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Lisa yawned, wishing Zach would get the hint and be on his way.
Sandra and Andy, stony after their first angry fight, sat on opposite ends of the couch.
“I’m not sure what I can do to appease you,” Andy said. “That mess had nothing to do with us.”
“You can’t do a thing. Let's just let it go, okay? We’re talking in circles. Your brother is a jackass, and now we’re here to babysit Kassandra, and I don’t like it.”
“I’ll try to not let that happen, Sandra. I can’t believe it, but it almost sounds like you might be jealous.”
She turned to Andy, trying to keep her face neutral and failing. “You know me better than I give you credit for.”
Andy scooted over to her and grabbed her in his arms. “I love you so much, you have nothing to worry about. I’ll interact as much as you do, okay? That will be my limit. If you’re talking to her, I’ll talk to her. I don’t want to clean up my brother’s messes. We might underestimate her. I don’t see her calling on us for anything.”
“You’re probably right. I’m sorry. It’s out of my system now. What a waste of a day.”
“You’re not kidding,” Andy said.
Across the street, Alison and Max got the younger kids in bed while Diana and Miranda were in the bunk room, watching TV.
“Well, that was a fiasco,” Alison said, finally sitting down. “The best part of the whole day was watching you in action with Tony. I think you took a few people by surprise.”
“I’m sure I took more than a few by surprise. I had an interesting exchange with Kassandra.”
“Tell me.”
“I think she was annoyed that I sort of upstaged her dinner party by coming out. She said nothing outright, but I put two and two together. Anyway, she said she’d look for shoes for me on that resale site.”
“Well, that was nice. I wondered if she didn’t have an issue with all the attention you were getting. It kind of reminded me of my former father-in-law shaving his beard off the morning of our wedding. It was such a dramatic difference, of course everyone went nuts. The focus was entirely on him. Not my dress, or our vows, or even the wedding reception.”
“Why did you let me go out of the house like that if you thought it would be a mistake?”
“I wasn’t thinking of anyone but you, Max. I want you to be happy. You didn’t ruin her dinner party. Her obnoxious boyfriend did that.”
“I think we might stay home for Christmas,” Max said, chuckling.
“Good idea.”
Next door, Ryan and Betsy made love.
Chapter 16
December
It was the first Sunday of Advent. Betsy closed her eyes, moved by the beautiful words of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” echoing throughout the sanctuary. She was so grateful. Before saying the rosary, she dropped to her knees, thanking God for her life.
She’d done what she wanted until now—gone to nursing school, worked where she wanted, traveled with girlfriends, bought her own little house.
Ryan had come into her life at such an inopportune time. He had still been with Lisa and her big family. Betsy thought he’d tried to make it work. It had taken them a full year to separate.
And then he’d decided he couldn’t live without Betsy any longer.
“I want to be with you,” he’d said. “It’s taken me a few days to figure that out, but you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
The job with PBS was going to pay him enough that he’d asked her to go on per diem status at her nursing job so she could travel with him to PBS main headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Location work would all be done in Manhattan and the other boroughs, since that was where the houses Jack restored were.
“You’re going to support me?” she’d asked in disbelief.
Gossip among the Sea View crowd was that Lisa had supported Ryan. What would they think of him supporting his girlfriend?
