“My car will not be community property!” she said, sneering. She tried to push her way in and he blocked her. “God damn you, let me in. You can go to a hotel. Or your mother’s. Or go to the goddamn rectory for all I care.”

“Mom,” Drew said from behind her. “Stop it.”

Beau hadn’t seen him arrive. Since Pamela was parked in the drive, he’d parked in front of the house next door and had silently approached. “Drew!” she said. “Sweetheart, tell Beau this is my house and I’m coming home!”

“Pam, don’t put Drew in the middle of this,” Beau said. “It’s not the boys’ problem, it’s ours. Let him be.”

“But I want to come home and live with my son,” she said.

“I’ll take you down to the restaurant and we can have a cup of coffee or ice cream or something, talk things over, then you have to leave,” Drew said. “This is Beau’s house and he’s been really fair.”

“I don’t want an ice cream,” she snarled. “I want this house! How can you take his side? What’s he to you? He’s not your father. I had to beg him to take me on with two little boys but he was never your father. He can’t—”

Drew took a step toward her. “He wanted to adopt us, me and Michael, but our dads wouldn’t give permission. My ‘dad’ didn’t even come to my graduation.” He shook his head. “Mom, Beau is right. You left. I asked you not to leave—I had a feeling it was going to be the last time. You can’t just keep changing your mind.”

“Drew, you don’t have to—” Beau was going to say, Fight my battles, but he was cut off.

“Don’t get sucked into pity for poor Beau,” she said. “You have no idea how difficult and complicated marriage can be!”

Drew chuckled, but without humor. “Don’t I? I’ve been watching you and Beau since I was just a little kid and, Mom, I think everything in your life is complicated and difficult. I’m sorry it is. But this isn’t your house anymore and I’m not going to be quiet while you beat up on Beau. Beau’s been a good dad. And you don’t want to live with me. If you wanted to live with me, you wouldn’t have left.”

“Seriously? You’re taking his side? Over your own mother? This...this...stepfather who doesn’t care about his own wife?”

“Pam, don’t...”

“Yeah, I am,” Drew said. “Do you need me to help you get those bags back in the car?”

“Where do you expect me to go, since I’m denied my home?”

Drew stiffened and put his hands in his pockets. “I know you have somewhere to go. You probably have a lot of places you can go. But you gotta stop being so mean and so unfair. Beau was always good to us, good to all of us. I love you, Mom, but sometimes I really don’t like you.”

“Drew!” she gasped. “How can you say that? To me?”

“Michael might let you sleep on his couch,” Drew said.

“You are so ungrateful, Drew,” she said, turning on him now. “After all I’ve done for you, you side with the man who’s throwing me out in the street? He was a lousy husband, a useless stepfather, an unfaithful—”

“Come on, Mom,” Drew said, taking her arm. “Let me help you get these bags back in your car. You can scream at me for a while if it makes you feel better. Enough of this drama out on the street.”

Beau watched as Drew pulled Pamela to her car, watched as she shook him off and stomped her foot. But he didn’t watch long because he knew what was next. She would strike him and then cry and while he felt an overwhelming desire to protect Drew, Drew was a man now. Drew knew his mother and if Beau was exiting this marriage, he couldn’t be the buffer between Drew and his mother anymore.

He stood just inside the door for a moment, listening. He could not make out the words but clearly Pam was arguing with him. Loudly.

Beau sat on the sofa and hoped Drew would not have to endure too much of that but it was ten minutes before the door opened. How could anyone put their child in the middle of a disintegrating marriage? Even an eighteen-year-old child? It was unconscionable.

“Drew, I’m really sorry that happened. The last thing I want is for this to be hard on you.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“I think the craziness will die down before too long. I’m really proud of you, the way you handled yourself. You were calm and respectful and I know it must have been hard. Come on, we can—”

“I gotta be alone right now, if that’s okay. I don’t feel so good.”

“I understand,” Beau said. He sat back down on the couch.

But after a few minutes, he stood up again. Drew had acted so much the way Beau would, exactly the way Beau had taught him. Face your mother’s anger with calm, don’t lose your cool, it’s her temper not yours, the storm will pass. And now he was acting as Beau did.

