Wounded Warriors Series, Book 2: Waiting for an Eclipse by Karen Wiesner

Immense gratitude must be given to the following people for helping lend credibility to the fictitious university in this book:

Christine DeSmet (Director and Teacher, Writers Institute at University of Wisconsin-Madison), for answering endless questions about university life and for going above and beyond the call of duty by agreeing to give this book a critique and advance quote.

Dr. Jamie Henke (Faculty Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; music theory, music history and appreciation courses for the Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts and the School of Music), for sharing specifics about the music department of a university.

Professor Marshall Cook (formerly Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), for answering questions about what it takes to be a college professor and the steps to that goal.

Trevor Bothwell, for miscellaneous college information.

Kim Hansen and Kelly Kesery, who live in Milwaukee and helped me immeasurably to put my characters in that setting.

Pam Ford Stutz and Jody Allen, on the WisRWA list, for finding out about community football teams in Milwaukee for me.

Chapter 1

Sunlight seemed to pull him into its spotlight as he emerged from the DeSmet Building. Steve Thomas did what he'd done for at least half of his life: Stopped, squinted, slipped on his shades and avoided the bright rays. His glance traveled to the building across from the one he'd just left. The Drug Crisis Center shared the parking lot with the DeSmet Building. Right on time, Kristina Ingram pushed open a glass door and came out, searching for and finding him with her gaze. Her welcoming smile, even a hundred yards away, was as bright as the sunlight. He found himself soaking it up gratefully after the day he'd experienced.

For the past five years since she'd come to work at the Center as a counselor, they'd had this same ritual. Somehow, though his schedule was different most days and erratic at best, she left work at the exact same time he did each day.

Steve relaxed, returned her smile as they approached each other. Her hair, the color of cherry wood, was caught up behind her neck in a bun that was rapidly losing form. As the wind caught the loose strands, he remembered what it looked like down and free. She's got a really nice neck. He found himself laughing inside at the crazy thought. It felt good to laugh, even to himself.

"You did it!" she exclaimed when they were only a foot apart. "Congratulations! I'm so proud of you, Steve...I mean 'Associate Professor Thomas'."

Steve didn't bother to wonder how she'd found out. Kristina seemed to know everything going on at Eisner University.

"Thanks. If I had to go through one more committee..." He'd had his share of congratulations today for getting tenure and making Associate Professor status. Also his share, maybe more than his share, of mean-spirited teasing and ridicule wrapped in false sincerity either behind his back or to his face. Some of his peers at the college called him "the scholar", and not fondly. They assumed he was trying to be the pet among the elders. The truth of the matter was, college, getting his master's, his Ph.D., and now tenure as he worked toward full professorship was all that'd kept him sane for the past thirteen years.

Thirteen years--sounded like so little when it felt more like forever. Being here was where he avoided stress. Here he could fill the hours of his day, away from the loneliness, the silence, the endless problems. The black hole of emptiness sucked him in whenever he left this place. But his colleagues wouldn't understand because all they saw was that he made them look bad or he took what they thought they deserved. He didn't care to disclose the truth for most of them either.

"What was the reaction?" she asked because she knew about the rivalry he didn't encourage, let alone get involved in.

He shrugged, but she seemed to realize he'd had a tough day because of it. "They're just jealous, you know," she said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she brushed a strand of her hair off her lips. "You wear leather while they wear wool with reinforced plaid sleeves." She touched the sleeve of the light, straight-cut, leather jacket he wore over black jeans and a dark t-shirt.

Steve laughed at the realistic parallel. He'd never fit in with the dress code and never tried. Most of his colleagues followed the rigid ideal of dress because it was an obvious way to get in the good graces of the executive committee.

Surprising him, Kristina stepped forward and hugged him. He almost dropped his briefcase he was so unsure of himself in the position, but then she backed off and smiled at him again. "Have you got time tonight to go out for a celebration glass of champagne? My treat."

