Free Playing the Hand You're Dealt by Trice Hickman Page A

push-pull kind of coexistence.
    But I had to accept some of the blame because I wasn’t around as much as I should have been during my kids’ early years.Working seventy hours a week didn’t leave much time to bond. But when I did spend time with Jeffery and Sam, I tried to make it count.We’d go on picnics in the park, or just throw a blanket down in the backyard and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Brenda thought I should’ve done something more culturally enriching with them. But after Jack and Jill, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, museum tours, and every other type of social activity Brenda squeezed into their hectic little schedules, I figured they needed a break to just be kids and hang out with their dad.
    Looking back, I wish I had spent more time with them, especially my son. Maybe if I’d been around for Jeffery he wouldn’t have turned into the angry, bitter person he is today. Sam said that he confided in her right before he moved to Paris eight years ago that he was distancing himself from the family because of Brenda. But again, some of the blame rested on my shoulders as well. I felt a lot of regret when I thought about my son, but I was a man who knew that I couldn’t change what had already been done. I just had to move on and deal with the here and now.
    Dealing with the here and now meant that I needed to accept my current situation. Emily would be under my roof for what could be several weeks, and that meant I had to obey the rules I’d always followed with her, the two Cs . . . careful caution.

Chapter 6
    Brenda . . .
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    He Should Appreciate Her More
    Â 
    B renda propped her head up on one of her fluffy pillows and adjusted her body under the comfort of her luxurious sateen bed sheets. With carefree ease, she flipped the channel with the remote until she landed on HGTV. She nestled in, preparing to watch one of her favorite interior designers dispense decorating tips, when she heard the thud of her husband’s footsteps coming up the stairs. She sighed, slightly annoyed because she knew that once Ed entered the room he would ask her to turn the channel to MSNBC. She hated MSNBC!
    Brenda watched her husband as he walked toward the bed, noticing that he looked more preoccupied than usual.The last few weeks had been hectic for him, leading up to a big trial he’d been working on for months.
    â€œHow was your day?” she asked, not bothering to turn down the volume on the TV or miss a single word of the designer’s presentation. She was ever the multitasker.
    Ed looked down at his watch. “Long, and tiring.”
    â€œMine, too,” Brenda sighed, thinking about the exhausting day she’d had. After rising at eleven that morning, she read the Style section of the previous day’s newspaper, then took a long shower before getting dressed. She lunched at Clyde’s with her sister, Dorothy, then headed down the street to the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa for her weekly hair appointment, facial, manicure, and full body massage. After that, she whisked over to Saks Jandel and picked up a dress she’d special ordered before jetting off to the Corcoran Gallery, arriving in just enough time to conduct a docent tour. Afterward, she briefly dropped by the house to welcome her daughter’s best friend to town, then she was off to an evening board meeting for her sorority.
    No one knows all the things I do in the course of a day, Brenda thought as she looked at her husband. Keeping her beautiful house in perfect order, making sure that Ed was well cared for, maintaining her personal appearance through well-managed care, and being a social butterfly, volunteer, and organizer were no small feats! “It takes talent to hold this fabulous life together while making it all look so effortless,” she’d told Porscha, her skilled massage therapist at the Red Door Spa, during her session earlier that day.