Beau knocked on Drew’s door. The voice inviting him in was small and hurt. Drew sat cross-legged on the bed and his eyes were a little red.

Beau smiled at him. “You couldn’t be my son any more if we shared DNA,” he said to Drew. “You got through the whole ugly business with your dignity and now you’re sealed off, inside yourself, suffering. Just like I always have. But let’s not do that, Drew. Let’s talk it out. It’ll pass faster that way.”

“I’m not sure how,” Drew said miserably.

“Your mom has troubles,” Beau said. “I’m not sure what kind of troubles and if I could help her with it, I would. I’m sure you would, if you could. But you can’t. She’s mercurial and sometimes selfish. She’s probably going to be a handful forever. She attacks when what she really wants is to surrender and just be loved. Understanding that won’t help her, unfortunately. She’s got to help herself. And she never will until we stop picking up the pieces and giving in.”

“I hate when she’s mad,” Drew said. “Life would be so much better if she could just be happy. But she just can’t be happy. At least not for long.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Beau said. He sat down on the bed. “The hardest part, but the most important part, we have to remember we didn’t do anything to cause her pain or unhappiness. We have to try to let it be her problem.”

“Easier said than done,” Drew said.

“Tell me about it,” Beau agreed.

CHAPTER TEN

The rest of the week while Cassie visited Lauren was like a gift. Lauren thought it might be the last time her daughter came home like this, all by herself. She and Jeremy were now a couple. They might wait to get married but they would probably take their vacations and visit their friends and family as a pair from now on.

By the time Cassie had been in town for a couple of days, Lauren’s lip was less swollen and she was mostly able to conceal her bruises with makeup and dark glasses. Still, when they walked down the main street to grab lunch and do a little shopping, the waitress in the pub noticed and said, “Oh my word, sweetheart.” She leaned close and squinted.

Lauren just smiled and whispered, “Minor cosmetic surgery.”

“Well, darling, you didn’t need it!”

“That’s very nice, thank you,” she said. Then she smiled, a slightly lopsided smile.

Lacey joined them for lunch one day and they managed not to discuss the divorce, nor did the girls air their differences. But it wasn’t warm and loving. It was merely cordial.

Lauren and Cassie enjoyed the business district of Alameda together in the afternoons, checking out the shops, stopping at Stohl’s grocery for a few items for dinner, getting an ice cream cone for their walk home, then sitting out on the porch with glasses of wine in the late afternoon sun. They sat on wooden folding chairs that Lauren bought to accompany her kitchen dinette set.

“You need better chairs,” Cassie said. “Like maybe rocking chairs.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lauren said.

They waved at strangers who passed by; everyone in Alameda got out and about on sunny days. Neighbors jogged, pushed strollers, pulled kiddie wagons behind their bikes or just walked. The parking spaces along the main street in front of the shops and restaurants were always full, but Lauren couldn’t imagine ever taking her car four or five blocks for a glass of wine or burger, unless it was a driving rain.

“I have loved having you here for a visit,” she told Cassie. “The reason you came so suddenly and expensively, not so much. But just having you here? It’s wonderful. I’m sorry about your sister.”

“She’ll probably come around,” Cassie said. “When she figures out all this little mood is going to get her is Dad, she’ll probably rethink the whole thing.”

“She has a sweet side,” Lauren argued.

“As long as it suits her purposes,” Cassie said. “I wish we were close, but I’m not compromising with her anymore. She stepped over the line.”

“It worries me to think she might not know the difference between squabbling and abuse,” Lauren said. “Beth never approved of my marriage but she stuck by me. Your sister will need you someday. And there’s something you should know—I was more like Lacey than like you. I had a feeling I might be getting in over my head with your father, but I pushed it aside. He was so powerful, capable and rich. He’s helped Beth a lot. He offered to help my mother but she refused him.” She laughed at the memory. “Honey said, ‘How very sweet, Brad. No thank you.’ When he blustered she added, ‘Just give it to a charity.’ He was furious. But you know your father can be generous and charming when he wants to be.”

“I loved those times he was happy,” Cassie said. “Christmas parties, birthday parties, summer barbecues. I didn’t trust them, but I liked them. It’s just that all the stress leading up to the party was awful and after all the company left, he so often took a turn for the worse.”