Chapter 5
Despite Charlie's words, Don stuck close to home. He did his laundry and fielded two calls from his father. Archie hadn't been outside her and Charlie's bedroom all day, and Alan was growing increasingly anxious to talk to Charlie. Promising to call with any news, Don was just settling down to some serious channel surfing when he heard the front door open. He saw Charlie pass into the kitchen, heard the refrigerator open and close.
"Chocolate. Thanks. These are a little better."
Charlie wandered into the living room clutching one of the drinks Don had bought that morning. As Don was already on the couch, this time he took the chair.
Don looked at him. He looked tired — but more peaceful. "So it was okay. Being back on campus."
Charlie smiled a little. "It was. I have years of memories, there, good memories. That helps. I talked to some students. They seem ready for me to come back."
Don grinned. "Come on. I've seen you with students. I'm sure they're more than ready. Anxious."
Charlie emptied his drink. "Whatever." He tilted his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. "Definitely don't have the energy for full-time, yet. All I did was take a few stairs and sit in a lot of places — and then walked a few blocks to the park, and sat there. Saw a lot more students in the park. Anyway, I'm still exhausted. I'm going to ask Bruce at PT to work on my stamina, this week. I have another appointment with the doctor Friday, and I'm trying again for part-time clearance."
He opened his eyes and looked at Don. "I think I'll go alone, this time," he said seriously, and closed his eyes again.
Don drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. "Dad called a few times."
"Mmm."
"He was hoping we would come to the house for dinner."
Charlie was silent.
"You can't just pretend your wife doesn't exist. You should probably talk to her. Or something."
Charlie opened his eyes and regarded Don. "You giving me relationship advice, Donnie?"
Don was a little stung by that. Okay, he was a lot stung by that. He picked up the remote again and shrugged. "I'm going. You can come, or not."
Charlie shifted in the chair. "Sorry. That was a cheap shot."
Don shrugged. "About six, Dad said. You can use the bedroom if you need to rest for a while first."
"Okay," Charlie said, his eyes at half-mast, but he didn't move. Instead, his eyes slid all the way shut. After a few minutes, Don turned on the television. He kept the volume low, but loud enough to drown out his brother's occasional snore.
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Charlie slept in the chair for two hours, and was still going strong when Don woke him to get ready for dinner. Charlie insisted that a shower would wake him up, but he was still so quiet on the ride to his house that Don found himself looking over to see if he'd fallen asleep again.
"Leave me alone," Charlie muttered, looking out the window.
Great. Dinner would be all sorts of fun.
At the house, Alan had an array of casseroles. Comfort food.
"How many people are you expecting?", Charlie asked.
"I couldn't decide. Just take a little of everything. I'll freeze whatever is left."
Archie had joined them soon after they arrived, giving Don the customary peck on the cheek and taking her usual seat next to Charlie. The meal had been strangely silent for the Eppes clan, Charlie's contribution regulated to, "Please pass the salt"; Archie's to, "Wonderful tettrazini, Dad."
Eventually, Alan had enough. He stood and started clearing the table. Archie was still eating, but Alan took her plate anyway, startling her. "You two," he said, and everyone knew who he meant. "Take a walk."
"I'm tired," Charlie began sullenly, but Alan took a glass of water out of his hand.
"You can get as far as the koi pond, at least. Don and I will do the dishes."
Don thought about protesting, but Alan didn't look like he was in the mood to hear arguments. Besides, even with the dishwasher on the fritz, he'd rather be in the kitchen with his hands in a sink full of suds than banished to the koi pond, right now. He looked at Charlie. The mood he had been in all day, he thought his brother might actually refuse, but after a few seconds he stood from his chair and hung back, allowing Archie to head for the back door ahead of him.
Don didn't miss the look on his face as he passed.
Yeah. A sink full of suds sounded pretty good, right now.
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"I don't understand how you could tell the doctor that, without even talking to me about it first. It blindsided me. It hurts me, that you don't believe in me."
