One Summer Night Read online

  The Doctor’s Appointment

  The air in the waiting room was hot and stuffy, and the lady coughing next to her made Lauren inch away to the side. If you weren’t sick when you arrived here you would be within five minutes, given this virus-infested waiting room. There was only one primary care physician in the area, and his practice was always bursting at the seams. Today was no exception – there weren’t enough seats available for all his patients. Lauren tried to evade the viruses by gingerly leafing through a magazine on crocheting your own summer clothes.

  ‘Lauren Parker, please come to the examination room,’ came a tinny voice from the loudspeaker above the door.

  Feeling relieved, Lauren got up and tucked her purse under her arm. A young man immediately squeezed into her vacated seat and grabbed the magazine.

  Well, have fun crocheting your next sundress!

  Doctor Fisher was a good-natured older gentleman who walked with a slight stoop and, living up to his name, often liked to talk about fishing when he was examining his patients. Lauren had been seeing him ever since she was a child.

  ‘Hi, Lauren, come on in. How are the kids?’ He shook her hand with a firm grip and motioned for her to take a seat.

  ‘They’re fine, thanks. Mia is getting to a difficult age, but I guess that’s to be expected.’

  He nodded and ran his fingers over the few remaining gray hairs on his otherwise bald head.

  ‘Yeah, girls start a lot sooner than boys, that’s what I hear all the time.’ He reached for his pen and looked at her expectantly. ‘And your dad? Does he still row his boat out into the lake and cast out?’

  Lauren laughed. ‘Yeah, sometimes. But he hasn’t caught anything since Alyssa started going with him on his boat. She can’t sit still and scares all the fish away.’

  The old doctor laughed. Then he got down to business. ‘Very well, Lauren. Since everybody else seems to be doing just fine, what can I do for you?’

  She shifted to the front edge of her chair and put her hand on her temple.

  ‘It’s these headaches. They’ve been bugging me for days . . . Maybe it’s been weeks, who knows, I can’t really remember when exactly they started.’

  Doctor Fisher jotted something down on his notepad and looked at her.

  ‘What kind of a pain is it? Stabbing? Throbbing? And how often do you have them?’

  ‘Oh . . . I seem to get them more and more frequently. I haven’t been thinking about it all that much because I’ve been having a constant headache ever since Alyssa was born. It’s like a permanent condition.’

  ‘Could it have anything to do with stress?’

  Lauren shrugged her shoulders. Was she stressed? Yes, maybe.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Doctor Fisher nodded and scribbled a few more notes. Then he ran his hand over his head again.

  ‘Lauren, I think it’s a stress-induced migraine. I would go with something natural and herbal for now: Bach Rescue Remedy to regain your balance and to fight anxiety and stress. Try to take regular walks outside, and if none of that works I’ll give you something stronger for the pain that’s been working well for my other migraine patients.’

  Lauren smiled and felt a little silly. She was feeling fine right now – it was probably exactly as Doctor Fisher said. Maybe she needed to slow down.

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’ She held out her hand to shake his goodbye.

  ‘If the symptoms don’t improve, Lauren, please come and see me again.’

  ‘Of course!’ she promised, leaving the practice with a sigh of relief. Stress-induced migraine, well, that sounded awful but was certainly something she could handle. Glad she had got that over and done with, she drove home and prepared lunch. Celeste came by, dropping off Alyssa from preschool, and after a little persuasion agreed to stay for lunch. With a smile, Lauren noticed that Alyssa had brought over an entire box of crayons so that Grandma could help her draw a picture.

  ‘Honey, we need some paper or something so that she doesn’t draw on the table,’ Celeste called out.

  Lauren stirred the tomato sauce and only briefly turned around to the two of them.

  ‘Don’t worry about it; I can wipe that clean in no time. Let her draw all she wants, Mom.’

  ‘Lauren, the entire table is covered in crayon. It’s quite obvious that it doesn’t come off. When you and your brother were little, I would always put paper under . . .’

  ‘I know, I know! You always put paper on it, Mom! But this is my table, and I don’t mind.’

  ‘I could bring you over some extra-strong cleaner that gets out even the toughest stains,’ Celeste offered, looking a little irked and rubbing over a barely visible crayon stain with her finger.

