The Family Plot

By Beth Morgan

Lucy considers herself lucky: she has a good job as a systems analyst in the banking industry; her husband, Hal, is chief financial officer for a local mid-size company; their three children are smart and healthy. But tensions lurk under the smooth exterior. The illusions fall away when Lucy unexpectedly becomes pregnant, her husband gets a new job at an untested start-up company and two troubled teens intrude upon their suburban home life. Throughout the next year, both Lucy and Hal struggle with their marriage, their jobs and their children, and come to drastically different conclusions about everything. But it is only when an act of violence rips through the family, does Lucy realize how far apart they really are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491830529

Beth Morgan

Beth Morgan has published stories in Kelsey Review and Crab Orchard Review where she was a finalist for the Jack Dyer Prize in 2013. She is finishing her second novel, The Con, and is doing research for a historical novel about a piano maker in Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century.

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© 2013 Beth Morgan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/28/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3048-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3052-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013919423

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

For Steven

Chapter 1

Things are out of control around here! Lucy glared at the stacked boxes in the garage. Every day there were more boxes, more mail, more kids at dinner, more complaints, more work, more everything. She sighed. Probably just the flu. She hadn’t had the flu in decades, but the past few days she’d been lethargic, queasy, tired all over. Not sick enough to stay in bed, not sick enough to stay home from work, just sick enough to make every little step seem like climbing Mt. Everest.

She opened the trunk of the Toyota and frowned at the grocery bags like it was their own damn fault they couldn’t hop into the house on their own. One bag. She could manage one bag.

Jeffrey! Can you get the rest of the groceries from the car, please? She hoisted the sack onto the kitchen island and dropped her purse.

There was no answer from the basement family room, but then, she knew there would not be. Jeffrey was almost certainly watching a movie and even if he had heard her, he would not, on that principle she knew well, respond to any request until it had been issued at least three times and at very close quarters. She sighed again. It probably would be easier to do it herself, flu or no flu. But… once she’d started with Jeffrey…

Lucy went to the top of the stairs. Jeffrey, do you hear me? Still no answer. Jeffrey! She clomped down the wooden stairs to the basement, banging each step exactly as she had instructed her children never to do: a herd of horses on the move, she had called it when they were small.

The movie—one of the Terminators—was going strong on the TV. Even Lucy, who had never actually seen a Terminator movie, recognized it immediately. Terrifying that such things worked by osmosis. She stood between her son and Arnold Schwartzeneggar.

Mom! Jeffrey yelled. Can you get out of the way? Like please?

Would you get the rest of the groceries from the car, please? Lucy didn’t budge.

I’ll do it later, Mom. Jeffrey paused, as she still did not move. In a minute. Could you move now?

Lucy looked at her watch. You have five minutes. She moved back towards the stairs. And good afternoon to you too, Ricky.

Jeffrey’s companion mumbled from the depths of the sofa. Ricky had been hanging around the house since he and Jeffrey met in first grade; Lucy had not found him appealing then and she found him less so now. She hadn’t heard Ricky actually talk to anyone—including Jeffrey—for years, which made her wonder about their friendship. Susan had explained it succinctly: They’re both jerks, Mom. Lucy scolded her daughter, though she admitted to herself that Susan may have hit the nail on the head with Ricky. She trudged back upstairs.

Oh, count your blessings, count your blessings, Lucy thought as she unpacked the bag. Not one of her three kids had any problem that would elicit more than a yawn from most parents—no drugs, no alcohol, no ADHD, no autism, no dropping out—and she counted herself one of the ten people left in the United States with a stable marriage. She was lucky. Her mother had always said about her father: he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t hit people, he earns a good living and he comes home on time. Lucy thought that was a pretty basic default setting for husbands but after hearing the gossip going round the schools, she realized she was living in paradise as far as marriage was concerned. So Hal wasn’t the most sensitive guy in the world—he was hardworking, smart and cared about her and the kids. She was lucky.

The back door shut quietly. Can I have a snack, Mom?

Lucy turned, smiling, from stuffing Ben & Jerry’s into the freezer. She didn’t admit it, even to herself, not really, but Marty was currently her favorite child. He was eleven years old, an elf of a child, not yet cheeky as his older brother and sister, still thought his parents were important in his life and he did things without being told a hundred times. A prince among children.

No, it’s too close to dinner.

Just a carrot, Mom, OK?

A prince who eats vegetables. OK, all right.

Lucy looked at the clock. Ten minutes had passed since she gave Jeffrey his five minutes. Could you tell your brother to get the groceries out of the car? He said he would.

