Mrs. Ann Buchwald knocked on the door of room 219 at the Long Night Inn. She was there in response to a telephone call from Victoria. The last time Victoria had spoken in such a tension-filled voice to her was when Sid had been rushed to a hospital as a result of food poisoning. She didn't know what had happened, but it had to be pretty bad.
When Victoria opened the door, Mrs. Buchwald took one look at the woman and knew it wasn't good. It was late Friday night and Victoria was wearing her charcoal grey business suit. She understood how Victoria used clothes like a suit of armor to keep everyone at arm's length. If she was wearing her business suit, she was in a mood to take names and kick asses.
"Hello, Victoria."
"Hello, Ann," Victoria replied in a tight voice. "Please come in."
"Thank you," Ann said.
"Please, have a seat," Victoria said while pointing to one of the two chairs in the room.
It was a standard hotel room with a single queen sized bed, a small desk set, a table, and two chairs. There was a television hidden in a cabinet. The chairs were actually pretty comfortable compared to those she encountered in most hotels. It wasn't a particularly intimate setting, but she hadn't sought out the room for intimacy. It had been her intention to find a place to hide, cry, and perhaps get a little rest. Now that Ann was here, she wanted it to be a little more formal so that it would inhibit her emotions.
Victoria said, "After I called you, I ordered a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, they didn't bring proper glasses. I hope you don't mind drinking wine out of plastic coffee cups."
"That's fine," Ann said.
Ann realized the situation had to be really bad. When Victoria was tense, her manners became even more formal than normal. She didn't fail to observe the tray of cheese, crackers, and fruit slices on the small table. Victoria was assuring that she could control the conversation through subtle polite manipulation of the situation. While taking a seat, she watched Victoria fuss around with pouring the wine into the plastic coffee cups. Her motions were tight and jerky.
While pouring the second cup of wine, Victoria said, "I'm sorry to have called you so late at night, but I didn't know of anyone else I could call."
The sad fact was that she had been tempted to go to the next door neighbor, but while leaving the house she had seen a woman working in the garden. She didn't recognize the woman. It was only then that she remembered Susan had moved out a year ago as a result of a divorce. It was a shame because she didn't even know the cause of the divorce. At one time the two women had been close. They used to have coffee together in the mornings when the kids were younger. She hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to Susan. Seeing a stranger living next door had driven home the point that Victoria didn't know anyone she could call on a crisis except for the wife of her boss.
Holding out the plastic cup, Victoria said, "Here you go."
"Thank you," Ann said while accepting the cup of wine. She took a small sip and said, "A nice sweet dessert wine."
Victoria took a sip of wine without taking a seat in the second chair. She paced in the small area at the foot of the bed like a tiger in a cage. Ann watched her jagged movements wondering what could have upset the young woman so much. Her inability to stay still, the ever decreasing path being taken, and the crudeness of her movements suggested that she was anxious and tense, but slowly pulling her thoughts together. It was almost tiring to watch.
"What's the matter, Victoria?"
"My husband told me he wanted a divorce," Victoria answered.
She managed to get it out without crying. She was rather proud of herself. Fifteen minutes ago she burst into tears just thinking about it.
Taking a chance that she could get more of the story out without losing control of her emotions, she added, "Actually, he didn't ask for one. He set the kids up to tell me that they wanted me out of the house. Can you imagine the nerve of that bastard to use the kids for something like that? They weren't even nice about it. They were downright nasty. John must have been proud of them.
"You should have heard the way they called me mother. It was like they had turned it into an insult. I couldn't believe the kinds of things that they said. Each sentence was punctuated with 'Mother' spoken as an insult. It was so bad that I actually wanted them to stop calling me mother.
"When I tried to send the kids to their rooms, they told me that they wouldn't go. Davy just told me no. Can you believe that? My mother would have knocked me into the next room if I had ever done that. They had the gall to tell me that I didn't have the right to tell them what to do. I'm their mother for crying out loud!
"John must be letting them run wild. They would never have done that when I was at home. They were even drinking wine at the dinner table as if they were miniature adults. To think that I trusted that man to raise my kids. What a mistake that was!
"When I started to talk at the kids, they just ignored me. I was furious and John was sitting there doing nothing at all. Have you ever heard of anything like that? Parents are supposed to work together to raise kids and he left me hanging. He made me look like an ogre.
