Breathing Room

“I take my amusements where I can find them. It cost me five bucks a kid.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

“I enjoyed it.” She regarded Isabel with interest. Her pregnant belly and exotic eyes made her look like a goddess of sexuality and fertility. Isabel began to feel a little withered. At the same time she sensed an air of sadness lurking behind the woman’s lighthearted tone.

“I’m Tracy Briggs.” She held out her hand. “You look familiar.”

“Isabel Favor.”

“Of course you are. Now I recognize you.” She gazed at them both with open curiosity. “What are you doing with him?”

“I’m renting the farmhouse. Ren is my landlord.”

“No kidding.” Her expression indicated she didn’t believe a word of it. “I only read one of your books- Healthy Relationships in Unhealthy Times-but I liked it a lot. I’ve…” She bit her bottom lip. “I’ve been trying to get my head together about leaving Harry.”

“Tell me you’re not running away from another husband,” Ren said.

“I’ve only had two.” She turned to Isabel. “Ren’s still mad because I left him. Just between us, he was a terrible husband.”

So this was Ren’s ex-wife. One thing seemed clear. Whatever sparks had once burned between them had gone out. Isabel felt as if she were watching a brother and sister bicker, instead of former lovers.

“We got married when we were twenty and stupid,” Ren said. “What does anybody that young know about being married?”

“I knew more than you.” Tracy nodded down the hill toward her son, who’d climbed into the front seat of Ren’s Maserati. “That’s Jeremy, my oldest. Steffie’s next. She’s eight.” Steffie had a pixie cut and a vaguely anxious air. She and her sister had begun drawing circles in the gravel with the heels of their sandals. “Brittany’s five. And this is Connor. He just turned three, but he still won’t use the potty, will you, big guy?” She smacked the toddler’s fat diaper, then patted her own swollen belly. “Connor was supposed to be our caboose. Surprise, surprise.”

“Five kids, Trace?” Ren said.

“Stuff happens.” Once again she bit her lip.

“Didn’t you only have three when we talked a month ago?”

“It was two months ago, and I had four. You never pay attention when I talk about them.”

Steffie, the eight-year-old, let out a piercing shriek. “Spider! There’s a spider!”

“ ‘Snot a spider.” Brittany crouched down in the gravel.

“Jeremy! Get out of that-”

But Tracy’s command came too late. The Maserati, with her son inside, had already begun to roll.

Ren started to run. He made it to the bottom of the hill just in time to watch his expensive sports car crunch into the side of the farmhouse, where the front end folded like an origami bird.

Isabel had to give him credit. He dragged Jeremy out of the car and checked to make sure the eleven-year-old wasn’t hurt before he inspected the damage. Tracy, in the meantime, was waddling down the hill-pregnant belly, toddler, and all. Isabel hurried to grab her arm before she fell, and they managed to reach Ren and Jeremy without mishap.

“Jeremy Briggs! How many times have I told you to leave other people’s cars alone! You just wait till your father hears about this.” Tracy took a couple of gulps of air, then seemed to run out of steam. Her shoulders slumped, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Spider!” Steffie howled from the hill behind them.

The toddler noticed his mother’s distress and started to cry.

“Spider! Spider!” Steffie yowled.

Ren looked over at Isabel, his expression comically helpless.

“Hey, Mr. Ren!” Brittany called down from the top of the hill. “Look at me!” She waved her panties like a flag. “I got seahorses, too.”

Tracy let out a noisy sob, then reached out and whacked Ren in the chest. “Now do you see why we’re moving in?”

“She can’t do this!” Ren stopped pacing long enough to spin on Isabel as if this were all her fault. They were in the rear salon at the villa with the doors open to the garden and children running everywhere. Only Anna seemed happy. She laughed over the girls, rubbed Jeremy’s head, picked up the toddler, and set off to the kitchen with him to prepare dinner for everyone.

“Go upstairs and tell Tracy to leave!”

“Somehow I don’t think she’ll listen.” Isabel wondered when he’d figure out that he was fighting a losing battle. The characters he played on-screen might be able to evict a pregnant woman and her four children, but in real life Ren seemed like a softer touch. That didn’t mean, however, that he intended to be gracious about it.

“We haven’t been married for fourteen years. She can’t just move in here with all these kids.”

“She seems to have done it.”

“You heard me try to book a hotel for her, but she grabbed the receiver out of my hand and hung up.”

Isabel patted Steffie’s shoulder. “That’s enough bug spray, honey. Let me have the can before you give us all cancer.”

Steffie reluctantly handed it over, then looked apprehensively around her feet for more spiders.

Ren growled down at the eight-year-old girl. “It’s September. Shouldn’t all of you be in school?”

“Mom’s homeschooling us till we get back home to Connecticut.”

“Your mother can barely add.”

“She adds okay, but she has trouble with long division, so Jeremy and I have to help her.” Steffie walked over to the couch and gingerly lifted the pillow to look beneath it before she sat down. “Could I have my bug spray back, please?”

Isabel’s heart turned over for the little girl. She stealthily passed the can to Ren, then sat beside her and drew her into a hug. “You know, Steffie, the things we think we’re afraid of aren’t always what’s really bothering us. Like spiders. Most of them are pretty friendly insects, but a lot has happened in your family lately, and that might be what’s really worrying you. We all feel afraid sometimes. It’s okay.”

Ren muttered something that was definitely not okay. As Isabel continued talking softly with Steffie, she spied Jeremy through the French doors grimly slamming a tennis ball against the side of the villa. It was only a matter of time before he broke a window.

“Everybody, watch me!” Brittany shot into the room and threw herself into a series of cartwheels, heading straight for a cabinet filled with Meissen porcelain.

“Watch out!” Ren rushed forward and caught her just before she crashed.

“Look on the bright side,” Isabel said. “She’s wearing her panties.”

“But she’s taken off everything else!”

“I’m the champ!” The five-year-old leaped to her feet and extended her arms in a victory V. Isabel smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. Just then the air was filled with the unmistakable sound of breaking glass, followed by Tracy’s shriek from upstairs: “Jeremy Briggs!”

Ren turned the can of bug spray to his head and pressed the valve.

It was a long evening. Ren threatened to cut off Isabel’s electricity forever if she abandoned him, so she stayed at the villa while Tracy remained locked in her room. Jeremy entertained himself by torturing Steffie with phantom spiders, Brittany hid her clothes, and Ren complained the entire time. Everywhere he went, he left clutter behind him-sunglasses, discarded shoes, a sweatshirt-the debris of a man accustomed to having servants pick up after him.

With the appearance of the children, Anna underwent a personality transformation, laughing and plying everyone with food, even Isabel. She and Massimo lived in a house about a mile away with their two grown sons and a daughter-in-law. Since she’d be going home after dinner, she asked Marta to come up from the farmhouse to spend the night. Marta, too, seemed like a different woman in the presence of the children.

Anna quickly adopted Connor as her special pet, and he stayed at her side except when he disappeared into a corner to load his diaper. The three-year-old, Isabel had learned, already had an excellent vocabulary. His favorite expression was “Potty is very, very bad.”

Even though Ren gave the girls no encouragement, they badgered him for attention. He ignored them as much