“Listen,” he said, holding her hand across the front seat. “Commitment is great. Being sure is great, too. But sometimes we find ourselves up against things we can’t control and couldn’t have predicted. Then, letting go becomes a virtue. A tough one, though.”
“Has that happened with you?”
He gave a nod. “The one that comes to mind was when I was eleven. It’ll sound silly....”
“No, tell me,” she said.
“I played softball. There was a rule to keep things fair—everyone gets to play. I was small. I wasn’t that bad, but I was smaller than some of the ten-year-olds. I could hit a ball a mile even if I couldn’t catch much. The coach left me on the bench week after week, giving me the requisite two innings to keep things fair. The coach’s son was eleven, like me. He pitched every inning and was up to bat all the time. I wanted to quit, but my mother said no. She said I had made a commitment to the team, and they might need me at some point. She talked to the coach and said, ‘You never let Scott play, this team isn’t worth his energy or mine if he never gets a chance.’ And the coach said, ‘I’m playing him. Not a lot but the eleven-year-olds—this is their last year in this league and then they have to move on, so I’m giving them more opportunities.’ And my mom informed him that I was also eleven, and he said, ‘He is? I didn’t realize that.’ So the next week he benched me again—and I was the only kid on the bench. Nine-and ten-year-olds played while I warmed the bench. So my mom talked to him again, and the exchange was exactly the same. ‘Oh? I didn’t realize that.’ By the fourth game of identical conversation, she told the coach she was pulling me off the team and writing a letter to the head of the league. A harsh letter.” He chuckled. “You’ll meet my mother tonight, and you’ll probably have no trouble understanding the kind of letter she can write. But the moral to the story—I was getting screwed on that team. I needed to walk away. I needed some family support to do that.”
“I was raised in a pretty black-and-white world order....”
“But did they urge you to try harder with Ted and his family?” Scott asked.
“Ironically, not at all. They asked me what I was doing. They pointed out that he was not like ‘our people.’ Which of course, made me try harder to prove I knew what I was doing.”
He chuckled. “I’m not surprised. So, can we talk about you and me? When it comes to things like commitment—I appreciate it. Respect it. But I don’t want you to stay one day longer than you feel is right for you. Just because you said three months, I won’t hold you to it. I like commitment, but I like intelligent, adult choices even more. I don’t want a reluctant PA. I really don’t want a reluctant lover filled with doubts, struggling to find some happiness in the ruins.”
“Scott, you don’t have a reluctant lover. Have I done one thing to give you the impression I doubt my choices so far?”
He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Not one. Which is why I’m such a happy man. But promise, you don’t stay if it’s not working.”
“You think just because we get along so well and have such great sex, it’ll stay perfect? Forever?”
He laughed at her. “You think I didn’t ever fight with Serena?” He whistled. “We had some beauts. I even slept at the hospital a couple of nights. That really pissed her off. I was probably tired and grouchy, but...underneath it all, we knew we could work things out. Deep down, we knew at the core of things, we were good together. I never doubted that.” He glanced at her. “You doubted with Ted, yet you stayed.”
Doubted? She knew! She just had a hard time facing it.
“You don’t have to do that with me,” he said.
“One thing I feel sure about is it won’t be your kids who drive me away....”
“Oh-ho, we have our issues, Peyton. You haven’t been present for one of Will’s legendary meltdowns.”
“And then what happens? What do you do?”
“It varies, because I’m never quite sure what to do. Sometimes he gets a time-out, sometimes he gets punished, sometimes I just put him in the shower. It’s really hard to be taken seriously if you’re naked, screaming your brains out under water.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “But won’t it break your heart if I leave you?” she asked. “Even a little bit?”
“It would break my heart to pieces. But it will heal. What would kill me is you staying with me by sheer dint of will when you know you should move on. Let’s not do that to each other.”
She threw him a gentle smile. In a whisper she said, “Let’s not.”
“You’ve probably come across a few red flags with me,” he said.