"Rosie even called me a bitch. My little baby called me a bitch. I'll tell you something, I was really tempted to show them what a bitch could be like.
"When I confronted John about it, he told me that he agreed with them. Can you imagine the nerve of that bastard? He basically said that he was ready to kick me out of my own house. I pay the damned mortgage on it. If anyone goes, it will be him. I know who is the primary wage earner in that house and it isn't him."
The rant continued for an additional ten minutes although nothing new was covered. Ann watched Victoria complain about the kids drinking alcohol, running wild in the kitchen, and making plans as if she wasn't even there. It appeared that Victoria wasn't going to slow down or stop anytime in the near future.
"Victoria!"
"I really expected to get more support from John than that. I mean, telling me that he agreed with the kids. My mother would have taken a frying pan to my dad's skull if he ever did something like that," Victoria said. She was on the verge of screaming out her rage.
"Victoria!"
Victoria paused and asked, "What?"
"Sit down and drink your wine. You aren't making any sense," Ann said.
Realizing that she had lost control over her emotions, Victoria went over to the other chair and sat down. She took a long drink from her cup of wine. She then sat there rigid and thin lipped.
"Finish your glass of wine and then take another one," Ann said.
Ann waited until Victoria drank down her glass of wine and then refilled it before she said, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Yes," Victoria answered.
"Why do you call your son, Davy?"
"I've always called him that," Victoria answered surprised by the question.
Ann said, "He's sixteen years old and wants to be called by an adult name. To him, Davy sounds childish. People have been calling him David for two years."
"Really?" Victoria asked wondering how she had missed that little bit of information.
"Yes really. I guess you aren't aware that Rose recently asked people to stop calling her Rosie," Ann said.
"Why would she do that?" Victoria asked.
"Rosie is the name of an obnoxious ignorant fat cow who appears on daytime television," Ann answered phrasing her description exactly how Rose had phrased her opinion of the woman.
"Is she some sort of cartoon character?" Victoria asked.
"No. She's a real person," Ann answered. "According to Rose, she's a real jerk."
"I didn't know that," Victoria said.
"You did know that David is president of the computer club at school," Ann said.
"No," Victoria said.
His membership in the computer club didn't exactly surprise her. John was a wizard at computers and had probably handed off a lot of his knowledge to David. Based on his behavior that evening, she was surprised to learn that he had a leadership role.
"Did you know that Lisa is on the track team?" Ann asked.
"I didn't know that," Victoria answered.
"Did you know that Rose was in the gifted and talented program earlier this summer? She spent two weeks at a computer camp," Ann said.
"She was?" Victoria said trying to remember if anyone had mentioned that to her. She couldn't recall anything of that nature being mentioned.
"Did you know that all three of them won prizes for their canned foods at the county fair last year?"
"Canned foods?"
Ann shook her head and said, "You know, preserving food for the winter. Things like canned peaches, pears, applesauce, and various fruit jams. John gave me a jar of peach jam that was out of this world. Their jam won first place. He and the kids made it from some peaches that they picked out at some farm."
"They do that?" Victoria asked.
She seemed to recall them mentioning John's Farm several times lately. It sounded like some kind of pick your own farm. She had never heard of it, but that wasn't surprising. Her trips kept her from keeping up with businesses in the area.
"It seems to me that you don't know much about your own kids," Ann said pointedly.
Taken aback by the accusation, Victoria asked, "How do you know so much?"
Ann answered, "I have had several long talks with John over the past year. We got to talking at the Christmas Party. Since then, we have met several times. He tells me all about the kids and what they're doing. He's very proud of them. I would be proud of them if they were my kids."
"That doesn't change the fact that they acted like spoiled little monsters and want me gone," Victoria said.
Ann said, "I'm fifty seven years old and there are a lot of things I've forgotten. Even though it was forty three years ago, I remember my first period like it was yesterday. That's something a woman never forgets. Do you know where Lisa was when she had her first period?"
"She's started her period?" Victoria asked.
It suddenly felt like there was a snake crawling through her belly. She couldn't believe that her little girl was having periods. She wondered who told her about feminine products and how to use them.
"Yes. John called me to ask some advice on what he should tell her," Ann said. "I told him to have Lisa talk to the school nurse. It was the stupidest advice I've ever given a person. If I had been thinking, I would have gone over there and talked to her myself."
