His Other Wife by Deborah Bradford Page A

panel on some sci-fi starship. As Hilary and Pam talked, Hilary saw him
     marveling over his gift, fingering the gearshift knob, feeling it smooth and commanding beneath his hand. One press of the
     clutch, one flick of the key, and her son would be rolling forward. As they talked, the engine roared to life and then shut
     off again. The lights switched on and off; the windshield wipers arced across the glass. As Hilary watched her son’s profile
     through the glare on the windshield, she expected him to be memorizing the intricacies of his new dashboard. Only he wasn’t.
    Hilary watched her son get out of the truck, slam the door, and check to make sure it was locked before he left it. Emily
     followed him, creases of worry between her brows. Hilary realized what Seth was going to do, and she was heartsick. Seth. Don’t. Not for my sake. But it was too late. Seth shoved the keys toward his dad.
    “Dad,” he said. “This means a lot. But I don’t want it.” There were so many things he could have said; Hilary knew it. He
     could have given so many excuses. He could have said he didn’t want to worry about parking on campus. He could have said that
     he didn’t feel right taking it or, It looks like a gas guzzler and I can’t afford to pay for the insurance and neither can Mom . Or he could have said he couldn’t afford the registration. But Seth didn’t bother. “Maybe this isn’t the best idea.”
    “What’s this?” Eric asked. “You don’t want the truck?”
    “You should have talked to Mom,” Seth said. “You shouldn’t have done this without her.”
    A muscle bulged in Eric’s jaw. His mouth tightened in quiet anger.
    Ben, who was too young to understand the friction among everyone, appeared at Seth’s side, the basketball tucked against his
     hip. “Do we have to leave yet? Can’t we shoot some more?”
    “Come on, kid.” Seth held out both hands, splayed as if he already held the ball in the tips of his fingers. “Let’s do it.”
    “Yeah!” Ben grabbed Seth’s hand.
    After the boys headed toward the blacktop, Eric turned to Hilary, furious. “This is your fault. Seth knows you disapprove.
     He turned me down to satisfy you.”
    “He made his own choice,” Hilary said in her own defense, her voice weak. But deep down she knew that wasn’t true. She’d gone
     for years thinking she’d healed, that she’d moved forward, that she’d mastered her grief. Then here came Eric surprising everyone
     with a truck and Hilary felt like he’d found a deep wound in her, something that made her wince with pain. “You and Pam can’t
     just spend money on him and expect everything to be all right between you.”
    Later, when Hilary was alone, she would examine this moment, draw the hurt out of her pocket the way she would draw out an
     apple, and she would examine it. She would pray, What is this, Lord? Why did this one episode make me react this way? Why do I feel like Eric and Pam poked a sore spot? She would wait then, listening for some answer. Maybe she’d robbed them of a lovely moment between father and son. For now,
     she could only salvage what little respect she and Eric had between them. “He turned a truck down, Eric, not you.”
    Pam stood with her feet apart and her arms crossed over her chest like a general ready to reprimand an army. “We’re trying
     our best to be a healthy blended family for him.” Pam’s mouth had thinned to a grim line; her spine stood straight as the
     trunk of a box elder. “Everything we try to do for him, you undermine us.”
    “We’ll talk this through,” Hilary said, finding her composure. “It’s fair for you to give him a good vehicle, something practical
     he can use while he’s away. It was also fair for us to discuss this first.”
    Pam joined her husband. She kneaded the muscles in his shoulders as if preparing him for a knockout in the twenty-first round.
     “I’ll tell you what isn’t fair, Hilary. It isn’t fair for you to