Finding Home by Marie Ferrarella Page B

completely focused on Brad. She was eagerly shifting from foot to foot. Brad took a slice of ham, tore it in half, then held out first one half, then another to the animal. It was gone in less time than it took to tear the slice in half.
    â€œBecause I’m hungry.”
    What would he do if she just started choking him? Just gave in to a wild urge to shake sense into his head by wrapping her fingers around his throat and depriving his brain of oxygen?
    Stacey savored the thought for a second before discarding it.
    â€œDinner’s on the stove,” she pointed out needlessly. “I just made it. Why aren’t you taking some of that instead?”
    Again, Brad didn’t even glance in her direction, gave noindication that he heard any of the words. Instead, he placed a lettuce leaf on top of the mustard-slathered ham and capped it off with a second piece of rye bread.
    He shrugged carelessly. “I don’t know, you might have other plans for it.”
    She hated it when he threw back her words at her. Hated it when he cut her off like this. “Brad, you’re being silly.” Which, in her opinion, was putting it damn mildly.
    Brad went about his business as if she hadn’t said a word. Taking a can of soda out of the refrigerator, he closed the door with his shoulder, leaving the lettuce, bread, mustard jar and what lunch meat he hadn’t used or fed to Rosie out on the counter where it would remain a silent testimony to his having to forage for his own dinner until such time as she put it away.
    Slighted, Dog whined and looked up at her, waiting for some kind of treat since Rosie had gotten one. Brad walked out of the kitchen without so much as a glance in her direction or a comment in response to her words.
    For a moment, Stacey struggled with her inner earth mother. She was tempted to go after Brad, to try to reason with him and at least get him to eat a better dinner than a ham sandwich on rye. But he was obviously into giving her the silent treatment for now. She knew from past experience that it would be futile to try to make him see things her way. He was so accustomed to getting everything his way, she was pretty certain he didn’t even realize there was another way to do things.
    With a sigh, she began to clean up and put things back into the refrigerator. She paused to give Dog a thin slice of ham. Eager, acting as if she hadn’t eaten for days instead of minutes, Rosie tried to edge the other dog out of the way.
    â€œNo, you big bully, you’ve had yours. It’s time for Dog to get a treat.”
    That made two of them, she thought silently.
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    â€œA quarter of a mill? Wow! Cool.”
    The delighted pronouncement came from Julie in between forkfuls of the salad that she insisted on referring to as her lunch.
    Once every week, twice if she could swing it, Stacey and her daughter got together for lunch at one of the restaurants located near UCI Medical Center where Julie put what she’d learned at medical school to practice. The simple lunches were almost the only time she got to see Julie, certainly the only time she got to see her alone. When Julie came to the house and her father was there, he monopolized her.
    Even though she was in medical school, preparing for a career that on occasion could mean the difference between life and death, Julie would drop by from time to time, always with a bag of laundry in tow. Time, Julie had learned, was a very precious commodity. She would use that portion that would have otherwise involved doing her laundry at a laundromat, to come home and touch base.
    â€œBase” was always absorbed by Brad, who wanted to know every detail of what she was studying, what she was doing at the teaching hospital where she was working toward a degree that would eventually lead to her becoming certified in internal medicine.
    Julie, who looked like a female image of her father, right down to the soul-melting green eyes and his