"She's started her period," Victoria said in a soft voice. "Where was I?"
"You were on a trip with Sid," Ann answered.
Victoria sat in her chair staring at a spot in the middle of the floor. She had no idea her little girl had undergone that important transformation into becoming an adult woman. In a very soft voice, she said, "I should have been there."
"I'm not going to argue with you on that one," Ann said. "There have been quite a few events in their lives that you've missed."
"You might be right," Victoria said.
"You haven't been very communicative with your family either."
"What do you mean?" Victoria asked defensively. "I talk to them."
"Communication is a two way street. You not only have to talk; you have to listen," Ann said.
The kid's suggestions that she should listen to John came back to haunt her. It dawned on her that they may have had a point. She listened to her boss, but others listened to her because she spoke with his authority. She wondered if she had brought that attitude home with her.
"You never told your husband about Sid's cancer. I was shocked when I mentioned it to him and he told me that you had never told him about it," Ann said.
"That's very personal information about Sid. It is none of John's business," Victoria said primly. She was used to treating all of Sid's business with absolute discretion. If a person had no business knowing something about him, they would never learn it from her.
Ann snorted and said, "You're traveling five days a week with a man and you don't think your husband deserves the peace of mind that would come from knowing the man you are traveling with is impotent?"
"Now that you put it that way," Victoria said.
"Did you ever think that he might be sitting at home wondering what you and Sid are doing in those hotel rooms far from home?" Ann asked.
"No," Victoria said thinking that her husband should trust her enough not to suspect anything of that nature.
"What is your sex life like with your husband?" Ann asked.
"That's personal," Victoria said.
Ann said, "You don't need to answer. I can guess. He's probably lucky if he gets you one night a week."
"Maybe that's so," Victoria said.
She hadn't given the matter much thought except for how much she looked forward to Saturday nights at home. Usually she was too tired on Friday nights to do anything. They usually had some quiet time Saturday nights unless there was some sort of event they had to attend or it was her time of the month. She usually flew out on Sundays.
Ann said, "Victoria, I'll let you in on a little secret. I attended a barbecue your husband threw a couple of weeks ago. It was attended by a bunch of the neighborhood kids who are friends with your kids. John asked me if I would like to help him chaperone since he felt that he wasn't going to be able to ride herd on a dozen hormonally driven teenagers."
"He told me about that barbecue and that he had invited you," Victoria said.
"Your daughters were trying to fix John up with every single woman in the neighborhood. Let me tell you something, those women were interested," Ann said.
She had been rather surprised that a couple of the women even bothered to wear clothes. They were doing everything in their power to have John notice them. A woman doesn't drop her son off at a party wearing a very small bikini covered by a very sheer bathing suit wrap without having some ulterior motive in mind.
"Why would my daughters do that?" Victoria asked.
Ann said, "Sid will probably kill me for saying this, but your kids want a mother."
"They have one," Victoria protested.
"No they don't. You aren't there to be a mother to them. Out of sight, out of mind, and you are no longer their mother," Ann said.
"I'm a good mother," Victoria said.
Ann shook her head. She said, "I'll say the words that would never come out of John's mouth. You are a lousy wife and mother. You have put your job ahead of your family."
"I can't give up my job. We'd lose the house. I'm the primary wage earner in the house," Victoria said.
"Are you sure about that?" Ann asked.
"Yes. John runs a little software company. He's the only employee. He can't be making much," Victoria answered.
Ann asked, "Do you mind if I get very personal here for a minute?"
She was sure that Victoria truly believed she was the primary wage earner in the family. Ann didn't quite buy that. It seemed to her that John was spending a lot more money than Victoria knew about. He had once casually mentioned that he had paid cash for the SUV and truck. She suspected that they kept their finances separate and Victoria had no clue how much money John earned.
"Go ahead," Victoria answered.
"How do you two manage your money?" Ann asked.
Victoria answered, "I have an account that I use for my expenses. John has an account that he uses for his expenses. He also has a business account. We have a joint account for use in maintaining the house. We each contribute three thousand dollars a month to it. It has more than we need to cover the bills so that we can take care of any emergency repairs that might be needed."
Ann said, "So you really don't know how much money John has."
"Well, I'm making over ninety thousand a year. I'm pretty sure he isn't doing that well," Victoria said.
