His father nodded and stood. “Then I’ll clear out so you can finish up and get home to your kids. You let me know if there’s anything I can do for you—or if you just want to talk about anything.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Trevor frowned as he watched his father rise slowly from his seat. Since when had Caleb moved so stiffly? So awkwardly? Like an old man, he thought, displeased with the comparison. Had he been so caught up in his own troubles that he hadn’t realized how quickly his parents were aging? Was there anything else he was missing? “Dad? You okay?”
Absently rubbing his chest, Caleb made a face. “Fine. Been having some heartburn trouble lately. Getting old ain’t fun, boy.”
“Have you seen anyone about it?”
“Bobbie’s been nagging at me to get a physical. I’ll get around to it shortly.”
“Do that.”
It was obvious, Trevor thought after Caleb left his office, that he hadn’t been doing a very good job lately hiding his emotional turmoil from his parents. At first, he’d been struggling with the repercussions of Melanie’s death and the things he’d found out afterward. Now he was trying to deal with his overwhelming attraction to Jamie. Both of his parents had expressed concern about him.
He’d been honest with his father. He hadn’t changed his mind about settling here, raising his children here, eventually taking over the McBride law firm. He was generally satisfied with his career, and accepted that every job came with its highs and lows. Divorces were an ugly but unavoidable part of life, and he was prepared to do his best to make the ones he handled as smooth and equitable as possible.
He supposed he’d been particularly affected today because he had looked at Valerie and Clark’s unhappy little boy and had pictured Sam. Had things been different—had Melanie not died in that traffic accident on a busy Washington, D.C., intersection after leaving a lunchtime tryst with one of her lovers—they could have been the ones facing each other across a divorce table, viciously airing their private pain and fighting for custody of their children.
The thought made him cringe. Relief that he and his kids had been spared those scenes was followed by an immediate wave of guilt that his reprieve had come at such a terrible price for Melanie.
It was a wearily familiar battle, one he usually fought alone in the middle of the night with a single shot of bourbon as his only emotional support. There was no one he could talk to, no one he wanted to burden with the painful revelations he had struggled with for so long. For his children’s sake, for Melanie’s memory, and maybe for his own pride, he couldn’t talk about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
A woman’s voice came from the speaker on his desk phone, bringing him abruptly back to the present. “Trevor?”
Trevor cleared his throat. “Yes, Marie?”
“I’m leaving now. Is there anything else you need before I go?”
“No, I’m about to head home, myself. See you tomorrow.”
He gathered the paperwork scattered over his desk and stuffed it into a folder, then saved and exited the file on his computer screen. His thoughts had already left the office, racing to the evening ahead of him. He’d run out of coffee that morning and was almost out of milk; he would have to stop by the store on the way home. Sarah had promised to put a pot roast and vegetables in the oven for him, so all he would have to do was serve the kids, bathe them, read them a couple of stories and tuck them into bed. He would then have the remainder of the evening to himself—to remember, to brood, to regret.
Maybe he’d give Jamie a call after the kids were in bed. They’d started a conversation over lunch about the community theater, but he’d had to cut it short to get back to the office. Maybe they could discuss it further later. And maybe, sometime during their discussion about the future of art in Honoria, he could figure out why the hell he had turned down what she had offered instead of lunch today.
It was something he was beginning to think he needed very badly.
“I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND why we can’t do Phantom of the Opera.” Earlene Smithee, who, twenty years earlier, had served a year as Miss Junior Honoria, spoke plaintively on the following Sunday afternoon. “I’ve always really identified with Christine, you know?”
Jamie didn’t laugh—but it wasn’t easy. Earlene was long past playing ingenue roles, and as far as her play suggestion… “I really don’t think that’s a possibility, Earlene. We’d probably better stick with something simpler for our first production.”
Earlene sighed, but conceded, “You’re the expert.”
Jamie didn’t feel particularly like an expert—especially when it came to organizing a community theater from scratch—but she hid her uncertainty behind a confident smile. “I’ll bring several plays to our next meeting. If anyone else has any recommendations, please feel free to bring them along.”
The seven aspiring actors and techies Earlene had assembled for the first organizational meeting of the Honoria Community Theater nodded eagerly, watching Jamie as if she was their wise guru and they her faithful followers. She knew that would wear off when they’d spent more time together, but she was rather enjoying the treatment now.
“Okay, so I’ll see everyone here next week. And feel free to bring friends. It takes a number of volunteers to put on a quality production.”
The meeting adjourned and everyone began to file out of the community room of the Honoria Methodist Church. Several people stopped to speak to Jamie on the way out, sharing their experiences from high-school plays and church pageants, a rather sheepish lust for applause glimmering in their eyes.
“You were wonderful in Private Lives,” a young housewife—Jamie thought her name was Sherry—said with shy admiration. Sherry was about her own age, but tended to speak to Jamie with a reverence usually reserved for aging heroes. “It’s my favorite soap—and I saw every one of the episodes you were in.”
“Thank you. I enjoyed playing that part.”
“How could you give it all up to move back to Honoria?” Sherry asked in open bewilderment. “I’ve only lived here for a couple of years and sometimes I get so bored I could scream.”
Jamie chuckled. “I guess you could say I got homesick. Besides, I was ready for a change. Even constant activity can become tedious after a while.”