She was loading the first page of sample questions. “This was the plan, remember? To use the commute time to study?”
She figured studying was a good way to avoid the uncomfortable silences that had fallen between them during the past week, ever since their confrontation outside the country club. They’d both been too busy at the hospital to get into any long conversations—or maybe they’d just used that as an excuse to avoid doing so. She knew she hadn’t wanted to talk about whatever he might have overheard her saying to Anne and Lydia and Kristie, and maybe Ron was no more eager to discuss their relationship. Whatever it was.
He had obviously withdrawn from her since that night. Because he hadn’t liked what he’d heard? Because he was annoyed with her for pushing him into this family visit? Or because he’d seized on a convenient opportunity to start drawing back from her before they got too deeply involved?
Had the visit with her family initiated the change? She couldn’t remember, exactly, though she knew that had been when she’d started to pull away. When she had realized how important he could become to her if she wasn’t careful, how crucial a part of her life he could become if she let him. Maybe that visit with her “Hollywood perfect” family, as he’d called them, had scared him, too, for reasons of his own. Reasons she was too cowardly to discuss with him, she admitted with a swallowed sigh.
“I’m tired of studying,” he admitted.
She gave a short laugh. “Yeah, well, too bad. You still have a year and a half of med school, then a minimum of four years of residency, and then career-long ongoing education. If you didn’t want to study, you should have stuck with your carnival job.”
“Nah. That was too hard work. And every time some little kid turned big, puppy-dog eyes on me, I caved and gave the kid one of the big prizes. I ended up spending more than I made.”
Even though he sounded as though he were joking, she wouldn’t have been at all surprised to learn there was some truth in that tale. Leaving the netbook open in her lap, she looked curiously at him. “You don’t talk about that time much. Those few years after you graduated high school, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I went to college. Partied too hard. Dropped out before the first semester ended rather than wait to flunk out. Tried working on cars with my dad for a while, but that was a disaster. Let my brother talk me into hitting the carnival circuit with him. Another disaster. Tried a couple of other jobs aro
und Hurleyville. Hated them. Went back to school because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. You know the rest.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “There was a theme in those various pursuits. Are you aware of it?”
He glanced at her with a quizzical smile. “A theme? What are you talking about?”
“You tried working with your father and your brother, and then taking jobs in your hometown. It sounds to me as if you were trying to maintain a bond with your family.”
He frowned, looking startled by the suggestion as he turned his attention back to the road ahead. “That’s not it. I was just looking for a way to support myself, and those were the first options that presented themselves to me. Like I said, they were all debacles.”
But he’d tried. And despite whatever bitterness he carried from his childhood, he still hadn’t cut off ties with his family. “Maybe things will get better in your family now that you’re all out on your own. As long as you keep trying, it’s certainly possible to have a cordial relationship with each other, even if it will never be exactly what you wish it could have been.”
He chuckled, and she braced herself for another slightly patronizing comment about her eternal optimism. It didn’t come.
Deciding not to press her luck, and hoping she’d at least given him something to think about, she turned her attention to the screen in her lap, reading the first question to him.
The drive passed quickly as they studied. They discussed the material for an hour before taking a break. Ron insisted his brain was full, and he needed time to let the material settle in. Though she laughed, Haley set the netbook aside for a few minutes.
“Tell me everyone’s names again. Your sister is Deb, right?”
“Yes. Her sons are Kenny and Bryce.”
“And she’s a single mom?”
“Divorced,” he said with a nod. “Her ex was a real piece of work. Everyone told her that he was a loser before she even married him, but that only seemed to make her more determined to stay with him. He finally ran off with another woman and she hasn’t heard a peep from him since. It’s been more than a year now.”
“That’s a shame for her boys.”
Ron shrugged. “They’re better off without him.”
Putting that aside, she asked, “Your brother is Tom?”
“Tommy’s the one in jail,” he reminded her. “Mick’s the one who’ll be there today.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No problem. You’ll like Mick okay, until he has a couple of beers and gets mad at Dad over something. He gets pretty obnoxious then.”
“Maybe they won’t quarrel today.”
“And maybe these gray skies will clear into a beautiful, sunshiny afternoon, but that’s not what I’m expecting.”