[Thursday, June 17]

When Tami and Eric emerged from the bedroom in the morning, Mr. Taylor was retreating from the living room down the hall toward his bedroom with a blanket in one hand and a pillow in the other.

Eric watched him disappear. "She sent him to the couch," he said, his tone worried. "You've never done that."

"Maybe he sent himself." Tami put a comforting hand on his back. "You should talk to him."

"And what?" Eric asked. "Tell my own father how to handle his marriage?"

"Just bring up the fight and listen to what he has to say," Tami suggested.

Eric shook his head. "I can't even begin to imagine how that conversation would go."

"So what are you going to do? Pretend you don't know they're fighting?" Tami asked.

"Yes. That's precisely what I'm going to do. If he wants my advice, he'll ask for it. I told him all I knew to tell him Saturday anyway. When he did ask my advice. More or less."

"And what did you tell him?" Tami asked as they walked toward the kitchen. Tami started the coffee while Eric got out a pan and the bacon. He wasn't in training anymore, but he still ate a hearty meat breakfast. Tami typically snagged a slice of bacon or two herself.

"I told him it's hard when a baby is young. That it's tiring for both of you, especially when you're both working a lot, and sometimes you've just got to find a way to make time for each other." The bacon started sizzling in the pan. "And I told him about that one fight you and I had, when I spent the night at Stumpy's dorm. And then he told me that was foolish, and I should never let the sun go down on my wrath." He snickered. "Guess he didn't take his own advice." Then he frowned. "I really hope they're okay. Maybe you should talk to Karen."

"What, and give my step mother-in-law marriage advice?" Tami shot back sarcastically.

He flipped the bacon. "You know all that counseling mumbo jumbo."

"Mumbo jumbo?" Tami muttered as she drew down a coffee cup. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"I am confident in your ability, babe. That's why I'm suggesting you talk to her. I just mean I don't understand all that the way you do. It's Greek to me."

He fell silent as Karen came in the kitchen. She was dressed for success and looking quite put together, with Andrew on her hip. The baby was still rubbing sleep dust from his eyes. "Julie's still sound asleep," Karen told Tami. "I'm going to feed Andrew, and then I have to get going to classes."

Tami would not have gotten dressed before attempting to feed a nine month old, but she supposed Karen was more daring. At any rate, the woman miraculously made it through the adventure without having to change her clothes. Eric kept giving Tami suggestive looks as he ate his bacon, but she didn't say anything to Karen. Not yet. Tami didn't feel the time was right, with Andrew and Eric both right there, and the woman in a hurry to get out of the house.

Karen left Andrew strapped into the booster for the time being, as he was amused with cheerios, and filled a travel mug with coffee. "Y'all have a nice day," she said, "and Tami, thank you again for all of your help this summer. I don't know how we'd handle Garret's workload without you."

"Or your class load," Eric noted.

"Any of it," Karen said. "Before Andrew was born, Garret said he was going to be able to flex his schedule so we'd only need a nanny half-time, but the last one worked forty hours, and obviously we've needed Tami full-time too."

"Well I'm enjoying it," Tami assured her honestly. She'd needed a break from all of the studying and office work; as stressful as kids could sometimes be, spending time with Julie and Andrew in mindless activities had been a nice temporary change of pace for her.

Mr. Taylor entered the kitchen, wearing jeans and a short sleeve shirt and his heavy workboots. He greeted Andrew with a kiss, but when he leaned in to kiss his wife, she swirled away and walked toward the kitchen entryway, saying, "I'm headed out."

"When will you be home tonight?" Mr. Taylor called to her back.

"About 8:30," she told him as she grabbed her purse from the counter. "You know I have that big test on Friday. I have to meet my study group after classes. I'll just eat with them." Businesslike, she strutted out of the kitchen.

Mr. Taylor stood frowning by the coffee pot.

"Got some bacon left, Dad, if you want it," Eric said from where he sat at the table. His voice wavered with discomfort.

"I have to get to a job site." Mr. Taylor drew down a travel mug, filled it, and was gone.

Eric and Tami caught each other's eyes. Eric sighed. He stood, put his plate in the sink, and walked over and kissed her softly. "I love you," he whispered. "Tell Julie I love her when she wakes up. I've got to get to my program. I hope you have a good day."

"You too, sugar," she said.