Jeffrey volunteered to do something? Marty looked at her, munching.

I helped him with the words.

I could do it, Mom.

No, I’m trying to build your brother’s character. Just remind him, if you would.

He trotted towards the stairs while Lucy dumped ground beef into a skillet. Half of her worried that she was bringing up Marty to be too eager to please and the other half worried that she was bringing up Jeffrey to be a selfish slob. Why were they so different?

She poked the beef. Baked ziti wasn’t her favorite dish—nothing with ground beef was her favorite dish—but she made it because no one complained about eating it, something that couldn’t be said for most things she cooked. In fact, she couldn’t think of one other dish that didn’t make someone thoroughly miserable.

The back door opened again. Lucy, your trunk is open, the garage door is open. I thought we were going to be more careful—

Jeffrey’s helping me unload the groceries.

Hal came into the kitchen and looked around. And Jeffrey’s doing this helping while watching a movie?

I’ve only asked him once and I sent Marty to remind him. Would you like to do the third request? Ricky’s down there too. See if you can get rid of him.

Of course we can’t get rid of him. He’s taken root in this house.

Hi, Dad. I was just getting the groceries, OK? Jeffrey slid past his father into the garage.

The front door slammed. Mom! Mom! Just wait till I tell you what that bastard Jeffrey did! He— Susan burst into the kitchen, stopping in mid-speech. "Oh hi, Dad. I didn’t see your car.

Sorry—" With that, she fled down the hall.

Hal turned to Lucy. She uses language like that when she talks to you?

Not generally, no. She seems upset. A small wrinkle furrowed Lucy’s brow. Susan, when upset, tended to suck as many people as possible into her own personal tornado. It was especially trying at dinner.

Mom? You want me to set the table?

That’d be great, Marty. Thanks.

Mom? There’s no room on the counter for the bags. Where should I put them?

Oh, just set them on the floor, Jeffrey. Did Ricky go home?

He’s staying for dinner, Mom.

Taken root, Lucy, didn’t I tell you? Hal grabbed a carrot on the way to the bedroom.

Lucy drained the pasta and, looking around, did not see one vacant spot to put together the casserole. She plopped the dish on a pile of catalogs. She thought homes in the suburbs always had large, airy kitchens—her apartment in New York had had a kitchen not much smaller than this. Her grandmother’s kitchen, now that was a place where some serious cooking could be done. A real farmhouse table and enough counter space to put together Thanksgiving dinner for twenty. Someday when she got around to it, she was going renovate. She just knew she’d be a better cook—a better mother!—if she had some space—

Mom, I gotta talk to you. Susan crept up next to Lucy. Just wait till you hear what he did.

Lucy looked up in time to see Jeffrey smirk at his sister before bounding back downstairs to his Terminator. For the thousandth time, she wondered what possessed her to have children born so close together. Susan had been inconsolable when she brought Jeffrey home from the hospital and inconsolable she had remained through childhood. Even now…

So what did he do?

He told the team about this morning. Everybody in English class was making jokes and laughing at me. All the guys, Mom.

Lucy had forgotten the morning’s drama, a merciful slip of memory that let her glide through the day in relative peace. Susan, whose periods always started in a torrent, woke up at five-thirty to bloody pajamas and sheets and had hysterics before Lucy—or anyone else—was out of bed. Hal took one look and bolted for the shower. Jeffrey, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious, parading up and down the hall waving his own sheet and shrieking. Lucy had nearly slapped him. For that matter, she had nearly slapped Susan too. She sighed again and sprinkled cheese on the ziti.

I want you to ground him for a week at least. No TV, no friends over to watch movies. He’s in school or he’s home, period.

Lucy suppressed a smile on the use of period, Susan not being in a mood to appreciate her own pun. "I’ll have to talk it over with your father. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do—things like that should remain within the family."

Mom! All Dad ever does with Jeffrey is tell him to say he’s sorry and then they talk about basketball.

Lucy put the pasta in the oven. Susan, it’s not your responsibility to discipline your—

Well, you guys never do! He gets away with murder.

Please don’t interrupt. It’s not your job to raise your brother, it’s ours.

You’re doing a terrible job! I mean, I’m an adult, Mom—

Susan! Lucy straightened up. Susan, you are all of eleven months older than your brother. Go rest in your room until dinner. Watch a little TV—

Susan fled the room, her wails lingering behind her. Lucy shook her head.

So what was wrong with Susan? Hal came back into the kitchen. She’s upset.

Remember this morning?

Oh.

Jeffrey told the basketball team.

