Chapter 31

“Do you feel like cooking?”

“Not really,” I replied. “You?”

“No. Is there enough to make sandwiches?”

“Oh, yeah.” I laughed. “What do you want on yours?”

“Something light.”

We entered the kitchen where we set up a sandwich-making center on the island. I looked through the fridge, surprised to find that there was still meatloaf from the other night tucked into the back of one of the shelves. While Paige put a small amount of turkey on her bread, I cut a piece off the leftover bacon-wrapped ambrosia, throwing it into the microwave to get it warmed up for my meal. We shared a couple of slices of cheese and tomato between us, put away the fixings and took our plates to the dining room.

“That looks good. Can I have a taste?”

It was a measure of how I felt about her that I didn’t growl or anything. I set the sandwich back on the plate and slid it over to her. “Just so you know, this won’t happen at school. At least not for a while.”

She understood. We needed to establish a school identity that worked for us before we let other parts of our relationship spill over to that location.

Paige took a dainty bite before returning the plate to me. She offered up her own, but since it was essentially two pieces of bread and a little mayo, I passed.

When we were done, we cleaned up. “So what do you want to do now?”

“I don’t know.” We sat around.

“Want to see where Mom and James went?” Paige offered.

“We can do that?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember when Mom told us that we have GPS on our cars? She even got it on the Audi, just in case I was driving it and was out late.”

“Sure, let’s spy on them.”

She opened her phone and pulled up the tracking app. “It has two modes. We can see where they’ve been in the last four hours, and we can see where they are in real time.” She showed me, and we could see the car at the house here, follow it to a small deli that apparently was open on Christmas day, after which they turned down a road I wasn’t familiar with yet. Paige shut down the app, laughing.

“I know where they’re going.”

“Where?”

“That road leads to Lovers’ Lane, and that’s all you need to know. Love and respect, Tim. Let’s give them their privacy.”

We returned to the living room and the sleeping couch, Paige letting me lie down on it, and then settling in on top of me. The lights were barely on, and we lay there talking and kissing until neither of us remembered anything.

I recalled having a night like this before. The girl’s hockey team had tackled me in my dreams and was bruising me up and down my ribs. I woke to find that it was much the same situation as in Chicago – a lovely girl atop me. This time though, we were covered by a blanket, and under it, I could feel that Paige’s sweater had ridden up.

My fingers were definitely not where they were supposed to be, and I started retrieving them.

“Oh, no, Mister! Do you have any idea how long it took me to work that top up to where I could do this without waking you?” Paige’s whispered breath was warm in my ear.

I was encouraged to take minor liberties for a while.

“This is nice,” Paige sighed.

“It is,” I agreed. “What time is it, by the way?”

She was surprised. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

“Yeah. Your mom gets up around five-thirty and I don’t want her to catch us like this.”

“Who do you suppose covered us with the blanket before anything happened? I think she went downstairs for a workout.”

The clock on the mantle in the other room chose that moment to bong six times, it being programmed not to chime between midnight and early morning. I reluctantly pulled my hand from between us, stopping to catch the hem of the sweater so I could pull it down for her. She raised up, telling me to be careful since it was cashmere, and helped me to adjust everything.

“Next time, you had better not be watching the clock.”

I was embarrassed, but happy that there would be a next time.

Today was ‘Boxing Day’ as the Brits term it. We sat around all day, stuffing our faces and generally being lazy. I needed some ‘me’ time, so I hid out in the media room, working on my reading assignments and the one term paper that I still had to do for history. It was on the Japanese-American internment during World War II. It showed how willing our government was to bend or break the rules when it suited them, committing atrocities while trying to convince the world that we still held the moral high ground. It really didn’t work that well.

Paige kept checking on me throughout the day. Each time she did, it agitated me a little more. Finally, right before dinner, she came into the media room wanting to talk about Jane Eyre. I blew up at her.

“Paige, can’t you see I wanted some time to myself today? Couldn’t you leave me alone? No, you had to be there every time I turned around. Give me some space!”