"I wouldn't be too confident about that," Ann said.
Ann knew that John wrote computer games. She was fully aware the computer game market was worth billions of dollars. Even a small share of that market would be worth millions. She had a feeling that John was worth a whole lot more than Victoria could even imagine.
"He's not a businessman, he's a programmer," Victoria said.
Ann asked, "Has he ever told you that you didn't need to work?"
"He tells me that all the time," Victoria answered dismissively.
She remembered back to the early days of their marriage. They had three kids, one in diapers, and they were living in a larger house than they could actually afford. He was barely making forty-eight thousand dollars a year doing contract programming. Money was always tight. They had to plan every expenditure months in advance.
There had been the time the dishwasher had broken. She had to wash dishes by hand for two months before they could afford to replace it. Every unexpected expense had sent her into tears. A car repair was a major financial disaster.
The few years before she had returned to work their financial situation had been a little better, but they still had to be careful with money. It had seemed like they were on easy street when she started working. Her starting salary as a PA had been almost as much as he had been making. Her pay had risen significantly over the years.
Almost from the day she got her job, the money fights had begun. John questioned how much money she was spending on business clothes. She questioned how much money he spent on computers. The arguments had gotten quite vocal until they had separated their finances. It has been a short-term solution to end the money fights. As long as each one was putting three thousand a month into the joint account, neither one had a right to question the expenditures of the other.
"You might want to ask him why he says that," Ann said.
Victoria picked up the plate of cheese and asked, "Would you care for some snacks?"
Ignoring the question, Ann said, "Sid was thirty seven when he was diagnosed with cancer. I remember the day he came back from the doctor and told me the diagnosis. I was sure that I was going to be a widow, but I did my best to put a brave face for him. I told him that we'd get through it together, but I was actually thinking that he was a dead man. Our boys were thirteen and fourteen at the time. I kept wondering how they were going to deal with losing their father.
"You can't imagine how horrible of a disease cancer is. The treatment is pure torture. He started treatment before we even had a chance to come to grips with the fact that he was ill. I was still in a state of shock when he went into surgery and the doctors removed his testicles. I didn't even think about the consequences of the surgery. I was more concerned with keeping him alive.
"They performed some tests and then, two weeks later, he was back under the knife so they could remove some of the lymph nodes. He hadn't even healed from the first surgery. There were problems and he suffered some nerve damage. Half of his penis has no feeling and we were concerned for a while that he might end up incontinent.
"Then it was chemotherapy. In essence they poisoned him in the hopes that the cancer cells would die before too many cells of some important organ died and killed him. It was two years of treatment and recovery before he was ready to return to work.
"Two years without an income and medical bills that would challenge the budget of a small state destroyed us financially. We had to declare bankruptcy while he was still undergoing chemotherapy. I don't know how Sid managed to survive. He was sick as a dog and losing everything.
"Losing the house tore our family apart. The boys went to live with Sid's parents while we lived with my parents. I was working, but my wages were nothing compared to the bills. It was a struggle to buy new shoes for the boys and they were growing like weeds at the time.
"If a man ever had cause to decide that he had lost his masculinity, then Sid was the one. Think of it. He had lost his balls, he was rendered impotent, he was broke, he was unemployed, and he was so weak that he could barely stand on his own two feet. Most men would have given up, but not my Sid.
"He rented a small six by eight closet that he called an office inside of a warehouse owned by a friend of his for the grand price of a dollar a month. It gave him a business address and a place to store stuff. He started bidding on jobs for the government. It took a while, but he won a contract for fifty thousand dollars.
"That man worked every minute of every day. The money came in slowly, but it did come. We rented a house and became a family once again. The boys were sixteen and seventeen when we moved into the rental house. I cherished every year that we lived in that house as a family. I cried like a baby when my oldest son left for college.
"It took Sid three years to pay off all of our debts. Two years later he bought a house for us. He put both boys through college. I still don't know how he managed it. He started with less than nothing except a strong desire to provide for his family. No challenge was too great for him.
"I think that God helps those who help themselves. The business grew and Sid stayed busy. He started hiring people and pursuing bigger contracts. His business expanded to the point where he needed a personal assistant to help him keep track of things. That's when he hired you.
