The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) (49 page)

I, of course, would pull him up, where he would crush me in an embrace.
 

“Oh Becca, my darling, my love. Can you ever forgive me?”
 

Then, once I’d forgiven him, Kayla and Jordan would come in. Kayla’s hair would be perfectly combed and pulled back, despite the early hour. And Jordan would be apologetic for her behavior from the night before, and her teenage attitude would completely dissolve as well.
 

“I'll be happy to eat whatever you've made for breakfast, Mommy,” Kayla would say.

“And after breakfast, I’ll clean up my dishes and tidy my room, too,” Jordan would add.

It was perfect. I popped my eyes open and couldn’t stop the smile that formed.

Well, it might be a little over the top, but there wasn’t any harm in wishing for perfection. Even if my morning went a little bit like that, it would be great. And there’s no way I could have a bad day if it started so well. It was so simple. Why hadn’t I tried it before?
 

I poured myself a cup of steaming coffee and inhaled the aroma. It was going to be a great day.

“What are you doing, Mommy?”
 

Startled, I splashed some coffee on my bare toe. I put my mug down with a bit more force than necessary, sloshing even more coffee on the counter and hopped on one foot, turning to see Kayla standing in front of me.
 

Her hair was matted in the back and sticking up in the impossibly strange angles that only her hair seemed capable of first thing in the morning.
 

Apparently, I hadn’t worked hard enough on that part of the visualization. Oh well, it was only a small detail. Kayla’s hair wasn’t going to derail me from what was going to be a great day.
 

“I was just waiting here for you to wake up, sweetie.” I bent down to kiss her on the cheek. “Did you have a good sleep?”

Kayla nodded. “Yeah, but I’m hungry. What’s for breakfast?”

I smiled.
 

“I thought we’d have scrambled eggs and bacon today. Your favorite.”

Kayla was guaranteed to agree to her favorite breakfast. So what if I stacked the odds in my favor a little bit? After all, this was all about having a good day.

“No.”
 

“No?”

“No. I hate scrambled eggs. I want pancakes.”

“Kayla, you love scrambled eggs. Just last week, you told me they were your favorite.”

“Not anymore. Pancakes are my favorite. I want pancakes.”

I sighed, squeezed my eyes tight for a moment and quickly modified the visualization. I could adjust. I was an adaptable woman. Such a small detail would not throw me.
 

I opened my eyes and pasted a huge smile on my face. My cheeks hurt from stretching. “Sure. Pancakes it is. It’ll take a few minutes; why don’t you go watch cartoons until it’s time to eat?”

Kayla didn’t need to be asked twice. She turned and ran for the living room.

I looked at the clock. There was no time for homemade so I pulled a box of mix from the cupboard. Aunt Jemima would have to do today. I got to work mixing up the batter, and while I worked, I returned to the image of Jon begging for forgiveness. That part of my plan was bound to go right. Especially if I made him breakfast, too. He would see what an excellent wife and mother I was and would fall to his knees admitting how wrong he’d been, telling me he didn’t mean anything that he said. How could he not?

Giving the box a shake, I added more mix to the bowl. It was better to have too much than not enough. Plopping the box down in a cloud of flour, I stopped in the middle of stirring.
 

The box.
 

Shit.
 

He’d know they weren’t homemade. What kind of perfect wife doesn’t make pancakes from scratch?
 

My hands started to shake and my eyes darted to the door. Jon was going to wake up soon. There was no way I had all the ingredients to make anything from scratch. Even if I did, I didn’t have the first idea how to do it. Kitchen skills were not my strength.
 

In a flash of brilliance, I dropped the spoon in the bowl and raced to the drawer where I kept the baking supplies. It was actually a drawer with a bunch of odds and ends, since not much baking ever happened in my kitchen. Keeping an ear out for Jon, I grabbed anything that remotely resembled a tool that could be used to bake something.
 

Measuring cups, spoons, and a whisk.
 