She left, crying. Dad came to find me a few minutes later.

“What’s up, Tim?”

“I don’t know. I just needed space today and she wouldn’t give me any. I was fine before breakfast, but after that it started growing. I just had to be alone. What’s wrong with me?”

He laughed, seeing after a moment that it was making me angry.

“I’m sorry for laughing. There’s nothing wrong with you, but you do need to figure out how to make it up to your girlfriend.”

I was about to blow up at him, too, when he continued. “Not right away of course. If you’re like me, I’d say that you should be good by Friday, after which you’ll be in the doghouse for a while. It’s all part of learning how to be in a relationship.”

I shot a sour look at him. “Is there a manual for this? Because right now, relationships suck.”

His face brightened as he considered my question. “Actually there is. Clean up your stuff, we’re going out for a bit. Meet me in the Tahoe.”

I unplugged my chargers, gathered everything and took it up to my room. Paige’s face at my bedside made me feel bad about what I had done. I turned the picture away so she wasn’t staring accusingly at me ... with her eyes closed. It was only minutes before I found Dad in the Tahoe.

“I smoothed things over with Evie.”

“What about Paige?”

“Oh no, Boy. That’s part of growing up – she’s yours to deal with.” Dad drove us into Macon proper, not saying anything for a while. “I suppose this is partly Evie’s and my fault. We blended everyone together so fast, and it was a little too intense for the two of you and your first relationship.”

He stopped the Tahoe in the parking lot of the Barnes and Noble, the only brick-and-mortar bookstore left in town. “Come on, let’s get you that manual.”

Dad led me to the relationship aisle looking for something in particular. When he found it, he pulled four copies off the shelf, giving me one to read on the way to checkout while he carried the others. I took a look at the table of contents while walking with him. Hmm, caves, rubber bands, Mr. Fix-it and other pithy chapters. I wondered if the guy knew what he was talking about. When Dad finished his transaction, I followed him out of the line.

“Aren’t you going to pay for yours?” he asked me.

I stared at him.

“It’s your copy, time to man-up.”

I made my way back through the line, purchasing the book that Dad told me to. We drove home, stopping for McDonalds on the way. When I asked why, I was told that I wasn’t too popular with the Mercer household right now and that we had been instructed to find our own dinner.

As we sat in our own driveway, eating our not-so-happy meals in the Tahoe, he threw me a bone. “As much as this is the parents’ fault, it’s both of yours, too. The good news is that it is completely fixable, and the even better news is that you should come out the other side of this stronger and more in tune and in love with each other.”

“Promise?”

“Well, no, not if you don’t put in the work. If both of you do, then yes, I promise.”

For the first time in a long, long time, I was told to go to my room and stay there until the next day. With nothing to do, I started reading the book – Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. One chapter in and I realized that this Gray guy knew what he was talking about. When I got to the chapter on caves, I almost shouted in frustration.

How come no one taught this stuff? Here I was today, literally retreating into my man cave, trying to recuperate. And there was Paige, pursuing me all day, pushing me further and further away. I read until I finished the book, although after reading about rubber bands and waves, I wasn’t retaining much anymore. I think it was after three in the morning when my mind finally slowed down enough to allow me to drift off.

Dad banged on my door shortly after I fell asleep. “Get up and get dressed, Tim. We’re taking a father-son day.”

I grumbled, but now that both I and the sun were up there wasn’t much chance of getting any more shuteye for a while. I took a quick shower before getting dressed and finding Dad in the kitchen. He was just finishing up a note after making the coffee weak the way the girls liked it.

I read what he wrote, happy that he told both women to finish the book if they hadn’t already, and that he and I loved them, and we’d be back around eight in the evening.

We took the Tahoe, stopping at the frontage road. “So ... what are we doing today, Tim?” he asked me, trying to determine which way he should turn based on my response.

“You’re kidding, right? You’re the one who dragged me out of bed after only three hours of sleep!”

“Why only three hours?”

“Really? I wanted to see if the main character ends up with the girl.”

