Worthy Opponents

“You’re getting a divorce,” she said quietly. He searched her face to see if she was heartbroken, but she didn’t look surprised or upset. He thought Maureen had told her and didn’t warn him.

“Yes.” He had made the decision to divorce and not just separate in the past few days. Maureen agreed. “Your mom told you?”

“No, Dad. She didn’t. It’s been coming for a long time. I’ve been expecting it since I was about fourteen. It’ll be better. Can I stay with you when I come home?”

“Don’t you want to stay with your mother? It’s your home.” He was surprised by her question.

“I can go back and forth. Mom and I fight a lot. She thinks I’m on your side, and I guess I am. She’s so mean to you.” And she often was to Jenny too. It struck him as sad that there were sides at all.

“I don’t want to tell Zack till he comes home,” he said, and Jenny nodded. She was tall with jet-black hair like his, and she had his smile and blue eyes. It was all so reasonable. “You don’t have to take sides, Jen. None of this is your fault. Our marriage just died a long time ago. I wasn’t home enough, for any of you.”

“You were busy, and you were great to us when you came home. Don’t let Mom tell you that you weren’t. She’s always mad at something or someone. She’s an unhappy person. Maybe this will be good for her. She’ll have to figure out her own life and stop blaming you for everything.” Jenny was fair about it, and he was impressed by how mature she was and how well she had taken the news.

“I hope you like the apartment. There’s a gym and a pool in the building.”

“I don’t care what there is or if we live in a barn. I love you, Dad.” She kissed his cheek and hugged him, and he smiled with tears in his eyes. Not over what he’d lost. Over what he’d gained. It had gone so much better than he had expected. His daughter was terrific. He had always known that, and now she’d proven it to him.

Over dinner that night, Jenny asked him about what had happened with his plan to invest in Brooke’s.

“It didn’t work out. The owner doesn’t want to give up control or sell it. I don’t blame her, it’s a cool place.” Jennifer looked disappointed.

“I was hoping I’d get a discount. I love that store.”

“Me too.” He smiled at her, thinking of Spencer. He would have liked to introduce Jenny to her.

Mike and Jenny spent a nice evening together, and he felt relieved when he left her. She was solidly on her feet and well grounded. She didn’t say it, but he had the feeling she was relieved about the divorce too. It was more honest than the lie he and Maureen had been living for years, which didn’t fool anyone, not even the children. He was glad he had come to tell her in person, and they had had some time together. It was always quality time with her.

He slept all the way back to New York and felt energized when he got back to the apartment. He unpacked all the clothes he had brought there and hung the four paintings Maureen had let him take. He put the photographs around the apartment, and the place looked a little more lived-in. It all still felt very new. A new chapter of his life had started. He hoped it would be a good one. He had learned from past mistakes. Now he wanted Zack to come home, so they could be a family again.





Chapter 8


Spencer continued to use the makeshift office in the basement of the store. The workmen were around all day. She checked their progress regularly, asked questions, sought out the contractor, and made constant decisions about what to keep in terms of design and what to change. It was a perfect opportunity to refresh everything.

She brought in the architect to make some changes to the restaurant and the top floor. The smell of smoke on the lower floors was gone within a week. The merchandise had been aired, and only a few things were too damaged to repair. Spencer had cleaning crews working throughout the building. Within three weeks, it looked more like a remodel than the aftermath of a fire. Spencer didn’t want to go overboard, but she wanted no evidence of the trauma the store had been through to remain.

She walked around the store in overalls and working boots and a hard hat, with a clipboard, and Paul Trask followed her with a list of the estimates they’d signed and the bills they’d received. The restoration of the store was costing a fortune, but it was going to be beautiful, and Spencer was doing all she could to keep the costs down. Insurance was paying for most of it, but there was still a margin of expenses that fell into the no-man’s-land between the insurance and what they had to pay for themselves, and there were a lot of those items.

Paul sat down in her office with her one day, to pursue their earlier conversations.

“We still need investment money, Spencer. The work we’re doing now is costing a fortune and we’re missing two months of sales, with the store closed.”

“We can’t open with construction still going on, someone will get injured and we’ll wind up in a lawsuit.”

Paul had already contacted a firm to help set up their clothing online for purchase. They had shelved the idea of an annex for now. As far as Spencer was concerned, a move was out of the question, and far too expensive. The neighborhood was dicey, but they had lived with it for this long and would continue to do so. The threat of losing control of the business entirely and selling a majority investment to someone was everything she wanted to avoid. She thought of Mike Weston occasionally and wondered how he was doing. She was sure he was making fabulous investments that were far more profitable than his investment in her store would have been. She had no remorse about turning him down. It had been the right thing for her and for the store. Paul had reminded her several times that Mike Weston had been their only option, and she reminded him each time that it had been no option at all and was the wrong one for them. It had been plain to her.

She supervised every inch of the work and pitched in occasionally. The energy she demonstrated to all inspired others to do the same. Spencer had never shirked hard work or even manual labor. She was tireless. With everyone helping, they managed to open the store a week earlier than promised, and it looked better than ever.

Mike had settled in to his apartment and Jenny was due home from her internship in July and wanted to stay with him. Maureen wasn’t pleased about it, but she could hardly forbid Jenny, now twenty, to stay with her father. They had heard from Zack, and he was back in Paris. He wanted to take a short class at the Louvre, and was promising to be home by the first week in July, and he told his father that he was ready to go back to school and that as soon as he got home he’d apply for January. Mike wasn’t sure how serious he was, but Zack was in good spirits and enjoying the last of his nearly yearlong odyssey. His two friends were coming home too. One of them had renewed his acceptance at NYU and would be going to school there, and the other was going to work for his father for a year while he decided what to do next.

Mike was just about to leave the office at six o’clock, earlier than usual, when he got a call on his cell phone from one of Zack’s traveling partners. It was midnight in Paris, and Luke’s voice was shaking. All three boys had turned nineteen while they were traveling and none of them seemed more grown up to Mike than when they left. He could tell from the sound of Luke’s voice that something terrible had happened and was praying that he hadn’t called to tell him that Zack was dead.

“Is Zack okay? What happened?” Mike asked. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

“Yes, sort of. He had a biking accident. He got hit by a bus. He’s in the hospital.”

“A bus?” Mike’s heart pounded. “Is he conscious?” Mike asked as he sat back down at his desk with shaking legs, fearing a brain injury.

“Yes, he’s conscious,” Luke assured him.

“Was he wearing a helmet?”