  Lauren shook her head. There was no talking to her mom when it came to cleanliness.

  ‘Sure, sounds good,’ she said, giving in, and quickly changed the topic. ‘Hey, do you know how Ben is doing? Is his injury healing well? Is he really benched for the rest of the season?’

  Celeste pulled a face and crossed her arms over her chest.

  ‘I don’t even want to talk about it! Your dad is beside himself! You know I understand very little about these things, but apparently he got into trouble with his club over this stupid bar fight. It’s beyond me why he would even get into a fight. He’s such a friendly and agreeable person normally.’ Celeste shook her head, bewildered.

  ‘There, Alyssa, you missed a spot. I’m sure you can do much better!’ she turned to her granddaughter.

  Lauren tasted the tomato sauce and added more salt and pepper. Then she rinsed the spaghetti.

  ‘But they can’t ban him from playing because of a bar fight, can they?’ she asked. She had no idea how baseball clubs worked.

  ‘Oh, how would I know! I think they’re using his injury as a pretext and are worried about all the bad press. Your dad has already begged Ben to finish his law degree and come work for him at the firm.’

  Lauren smiled to herself. The law firm was turning into a nice little family business after all.

  The doorbell interrupted their conversation, and on her way to the door Lauren picked up a red crayon from the floor.

  ‘Alyssa, honey, go put that away, lunch is almost ready.’

  She opened the door to Mia and tried to kiss her on the forehead, but her daughter sullenly pushed her away.

  ‘Stop it, Mom!’ she fended her off, hurling her backpack against the bottom of the staircase. ‘What’s for lunch?’ she asked, sniffing the air in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘I made pasta with tomato sauce. Are you hungry?’

  ‘What a dumb question! You forgot to put anything in my sandwich today. Do you think a piece of dry toast is enough to feed me?’

  Lauren wrinkled her forehead.

  ‘What? Don’t be silly! I . . . put some of that Sunday roast in your sandwich . . . I remember exactly . . .’ She massaged her temples and looked around in the kitchen. She had sliced up that roast to put on Mia’s sandwich, hadn’t she?

  ‘Whatever you say, Mom! Well, that roast was as transparent as air, and it tasted like air, too! Anyway, I’m starving!’

  ‘What kind of tone is that, young lady?’ Celeste intervened in her granddaughter’s angry rant. ‘That’s no way to talk to your mother!’

  Lauren did not pay them any attention. She was bewildered, leaving the kitchen in a daze, and went to get plates from the cupboard. Celeste helped Alyssa scoop up her crayons, and Mia reluctantly put silverware down on the table.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetie . . . I . . . didn’t mean to forget,’ Lauren tried to reassure her, still feeling confused.

  Mia mumbled something incomprehensible under her breath, and arranged the plates on the table. Lauren ladled out pasta and sauce while Celeste poured the beverages.

  Hungry, Mia twirled a forkful of spaghetti into her mouth, while Lauren cut the pasta into bite-sized chunks for Alyssa.

  ‘Eek! Mom!’ Mia shouted, spitt
ing out the half-chewed spaghetti. ‘Are you trying to poison us?’

  Lauren’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and Celeste wrinkled her forehead, too.

  ‘What is it?’ Lauren asked, tasting a little of the pasta and sauce from her fork.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, Lauren! What happened to the sauce?’ she asked, appalled, and pushed away her plate.

  ‘Nothing! What happened to the sauce?’

  ‘Try it for yourself! There’s far too much salt in it!’

  Mia took a big gulp of water to rinse out her mouth, and gave her a questioning stare. Hesitantly, Lauren tried the sauce again and shrugged her shoulders. Far too much salt? If anything, it seemed pretty bland to her. Lauren found it hard to understand what all the fuss was about.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I think it tastes fine.’

  ‘Lauren, dear!’ Celeste called out. ‘You can’t feed this to your children. Do you have any ready-made pasta sauce in the house?’

  ‘Seriously, Mom! This is inedible!’ Mia griped. Alyssa pulled a face when she licked a little of the sauce from her finger.

  ‘Super sour!’ the little girl called out, shuddering.

