Page 83 of Reclaimed Dreams
Chapter26
14 years ago
“God, what time is it?” Dom asked, waking up with a start from a terrible nightmare of squealing tires and busting glass. He looked around frantically, confirming that he was indeed still sitting up on the couch, with Jo tucked against his side, a movie playing on the TV, and not in the middle of a car crash.
Jo rubbed her eyes and checked her watch. “Eleven forty,” she said through a yawn.
“Twenty minutes to curfew.” Dom stated the obvious, still trying to pull his brain from the horrible images that lingered.
“Do you think there will ever be a time we don’t wait up for them to come home?” Jo asked.
“Not while they still live with us. Although next time I get to pick the movie.”
“What? Why? Blues Brothers is a classic.”
“It’s giving my imagination too much fodder for all the ways Gabe could be getting into trouble right now.” Dom ran a hand over his face, still trying to fully wake up.
“Crap, I didn’t even think of it like that. Please tell me our kid isn’t on a mission from God.”
“Well if he totals twenty cop cars tonight, I think we’ll have our answer.”
“As long as he doesn’t total his.”
Jo poured herself another glass of wine. It was Dom’s night to be the designated driver in case their seventeen-year-old son needed to be picked up. It was a deal they’d made when Gabe had started driving. No questions asked, no grudges held in the morning, if he or his friends ended up in any situation where driving was not smart. Gabe would call and either Dom or Jo would go pick him up.
Gabe had not activated that agreement yet, but one of them always stayed sober just in case.
“Why doesn’t anyone tell you that having a teenager is as bad for your sleep as having a toddler?” Jo grumbled.
“Because if we had known it was going to reach that level of horror again, it would have broken us. Hell, if it were more widely known, the human race might go extinct!”
“Someday, Dom, someday I’m going to sleep in till noon.” Jo waved broadly with her wineglass like an empress commanding her servants. “And it will be glorious.”
“God, that sounds great. Someday I won’t have to be on a job site at six a.m.” Dom joined her in spinning fantasies.
“Someday we’ll eat out regularly, so I don’t have to cook every single day.”
“We’ll try every restaurant in town, when we won’t have to feed six people, four of whom are growth-spurting.”
“They eat so much!” Jo moaned, traumatized.
“What else are we going to do someday, Jo? I like this game.”
“Someday I’m going to figure out how to get you on an airplane and we’re going to see every city in Italy and then move on to France and Spain…”
“Have you thought about a cruise?” Dom asked hopefully.
“I don’t want to spend my entire vacation on a boat crossing the Atlantic!”
“But someday we can take vacations for as long as we want. Time is no object.”
“Hmmm, I’ll consider it.”
“What else?”
“Someday I’d like to go back to teaching. I miss the classroom and doing something that matters.”
“What you do matters to me very much, Jo. Without you, Tony and I would never have been able to keep the business afloat. Because of you managing the finances, our children have a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and college on the horizon.”
