In Confidence. Karen Young

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СКАЧАТЬ with Francine?” Nick’s face was pale, but his eyes burned.

      Rachel looked at Ted. “Now is not the time for this discussion,” Ted said, grimacing at the bloodstains on the towel. “I can’t believe this! I’ve probably got a broken nose.”

      “That’s it, isn’t it, Mom?” Nick persisted. “He’s screwing Francine.”

      “Nick, please…” Rachel caught his hand and tried to guide him over to the settee. “You know we don’t allow that language. Sit down and I’ll try to explain.” But Nick stayed stiffly on his feet, glaring at his father. No one noticed Kendall standing in the doorway until she spoke.

      “I want to hear, too.”

      All eyes went to the little girl looking sweetly innocent in a nightie sprinkled with a pattern of tiny red hearts. Bunny faces on her bedroom slippers peeked from beneath the ruffle at the bottom and her camera hung by a cord around her neck. Gingerly avoiding the glass on the floor, she went to her mother. “I heard someone banging on the door and I wanted my camera, but it took a minute to find it. Then Dr. Walt started yelling, all mad and everything. I almost didn’t remember to take pictures when him and Daddy started to fight, but then I did. Why were they fighting?”

      “You took pictures?” Rachel said faintly.

      Kendall nodded, then looked at her dad. “So why were you and Dr. Walt mad at each other, Daddy?”

      Rachel slipped an arm around the little girl’s waist and gave Ted another compelling look.

      “I’m going to have to take care of this bleeding,” he mumbled. Face down, he ducked past his family. “Sorry.”

      “I’m right, huh, Mom?” Nick persisted as Ted escaped. “He’s fooling around with Francine.”

      Rachel took one of each of her children’s hands and paused for a moment, praying that she’d be able to tell them what was necessary in a way that would do them the least harm. “Sometimes,” she began, “people who are married to each other discover that even though they have many good things together, such as wonderful children and a lovely house and good jobs, that somehow they need something different. A change, maybe. Your…your dad—” she cleared her throat as it threatened to close “—your dad is experiencing something like that.”

      “So the something different Dad needed,” Nick said, cutting to the chase as always, “was an affair with his best friend’s wife? Have I got it right?”

      Rachel closed her eyes in momentary pain. “It…it appears that…he and Francine are involved, yes. At the moment.”

      “What a dumb shit!” Nick stood up abruptly. He hadn’t put on a shirt before heading downstairs, so he wore only the bottoms of his Joe Boxer shorts. His sleek young torso heaved with emotion. Arms stiff at his sides, he clenched both hands into fists, working them open and closed. “Dr. Walt should have done more than coldcock him one. What he should have done—”

      “Nick.” Rachel held up her hand. “It might feel good to rant and rave at your dad for the moment, but he is, and always will be, your father.”

      “He’s sure acting like a piss-poor one, then,” the boy said bitterly.

      “I don’t understand,” Kendall said, her small brow wrinkled in confusion. “What’s Daddy doing that’s wrong?”

      “He’s fooling around with Dr. Walt’s wife, brat. That’s a big no-no.”

      “It’s not okay for Daddy to be friends with Ms. Francine?” Kendall looked in bewilderment first at Rachel, then at Nick.

      “They’re more than friends, Kendy,” Nick said, softening his tone.

      “Dad and Ms. Francine have special feelings for each other,” Rachel explained. “They want to be together…like Nick says…as more than friends.”

      “But what about you if they want to be together like that?” Kendall asked, her frown returning.

      “Dad has decided that he wants some time to live apart from me right now, Kendall. He’ll probably move to our cabin on the lake, so he won’t be here with us like he has been.”

      Kendall’s eyes widened. “He’s going to sleep there and eat and…and everything?”

      “For the time being, yes,” Rachel said, nodding. “But he’ll be close by when you want to see him. The cabin is only an hour from Rose Hill. It’s just that he won’t be living in this house.”

      Kendall studied her mother’s face for a long moment. “Are we getting a divorce?”

      Rachel brought the little girl’s hand up to her cheek. “Who said anything about a divorce, sweetheart?”

      Kendy looked worried. “But you won’t, will you, Mom? I have friends who’re divorced and it’s not good.”

      How Rachel wished she could make that promise. “I don’t think your dad is going to move to Dallas or any place other than Rose Hill, Kendy,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. “His practice is here and he won’t be leaving that. So even though he’s living at the lake, he’s still here for you when you need him.”

      “Yeah,” Nick muttered, glancing at the door where Ted had escaped. Then he added in a tone not overheard by his little sister, “Just don’t count on him when the going gets tough.”

      “Francine? He’s having an affair with the wife of his partner?” Marta stood up and began pacing the length of the sunroom. “Has he lost his freakin’ mind? Walter Dalton will kill him!”

      “He came close to it this morning,” Rachel muttered dryly.

      Marta stopped. “What? Walter knows?”

      Rachel sat with her arms wrapped around her knees. “He appeared before seven today, not ten minutes after Ted, who’d spent the night at the lake cabin. And you’re right. He was so furious when Ted didn’t deny the affair that he lost it, Marta. One minute he was hurling threats and insults and the next, he was at Ted’s throat, literally. If Nick hadn’t appeared just then and helped break them up, I don’t know how the fracas would have ended.”

      Marta motioned toward the coffee table. “Is that why you have a coffee table with no top?”

      “Glass went everywhere. They were like two schoolboys, Marta. It was dreadful. And to have Nick and Kendall see it all made it ten times worse.”

      “They fought in front of the kids?”

      Rachel sighed. “Kendall took pictures. You know she carries that camera everywhere she goes.”

      “Oh, boy.”

      Rachel rested her cheek on her knees, looking beyond Marta to her beautifully landscaped yard. “I had no choice but to tell them, Marta. Or, at least, I had to try to give them some kind of explanation once they saw what happened between Ted and Walt, plus they heard what Walt said. I’m not sure they’re convinced things are as dire as they really are, but personally, I believe Ted’s serious.”

      “Classic male midlife crisis,” СКАЧАТЬ