"Not sure I will. I think we're doing another asinine team building exercise today. You have no idea how inane these certification classes are."

"Just a few more weeks," Tami reassured him. "And you'll be qualified to teach."

He laughed. "I don't know about qualified. But they'll let me teach anyway."

[*]

That afternoon, Mr. Taylor came home for lunch and kissed Andrew's head where the little one sat at the kitchen table. Tami had already strapped him in and was preparing separate, age-appropriate lunches for the two kids.

"Pwetty!" Julie exclaimed, pointing to the flowers Mr. Taylor was holding in a plastic shopping bag in one hand. "My flowers?"

"Grandma's," he said, kissing his granddaughter on the head. "But you can look at them all you like."

Mr. Taylor drew a glass vase out from under the sink and, on the nearby counter top, began cutting the stems to varying lengths and arranging the flowers rapidly and expertly inside the vase. He set them in an obviously visible spot.

"You could be a florist," Tami said. "Why are you so good at arranging flowers?"

"I dated for fifteen years. I've bought a lot of flowers in my time."

"Fifteen years?" Tami asked.

"I didn't date until Eric was three. Couldn't find the time for it."

"It must be great not to have to date anymore though, huh?" she asked. She'd learned to ask leading questions during her counseling practicum. She thought counselors and detectives must have something in common.

"I don't know," he said. "Dating was expensive, but it wasn't so bad. Women seemed to like me a great deal. They were always attentive. Always happy to make time for me."

Uh-oh, Tami thought.

He leaned back against the counter and looked at his son. "I'll feed Andrew," he said, and he did, between bites of his own sandwich.

After she'd refilled Julie's sippy cup for her, Tami sat down at the table and asked, "Did you have any serious relationships before Karen?" Given that he'd kept his dating life from his son, she wondered if he had. Everyone always put on their best face when they started dating. It wasn't until awhile in to it that you learned each other's flaws and had to come to grips with them, that you were forced to make meaningful compromises. Putting aside that mistaken night at the party when she was 15, Tami had only had two relationships in her life, but both had been serious. She thought if she had dated casually for many years, she might have become habituated to that initial high of being admired, of enjoying each other without much effort, and found it difficult to roll up her sleeves and do the work that maintaining a relationship required.

Mr. Taylor glanced at Julie. She wasn't quite two. She was more communicative than Andrew (who said only "ma ma" and "da da"), but she wasn't going to follow this conversation. Still, as Mr. Taylor seemed reluctant to speak in her presence, and Julie was finished with her lunch, Tami excused her from the table and told her she could go play in the living room. She'd been in the middle of a block building adventure when they started lunch. When she was gone, Mr. Taylor answered. "I dated one woman at a time. Some I dated longer than others, some not more than a few weeks, but I wasn't a playboy."

"I didn't think you were. I was just curious if Karen was your most serious dating relationship."

"Obviously. I married her. I'd say that's pretty serious."

Tami wasn't getting anywhere with this line of inquiry. She tried a more direct approach. "Did you ever come close to marrying anyone else?"

"So you're of Eric's opinion, then?"

"What?" she asked.

"That afternoon we were talking on the porch...he asked me if I just married the woman I happened to be dating when he left for college. If I'd been waiting for him to leave. If I would have married whoever I was dating at the time."

"Oh. No. I didn't...I didn't mean that. Did...would you have? Married whoever you happened to be dating at the time?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe. I was tired of being alone."

"Doesn't sound like the best reason to marry someone," Tami said.

"I never got past one date with a woman I wasn't attracted to. I never got past two dates with a woman I didn't respect. And I never got past three dates with a woman whose company I didn't regularly enjoy. So I don't see why I couldn't have married whoever I happened to be dating at the time. Are there better grounds for marriage than respect, attraction, and enjoying someone's company?"

"Love?"

"Well, I do love Karen."

"Compatibility?" Tami asked.

Here he did not immediately respond. He sort of nodded and stared absently at his son, who was making a "Voooom" sound with his lips while pushing a lone corn puff around his tray. He pointed to Andrew. "Right now, this is the one thing Karen and I have most in common."

"It's an important thing to have in common," Tami said. "I'd say it's a stronger bond than liking the same sports." "And you both have ambition in common. You're both ambitious personalities." When he didn't reply, she ventured, "I guess, though, that point of commonality can also breed conflict, when you're both pursuing your ambitions and trying to raise a child."

