Six #4
“I will be okay. I swear,” he asserted. “And honestly, I’ve been finished being upset at what she did for a while now. I’m sorry I didn’t share that with all of you, because having to guess how another person feels is the worst.”
“Do you promise it’s okay?” Darwin asked as he put a glass of milk in front of his sister, and then her plate, which had a lot of fruit, some bacon, and scrambled eggs.
“Thank you,” she said to her brother, and then leaned sideways and called over to her older one, “Thank you for the strawberries, Griff, and for the powdered sugar on the side.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, bringing a plate over for Darwin that was similar to mine without the tomatoes, only fruit for him, and no strawberries in his mix, and a small plate of tomatoes for his father.
“Thank you,” Luke said to Griff, then looked at his younger son. “Honestly, I miss her mostly for you guys, but you have to know that even if she were here, we wouldn’t still be living together.”
“Because she cheated with Mr. Conti?” Darwin asked.
Luke glanced at me.
“I can go to the other room,” I rushed out.
“No, don’t. I just didn’t realize you’d talked to the kids about this.”
“Why would he talk to us about your and Mom’s relationship?” Griff asked, taking a seat next to Darwin, glaring at his father. “What would have been the point of that?”
There was no missing that we were all on one side of the table, and Luke was on the other. And I wished that one of them had made the choice to sit with him, but I couldn’t make them.
It occurred to me that Luke, as well as Caitlyn, had been a great parent.
They had wonderful kids, so it followed.
But it was also possible that Caitlyn had been parenting alone while Luke went out and was the breadwinner.
I knew she had returned to work when Tatum went into the first grade, first part-time, then full-time, but I wondered if the kids were the result of her solo efforts and I was giving Luke too much credit.
I wanted to ask, but it wasn’t my place.
And after Caitlyn left, Luke had provided for his children but not been there emotionally, so perhaps that’s when the schism happened.
“Then how did you know she cheated?”
“Because we all lived here when it happened,” Griff revealed to his father. “We all heard the yelling and the fights.”
I thought Griff might have, but it seemed they all bore witness.
Griff continued, “I told Tatum and Dar you guys were getting a divorce and that we’d have to decide if we wanted to live with Mom and her new husband and her new baby, or with you.”
Luke looked over at me like he was drowning and needed a lifeline.
“We have talked a lot about WITSEC,” I advised him. “And what their mother had to decide about their future and hers.”
“Oh?”
“She had no choice but to leave, and she had Mr. Conti and the baby to think about, as well as whether to take the kids with her. As you said, you two would have gotten a divorce anyway, but you wouldn’t have simply allowed Griff and Dar and Tatum to be taken away from you. You would have fought for them.”
“I certainly would have.”
“You would’ve?” Griff asked, sounding unsure.
Luke got up then, startling everyone, and I smiled, watching them all stare at their father. Finally, we would have some answers.
“I know I’ve been closed off since your mother left,” he began, starting to pace.
“I’ve missed things, I’ve been unavailable, and yes, that was really bad.
And it doesn’t matter that I was going through my own crap, because that’s not fair to you guys.
But what was happening with me had to do mostly with being filled with rage over her choices, and never, ever, with not wanting you guys. ”
All three of them were watching him with wide eyes.
“I just, I—” He glanced at me again for help.
“When your mother made the choice to begin a relationship with Mr. Conti, that, in turn, ended the relationship with your father, which he knew would then change your family because living arrangements would be altered.”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh. “That’s it.”
“You weren’t mad at us?” Tatum was making sure.
“Oh my God, no. And no way I’d have allowed any of you to go with your mother, and they told me, if I fought her for custody, then none of you would be able to go. There can’t be an ongoing court case for people in WITSEC that is not related to the reason you’re in WITSEC.”
I smiled at him. “You made that far more convoluted than it needed to be.”
He nodded emphatically. “Yes, I did.”
“What?” Griff asked.
I pointed to his son, and Luke laughed. It was a very good sound.
“Basically, your parents could not be having a custody battle and your mother still be allowed into witness protection.”
The chorus of ohs made me chuckle.
After a couple of moments of contemplative silence, Darwin spoke up. “If you wanted us with you, why were you never around?”
“Because even though I was the main breadwinner, Mom’s income helped with things like insurance and bills.
I had to pick up the slack, so I ended up missing plays and parent-teacher nights, open houses, science fairs, and almost all your games,” he said to Griff.
“I’m so sorry, to all of you. I want to be there, but I haven’t been able to be, not if I want you to have the life you’ve always had.
That’s why this job I was on was so important, because now I can stop working so much and carve out more family time. ”
Not one of the kids said a word.
“I hired a foreman as well, which means when emergencies happen, I won’t be the one who always has to take care of them.”
“That’s really good, Dad,” Tatum told him, then leaned into me as she ate. “Griff, these are the best eggs I’ve ever had, even better than when Mom rolled the eggs up for me like in my anime.”
Griff leaned forward at the table to look past Darwin and me to see her. “Thanks, Tate.”
“How did you get ’em so yummy?”
“I fried them in the bacon grease.”
“Keep doing that, okay?”
His laughter made everyone smile.
The not hugging was getting to me, and as I loaded the dishwasher and washed the pans, put the fruit away, as well as the tomatoes and mozzarella, I tried to figure out why, now that he was dry and warm, they didn’t each go in for an embrace.