“Just to save time, why don’t you lay them out for me?” she suggested.
He laughed at her. “They’re so obvious, Peyton. I’m poor for one thing—I still have some med school debt. I have a complicated family life. I have a terrible schedule. I have a difficult mother and an annoying mother-in-law. I’m an incurable idealist—I always think things will work out eventually—that can be draining. My kids are pretty cute right now, but one of them might have pot in a backpack someday. I don’t know. I’m messy—I use my car as an office. Devon will tell you, paperwork makes my eyes roll back in my head. I don’t dance... Oh, that’s right, you experienced that for yourself. I can’t cook, but I’m good at laundry.”
He wasn’t messy, she thought. And he wouldn’t ignore pot in the backpack.
“That’s a pretty scary list,” she said. “I’ll have to give this some more thought.”
“You do that.”
* * *
When they arrived at Scott’s mother’s house, the kids came flying out the front door. “Peyton’s here! Peyton, Peyton!” They completely ignored Scott and wrapped their little arms around Peyton’s legs. She tried to ignore the way their arms felt, the way their smiles and shining eyes filled her up inside. She could not afford to fall in love with them.
Scott’s mother, Patricia, was a small woman of angular lines, but she had a very tall personality. Her hair was colored a soft brown with blond highlights, teased for height, her nails were manicured and shiny red, she wore plenty of makeup and she was businesslike. “You look tired, Scott. You’re not getting enough rest.”
Indeed, he had not, Peyton thought with a slight blush. And it had been glorious.
“You saw me a few days ago, Mother. I’ve gotten plenty of rest since then.”
“I wonder if you take care of yourself,” she said. “Do you eat right?”
“Yes,” he said. “Enough,” he added. “Stop it.”
Patricia was a paralegal who managed a law office, and Peyton had no trouble imagining all the partners taking orders from her. And she could also see where Scott got at least some of his good looks; Patricia was a fetching woman. She had never remarried after her husband’s premature death, and Peyton found that surprising.
Suzanne, his mother-in-law, was softer, rounder, seemed more nurturing and kind of cuddly. She had a quick smile, a high-pitched laugh, plump hands with clipped nails, had let her hair go gray in a very attractive short cut. At first glance she seemed far less threatening than Patricia, but Peyton knew looks could be misleading. “Scott, the kids are so well behaved, Serena would be so pleased with how well you manage with them. Nice to meet you, Peyton. Are you and Scott dating?” she said.
“That’s really not our business, Suzanne,” Patricia said. “Are you?”
“We’ve been out to dinner a couple of times,” Scott said.
“So, are you single? Widowed? Divorced?” Suzanne asked.
My God, these women are as bad as my mother! “Single,” she said after a moment of hesitation.
Scott had been so right. Within ten minutes Peyton could see that these women might be polar opposites, but were bent on a single mission—to have control over their grandchildren. Suzanne was Grammy and Patricia was GiGi—they were even named appropriately.
Scott’s older sister, Nancy, showed up for dinner with a twelve-year-old son and
a fourteen-year-old daughter. Aside from being thrilled to see their uncle Scott, they were self-contained—iPad, texting, TV—entertaining themselves while listening should Patricia ask them to do something or inquire as to what occupied them.
If Peyton had been a little intimidated by the grandmothers, Nancy put her quickly at ease. “I didn’t think I’d get a chance to meet you unless I went to Thunder Point to see Scott. He talks about you, you know. I know he got you in the clinic by sheer accident. He claims you are a much sought-after PA who happened to be in the area right when he was looking for help.”
“That pretty much sums it up, though I don’t know about the much sought-after part,” Peyton said.
“She has a great deal of experience,” Scott said. “She suggested we show the kids her family’s farm—a quick weekend before school starts.”
“Tell me about the farm,” Nancy begged. “What kind of farm?”