They'd never been in a social situation before--outside of a quick lunch or soda at one of the restaurants nearby the campus. She had no way of knowing he didn't drink alcohol, even if she might know why he didn't. Why did their professional friendship strike him as unusual? There was no reason he'd see Kristina outside the campus.

He shook his head immediately. "I can't. Too much to do. Thanks for asking though."

Her obvious disappointment almost had him wishing he could say yes. She knew why he couldn't and didn't push it. They left the sidewalk for the parking lot. After she unlocked the door of her car, he opened it for her.

"See you tomorrow," she said softly. "Do something for yourself tonight. All right?"

Steve nodded and got the feeling she understood the impossibility of that from the concerned look in her eyes.

"'Night, Kristina."

She smiled, and he remembered the sunlight when he'd come out of the music building. Her smile was like that. Blinding. Revealing. Only he didn't want to avoid it. Sometimes he wished he could stay where she was, where things weren't complicated or stressful. It wasn't fair to think she was the only sunshine in his life. Not at all. But he thought it anyway.

After shutting her door, he walked toward his car, turning to wave at her as she drove past him out of the lot. Sighing, he got into his car, remembered her comment about the wool sweaters and laughed.

The memory of her hug returned. Just a friendship hug. Warm friendship hug. Body to body. The laughter dried up and made his throat feel cramped with emotion. Confusion and straight-out fear gripped him.

No. He had to think about getting dinner ready. Doing dishes. Helping Val with her homework. Laundry needed to be done. Then getting Val to fall asleep, to stay asleep for a while anyway, just until there were no monsters or nightmares to wake her. Only then would he have time to do the work he brought home every night. None of those tasks applied to his wife because he couldn't predict Jessie.

A few minutes later, he was on the freeway and leaving Brookfield. He lived in Greenfield on the southwest side of Milwaukee. Ironic, he often thought driving home, that his family lived in such suburbia.

The closer he got to home, the more his stomach clenched. He lived in a good neighborhood, in a solid, two-story bungalow. It was about the only thing in his personal life that was good.

As soon as he turned the corner down the street he lived on, he knew something was wrong. Evangeline, the nanny who worked for them, picked up and stayed with the kids after school every day, wasn't there. Her car wasn't in its usual spot--parked on the street in front of the house. That meant Jess had to be home. She'd come home and sent Evangeline away. The fact that no one had paged him didn't make him feel any more relieved.

Every light in the house was on. The front door stood open. Music spilled out into the street as if a live band rehearsed in their garage.

Steve didn't bother pulling into the garage. He didn't take his briefcase. He parked on the garage approach on a slant and jumped out of the car. As soon as he ran up the porch steps, he saw his eight-year-old daughter huddled in the corner crying.

His teeth clenched as he picked Valerie up and held her tight against him. Now what, Jess? Now what, d*t?

He didn't want to go inside the house, almost as much as Val didn't, when he took the steps toward the screen door. "Please, Daddy, I don't want to go inside. Let me stay here," begged Val.

If not for the chill in the September air, her thin shirt and alarming frailness, he would have let her stay outside.

"Val, baby, where're your brothers? Is Ronnie still at football practice?"

Her face red, pinched, and miserable, she nodded. "Tom's at Aaron's."

When Steve opened the screen door, Valerie huddled her face into his shoulder and he barely heard her whisper, "I hate her, Daddy."

He increased the pressure of his arms and prayed he hadn't heard her right or that it was the wind. Regardless of whether she'd voiced it, he knew the truth he didn't want to face.

The stereo in the living room was the one blaring, and he slammed the button to get it to shut up. In the silence, he knew Jess wasn't downstairs. She'd come home, told Evangeline to get out, turned on the stereo to block out the silence and had gone to their bedroom. Left the kids alone again.

"Go in your room and close the door, baby," Steve said softly on the landing upstairs. Val did it without a moment's hesitation. Then he turned toward the closed door of his bedroom.

From outside, he heard the screech of tires in front of the house. One of Ronnie's much older friends dropping him off. Just in time, too.