Archie concentrated on hanging on to her anger. She would not cave. She reached into the bucket of fish food and tossed a handful onto the pond. "You're not ready. You still have weeks — maybe months — of therapy ahead, and you're exhausted all the time. You might need more surgery on your arm. You're snappish, and short, and I know it's because you don't feel well. I only told him the truth."
He cradled his casted arm with the other against his stomach. "It surprises me how much you don't understand about me. That it energizes me, to be at work, on campus. What a positive difference it would make. I'd have more motivation, more reason to fight."
"So now I'm not enough motivation for you."
"Don't twist this. You've always known that I'm…different than most people. My work, it's so much of who I am. I lost that for a while, I got too involved in Don's cases and the mundane, but then I started working on the cognitive emergence project, getting back to my core, and it … it was like going home. It excites me, my work. And you destroyed it. First you destroyed my chances to go back to school, even part-time, and then you destroyed my work in the garage. How could you do that? When I saw those boards, and that everything was erased — it was like being shot, again. It hurt that much."
In spite of her resolve, she winced. "I didn't know it was that important. I just wanted you to rest more, get better faster." She found her anger, again. "Besides, my home gym has been in storage since we got married. You promised I could have some room in the garage. Then you were hurt, and I knew you couldn't do it, so I was just trying to carve out a little space."
Charlie looked out at the setting sun. "Maybe…maybe we need some time apart."
Wait. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. She had let him spend the night with Don, thinking he would cool off a little. But when Don had called to say they were coming for dinner, her heart had lightened. She had thought Charlie was coming home to stay with her, not coming home to tell her this. She grew a little frantic. "I won't leave the house." It was all she could think of.
His voice grew bitter. "Fine. Stay in my house, with my Dad. Eat the meals my father cooks for you before and after you go to work for my brother. Anything else I can do for you?"
Her hand shot out. The sound of the slap sounded like thunder in the night.
Oh, God.
There was no justification for that, hitting someone you loved, in anger. None. She hadn't done that. She couldn't quite comprehend that she'd done that.
His hand reached for his face and his eyes flashed his own anger, deepened with hurt. Without another word, he turned and left the koi pond.
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Standing side-by-side at the sink, Don washing, Alan drying, they heard the front door slam, feet running up the stairs.
Don looked at his father. "That can't be good. Sounded like only one pair of feet."
"Maybe he was carrying her?" Alan remembered his son's back problems and more recent physical limitations and reconsidered. "Or she was carrying him?"
Before Don could respond, Charlie's ringtone sounded on his cell. He thrust his hip at his father. "Dad, get that, will you? It's Charlie. My hands are kind-of wet, here."
Alan quickly dried his own and plucked the phone off Don's belt. "Charlie? Where are you?" He frowned. "What do you mean, in Don's SUV? What are you doing out there?"
Alan wandered away from the sink and Don heard his voice grow stern. "No, I will not tell him that. We just heard your wife run upstairs. Poor girl went all the way around the house and used the front door so that she didn't have to see us. You need to…"
Charlie must have interrupted him. When Alan started talking again, his voice was even harder.
"Charles Edward. This is not who your mother and I raised you to be. We didn't teach you to quit things, especially not something as important as marriage. You have responsibilities, now, and I will not hear any more about it. This has gone on long enough."
Don turned from the sink, drying his own hands. His Dad really looked angry.
"Charlie? Charlie!"
Alan stared at the phone as if it had grown appendages, then looked at Don. "He hung up on me."
Don mentally measured the distance between them and decided to risk it. "You were pretty hard on him. He was calling from the car?"
Alan dropped the phone on the kitchen table, disgusted. "He's being childish. He said to tell you he would wait for you there. Then, before he hung up, he said he would walk."
Don looked at the floor. "I'm sorry, Dad. I know this isn't going the way you planned."
Alan put his hands on his hips. "Just go," he said. "I can finish, here. He can't walk all the way to your apartment." He crossed the kitchen and sighed in frustration as he plunged his hands into the water. "Go after your brother."