Disclaimer:  Lois Hobson, Gary Hobson and Renee Callahan are the property of Tristar Pictures. So is Betty Callahan, altough she never actually appeared on the show. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story is a sort of prelude to the second season episode, "Don't Walk Away Renee." If you have not seen the episode, there are no major spoilers here.

My thanks to peregrin anna for beta reading this and offering helpful suggestions.

"Oh, yes, Gary's back on his feet now," Lois Hobson proclaimed in answer to the inquiries of her friend, Betty Callahan.  Lois
tossed her short blond braid and leaned toward Betty with both hands on the handle of her shopping cart. "It was just that he needed some time to sort things out after the divorce. Now he's gone into business for himself.  Owns a bar and grill in downtown Chicago. It's called McGinty's."

Betty was an old friend of Lois'. The Callahans lived on the next block and their youngest daughter had been in Gary's grade at
school. Both women coped with retired husbands.  Both had grown children who had moved away.  But it was a surprise running into Betty this morning at the Food King. Lois had not expected to find her friend amid candy displays, announcements for specials on canned soup, and odors of bread, laundry detergent and pickles. The last Lois had heard, Betty was down in Florida, caring for an elderly aunt.

Now it seemed Betty had settled the aunt in a nursing home. She was home in Hickory, eager to catch up on the local gossip.
Evidently, the caregiver duties had not prevented her from sunning herself on the beach.  Like most residents of Indiana in April, Lois still retained her winter pallor. Not so Betty. A glowing tan complimented her wiry athletic looks. Although Betty was a few years older than Lois, she could have passed for thirty-eight.

To make matters worse, Betty was forever boasting about her three children. The oldest boy, an orthopedic surgeon, was married and had two children. "The baby girl gets more adorable every day, Lois. Everyone agrees she looks exactly like me."

Betty's middle daughter was out in Silicon Valley doing programming for a software company.  In June she would be getting married too. "The wedding will be so stylish, she won't even let me shop for my dress until I get to California."

The youngest, the girl who went to third grade with Gary, had a Ph.D. in mathematics and was working for an important think
tank. "Not even her boss really understands her work. But then she was always the brightest in the class, wasn't she, Lois?"

Betty rattled on, filling in her friend on all her children's latest achievements. Only when she thought Lois was properly
impressed had she bothered to ask, "And how's Gary doing?"

Lois looked at her friend, her mouth set firm. She longed to tell Betty what Gary *really* did with his time.  She would just love to see the look on Betty's face! But of course she couldn't tell anyone about the paper. That secret was reserved for family, and for those people her son, or the paper itself, chose to tell.

Yet Lois' reply about McGinty's still got the reaction she was hoping for. Betty fumbled with the bottle of orange juice she had taken off the refrigerated shelf in the market, almost dropping it. Before Betty left town last summer, Lois was making excuses for her son.

All mothers want to be able to brag about their children. It had been hard on Lois all those months when she didn't quite know what to tell her friends about Gary.  She would give an embarrassed little shrug and admit that her son was unemployed, that he still had not moved from the hotel room he rented when he and his ex-wife first separated.

Until she discovered his secret a few weeks ago, and learned of the paper's demands on her son's life, Lois didn't quite know what to think either.  It looked as though Gary was wallowing in self-pity for too long a time after the divorce. How she had wished she could talk some sense into him!

Marcia just wasn't worth all that pining. True, Gary had loved her and *she* was the one who dumped *him*. But Lois always
thought that Gary could have done better for himself. Marcia was pretty and successful to be sure. But it seemed to Lois that
success in business was more important to her than being a decent person. Lois had raised her son to have different priorities.

Yet when the divorce happened, it made her son unhappy. Lois couldn't help wondering if that might be partially her fault. Yes, the Hobsons all loved and cared about each other.  But  none of them were good at expressing their feelings.  She and her husband Bernie had not set the best example.

Lois read all the magazine articles on constructive discussion and arguing techniques. To put it mildly, she and Bernie didn't use them. They tended to distance themselves from each other when they were angry. Last year, when the recently retired Bernie  got on her nerves, Lois sent him off to take a camping trip  -- by himself.  Only a few weeks ago, she'd been so miffed at his
failure to tell her about their son's unusual newspaper, she left Bernie to cool his heels in a police lock-up for a while before she posted his bail.

Maybe if she and Bernie had set a better example, Gary would have had the skills he needed to talk over his marital problems
with his wife.  It was too late for regrets like that now.  But Lois remembered packing the old family suitcases and setting them out on the porch when she sent Bernie off on that camping trip. She never intended to kick him out for good, only to let him work off his restlessness. Still, she enjoyed the satisfying thud the full cases made when she dropped them onto the wooden boards of the porch.

Several months later Gary's old friend, Chuck Fishman, volunteered some disturbing details about Marcia, about the way she threw Gary out. Was Lois' own action so very different from what Marcia did when she packed Gary's bag and threw it into the street?  Lois couldn't help blaming herself, in part, for the failure of her son's marriage.

She had been better at teaching Gary to take responsibility. Probably she had over-stressed that, but then who wouldn't with a husband like Bernie Hobson? Bernie's heart was in the right place. Lois would never have married him otherwise. But in some
ways he never grew up.

"It's just like having two little boys," Lois used to tell the rest of the mothers at Gary's kindergarten. She was surprised to see so many of the women nodding in agreement. Then and there, she determined that her son would be different.

Here Lois had succeeded all right. Gary was so responsible that the mysterious day-early newspaper chose him for its purposes. No one could take that responsibility more seriously. She was proud of him for using the paper to help others, for preventing so many tragedies.

Yet she worried that he took the paper *too* seriously. Gary let it rule his life. Chuck complained that Gary never had time to go to ball games or movies or to just hang around and have fun. "Even when I got these great tickets for a Blackhawks game,
Gar canceled on me a hour before the game started. And you know how he likes hockey, Mrs. Hobson."

Her son had not discussed the matter with her, but she suspected that he rarely went out on dates. A young man needed *some* fun in his life.

In a few days it would be Gary's birthday. He would probably act as though it were just an ordinary day and attend to the paper as usual. Or he *would* unless she and Bernie went to Chicago to make a party for him.  Maybe they should do just that.  And if they did, Lois was going to have a little talk with Gary about his social life.

After all, her son would be thirty-two in a few days. It was only natural for Lois to be thinking about grandchildren. She suspected that was Marcia's fault, the lack of grandchildren.  She had dropped a few hints to the young couple during their
marriage. Marcia would get defensive and resentful at the hints.  She'd abruptly change the subject to her latest triumph in court
or her new promotion. But Gary, while never saying anything to contradict his wife, always got a wistful look in his eyes.

In the end it was probably just as well that Marcia had her way. Divorce could be so hard on children. Still Lois hoped that Gary would get married again -- to someone who wanted children this time.

"You say Gary owns the place?" Betty Callahan's question brought Lois' thoughts back from their wool gathering.  Lois found she was holding a milk carton in her hands, gazing at it but not really seeing it. Quickly she placed the carton in her shopping cart, wedging it between a box of cornflakes and a bag of carrots. Then she followed her friend to the check-out counter of the
Food King.

"That's right, Gary owns the business. He's back on his feet now," Lois repeated to Betty as they waited in line.

"Is that so?" Betty Callahan asked, putting an arm around her friend's shoulder in a conspiratorial manner. "And you know what, Lois?  My daughter Renee just happens to be living in Chicago now, too."

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