Chapter 18
SEVEN
I hear the sound of wheels on the gravel road leading up to the camp and a wave of despair hits me like a tsunami hitting shore.
No.
I’m not ready for this to be over.
I need more time. Two more nights isn’t going to be enough as it is, but the thought of saying goodbye to Binx before then makes me want to lift the burning grill over my head and toss it into the yard.
Tater Tot must sense that something’s wrong, because he hustles across the clearing behind the cabin and into the woods as fast as his pudgy legs will carry him, fleeing my bubbling despair. Or maybe he’s just scared by the sound of the car. We don’t get many vehicles up here.
I really fucking wish we weren’t getting one right now, I think, then immediately feel like an asshole.
What if this is Mom coming to get me because there’s a problem with Sprout? What if she had another shitty day at school, finally put chicken poop in that mean girl’s locker like she’s been threatening to do, and got suspended or something? Or what if she climbed onto the roof again, even though I’ve told her a hundred times how dangerous it is, and fell off?
Fear for my daughter cutting through my selfishness, I quickly transition the sausages to a plate beside the grill and cover them with another plate to keep them warm. At least I can bring supper home with me if I’m headed back to town. Then I turn off the grill and head toward the front of the cabin, walking around the side of the building to greet the car in the driveway.
When I get there, Binx is already standing in front of a white SUV in an animated conversation with…her mother.
Oh fuck…
Her mother.
I’m sure there’s someone I’d less like to see right now—an armed terrorist, maybe, or my asshole of a parole officer from back in the day—but Fran McGuire is pretty high on the list. The woman hates me. And while I can’t blame her for wanting more for her daughter than an ex-con sixteen years her senior, I’ve also never done anything to hurt Binx. I’ve been a good friend to her, the kind she can count on to help clean out her gutters or change her oil for free.
I’ve also never crossed the line between friendship and anything more…at least not until last night.
Since then, however, I’ve done way more than cross the line. I’ve run over it in a tank, poured gasoline all over what was left of it, and set it on fire.
“Seriously, Mom, I’m fine,” I hear Binx say in a strained tone that makes me think it isn’t the first time she’s said the words. “I don’t want to go home. It’s been really nice up here, actually. Very peaceful.”
“Peaceful?” her mom bleats. “Being lied to, tricked, and left in the middle of the woods with no way to call for help is peaceful for you? I swear, Binx, I’ll never understand the way your brain works. Never, not even if I live to be a hundred and ten.”
Binx sighs. “Well, obviously, but I’m okay, okay? There’s no need to freak out.”
“No need?” Her mom props her fists on her hips as she glares up at her taller daughter. “You could be dead! Your sister could have killed you.”
“I’m sorry,” Wendy Ann says, hanging her head out the passenger’s window of the SUV. “I was just trying to be supportive and think outside the box.” Fran shoots a dangerously sharp glance her way. Wendy Ann cringes lower in her seat and quickly adds, “But now I see that it was a dangerous and dumb and irresponsible thing to do. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do it, I promise.” She flaps an arm Binx’s way. “But she’s okay! See? We got lucky this time and everyone is fine. So, now, we can go, and I’ll come back on Friday morning to get them, the way we planned.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Fran says, jabbing a finger at Binx. “Look at your sister. She looks like she’s been through hell.” She fixes her attention on her older daughter again, clutching at her neck as she shakes her head. “I swear you look like you’ve lost ten pounds overnight. Your face is positively haggard.”
Binx’s face isn’t haggard. Her face is beautiful. When we were standing by the grill and she was smiling up at me, all I could think about was how fucking perfect she is. How stunning. Her mother is clearly seeing this entire situation through fear-colored glasses.
But hopefully, I can help ease her mind.
“Hey, I thought I heard a car pull up.” I force a smile as I approach from behind them, pretending I haven’t been eavesdropping. “Hi, Mrs. McGuire. Wendy Ann.” I nod at them in turn, ignoring the way Fran’s lips pucker into a cat anus in the middle of her face in response to my appearance on the scene. I cross my arms over my chest as I come to stand beside Binx. “I just finished grilling some sausages, if you’re hungry.”
“We were actually just leaving,” Fran says, waving Binx toward the house. “Go get your things, honey.” To me she adds in a cooler voice, “I’m sorry we can’t offer you a ride, too, Seven, but I have to be at my son’s house for a family dinner in an hour. Wendy Ann has been in touch with your mother, however, and she said she would come get you tomorrow morning after she gets your daughter off to school.”
