6. Jedd #2
Short of throwing her over my shoulder, I won’t be able to move her.
“We’ve been having a problem with one of the electrical sockets, it sparked and started a fire. Clancy hit the release on the lift trying to get to a fire extinguisher, and the lift caught him before the safety stop caught the car. He broke his collarbone, and they’re taking him to the hospital.”
“Jedd. What are you doing over here? You need to go back and deal with that. I’ll be fine.” She waves a hand at the garage, and I shake my head.
“Harlan’s got it. I’ll go see Clancy in the hospital later. Right now, I’m worried about you.”
“But—your shop—Clancy …”
“Can wait. I promise I have it under control. Now will you please come with me?”
“You’re not going to let this go are you?”
At the question, I fix her with a look that says what do you think?
“Fine.”
Finally. I drag her toward Ma’s Diner.
The breakfast crew is light. There are only a couple of patrons seated, and I snag Dawn’s attention. “Can we use your office for a minute?” I ask.
She nods and pulls the key out of her apron before passing it to me.
I tow her behind me, down the hall that branches off to the kitchen and small office in the back.
Kicking the door shut behind me, I guide her to the small couch and wrap a blanket around her trembling shoulders. She’s never been a loud crier. She holds everything in until the dam breaks. And from the looks of it, there are some pretty big fissures cracking her defenses right now.
Years of knowing the woman crying on the couch has me holding off from what I want to do—and that’s gather her up in my arms until she’s back to her sassy self.
If she was upset crying, I’d do the same thing that I did last night and hold her until the storm passed. But these tears? These are pure rage.
She’s pissed. When she’s pissed, she wants space.
Space that I’ll give her.
I click on the electric kettle that Dawn keeps back here and set a chamomile tea bag in one of the standard diner mugs.
Once the water is boiling, I pour it over the bag and try to get my heart rate under control.
To calm down enough to be what she needs.
When I turn back to her, she’s wiping her hands under her eyes.
“What happened?” I hand her the mug, handle first so she doesn’t burn herself, and sit down next to her on the couch.
She wraps her hands around the cup. A scoff accompanies her head shake. “Just Alex being Alex.”
“Tell me.”
After blowing over the hot liquid, she says, “Mr. Rupert said that Alex got picked up last night for the drugs in the trailer. I decided to go talk to her. I shouldn’t have.
I know better. But I thought she’d want to hear about me filing for custody from me.
” The mirthless chuckle she lets out is smothered in frustrated anger.
“I mean, I would want someone to tell me they were going to file for custody of my daughter. But maybe I wanted to see what she would say, what she would do? I wanted to look in her eyes when I told her because I foolishly held out hope that me filing for custody would be the wake up call she’d need. I couldn’t have been more wrong, Jedd.”
“I take it she didn’t take it well.”
“Oh, she took it just fine.” She shakes her head again. “She didn’t even ask about Pip. She just wanted to know if I was going to use my friendship with your family as a lever to get her out of jail. She doesn’t care about me, or her daughter.” Her voice breaks on the last sentence.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. “I’m so sorry, Mischief.”
She waves a hand airily. “It’s fine. Everything is fine.
We yelled at each other. Her at me because I’m a piece of shit sister who’s going back on her word to be there for her—not even because I’m filing for custody, but because I won’t bail her out.
Me at her because I’ve been there for her for years, and I’m done. I’m so fucking done.”
An errant tear escapes and trails down her cheek. I reach out and brush it away with my thumb.
“Am I a terrible sister? Should I have done more? Been there more? Maybe I could have taken more drastic measures. Moved her in with me so I could help control her environment.”
“No. Andy. No,” I growl. “You’ve done more than enough for her. You’re mad and hurt right now, and it’s justified. You can’t fix Alex, she has to figure out what she wants and then fix her life herself.”
It’s the same thing I told her in her kitchen last night, but I’ll say it until she believes me. Until she understands that none of this is her fault.
“But she’s not going to change, is she?” Her sea-glass gaze holds a desperation for a different answer.
But I don’t lie to her. I won’t.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s going to change.
I do know that you’ve done more than enough for her.
You need to focus on you and Piper now. You need to focus on being there for her, because she’s going to be feeling a lot of the same things you’re feeling when she finds out about her mom being in jail again and the custody case you’re starting. How’d it go with the lawyer?”
“It was fine. He has everything he needs from the last time I met with him. Melinda thinks that I have a strong case for the petition. Regardless of whether I’m granted custody, Piper will stay with me for the time being. If anything changes, Mr. Rupert will notify me.”
I blow out a breath. “That’s good, right? That’s what we want for Piper right now? Steady normalcy?”
She takes a sip from her tea. “Nothing’s normal right now. I don’t know if it will be again.”
“It’s okay if it’s not normal right now. We’ll find a new normal.”
Her head tips down and rests on my shoulders. “Alex isn’t going to make it easy on me. Now that she knows I’m not going to bail her out of this, I wouldn’t put it past her to fight me all the way to court.”
Fuck. If Alex fights …
That woman has serious manipulation skills. If she puts her mind to fucking over Andy and Piper, Andy’s going to need all the help she can get.
“About that …” I start.
She pulls her head off my shoulder and looks at me. “What?”
“I went to see Harlan this morning.”
“And?”
“He told me that the goal of the courts is reunification, and that Judge Hamilton, the judge that will most likely be in charge of your case, is old-fashioned in his views of custody.”
My hands start to get clammy. Am I really going to bring this up?
Am I about to tell her that the only hope she has of keeping her niece is to be in a serious relationship with someone? That she might not win her case otherwise?
At the last second, I bail. Now isn’t the time to bring up my harebrained idea.
“What? What did Harlan say?”
“Listen, you and I know Alex. She can be a bit …”
“Manipulative. Narcissistic. Selfish.”
I nod. “I’m worried that if she puts on an act the judge might not see through it.
Especially if this judge’s goal is to reunite Piper and Alex.
You and I know that she’s not going to get clean and stay clean that fast. She hasn’t hit rock bottom yet.
She doesn’t have a reason to change her ways yet. ”
She nods. “I’ve bailed her out of everything since she had Piper. I’m so stupid.”
I shake my head. “You’re not. You were doing what you thought was right at the time. But if Alex tries to manipulate Hamilton, Piper could end up back with her.”
“What do I do?”
I swallow hard. “You work with Melinda and the lawyer to build the strongest case you can. You be there for Piper and hope that the system does what’s right by that little girl.
She already has a safe place at your house, her own room.
You bought her clothes to keep at your house, we can get her more.
We’ll get Piper into therapy, to help her with the transition. We’ll help her work through this.”
“What if that’s not enough? What if they send her back to Alex, Jedd? I know what it’s like. I grew up in the same environment, but I didn’t have an aunt to come in and take me out when it got sketchy. What if they give Piper back and Alex takes her and disappears?”
“Hey now. That’s not going to happen. We have to take this a day at a time. Getting too far ahead of ourselves right now isn’t going to help matters. I know that you don’t want my help, that you want to do this on your own. But I’m going to be here for you—for you both—no matter what you need.”
She takes another fortifying sip of her tea and determination begins to harden her expression.
“I’m going to make Piper so safe and happy that any judge would be stupid to remove her from my care.”
That’s my girl.