Chapter 10

Zach

Moira and I stand at our open door and wave goodbye to Josh and Lila as they walk to their cars, both of them carrying a brown paper bag filled with Thanksgiving leftovers. I have to admit… Moira called that one right. Within just a few minutes of them being introduced to each other, it became clear that there was deep interest and attraction. Lila twirled her hair a lot in flirtation when she talked to Josh, and Josh seemed to be riveted by what she was saying. He certainly didn’t hide the appreciative looks he kept giving her.

Moira and I kept sneaking knowing glances at each other across the table as we chowed down on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and corn pudding. By the time Moira served dessert—choice of pumpkin, pecan, or apple pie—Josh had already asked Lila out to dinner for the following evening.

My wife is fucking brilliant.

We watch just a moment as Josh walks Lila to her car and they stand close to each other while they talk, but then I pull Moira back into the house, shutting the door behind us. She gives me a knowing wink, places a hand on my hip, and says, “I’m sure we’ll be invited to the wedding.”

I smirk at her and lean down to give her a kiss. “Hell, their firstborn should be named after you… whether it’s a girl or a boy.”

Moira gives me a laugh and pushes back. “Go in and help Randall put away the pie. I’ll go get the kids bathed and into their pajamas.”

“Deal,” I tell her as I turn toward the kitchen.

It’s been a great day indeed.

It wasn’t an intimate family dinner like I’d wanted, but I ended up truly enjoying our company. All of my doubts about Lila were put to rest when I saw just how interested she was in Josh. It almost embarrassed me to think she could be putting moves on me, because as I watched her flirt, banter, and giggle at him, I realized she truly was being nothing but professional with me. It was nice to see the prospect of perhaps new love blooming at our table, and I’m always more than happy to have Randall with us because he’s the closest thing I have to family here.

While my adoptive father, Parilla, still enjoys relatively good health back in Amazonia, I haven’t seen him since before Moira and I got married, and sadly, I’m not sure I will see him again. I’m lucky Father Gaul still sends us updates when he can on my former Caraican tribe, but that’s about all I can count on as satellite phones and even snail mail are just not a possibility as deep in the jungle as they live.

When I walk into the kitchen, I see Randall bent over the apple pie, eating a forkful directly from the pan. He looks up when he hears me, flushes guiltily for just a second, but then unapologetically digs his fork back in.

“There’s only a little bit left,” he mumbles around a mouthful. “No sense in dirtying up another plate.”

I shrug my shoulders, because that sounds like good logic to me, and then decide to join him. Rounding the kitchen island, I grab a fork from the utensil drawer on the way and stab into the flaky crust. I take a huge bit. As I chew on the sweetly tart goodness, Randall asks, “So, how are you doing with work?”

My head swivels to Randall, and I look at him in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Work?” he repeats as he lays his fork on the counter and grabs a napkin to dab at his mouth. “How’s it going?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I tell him, setting my own fork down. “You and I talk pretty much every day about work. Why would you ask how it’s going?”

Randall shakes his head and smirks at me. “We talk about work, sure… but I want to know how you’re doing with it? How’s the stress? Do you like what you do? I know damn well you’re good at what you do, and I know you’re handling everything fantastically, but I’m asking how are you doing with it all?”

“I’m doing fine,” I say carefully… really still not sure what he’s getting at. I almost feel as if he’s searching for a particular answer from me, and I’m afraid of not giving him what he wants.

“You’re putting a lot of hours in,” Randall observes. For a split second, I wonder if Moira has said something to him. My eyes cut to the doorway that leads down the hall where she’s bathing the kids, and then back over to Randall. He just looks at me expectantly.

“Sure, I’m putting in some hours,” I tell him with confidence, going back in for another forkful of pie. “But it’s all good. You know I’m a hard worker, and you also know I don’t know any other way to be.”

Randall studies me for a moment, weighing my words and testing my veracity. I stare back at him unflinchingly, because the last thing I want him thinking about me is that I’m overworked. I know his protective instinct, and he’ll step in and make me back off.

He finally gives me a nod of acceptance before picking his fork back up. He holds it poised over the pie. Just before going in for another bite, he says, “I’m just worried… what with Moira being offered that full-time position at Emory, I know it’s going to be stressful on both of you having busy careers and trying to raise a family. So if you need me to—”

“What full-time position?” I ask as my muscles go tense all over because I have no clue what he’s fucking talking about.

Randall doesn’t mistake the hint of anger in my tone. His face flushes red and ducks his face slightly in guilt. “God… I’m so sorry. I just assumed Moira told you about it. It’s actually not really an offer, but more of an inquiry by the anthropology department to see if she’s interested… But she seemed so excited…”

Randall’s voice trails off as he seemingly deflates right before my eyes. My lips are flattened in a grim line, and his shoulders slump even further.

“She hasn’t said a word about it to me,” I mutter as I set my fork down on the counter.

“Well, you’ve been gone the last few days. Maybe she was just waiting—”

“When did she tell you about it?” I cut in.

