Chapter 28 - D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Murphy ran over and dove for her ringing phone, interrupting her brilliant thought. "Murphy Brown's office," she abruptly said into the receiver.

"Mom?"

"Avery?"

"It's me…are…doing?"

"You're breaking up."

"I…why…this is the first…Can you hear…"

"I feel like I'm in that phone commercial."

"Verizon?"

"NO! Are you okay?"

"Lisa…sick…" Their conversation ended with a click of the phone. Murphy couldn't believe it. The first she'd heard from her son, post-nuptuals, in over two weeks and she couldn't even hear him, which didn't lessen her worry one bit. Avery and Lisa had been on their Honeymoon when the small island they were staying at was hit with bad weather. They were supposed to arrive back home a week ago, but were forbidden to leave until the weather cleared. Needless to say, Murphy had been glued to the Weather channel every chance she got.

As she placed the phone back on the cradle, the others ran to her. Their questions all ran together. "Hold it!" She exclaimed, abruptly making them stop talking.

"What did he say, Murph?" Frank asked.

"Bad connection. I could hardly make out a thing. He sounds fine…"

Murphy's phone rang again. They all grabbed for it. Corky won. "Murphy Brown's office," she quickly blurted out.

"Mom?"

"It's him."

"Put him on speaker phone." Murphy demanded.

"How are you?" Frank asked.

"Can you hear me now?" Avery answered.

"Yes." Corky answered.

"Can you hear me?"

"YES!" They all screamed.

"Well, now I can't hear you. So just in case you're still there I'll let you know what's going on. We're okay, but the weather's been horrible. High winds and torrential rains for nearly a week now. We'll be leaving tomorrow. Weather permitting. Lisa's been sick for a few days now, but she's feeling a little better…"

"I'm fine, really." From the background, Lisa spoke for herself.

"No you're not!"

"Yes I am. Don't make them worry about me. God Avery! I'm fine."

"I'm sure as you can tell, we've had our first fight."

"Don't tell them that! And it wasn't a fight, Avery. You just don't have to go around telling everyone all of our business. The comment you made to that fisherman about wanting a divorce got back to me, you know."

"Divorce? I said no such thing. All I asked was where I could find another room. It's just, you were coughing so much. I thought I explained that."

"Great! The separate hotel room again. Why don't you just tell them we haven't had s…?" Before she could finish that statement, the phone went out again.

As the gang headed back to the table, their collective concern somewhat lessened. They all sat quietly in their respective chairs. "Well at least they're alive." Corky stated.

"Yeah. Aren't you relieved, Murphy?" Kay inquired.

With a look over her glasses at Kay, Murphy didn't say a word.

"She's thinking, Kay." Corky explained. "And I know what she's thinking about too." That sentence came out almost melodically with a cheshire grin to match.

"What?"

"How she's going to deal with the two of them fighting all the time?" Kay asked.

"Nope, that's not it." Corky answered.

"What then?" Frank piped in.

"Want to take another guess?" Corky returned.

"What is it Corky?"

"Fine. She's thinking about how…" Murphy started to explain, her hands crossed at her chest.

"How she's going to deal with a third person being brought into this equation." Corky interrupted and finished, now proud of herself for her astute observation. That'll teach Murphy to ask her in that smug, demeaning way to just get her to shut up, Hey Corky, what does the fox say?

"Bingo!"