Ah. Hal picked up a stack of mail and began leafing through it.

Yes. And of course, she has mapped out Jeffrey’s punishment in detail—grounded for one week, can’t leave the house except for school, no TV, no friends over, etcetera.

You told her OK? Hal frowned at the electric bill.

No. I said we’d talk about it.

You and me?

Lucy stopped scraping carrot curls and stared at him. I thought since we’re the parents of these two, yes, we could talk about this—present a united front. Do you have a more appropriate punishment in mind?

Susan was hysterical this morning. Hal went back to tossing envelopes in one stack and bills in another.

What Jeffrey did was pretty awful. Susan was humiliated in school and she’s not as confident as he—

Mom, are we having garlic bread?

Oh, rats, yes. Marty, could you slice the bread? The garlic butter is in the fridge, in the door. I forgot to take it out. Nuke it if you have to.

Is dinner ready, Ma? Hi, Dad.

Jeffrey, Hal said, thrusting the stack of bills at Lucy, it seems you and I are going to have a talk tonight.

Sure, Dad. Coach says I’m on the A team to start the season.

Because you— Hal stopped. What? That’s terrific, Jeffrey! He grabbed his son’s hand and pumped it. I’m proud of you, son.

Lucy put down the bills and narrowed her eyes at Jeffrey, who smiled placidly back at her. She had loathsome children. Jeffrey had plotted this one. Making the starting lineup meant that, in his father’s eyes, Jeffrey could do no wrong for the entire season either at home or at school. Susan was in for a long winter siege.

Mom, the broccoli isn’t done yet. Should I put it back in the microwave? Marty asked.

Yes, please. Marty was not a loathsome child. Could someone call Susan to the table? Preferably not Jeffrey.

I’ll go, Hal said. I’ll have a little talk with her.

Oh Lord, just what we need, Lucy thought, one of Hal’s heart-to-hearts.

Do you guys want to get something to drink? There’s milk or juice.

God, Ma, you’ve got enough milk for an entire school, Jeffrey said, looking into the refrigerator. Can I have soda? We have half a bottle of root beer somebody should drink.

You can have milk, Jeffrey. Or juice. And please don’t swear.

Ricky always drinks soda with dinner at his house, don’t you, Ricky?

Ricky mumbled.

Ricky never even eats dinner at his house, Hal said, returning with Susan. We will have a pleasant dinner, all of you. We can discuss the situation afterwards.

I’d like wine with dinner, Mom, Susan said casually.

Milk please, same as the boys. Or water.

Susan leaned over and whispered in Lucy’s ear. It helps with cramps, Mom. Karen’s dad always lets her drink wine when she has her period.

I have Advil if you have cramps. It works better than wine. Lucy set the ziti on the stovetop. On the other hand, wine was far better for improving the mood and Lucy couldn’t wait to dive right into a large Merlot.

God, Mom, do you have to like tell everybody?

Please don’t swear. I thought that since the entire school seems to know, and certainly you made it clear to the rest of us this morning—

Jeez, Mom—

Susan, that will be enough, Hal said. Let us have a quiet dinner.

Lucy sipped her wine and picked at her salad; she hadn’t taken any pasta because even the cheesy smell of it made her queasy. Susan had taken a huge portion of pasta and two slices of garlic bread. She was a pretty girl, but… what could she do about her daughter’s weight? Every time she even suggested—

Lucy, what’s in all those boxes in the garage? Every time I come home there’s more stuff out there.

I thought it was your stuff, Lucy said. You’re not eating your salad?

I had salad for lunch.

Me too, Mom. I had salad for lunch—

Eat your salad, Jeffrey. Or have an extra helping of broccoli.

Ewww, Mom. Jeez, I really did have salad for lunch.

Tuna salad is not interchangeable with green salad and vegetables. Eat broccoli then.

Mom? Can I have Dad’s salad?

Yes, of course, Marty.

Mom? Jeffrey’s eating all the garlic bread, Susan said.

I had two pieces, that’s all! You’re a liar.

I am not! You’re the liar, I saw you eat three pieces at least, you pig.

Children, children! Can we get through dinner without all this name calling? If you have a topic to discuss, you may speak. Other than that, keep quiet. Hal straightened his glasses with an ominous look.

Lucy, who was happy to keep quiet, wiped a wine spot off the oak tabletop. The table had come down in the world, she thought sadly, looking at the plastic mats and Scotties napkins. When she was a child, it had been set every night with her grandmother’s sterling silver flatware, a freshly-ironed tablecloth and white napkins. She had promised herself when the kids got older she’d go back to cloth, but really, nobody in the suburbs bothered anymore. It was weird enough she insisted on a sit-down dinner every night.

