Seven #2
“Well, clearly, I won’t be remarried before New Year’s,” he said drolly.
I chuckled and gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Don’t sound like you’re going to face a firing squad or something. I had a friend get married recently, and he looks pretty fuckin’ happy. Give it another go.”
“Really? This is your advice after how my first one ended?” He sounded horrified.
“But there were many good years before the end,” I reminded him. “There had to be. You have great kids and that doesn’t happen without trust and love.”
“The kids were the only good thing. Caitlyn and I…we were roommates, not husband and wife,” he said sadly. “I wasn’t surprised about her and Conti. I knew as soon as it started, even though she came home every night and got in bed with me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because I was.
“It hurt. The lying, the cheating. I even followed her once to make sure I wasn’t crazy, but when they say the wife or husband always knows…
it’s true. Something in the air changes.
Her voice was different, how she walked and smiled.
I mean, he definitely made her happy, which I couldn’t anymore, but what really messed with me was her not wanting the kids. ”
I wasn’t sure I heard him right.
“I can see it all over your face,” he murmured. “You’re just as torn up as I was. You’re hurting for them. I was the same.”
“She didn’t want them, or she didn’t want to uproot their lives?”
“The first one,” he replied softly. “It was kind of you to fill their heads with her thinking about them and their futures and even about me being alone. But the truth is, she wanted a new start. She was leaving with Conti anyway. She told me when she finally confessed to the affair that she was having his baby. He had a new job in San Francisco, that’s where he’s from, and he was taking Caitlyn there to live.
She explained he didn’t want our kids with them—as though I would have let that happen—but she was sure, after he became a father, that he’d change his mind. She hoped I might let the kids visit.”
I couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Your eyes,” he choked out, and his were suddenly gleaming with unshed tears. “You haven’t even been with my kids for two full weeks, and you’re more worried about them than she was at the end.”
Normally, I led with my brain. That was what had made me an excellent master sergeant, a logical and precise homicide detective, and a tactical fixer.
I thought first, felt second. But this was different because I’d felt the pain in his kids and now on him.
My heart in full control, I grabbed him, clutching him tight, one hand on his nape, my arm across his back, trying to absorb the hurt and betrayal into my body.
He trembled hard, and I was guessing he hadn’t been held since long before she left.
And maybe I was wrong, and he had, and a beautiful, kind woman had hugged him and let him grieve.
But when his arms slid around me, and both hands fisted in my henley and held on, I thought no, I was the first one offering physical comfort.
And not just leaning or a quick clench, but holding him to my heart.
When I tightened my arm around his back, he gave me some of his weight, letting me support him, and it felt good, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. We breathed together, and after several moments, I felt him shift, straightening, and I let him go, stepping back.
“I am really sorry you’ve had to shoulder this burden alone and not tell the kids.”
He put the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed.
“Me too,” he admitted. “I wanted to tell them, you know? There they all were, hating me, the guy who was here, while missing her, the one who didn’t even want them, and it eats you up, and that’s how it happened.
I distanced myself from them so my heart wouldn’t eat itself out of jealousy. ”
“You were jealous of her?”
“Hell yes,” he said, dropping his hands and looking at me.
“She got to go off, have her love and their lovechild, and I was here, taking the blame for something I had no hand in. It sucked. It still does, or did until”—he gestured at me—“you showed up. Fixer is fuckin’ right.
I must thank Abel. He’s goddamn brilliant. ”
“I think you’re giving me a bit too much credit here.”
“No,” he said, slipping his hand around my wrist, then letting go. “I can feel the air moving in the house again. It’s been stagnating, but now it’s so much better, and their voices and their faces…it’s good.”
I nodded. “I’m glad.”
“It’s weird, you know, but at the end, when she said she was leaving, before she reported what she saw that night from the hotel room, she acted like I didn’t know her.
Like I didn’t know who was sleeping in my bed for seventeen years.
But when she told me the kids were staying with me, that she wouldn’t fight me for custody, that was the only moment I had no idea who she was. ”
“And then everything changed.”
