By Design - Jayne Denker Page 0,1

room. Granted, her father was usually the one pushing and her mother the one yielding. Bob Brewster was unapologetically the more forceful of the pair, and while that bothered Emmie at times, Jennifer Brewster always saw through his bluster. She never saw her husband’s behavior in a negative light; instead, to her he was simply confidently decisive in all things. Even when he was wrong, he somehow came out sounding like he was right. Emmie never could figure out why her mother let him get away with it, but she’d just take Emmie aside and explain “that’s just the way your father is.”

What amazed Emmie more, however, was how her mother managed to take his nonsense in stride. Whenever Bob barrel ed through situations, Jennifer would sigh, shake her head, and clean up any mess he’d left in his wake.

If Bob made unwise investments, she adjusted the budget to cover the loss, and eventually their finances would recover.

When Bob adopted a Great Dane on a whim, she came up with the idea to walk him like a pony, so he didn’t take anyone in the family for a drag down the street. If they got strange looks, Jennifer driving the family car at a crawl on a country lane, Bob hanging onto Bruce’s leash out the driver’s side window, she didn’t seem to mind.

If Bob suddenly decided it was time for a family camping trip to the Adirondacks in May—blackfly season—she was one one who brought along the bug spray...and reserved a hotel room in Old Forge in advance, so they had a place to sleep when, after several miserable hours, they abandoned the wilderness to the bloodsucking beasts.

It wasn’t as if Emmie’s father just ran wild all the time. He often was brought up short by one skeptical look from his wife, which often got him to think twice about his decisions. On occasion he even backed down and did things her way. But for the most part, he had the freedom to do what he wanted, safe in the knowledge that someone would pick up after him.

Emmie usually didn’t think that was fair, but then Jennifer would catch her daughter’s eye, wink, and smile, and Emmie knew she had her own measure of control in the partnership. It was like a daily masterclass in how to maintain a successful relationship.

But now there was no wife to shake her head at Bob and keep him from going off the rails, so off the rails he went. Not right away, however. Trish was right; for the first few months, Bob Brewster hadn’t known what to do with himself. Emmie had checked up on him almost every day, and sometimes, although he’d been up and dressed, she hadn’t been sure he’d moved from his recliner in the living room for hours at a time. She had been pretty sure he wasn’t eating, either, except for maybe a sandwich. She could only tell because there had been crumbs in the sink, where he’d stood to eat it.

For someone normally as active as Bob Brewster had been, this change had been alarming. Emmie worried that he’d never recover. But then, almost out of the blue...he did. With a vengeance. It was as though he woke up one morning, shook off his mood the way he’d done so often before with more minor issues in his life, and charged ahead, that familiar white-haired bull in a china shop again. Before Emmie knew it, he was off on one vacation after another. Maybe he decided if he stopped moving, he’d die, like a shark, Emmie thought. Because from that point on, he simply never stopped moving.

It was hard to explain to Trish. “It was like he...recovered too quickly or something.”

“There’s no set time for grieving.”

“I know. I don’t want him to be moping around a whole year later or anything, but he could at least, I don’t know, acknowledge the date. Is that too much to ask?”

“You mean like your official wallow?”

Today, September 8, was the first anniversary of Emmie’s mother’s death, and she had decided to face the day by not facing the day. Her plan was to hunker down in her house and, yes, “wallow.”And Trish was going to help her through it. Because Trish Campo always seemed to float confidently on the surface of life instead of succumbing to all the nasty bugaboos that threatened to drag other people under. Emmie had relied on Trish’s strength for years—they had been best friends