A Changing Marriage by Susan Kietzman

Author:Susan Kietzman [Kietzman, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Bob left the following week for a ten-day business trip in Ohio and Indiana, so Karen was alone again with Rebecca and Robert, who were lethargic and bored, even though it was the first week of summer. The Keyworths were out of town, spending a week with Vincent’s parents on Cape Cod. Caroline and Ginny went to the club pool every day and had several times asked Karen and the kids to join them, but Rebecca each time had declared that she wasn’t in the mood for the Millers and the Lees, meaning she was still holding a grudge from the dinner party the week before. Karen suggested they ask school friends to the house, but both Rebecca and Robert declined. They barely wanted to go outside, even though there had been a string of sunny, seventy-five-degree days. Rebecca wanted to hang out in her room, and Robert wanted to play and watch TV in the basement, and Karen quickly realized she hadn’t signed them up for enough summer activities. Rebecca was going to an art day camp for two weeks in August, and Robert was scheduled to spend four weeks’ worth of July mornings at the club’s sports camp, but that was it. Maybe she could find something at the YMCA in town? While Karen rooted through their paper recycling bucket for the Y summer program guide, she wondered if she could find activities for the kids at the same time as her women’s doubles group at the club. She had already booked Jamie three afternoons a week, but maybe she could pare it down. While Jamie was a good sitter, Rebecca needed more than Jamie’s craft box, neighborhood nature walks, and preteen novels to fill her summer days. Karen found the guide and flipped through it, marking several options. She would ask Rebecca at lunch and then call the Y afterward.

While her languorous children idled away their first week of summer vacation, Karen cleaned out and reorganized her kitchen drawers, and put away the winter hats, boots, mittens, and coats she had been meaning to deal with since the end of April. She sorted the toys, CDs, books, and magazines that lay on the playroom floor, cleaned out Robert’s toy box, and reorganized his closet. She cleaned the basement, which she had to do periodically because she didn’t want to pay Shine Time another thirty dollars to do it biweekly. She washed and ironed all the curtains in the house. And when Rebecca protested about Karen’s tidying up her room, Karen instead baked four-dozen cookies, a coffeecake, and the lemon cheesecake Bob loved. By lunchtime on Friday, she needed a break. She nudged the kids away from their solitary activities with a trip to McDonald’s and Dairy Queen. When they got back to the house, there was a message on the answering machine from Sarah, who was back in town. Vincent had stayed on for the weekend at his parents’ cottage, and she wondered if Bob was traveling. Karen picked up the phone immediately, inviting them for a late afternoon playtime and dinner.

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