Dad laughed at the sarcasm. “I guess I deserved that. Tell you a secret. I only got about three hours too. It’s been a while since I read it, and I understood a lot more now than I did the first time it was assigned.” His head nodded, “Okay, I know where to go.”

He turned toward his childhood home, driving us there carefully, like a drunk trying not to get a ticket. Yeah, we both needed some more down-time. Grandpa let us in, laughing quietly when he discovered our situation. He pointed toward the two full-size couches in the living room.

“Help yourselves. I’ll tell your mother when she gets up.”

I was just barely awake enough to hear that conversation. “Lionel, why are those two sleeping in my living room?”

“Short story? Tim got spooked and tried to run away from Paige. She’s all woman and wouldn’t let him go, so he ended up yelling at her which made her cry. When James found out, he pulled Tim away from the situation, then bought them all self-help books, and apparently the guys spent half the night reading them. They’re giving the girls some room before they go back over tonight, and they’re trying to catch up on missed sleep before then.”

“Good. Which book was it?”

“Men are From Mars...”

“Oh, that’s a good one. Let me guess, Tim hid in the media room?”

“Literally the man-cave, yeah.”

“You say James got them all copies?”

“All four. I gather he thinks that Evie might need it too.”

“She does. She’s never been in a really healthy relationship, even with our James. I’m glad he’s willing to fight for them. I hope the girls are just as willing.”

It was quiet for a while.

“Do you think I should call?”

“Up to you, Candace, you know that women need to talk things out.”

Grandpa paused. “Maybe you should go over there instead, see what’s going on, knock some sense into Evie if she’s being stubborn.”

“That’s not how it works, Lionel.”

“I know. You just head over and I’ll take care of some things on your honey-do list. I have captive help, so it should be a productive day.”

“Those stubborn...” Those were the first words out of Grandma’s mouth when she returned, mid-afternoon. She found us down past the barns, pruning the peach trees in her orchard and generally working up a sweat. Her words were meant primarily for her husband, but Dad and I gathered around to get the intel.

“They wouldn’t read the book?” Dad guessed.

“No. For the first hour I was there, all I heard from either one was how men were thoughtless pigs, and that they had made their own way for ten years and they didn’t need either of you.”

She held up her hand when Dad tried to interrupt, “Hold on, that was just the fear and pain talking.” Grandma shivered in the December chill. “Come on, let’s go up to the house. It’s cold out here and this may take a while to tell.”

When we were grouped around her table she started again. “You know the relationship that Evie had with you twenty-five years ago has been her healthiest one, right, James?”

“I was afraid of that.”

“You may not know this, but she’s really doubting herself right now. She was able to get along a lot better with Phil than she ever did with you, even though she loves you, and they never really loved each other. Would you care to guess why?”

“Oh, Lord,” Dad groaned after considering her question. “He was gay, and they related on the same wavelength. He talked everything to death with her and she really liked that.”

“You got it in one. So now, she’s thinking back to that and wondering if she’s made a mistake, if she needs to find a man like Phil so she can have what she had with him.”

“That’s crazy.” Dad looked like he wanted to say more, but he clamped it shut.

“I told you it was fear and pain talking. If she would have read the book, the two of you could be on your way back already.”

“So, what now? There’s no hope for either of us?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Lionel, could you make me some tea? My throat is a little tired.”

Grandpa got up to put water on, coming back to hear the rest of the story.

“So there we were, the three of us sitting in Tim’s kitchen, and neither of the girls interested in doing what you told them to do. Really, James, did you read that book, too, or are you just winging it?”

I could see the wheels turning in Dad’s mind. What did he do that was so bad? What could he do to make things right? No, really, what was so bad?

“It was the note, wasn’t it?”

Grandma patted his hand. “Yes. You gave orders like the boss. You need to remember that they’re not your employees, and that Evie has been the boss, too; something for the two of you to figure out. You also told them in that message that they shouldn’t be feeling what they’re feeling. How do you think that went over?”

