Chapter 28
twenty-eight
. . .
Cage
I’d had a hell of a day at the office. I’d seen back-to-back clients, and I’d ended my day with a visit from Martha Langley. She’d informed me that Maxine was depressed and not eating, and she was at her wit’s end. She’d decided to give her to a pig rescue a few towns over.
There were days that I felt more like a therapist than a veterinarian. And my daughter had not snapped back the way I’d hoped, and neither had I. I couldn’t even make fun of Bob because Gracie and I were as pathetic as he was now. None of us felt like doing much lately.
I’d offered to take Gracie riding, but she’d turned me down.
The only thing she liked to do lately was paint, and she’d paint this depressing sky with birds flying around, and I was starting to get concerned.
I’d asked my mother to come over and see her this afternoon after school.
Maybe I was reading into it, but I was worried about my girl.
When I pulled up to the pickup line and they opened the back door, Gracie squealed. “Maxine?”
Ah, did I leave out the fact that I took the little porker home and told Martha I’d be adopting her? She was part of the fucking family, whether I liked it or not.
And I’d actually missed her, even if she was a big pain in the ass.
The gaping hole in my heart was definitely due to the woman I loved living on the opposite side of the country. But if bringing Maxine back to the house could help repair some of the sadness for my daughter, I’d do it.
“Buckle up and I’ll explain.” I waved to her teacher and looked in the rearview mirror as Maxine made all sorts of heavy groans and loved on my little girl.
“Is she visiting, Daddy?”
“Nope. She’s going to live with us permanently.”
“Like Bob Picklepants?” Gracie gasped. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen from my little girl since the day of the accident and the day we both said goodbye to Presley.
I wondered if it was leftover trauma or if this was all because she missed her. Maybe she’d never get over it the way I never truly had all those years ago.
“Yep. Bob Picklepants Reynolds and Maxine Langley Reynolds are both official members of the family. But things are going to change. Uncle Hugh and Uncle Finn are going to help me build a proper pen for her this weekend. She’s going to take over the mudroom when she’s inside the house, and we’ll have a sturdy gate built to keep her in there.
The barn is finished, and she’s going to have a place out there with the other animals, as well. ”
“I’m happy she’s coming home to live with us, Daddy.”
“Yeah? I’m glad you’re happy. And Grammie is coming over to see you this afternoon.”
“Okay.” It was her eyes. Her fucking eyes were the dead giveaway. Even with that fat porker sitting beside her in the back seat, her eyes still told the story.
She was heartbroken.
It was easy for me to recognize it because I saw it in my own reflection every time I looked in the goddamn mirror.
“Tell me about your day,” I said as I turned down our street.
“It was fine.”
That was code for I don’t want to talk about it in Gracie speak. I could respect that. Hell, I didn’t feel like talking most of the time.
We pulled into the garage and made our way inside to find my mother setting some cookies out on a plate. She knew I was worried about Gracie, and I knew that she was, too. It had been three weeks since Presley left, and my daughter was still not herself.
“Hey, Gracie girl. I brought you some cookies,” my mom said as she wrapped her granddaughter up in a hug.
“Hi, Grammie. Maxine is coming back home,” she said as she set her backpack on the chair.
“I heard. That must make you happy, huh?”
Gracie nodded and declined the cookies. “I’m not hungry right now. Can I go paint, Daddy?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you show Grammie what you’re painting.”
An endless slew of gray skies and black birds. It was alarming. Maybe my mom could get her to throw some sunshine into the picture or a fucking rainbow.
They disappeared upstairs, and I spent some time getting the mudroom cleaned out for Maxine.
Hugh was going to pick up some wood this week, and we’d build a gate that would contain her in there for when she wasn’t allowed to roam around the house.
He and Finn said they’d help build a larger pen in the backyard for her, as well. So, we’d get that started this weekend.
I finished up and pulled a pizza out of the freezer and popped it into the oven. It was all I was up for tonight. I’d add some carrots and broccoli on the side, so I didn’t feel like a complete fuckup where my daughter was concerned.
My mother and Gracie had been upstairs for hours, and they came down with a stack of paintings.
“Hey, can you come join us on the couch?” my mom asked.
Gracie sat beside her, and I took the chair across from them. “Did you have fun painting? I put your favorite pizza in the oven. I thought we’d keep it simple tonight.”
She nodded as she handed me several paintings. They were all the same dark and gloomy painting she’d been making for weeks, with three black blobs in the sky like the clouds of death.
“Nice,” I said, trying to fake it, because they were about as depressing as it got.
“Tell Daddy what the paintings are,” my mother said, stroking the hair away from her face.
“It’s our family.”
Jesus. If this was a family photo, I’d clearly failed as a father.
I glanced out the window to see that it was raining again, so maybe the weather was just a reflection of that.
“I see. These black spots are us?”
“Those are birds, Daddy. Me and Presley are both ravens. We like to fly free on our horses. And you’re a raven because you want to stay right by us.”
Three birds.
Three fucking ravens.
I studied the photo. “Why is the sky always gloomy? You do remember that sometimes it’s sunny outside, right?”
“The sky is gray because our family is in a storm right now. Because we aren’t together.”
My mother raised a brow at me, letting me know I’d misread the painting.
Really? Was I suddenly supposed to be some deep-thinking artistic guy?
I thought it was just a depressing photo with black blobs and an endless gray sky.
But this was a punch to the gut in a different way.
“But you know that Presley doesn’t live here, right?”
She nodded. “I want us all to live together. Presley loves us; she told me so. And we love her.”
