Chapter 18
A brick to the face
Gage
Sometimes I think it might be easier to just stay.”
My client leaned back in her chair at the conference table, arms crossed, shoulders slumped.
I could see the girl I’d known in high school in the woman before me.
Audrey still had the nose ring she’d gotten on her sixteenth birthday and still dressed like an edgy musician, in cargo pants and graphic T-shirts.
But now, instead of a daring pixie cut, she wore her dark hair in long twists pulled back from her face.
She’d added more tattoos to both forearms. She toyed with the wedding band on her left hand.
It was strange to be sitting across from someone I’d known since I was five years old and be in completely different places. While I was just now ready to find a wife, Audrey was looking to end her marriage.
She’d met Gerald, a scrawny white guy who bartended on the weekends, while he was pursuing a business degree.
The young couple had gotten pregnant just after graduation.
After a difficult pregnancy and labor, Audrey had left her fledgling career in microbiology behind to focus on being a full-time mom.
They’d had another kid a few years later, and while Audrey eventually balanced parenting with part-time work at a lab two towns over, Gerald had grown into a waste of space who drank like his liver didn’t matter.
The more he drank, the shorter his fuse and the worse his decisions got.
The final straw had been the DUI he’d gotten two months ago with their sons in the car. When Audrey had confronted him at the hospital, he’d punched a hole in the wall and been escorted out by security.
I closed the file on the divorce papers I’d drafted and interlaced my fingers. “Audrey.”
She closed her eyes. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“What am I going to say?”
“The same thing my therapist says. That the sucky same feels comfortable because it’s familiar.
That making a change feels scary because I’m entering the unknown.
That just because something is familiar doesn’t mean it’s actually good for me or the boys.
That it’s going to be hard in the short term but better for everyone in the long term. ”
“Your therapist and I sound pretty smart.”
She gave me a half-hearted eye roll and pulled her hair over her shoulder to run her hand down it.
“I know all this. But I also know what a shit show the divorce is going to be. He’s going to fight me on visitation even though he doesn’t spend time with them now.
He’s not going to pay a dime in child support because he hasn’t had a job in over a year.
And I’m the only reason he hasn’t ended up in the hospital for binge drinking.
If I’m not there to stop him, he’s just going to get worse. ”
“Then you should totally stay. Since you’re responsible for a grown man’s decisions and health.
It’s bound to get better, right? If you just find the right way to enable him, he’ll finally see the light and get better because you want him to.
Besides, we all know that marriage is about giving up your own goals and dreams to take responsibility for your spouse’s behavior and choices. ”
“I see you’ve gotten even more annoyingly good at arguing since high school,” she observed dryly.
“You try growing up with Cam, Levi, and Laura.”
“If I had, they never would have let me marry Gerald in the first place.”
“They definitely would have kidnapped you from your rehearsal dinner and locked you in a basement until you came to your senses. But you’re rescuing yourself now.
You know he’s not going to get better. You know the damage that living under the same roof with him is doing to your boys.
You know that you’ve been supporting your family single-handedly for the last year, so you know you can make this work as a single mom.
You know that Gerald has to decide to get better on his own.
You know that this is the right thing for all of you. ”
“I keep telling myself that. But it’s still scary.”
“The good shit is always scary,” I said, nudging the plate of cookies closer to her.
The whimper from under the table had Audrey laughing and stroking a hand over Nana’s hopeful head. Her tail thumped expectantly on the floor.
“‘The good shit is always scary,’” Audrey repeated to herself. “Can you turn that into a motivational poster? I’ll hang it up when Gerald moves out.”
“Consider it a divorce present from me…and Nana,” I added when my dog whimpered pathetically. “Now how about you walk me through your plan of how you’re going to tell Gerald about the divorce?”
I spent another half an hour with Audrey, going over the plan she and her therapist had come up with to break the news to Gerald and the boys and how she was going to get her ex to leave the family home with the least amount of fuss.
She promised he’d never been violent with her or their kids, but women were at the highest risk of violence when they left a relationship.