  ‘It’s not sour, you little toadhead! It’s salty!’ Mia grumbled.

  ‘Hey! There are no toadheads at this table!’ Lauren warned, collecting the plates. ‘Pull yourself together, young lady, or you’re in trouble!’ she scolded her wisecracking daughter.

  Irritated, she poured all the pasta into a colander, turned on the faucet and rinsed away the sauce.

  ‘I thought it tasted fine,’ she maintained. She felt they were all exaggerating a little. She heated a jar of ready-made sauce in the microwave, and by the time she poured the sauce over the rinsed spaghetti, another fight had broken out at the table. Celeste was trying in vain to smooth things out between the two sisters, while Lauren decided to stay clear of it.

  ‘Here you go – and not another word! There’ll be silence at the table, or else!’

  She was surprised that it worked, as everyone kept quiet. Mia wolfed down her food, and Alyssa was sulking. Celeste ate very slowly, leaving most of the pasta on her plate. Lauren guessed that her mom would make herself a proper lunch once she got home, and so she was not in the least bit surprised when Celeste got up shortly after their less than perfect meal.

  With her temples throbbing and a deep wrinkle that had furrowed its way into her forehead, Lauren remained seated at the battlefield they called their dining table.

  Alyssa was pretending to be an airplane out in the yard with her arms open, Mia was hunched over homework up in her room.

  Lauren plucked a strand of spaghetti off the table and let it drop onto her plate. Everything around her was blurry, and she buried her face in her hands. Definitely not a stress-induced migraine!

  * * *

  The faces around the bonfire looked tense.

  None of them had suspected that there might be more to Lauren’s headaches. How could they? They were young and healthy and happy. And somehow they felt invincible. How could they have suspected that it might be something worse? They were all blind to the truth. Maybe even keeping their eyes closed on purpose.

  Tonight however, by the warm glow of the fire, it was impossible to keep their eyes closed. Tonight, they each had to face what back then they had all shied away from.

  ‘We shrugged it off. We didn’t take your headaches seriously,’ Tim reflected out loud, and Lauren nodded in agreement.

  ‘And I had no time, either, to worry about them. Our everyday lives, the kids . . . I guess I was in denial.’

  Forgetting

  Mia slammed the door shut behind her and furiously glared at her mother.

  ‘Seriously, Mom, this is getting ridiculous!’ She stomped up the stairs and wiped her rain-drenched hair from her face. With every step, her Chucks made a squelching sound from the water that was oozing out of them.

  ‘What could be so important that you forgot to pick me up? Do you realize that I’m soaked all the way to my underwear?’

  Lauren followed her infuriated daughter upstairs. Wet footprints had left ugly marks on the rug.

  She could not reply to Mia’s question because she herself did not know the answer. After all, she had left the house ten minutes before class was out and driven to school. Just as they had agreed in the morning. Which was why, following the unexpected downpour, Mia had declined to get a ride from any of the other parents who pulled in to pick up their kids.

  Lauren knocked on Mia’s bedroom door.

  ‘I’m sorry, I . . . I don’t know what happened . . . I . . .’ She massaged her forehead and shook her head. Goddammit, she had left the house to pick Mia up – and then she had suddenly found herself in the parking lot of the local mall without knowing how or why she’d driven there. For the life of her, she could not remember. And her daughter had, she was ashamed to admit, completely slipped her mind. It was only after she’d turned the car around and made her way home, seeing Mia jogging in the rain, that she remembered why she had left the house in the first place.

  ‘Mia, honey . . . Please, let’s talk about this.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about, Mom! Seriously, I’m pissed!’

  Lauren could hear Mia hurling one of her wet pieces of clothing against the door, and flinched.

  ‘So I can see, honey, but please . . . You have to believe me when I tell you that I left the house to pick you up. And then . . .’

  Mia yanked open her bedroom door. She had put on an XXL T-shirt and a worn-out pair of jeans. Her eyes were furious.

  ‘Forget about it, Mom!’ She squeezed past Lauren into the bathroom and started blow-drying her curls.

  Lauren followed her, unable to make sense of what was going on. She held her throbbing head. This was screwed up! How could she let this happen?