The judgement in her tone on the words “your daughter” is pointed enough to tear a hole in the extra-strong denim of work jeans. Clearly, she doesn’t think I should have taken time away from my parenting responsibilities to go on a fake rock-climbing trip. She has no idea that I can count the number of vacations I’ve taken without Sprout on two fingers—this trip and a white-water rafting excursion two summers ago that was too dangerous for a six-year-old—or that I’m one of the most involved parents I know.
Fran took one look at me and jumped to conclusions based on my tattoos, my motorcycle, and the fact that I’m roughly twice the size of most of the other men in town. She’s not the first, and she won’t be the last, and it’s not like having done time does me any favors.
But I made that mistake when I was a very young man. I’ve been on the straight and narrow, with my head down, working hard, for two decades. I’ve also been devoted to raising a great kid for the past eight years, never missing a parent-teacher conference or forgetting what I promised to donate to the end-of-school potluck. Don’t I ever get to put my past behind me and be judged for the things I’ve done right instead of the one thing I did wrong?
In a town this small?
Probably not.
Certainly not when it comes to close-minded people like Fran McGuire.
I know that, but I can’t stop myself from saying, “Listen, I know this must have been scary for you. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I found out my daughter had been dropped off in the woods with no way to call for help if she needed it. Even if she were in her twenties, it wouldn’t matter, I’d still be scared and angry.”
Fran’s puckered mouth softens the slightest bit, but her gaze is still frosty.
I try again, adding, “This clearly wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, and I’ll be speaking to my family about their part in it when I get home to make sure they never pull a stunt like this again.” I turn to Binx, smiling as I add, “But luckily, we made it to the cabin without too many bumps and bruises along the way, and we’ve been having a wonderful time getting away from it all. Neither one of us has had a vacation in a while and this has been…really nice.”
“Really, really nice,” Binx murmurs, but before our little love fest can get too cozy, Fran cuts in.
“Speaking of vacation,” she says, her tone hot and sharp. “I don’t know why you thought now was a good time to take an entire week off work, Binx. The housing market is crazy right now. Aren’t you worried your clients will feel abandoned? I’m sure at least one of them is closing this week, and think of all the new business you’re missing out on by not being at your desk. My friend Kim’s daughter is starting her house hunt this weekend, and I told her to call you about getting pre-approved.”
Fran exhales a long-suffering sigh. “Now, I’ll have to call her back, and tell her to try you when you’re at your desk next week. Unless you plan on heading back into the bank tomorrow. I’m sure it’s not too late to get your vacation days reinstated if you want to go in. Albie is the sweetest boss in the world. He’s always so good about working with you. And if you go in this week, you’ll have more time to take off for the holidays. Everyone’s going to be here this year. All the cousins are flying in from Texas, and Tatum’s entire family is going to be here from Kentucky. She has nearly as many siblings as you do, so we’re going to need all-hands-on-deck to find beds for them and keep everyone entertained.”
“I’m happy to host one of Tatum’s sisters at my house,” Binx says, “they sound great, but…”
“But what?” Fran huffs again and glances at the slim gold watch on her wrist. “We should talk about this on the way back into town. Go grab your things. I’ll open the tailgate and you can just throw the entire mess in and sort through it later. If we don’t go soon, we’re going to be late.”
“Mom, I’m not going with you,” Binx says, standing firm. “And I’m not taking time off from the bank. I quit.”
Oh, shit…
Apparently, she’s decided it’s time to take a stand with her mother, which I fully support, but I can’t help wishing she’d done it at a later date, when I wasn’t present. Fran is a proud woman, who thinks she knows what’s best for her children. The only thing harder than having her daughter defy her is having that defiance witnessed by a stranger.
As I could have predicted, Fran’s eyes widen and shift straight to me, accusation flaring in her gaze before she glances back to Binx. “What? You quit? Why on earth did you quit? You’re doing so well there. You’re one of their top loan officers.”
“I quit because I hated my job, Mom,” Binx says, her shoulders hitching closer to her ears.
Fran emits a startled squawk. “What? But you always looked happy when I stopped by the bank. And Albie adores you.”
“I like Albie, too,” Binx says, “and all the other people I worked with. It wasn’t the people. It was the job. I don’t want to be a loan officer. I never did.” She drags a clawed hand through her hair before adding, “Hell, I didn’t even want to go to business school. I just couldn’t think of anything I actually wanted to do that wouldn’t make you disappointed in me. But I’ve realized there’s something more important than you being disappointed in me, Mom. There’s me being disappointed in me, and that’s how I’ve felt lately. I’ve felt like a coward, too chickenshit to do what I really want with my life. But it’s my life, and I have to live it the way that feels right to me, not to anyone else.”
