Chapter 1

"Mother is home," Lisa announced while pointing out the window.

A yellow checkered taxi had just pulled into the driveway. Her mother was returning from a five day trip to Omaha Nebraska where her boss was doing some kind of business with the Air Force. As his PA, she traveled with him on all of his trips. It seemed to the kids that her boss, Mr. Buchwald, did nothing except travel. Her mother was gone more than she was at home and Lisa was tired of it.

"Are you going to talk to her, Dad?" David asked looking over at his father.

John answered, "I always talk to your Mom."

"No you don't," Lisa said. "You say a little bit about us until she interrupts and then you just let her prattle on and on."

"You don't understand..."

Rose, the baby of the family, interrupted, "We do understand. You're a wimp."

"I'm not a wimp," John said.

He knew the kids were exceptionally frustrated by the situation at home. Unfortunately, he could see no way to address the problem without hurting his wife's feelings. He didn't know how to tell a woman that her children thought she was a lousy mother. For all he knew, they already had a replacement picked out. They certainly had a lot of candidates stopping by the house.

"It's hopeless. He's never going to divorce her," David said in disgust.

"Look, I love your mother and she loves me. She's just caught up in her work at the moment," John said patiently.

Rose said, "Divorce her."

"We are not going to get divorced."

"I give up," Lisa said.

She crossed her arms and frowned at her father showing him her displeasure at his answer. It wasn't that she was angry at him; just at the situation.

"I'm out of here," Rose said while fleeing the room in frustration.

John watched his children leave the room knowing they left to avoid having to deal with their mother. He knew they were frustrated and were firmly convinced their mother was abandoning them. He was afraid that one day they were going to lose it and really let their mother know exactly what they thought of her.

Getting up from his Lazy Boy recliner, he went over to the door to help his wife bring in her luggage. He knew from past experience that she would dismiss his efforts, but that never prevented him from making the offer. She tended to remain in business woman mode for a day or two after a trip.

While passing the front window, he caught a glance of her getting out of the taxi. She was wearing her gray power suit and that was never a good sign. Although she was an attractive woman with gentle curves, her business attire made her look like a shark. Even worse, she acted like a shark when wearing that outfit.

He opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She was climbing the steps up to the porch lifting her luggage behind her. The taxi cab was pulling out of the driveway.

Reaching out for her luggage, he said, "Welcome home. Let me help you with that."

"I can manage it myself," she snapped.

"I know you can, Victoria," John said patiently.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm tired from the flight. If you don't mind, I'd like to lay down and take a quick nap before dinner," Victoria said.

"I understand," John said.

"I'm just tired," Victoria said. She gave him a weak smile.

"I know," John said with a sigh.

Victoria disappeared down the hallway pulling her luggage behind her. John noticed that she hadn't said hello or asked about the children. In a way, he was lucky they had retreated from the room.

She would slowly relax over the next two days until she returned to being the woman he knew and loved. Until then she would remain Victoria – the cold business woman. By the time she turned into Vicki – the loving wife and mother, she'd be packing to leave on her next trip. If he was lucky, he would have one night with the woman he loved. Even he had to admit that it wasn't much of a marriage.

He returned to his Lazy Boy and picked up the book on growing grapes. He was thinking a couple of grape vines would be a nice addition to the farm. Unfortunately, he knew nothing about grapes and what he was reading seemed a lot more complicated than he had anticipated.

In the kitchen, David was busy peeling carrots using the Tater Peeling Gloves his father had seen advertised on television and couldn't resist ordering. The kitchen was full of gadgets. John couldn't resist buying kitchen gadgets. Most of them were worthless, but a few were extremely handy.

David said, "They don't work as good on carrots as they do on potatoes."

Looking at the mess David was making, Lisa said, "They weren't invented to work on carrots."

"That's true," David said.

The gloves had turned bright orange from the peel of the carrots. It was kind of disgusting in a way. He wondered how the gloves would hold up over time. Too often these kinds of things worked great the first few times they were used, but then broke or became useless. The little ice cream maker they had purchased hadn't even made one batch of ice cream before it broke.

Giving voice to the question that was on all of their minds, Rose asked, "Do you think Dad will finally talk to Mother?"

"I doubt it. He'll probably wimp out again," Lisa answered.

Rose said, "I'm going to slap her silly if she offers to tuck me in and read me a bedtime story. I'm twelve years old for Christ's sake."

She was making reference to an event that had occurred two weeks earlier. Her mother had come into Rose's bedroom, without being invited in, and asked Rose if she had wanted to hear a bedtime story. Despite being furious about the invasion of her personal space and at being treated like a little girl, Rose hadn't screamed or thrown anything. She had coldly, but politely, replied that she preferred it when her father read to her at night. She could tell that her mother was hurt by her answer.

