“WHO’S HUNGRY?” I ASKED WHEN I returned home to find a group of famished boys in my kitchen.
Alex and his friends inhaled the pizzas. It never ceased to amaze me how much food teenage boys could consume. I snuck a slice of sausage, tomato, and olive onto a plate for myself and poured a pint of Der Keller’s winter ale. Mac had installed a beer fridge with four taps in the garage. We kept small kegs of Der Keller’s beer on tap for parties, family dinners, or unexpected guests.
“You guys need anything else?” I asked Alex and his friends, who had taken over the dining room table. Backpacks and soccer gear were piled in front of the fireplace. Textbooks, notebooks, and smartphones lined the table. The kitchen had always been my favorite, a sacred space in the house, with its high-beamed ceilings, wood-burning fireplace, and clapboard walls. Lately, it had lost some of its charm. Hearing the sound of the boys’ laughter helped remind me of what a happy place this used to be.
“Thanks, Mrs. Krause,” they called in unison.
They were a good group of kids. Most of them had known each other since they were in diapers. I was glad that Alex had a solid support system.
I left them to study and polish off the few remaining pieces of pizza. I went to my bedroom and made myself comfy on the couch. Our master bedroom was the size of a small house. It had a large bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a seating area with two plush chairs, a love seat, bookshelves, and a television. The seating area was arranged near the oversized windows that looked out onto the backyard. I rested my plate on my lap and turned on the TV. I wasn’t much of television person. More than anything because I’d never had time. Between my work at Der Keller, raising Alex, and always being ready to entertain last-minute guests Mac would bring home, I rarely had time to myself. That had changed. Now I had too much time on my hands.
I flipped the channel until I landed on the local news. The lead story was about Kristopher’s murder.
“Scandal rocks the beloved Bavarian village of Leavenworth, Washington,” a young reporter said with the intonation of a soap opera star. “I’m here live in the beer capital of the Pacific Northwest with Police Chief Meyers.” She thrust a microphone in Chief Meyers’s face and began bombarding her with questions.
Chief Meyers answered nearly every question with “I can’t talk about any details in an open investigation.” Her stern face was impassive, as was her body language. I could tell the young reporter was getting frustrated with the chief’s canned responses.
The journalist was from a Seattle news station. They had pulled old stock footage of Kristopher from ribbon-cutting ceremonies and more recent clips of him campaigning against beer and its many evils. I sat up and scooted closer to the screen when a grainy picture from the early nineties appeared. I paused the TV and replayed it three times.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. In the old footage, April Ablin was standing next to Kristopher. According to the reporter, the picture was from Kristopher’s first election. April must have been in her early twenties. She looked younger, but otherwise much the same. With one glaring difference. April wasn’t wearing a dirndl or a single piece of German clothing. In its place, she wore a T-shirt that read KRIS FOR COUNCIL.
April had not only known Kristopher for decades, but had supported his campaign? Had my initial reaction to her arrest been correct? She had obviously had some kind of relationship (either professional as a supporter of his campaign or maybe a friendship) with Kristopher. Why hadn’t she mentioned anything about it to me?
I watched for a few more minutes while the reporter shifted her focus to Leavenworth’s response to Kristopher’s controversial plan to ban alcohol. She cut to footage of the huge Oktoberfest crowds.
Forget it. Why am I getting involved in this? I thought, changing the channel. I didn’t owe April anything, and if she was withholding important details like the fact that she had campaigned for Kristopher, how could I trust her?
I landed on old reruns of The Brady Brunch—the perfect complement to eating my pizza and drinking my beer in peace. If only my concerns could be like those of the Brady family, who were entangled in a dispute over who had dibs on the attic bedroom. The Brady Bunch epitomized the idea of family when I was a kid. During stays at particularly challenging foster homes, I would imagine myself as one of the Brady clan.
When I finished my dinner, I went to check on the boys. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t a single crumb left in any of the pizza boxes.
“Anyone up for a dessert break?” I brought out the dessert pizzas and toppings.
The boys wasted no time making space for the dessert pies. They slathered sweet toppings on the crust. I baked the pizzas for ten minutes until the marshmallows, chocolate chunks, cookie dough, and caramel melted together in an oozing, bubbling, gooey lather.
“Careful, it’s hot,” I cautioned as I delivered the sugar bombs to the table.
Alex caught my eye. “Thanks, Mom, you’re the best.”
“Mrs. Krause is the best,” one of his friends echoed.
I made my exit. I wasn’t fishing for compliments. Knowing that my son had a stable childhood and that he felt protected and loved was my only mission in life.
I tried not to let angry thoughts at Mac creep in. When I had first caught him shagging the beer wench, I had been almost stoic. Fuming, yes. But I had been able to keep my emotions in check. As the weeks had worn on, however, I was finding it more difficult to maintain any level of calm, even at the thought of him. Hans had told me that what I was experiencing was normal. That I was moving through the stages of grief. He was probably right, but it didn’t make it any easier.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep because I woke to the sound of the front door shutting.
“Mom, you still awake?” I heard Alex call.
“Yeah. One sec.” I rubbed my eyes and walked down to the kitchen.
“You weren’t awake, Mom.” Alex knew me too well.