He simply nodded. “I guess we all need to spend some time figuring out how to interact with each other. I should apologize.” He looked his mother in the eyes. “How soon is too soon?”

“You’re learning, James.” The water boiling interrupted her, and Grandpa got up to bring back her mug, the kettle and a selection of teas.

“Thank you, Dear.”

She popped a bag into the cup and filled it close to the brim with the recently boiled liquid.

“I’d say that today is still too soon. Maybe you boys could find somewhere else to be tonight, and tomorrow evening you can go back with your hats in hand, figuratively.”

We watched Grandma drink her tea, the tension building due to her half-finished story. Grandpa finally couldn’t take it any longer. “Well? Finish your tale.”

She smiled a grin that let me know she liked doing this to her man. “Calm down, Lionel. I was just getting to the good part. Where was I? Oh, yes, the note. So that was the next hour of ‘who does he think he is’, and ‘where does he get off bossing me around?’ I let them run that horse into the ground, and then I asked Evie what it was she was looking for in a relationship.”

She sipped her tea again. “She gave the standard answers: to be loved, honored, cherished, to have a partner that would work together with her to solve problems and make her stronger. So I asked what she would give in return, and she said it was the same things. She didn’t like it when I told her you had different needs, and that if she would have read the book, she would have already seen that.”

“Then I asked what she was doing right now to work with her partner to solve this problem, and I asked Paige the same question. Neither one had an answer for that.”

Grandma reached out to Dad once more. “Please give them a chance. They’ve been on their own for so long that it’s been ingrained in them that they have to solve their own problems together. They’re a little lost when dealing with something that has to be solved jointly.”

“Mom, don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t think Tim is either.” He sat back, a strange expression playing on his face; it was a mixture of fondness and sorrow. “I keep forgetting that you don’t know all that much about my life with Jennifer.”

He stood up and started pacing the floor, stopping at the fridge to get a coke.

“I guess it doesn’t surprise you that Tim and Paige are having the same problem that you watched me and Evie go through when we were teenagers. What you don’t know is that I kept following the same pattern in my relationships with women, starting again in my junior year at University and beyond. I’d feel stifled, pull away, and then come back like nothing had happened. Of course, that confused every woman I had ever been with, even Jenny. It got better with her after a time, and then we got married. Things were good until Tim came along. When he hit his terrible twos, it was all we could do between us to care for him. We weren’t caring for ourselves.”

He looked like he was trying to blink back tears as he remembered. “We almost divorced, Mom.”

Well that was news to me. Mom and Dad had a great relationship in my eyes; to hear that it hadn’t always been that way was a surprise.

“Jenny gave me an ultimatum when old habits resurfaced. She told me I could sign my walking papers, or we could go to counseling. I loved her, Mom. I loved her so much that there was only one option for me. We started with counseling, and one of our assignments was to read that book. I can only say that it was a complete revelation to the both of us, and it saved our marriage. We were in counseling for almost six months, and we worked on our marriage every day after that it seemed like, until she was called home.”

He turned to me. “Tim, I’m not saying that the answer to everything is in those pages. Your mother and I ended up having to find our own way to relate to each other, and I’m going to have to do it with Evie. It’s like woodshop at school: they can supply you with the basics there, but if you want to be a master craftsman, you end up having to study the wood, and learn what the wood has to teach you as well. It takes work, but I promise you it’s so very rewarding.”

“I’m ready to put in the hours needed, are you?” It was a serious question, and it deserved a serious answer.

“Yes, but not today. I still haven’t bounced back.”

That got a laugh from the table.

“Well, then it’s good we’ve been kicked out of our house for a while.”

He put his coke down and sat with us again. “So, Mom, I get the feeling that your story isn’t done. You were saying that you asked if she was willing to keep on.”