“I know that. But that isn’t always enough, Gracie girl.” I stood and lifted her before settling her on my lap as I sat beside my mom. “I know that it hurts, because it hurts me, too. And I’m sure she’s hurting just like we are.”
“I don’t like her being all alone. I know she’s missing us a lot. I called her on your phone when you were in the shower a few days ago. And she told me so.”
I startled. That was out of character for Gracie not to tell me something like that.
Not to ask to make a call. Sure, she’d asked me to show her how to call my mother and my siblings before.
And she’d called Presley once when I was sitting beside her on the couch a few weeks ago.
But she was fucking five years old. Since when was she that resourceful to figure it out on her own?
“You shouldn’t use Daddy’s phone without asking.”
She shrugged like that was a moot point and not worth answering.
What the fuck is happening?
My mom chuckled and looked between us. “Tell us why you called her and why you didn’t tell Daddy that you did.”
“Because I miss her. And my heart hurts. And Daddy doesn’t want to talk about it. And Presley told me her heart hurts, too.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. I just don’t know how to fix it,” I admitted. It was the truth.
“You know what Mrs. Clifton says when you don’t know what to do?”
If I had a nickel for every time Mrs. motherfucking Clifton was quoted with her kindergarten advice that had too many hidden messages to dissect, I’d be a very wealthy man.
“What does she say?” I asked, bracing myself for some singsong bullshit about how the rainbow will lead you to your pot of gold.
“She says maybe you’re thinking too hard.”
Riveting advice, Mrs. Clifton.
What was she advising to do when you didn’t know what to do? Just not think about it?
“So, we shouldn’t think about how to fix it?” I was already exhausted from this riddle of madness.
“You shouldn’t overthink it.” My daughter quirked a brow as her gaze locked with mine. She clearly had my mother’s gift for therapy, and she was challenging me to go deeper.
But without overthinking.
Or, if I’d heard her correctly, not to think at all.
“All right. I won’t overthink it.” Whatever the fuck that meant.
“Daddy,” she said, placing her hand on my cheek. “Mrs. Clifton says the answers are simple.”
Well, Mrs. Clifton didn’t have a clue what the fucking problem was, so she wasn’t really in a position to say the answer was simple, was she?
“I know that lots of things in life are solved in a simple way. Maxine, for example, was an easy solution. The Langleys were going to give her to a farm, and I knew you wanted her to live with us. So, it was simple. Mrs. Clifton is a genius.”
My mother chuckled which made Gracie smile, and I was grateful for that.
“He’s trying, sweetheart,” Mom said. “Tell us how you think we can fix you and Daddy and Presley being sad.”
“It’s simple. We want to be together, so we should be together.”
My teeth clenched so hard that there was an ache in my jaw, and I made a mental note to give Mrs. Clifton a piece of my mind the next time I saw her. Not everything had a solution. Not every problem in life was fixable.
“It’s not that simple, Gracie girl.” My words came out harsher than I meant them to.
“But it is.” Her gaze softened, and I stared into those pretty chocolate-brown eyes. I wanted to give this little girl the world. “If Presley can’t move here right now, then we should move there. Because being here without her doesn’t make us happy.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve got your whole family here. Grammie and Pops and all your aunts and uncles.”
“But they don’t live with us in our house. Auntie Brinks lives in New York like Presley sometimes. And we still see her a lot here. Right, Grammie? We can visit lots.”
My mother smiled, and her eyes were wet with emotion. “Absolutely, sweetheart. You’re right. I moved away from my family to be with Pops when we decided to get married and start a family of our own.”
I was still processing her words. “You have your school here.”
“I bet they have schools in New York City. And you could be an animal doctor there.”
I glanced at my mother, who was nodding at me. “Life is short, Cage. Happiness is more important than your zip code. Your daughter is a wise little girl.”
“We’ve got a pig and a dog. And what about our house?” I said, wondering how the fuck they suddenly had it all figured out.
“Presley likes it here. We can have our house here, too. Maybe when her work’s all done, we can come back and live by Grammie and Pops. But I miss Presley, and I think she needs us, Daddy.”
“We’re just going to walk away from our life here, just like that?” I asked, looking between my daughter and my mother.
“You’re not walking away from your life, Cage.
You’re walking toward it. Bob would do fine as a city dog.
He doesn’t care to be outside much anyway.
And you can find a country house outside of the city, or Dad and I will take Maxine for as long as you need us to.
I just have one question for you,” she said.
“What?”
“Are you happy here without her? Don’t overthink all the reasons why it can’t work. My question is, can you live without Presley?”
“No.” It was a simple answer when it came down to it. I wasn’t eating or sleeping much. I’d just been going through the motions and trying to show up for my daughter. But what was I teaching her about life? To settle because change is too hard? What kind of lesson was that?
I wanted Gracie to live large, to love big, to chase after every single damn dream she had in life.
“You want to move to New York to be with Presley?” I asked, my gaze locked with hers.
“Yes. I want us to be together like a real family. I don’t feel right since she left.”
“Neither do I.”
“What are we going to do, Daddy?” she asked as her cheek settled against my chest.
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to go get our girl.”
Gracie jumped to our feet. “We are?”
“I think we should. Are you coming with me?”
“I’m coming with you, Daddy. Let’s go get the other piece of our hearts.”
Damn, my little girl was wiser than her years.
And now that we’d come up with a plan, I was ready to jump on a fucking plane right now.
“Great. Let’s fly out in the morning. We’ll surprise her at work.”
“I love surprises!” Gracie shouted.
I normally despised surprises.
But this one I could get on board with.