Read Family Dynamics (Pam of Babylon Book Five) for Free Online Page B

early in her life. And Steve was lonely. What woman would be interested in him now, with a kid? They were barely looking his way without one; Marie was the perfect example. He had to stalk her to even consider him. God, was that a mistake . He was a ripening piece of fruit, bordering on becoming rotten, when he noticed Carolyn.
    They’d worked together all those years, but she was happily married and raising a family. Her aged parents lived with her and her husband in a duplex in Queens. It was about as middle class as you could get, and to Steve, about as foreign. And then one day a few weeks earlier, Steve noticed that Carolyn had lost weight. She had a great figure for a woman her age. But there was something else—she was pale and disengaged. Steve built up the courage to approach her. She’d been great when Marie got sick, taking over her work load when it became too much for Steve to handle. Now he wanted to be supportive of her as well.
    “Knock, knock,” he said as he pushed her door open slightly. “Can I come in?” Carolyn looked up from her desk with that glassy-eyed look of hers. She smiled when she saw Steve.
    “Sure, come in,” she answered. “What can I do for you?”
    “I just wondered how you were doing,” he replied. “I never really thanked you for what you did for me last year, and you seem like you could use a friend now.” He decided he had nothing to lose by being forward. She could always tell him to get out, like Marie used to do with regularity. She got up from her desk and walked around it to close the door.
    “Have a seat,” she said, pointing at the chair in front of her desk. “You are going to regret asking.” Steve had a hot flash. What if she was pissed at him about something? She sat back in her desk chair and folded her hands in front of her on the desk.
    “Did you ever meet Mr. Fitzsimmons?” she asked. It took Steve a moment for it to register that she was speaking of her husband. He nodded.
    “We met a couple of years ago; maybe ten years ago, at the office Christmas party we had at Ali Baba’s.” He didn’t mention that he remembered her husband getting up and dancing with the belly dancers. It was a highlight of the party. Very un-Christmas-like.
    “Right. Ali Baba’s. Anyway, he moved out. We’ve been together since high school, and he is in love with someone else. Just like that.” She didn’t look like she was going to cry, but Steve thought it might be much worse. With her eyes wide and eyebrows spiked up into arches, he thought she might start screaming. But she was pulling it together. She took a deep breath. “So, yes, I could use a friend. I’m over fifty years old, counting the days until I can retire, and now this. To make matters worse, our boys want to live with him!” She gave out a yelp and then started laughing. “They’re old enough to decide where they want to live, and of course, they’d rather go with their dad and his new cool girlfriend. I guess I should be happy, unless I get a summons that he wants me to pay child support.” She exhaled, and her shoulders dropped. Steve’s heart went out to her.
    “Well, that sucks,” he said.
    She smiled at him, knowing that he’d recently been through much worse and was so generously validating her. “I guess I can ask you to go for a drink now. My mother-in-law is starting to look forward to me coming home too much. It will be good for her to have to wait around for me.”
    “Wow, I guess I didn’t realize you and Marie had gotten married,” Carolyn said. Steve had a hot flash.
    “No! No, no, no. We didn’t. It’s just easier to call Nelda my mother-in-law rather than my babysitter and offend her,” Steve explained.
    “I’ll meet you for a drink. It would be nice, a change of pace and all that,” she said. She looked tired, and she felt worse. If only she could tell him what she was really feeling—that she would rather Frank die than be with happy with someone else. What the