Dawn Atkins - Home to Harmony

“Teenagers,” Christine finally said into the awkward silence. Heads nodded. Forks clicked, water glasses clinked.

“Kids are so out of control these days,” Lisa Manwell said. “It’s shameful. My sister’s teens rule the house.”

Christine bit her tongue to keep from suggesting Lisa try a stroll in her sister’s Free Spirits before she criticized her.

“Since Socrates, adults have thought kids ran wild and parents were lax,” Aurora said, winking at Christine. “That’s how you know you’re old, when you start saying, kids today….”

Lisa sniffed at the insult.

“David’s a good kid,” Aurora said.

“Thank you.” Christine was touched by her mother’s kindness. Aurora really was trying to do what they’d agreed—support Christine’s parenting of David.

“He’s at loose ends out here in the country,” she said. “So let him drive, Crystal. Where’s the harm?”

Lord. So much for Aurora’s good intentions. “How about if I get the dessert?” Christine said, happy to escape to the kitchen. Marcus stood and began gathering plates.

Taking a knife from the cupboard to slice the cinnamon carrot bread, she noticed the phone was missing its handset. The cord stretched around the corner into her office alcove.

David sat on the floor there, knees up, back to her, his voice low and fervent. “I’ve got to see you. I’m so alone here. Christine’s such a…she’s so… Exactly. Controlling. I hate her.”

Christine’s cheeks stung, as if she’d been slapped. He didn’t really mean that, but it still hurt. She tried to back away without being seen, but when he saw her, she knew she had to say something about the rule. “You already called today. You need to hang up.”

He covered the phone and gave her a desperate look. “This is all I have. Do you want me to go psycho?” He said into the phone, “Yeah, she’s making me hang up. I’m sorry. ’Bye.” He jerked to his feet, charged around the corner and slammed down the receiver. “Are you happy? You made my life a complete hell.”

Marcus was slicing the bread, so he’d heard.

“I’m simply asking you to keep your word, David.”

“No, you’re not. You hate Brigitte and you want to break us up. You can cut me off from everyone I care about, but you can’t change me. I’ll never be your perfect son with straight As and straight friends, on the student freaking council.”

“That’s not what I want and you know it.”

His eyes flashed with a hatred that scared her. “I don’t have to stay here, you know. I can leave.”

“That wouldn’t solve anything.” This was the first time he’d threatened to run away and it terrified her.

“If I found my father it would.”

“What?” Skip was the last thing David needed at the moment. Angry, flaky and mean, Skip would break David’s heart for sure.

“Just because you won’t look for him, doesn’t mean I can’t.” Skip’s bad credit history meant he never had a listed number, thank God, but still…

“That’s not what you want, David,” she said as kindly as she could manage.

“You don’t know what I want.” He brushed past her, pausing when he noticed Marcus holding the tray of bread, then barreled out the back door.

She wanted to go after him, but she knew better. David needed to cool off before they talked. Talked. Right. It had become a pointless exercise. He stonewalled every question. Christine fought despair.

“I can take over,” she said to Marcus, putting her hands beneath the tray, enjoying the comfort of his warm fingers for an instant. She liked that his face showed neither pity nor embarrassment over the outburst.

Together they served the dessert and when it was over started on the dishes, since cooking means cleanup was a commune rule. She tried to stay cheerful, but David’s anger was wearing her down. She’d begun to become discouraged.

“I’m sorry you heard that fight,” she said, glancing at Marcus. “Living with his father would be a disaster for David.”

“‘The grass always seems greener…’”

“More folk-saying therapy?” She couldn’t quite smile. “You probably think it’s bad that I won’t let him see his father, but if you knew Skip…”

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me, Christine.”

“He would break David’s heart.” She scrubbed fiercely at the plate she was cleaning, then plopped it into the rinsing sink so hard that water splashed Marcus’s face. “Sorry, sorry.” She brushed away the drops from his smooth cheek.

“I’m fine, Christine,” he said, low and reassuring, catching her hand in his.

The touch felt so good, she just stood there letting him hold her hand and look into her eyes, sending calm all the way through her.

She blew out a breath, then went back to the dishes, more gently this time. “Skip calls now and then, drunk or stoned, wanting to connect with David. I used to set up a day and time for him, but he always bailed. Thank God I never told David in advance. The man is an overgrown child, so distractible, with a scary temper—” She wiped a blob of lentils from a plate.

“Lately, I just let the machine take his calls.” A month before, he’d left her his most recent number and address.

She paused for Marcus to comment, but he kept rinsing and stacking, allowing her to fill the silence if she chose.

“Even if Skip did show up, he’d throw out pie-in-the-sky promises, then break them. David is too vulnerable now.”

She stopped washing and turned to him. “Don’t you think waiting until he’s eighteen is better? He’ll have more maturity to put the hurt in perspective and by then he’ll be done hating me.” She managed a half smile.

“Are you asking for my professional opinion again?”

“Would you give it to me? In an emergency?”