But they were clean. Baking tools should never be clean. I threw them in the sink, went to the fridge and grabbed the carton of eggs. I cracked a half a dozen or so on top of the tools, took the box of pancake mix and poured some onto the egg mixture, creating a gooey paste. Inspired, and on a roll, I shook some more mix over the counter and smeared some on my face before burying the box at the bottom of the garbage bin.
 

There. Now Jon would be impressed.
 

Everything was still going according to plan. After my quick thinking, I finished mixing the batter, heated the griddle, and scooped out four perfect circles onto the hot surface. I poured myself another cup of coffee and put a fresh pot on so Jon would be able to smell it when he walked in.

He would be so impressed. The morning was going just as I’d imagined.
 

And then the phone rang.

It was only 6:30; who could be calling so early?

I grabbed the cordless receiver and pushed Talk. “Hello?”

“Rebecca? Is that you?”

“Yes, Dad. Is everything okay?”
 

“Where the hell have you been?”
 

“Pardon me?” It was too early to deal with my dad.
 

“Are you hard of hearing?” he barked. “I asked you where the hell you’ve been?”

“I—” Shit. The pancakes were burning. I lunged for the spatula and flipped them. Not too bad—just a little black.

“Rebecca, are you listening to me?”
 

“I am,” I said, and turned my attention back to the phone. “What’s the problem? Where’s Connie?”

“The problem is, that you seem to have forgotten you have a father. I’m all alone here and you don’t give a shit.”
 

“Calm down, you’re not alone. And don’t swear at me.” He never used to swear; he considered it to be bad taste but lately, curse words were a regular part of his vocabulary. “I do come visit you. I was there yesterday, remember?”
 

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice rose a little more. “I may not have the best memory, but I’m not senile yet. It’s been over two weeks since you’ve been here.”
 

I tried to stifle a sigh. “Dad, put Connie on the phone.”
 

“Who’s Connie?”

Oh, it was one of those days. “Okay, look I’m sorry. It’s been busy and—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Rebecca. I’m a lonely old man and dammit, I would like some company.”

I tucked the receiver between my ear and shoulder while I flipped the pancakes off the griddle and spooned out more batter.

“Maybe you should stop swearing at me and I’ll come visit.” I tried teasing him into a better mood because clearly logic wasn’t the way to go.

It worked.

“Okay, okay. I’ll watch my mouth. Vicki’s always getting after me for that, too.”
 

“Vicki?” Oh no, it really was a bad day. “You mean Connie, Dad.”

“Who are you talking to?” Jon asked as he entered the kitchen. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing's burning.”
 

Crap, the pancakes were burning.
 

Again.
 

I rushed to flip the new batch, which were now as black on the bottom as the last ones.

“What's burning?” Dad asked over the phone.

“Who are you talking to?” Jon asked again.

“Oh, for God's sake. Nothing's burning,” I yelled into the phone before turning to Jon. “And I’m talking to my father.”

“Is this a bad time?”
 

“Something is burning.”
 

Both the men spoke at the same time.
 

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block them both out for a moment. I took a few deep breaths in an effort to stay calm.
 

After I exhaled, I turned first to Jon. “Can you please wake up Jordan and get Kayla for breakfast while I finish up with Dad?” Even to my own ears, I sounded much calmer then I felt.
 

When he left, I returned my focus to Dad, who was in the middle of a rant. He was probably pacing his living room getting all worked up.

“—I’m always such an inconvenience these days. You don’t visit and then I call and it’s a bad time. I’m just an old man with a daughter who doesn’t give a shit about me. You might as well lock me up and—”

“Dad, you done?”
 

“Well, it’s true, isn't it?”

I was fresh out of energy to argue. “Look, will you be happy if I promise to visit later?”
 

“I guess it’ll have to do.”

“Fine. I’ll come this morning while Kayla’s at school.”

“Good.”
 

The line went dead.
 

