“What's for dinner?” Jason asked, shouting over the frantic barking of the dog and the clamoring of his siblings. He was on the track team at school, and starving.
“Paper napkins and ice cream, if you guys don't get out of the kitchen and give me five minutes' peace,” India shouted over the din, as he grabbed an apple and a bag of potato chips and headed to his room to do his homework. He was a good kid, a sweet boy. He worked hard at school, got good grades, did well in sports, looked just like Doug, and had never given them any trouble. He had started discovering girls the year before, but his greatest foray into that realm had been a series of timid phone calls. He was far easier to deal with than his fourteen-year-old sister, Jessica, who India always said was going to be a labor lawyer. She was the family spokesperson for the downtrodden, and rarely hesitated to lock horns with her mother. In fact, she loved it. “Out!” India shooed them all out from underfoot, put the dog outside, and opened the refrigerator with a pensive expression. They'd already had hamburgers twice this week, and meat loaf once. Even she had to admit that she was lacking inspiration. By this point in the school year, she couldn't think up any more creative dinners. It was time for barbecues and hot dogs and ribs, and time on the beach on the Cape. She settled on two frozen chickens, and stuck them in the microwave to defrost them, as she pulled out a dozen ears of corn and began to clean them.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, thinking about what Gail had said that afternoon, sifting it as she did sometimes, trying to decide for herself if she had any regrets about her lost career. But she was still convinced all these years later that she had made the right decision. Besides, it was a moot point anyway, she told her-self, there was no way she could have continued traveling around the world as a journalist, or even working locally, and still have done the right thing for her children. She owed this to them. And if Gail found her boring as a result, so be it. At least Doug didn't. She smiled, thinking of him, as she put the corn in a pot of water and set it on the stove, and then took the chickens out of the microwave, put butter and spices on them, and put them in the oven. All she had to do now was put some rice on the stove, make a salad, and presto magic, dinner. She had gotten good at it over the years. Not fine cuisine, but fast and simple and healthy. She didn't have time to make them gourmet meals with everything else she did. They were lucky she didn't take them to the drive-thru at McDonald's.
She was just putting dinner on the table when Doug walked in, looking slightly harried. Barring a crisis at the office, he usually came home promptly at seven. Door to door, it was a twelve-hour day for him, or slightly longer, but he was a good sport about the commute, and he kissed the air somewhere near her head, as he set down his briefcase and helped himself to a Coke from the refrigerator, and then looked over and smiled at her. She was happy to see him.
“How was your day?” she asked, wiping her hands on a towel. There were wisps of wheat-colored hair framing her face, and she never thought much about what she looked like. She was lucky, she didn't have to. She had clean, healthy, classic looks, and the braid she wore suited her. Her skin was good, and she looked about thirty-five instead of forty-three, with a long, slim figure that looked well in shirts and turtlenecks and jeans, which was the uniform she wore daily.
Doug set down the Coke and loosened his tie as he answered. “Not bad. Nothing exciting. I had a meeting with a new client.” His business life had been uneventful for the most part, and when he had problems, he shared them with her. “What did you do today?”
“Sam had soccer, and I took some pictures for the team. Nothing terrific.” As she listened to herself speak, she thought of Gail, and how dull she accused their lives of being. They were. But what more could she expect? Bringing up four kids in Connecticut was hardly glamorous, or fraught with excitement. And India couldn't see how Gail's illicit activities could change that. She was kidding herself if she thought that made a difference, or improved things.
“How about dinner at Ma Petite Amie tomorrow night?” Doug offered as she called the kids in to dinner.
“I'd love it,” she smiled, and within the next millisecond chaos erupted in the kitchen. But they always enjoyed their meals together. The children talked about their day, their friends, their activities, while complaining intermittently about teachers and the amount of homework they'd been given. And Aimee blew the whistle on the news that a new boy had called Jessica three times that afternoon, and he sounded really old, like maybe even a senior, and Jessica looked daggers at her. And for most of the meal, Jason provided them with entertainment. He was the family clown, and made editorial comments on everything. Aimee helped her clean up afterward, and Sam went to bed early, exhausted by his soccer game and the two goals he'd scored. Doug was reading some papers from the office by the time India finally joined him in their bedroom.
“The natives seem to be keeping you busier than usual tonight,” he commented, glancing up from the report he was reading.
There was a staid, solid quality that India had loved about him right from the beginning. He was tall and lean and lanky, with athletic good looks, and a boyish face. At forty-five, he was still very handsome, and looked like a college football hero. He had dark hair and brown eyes, and was given to tweeds and gray suits for work, and corduroy pants and Shetland sweaters on weekends. And in a quiet, wholesome way, India had always found him very attractive, even if Gail did think he was boring. And in many ways, he was the ideal husband for her. He was solid and reliable and unflappable, generally, and fairly reasonable in the demands he made of her.
She sat down in a big, comfortable chair across from him, and tucked her legs under her, trying to remember, just for an instant, the boy she had met in the Peace Corps. He was not so very different from the man she sat across from now, but there had been a glimmer of mischief in his eyes then that had enchanted her at the time, when she was young and filled with dreams of daring and glory. He was no longer mischievous, but he was decent and reliable, and someone she knew she could count on. Much as she had loved him, she didn't want a man like her father, who was never there, and risked and eventually lost his life in the pursuit of his wild, romantic notions. War had been romance to him. Doug was far more sensible than that, and she liked knowing she could count on him to be there for her.
“The kids seemed a little wound up tonight. What's up?” he asked, putting his report down.
“I think they're just excited about the end of the school year. It'll do them good to get to the Cape, and get it out of their systems. They need some downtime, we all do.” By this point in the school year, she was always sick to death of her car pools.
“I wish I could take time off earlier than August,” he said, running a hand through his hair, thinking about it. But he had to oversee some marketing studies for two important new clients, and he didn't want to leave town prematurely.