“Only day before yesterday,” Randall says quickly, trying to appease my hurt. “When she found out… she called me…”

His voice dies again as he realizes that sounds even worse. That my own wife called him with important news rather than me.

Just then, Moira walks into the kitchen carrying Jaime. Her fine brown hair is still wet from her bath, and she looks beyond adorable in a yellow-and-white set of pajamas with little duck’s heads on the feet. Moira takes one look at my face, and I can see her tense up.

I don’t make her wait.

“You got a full-time job offer from Emory?” I ask her, not even trying to hide the accusing nature of my question.

Moira immediately turns to hand Jaime to Randall. He takes her without even a word being spoken, and I watch as something else unsaid passes between their eyes. They’ve definitely been talking, and this pisses me off. I’ve no doubt seeing the look they just shared that said conversation has included dismay over the long hours I’m putting in, as well as Moira’s concern over taking a full-time job.

All the things she should have been fucking talking about with me.

Randall had no sooner turned and cleared the kitchen with Jaime before I’m leaning in to Moira. With a hushed voice, but still no less pissed off, I ask her, “You got a full-time job offer and you didn’t bother to tell me?”

Moira at least has the grace to look embarrassed, and she whispers back to me. “It’s not a formal offer… really just a conversation with a friend of mine in the anthropology department. I was curious about the potential—”

“Wait a fucking minute,” I practically hiss at her. “You instigated this? I thought we agreed you weren’t going to go back to work until Jaime was old enough to go to Pre-K?”

“Zach,” Moira says in a placating tone, even laying a calming hand on my chest. “I was just curious. Doing this work for Senpace made me realize how much I miss teaching. I was just having a friendly chat with—”

“And you couldn’t bother to tell me that?” I cut her off. “Don’t you think that’s something we should have discussed first?”

Now Moira’s face gets red, not from embarrassment or guilt, but from anger. It’s a true Irish red, and it makes her eyes also go darker as her rage builds. “Just when was I supposed to talk to you about it, Zach? In the five minutes it takes you to get ready for bed when you come home late at night, or perhaps the next morning when you’re rushing out the door? Oh, wait… I know… maybe while you’re taking your morning fucking constitutional, I could schedule some time to sit down and talk to you about my life’s ambitions and the ways in which I’m totally fucking dissatisfied.”

I ignore her sarcasm and attempts to deflect. In a low voice, I tell her, “With something that important, you know I would have made time to talk. Do you realize how stupid that makes me look that I heard about this from Randall rather than my wife?”

Hurt flashes deep in Moira’s eyes, and she takes a deep breath before slowly letting it out. Always the voice of reason when we fight, she says quietly, “I’m sorry, Zach. It was just conversation, nothing more. It’s what I do… I talk. I talk to those who are there for me and around me, and I’m really, really sorry to say that it happened to be Randall at that moment.”

Crushing pain stabs straight through me. “Are you saying I’m not there for you?”

She quickly shakes her head. “No, of course not. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just… I’ve been thinking about it but not very seriously, and then this colleague said they were hiring, and I got excited about it and called—”

“Randall,” I supply bitterly. “You called Randall.”

“You were working… in another state,” she points out to me, anger again flashing in her eyes.

Guilt stabs at me, so I do what comes naturally.

I deflect, just as she did.

“Let’s forget about that for a minute,” I tell her with no small level of disdain. “How about we focus in on the part where you’re just moving forward with changing plans that we made as a couple, without even having the decency to care how I feel about that. We agreed, Moira… you were going to stay home with the kids until they started school. We both agreed that was important.”

“I know,” she says, and I can see she’s ready to launch into all the reasons why she’s reconsidering, but I don’t want to hear it.

At least not right now because I’m on a roll.

“You say all you want, Moira, that I’m working too hard and I’m too busy to even discuss these things with you, and you keep saying it if it makes you feel better, but we both know that’s not true. I may have been gone these last few days, but don’t pretend this is just something that came up and you couldn’t reach me. You’ve clearly been thinking about this for a while, and rather than address it, you used Randall as a sounding board rather than your husband.

“All you had to do was ask… ask for time for us to sit down and talk about something that was important, and I would have given it to you. But the truth is, you get just as busy as I do and caught up with your own things, and you really just didn’t want to put the effort into the hard discussion we both know this would be. Instead, I’m guessing you went to Randall because you knew he’d support you if you wanted to go back to work. Just as he’d support any endeavor I wanted to take. It was easy. It made you feel good. It gave you what you needed because you clearly didn’t think I could provide it for you. Now, I don’t know if you really want to go back to work full time as a teacher, or if you’re just chasing windmills, but the next time you want to make major upheavals to our life, I suggest you discuss it with me before anyone else.”

And before she has a chance to even tear into me, as I can see she wants to do, I grab my keys that hang from the hook on the wall beside the laundry room and walk out. I intend to take a nice, long drive until I cool down.

The way I’m feeling right now, I expect I’ll return home sometime next week.