It wasn’t exactly the way I was hoping to spend my morning—with my confused dad—but it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice. Besides, it would give me a chance to talk to Connie about the property in the mountains. Maybe she knew something. From the sounds of things, it wasn’t likely Dad would remember anything.
 

I put the phone on the counter and a wave of exhaustion took over. I crossed my arms on the granite countertop and rested my head, right in a puddle of batter.
 

“I told you something was burning.” Jon's voice came from behind.
 

I lurched upright and swiped at my forehead. When I turned around Jon was standing there, both girls flanking him. He sniffed the air and Kayla pinched her nose shut. Jordan looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed and was less than impressed about it.
 

It was too late, but I rushed to flip the last batch of charred pancakes. I tossed them directly into the sink on top of the gooey egg mess I’d created earlier.

“I've never seen such a mess for pancakes before,” Jon said.
 

The beginning pulses of a headache started in my temple. In a last ditch effort I closed my eyes and fiercely tried to recreate my visualization.
 

“What are you doing, Mother?” Jordan asked.

“She was doing this earlier,” Kayla chipped in.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and stared at my family. “If you must know, I'm trying out a visualization technique. Is that okay?” I stared hard at Jon, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, I added, “Do you have something you want to say?”

Jon’s face hardened. “No.”

“No?”
 

He was supposed to get down on his knees now. Surely this part of the morning would go right.

“No. There’s nothing I want to say right now.”

He was supposed to apologize.

Jon continued, “Becca, of course we have a lot to talk about.”

“Okay, we'll talk.”
 

Jon glanced at the girls. “I don’t think now is the time,” he said. “I have to run, anyway.” He bent down to kiss Kayla on the forehead and gave Jordan a peck on the cheek. She would have murdered me if I’d tried that.

“Where are you going?” I asked, and hated the whine in my voice.

He wasn't supposed to leave. This was going to be a happy family breakfast.

“I have an early meeting with that potential buyer I was telling you about. The one who's interested in the old MacDonald farm.” He grabbed a banana from the fruit basket before he snatched up his briefcase and left.

I stared after him, waiting for him to come back. When he didn’t, I took a moment to regroup before turning towards the girls. The day wasn’t totally ruined yet. I forced a cheerfulness into my voice that I certainly didn’t feel. “Okay, who’s ready for breakfast?”
 

“Mother, seriously, you have goop on your forehead,” Jordan said and left the room.

“What about you, Kayla? I made your favorite. Pancakes.”

“I hate pancakes. Scrambled eggs are my favorite.”

Chapter 8

I could have thought of a hundred other things I needed to do, including cleaning the kitchen after the breakfast fiasco, but after dropping the girls at school, I went to visit Dad. The last thing I needed was another ill-timed phone call.
 

Connie’s car was in the drive when I pulled in, so I knocked and walked in the front door the way I had since I’d moved out. It’s a funny thing when your childhood home stops being your house.

“Connie?” I called as I made my way into the kitchen, the most likely place to find her.
 

She was standing at the window looking out to the garden. Her back was to me but she had the look of a woman who would fall over if the wind blew too hard. I didn’t want to startle her. “Connie,” I said again, this time quieter.
 

She turned around so fast I was afraid she might actually fall.
 

“Oh, Becca,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She put her hand up to her head, patting her hair that was desperately out of place. After a second she gave up and wrapped her robe around her a little tighter. “I’m afraid it’s been a bit of a rough morning. I haven’t had a chance to get ready for the day yet.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked. I looked past her through the window and saw Dad. He was sitting in the chair, his leg bouncing so hard and fast I thought he might break the deck. “Dad looks…well…” Before I could finish, he bolted out of his chair and started pacing through the garden. His mouth was moving; it looked like he was yelling, but I couldn’t hear through the closed window. I turned back to face Connie.
 

“He’s been like this all morning,” she said. Her voice was tired, defeated. “I tried to make him stop, or at least quiet down. I mean, the neighbors…I don’t know what to do.”