“Talk to Levi,” I suggested. “He’s a friend and law enforcement. He’ll be able to help if Gerald refuses to leave. And if he pulls anything like he did in the hospital, we’ll get that restraining order.”
“He’s the father of my kids. I really don’t want it to come to that,” she whispered.
“Do you feel safe around him, Audrey?” I asked.
She shook herself and sat up straighter. “Of course.”
“If that changes, I want to know.”
“Thanks,” she said, gathering her things. “For everything, Gage.”
“Figured I owed you for beating you out for class president sophomore year,” I teased.
“By five whole votes, and I beat you the next year,” she reminded me.
“A win’s a win.”
When Audrey left, once again resolute that she was making the right decision for herself and her family, I gave Nana a treat—fine, two treats—and gave myself a five-minute break.
I had a lot left on my plate for the day before I could officially call it the weekend.
There was the back-ordered bathroom hardware I told Cam I’d follow up on since he’d previously pissed off the retailer.
And then I had to finalize the adoption paperwork for the Clarks and make sure I reviewed my notes for a mediation scheduled for first thing Monday morning.
It wasn’t all work on my to-do list though. I had my first official dating app date the next day with a woman who, on paper, seemed like solid life partner potential.
I closed my eyes and tried to bring her profile picture to the front of my mind.
But instead, a curly red-haired calamity surfaced.
I’d gone back to doing my best to avoid Zoey since this week’s sports bra incident.
And while I hadn’t talked to her, I’d done a hell of a lot of thinking about her.
In the mornings while I was swinging a hammer.
In the afternoons while I navigated family law.
And at night when I had nothing else to distract me.
It was becoming a problem. I hoped to hell this date tomorrow would have the power to wipe my tenant from my mind. But I wasn’t delusional enough to believe it would. Zoey Moody was as forgettable as a brick to the face.
Nana let out a happy woo-woo, and I removed my hands from my eyes to watch her jog into the waiting room.
My sister, followed closely by a woman holding a pouting toddler, wheeled inside and fixed me with one of those looks that I didn’t understand but knew wasn’t good. Declan knew it too, and I watched him slowly slump down behind his desk until he was no longer visible.
I got up and met her in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“Can we talk?” Laura said.
The woman with her looked familiar in an unsettling way, but I couldn’t quite place her.
She had long brown hair pulled back in a limp ponytail and was wearing yoga pants and an oversize sweatshirt.
She was getting paler by the second. “Laura, I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said.
The toddler on her hip started fussing, and Nana whined in sympathy.
“You just have to trust me,” Laura told her. “He’ll help.”
“It’s not fair to ask.” The little girl squirmed in her mom’s arms, rapidly entering full-on meltdown mode. “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie. We can go play in a minute,” the woman promised.
Nana whimpered pathetically at being deprived of sticking her wet nose in the child’s face.
“I’m sorry. She missed her nap today. We shouldn’t have come. I didn’t know Laura was planning this,” the woman said. The words, tinged with panic, were directed at me, but she wouldn’t look anywhere but my feet.
“It’s fine. Declan has some coloring books and cookies,” I said pointedly in the direction of my paralegal’s desk.
“Thank you, but I think we should go.”
“Val, we’re doing this,” Laura said in her “I’m the boss” tone that my brothers and I were oh so familiar with.
The recognition was a lightning strike to my brain. Val. As in Valerie Hillport. ICU nurse and supporter of her local high school’s music boosters. Wife to Brian. Mother to two young girls.
Driver of the sedan that had hit Laura and killed Miller.
I’d never seen her in person, just photos on social media from the hours of digging I’d done after the accident. But now she was standing in my office next to my sister.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. There was a dull roar in my ears drowning out the conversation happening around me as Declan reappeared with coloring supplies and cookies and reluctantly tried to tempt the little girl out of her mother’s arms.
Laura took a deep breath. “Gage, this is—”
“I know who she is. What I don’t know is why she’s in my office with you.” My tone was ice cold, but inside I was volcanic.
Valerie winced and looked like she was about to bolt for the door. But I didn’t care. She could run all the way home to her husband, because her life hadn’t been destroyed by her carelessness. Only my sister’s.