Days Like This (38 page)

Rose turned back to her canvas
and began applying paint.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were
pregnant.  Eddie used to call me Hurricane Rose because the mood swings were so
bad.  Without any warning, I’d go from sweet and loving to Lizzie Borden.  Ax
in hand, ready to chop off heads.”

Casey looked at Rose’s back, opened
her mouth, closed it again.

Rose paused, turned to look at
her, saw the expression on her face.  “Hon?  You don’t suppose—”

Irritation.  Mood swings. 
Exhaustion.  Morning sickness.  Tender breasts.  She tried to remember the date
of her last period, but she’d always been irregular.  She would have to check
her calendar.  But she didn’t need to check it to know she was overdue.  Way
overdue.  Because her last period had been sometime in August, before Rob
left. 

More than two months ago.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

***

She didn’t recognize half the
cars in her driveway.  Mikey’s old F-150 was there, flanked by a maroon Subaru
wagon, a blue Ford Ranger, and a rusty brown Volkswagen Rabbit.  Who were these
people, and how had her husband found them?  She knew that musicians had some
kind of radar that made them gravitate toward each other, but he’d only lived
here for eighteen months.  She supposed it had something to do with the fact
that he was naturally gregarious, but it still surprised her when she realized
how many people Rob MacKenzie knew in this tiny backwater town after being here
for such a short time.

The moment she stepped out of the
car, she heard the music.  Loud, crashing, classic rock.  It was a good thing
they didn’t have close neighbors, because this would probably go on all evening
and into the night.  She’d learned nearly two decades ago that once a musician
picked up his instrument, putting it down again was next to impossible.  Back
in the day, when she and Danny were newlyweds living in a third-floor walk-up
apartment in a faded brownstone on the back side of Beacon Hill, the jam
sessions would go on until dawn.  She’d get out of work at midnight and catch a
taxi home, and if it was a warm summer night and the windows were open, she
could hear the music when she stepped out of the cab:  Danny on the piano and
Rob on the guitar, and sometimes Travis playing bass, and whoever else they’d
dragged home playing whatever instrument they’d brought with them.

The only reason they hadn’t been
evicted was because their downstairs neighbor was a twenty-three-year-old
stoner named Woofy, who, as likely as not, was right there playing along with
them.  She never knew his real name, or what he did for a living, although she
suspected it had something to do with the jungle of greenery he grew under
fluorescent lighting in a converted closet in the back bedroom of his
apartment.  The boys used to sneak down there sometimes and smoke with him. 
They thought they were getting away with something, but it was impossible to
not know what they were doing; Danny would come to bed reeking of it.

Since it didn’t happen often, she’d
given him a free pass.  But she did have a couple of ironclad house rules, and
Danny had made sure that anybody he brought home understood that those rules
were inviolable.  Rule Number One:  no drugs on the premises.  What people
chose to do elsewhere was their business, but anybody who walked through the
door of her apartment carrying anything stronger than Tylenol would be asked to
leave, and would never be invited back.  Rule Number Two:  guests were welcome
to drink whatever they brought with them, but if they got sick, they had to
clean up their own messes, and if they were driving, they had to hand over
their keys when they arrived, and wouldn’t get them back until they’d sobered
up.

Because of Rule Number Two, they’d
had a lot of overnight guests.  She would get up in the morning and be climbing
over them on her way to the kitchen.  They ate her out of house and home, and
she and Danny probably would have starved if not for Rob, who was still living
with his parents, so had money to burn.  He was the one who kept her pantry
stocked with luxuries like bread and milk and toilet paper.  Danny had been
blissfully unaware of this, and neither of them had bothered to enlighten him. 
It was just one of the many secrets they’d kept from Danny over the years.

Drawn by the music, she left her
purse in the car and moved toward the barn.  Inside, the walls and the floor
were shaking to the driving rhythm of Eric Clapton’s
Cocaine
.  Casey
stood just inside the door, taking stock, her hands in the pockets of her jeans
and her body moving to that seductive, bluesy rhythm.  She didn’t recognize the
piano player, but she was pretty sure she’d seen the guy on bass working in the
produce section at the IGA.  To her delight, the drummer—whose receding
hairline and wire-rimmed glasses made him more closely resemble an accountant
than a musician—was Buddy Theriault, who used to save her a seat on the school
bus every day when they were in fifth grade. 

