“I’ve learned she doesn’t mind my working hours because, in three sessions, she hasn’t mentioned them. However, it annoys her that I sometimes don’t hit the laundry basket with my dirty socks. This is something I can’t imagine why it would be annoying since she has a woman come in twice a week who cleans and does laundry so she doesn’t even touch my socks. However, now I make certain I hit the basket with my socks.”

I knew long hours. My ex-husband had worked them too. I hated it but he loved his job, had wanted to be a neurosurgeon since his uncle, who also was one, allowed him to stand in an observation room and watch a surgery when Conrad was sixteen.

Alas, now I knew that those long hours weren’t all about patients.

I’d also had a cleaning lady and Conrad hadn’t even bothered to throw his clothes anywhere near the hamper. I didn’t really care. He worked. I didn’t. I had the time to gather clothes and dump them in a hamper.

If we had marriage counselling, I might mention the work hours…tentatively.

I wouldn’t give a fig about the laundry.

“Lawrie—” I started.

“It’s got to be done,” he told me.

I scrunched the top cookie on and set them aside, asking, “Why?”

“Because I have to tell myself, and my sons, that I did all I could do.”

I shut my mouth but I did it fuming.

He was correct. He should do that so he could live with whatever came of this, but also so his boys could see him giving it one last go with their mother before hopefully he made the decision to leave his wife and find some happy.

But I hated the idea of whatever that witch would put him through in the meantime, including during those sessions.

I mean socks?

Really?

“So, if you’re committed to this, then I take it Thanksgiving is out,” I remarked, irately snatching up another cookie.

“I talked with Mariel about going. We’re considering it.”

I threw up a little in my mouth at the thought of the Wicked Witch of Santa Barbara tainting my whimsical, beachy guest bedroom with her malevolence.

When I powered past that, I declared, “If she’s coming, I’m inviting Robin. Her ex has her kids this Thanksgiving. She’d be all over it.”

“MeeMee,” Lawr stated irritably.

“Mercer and Hart love Robin,” I reminded him, and they did. My nephews thought she was a hoot.

“She drives Mariel up the wall,” he reminded me.

“Of course she does, due to all the sexual tension that’s crackling between her husband and a beautiful, vital woman who’s learned how it feels to have a jerk break her heart so she’ll know it’s worth any effort needed to make a good man happy.”