“Dad…“
“Rough is wishing you could be going windsurfing with the other guys instead of having to hunt for another job and entertain a wife who by now wishes she’d never married you because marriage isn’t nearly as much fun as she had thought it would be. Rough is worrying about diaper rash, fevers in the middle of the night, crying that sometimes goes on and on until you think you’re going to go out of your mind.“
“But, Dad…“
“But do you know what the roughest thing of all is? It’s realizing that you married before you really understood what you needed from a woman. It’s realizing that sex isn’t everything, even though, at nineteen, it seems like the most important thing in the world. It’s realizing you made a mistake and that there’s no going back.“
Brandon looked at him. “Is that the way it was for you?“
Colby took a swallow of coffee. “Yeah, that’s the way it was for me.“
“And you think that’s the way it’s going to be for me?“
“I think that’s the way it would be for anyone who gets married too young.“
There was silence for a moment. “Robyn thinks it will work out.“
“Does she? How does she know?“
“I don’t know.“ Brandon hunched over his coffee. “She really wants to get married.“
“Do you?“ Colby asked bluntly.
Brandon’s shoulders moved restlessly. “Sometimes I think it would be all right, you know? I really like her, Dad.“
“That’s obvious. But do you really like the idea of marriage?“
“Last night I told her maybe we should wait a while.“ The words came slowly, stiffly. “I said maybe next summer we could talk about it again.“
This was probably as much as he could hope for right now, Colby told himself. He could hear Diana telling him not to blow it now. The kid had come more than halfway. “Sounds reasonable,“ he said cautiously.
“She didn’t think so. She doesn’t like the idea of waiting. She’s got it hard at home, you know?“
Something in Brandon’s tone told Colby that Robyn had been more than a little upset. Was that how Brandon had ended up in the girl’s bed? Had Robyn tried to give him a graphic demonstration of the wonders of married life?
“It’s your life too, Brandon. You don’t have to live it the way she wants you to live it. You have a responsibility to do what you think is best, not what anyone else tells you is best. All I ask is that you make your own decision while you’ve still got all your options open.“
“I’m thinking about it,“ Brandon said stubbornly. “You’ve got to understand Robyn’s parents, though. They try to run her life. Always yelling at her. Always fighting.“
“Tell me something, son. If you were having the kind of trouble at home that Robyn is having, would you look for someone else to rescue you or would you rescue yourself?“
Brandon scowled. “I’d get myself out of the house. But that’s different.“
“Is it? If you did use someone else to rescue you, do you think you would ever really feel free?“
“No, not exactly.“
“Do you want to deny Robyn the experience of learning how to get herself free? Do you want her to exchange her dominating parents for a husband she thinks will replace them? She’ll expect you to step right into the role of taking care of her. But she figures you won’t treat her the way they do. You won’t yell at her. I’ll tell you something, Brandon.
After a few months of taking care of her, you probably would be yelling at her. You’d realize she married you only because she wanted to use you.“
Brandon looked up, a faint bewilderment in his fine brown eyes. “Sometimes it’s hard to think straight about things like that, isn’t it? I mean, when you’re with a girl and she starts talking about marriage and stuff while you’re thinking about other things, and you want her to be happy but you also want to go to bed with her, and she knows that and sort of uses that to… oh hell. You know what I mean.“
For the first time since Brandon had arrived, Colby took genuine pity on his son. He gave him a slow, man-to-man grin. “Brandon, good buddy, allow me to tell you that I know exactly what you mean. Welcome to the club. You’re learning the hard way what every man apparently learns the hard way. At the age of forty, I have come to the conclusion there is no easy way to learn it. Women can complicate a man’s life no end.“
“Does Diana complicate your life?“
Colby drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Enormously. And the worst of it is, I don’t think she even realizes it.“
Diana drove into town later that morning with Specter sitting beside her.
“The trouble with men,“ she informed the dog, “is that they can really complicate a woman’s life. They’re so damned difficult to understand. They don’t think logically or rationally, the way a woman does. They don’t know how to analyze their emotions or themselves. They don’t communicate well. They just sort of blunder into your life and stumble around trying to get your attention. When they have it, they don’t know what to do with it.“
Specter whined in sympathy and then stuck his nose out the window to sample the morning smells.
“He never said a word this morning, the bastard. Not one word. I would have sworn he didn’t even remember making love to me, except that he obviously had to get dressed, the same as I did. He must have realized why he’d taken off his clothes in the first place. Specter, we went crazy last night. We just woke up and went crazy. I’ve never taken that kind of risk before. What if something happens? I think I’m getting scared.“
Specter pulled his large muzzle back out of the slipstream and gave her a curious glance. Diana sighed and reached out to pat him reassuringly. “If I’m pregnant, I’ll let you have Colby, okay? I know you’ve been looking for an excuse to sink your teeth into his throat.“
Specter yipped at the name.
“All we can do is wait and see,“ Diana said gloomily. “The odds are in my favor, I think, although it couldn’t have happened at a worse time of the month. But it was only one night and after all, I am thirty-four. I’ve heard it’s more difficult to get pregnant in your thirties than it is when you’re younger.“ She groaned. “But I have to tell you truthfully, Specter. The man felt very fertile to me last night.“