Rob was in the middle of a guitar
solo, his playing so familiar, his style so distinctive, she would have
recognized it anywhere.  Rock guitarists—the good ones, anyway—all had their
own sound.  Eric Clapton’s blues-influenced playing sounded like nobody else on
the planet.  Eddie Van Halen, with his high-energy power chords, was
immediately recognizable.  And Rob MacKenzie, who had studied jazz for two
years at Berklee, infused his songs with jazzy undertones like nobody else
could do.  His eyes were closed as he played, and the expression on his face
said it all:  This was what he’d been put on this planet to do.

Luke was on rhythm guitar.  Rose’s
son was showing signs of great promise as a guitarist.  It had been an
adjustment for him, being moved from Boston to this godforsaken place when his
mother had married Jesse Lindstrom last year.  But Luke’s naturally sunny
disposition, accompanied by the obvious hero worship he felt for his Uncle Rob,
had smoothed the transition.  It hadn’t hurt that Rob had taken his nephew
under his wing and had nurtured Luke’s love of music with private guitar
lessons and jam sessions like this one.  They sounded good together, and there
was a connection between them, a connection so visible that, watching them play
together, she felt an instant of acute physical pain because it reminded her so
much of the connection Rob had shared onstage with Danny.

Rob finished the solo, opened his
eyes, and saw her standing there.  She went hot all over as those green eyes
studied her face.  He gave her a brief, quirky grin before focusing his
attention back on his playing.  Paige jumped into the vocals with that earthy
voice of hers, and Casey glanced off to one side of the room where, perched on
a table shoved up against the wall, Mikey leaned his back against the
sheetrock.  Long legs stretched out in front of him, he was watching Paige with
such blatant adoration that Casey was momentarily taken aback. 

Yikes.  When had this happened? 
This couldn’t possibly be good news, and her head swiveled around to study the
girl, wondering if this crush was mutual or unrequited.  But Paige was too
wrapped up in her singing to give away any hint of her inner emotions.  So
while the music thundered around her, Casey made her way across the room and
joined her favorite nephew. 

“Hey there, kiddo,” she said,
shouting to be heard over the music.

“Hi, Aunt Casey.”

She perched on the table beside
him, and together they watched and listened, comfortable without speaking, she
and this nephew she adored.  Rob sent a glance her way.  Their eyes locked, and
they held a silent conversation.  Satisfied that all was right with the world,
he gave her a wink and focused back on his playing.

She was ravenous again.  And
exhausted.  How was it possible she could be exhausted after sleeping past noon? 
She would call the doctor and make an appointment on Monday.  Rose had given
her the name of her OB/GYN, Deb Levasseur, and had praised her to the high
heavens.

Morning sickness.  That was what
she’d woke up with this morning.  That explained the random bouts of nausea
she’d experienced for the past six weeks.  She hadn’t recognized it because
she’d never had morning sickness with Katie.  But Rose, who’d given birth to
three children, had assured her that every pregnancy was different, and that
her symptoms were normal.

She wasn’t ready to tell Rob. 
Not just yet.  Not until the doctor confirmed it.  Not until she was certain
that everything was progressing as it should.  Her first pregnancy had ended in
a miscarriage.  Yes, that had been more than a dozen years ago, and there’d
been extenuating circumstances.  Still, she couldn’t completely squelch the
anxiety.  She’d been through so much, had suffered so many losses, that the
fear was never far from the surface.  There’d be plenty of time for celebrating
later, after she’d seen the doctor.

Eventually, driven by starvation,
she gave Mikey a hug, slithered down off the table, and went in the house.  She
opened a can of crabmeat, mixed it with a glop of mayonnaise, debated what kind
of bread to use, finally ended up wolfing it down right from the bowl.  When it
was empty, she let out a tiny belch, then stared at the empty bowl, shocked
that she’d eaten the entire can in about five seconds.  It was either pregnancy
or a tapeworm, and if it was the former, at the rate she was going, she’d be
big as a house within a month.