“I’m in no position to give advice,” he said. A shadow crossed his face and she realized her request disturbed him more than he had let on. “Want to hand me those?” he said, indicating the dishes she’d let pile up while she talked.

She wanted to ask him about that, but he was sending out leave-it-alone signals like mad, so she stuck to the dishes, glancing at him now and then. He had such a strong face—straight nose, solid jaw and a great mouth, sensual and masculine. His hair brushed his collar, as if he’d been too busy for a haircut and he smelled of a lime aftershave with a hint of sandalwood.

His presence calmed her, as well as the slow, sure movements of his strong hands. He was so quiet. “If I didn’t talk, would you ever break the silence?” she finally said.

“Excuse me?” He stopped rinsing and looked at her.

“You hardly ever talk,” she said.

“When I need to, I do.”

“So is it that after all those years of listening to people bitch and moan, you’ve had enough?”

His mouth twitched. She’d amused him. That felt like a prize.

“Meanwhile, I hate silence. I say whatever comes into my head. I’m probably annoying the hell out of you, huh?”

“No. I enjoy you. Kitchen duty is flying by.”

“That’s flattering. I’m more amusing than greasy plates.”

He laughed, looking almost boyish. “I didn’t mean it quite like that, no.”

“You have a great laugh,” she said. “You should do it more.”

He pondered that. “You think I’m too serious?”

“At times, I guess. But I like how you are, Marcus.” She touched his forearm and felt another, stronger frisson of desire. “You’re…soothing.”

“I soothe you?” He lifted an eyebrow, looking wry. “That’s not exactly flattering, either.”

“Well, you have other effects on me, too,” she said softly, moving closer. “The opposite of soothing.”

“I see.” Heat sparked in his eyes, but only for an instant. Then his eyes went sad, almost haunted, and she sucked in a breath. Something awful had happened to Marcus. She wondered if she’d ever find out what it was.

MARCUS LEFT THE KITCHEN as soon as the dishes were done, saying he needed to work on his book, but he was clearly avoiding more sexual byplay or, perhaps, thoughts of the old hurt he’d remembered. Possibly his ex-wife?

What if he withdrew altogether? Christine would hate that. He provided the only spice and spark to her time at Harmony House. Dammit. For all its thrills, sex could be such a pain. If she lost Marcus’s friendship because of her stupid libido…

What did he think about her anyway? Men were a puzzle to her. Maybe because she’d never really known her father and had only Harmony House’s hippies and drifters as examples of manhood. There was Bogie, of course, who was sweet, but mostly a ghost in her life.

Her first sex with Dylan had confused and kind of scared her. After that came Skip, a smooth operator who’d promised much and given little, then one, two, three more screwups before she finally learned her lesson—hold back her heart, stick with short-term fun and friendship.

She didn’t blame her past or anything. She’d screwed up all on her own. But she wished to hell she was better with men.

Christine closed the last cupboard and sighed. Time to try to talk with David.

Outside the front door, the porch smelled of sun-scorched wood, reminding her of summer, returning wet and shivery from a swim in the river to dig into a slice of watermelon warm from the garden, spitting seeds at the other kids, letting the juice run down her chin, not caring about being neat at all.

The porch, with its rockers, wooden swing and cable spool tables had always been a popular hangout for talk, cards, music or watching people play Frisbee or dance in the yard.

“Nice night.” Aurora’s voice, from a rocking chair, startled her out of her reverie.

“Yes, it is.”

“Where you headed?” her mother asked, sipping iced tea, the ice cubes rattling gently in her glass.

“To check on David. We had an argument.”

“I’d leave him be if I were you.”

Christine bit back a sharp response. Aurora had hardly been Parent of the Year and now she was dishing out advice? Christine forced down her spike of outrage and sank into the fabric hammock for a moment. Now was as good a time as any to update Aurora on the clay works.

Organizing her thoughts, she ran her hands over the colorful braids that formed the hammock. “I recognize this cloth. Where’s it from?”

“It used to be my bedspread. Bogie made the hammock. He can make you one if you like. He does that for people.”

“Maybe we could sell them. Handcrafted at a commune? I bet the gift shops where we’re placing our ceramics would buy tons.”

Her mother chuckled. “You are a slave to profit. David’s right.” She was in a good mood at least.

“We all have our gifts.” Christine fingered the familiar cloth, lost in memory for a moment. She’d loved her mother’s bed, the smell of vanilla and patchouli, the orange light through the Indian-print curtains on the window.

“I liked your waterbed…the way it jiggled. You used to tell me stories sometimes.” When Aurora allowed it, Christine would cuddle up to her, toying with her mother’s thick braid while Aurora talked and talked.

“You and your endless questions,” Aurora said. “You were relentless.”

“They were mostly about my father,” she said, remembering vividly. “You would never tell me much about him.”

“It wasn’t relevant.” She locked gazes with Christine. “Do you tell David all about Skip?”

“Skip is a train wreck. My father was a good man.” A police officer who died in the line of duty when Christine was three.