weight since I last saw her, and that was fine. She had regained some of her girlish figure, but her face looked haggard. Her eyes were red and puffy, as though she'd spent most of the previous night crying. The skin on her cheeks seemed drawn too thin over her jawline, and dark smudges encircled her eyes. Standing next to her, Dave Livingston didn't look so hot, either. They were both worn-out.
I glanced around, searching for my son, Scott. I caught sight of him-rangy, well-built, and full grown-still out in the driveway, lounging casually against a rented Lincoln Town Car with his hands shoved deep in his pants pockets. He nodded in my direction, but he made no move toward the porch. Smart boy, I thought. It was wise to stay out of range until it became clear whether or not pyroclastic blasts would be the order of the day.
Before I stepped out the door, I pasted what was supposed to be a sincerely welcoming grin on my face, although I probably succeeded only in looking idiotic. 'Hello, Karen,' I said.
Secretly, I hoped she'd be impressed by the fact that I'd beaten the odds and stayed sober far longer than she or anyone else had expected. If she cared or even noticed, she didn't say.
Dave got up and ambled over to shake my hand. For some reason, he seemed genuinely happy to see me. Karen didn't. She sat in the swing staring up at my face.
'Hello yourself,' she said woodenly.
It's sad to realize how people change; hard to believe that a man and woman who once meant the world to one another can drift apart completely until they're reduced to being virtual strangers; all but impossible to acknowledge that they can evolve so far from what they once were-lovers, sharing their innermost thoughts, dreams, and secrets-to alien beings with less than nothing to say to each other.
'Great day for a wedding, don't you think?' I asked, wanting to lighten things up and hoping no one would notice the sudden catch in my throat. Instant tears brimmed in Karen's eyes just as they had in Kelly's when we'd exchanged words on the farmhouse steps at Live Oak Farm two days earlier. Like mother, like daughter, I thought. I've always been a sucker for tears.
'I wanted her to have a perfect wedding,' Karen choked. 'I never wanted it to be like…like this!'
Dave hurried back to Karen's side. He sat down next to her and placed a comforting hand on her knee. 'It'll be all right, Karen. You'll see.'
'Well,' I said awkwardly, 'I'm glad you came.'
Karen swallowed hard. 'I didn't want to,' she retorted with some of her customary bite. 'And I wouldn't have, either, if Dave hadn't insisted. He said if we didn't make the effort now, we might lose Kelly for good.'
Dave glanced up at me in a frank but silent appeal for help. His look touched me. For the first time, I realized that having spent years living with the same woman, the two of us had something in common, a bond. So do veterans of foreign wars.
'That's probably true,' I said. 'About losing Kelly, I mean. I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you.'
After that, I floundered around some more, desperately searching for something sensible to say, something relatively noncontroversial. My mother always insisted weather was a safe topic, no matter what. Squinting up at the sun, I gave that a try. 'I imagine you've heard that the ceremony's going to be outdoors, at a place called Lithia Park,' I said. 'It's a good thing the weather's so nice today.'
'We haven't heard a thing,' Karen responded icily, her voice taking on a sharp and all-too-familiar edge. 'I suppose you're paying for all this?'
Allegedly, it takes two to make a quarrel. I'm not so sure. I was doing my best not to fight, but Karen's baiting made it tough to keep from lashing out in return. It seemed to me she had a hell of a lot of nerve acting so pissed. What had I done?
To be honest, probably a lot. I've never claimed to be the best of all possible husbands and fathers. When Karen left me to marry Dave-which she did with unseemly haste, I might add-she wiped me out financially. Took my money and ran, as the saying goes. I know from the kids that Dave makes good money and that he and Karen are pretty well off.
When Anne Corley died much later, leaving me as the astonished sole beneficiary of her estate, I made no secret of my changed and much improved circumstances, and I wasn't chintzy about sharing that money with the kids. Unlike some divorced dads, I never ducked my child support. So why was Karen so mad at me?
At the time, I decided she was simply furious with the world in general, and I was the most likely target. Whatever the cause, over the years I've read all those sad letters in Ann Landers' column, the ones about feuding former spouses routinely spoiling their children's weddings. I was determined not to let that happen here. This particular wedding already had far too many strikes against it.
'I'm not paying for a thing,' I answered, keeping my hackles down and my tone civil. 'Kelly and Jeremy haven't asked me to. They're doing it all themselves.'
'Jeremy!' Karen scoffed. 'Who is he, anyway? Where does he come from? What does his father do? Are his parents here? And how pregnant is she?'
In order of importance, I believe Karen saved her top-priority question for last. I realized that once she and Dave saw Kelly, the question of how far along Kelly was would no longer be an issue.
'More than slightly,' I said.
'Too late to do something about it?'
Which told me the real bottom line. Like me, Karen had come hightailing it to Ashland thinking she could somehow convince Kelly to call off the wedding. No doubt she hoped to persuade her daughter to give up the baby or to have an abortion and get her life back on track.
One of the differences between us was that I'd had the benefit of an extra day, a critical twenty-four hours of adjustment time that had allowed me to make an uneasy peace with the changed order of things. During that time, I had caught a glimpse of Kelly and Jeremy both. I had seen them struggling together to do whatever kinds of work were necessary for them to live independently, away from all parental influence.
If they were making their own way in the world and not asking for any help, it seemed to me that we, as parents, no longer had a right to tell them what to do. If we ever had that right in the first place.
'It's too late to put the toothpaste back in the tube,' I said as kindly as I could. 'If we're smart, we won't even try.'
'You're saying I'm supposed to come all the way up here, go to the damn wedding, and that's it?'
'Actually,' I said with one of Ralph Ames' cheerful, looking-on-the-bright-side smiles, 'you get to do one more thing.'
'What's that?'
'You get to keep your mouth shut. We all do.'
Dave Livingston was suddenly overcome by a paroxysm of coughing that may have disguised a chuckle. When I looked over at him to see if he was all right, he winked at me and nodded.
'That's what I've been trying to tell her ever since we left home,' he managed.
Karen turned her scathing glance on him. 'Don't you start,' she raged.
Dave stifled. Meantime, Scott realized it was safe and gradually edged his way onto the porch. When he got within reach, I grabbed his shoulders and hugged him, holding him close.
'Hiya, Pop,' he said with an easy, affable grin. 'I hear you're going to be a grandfather.'
It wasn't until Scott said the words aloud that it finally hit home-the grandfather part, I mean. Until then, the idea of grandfatherhood had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of all the other wedding details and logistics. Like I said before, I'm not the kind of guy who puts a lot of focus on the future.
Behind me the front door opened, and Alexis Downey stepped out onto the porch, joining the rest of us as easily as if she were already an official part of this somewhat prickly extended family. She offered her hand to Scott and then waited to be introduced.
At Alex's and my advanced respective ages, the words 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' somehow stick in my craw. I'm never quite sure how to go about explaining our relationship.
'Scott,' I said, 'this is my friend Alexis Downey, Alex for short. Alex, this is my son, Scott.'
Alex looked up at him. Scott's a good-looking kid if I do say so myself. 'I'd recognize you anywhere,' she said with a cordial smile. 'You look just like your dad.'
I introduced her to Karen and Dave as well. 'I didn't know you had friends in Ashland,' Karen said stiffly, taking in everything about Alexis Downey in one long, critical inspection.
'Oh, I'm from Seattle,' Alex returned. 'Beau and I drove down to Ashland together on Saturday.'
With those two sentences, the formal lines of battle were irrevocably drawn, at least on Karen's side,