Ricky’s arm snaked across the table in front of her, grabbing two pieces of garlic bread. He crunched energetically. Didn’t this boy eat lunch?

Karen’s dad went to Tibet last week. He’ll be gone a whole month.

That’s pretty exciting, Susan, Lucy said. I thought Tibet was closed to foreigners. Aren’t the Chinese keeping Americans out of Tibet, Hal?

He’s with some kind of trade thing, like a group that’s going to do business with them.

Where’s Karen this month then? Lucy asked.

At home, of course, Mom! Susan made an exaggerated roll of her eyes. She’s eighteen, you know, like an adult?

Lucy looked skeptically at her daughter. Karen, whose mother had been dead for years, did not strike her as mature despite her advanced age of eighteen. The friendship was another puzzling one: Karen was pretty and—she’d heard—a party girl. Susan was probably dying to be a party girl, Lucy realized, but so far had had little opportunity. Fortunately.

Invite her for dinner again, if you want. We haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks.

I thought you didn’t like her, Mom.

I never said I didn’t like her. She’s your friend.

She’s friends with a lot of the guys on the team, Jeffrey said, grinning malignantly.

Jeffrey! Lucy and Hal said in unison.

Mom! See what I mean, he’s so gross.

We’ll discuss that some other time, not at the table.

Lucy helped herself to another spear of broccoli. Jeffrey and Ricky were eating their third servings of pasta and Marty was happily finishing off his father’s salad. As Susan eyed the garlic bread, contemplating what her mother realized would have been her sixth piece, Lucy stared at her long enough to get her attention. Lucy shook her head slightly; Susan’s size Large sweatpants were stretched about as far as they’d go and the effect on Susan’s self image as an XLarge would be disastrous. Not to mention her health and her social life. Susan turned red, teetering on the brink of tears. Lucy suppressed the temptation to push her over the edge.

Later, when Marty was stacking the dishwasher, Lucy stood in front of the kitchen calendar considering the family schedule for the week: basketball practice, band practice, chess club, scouts, tennis, tryouts for the senior play Susan didn’t have a prayer of getting a part in and Parents’ Night at the elementary school. Was September like this when she was a kid? Her heartburn was back, that stomach flu… something nagged at the back of her mind and she came round to Susan… and it suddenly hit her with the force of a broadside slap.

Mom? Are you OK, Mom?

Lucy counted. She was always lousy at keeping track. She counted again. Fifty-three days. She was forty-six years old. And pregnant.

Chapter 2

Mom?

Yes, Marty?

You OK?

Yeah. Fine. Just that stomach flu. I think I’ll go lie down for a few minutes.

What the hell happened? Lucy lay looking at the ceiling in the bedroom. Her eyes traced the crack around the light fixture; it was growing ominously. The house wasn’t that old: didn’t anything last anymore?

Lucy tried to remember their sex life of the past month or so, but it all ran together in her mind: after twenty years, nothing stood out about anything. By the time she got to bed at night, she was too tired to have any interest in sex, though Hal still did. Way too often actually. What was the failure rate on diaphragms anyway? Five percent? She was conscientious; she knew she had used it every single time since Marty was born—shouldn’t that count for something? How old was this flimsy piece of rubber anyway? She thought a minute. Oh, dear—she had gotten it shortly after Jeffrey was born and Jeffrey was sixteen years old. Oh, dear indeed. She should have had her tubes tied after Marty—what had she been thinking? She was in her forties, for Christ’s sake—it was difficult to get pregnant after forty, everybody said so. Damn, damn, damn.

What was she going to do? At this age, she sure didn’t want another baby, but… and she did believe in a woman’s right to choose. But for herself? It just never seemed like something she’d have to deal with. Maybe she wasn’t pregnant, maybe she was starting menopause. But now that she really thought about it, she felt pregnant. After all, she’d been pregnant three times before and things were pretty much the same: queasy stomach, bloated abdomen, lethargy.

What was Hal going to say? Well, he’d blame her, of course: birth control was her job. He didn’t like condoms. He certainly didn’t want another child either, but…

She wasn’t afraid of his reaction, yet… maybe she shouldn’t tell him until she was absolutely sure she was pregnant. No point in hearing a sermon if she didn’t have to.

Maybe her period was just late. Rats, she remembered, thinking of Susan, she still had to deal with Jeffrey’s punishment. She should talk to Hal first—about Jeffrey… not about anything else quite yet.

