CHAPTER FOUR

((chapter 3, table of contents, chapter 5)

I left Eleanor and took the stairs down to my office, closed the door behind me and pulled the blinds. I had twenty minutes before FPP's weekly management meeting started, and I needed to clear my head. I sat there and stared blankly out my window at the parking garage.

Suddenly I jerked awake. I glanced around the room, trying to figure out which room, in which country, I was in. I was disappointed when I realized where I was. I checked the time. I'd slept for only a few minutes.

I tried to shake the sleep out of my head. I'd been awake a long time, and I had a long day ahead of me with just a few minutes until FPP's meeting. I took a deep breath and braced myself before I made the hardest call of the day: my mom.

I needed to call her and tell her there was a chance I might not be home for dinner.

So here's the awkward bit, what people referred to as *Steve's Personal Circumstances*: My mom had lived with me and my two girls ever since my wife, Fran, passed away two-and-a-half years earlier. We had been vacationing in Rome—we'd only been married three years, and our girls were still very young then—when Fran suffered a brain aneurism. It was sudden. It was quick. I still don't recall much of the days, or weeks, that followed. Mom flew to Rome and helped me sort things out, then took early retirement and moved in with us. She has been looking after us since.

When I told her I'd be late, she said, "Oh, Steven. The kids haven't even seen you yet. I'd put them on the phone, but they're both over at Isabella's house right now."

"I know. I'm sorry," I said, then quickly moved on, not wanting to have that conversation yet again. "Can you get them their dinner, too? I'll try to be home in time to put them to bed."

"I suppose so," she sounded disappointed. "What's wrong this time?"

I started to tell her Phil's news, but she interrupted me before I got far.

"Pauline? Short? Mousey hair? A bit dumpy?"

I agreed, though her description was harsh.

She snorted. "I never liked that woman."

"You only met her twice."

"Yes. But I didn't like her either time."

"She was a friend," I said quietly.

"I don't imagine, then, that she betrayed you lightly."

Thinking of Pauline made my stomach clench, so I quickly filled her in with the rest of the story. She pretended she didn't understand all the modern-computer-talk, but I knew she knew much more than she let on.

"My poor boy," she said. "You've all worked so long on this project."

"It'll be okay." I said I'd call her later and I'd try my hardest to get home in time to see the kids before their dinner, but I couldn't guarantee it.

"Steven, they haven't seen you in nearly two weeks."

I winced. As a rule, whenever I had an urgent work situation I'd still go home and have dinner with the girls before putting them to bed. Then I'd either work from home or return to the office. But I knew I was too jet-lagged to work late and that I had a long day ahead of me.

"This is urgent, Mom. I *will *be home in time to put them to bed."

"I know you will."

We said our goodbyes, and I put down the phone and looked out my office windows. It was raining heavily outside, which didn't help my mood. I never expected to be living with my mom in my early forties, and she never expected to be living with me, playing mother to her grandchildren. We were both still trying to figure it out.

I watched as, one after the other, plump raindrops rolled down the outside of my office window.

*Drip. Drip. Drip.*

Gravity sucks.

I picked up my phone. I had time for one call before FPP's management meeting started.