Steve shoved open the bedroom door, wondering almost inappropriately why she never locked it. Or didn't she think she had anything to hide? Hell.

Inside his bedroom, he saw exactly what he expected to see: his wife lying naked in their bed next to another man. A needle was stuck in her arm, and she wasn't moving. Even when Steve said her name, she didn't stir. All the rage and fear and humiliation crumbled inside his head, yet Steve acted by rote. He checked her pulse and found it slow, erratic, barely there.

Behind him, he heard his son, a twelve-year-old boy with the eyes of an old man, swear. Steve covered Jess before turning to Ronnie and saying with the last vestige of his control, "Call an ambulance."

The long-haired guy next to Jess stirred. Steve didn't wait for him to come to full consciousness in his own good time. He walked around the bed and yanked the b*d straight up before shoving the clothes he'd gathered at him. "What did you two shoot up?" he demanded, and the creep stumbled, incoherently telling him sheet rock--LSD and crack--as he struggled with his pants.

"Get out. Now."

As soon as he fled, falling down the stairs judging from the ruckus, Ronnie picked up the phone next to the bed. Steve watched him punch out the number without taking his eyes off his mother for even a second. He summoned an ambulance as though he'd been doing it forever. And he had. He was twelve years old, and he'd done this more times than he could remember.

Damn you, Jess, how much more? How many times can you put us through this?

He'd known the peace wouldn't last. He'd never believed for a second it would.

"Daddy?" Val's voice drifted into the room from the hall, and Steve glanced at Ronnie. Even Ronnie's glare at him was familiar, and all Steve could think was that this had to end. All this s*t. Somehow. Soon.

It had to.

"I'm hungry, Daddy," Val said softly. Steve brought his hand to the back of her head, smoothing her pale yellow hair. She eased closer to him on the waiting room chairs, putting her head on his chest.

"I know, baby. It won't be long now. We'll pick up Tom, then go through the drive-thru on the way home. Get anything you guys want."

Small consolation, but their lives were built on small consolations and Steve gave them whenever he could. Maybe it wasn't good for them, maybe he wasn't firm enough, maybe he indulged them too often. He'd never been able to withhold the little joy he could give them. When they looked back at all this when they were older, he hoped they'd remember these things and say it wasn't all bad.

Glancing across the waiting room of the ER, Steve caught his elder son's dark eyes. Ronnie looked away immediately, hostility so fierce that Steve felt it run through him like a hot knife. He couldn't help Ronnie. It was too late. The damage Jessie had done went too deep to ever bring him back.

All of his life, Ronnie had seen his mother's insanity--her drinking, her drugs, her cheating. He saw and heard the fights. He saw the way Jessie remained oblivious to his brother and sister. Occasionally, Jess noticed Ronnie--when she needed him. Then and only then. Not a minute sooner. It'd created a vicious cycle in him. He wanted his mother's love more than anything, so he remained loyal to her, making excuses for her bad behavior, even when she ignored and used him. In order for him to remain loyal, her enemies had to become his enemies. Steve had become his own wife's enemy because he hated the things she did, couldn't accept them anymore. He'd spent years trying to get her to change. He'd spent years failing. He'd lost the war for his son as well.

Feeling his continued gaze on him, Ronnie turned to him, his lip curling. "You shouldn't have let her go back to work. You should've let her recover longer."

"She made the decision, Ronnie. I didn't say anything one way or another." Steve heard the desperation in his own voice. He wanted his older son to believe him, just once. To assume the best of him instead of the absolute worst.

"When do you ever need to say anything to her? She knows what you think of her. She tries so hard to please you, and it's never enough for you."

Swallowing, Steve felt tears sting his tired eyes.

"Stop defending her!" Val said, her voice watery as she turned toward her brother. "She did it to herself. Daddy tries to help her and she just... She'll never change. Why do you defend her? She doesn't care about you. She hates everyone, but she needs us."

"Val..." Steve started, but Ronnie was already on his feet, stalking out of the room.