  A troubling feeling started rising inside of her, but she didn’t allow it to break the surface. Everything was fine. That’s what Doctor Fisher had said, too. She just needed to slow down a little.

  ‘Mia, I . . . I want to make it up to you,’ Lauren explained and stepped over to the bathroom sink. She opened the mirror cabinet, rummaging for the pills her doctor had prescribed. There they were. She opened the orange vial and tipped one of the pills out into her hand.

  ‘Make it up how?’ Mia grumbled before working a handful of styling mousse into her hair.

  If Lauren made the right offer, her daughter might just forgive her after all.

  Lauren washed down the pill with a little water and then reached for the styling mousse herself. Her curls had been a little out of shape recently, and maybe she’d feel better if she looked nicer. That wrinkle in her forehead from the constant headaches wasn’t going away either.

  ‘I could drive you and a friend to the movie theater – if you like.’

  Mia pressed her lips together tightly. ‘Are you really going to drive us, or are you just saying that again?’ she gibed.

  Lauren took a deep breath. She tried to ignore the throbbing pain in her temples while being patient with Mia. And so, in spite of the pain behind her eyes, she winked at the teenager.

  ‘Well, you got me! I had every intention of disappointing you for the rest of the day – after all I am your mother, and it’s my job to disappoint you – but because you saw right through my charade I’m just going to have to drive you for real.’

  ‘You’re being silly, Mom,’ Mia muttered, but a smile played around her lips.

  ‘I know, darling. But don’t worry, I am sure I have passed it on to you.’

  She pulled her daughter into her arms and kissed the top of her head.

  ‘Mom! You’re ruining my hair!’ Mia squirmed away from her mother’s show of affection, frantically running her hands through her curls. Lauren laughed and shook her head.

  ‘All right, let’s get something to eat, and then you can call a girlfriend. Who do you want to ask? Kim?’

  Lauren gently goaded Mia
down the stairs and led her toward the kitchen. Those shoulders beneath her fingers were way too skinny. It wouldn’t hurt if Mia ate a bit more.

  ‘I’m not really hungry, Mom. Can’t I just get some popcorn at the theater?’

  She slid her scrawny butt onto one of the brand-new barstools Tim had bought for their kitchen island, and starting typing away at her cell phone.

  ‘Sure you can buy popcorn – but you’re going to have a proper meal first. I made chicken.’

  Lauren pulled the roasting pan from the oven where she’d been keeping the chicken warm, and sniffed the aromatic steam. This time she had decided against adding extra salt and instead stuck to the recipe. The rice on top of the stove had gone lumpy, but with a little sauce it would be just fine.

  ‘Too much!’ Mia waved her hands as Lauren filled her daughter’s plate.

  ‘I’m sure you can manage.’

  Mia grabbed her plate and a fork and shuffled off to the dining table.

  ‘Mom? Would it be all right if I asked Seth to come?’

  Lauren froze.

  ‘Seth? A boy?’

  Mia shot her a glance that cut off any further questions.

  ‘He’s all right.’

  Oh, sure! As if that was reassurance enough.

  Lauren hesitated because she felt that Mia wasn’t old enough to have a boyfriend.

  ‘So who else is going?’ she asked, in order to stop herself from refusing her daughter outright.

  ‘What? How do you mean? Who else do you think is going? Just me and Seth!’

  Lauren let out a sigh and sat down opposite Mia.

  ‘A girlfriend, maybe?’

  Mia let her fork drop on her half-empty plate with a loud clang.

  ‘Great, just great, Mom! So he can’t come, right?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask Kim today – and I’ll think about Seth and talk it over with your dad,’ Lauren said, trying to find a compromise, but Mia dug in her heels.

  ‘I will hate you forever if you tell Dad! This has nothing to do with you! Not with you – and definitely not with Dad! You guys are so . . . so stuck up! Forget about the movies – I’ll stay in my room tonight!’

  Sobbing, Mia ran up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her. A few days ago, Tim even had to threaten to take the door off its hinges because Mia was slamming it so hard. He was far less patient than Lauren, who was able to empathize only too well with her daughter’s hormone-induced emotional chaos. Becoming a teenager was tough.