black wool skirt, knee-high suede boots with a two-inch heel, and enough make-up to accent my eyes and lips. Pazzo Pazzo, so said the internet, was a fairly nice place considering it was out in what I would consider the sticks. But then I spent most of my career in cities like London and New York and Baghdad and Jerusalem. Morristown, New Jersey sort of falls short.

I read e-mail and checked in with my New York editor while I waited for Maeve's return. Ilsa kept plying me with coffee, fending off my fading jet lag. By the time the in-coming e-mail was read, the out-going mail was written and sent, and my editor in New York reached, Maeve returned. Reaching my editor took the longest and Maeve was running through her own e-mail by the time I got off the phone.

"Finally!" I growled irritably, collapsing in the kitchen chair across from Maeve on her laptop. "I think that lily-livered chicken shit was ducking me! He probably expected me to pitch a fit. Last time we talked was when he told me I was being assigned to D. C. a week ago."