204 Rosewood Lane Read Free Page B

Justine sagged onto the edge of the sofa and rammed her fingers through her hair. It was Seth; it had to be. He must’ve called her from a pay phone on the wharf.
    One minute away from her phone and she’d missed talking to her husband.
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    â€œI’m home.” Zach Cox let himself in the back door off the garage and stepped into the kitchen. His jaw tightened at the mess that greeted him. The sink was piled high with breakfast dishes, and the milk from this morning’s cereal was still on the countertop.
    â€œWho left out the milk?” he demanded.
    His two children—conveniently—didn’t hear him. Fifteen-year-old Allison was sitting at the computer in their home office, cruising the Internet, and Eddie, who was nine, lay prone on the family-room carpet in front of some mindless television program.
    â€œWhere’s Mom?” he asked next, standing directly over his son.
    Eddie lifted one arm and pointed wordlessly toward the sewing room.
    Zach ambled in that direction on his way to the bathroom. “Hi, Rosie, I’m home,” he told his wife of seventeen years. “What’s for dinner?”
    â€œOh, hi, honey,” Rosie said, glancing up from the sewing machine. “What time is it, anyway?”
    â€œSix,” he muttered. He couldn’t remember when he’d last come home and found dinner in the oven. “The milk was left out again,” he said, thinking it would need to be dumped after sitting for ten hours at room temperature.
    â€œEddie fixed himself a bowl of cereal after school.”
    Okay, he figured, the milk might be salvageable.
    She lined up the shiny black material and ran it rapidly through the machine, pulling out pins as she went.
    â€œWhat are you sewing?” he asked.
    â€œA Halloween costume,” she mumbled with four or five pins clenched between her lips. “By the way—” she paused and removed the pins “—Eddie’s school is having an open house tonight. Can you go?”
    â€œOpen house?” he repeated. “You can’t be there?”
    â€œNo,” she said emphatically. “I have choir practice.”
    â€œOh.” He’d had a long, trying day at the office and had hoped to relax that evening. Instead, he was going to have to attend this event at his son’s school. “What’s for dinner?” he asked again.
    His wife shrugged. “Call for a pizza, okay?”
    It was the third time in the last two weeks that they’d had pizza for dinner. “I’m sick of pizza.”
    â€œDoesn’t that new Chinese place deliver?”
    â€œNo.” He should know; he’d had Chinese just that afternoon. Janice Lamond, a recently hired employee, had pickedup an order of sweet-and-sour shrimp for him. “Besides, that’s what I had for lunch.”
    â€œWhat do you want then?” Rosie asked, busying herself with the cape that was part of the Harry Potter costume Eddie had requested.
    â€œMeat loaf, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and a fresh salad.”
    Rosie frowned. “I think there’s a meat loaf entrée in the freezer.”
    â€œ Homemade meat loaf,” Zach amended.
    â€œSorry, not tonight.”
    â€œWhen?” he asked, cranky now. It wasn’t too much to ask that his wife have dinner ready when he came home from work—was it? As an accountant, Zach made enough money to ensure that Rosie could stay home with the kids. This arrangement was what they’d both wanted when they started their family.
    At one time, Zach had assumed that when Allison and Eddie were in school, Rosie would come and work in the office with him. The firm of Smith, Cox and Wright often required additional staff. Rosie had always intended to get a job outside the home, but it just never seemed to happen. The school needed volunteers. Then there was Brownies when Allison was eight or nine, and now Cub Scouts for Eddie. And sports,