“Yeah. She said goodbye to the kids the day before. We all had to be out of the house while she packed, and then they let us know when we could come back. Weirdly, nothing was missing…none of our mementos. And I know you can’t take pictures or baby books or something obvious like that, but you can take something , some small token to remind you…
But all she took was her jewelry, including her wedding ring.
At least she left the jade pendant my mother gave her after Griff was born.
I asked her to leave that so it could go to Tatum someday when she has a baby. ”
“And you’ll be a grandfather.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he groaned.
I laughed, and he joined me, and it sounded good, cathartic.
“Okay, I’m off to see your daughter,” I said, and turned from him.
“Are you married?” he asked, right behind me, keeping pace.
“No.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No, sir. I don’t seem strong and steady like you. Not good husband material.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but there’s no doubt you’d make an incredible father.”
“Or I could adopt a lot of dogs.”
He chuckled.
Striding into the living room, I scooped up Wink on the way and headed for the stairway, but Griff called for me. Waiting, I watched as he slipped out of the circle he was in, and snaking around others, he reached me.
“Hey,” he rushed out. “Is Wink fine?”
“Yeah, he’s great. I’m just gonna go check on your sister.”
He nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
“You should stay here and talk to everyone, yeah?”
“No, I, uh—no.”
The look on his face, like he was suddenly worn down, changed my mind. “Okay, then, come on,” I said, heading again for the stairs.
Only when I reached the second-floor landing did I realize Darwin was there too.
“Why aren’t you downstairs?”
“How come you took Wink by yourself?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. Answer me first.”
“Lots of people, at the same time, make me tired.”
I smiled at him. “Me too. And I went alone to Wink’s appointment because you guys were having a good time with your dad and then with the other people who came over. It was nice to see you all happy, and I didn’t want to interrupt that.”
“I just…I like it better when you’re here. Even if you’re in a different room, I still like to know where you are.”
“I texted you where I was.”
“I left my phone up here,” he said miserably.
I gently took hold of the back of his neck, drew him to me, and kissed the top of his head. “I’m here, buddy, don’t you worry.”
He nodded, and then I proceeded toward the end of the hall and Tatum’s room, passing by Griff’s room, the guest bathroom, Darwin’s room on the left, the enormous linen closet on the right, and knocked on her door.
“Go away!” she yelled.
“But Wink had to get shots and a dewormer,” I said through the door. “He could use some lovin’ because he is big mad at me.”
The door was unlocked and thrown open, and I put Wink in her arms.
She kissed his little head, petted him, kissed the bandage on his right leg where they took a tiny amount of blood, and then gave him to Darwin before turning on me. I saw it then, her red, puffy eyes, her blotchy face, and heard her stuttering breath.
Going to one knee, I opened my arms, and she immediately filled them, wrapping hers around my neck, which is when it became clear how hard she was shaking.
“What the hell happened? I was only gone two goddamn hours.”
“Aunt Shelly,” she said, her breath shaky.
“What’d she say?”
“She was upset when she saw how we changed the front room,” she whispered. “She said how hard Mom worked to make it perfect, but I told her that Mom was gone, and it was our house, not hers anymore, and she was so angry and said that wasn’t true and that I was a spoiled brat.”
“Then what?”
“Then I ran out of the room, and I was on my way up the stairs, but another lady, not one of Aunt Shelly’s nice friends, but someone else, grabbed my arm and told me that making Shelly cry right after her mom died was a mean thing to do.”
“Okay,” I soothed her, rubbing her back.
She sniffled. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I think I did wrong?”
“Nope.”
Easing back, she looked at me. “How come?”
“Because I know why your mother’s friend is sad, and that’s because she lost her mother.
She needs things in her life to cling to, things that haven’t changed, but that won’t be this house or any of you.
Because all of you are moving forward, and she has too as well.
But right now, she needs time to grieve, and she should. ”
She nodded.
“That being said, it’s good to sympathize with others, but you can’t let anyone take their emotions out on you.”
“Like, they shouldn’t be mean to me just because they’re upset?”
“That’s right,” I praised her.
“Well, she got mad because she was surprised her key didn’t work, and I told her you changed the locks. And then she wanted me to give her a new key, but I said you didn’t make one for her, and she told me to give her mine, but I said you would be mad. I’m sorry I lied.”