Fiercely ambitious and independent of thought in what they wanted from their careers, Tom and Rebecca Anderson succeeded in everything they did.
Tom was a highly qualified electrical engineer and his business was much in demand. Rebecca was a high-flying management consultant, her expertise in HR, and work often took her away for days at a time. Her absences, regular and of longer duration, were beginning to grate on Tom, so much so that at times he wondered if he wasn't living a bachelor's existence and that an expensively appointed house, in a wealthy part of town, failed to make up for.
Whenever they argued, which was becoming a more common event, Tom got the distinct impression that Rebecca thought of him as being in a 'trade', whereas she was in a 'profession'. The hot words would fly like angry hornets circling their heads, and in Rebecca's case, when she took calls on her iPhone at all times of the day and sometimes at night. She would act coy and slip out of bed to talk, or more often to look at text messages which, he soon realized, were being deleted, once they had been read.
Tom struggled with the suspicion that he was being sidelined, that Rebecca's heart and body had been taken by another man whom she had met through her work or at some related event. Becky, as he still called her, was a fierce networker, and her attractiveness, her neatly coiffed fair hair, and her choice of stylish clothes brought her undoubted success and attention.
The only thing that could be said about him where it concerned Becky, was that he was not the jealous type, but he was a man who could not handle the perception, if not the fact, that his wife was cheating on him. A few words to say what was happening and their marriage would be over or it would continue. What he hated was living in limbo.
Abd now, after some weeks of fraying nerves and tempers, their home had become a temporary refuge for Becky's mother, Susan Hargreaves. Divorced for some years, Susan had taken advantage of an early retirement scheme and had decided not only to stop work but to move closer to them and not be in the way or intrude on their lives. A house was being rebuilt and modernised in a town little more than thirty miles away and Tom had offered to deal with the required electrical work. The financial arrangements had soon been agreed upon and work was well in hand.
Given the strained relationship with Becky, he was glad for the distraction of being in Susan's company, and whenever they met at her new home where the dirtiest and most disruptive changes were finally completed and the house cleaned out, ready for the final fitting of some electronic gadgetry that he had the expertise to undertake.
For Susan, a woman with a fleshy hourglass figure and cropped sandy-blonde hair, he now made the time to do that, and if Becky noticed any change in how her husband behaved, when he and Susan were together she gave no sign that it bothered her.
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"I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble working on my new home. It comes on top of how I see you and Becky behave toward each other," Susan ventured, unsure of how Tom would take to her expressing her opinion. She stood by his shoulder and watched Tom test a security camera, but she had yet to decide where it should be fitted. "You don't seem to be getting along, the two of you, or not as well as before."
"Things have changed recently." Tom kept his answer short and sought to move past her, but Susan put a restraining hand on his arm and gazed searchingly at him. "You may already know what's going on."
"I won't be able to say unless you tell me what is bothering you, Tom. It seems to be a one-way argument, as far as I can tell."
She heard him sigh and brush back the unruly mop of his black hair. His somewhat hollow-cheeked face looked leaner and the set of his full lips tight and thin. She was finding him to be attentive to her even with so much going on in his life with Becky.
Tom sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, it is 'one-way', and maybe that's because I'm not the one playing away."
Susan met his challenging stare. Tom's eyes seemed to bore into her and she had her doubts on how much to tell him in reply. What was going on between Becky and Tom could so easily draw her in too. She would have to take sides and what she had learned about them would make that difficult for her to do. But she had been in this situation with her ex, Becky's father, so she understood the debilitating effects that it could have on you.
"She uses the excuse of you helping me with the house to go out more often and work on projects assigned to her. Now that I'm staying here with you that's easier for her to do. Becky thinks you're not left alone for long days at a time. Her workdays are all over the place, the hours she keeps varied and unpredictable, I mean. You must have noticed that yourself?" she observed and on a considerate look his way. Now that the kitchen had been fitted out, and finished, she could pour out two cool drinks from the new refrigerator. Susan handed one glass to him. The same question was asked again. "You must have noticed that?"
"Thanks, and no, I haven't taken that all in." He shook his head out of embarrassment not to have done so. Tom leaned back against a cabinet and looked her way. "I was involved with getting things done correctly in your house, Susan...fitting all of that in and dealing with other projects as I went along. Tradespeople often try to cut corners if I'm not around."
"And I'm glad that you have been around, for me." Her renewed touch to his arm, the stilled gaze of her eyes, made him pay closer attention to what Susan had done and said.
A bond, quite different from before, seemed to be developing between them and he realised that whatever help Susan gave him, in dealing with what was playing out with Becky. a sympathetic listening ear would have to be acknowledged in some way.
He smiled before moving away from her unembarrassed touch on him. "Two women are in my life and I've got to deal with that, somehow."
"And you won't have to do that alone, Tom."
He stopped at the foot of the stairs to look at her for an instant, the roof light above them casting a bright glow onto them. The remodelled hallway had been an idea of his and had transformed the ground floor, opening it out and giving a greater sense of space. Now the indirect sunlight twinkled off her beaded necklace and lit up Susan's mop of cropped hair with its rebellious fringe. He took a moment longer to delight in her fulsome attractiveness and wondered just how Becky's father could have left her. Drawn closer to Susan, through the work that he did for her, he had reckoned some time ago he would not have made that mistake.
"No, I don't want to do that alone. I like how you've dressed for the day and it shows me that you reckon the place is almost ready to move into. You're feeling at home and you're relaxed and happy with that."
"Yes, I am."
"Good..."
Susan couldn't keep from touching him. The thought had occurred to her too. Comfort had been taken from his willingness to work for her, the time put in often making his days much longer. Now, she understood the reasons for that. Becky was often away and when they were together the strain in their relationship was often on show or burst into life, when it was least expected.
"You'll be the first to know when I decide on that, moving in, Tom. Do I take your mind off what's happening with that daughter of mine?"
