“Kyle, I apologize for getting angry at you,” Dan said quietly, “and I apologize on behalf of my interfering, smart-ass wife.” Kyle clearly heard another gasp in the background.
“Son, I can promise you there will be no more interference from my wife in yours and Peggy’s problems…as long as she is my wife, that is,” Dan said. “I have to go now. There are some things I need to get straight in my house, Kyle. Good luck to you, okay?”
“Sure, Dad,” Kyle replied. “Good luck to you too, hear?” The phone went dead.
Across town, Dan treated his wife to a baleful look.
“Denise,” he said in a barely controlled voice. “How long have we been married?”
“Thirty-four years,” Denise said in a hesitant tone.
“Do you want us to make it to thirty-five?” Dan growled.
********
When Kyle got back to the house, Peggy was strangely quiet. She had called her mother back when the phone wasn’t busy and got a condensed version of what Dan and Kyle had discussed. Denise told Peggy her father was madder than she’d ever seen him. He’d left to go for a drive, telling his wife that she’d better be home when he got back.
He’d told Denise when he returned she’d damned well better be ready to come to a better agreement with him about her views on the interaction between women and men, her relationship with her daughter and Kyle, and especially on the concept of marriage and how theirs should proceed from this point onward.
After dinner, with their house more like an armed camp than a happy home, Kyle and Peggy sat in the living room, pretending affection they didn’t feel while they played with the children. The television was turned low; neither adult was watching and couldn’t have said what was on. After the kids were sent unwillingly to bed the phone rang.
It was Denise to apologize to Peggy for even thinking of getting her daughter together with one of the men at the Hidden Hills club. That was wrong, she said, and she was very sorry she’d done it. It was very bad advice, Denise said, and she hoped Peggy realized that and would never do any of those things she’d talked about.
Thunderstruck, Peggy was silent for most of the conversation. She spoke in monosyllables for the most part. When her mother asked Peggy to give the phone to Kyle, she did without a word.
Kyle said only a few words. He accepted Denise’s admissions of wrongdoing without comment beyond a simple acknowledgement. He hung up without giving the phone back to his wife. His mother-in-law had sounded contrite and seemed to truly regret what she’d said to her daughter. Denise had been subdued and a little emotional. She’d obviously had to force words out in through a lump in her throat a couple of times. She’d made a choice though. That much was plain. Kyle wished them all the luck in the world.
“That’s the last time,” Kyle observed quietly. Peggy started.
She was still trying to absorb her mother’s warnings. She’d never heard her mother sob just that way before. Her mom said she couldn’t live without her husband and she advised Peggy to work things out with Kyle before it was too late. Peggy didn’t know what to do about the abrupt change in her mother’s advice. Was this a permanent change in her mom’s philosophy or something that would pass once the firestorm had passed?