Even though Luke wanted to help me, I didn’t let him, instead sending him to the living room with his kids.
Clearly, the kids were huggers, so was it only their mother? Was that simply not something he did?
“Nash,” Darwin whispered, coming up beside me and grabbing a towel to help me dry. “Dad seems kind of out of it, don’t you think?”
Checking on him, I saw Luke walking around the living room, studying everything the kids had brought from their rooms, as though he’d never laid eyes on any of it before.
And I knew it had to be weird for him because it was a night-and-day difference from what it had been when he left, but still, the items were not new additions to the house. Or were they?
“None of that stuff you guys brought out is new, is it?”
Darwin shook his head.
“Then why is he acting like he’s in a museum?”
“Well, I mean, he never saw my science trophy before.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Only Griff and Tatum saw me get it.” Big grin suddenly as he thought of something.
“Griff brought an air horn with him on the day they gave it to me in front of my whole school. He blew it when they announced my name and it was awesome. I don’t think the science club ever had one of those before. ”
I smiled. “Griff’s a good brother.”
He nodded.
“So a lot of the stuff on the shelves now is brand-new to your father.”
“Probably, yeah.”
“Why didn’t you show it to him when you got home?”
“I tried, but he was busy.”
The picture was becoming so much clearer.
Over time, they had basically gotten used to getting along without their father.
They had been abandoned by their mother, and with Luke suddenly working so hard, they’d lost their father too.
And now Luke was getting reacquainted with his kids through their own artifacts.
I would have to remember to tell their therapist. I was betting she would want to talk to their father.
“Do you think he hates it?”
“Absolutely not,” I assured him. “He’s just taking it all in. It’s a big change.”
No longer a shrine, instead a lived-in space, a warm hug of a front room filled with current mementos, a couch with mismatched blankets and pillows, and a hideous coffee table we’d traded with the Beekmans at the yard sale.
They got an ugly painting of a clown that was creepy as hell, that had been stored in the basement, because of course it was, and we got the sturdy eyesore that appeared to be reclaimed barnwood stained a pale French-cottage gray.
The thing was, it matched the soft slate-blue burlap couch, the red damask muslin blankets we’d found in the attic and laundered, and the weird plaid area rug with all those colors intermixed.
There was also now a cat tree by the front window and various toys strewn about.
The books didn’t get put away the night before, and it was easy to see that Darwin had been showing us space stuff.
All in all, it was now the perfect entryway that said Luke Duchesne actually had kids.
If he was missing the plants, that was too bad, because a very nice woman bought them for her office and they weren’t coming back.
“Where did the table come from?” he asked as if on cue.
“From the Beekmans,” Griff answered, yawning. “We found this spooky clown picture in the basement, and when we brought it up, Mrs. Beekman came right over like she was supernaturally drawn to it. It was weird.”
“It was very weird,” Darwin seconded.
“But we needed a coffee table,” Tatum explained, “and they had this one that we all like—most of us, anyway—so Griff asked if they would swap for the carnivorous clown.”
“Carnivorous clown?”
“That’s what Dar named the picture.”
“No way that clown didn’t eat people like Pennywise in It ,” Darwin said with a shudder.
“When did you watch that movie?” Luke asked, scowling at me.
“I did not,” I said defensively.
Luke’s focus returned to Darwin. “Well?”
“Are you mad?”
“More invested in the answer at this point.”
“I saw it at Teddy’s house.”
I was surprised. “The nice church lady let you watch that?”
He shook his head. “When Teddy’s dad removed all the child-safety features on all their streaming services so he could watch…you know…I guess he forgot to switch them back on.”
I would not laugh, so I pivoted back to the sink.
“Please don’t watch any R-rated movies at Teddy’s house,” Luke pleaded with his son.
“Fine,” he said, sounding a bit put out.
“Anyway,” Tatum announced, “the clown is gone and?—”
“We are talking about the clown sitting on a bench under a streetlamp?”
“That’s the one,” Darwin said, cackling.
“And you got rid of that?” Luke asked his son.
“Yeah, why? Are you mad?”
I turned so I could see Luke’s face. His smile told me he was the exact opposite of mad.
“No,” he said and shivered, and the kids smiled. “You saw it. How creepy was that? Your mother loved it, but you know, she liked to be scared on purpose sometimes. Remember how she would watch all those scary movies and then not be able to sleep?”
They all nodded—Darwin putting the dish towel down and joining the others in the living room—listening to their father, clearly thrilled to hear him bring her up so casually in conversation. It was a good start, and Luke wanting to be part of their discussion was a promising sign.
“She would watch scary movies,” Griff said, “and her brain would change them and make them ten times worse. We’d hear her in the house days later screaming over something. She was such a scaredy-cat.”
“But she also carried a baby cougar back to its mother,” Darwin reminded everyone. “It was so much bigger than I thought it was going to be, but Mom didn’t care. She just walked it back across the highway.”
“That’s Mom,” Griff said, and I could hear the wistfulness in his voice. “Only scared of things that don’t exist.”
“Like you know everything there is to be scared of,” Darwin scoffed. “You don’t.”
They were all talking then, reminiscing, but also doing more, listening, spending time together, and that was good.
The fact was, now that their father was home, me being swapped out was no longer a big deal.
With a parent in the mix—a strong, actively participating parent—whoever was there to do the bodyguarding became a secondary consideration.
It would be easy, after this, for me to step away.
I stopped worrying about someone else showing up.