Fran’s jaw hangs open for a beat before she sputters, “Well, I… I never said you had to major in business. I never even said you had to go to college. When you talked about going to trade school to learn welding, I wasn’t happy about how dangerous that can be, but I was open to it. We discussed it.”
Binx shoulders lift and lower, but I don’t hear her breathe. “Yeah, I know. But I didn’t want to learn how to weld because I wanted to be a welder on a construction site, Mom. I wanted to be a welder because I wanted to scavenge scrap metal from the junkyard and make sculptures out of it like this amazing artist I was following on social media at the time.” Her fingers dig into her waist through the black thermal she put on after our shower. “But I knew if I told you that, you’d think I was insane, so business school seemed like the easier choice. I thought I’d be okay with a job I didn’t love as long as I had time to pursue my hobbies in my free time, but I’m not.”
Fran crosses her arms and shoots me another “why are you here?” look before turning back to Binx.
But I can’t go inside. I can’t leave Binx to fight this battle alone, even if I’m just here as silent moral support.
I know how hard this is for her, how long she’s wanted to stand up to her mother but felt like she couldn’t make waves. No one makes waves with Fran. She’s the matriarch of the McGuire clan and not even Barrett, the most abrasive McGuire sibling, dares to cross her. When Fran tells him to jump, he asks how high, just like the rest of them.
Seeing how Fran bullies her kids has made me even more grateful for the respectful support my mother has always given me. She makes her opinion known on everything from what I’m doing with my business to whether or not Sprout is allowed to go swimming if she hasn’t finished her reading for the day, but in the end, she respects my decisions. Even if they’re different than hers.
Fran proves, yet again, that she’s not about that respectful kind of parenting when she says, “So, what are you going to do? Just…hang around in the woods until you find yourself? Because finding yourself won’t pay the bills, Binx. And you’re not a young woman anymore.”
“I’m twenty-six, Mom,” Binx says, her cheeks flushing bright red.
“Nearly twenty-seven, in just a couple weeks,” her mother corrects. “I was married and had three children by the time I was your age. Three! The time for finding yourself is over. This is the time when you buckle down and work hard to build an adult life.”
“I have an adult life,” Binx shoots back, her tone heating, as well. “Just because it looks different than yours, doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of respect. I’m sick of everyone in this family acting like the only way to be a full-fledged grown-up is to get married and have kids. I don’t know if I even want to have biological kids. Does that mean I’m always going to be treated like a fucking child?”
“Beatrice Anna McGuire, don’t you dare curse at me,” Fran says, clutching her imaginary pearls in earnest now. Her knuckles are white at the neck of her sweater.
“Guys, please,” Wendy Ann pleads from the passenger’s window, casting me a glance that’s both apologetic and pleading. It’s clear she wants me to intervene, but I already know nothing I say is going to make this better. “Let’s not do this right now. Tatum’s making prime rib, Mom. You love her prime rib, let’s just go and?—”
“Quiet, Wendy Ann,” her mother snaps. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Binx. Or who…” She cuts a chilling glance my way that makes my balls inch higher, seeking shelter from the cold. “But you were raised better than this. You’re embarrassing me. And yourself.”
Binx emits a humorless laugh. “There it is. That’s all you really care about. How things look and whether the way I live my life reflects badly on you .”
“That’s not true,” Fran says. “I never?—”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mom,” Binx says, her eyes glittering as she barrels on, “but I don’t care about that anymore. I never have. I’m sick of pretending I share your values. I don’t. I actually think a lot of your values are just as messed up as you do mine. So, we’ll just have to make peace with that and try to love each other anyway, because I’m done trying to be anyone but who I am. I start full time at the tattoo parlor next week. I’m going to be a tattoo artist.”
Fran emits a strangled yip of alarm, but Binx isn’t done yet. I know that—I can feel the unfinished business heavy in the air as she pulls in her next breath—but her next words still shock the shit out of me.
“And I’m going to be in love with this man.” She shifts her focus, pinning me with a look so raw and real, it connects like a fist to the gut. “I’m going to be in love with him for the rest of my life, whether he gets on board with loving me back or not. He’s the one for me. Just him. No one else.” She sucks in a breath, her brow furrowing. “So…there’s that. I’m sorry, Seven. I know I said I was fine with a fling before we went our separate ways, but I lied. I’m not okay with it. I want more. I want it all.”