"You aren't going to forgive her for that any time soon, are you?" David asked.

He and Lisa had listened to Rose rant about that little episode for two weeks solid. In a way, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It had demonstrated to the children that their mother had completely lost touch with them. As far as they could tell, the children she knew had existed six years ago when she had started working for Mr. Buchwald.

Rose said, "That woman doesn't even know who we are. Every week when she returns from her trips, we get to deal with the queen bitch. You'd think we are her employees rather than her children. Friday nights and Saturdays are the worst with 'Do this' and 'Do that' all of the time. Then on Sunday, she tries to be all sweet and loving. She ends up treating us like we're little children. I'm tired of it."

As the youngest, Rose had the most serious abandonment issues of the three children. She had just started first grade and suddenly her mother had disappeared from her life. At first her mother had been away from the house only one week out of the month, but the frequency of her trips had escalated to a point where she was gone almost every week.

Rose was angry. She could feel her body start to change and desperately wanted a mother to guide her through the transition from child to woman. She loved her father, but he wasn't a woman and wouldn't understand the changes her body would be going through. She didn't want the school nurse to be the one to tell her how to use feminine products like had been the case for Lisa.

"Can we divorce our own mother?" Lisa asked.

"I don't think so," David said knowing that it wasn't a rhetorical question.

"Not even on the grounds of abandonment," Rose asked.

"She hasn't exactly abandoned us," David pointed out.

Their mother was home most weekends and one week every month or so, although that week a month was kind of stretching the truth a little. Most nights their mother worked late and didn't arrive at home until just before the kids were headed off to bed. She came home tired from a long day at work and had little patience for dealing with her children.

"Who says?" Lisa asked.

Ignoring the question, David said, "Dad has to divorce her and get the court to grant him custody of us."

Lisa said, "Like that is ever going to happen. I tried to tell Dad that Mother is sleeping with Mr. Buttwad, but he won't listen to a word against her. I'm so frustrated that I want to strangle him."

Mr. Buttwad was the children's nickname for Mr. Buchwald although they were careful never to use it in front of their father. All three kids were convinced their mother was sleeping with her boss. They were sure she was planning to divorce their father the day Rose turned eighteen. Each of them felt that their father would be crushed.

"You don't know that she's sleeping with Mr. Buttwad," David said.

Rose rolled her eyes. She said, "Get real. She spends five nights a week with him and jumps whenever he calls. You can't tell me that she isn't sleeping with him."

"We don't know that for sure," David said.

Knowing that her father wouldn't ignore real proof of their mother's infidelity, Lisa asked, "Is there any way we can hire a private detective?"

"Not without Dad knowing," David said.

He knew they could come up with the money to hire a private detective. Money wasn't an issue, particularly if the three of them pooled their resources. The problem was getting a private detective to take the job without telling his father. He believed that a legitimate detective wouldn't take a cheating wife case from a teenaged kid.

"What are we going to do?" Rose asked.

"I don't know," Lisa said with a frown.

Having finished peeling the last carrot, David said, "You could set the table for dinner while I start steaming the carrots."

"Will there be wine with dinner?" Rose asked.

"You bet," David answered.

Victoria came out of the bedroom wearing a pair of slacks and a plain white blouse. She sat down on the couch and said, "I don't feel like cooking tonight. How about we head over to that pizza place the kids enjoy so much? You know the one I mean ... the one with all of the games and stuff."

"David is cooking dinner tonight," John said.

He didn't have the heart to tell his wife that the kids had outgrown that pizza place years ago. The fact of the matter was that they didn't like to eat out often. They had all taken up cooking as a hobby and preferred the meals they prepared to anything they found in a restaurant.

"You left Davy alone in the kitchen?" Victoria asked thinking that he would leave a horrible mess for her to clean up.

John said, "He prefers to be called David and, for your information, he's a good cook."

Lisa stuck her head through the dining room door and said, "Dinner is ready."

"Perfect timing," John said with a smile.

Victoria followed her husband into the dining room wondering when the kids had taken over cooking responsibilities. John was a good cook and she had never worried about the kids getting balanced meals.

Surprised by what she found, she stood there staring at the dinner table. It was covered with a fine linen table cloth that she didn't recognize. A candelabra with lit candles provided a soft atmosphere normally found only in higher class restaurants. There were five plates, her best China, already loaded with food. Each setting had crystal glasses. The silverware was the silver set that had been a wedding present from her grandmother.

Looking at the food arranged tastefully on the plates, she asked, "What is it?"

"It is a new recipe I found – pork chops with an apple curry sauce on a bed of long grain and wild rice pilaf. We have steamed garden fresh carrots and apple sauce as sides," David answered proudly.