She started to become responsible. Who could have guessed?
Ellie and Wendell were cautiously optimistic. Once Melissa got her head screwed on right, they figured, she could go back and finish school. If she did well enough, she might have a chance at college, Ellie mused one evening. Maybe she’d even think about becoming a veterinarian. Remember, she’d say to her husband, how when she was little, she said one day she’d love to work with animals and “For God’s sake, Ellie, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Wendell said.
Melissa would come over for dinner. Some of these get-togethers went better than others. One night, Melissa would tell them about how she was getting her life back on track, and her parents would nod and try to be encouraging. But another night, Ellie, anxious to see her daughter’s rehabilitation move with more speed, would start pushing. She’d tell her daughter it was time- now — to stop being nothing more than a waitress and get back to school and make something of herself. Did Melissa have any idea just how embarrassing it was for her mother, an employee of the board of education, to have a daughter who was a dropout? Who hadn’t even completed the eleventh grade? How long was she expected to wait to see her daughter get on a path where she would amount to something?
Then they’d start fighting and Melissa would storm out, but not before asking out loud how she’d managed to live in this house as long as she had without blowing her brains out.
It always took a few days for the dust to settle after a night like that.
Ellie and Wendell still kept their fingers crossed that Melissa, despite these occasional blowups, was growing up. She held on to her waitressing job. She was saving some money, mostly from tips. Fifty to sixty dollars a week, which was at least something. And one day, talking to her mother on the phone, she happened to mention that she’d been on a college website, looking at what qualifications you needed to enroll in the veterinary program.
Ellie was beside herself with joy when she told Wendell the news.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked. “She’s growing up, that’s what she’s doing. She’s growing up and thinking about the future.”
What neither Ellie or Wendell had counted on was that the immediate future would include a baby.
Melissa was already three months along when she broke the news to her parents. They did not, to say the least, take it well, but Wendell searched for a silver lining. Maybe this meant Melissa would get married. She was young to be a mother, but at least if she had a man in her life, a man who could look after her, wouldn’t that take some of the pressure off Ellie and him?
The man’s name was Lester Cody, and he was thirty years old. A Pancake Castle regular. Always ordered four frisbee-sized chocolate-chip pancakes with double syrup and a side of sausage, only 1,400 calories. (Melissa had ceased to be amazed at how many people liked to eat this stuff for dinner.) He was, not surprisingly, somewhat heftier than the average man, at two hundred and eighty, but there was encouraging news. He was a dentist. He drove a Lexus. He had his own clinic. He pulled down a hundred grand a year. And-best of all-he was not married.
Ellie felt herself coming unraveled. One day she’d tell Wendell their daughter was ruining her life, having a child so young, but the next she’d confess how excited she was at becoming a grandmother. “At my age, who’d believe I’m a granny?” she’d say. She’d have long discussions with her husband about whether it would be a boy or a girl, to which her husband would grumble, “One of those two, I suspect.” Then the next day she’d ramble on about Lester Cody, how he was really too old for Melissa, though he had a good job and could provide for their girl and their grandchild. But then Melissa dropped the bombshell that she really didn’t have any feelings for Lester, that he was nice enough and all, but she never imagined that she’d be married to a dentist. She’d met another man, who worked at the Cinnabon in the mall, and he was pretty cute, and not as fat as Lester, even though he could sneak as many frosted buns as he wanted. Ellie tried talking some sense into her daughter, telling her that if Lester Cody was interested in her, and could provide for her, then she’d be out of her mind not to invest in that relationship. Because, let’s face it, even if she wanted to go to veterinary college, she was going to have to complete her high school first, and how long was that going to take? Lester could probably get her a part-time job at the dental clinic after the baby came, answering phones and booking appointments and taking X-rays.
Melissa would scream at her mother to stay out of her life. And the next day, she’d call her up, asking for a lift to the doctor’s office for her ultrasound appointment.
In between all the hand-wringing and exorcising, Ellie Garfield resumed her knitting.
“This child is coming one way or another, and it’s going to need something to wear,” she said, and she would hold up half a sleeve and ask her husband what he thought of it.
It was more than Wendell Garfield could stand. Most times, in fact.
All this tension between his wife and daughter, the relentless discussions Ellie wanted to have with him about what their girl was going to do with her life. All this talk about the baby. How would Melissa manage? Would she marry Lester? Would he provide for the child even if Melissa didn’t want to share her life with him? Would Melissa keep her waitressing job at Pancake Castle after the baby was born?
Sometimes Ellie would do a one-eighty, and lash into Lester Cody as though he were in the house with them. “Thirty years old! Sleeping with a teenager! He took advantage of her, that’s what he did.”
The discussions. They never stopped.
Wendell Garfield wondered if it was all this that had driven him into the arms of Laci Harmon, or if it would have happened anyway.
Six
They both worked at the Home Depot, Wendell in plumbing most days, unless they were shorthanded in some other department, and Laci over in home lighting fixtures. They’d had coffee breaks together, talked about their families, the joys and-mostly-heartaches of raising kids. She had two boys aged fifteen and seventeen who did nothing but fight with one another. Laci confessed once, only half jokingly, that she wished they’d have one final no-holds-barred battle and kill each other.
Wendell laughed. He said he knew exactly how she felt.
He always found reasons to stroll through the lighting section.
Laci often seemed to be passing through the plumbing department.
It started with friendly teasing, then double entendres. When Laci wandered by, she’d narrow her eyes and say she needed help with her plumbing. When Garfield was over in light fixtures, he’d bump into Laci on purpose and say he wondered if she could help him keep his light switch in the up position.
All in fun, of course. Totally innocent. After all, they were both, from all indications, happily married. Wendell and Ellie had been together for twenty-one years. Laci and Trevor, an assistant bank manager in Bridgeport, had just celebrated their twenty-third anniversary. They’d caught the train into New York, checked into the Hyatt by Grand Central, and taken in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which Trevor, to his amazement, absolutely loved, even though he was not what you’d call a big fan of the drag queen community. It would have been a perfect getaway, except for when Laci took a beer from the minibar, and Trevor had a fit, telling her they could have gone to the closest grocery store and bought a six-pack for what that one beer was going to cost them. He wasn’t going to mention it when they checked out, see if they figured it out later and charged it to his Visa.
Which they did.
One day at work Wendell had been asked to assemble, for display purposes, a vinyl-sided utility shed. He was inside the nearly finished structure, tightening up some bolts to make sure the thing wouldn’t fall down in the wind, when Laci Harmon stepped inside, slid the door shut behind her, and placed his right hand on her left breast.