Grace Wilkenson

The family bed

CHAPTER ONE

It was a smoggy, overcast day, and that partially accounted for it being so quiet, though it was the beginning of Christmas vacation. Whatever the reason, Donna Howell was just glad that the day had been so quiet, and she hurried to switch off the lights in her classroom before the usual last minute gossip wandered in, keeping her from leaving on time. It happened often during the school term and ordinarily the attractive blonde teacher didn't mind in the least, as she wasn't happy about going home to an empty house. But this day she had good reason to get home early, as she was expecting a phone call from her daughter.

Before the last of the lights were turned off, the young teacher checked to be sure the list of instructions for the janitor were firmly attached to the bulletin board. Everything was in order, so she picked up her purse and coat, then walked to the door. After looking back at the small room, she closed the door and locked it from the outside. She glanced up and down the familiar, but now unusually quiet, corridor, then walked briskly out to her car, remembering that tomorrow she would be meeting her daughter and son for a much needed holiday.

"Good grief!" she exclaimed out loud to scold herself for having forgotten why she was in a hurry. Sheri was due to call in half an hour, and Donna knew her daughter would worry if she wasn't there to receive the call. Sheri had become so mature in the past few months that it was almost frightening. In fact, when both the children had arrived home for a weekend last month, she had been amazed at how grown up they had become since their last visit. They seemed more worldly wise; a look about them that she wasn't sure how to interpret, and in some ways, she had been even more conscious of the changes in her son.

Kevin was no longer her little boy, but instead he was a young man maturing rapidly. Yet there was still that special gleam in his eyes that made her feel proud, and as always she had a hard time keeping her emotions in check. He was her boy, and she would always want to hold and squeeze him, maybe even more than a mother should. In fact, she had even trembled when he had walked into the house, greeting her with an innocent childish kiss on the cheek.

Her immediate concern was for her daughter, however, as she had never really taken the time to discuss the things a mother should pass on to a daughter. After Sheri had announced that a boyfriend was coming to visit them during Christmas vacation, several times in the few days that followed that statement, Donna had wanted to call her daughter and talk about it. Yet she hadn't, and somehow she felt that Sheri was more aware of sexual matters than she.

It took fifteen minutes to drive from the school to her Pasadena home at a safe speed, and although she was in a hurry that evening, Donna drove at her usual pace. She knew that she would be there in plenty of time, yet she still felt apprehensive. As always, there was that little nag, that tiny feeling of guilt. It was her biggest regret in life that she didn't have more time to be a mother to her children, instead of their sole support.

Donna Howell, long ago, had decided that her children should have the best education possible within her means, and to her way of thinking this meant private schools. Her decision, influenced by the necessity to teach in order to support herself and her children, was also predicated on a belief that they would benefit from the close ties and relationships of a private school that would hopefully fill the gap left by her absence. This thinking, however, was far from what either Kevin or Sheri really needed, and while it was true that they both had developed intellectually, physically and socially in the private school environment, there was a glaring lack of parent-child love.

Donna Howell, in making her choice, had not only neglected her own personal life, but had inadvertently alienated her son and daughter from a family life of love and understanding they sorely needed. Now that Sheri was in college, it only compounded Donna's financial responsibilities, and on the rare occasions when they were together, she found that the gulf between them had perceptibly widened.

It had been Sheri who had first suggested the Christmas trip to Yosemite, and when Donna had eagerly agreed to the reuniting of the family, she had no way of knowing what had really precipitated her daughter's motives. Nor at the time could she have imagined what would actually happen – and happen in such a way that went far beyond the bounds of family unity the young mother envisioned.

It was only on rare occasions like this that Donna Howell questioned the way things went in her life, as she wholeheartedly believed her main function as a parent was to do whatever was required to provide for her children, a belief fostered by the problems she had had to face at a very young age. She had been the only child of a policeman, her mother having died shortly before Donna's tenth birthday, and although her father did everything possible to create opportunities for her betterment, she was left on her own shortly after she turned twenty when he was slain trying to avert a bank robbery. Donna had been a junior in college and dating Walter Howell at the time, but not until her father's tragic death did she attach any significance to Walter's romantic intentions. Shortly after graduation they were married and Donna divided her time between teaching and making a home for her husband, but with the birth of her daughter the following year, all of her attention was required at home. A year after Sheri was born they had their second child, Kevin, and Donna had pretty well settled down to being a mother and housewife, a life she was willing to accept. But then, when she was only twenty-two, tragedy struck again – her husband was the innocent victim of an automobile accident.