Free The Good Provider by Debra Salonen Page A

else was going on with him—business pressures from his brothers or party pressures from National. Who knew? But he seemed very close to the breaking point.
    “Tell me about your life. How long were you married?”
    “Too long,” she said, only half joking. “During the early years, when Bruce was in business with his brothers—they own an import-export company—and was traveling all the time, we got along great. I loved being a stay-at-home mom with Miranda. The problems started when we couldn’t conceive a second child.” She shook her head. “Bruce had this image of himself as the patriarch of a big Italian family, like his father. I had a miscarriage and, although he tried to be supportive, I truly felt as though he blamed me.”
    Now, she looked back at that as a huge red flag, but she’d minimized their difficulties at the time. In part because her mother had passed away about then, and she was dealing with grief and issues of her own.
    “We separated for six weeks. Miranda and I spent some time in Santa Barbara with my dad after my mother died. I was seriously thinking about moving there, until Bruce showed up, tearful, sincere, begging for a second chance. His brother was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Doctors gave him six months. The family decided to back Bruce to fill his brother’s seat in the legislature.”
    She could still remember his pleas. “I can’t do this without you, Daria,” he’d begged. “I need my family behind me. Please. Please, come back. I promise to do better.”
    If only Dad hadn’t found someone to replace Mom so fast, Daria thought, not for the first time. Bitterness and confusion were two things that didn’t facilitate clear thinking. “I succumbed to pressure from both families. And Miranda, too. She loves her father, and she missed her cousins and friends. I gave it a second try. Hailey came along a year later, and Bruce was elected, fair and square, to his own term. He didn’t have to stand in his brother’s shadow anymore.”
    “So, when the legislature is in session, he lives in Sacramento?”
    “Yes. Those three hundred miles are probably the only reason I’ve stayed married as long as I have. Once he left for the week, I could pretend I was a single mother…more or less. Shocking, huh?”
    He shook his head. “Not to me. My parents have lived separately for most of their married lives.”
    “Really? You’re not just saying that to be nice?”
    He took another drink of wine then shook his head. She really liked his hair. It seemed determined not to look as neat and fastidious as he wanted to appear. “I’m not that creative.”
    “How did they meet? I’ve read a lot of books on relationships recently, and I’m fascinated by how much fate seems to play into things.”
    “Well, Mother was a medical student at Harvard when my father had a visiting fellowship in economics. It was the late sixties, and the sexual revolution was in full swing. My father was handsome and lonely. My mother was feeling adventurous. They had a semester-long fling that resulted in me.”
    “Oh.”
    He tossed out his hands. “They chose convention over abortion, for which I’m thankful.”
    She sensed a great deal more emotion behind his cavalier attitude than he wanted her to see. “Me, too,” was the only thing she could think to say.
    The awkwardness of the moment was relieved by Hailey who ran up them. “Mommy, Mommy, look at all my tickets!” she said, holding out a fistful of hot pink tickets. “Come see all the cool stuff we can buy. I wanna get something for Great-Grandpa Cal, but I don’t know if I have enough, and Miranda won’t share hers.”
    Daria glanced longingly at the wine carafe. Some days the competition between sisters got very old. To her surprise, William jumped to his feet. “Prizes? I didn’t know there were prizes. What say we buy some more tokens and grow that stash of tickets into something really substantial?”
    Hailey clapped