“I did. Of course she said ‘of course’, so I asked her what that meant for her. I told her that you were doing what you could – both she and Paige snorted at that. They had their copies of the book on the table, and I simply pointed to them. I told them that the manual in front of them would give all four of you a common basis for understanding each other, and that was your first step in working on your relationships. They hadn’t seen it like that. Naturally we talked it out, but they started reading while I made lunch. When I left them this afternoon, they were in different rooms, but they kept bouncing back and forth, asking each other if what they had just read could be real. There’s a very good chance that those ladies will be as tired tomorrow as the two of you were today.”

“Now,” she stood up, “you boys have been working. I packed ‘go-bags’ for you when I was over there, so hop in the shower and then put on clean clothes. Lionel, think about where you’re taking us for supper.”

She had reclaimed her sewing room, so I was given blankets and assigned a couch. Dad had the guest room all to himself. He must have gotten a better night’s sleep than I did since he was up before I was. I just happened to be a little grumpy at that.

“So, what do you want to do today, Boy?”

Breakfast for me had come and gone, so I had food in my belly now, and when he asked I was feeling more charitable toward him. I decided to try something that I had been thinking about since late summer. “You and Grandpa are going to teach me how to golf.”

“We are?”

“Yes. I heard him talking to the director of public works so I know he plays, and you mentioned you did too when we were at Grandma and Grandpa Edwards’ place.”

He nodded. “Okay. We’ll have to stop by the house to get my clubs. After that we’ll go to the municipal course and hit some balls. It’s a fun way to learn and it doesn’t piss off the more serious players.”

Grandpa got up finally, joining us in the kitchen. Dad told him about the plan, and I could tell it was an idea with which he agreed, as the rate of food being shoveled into his mouth increased until breakfast was finished.

“Candace,” he called, “we’re going to the driving range this morning. I have no idea when we’ll be back, so don’t plan lunch for us.”

Her, “Yes, Dear,” came matter-of-factly from the sewing room.

So that was what we did. Dad made a quick stop at home, hitting the button to open the garage and warning me to remain in the Tahoe while he grabbed his clubs. He was not gone much more than a minute before the garage door came back down and we were on our way. The front curtains moved a little as we pulled past the house, but that was the only acknowledgement from the current occupants that we’d been and gone.

They had to rent me some clubs to use after Grandpa asked why I was all hunched over when I tried to drive the ball down-range. I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like, so the information that I wasn’t doing it right came as news to me. Dad took me in to get clubs for my height, his being slightly short after what appeared to be another growth spurt had snuck up on me. When I took the properly sized clubs out and began to hit, things felt better. Since I had no bad habits, I was hitting them straight, and crushing it well past where the other two managed to land their balls.

They were disgusted with me when it turned out I could hit the irons and wedges almost as well as the woods. That changed to glee though when it turned out I couldn’t putt for beans. Give me a ten foot putt, and I could read the green. Seeing hips and valleys was almost second nature to a construction foreman’s eye, but I just couldn’t get the right stroke down. I was either way short, or I put too much power into it. That fine control on the end-game just wasn’t there yet. Grandpa and Dad had a good time with that.

“You know,” Grandpa told his son, his voice thoughtful, “we could use him for scramble tournaments.”

“What’s that?” I wanted to know.

“Scramble. That’s when everyone plays the best shot, and only the best shot each stroke counts.”

Dad turned to his father. “You have a point. We could let him crush it and get it on the green, and then one of us could putt it out for par or birdie. Of course, that would only work the first tournament, after which they’d handicap him. Still, birdies or eagles each hole; imagine it, Pop.”

It had gone from par or birdie to birdie or eagle in the blink of an eye. Talk about counting your chickens before they hatched. Still, it was something new I could do with the guys so I was all for it. “So when do we start?”

That got them laughing. “Not for a while yet. Let’s see how you hit the ball after a couple of months on the driving range, see if you can maintain some sort of consistency. Then maybe we’ll take you out on a real course and you can learn the game.”

We walked back to the clubhouse where we returned my rentals, and Dad got a book on the official rules of golf. I was whistling when I hopped in the second row of the Tahoe.

Grandpa caught it, hooking a thumb at me for the benefit of Dad. They both snickered.