Peyton happily explained about the pears, potatoes and sheep, about the huge extended family that included Uncle Sal and Aunt Sophie’s vineyard, Lucas’s Basque restaurant in San Francisco, Adele having a baby soon, the side of the family that fished off the coast near Tillamook. There were other family farms and restaurants and fishing fleets between Portland and Reno. “There will be a lot of people around the farm this weekend, picking pears, getting ready to dig up potatoes. Then my family will end up at the vineyard for a few days between the pears and potatoes to help harvest the grapes. In the spring it’s lambing and shearing. They have to get the wool off early so the sheep can get good sweaters before the cold comes. All the kids love the lambing season. They’re not that crazy about picking pears.”
“And where do the pears go?”
“Mostly to Harry & David and surrounding food retailers. Potatoes go to a lot of restaurant suppliers, grocery chains and Frito-Lay. It’s a pretty large farm.”
“What a wonderful way to grow up,” Nancy said.
“It’s a demanding way to grow up. My father brags that he takes them off the breast and into the grove or fields.”
“What kind of talk is that?” Patricia asked tartly.
Peyton laughed. “That’s a proud Basque farmer talking. He swears he took it right out of the Old Testament, but I suspect that’s pure legend, not fact. He also claims we descended from royalty and my mother whispers that that’s bull. Basque businessmen, fishermen and landholders like a lot of family to help them get the job done. I have three sisters and four brothers and too many aunts, uncles and cousins to count.”
When Suzanne took the kids outside to wear off a little energy before dinner, Peyton casually remarked, “She seems like a sweet lady.”
And Patricia, busy over by the sink said, “You don’t want to get on her bad side.”
Peyton covered her laugh with a hand. She sat with Nancy at the kitchen table while Patricia puttered with food, yet obviously hadn’t missed a word of their conversation.
“The pot speaketh of the kettle,” Nancy said with a laugh.
Peyton was put to bed in Patricia’s craft room while Scott and the kids shared the guest room. She actually had a very nice time, but it wasn’t hard to understand his decision to get out of Dodge.
In the morning, they were up early. Scott took over the kitchen and made a big breakfast for everyone. Of course, Suzanne was there, but Nancy and her kids declined. Once he had filled his kids with food and run them around the block a couple of times, they were off in the direction of Portland as the farm was southeast of that city. The kids, in their safety seats, had their little movies to occupy them, and within a half hour, they were out cold.
It seemed that was just the moment Scott had been waiting for. At the very next rest stop, he pulled over and parked under some big, leafy trees, unsnapped his seat belt and turned to Peyton. He grabbed her chin in a hand and kissed her. “I don’t like not sleeping with you,” he said softly. “I’m sorry about the craft room. I don’t think my mother even does crafts!”
“It was just fine,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t wait to see where my parents put you for the night. Do you like chickens?”
“Was it unbearable? The visit?”
“Not at all,” she said. “The grandmothers are a little intense in their own individual ways, but their hearts are in the right place—they love their grandchildren. Are they always like that?”
“Always. They don’t spend any time together that doesn’t include Jenny and Will. Before Will came along, it was the same with Serena and me—everything had to be perfectly divided or there was hell to pay in the form of guilt and badgering. We only spent a few years in Vancouver, always looking for an opportunity elsewhere.”
“Didn’t your mothers realize they were driving you away?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Not even when we said so. But with the kids, they have this interesting division of duties. Suzanne spoils and plays, Patricia teaches and disciplines. Suzanne excuses, Patricia praises. Suzanne fusses, Patricia rewards. They need all of it. They’re in heaven. As long as they’re not a pressure on the kids, I can deal with them. At least they’re getting old enough to spend time in Vancouver without me. I can take them up there, spend a day or two, leave them for a couple of weeks, go back for them.” He grinned at her. “Thunder Point was pure genius. For a lot of reasons.” And then he kissed her again.
“You’d better get it all out of your system, Dr. Grant. My family is completely different but no less challenging. Don’t be too surprised if my mother or father takes you aside and questions our relationship and your intentions.”