She takes a step toward me, turning her back on her mother and sister, “I want to share my life with you and help raise Sprout and be a family. I want to spend every night with you and wake up next to you every morning, and I don’t give a shit that you’re older than I am. I honestly couldn’t care less.” She shakes her head, her eyes shining. “It doesn’t fucking matter. What matters is that I’ve never felt this way before, not with anyone else in the world. You make me feel so beautiful and smart and funny and…enough. More than enough. Just the way I am.” Her gaze searches mine. “I think I make you feel the same way. And if I do…isn’t that worth fighting for?”
Wendy Ann emits a soft “come on, man, say the right thing,” sound from the passenger’s seat, but my focus doesn’t waiver from Binx’s face.
She has me locked in, completely captivated. I’m not sure if we’re in the final scene of a romantic movie or in the middle of a slow-motion car crash, but I couldn’t look away if I tried.
She’s right, I do feel all those things.
I love her. I adore her. I want her to be my family more than I’ve wanted anything in a very long time…
But she has no idea how much harder things get as you age. Life piles on. It piles on and piles on, one crisis after another, until getting up after you’ve been knocked down becomes a Herculean task.
By the fifth or sixth or seventeenth time you’ve dragged yourself back to your feet, you’re getting up with kneecaps shattered by grief and the weight of a broken system strapped to your back. And sure, you keep going—you have a kid to raise, a family to support—but it’s soul crushing.
Everything inside you is screaming that it shouldn’t be this hard. That there should be more goodness in the world, more mercy, more forgiveness…
But there isn’t.
And avoiding pain becomes so much easier than reaching for pleasure…
I haven’t always been like this. I used to believe that I could trust my heart, my gut, to lead me to the person who was right for me. But that was before I failed my wife, before she died, before I dated half a dozen different women over the years and every relationship ended in disaster. Sometimes it was my fault, sometimes it was theirs, but no matter how many times I’ve tried, romance always ends in disappointment and pain.
I’ve had enough pain, and I’ve really had enough of hurting people.
The tears in Binx’s eyes are killing me.
Yes, it will tear her apart if I walk away, but in the long run it will be far less painful than if we roll the dice and fail. She’s still so young. She still has hope. She’ll find someone else, someone better, less jaded, more open to life and love and becoming the kind of partner she needs.
For a moment there, I thought maybe I could be that man, but that was just my selfish side wanting to keep Binx in my life.
She deserves more. Her mother knows it, and I know it. I’m not enough for her, and the only way to prove I’m not the shit human being half the town thinks I am is to end this with a clean break. Right now.
So, I call on the skills I’ve acquired throughout a lifetime of dealing with cruel people and crueler twists of fate. I drag the soft part of me into a vault deep inside and lock it away. I snap the cord connecting my heart to the rest of me and say in a voice so calm it’s a little shocking, even to me, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but we’re not on the same page. You should go with your mother. I’ll give you privacy to collect your things.”
Then I turn and walk away, headed back toward the shed at the rear of the property and the four-wheeler. There’s still a little gas left in the tank, enough to get me out of earshot for the next hour or however long it takes Binx to finish screaming or crying or cursing my name—whatever she has to do to work through her feelings and realize it’s time to leave.
But as I reach the shed and push inside, I don’t hear so much as a peep from behind me. Binx doesn’t call my name, she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t tell me I’m a pathetic, cowardly liar. There’s nothing, not so much as an outraged huff from her mom or a plea to come back and play nice from Wendy Ann.
As I rev the engine and pull through the open door, I risk a glance their way, just to make sure they’re all still standing, but no one is paying me any attention. Fran is already behind the wheel, checking her lipstick in the visor mirror, Wendy Ann is slumped low in the passenger’s seat, and Binx is nowhere to be seen.
She must already be inside, gathering her bag, which is…good.
It’s good that she instantly knew to take me at my word, that she realized continuing to fight for me was a losing game and popped right inside to grab her things. I’m truly glad she’s sparing us both a bigger scene.
I also feel like absolute shit.
Like garbage.
Like something even less desirable than garbage.
Nuclear waste, maybe…
That’s a fitting comparison. I’m toxic, dangerous. I always have been and I always will be. That’s why I should spend the rest of my life alone, focused on raising my child to be a good person who knows how to have functional relationships. I’m not going to make anyone’s romantic dreams come true, but Sprout might one day. She’s an incredible kid and has so much love in her heart.
And a lot of that love is for Binx, the caustic voice in my head rasps as I head up the trail into the woods. She’s going to hate you for fucking this up. She might never forgive you.
Maybe the voice is right, but I can’t worry about that right now. I made the only decision that I could live with. If I’d done anything else, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.
Holding tight to that thought and ignoring the other voice, the one in my gut screaming that I have to turn around now, before it’s too late, I punch the accelerator, sending leaves flying into the air as I zoom over the hill and the cabin disappears behind me.