The music was still playing. 
From this distance, the song wasn’t recognizable, but she could hear the steady
boom-boom that told her they were still in full swing.  Wiped out, she lay on
the couch in front of the television with the sound turned down, covered
herself with a light blanket, and catnapped.

When she awoke, Rob was crouched
in front of her, one hand on her shoulder, those green eyes studying her with
mild concern.  “Hey,” she said groggily.

“Hey, yourself.  You okay?”

“Mmn.  I’m fine.  I was just
napping while I waited for you.”

“You were really zonked out.”

She reached out a hand and
touched his face.  His skin was warm against her palm, and she could feel the
fine rasp of whiskers.  “What time is it?”

“A little after nine.”

“Quitting so early?”

“We’re not kids any more.  Well,
except for the kids, of course.  The rest of us are geezers.”

“You’ll never be a geezer.  You’re
thirty-seven going on twelve.”

“You hungry?  I have leftover
pizza if you want a slice.  Pepperoni and green olive.  I gave Mikey some money
a couple hours ago and sent him on a pizza run.”

“I think I’ll pass.  I ate
something earlier.”

“How about a dish of ice cream? 
There’s fudge ripple in the freezer.”

“Little bit.  Let’s do one bowl
and two spoons.”

The kitchen on this mild autumn evening
felt intimate and cozy and wonderfully peaceful.  She took a spoonful of ice
cream and closed her eyes while it melted on her tongue.  Swallowed and said, “Where’s
Paige?”

“She left with Mikey.”

“I’m a little concerned about
those two.”

“So you noticed.”

“It would be hard to miss.  He
was looking at her like a lion watching a gazelle that was about to become its
dinner.”  She took another spoonful of heaven, couched in the familiar flavors
of chocolate and vanilla.  “Should we be monitoring this situation a little
more closely? She’s only fifteen.”

“It’s awkward.  I can’t very well
forbid them to see each other.”

“Sure, you can.  You just say, ‘I
forbid you to see each other.’”

“If only it were that easy.  I’m
trying to keep watch.  Without looking like a Nazi.”

“I think that’s your job as a father. 
To look like a Nazi.”  She rested her chin on her palm and said wistfully, “The
teenage years are so hard.”

“Life is hard.  The teenage years
are just one small portion thereof.”

“The world according to MacKenzie. 
My philosopher.  So where were they headed?”

“I think the movies in
Farmington.  I told her to be home by eleven-thirty.”

She paused, her spoon halfway to
her mouth.  And said, with no small amount of delight, “You gave her a curfew?”

He ate a spoonful of fudge
ripple.  “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

With a gleeful grin, she said, “It
seems like a dad thing to do.”

“Don’t remind me.  Most people
start with babies and work their way up.  How’d we end up starting with a
teenager?”

“Give me a break, MacKenzie.  You
love teenagers.”

“I love hanging out with
teenagers.  Playing with ‘em.  Getting down to their level for a few hours,
then sending the little monsters home to their parents.  They’re the ones who
spawned ‘em.  I always figured they could deal with the results of their
spawning.  Of course, that was before I knew I’d spawned one myself.”

 “You do realize that you painted
yourself into a corner?  Now you have to wait up to make sure she doesn’t break
curfew.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  If I’m
this tired at thirty-seven, how will I survive our babies when they get to be
teenagers?  Especially since we haven’t even started any of them yet.  Poor
kids will be so embarrassed when they realize that Mom and Dad are the same age
as their friends’ grandparents.”

“Oh, stop.  We’re not that old.”

“Speak for yourself.  Some days,
I feel like Methuselah.”

She stuck her spoon into the bowl
of ice cream and moved it around a little.  “Remember when we used to do this?”

“Sit around and talk about how
old we feel?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Eat fudge
ripple ice cream together.  In the middle of the night, when the rest of the
world was sleeping.”

“While ABBA sang
Dancing Queen
on that old kitchen radio you had.  We’d sit up until dawn, talking about Life
with a capital L.  As if either of us even knew what life was about back then. 
We were still wet behind the ears.”