“I have the best intentions in the world. It’s your intentions that need a little work.”
“My parents are actually more progressive than a lot of the family. They knew I lived with Ted. They still put us in separate bedrooms, but they knew. They’re good, except when they’re plotting to arrange marriages.”
“Seriously?” he asked.
“A time-honored custom. Their kids were not very excited by the notion and didn’t want the assistance. I suspect meddling, just the same. I don’t think Lucas and Adele are purely an accident, even if she did do some PR work for his restaurant.”
“Just make out with me a little before we take on the next family challenge.”
She giggled and put her arms around his neck, kissing him intensely.
“Dad?” Will said from the backseat. “We there?”
Scott let go of her reluctantly. “Almost,” he said. “Not much longer. Watch your movie.”
* * *
Even with all of Peyton’s description, nothing could have prepared Scott for the farm. When they pulled into the yard the dogs were set to barking and that brought a woman of around sixty to the porch. She was tall and slim like Peyton, wore jeans and laced boots, a gingham blouse over a tank top, and her long hair was pulled up into a clip. Her hair was dark like Peyton’s, with the slightest bit of gray threaded through it. Her face was rosy with health, and her smile was bright, her lips red. She was drying her hands on a towel, and she began waving at the car.
Scott parked and helped Will out of his seat while Peyton helped Jenny. Their feet had barely touched the ground when Mrs. Lacoumette was swinging her dish towel over her head, yelling, “Hurry, hurry, hurry! We have so much to do!” Then she crouched down to better receive the kids. “Well, now, you must be Will! And you would be Jenny! Are you hungry? Need the bathroom? We can have a snack, take care of business, then it’s time to collect the eggs. Do you know how to collect eggs?”
They just shook their heads in wonder, making Scott laugh.
She extended her hand. “Dr. Grant, we’re so pleased to have you join us.”
“Please, it’s Scott.”
“And I’m Corinne, Peyton’s mother. Come in, everyone.”
Parked between the house and barn was a very large semitrailer surrounded by trucks and cars. The sound of engines of all types could be heard, but they seemed to be far off. Then a pickup truck pulled up n
ext to the trailer, and two men leaped out, grabbing bags of what he assumed to be pears and loading them in the trailer. He watched for a moment, and they were quickly done and off they went.
Scott was the last one inside. He found his children had been swept up in kitchen activity. He counted five women including Corinne, all busy with chores. One was white-haired and at least eighty years old, one was around Peyton’s age and embraced her, three were Corinne’s approximate age, all dark-haired, all working at meal preparations. Pots were steaming, vegetables were being peeled, sliced and diced, meat was searing, bread dough was rising.
Garlic and drying herbs hung from the shelf over a triple wide sink, scoured pans hung over the work island, and extra-large cooking spoons occupied big ceramic pots. The stove was commercial size—three ovens and six burners. There were several wooden knife caddies on the countertops. Jars of all shapes and sizes lined the counters and held ground spices, flour, sugar, grains, pastes and liquids he couldn’t possibly identify. Linens were folded and stacked on several open shelves, dishes and glassware were neatly stored in glass-front cupboards and there were drawers full of eating implements. This wasn’t a kitchen. It was a cooking and eating factory. The pots and pans in use on the stove were very large, large enough to imply an army would be eating here.
Corinne swung the kids up on to stools at the long breakfast bar. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out two already-prepared sandwiches, then she ladled a little soup into two soup cups. She poured milk, shook out napkins, brought out spoons—all done like a woman who knew how to feed eight children in just minutes. Then she smiled at him. “Can I get you something to eat, Dr. Grant?”
“He can always eat, Mama,” Peyton said. “He has an unbelievable appetite. Scott, this is grandmamma Josephina, Aunt Sophia, Aunt Maria, my cousin Maida. Maida only cooks for momentous occasions, like harvest and holidays.”
“Tell him, I’m very good,” Maida insisted with a smile.