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What do you think we should do about Jeffrey? Lucy asked, coming into her husband’s study. She stopped abruptly in the doorway. Hal stood at the glass display cases, polishing his MVP trophy with a pair of Jockey shorts; he dusted his trophies more than she dusted anything else in the house. Why did he bother with glass cases if he liked dusting? The only thing on the entire wall that wasn’t a salute to his own basketball career was a signed Leroy Neiman poster of Lew Alcindor in midair. And Hal still called him Lew Alcindor; after all, it was only thirty years since he changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But that was like Hal, always—

I don’t know. He told me Gordon’s dad gave his son a new Toyota when he made the starting lineup, but I think that’s—

"Hal! I am not talking about the basketball team! I’m talking about Jeffrey blurting out family affairs to his friends. I can’t teach him sensitivity—God knows I’ve tried—but I can at make sure there will be consequences of being insensitive."

Hal sighed and shut the glass door. Susan was hysterical this morning—she should bear the consequences if anyone is to bear consequences around here. I only got six and a half hours sleep due to her outburst and you know I need seven hours at least. Hal sat down in his recliner and picked up a Time magazine. I’ll have a talk with Jeffrey and ask him to be more considerate; we see eye to eye on things, you know. I don’t think it warrants any more action than that.

I think he should be grounded for a week. I know Susan suggested it, but I think—

She shouldn’t be doling out punishment around here—

"She’s not doling out punishment—I am. And you want her to act like an adult when she’s still a teenager. Jeffrey has no idea what it’s like to be in her shoes—she struggles and he doesn’t have to."

She’s out of control—schoolwork, weight, clothes, everything! You let her get away with too much. He wagged his finger. You’ve got to be firm with her.

All right, all right! Lucy held up her hands. But that’s no reason for Jeffrey to get off scot-free for humiliating her. I’m grounding him for a week.

You’re blowing it all out of proportion. If you just let it go, they’ll both forget about it in a day or two. He flapped his magazine in front of his eyes: dismissed.

Lucy turned and left the room without speaking. Sometimes he treated her like one of the kids: do this, do that, don’t bother me.

When she got to the kitchen, she scooped ice cream into a bowl. Lucy never ate ice cream; normally she didn’t even like ice cream, but tonight she was absolutely craving it. She took a full spoonful into her mouth and let it sit there: it had been ages since she had anything this creamy and rich. Luscious stuff, something called Karamel Sutra with vast amounts of caramel and full fat cream. The last spoonful lingered on her tongue. She could get more if she wanted…

If Susan found this much comfort in food, no wonder she was overweight… one more little dip and she’d deal with Jeffrey.

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Lucy stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking at her sons sprawled on the sofa. They were watching Superman, a movie Lucy knew each of them had seen a dozen times, often referring to it as an old movie, much to her horror. The boys had made the subterranean room into their own personal Cineplex, but Lucy liked the room anyway. The sofa was her old plushy sectional, possibly the most comfortable sofa in the world in its day. Its day had, however, included a period of each child’s life when jumping off its broad arms into the center was a passable morning’s entertainment; it was still more comfortable than the sofa upstairs. The rest of the room, retreating into shadow even on a bright day, was a cheerful mess: computers, old hooked rugs, DVDs and the glass-fronted barrister bookcases from her grandfather’s library.

Jeffrey? she said, picking her way around heaps of unfolded laundry. Can I talk to you for a minute?

Sure, Mom. How about after the movie?

Why don’t you turn it off for a few minutes while we talk, OK?

It’s on HBO—we’ll miss all the good parts.

Jeffrey, we have this movie. You can watch all the good parts you want, whenever you want.

We have this movie?

We have hundreds of movies, surely we have a classic like that. Jeffrey, we need to talk.

OK, Mom, what about?

Think, Jeffrey, about your day. What did you do that might require a talk with your mother?

You want to reward me for making the A team?

Very funny. No, you shouldn’t have told the team about Susan’s problem this morning. This is the kind of thing that should remain within the family.

Ma, she was gross, standing in the hall waving her bloody sheet around and screaming like she’d woken up with an ax murderer. I mean it was her own blood, right?

Jeffrey… could you possibly be a little more sensitive to your sister? She was hysterical.

He shrugged. Like I’ve experienced this? It’s not like Dad wasn’t grossed out too, you know.

Lucy sighed inwardly. Some things should remain within the family. To help you keep this firmly in mind, you’re grounded for a week. No TV. No friends over after school. No visiting your friends’ houses. You will come home directly from school on the bus. Alone.

She noticed Jeffrey was struggling