“Do you think we'll survive, Mel?”
She collapsed on their bed in exhaustion one night. “Some days I'm not sure. I've never done so many goddamn interviews in my life.” And she still felt as though she were living in someone else's home, which didn't help, but she hadn't had time to do anything about it yet. And she hadn't even had time to tackle the frozen Mrs. Hahn. “I wish you'd get rid of her,” Mel finally admitted to Peter one afternoon.
“Mrs. Hahn?” He looked shocked. “She's been with us for years.”
“Well, she's making life very tough for Val and Jess, and she certainly isn't pleasant to me. This might be a good time for a change.” There were a lot of changes she wanted to make around the house, but she didn't have time.
“That's an insane idea, Mel.” He looked angry at the mere thought. “She's part of this family.”
“So was Raquel part of ours, and I had to leave her in New York.”
“And you resent me for that?” He was wondering if in transplanting Mel, he had asked too much. She was testy with him now all the time, and he knew that she wasn't crazy about her job. The money was fabulous, there was no denying that, but the conditions weren't as good as those she had known before, there was the endless problem with Paul Stevens, she said. “You blame everything on me, don't you?” He was looking for a fight. For no reason he could explain, that morning a perfectly decent bypass patient had died.
“I'm not blaming anything on you.” She looked desperately tired as they talked. “But the fact is that we both have enormous jobs that make tremendous demands on us, five kids, and a very demanding life. I want to make things easier in every possible way. And Mrs. Hahn is complicating things.”
“Maybe for you, but not for the rest of us.” He looked stubbornly at Mel and she wanted to scream.
“And don't I live here too? Christ, between you and Pam …”
“Now what?” The remark didn't miss its mark.
“Nothing. She just resents our being here. I expected that.”
“And you don't think your daughters resent me? You're crazy if you think they don't. They're used to having a hundred percent of your time, and every time we close our bedroom door now, they get pissed off.”
“I can't help that, any more than you can change Pam. They all need time to adjust, but Jess and Val have had the biggest change in their lives.”
“The hell they did. Pam lost her mom.”
“I' m sorry.” There was no talking about it with him, or touching the sacred subject of Anne. Mel had noticed that a few of Anne's pictures had gone back up, but she hadn't brought up the subject again, and her portrait was still in the hall.
“So am I.”
“No, you're not.” Mel wouldn't let the argument die, which was not wise. “You expect us to make all the adjustments around here.”
“Is that right? Well, just exactly what do you think I ought to do? Move to New York?”
“No.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Move to a new house.”
“That's absurd.”
“No, it's not, but changes scare you to death. When I came along, you were still sitting around with everything the same, waiting for Anne to come home. And now you've moved me into her house. It's okay for me to turn my whole life upside down, but you want everything just the way it was. And guess what? That doesn't work.”
“Maybe it's the marriage you want to move out of, Mel, and not the house.”
She stood staring at him from across the room, in total frustration and despair. “Are you ready to quit?”
He sat down heavily in his favorite chair. “Sometimes I am.” He looked up at her honestly. “Why do you want to change everything, Mel? Mrs. Hahn, the house, why can't you leave things as they are?”
“Because everything here is changed, whether you want to admit that or not. I'm not Anne, I'm me, Mel, and I want a life that's ours, not borrowed from someone else.”
“This is a new life.” But he didn't sound convinced.
“In an old house. Jess and Val and I feel like intruders here.”
“Maybe you're just looking for an excuse to go back to New York.” His face was grim, and Mel wanted to cry.
“Is that what you think?”
“Sometimes.” He was being honest with her.
“Well, let me explain something to you. I have a contract here. If you and I called it quits tonight, I'd still be stuck here for two years, like it or not. I can't go back to New York.”
“And you hate me for that.” It was a statement of his view of the facts.
“I don't hate you for anything. I love you.” She came and knelt beside his chair. “And I want this to work, but it isn't going to happen by itself. We both have to be willing to change.” She reached up and gently touched his face.
“I guess …” Tears suddenly began to fill his eyes and he turned his head away and then looked back again.” I guess I thought … we could keep a lot of things … the same …”
“I know.” She reached up and kissed him. “And I love you so much, but there's so much going on that my head spins sometimes.”
“I know.” Somehow they always found each other after the fights, but there were so many fights these days. “I should have made you sign the contract in New York, Mel. It wasn't fair to drag you out here.”
“Yes, it was.” She smiled through her own tears. “And you didn't drag me anywhere. I didn't want to stay in New York. All I wanted was to be here with you.”
“And now?” He looked frightened of what she would say.
“I'm glad we came. And in a while, it'll all fall into place.”
He took her hand then and led her gently to the bed and they made love as they had before, and Mel knew she had found him again. She didn't regret any of what she had done, but it had taken its toll, and there were pressures on all of them. She just hoped they'd all survive it, but with Peter strong at her side, she knew they would.
The only misery he couldn't seem to protect her from was at work, and in February he looked at her one night as she came home almost in tears.
“My God, if you only knew what an asshole that man is.” Paul Stevens was driving her insane. “One of these nights I'm going to kill him right on the set, when we're on the air.”
“Now that would be news.” He looked sympathetically at her. For once, things were a little quieter for him at work. “I have an idea.”
“A hit man. That's the only thing I want to hear.”
“Better than that.”
“Cement shoes.”
Peter laughed. “Let's all go skiing this weekend. It'll do everyone good. I'm not on call, and I hear the snow is great.” Mel looked wan at the thought. Just the idea of packing them all up exhausted her. “What do you think?”
“I don't know.” She hated to be a spoilsport and for once Peter was in such a good mood. She smiled at him and he put his arms around her. “Okay.” At least they'd get away from the problems in the house.
Is it a deal?”
“Yes, Doctor.” She grinned, and went upstairs to tell the kids, but she found that Val was in bed with what looked like a bad case of flu. She was deathly pale, half asleep in bed, and when Mel touched her forehead, she felt terribly hot. And Mark was sitting worriedly near her bed. It didn't look any different than the flus she had gotten so frequently in New York. She was made of much less rugged stuff than Jess. “I've got good news,” she told Mark and the twins in the girls' room. “Peter's taking us all skiing this weekend.” They all looked pleased but their reaction was subdued. Mark seemed terribly involved with Val, and Jessica seemed vague as she glanced at her twin.
“That's nice.” Val was the first to speak, but her voice sounded terribly weak.
“You okay, love?” She sat down on Val's bed, and the girl winced.