"Yeah. I guess so." He stood. "I need to get to work on some plans. Thank you for the sandwich." He cleared his plate.

When the kids were down for their afternoon naps - which for Julie was just vegging in front of a VHS tape of Looney Tunes cartoons - Tami grabbed a beer and dared to venture into the garage.

Mr. Taylor had music playing loudly on his boom box. He must have soundproofed the garage, because she hadn't heard it in the house. She clunked the beer down on his workbench, a few feet from the kitchen blueprints he was drawing up. "Thought you might like some nourishment," she said over the sound of the music.

He smiled. He slid the pen he was using behind his ear and turned off the music. "Thank you. Beer is very nourishing." He raised it to his lips and took a slow swig.

"Who's that?" she asked. "That you were listening to?"

"T-Bone Walker. Before your time I imagine."

"I took you for a country music fan."

"Texas blues more like."

"Does Karen like blues?" Tami asked.

With a slight smile, he shook his head. "Classical. And jazz. I hate jazz. Classical is okay for background music."

Tami thought it was time to tackled this head on. "I noticed you leaving the couch this morning."

Her father-in-law put down his beer, removed the pen from behind his ear, and busied himself with his blueprints.

Tami wasn't daunted by his refusal to engage. "I guess the work-family balance is never as easy as it seems. I know it wasn't for me and Eric either. I mean, you warned me I was biting off more than I could chew, but…" She shook her head. "Eric and I had our share of arguments over it, but we learned to talk things through, calmly. Listening to each other. Sharing our feelings."

"I'm a man, Tami. I don't have feelings."

"That's ridiculous, Garrett."

"Is it?" he asked, drawing a line against a ruler on his blueprint. "Tell that to my wife. She seems to think it's ridiculous I should have any feelings on the matter."

"Well, maybe if you talked about how you felt more calmly, and if you took the time to really listen to her first, about why this medical career is so important to her, and – "

He straightened up. "- May I ask you something, Tami?"

"Sure."

"Why do you imagine this is any of your business?"

"Well, Garrett, you're family. You're family and Andrew is my brother-in-law. So I think it is my business, actually."

He chuckled. "I imagine there's not much you don't consider to be your business."

"If you're trying to make me feel insulted so I get angry and back off, it isn't going to work."

"I'm not trying to do anything. I'm just making an observation." He went back to working on his blueprints, but, to Tami's surprise, he kept talking. "I knew Karen wanted to go to med school when we got married. I knew that was her plan. But I thought…I don't know. When Andrew came, I thought some motherly feeling would cause her to scale back and slow down. It did at first. But then…" He tossed the pen with a slap against his workbench and straightened.

"Then what?" Tami urged him.

He put a hand on either of his hips and looked at his plans instead of her. "She just went back to charging full steam ahead. And I know we discussed me flexing my schedule so I could be the parent who was home a bit more, but I didn't know I was going to be so successful here in Dallas, and now I feel like I'm finally achieving something, for the first time since I was dreaming of playing professional ball, I finally feel like I could do something great with my career. And also…." He tilted his head back and forth and sighed. "I'm also realizing that when it comes to these sorts of domestic things…well…I'm not nearly as enlightened as I imagined I was. I want Karen home more. Not just for Andrew, but for me. I miss her."

"Have you ever thought of telling her all this?" Tami asked softly. "You know, telling her honestly and openly how you really feel, instead of shouting about her schedule and accusing her of being a bad mother? Because that kind of puts her on the defensive."

He looked at her sharply. "What makes you think I accused her of being a bad mother?"

"We heard some shouting last night. I inferred from what I overheard – "

" –I didn't say that," Mr. Taylor insisted. "Though I suppose it might have been what she heard." He rubbed his eyes. "I just …I don't want to do this again. I don't want to raise another son practically alone."

"So tell her all this. Work out a compromise."

He smiled lightly, a smirk…affectionate or condescending, Tami couldn't quite tell. Maybe it was a little of both. "How old are you, Tami?"

"Twenty-two." That sounded horribly young to be giving advice, now that she had said it out loud. "I'll be twenty-three in five months."

"Twenty-two." He nodded and repeated, "twenty-two." He shook his head. "Well, I'll tell you what. I'm not young enough to know everything. So I guess I'd better listen to you."