“I might have drifted off,” I admitted. “But I heard the guys leave.”
“Sorry. I told them to be quiet.”
“They were. Don’t worry.” In truth, I hadn’t slept soundly since the day Alex was born. I remembered many nights spent listening to his breathing pattern on the baby monitor and racing in to check on him at the slightest cough or sniffle. Some of my girlfriends used to complain about the sleepless nights with young babies. I never minded. My connection to Alex was the deepest form of love I had ever experienced. I welcomed the sleepless nights. They confirmed our bond.
“Go back to bed, Mom.” Alex loaded dishes in the dishwasher.
“How did studying go?”
“Good.” He rinsed a plate in the sink. “I feel good about it.”
His quick response alerted me that there was something he wasn’t telling me. I went around to the opposite side of the counter and pulled out a barstool. “Is there something else going on?” I asked, sitting down.
Alex kept his back to me. I had learned that it was easier for him if we didn’t maintain eye contact while having difficult conversations. “Dad asked me about my plans earlier.”
A chill ran down my spine. I pinched the top of my thigh to force my voice to remain neutral. “Oh yeah? Your plans for what?”
“For moving in with him.” Alex barely spoke above a whisper.
“Did you say ‘moving in with him’? Where? He’s staying at a hotel.” I felt like my insides were being ripped out.
Alex turned to me. “I know. He said he’s starting to look for a place. He wants me to come with him to give him feedback on which places I like, and then he asked what I wanted to do long term. Whether I want to stay and live with you or move in with him.”
Rage pulsed through my body. Why would Mac put Alex in the middle? We had already discussed this and decided that we were going to proceed slowly so as not to disrupt Alex’s school and social life. Alex had been staying with Mac at his hotel every few nights, and I had made it clear that Mac was welcome to see Alex as much as he wanted.
I’d been reading every book I could get my hands on about divorce and best practices for making the transition as painless as possible for teenagers. Everything I had read talked about the importance of not throwing the other parent under the bus. As much as I wanted to rail on Mac, I inhaled deeply and pinched my thigh harder.
“I hadn’t heard that Dad’s looking for a place. He and I were supposed to have dinner with Uncle Hans, but I postponed it so that I could be here tonight.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“No, I wanted to. I love getting to see your friends, and honestly, I was wiped out from the day.” I realized we hadn’t talked about Kristopher’s murder. Odds were good that news had hit the high school. The gossip mill didn’t miss much, not even schools in Leavenworth. I changed the subject momentarily to buy myself time before diving into the subject of Mac. “Did you hear about what happened to Kristopher Cooper?”
“Yeah, our poli sci teacher told us about it. That’s so crazy. He was killed, right?” Alex loaded dessert plates into the dishwasher.
I gave him a very condensed version.
“They think April killed him?” Alex scrunched his nose. Then he ripped a hunk off one last slice of the dessert pizza. “I mean, she’s kind of over the top, but you don’t think she could have done it, do you?”
“No,” I responded honestly. April wasn’t telling the truth about something, but I still didn’t think she could be the killer.
“Carly’s mom said that the newspapers and TV stations from Seattle are going to turn this into a circus.”
“I was watching the news earlier. They’re already in the village and reporting live from the scene of the crime.”
Alex shook his head. “Great. The one time it’s slow around here.”
“Exactly.” I had composed myself enough to continue the conversation about Mac. “Back to Dad, I support you in anything you want to do. If he’s looking for a more permanent place, you should definitely go check it out with him—if that’s what you want to do.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t meet my eyes.
“He and I will figure out the rest. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“I know.”
“No, really. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay?” I tried to make eye contact with him, but suddenly he appeared to be fixated with his slice of dessert pizza.
“Mom, I know. I know. I get that you don’t want me to worry or that you don’t want me to feel like I’m in the middle, but the thing is, I am in the middle.”
“But—” I started to respond.
He cut me off. “Mom, look. It’s just the way it is. Half my friends’ parents are already divorced. I’ve seen how it goes, and I appreciate that you and Dad aren’t being awful to each other, but I’m going to be in the middle.” This time he met my gaze. His eyes held a depth that nearly took my breath away. From a young age, Alex had been an old soul, wise, kind, with a deep inner knowing. My job as a parent was to give him the tools he needed to navigate adulthood and a soft shoulder to rest his head on.
I massaged my jaw. “You’re right, but my point is that we can follow your lead. You’re old enough to make your own decisions, and we will both respect that. By putting you in the middle, I mean neither of us are going to say it’s him or me.”
“Duh, I know.” Alex stuck out his tongue in an attempt to be funny.
I didn’t feel like laughing. I had known this issue was going to arise sooner or later, but I had put faith in the fact that it would be later. I couldn’t believe that Mac was looking at houses, but in his defense, he’d been at the hotel for weeks now. His move was going to force the issue.
Alex wrapped the half of a slice of dessert pizza in tin foil. “Dessert for my lunch tomorrow.”
“Too bad there aren’t any other leftovers.”
“It’s cool. Tomorrow is taco bar.”
I could tell that Alex was done with the conversation. I kissed him good night and dropped the subject. Now the odds of falling asleep again were definitely against me. Mac and I might not be on the best of terms, but there was no way I was letting him rope Alex into our problems.