“Tim,” Dad commented, “Paige told me to tell you that she misses you.” They watched as a big smile spread over my face.

“Oh, that’s good. I miss her too.”

“Let’s get some lunch and I’ll call your mom,” Grandpa suggested to Dad.

“Candace,” Grandpa left off any preamble when he got his wife on the phone, “where are you right now?” He listened to the other end of things. “Okay, good. You need to come back – the boys are heading home ... Five minutes, yeah, let them know.”

He hopped out when we popped in at his yard, waiting by the Tahoe while I switched seats and rolled down the window.

“Okay guys, it’s up to you now. Do us proud.” His hand smacked twice on the frame of the vehicle before he turned and walked away from us into the house.

“Are you ready?” Dad asked me.

“I think so.” I couldn’t stop smiling.

He put the big SUV into gear, holding his foot on the brake. “Quick tip. Wipe that stupid grin off your face and try to look sorry. It’ll go over a lot better.”

Grandma’s Caddy whizzed by going the other direction when we were almost back. Dad took a deep breath as we rolled onto our drive, giving me some indication of how nervous he was about this. That helped me calm down, the manic cheerfulness suppressed finally. The garage door opened and then closed behind us, adding to the feeling of finality that was looming.

We opened the door into the house to find Evie in her down-time jeans, her hair in a pony-tail, rubber gloves on her hands, and a sponge in her grip. Cleaning. That was how serious this was; Evie had once confessed to me that she hated cleaning. Dad took a chance, stepping up to her, capturing her face in his hands and kissing her. “We’re home. Miss us?”

She nodded. “Now go clean up, I must look a mess.”

The illogic of that almost made me laugh, but I took my cue from the wise one.

“Yes, Dear,” he said, motioning for me to follow along behind him. We made it to the second floor without incident, and I was told to wait for his signal.

Dad’s signal turned out to be pizza delivery. He had made me wait until five o’clock while he made whatever arrangements there were to make. The family was called to dinner, and we all joined up in the dining room. It was the first time I had seen Paige since I made her cry, and I wasn’t sure how to approach the reunion. For her part, she acted as if nothing had happened, although she was a little frosty toward me.

We ate while Dad and Evie carried the conversation, catching each other and us up on what had been happening the last couple of days. It was normal domestic talk, skirting the issue at hand. When we were done, Dad confronted it.

“Tim, take the boxes out to recycling, and then join us for a family meeting in the living room.”

When I had done as told, I returned to the house and the meeting. Dad and Evie were sitting together on the couch, Paige had been assigned the love seat, and I had Grandpa’s chair. My copy of the book was on the cushion, requiring me to pick it up before I could sit.

“Okay, before we start, we need to ask for some assistance.” He bowed his head, indicating what sort of help he was seeking. It was a short prayer, but it felt good that we were bringing our troubles out in front of our maker. When he was done, he grabbed Evie’s hand in both of his.

“If you don’t know why we’re here like this tonight, let me explain it. We’re here because all of us messed up.”

Paige shot him a dirty look which he caught. “All of us, Paige, even you.”

“The two of us messed up because we put everyone together in a high-stress, and highly emotional way, with the goal of creating family. The blowup that occurred on Tuesday reminded us that there are dynamics at work that aren’t normal family dynamics and that haven’t been discussed. So now we’re talking after the worst fight ever, in the whole history of the world.”

That got Paige to smile a little.

“So maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that ever has happened, don’t you think?” He directed the question at my girlfriend.

She shrugged, unwilling to give him the satisfaction, but the corner of her mouth stayed decidedly curved up.

“Tim, Paige, the two of you have re-enacted my first big fight with Evie, almost down to the details. Let’s see,” he started listing things, “there was the crying, the shouting, the running to mothers, the getting dads involved – how am I doing, Evie?”

“Oh, I think we’ve just about remembered it correctly for them.”

“Good.” He addressed all of us. “What you don’t know, is that we never really let that first fight come to a resolution, and it’s still getting in the way twenty-five plus years later. So let me show you how it’s done.”