"My life with Sid isn't all peaches and cream. I am left at home alone for most of the year. You know how much he travels for his business. I also miss making love to him, but cancer took that. Of course, that is nothing compared to the fact that he is still in my life. I can't imagine anything better than falling asleep in his arms. I love him and I know that he loves me.
"I can't complain about how things have turned out. He is working to provide a retirement nest egg for us. He wants to retire in a couple of years and take me on a cruise around the world. He feels that he owes me that in payment for the lean times. He doesn't, but I can't convince him of that."
Ann fell silent and stared at the plate of cheese that Victoria was still holding. She struggled a moment to get control of her emotions. She didn't want to cry. Her story wasn't a sad story.
"That is a heart wrenching story," Victoria said nearly on the verge of tears.
"I told it to you for a reason," Ann said.
"What reason?" Victoria asked.
"I want you to quit your job," Ann answered. "The one thing that I learned going through cancer with Sid is that family is everything.
"You've lost touch with your family and you need to reconnect with them. Your children need you. Sure they're angry at you for the moment, but never doubt that they need you. Your husband needs you. You might be angry at him, but there is no way he can condone how you abandoned your family."
Still thinking about the money she earned, Victoria said, "I don't know if I can quit."
"You have to quit if you want to keep your family," Ann said.
"What will Sid do?" Victoria asked.
Ann answered, "I think he can hire a replacement PA. I've even got the perfect candidate in mind."
"Who?" Victoria asked curious about the identify of Ann's replacement for her. She mentally reviewed all of the people who worked at the company and couldn't come up with a single candidate.
Ann reached out and took a cube of cheese. She popped it in her mouth and chewed it. She washed it down with a sip of wine.
"Me," Ann said.
"You?"
"Yes, me. Your situation makes me believe that I've failed Sid as a wife and I have to correct that."
Shocked, Victoria asked, "How could you have failed him as a wife?"
"I abandoned him. He was left fighting for us all alone. He was out there working and I was back here twiddling my thumbs. I think it is time that I took a greater interest in his life. I can't imagine a better way of doing that than by joining him in his business," Ann said.
A plan was forming in her mind that would allow her to join her husband in his endeavors. There were a lot of advantages to working with him. The most important one was that she would spend every night falling asleep in the arms of her husband. That was worth more than any salary she could earn.
With visions of the house being sold out from under her, Victoria said, "I don't think I can quit. We have the house payment."
"Don't worry about the house payment. Here's what you are going to do," Ann said. "You are going to stay here in this hotel until Sunday..."
Interrupting, Victoria asked, "What? You don't want me to go home yet?"
"No. You are too emotional. You'll either end up crying or screaming. If you cry, John will soften what he tells you and you'll never understand the seriousness of the situation. If you start screaming, all communication will come to an end. You need to be calm and willing to listen," Ann said.
Victoria said, "I guess I can go home Sunday."
"No. Sunday you will fly out with Sid and me," Ann said.
"That doesn't get me back with my family," Victoria said.
Ann said, "It is a big step towards reuniting you with your family."
"I don't understand," Victoria said.
"You need to spend some time thinking about what is important to you. You have to think about what it would be like to go through the rest of your life without your family. You have to decide if your salary is so important to you that you are willing to move into a condominium somewhere and live the rest of your life alone. You have to decide what price you are willing to pay to stay in the lives of your children and in the bed of your husband.
"I can assure you that you won't be ready to talk to John in two days. You'll be lucky if you'll be ready in a month."
"A month?"
"While you are working through your issues, you can train me on how to be a PA," Ann said. She sat back in her chair and smiled at the younger woman.
Although she didn't like what Ann had to say, Victoria realized that she made good sense. She was pretty sure that she'd tear John apart if she were to talk to him in her current mood. She decided to follow the advice of the older woman.
"I guess I better call John and let him know our plans," Victoria said.
"No. I'll call him," Ann said.
She had no intention of telling John all of the details Victoria had shared with her. He needed to know what was going on with Victoria, but he didn't need to hear it from her. Sid was going to spend a day with John. She'd let the two men talk in the manner of men.
"I don't know about that. I think I should be the one who calls him," Victoria said.
"Trust me. You aren't ready to talk to him."
"Why do you say that?" Victoria asked.
Pointing to the plate with cheese, Ann said, "If you twist that plastic plate any more than that, you're going to break it in half."
Snap.