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Kelly Richards recognized the envelope at the top of the mail at once: heavy, cream stock, with a firm name and address embossed in blue in the upper left corner. Even the addressee was embossed. How did anyone do that these days? Most of her mail, what few pieces she got, was clearly computer generated.
More importantly, what did her in-laws’ firm want with her son?
She closed the metal box, once more vowing to zap it with a strong bug spray to decimate the nest of whatever was growing in the far corner, and headed up the walkway and stairs to her glass-fronted house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Once she entered, she tossed Peter’s envelope on the gleaming table by the front door and took the rest of the mail with her to the kitchen. Whatever her in-laws wanted could wait.
From the noise coming from the upstairs, Peter and his friend Jake were heavily into some action video game. She should probably nudge them outside. The pool begged for swimmers this late May afternoon. But the outdoors had never drawn seventeen-year-old Peter. He much preferred a dark room and a gleaming screen.
He was his father’s clone.
As usual when Kelly thought of her late husband, her heart ached. The pain was growing less over time, but it was still there. They thought they’d had forever, but a faulty heart valve had taken John late last summer when he was coming home from work. Fortunately, he’d been pulled off the road, talking on the phone to one of his hedge fund clients, no doubt.
A flash of irritation sparked through her as she pulled the iced tea pitcher from the refrigerator. Over the years, John’s clients had taken a top priority in their lives, ahead of her, and even ahead of the children. Oh, he’d loved them, she was sure of that, but a client phone call or a trip across the continent to New York to meet with one of them always took priority. She’d asked him more than once to get a dedicated phone for work so she could reach him more easily, but he’d always said a second phone was more trouble than it was worth.
Kelly shrugged off the memories and took her tea out to the backyard, giving a small glance to the gleaming baby grand in the living room. The cleaning lady had done a good job with it today. Not a speck of dust on the black surface.
Outside, she sank into one of the Adirondack chairs that surrounded a firepit beyond the pool. A soft breeze cooled her skin as she stared out at the water. By this time in the school year she was exhausted, and she needed these moments to let all the noise and drama of teaching middle school music seep away. By and large, her students were good kids. They were in music because they wanted to be, like she had been. At least she didn’t have reams of homework to correct or artwork to evaluate like her friend, Gail.
Her brain nibbled on the envelope sitting on the front table. What did they want with Peter? Had John put something in motion before he died? Or was it just his parents’ doing? They’d never particularly liked her, although they thought her of suitable breeding for their son, at least on her father’s side.
Kelly had actually heard herself discussed in exactly those terms when she’d first been dating John. She’d thought it hysterically funny then, but over the decades the joke became stale. His family was Beacon Hill Boston, with family dating back to the Mayflower and relatives serving in Boston and Massachusetts politics, either in office or manipulating it from behind the scenes. They were part of the upper crust memorialized in an old toast: “The Lowells talk to the Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God.” Kelly had met plenty of Lowells, Cabots, and Kennedys at the Richards’ parties, although the Kennedys were only allowed because Ted had been a powerful influence before his death.
She’d been grateful when John had been offered, and he’d accepted, a job on the West Coast. Kelly didn’t want their daughter, Lisa, brought up in the constricted society of his in-laws and her parents. Kelly’s mother, despite being raised in Montana, could out-Boston the matrons.
A group of brown pelicans skimmed low across the water below. Kelly took a deep breath. She loved the ocean—water of any kind, really. Her best memories had been of summers at her grandmother’s house on a lake in Montana. She’d learned to kayak in those waters, enjoying the solitude away from her parents and anyone else who wanted to disrupt her dreams. It had been there, out on that mountain lake, that she first realized she wanted to be a concert pianist. She’d imagined herself in a gorgeous gown, her auburn hair in a stylish updo, sitting down before a hushed audience to play the opening notes of the Moonlight Sonata.
There’d been a boy in Montana—Ryan. He was older, and she’d definitely had feelings for him. He’d been sweet to her, and he was the only one she’d told her dream to. With a smile, he’d told her he’d be the first one to buy a ticket to see her play.
Even now, sitting beneath the California sun almost three decades later, she could feel the peace and happiness that being around Ryan had given her.
But her parents had declared she needed to get on with her life. They’d held a party in her honor for her sixteenth birthday, presenting her to people she needed to know.
None of her friends had been invited.
Kelly drained the last of her ice tea, the cubes clinking against the glass. Then she hoisted herself up and headed back to the house. Dinner needed starting; she had to prepare for the next day’s class and make sure Peter had done his English and history homework along with his math.
ONCE PETER’S FRIEND left, Kelly checked on his homework status. As befitted a senior who’d already gotten into Boston College, there wasn’t much. “There’s a letter for you on the front table,” she said after he put the settings on the counter dividing the kitchen from the rest of the living area. After John died, and with Lisa at college most of the year, they’d taken to eating here rather than bothering with the dining room.
“Mom!” Peter yelled as he stood before her, waving the letter in his hand. “I’ve got an internship for the summer. At Dad’s company.”
“What? I didn’t know you were applying.” The serving spoon thudded back into the casserole dish.
“I didn’t really. Grandfather said not to say anything until it was a done deal.”
I bet.
“But you can’t go,” she said. “We’ve got our city trip planned—San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York.” She’d designed the trip especially around things he liked: museums, aquariums, zoos.
“Mom, this is really important. Grandfather says it can give me a real leg up when I start looking for work.”
“You aren’t getting a job for another four years. This is the last summer we have together.”
“I know, Mom. And I’m sorry. Maybe we can see New York at Christmastime. I’ll have a whole month off. We can see the tree, the shops, and go to all the museums. It’ll be fun.”
Even by then Peter would have new friends and a new view of life. He just didn’t know it yet. Once Lisa had gone, she came home only for short spurts. After she’d gotten a boyfriend last fall, even those had fallen off. She’d declared him “the one” and spent all her spare time with his family in San Francisco.
Now Peter was going. Soon she would be alone in this big, rambling, gleaming house with ten years to go before she could even think about early retirement.
“Mom, don’t look like that. It’s not the end of the world.”
“You’re putting me out of a job,” she said, forcing a smile. She was being melodramatic, but the looming loss hurt more than she’d anticipated. “I’ll have to join that organization: Mothers Whose Children Have Left Home.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“There should be.”
“It won’t be that bad,” he said, laying the letter on the counter. “You can have wild parties and stay up all night.”
“I didn’t even do that when I was your age.”
“Well, you can find out what it’s like.” He gave her his best smile.
Her son had learned how to cajole her at an early age.
She picked up the spoon, doled out the casserole she’d made, and placed the plates on the counter. “Dinner is served. So tell me about this internship.”
“You’ll let me go?”
“I haven’t said that yet. I’ve already started making reservations for our trip. All of that is going to have to be undone.”
“I’m sorry. But this is really important to me.” And he launched off into a description of all the things he thought he’d be doing.
Reality was probably going to be more reined in, but she’d let his grandparents dim his enthusiasm.
The ache in her heart from John’s death cracked open again. Her son was really going to leave. And she was going to let him. She’d always put her children first, and that wasn’t going to change. If Boston was what he wanted, she would let him go.
She stared at the stainless steel appliances and white counters. This house hadn’t been her choice. She’d gone along with John, as she always did. Maybe her son did have an element of wisdom. It might be time to find out what her life was all about. She’d set it aside to have a family, but now her time was all hers. John was gone; it was time to start cleaning out his things. Maybe she’d downsize, sell the house, get a smaller one somewhere like Redondo Beach.
She was on her own now. All she had to decide was what kind of life she wanted to live.
