Seven #3
“You didn’t lie. I would’ve been pissed at you.”
Her eyes lit up, which seemed ridiculous, but whatever worked. “You would?”
“Hell yeah. I’d have to call the locksmith and have the whole place rekeyed again. That would be a pain in the ass.”
“So you really would have been mad?”
“Very.”
Her big sigh was adorable. She was so relieved.
“Only keys for us, ya got me?”
“Yes, Nash.”
“All right. Let’s wash off the sad now.”
In her bathroom, I sat on the toilet lid while she rinsed her face.
“Listen, I know you cry when you’re sad and when you’re mad, but I think from now on, instead of crying, you can tell people why you’re upset, and if they don’t listen, then you can walk away.”
She looked over at me. “Walk away?”
“Yeah. Here’s the thing: if people aren’t going to be courteous enough to listen to you, then you don’t have to stand there and allow someone to be discourteous to you.”
“Really?” Darwin asked from the doorway.
“Of course. If you’re trying to make a point or telling them no, I don’t want that or whatever that is doesn’t interest me , if they persist in not listening to you, your only recourse is to leave.”
Darwin nodded. “My teacher was wrong the other day about a math problem, and when I raised my hand to try to show her what she’d messed up, she didn’t let me.”
“In that instance, leaving in the middle of class isn’t possible, right?”
“No, it’s not.”
“But when you come home, you can tell your dad, and he will call and make an appointment to see her, with you, and you can explain the situation.”
“I wrote out the answer for her, but she wouldn’t check it.”
Poor lady. Having Darwin correct her math had to be both humiliating and annoying. The thing was, it was always best to own your error. I often thought the world would be a better place if people just said yeah, mea culpa, I screwed up .
“Sometimes, when people are called out on the mistakes they make, it’s hard for them. So the best thing to do, again, is tell your dad.”
“And if he won’t listen, will you call her?”
“I will. But let’s give Dad a chance first, yeah?”
“Yeah, give Dad a chance,” Luke chimed in from behind me.
We all turned to him.
“I thanked everyone for coming and sent them home, except for Shelly and her friends, because Shelly wants to talk to you,” he directed his words to his daughter, “and fix things up.”
He then walked into the bathroom, took a hand towel off the rack, and had Tatum lean toward him. Gently, he patted her face dry, and when he was done, she melted into his arms and he hugged her tight.
“You have to let me know if someone is upsetting you, Tate. I couldn’t tell from across the room. But Shelly is very sad she made you cry.”
“Will you stay by me when I talk to her?”
“Of course I will.”
“She wants a new key to the house too, but?—”
“No, we’re not gonna do that. Nash was right to change them all. It should be just us.”
“He said we needed to reclaim our space the first day.”
He squinted at me. “I think Nash has spent a bit too much time with therapists and has picked up way too many fancy words.”
I scowled at him, and he smiled back.
“Regardless, no one needs a key but us.”
“You mean Nash too when you say us , don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
Reason number 527 why I had to go. This was doing nothing remotely helpful.
“And you promise to hold my hand when I talk to Aunt Shelly?”
“Absolutely,” he said, smiling as he held his daughter.
I stood and moved around them, and at the door, eased Darwin into the room as I took his place in the doorway.
As soon as Luke released Tatum, waiting as I did when she was in my arms for her to pull away first, Darwin was next, and I heard Luke sigh deeply as he embraced his son. Griff bumped my side, and when I lifted my arm, he leaned into me.
“When I drop you off at school on Wednesday, we’ll go early so I can have a word with your teacher,” Luke assured Darwin.
“Are you gonna go with us to see our therapist tomorrow?” Griff asked his father. “Or will you be too busy?”
The first test, and I wasn’t missing it, and neither did Luke. Teenagers.
“No, I’ll be there,” he stated, and the arched eyebrow for his son made me grin.
“Maybe your doctor will want to talk to me as I’m the only one who can give deep insight into what you were like as a baby.
Maybe she wants to really dig into your childhood and potty training and your biblical hatred of cauliflower. ”
Griff stared at him, Luke grinned back, and after a moment Griff snorted out a laugh he couldn’t hold in. “Biblical?”
“You used to be able to spit for distance like a llama.”
Darwin and Tatum found that as funny as their brother, and Luke gave me an eyebrow waggle.
“Nice,” I said, grinning.
Even only half a day in, such progress. It was a good thing.
Downstairs, it was quiet, and Griff, Darwin, and I went to investigate all the food that had been dropped off as Tatum, holding on to Luke’s hand, spoke to her mother’s friend.
“What is this?” Griff asked, lifting a clear-glass casserole dish, with lid, over his head.
“You have to smell it,” Darwin told him. “Looks like noodles on the bottom.”
Once he lifted the lid and inhaled, he confirmed the worst. “It’s tuna casserole.”
I took a big step back, breathing through my nose so I wouldn’t puke.
Griff, if his grin was any indication, found the face I was making and the quick, quiet retch that came out of me, very amusing.
“It won’t be that funny when I throw up on your shoes.”
“I think tuna casserole is gross too, but why all that?”
“Have you ever eaten something and it made you sick, and then afterward, just smelling whatever it was made you gag?”
“Yeah. It happened with ambrosia salad, and I’m still not over it.”
“Mine was green olives,” Darwin confessed, leaning on the counter.
“I don’t even know what ambrosia salad is, but I bet it’s grosser than olives.
For me, it’s tuna casserole. My dad and I ate it so many days in a row because it was easy, and that was bad enough, but then this one time it made me sick, and it’s been…
God, most of my life at this point. I can’t eat that. ”
Darwin went and got blue painter’s tape from the garage, and we wrote the names of whom the dishes belonged to on the bottom of each so there would be no mix-up when it was time to return the empties.
“Nash.”
When I turned to Griff to see what he wanted, I found Shelly Canton standing there.
“You’re the man who’s been here taking care of the kids, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She took a breath. “Tatum told me what you said about why I made a mistake with her, about what I said about the house, and I appreciate that.”
“Of course, and you have my condolences on the loss of your mother.”
“Thank you, but…” She stopped and glanced at the boys.
“Guys, give us a minute, will you?”
They both immediately crossed the room to the other two women and Luke and Tatum.
“Caitlyn,” she began, then stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. “Before she left, Caitlyn told me she wanted me to step in and help the family.”
I nodded. “Well, I’m certain that in time you’ll be able to?—”
“But don’t you see? I need the connection and purpose now.”
“Don’t you think,” I began gently, “that now, when you just lost your mother, is the time when you should be focused on yourself and your own healing?”
“No,” she rasped, taking a step closer. “I want to be here. I need to be here. Can’t you understand that?”
I took a breath. “I understand that’s what you want, but I don’t believe it’s what’s honestly best for you or the kids.”
“And you are? Is that what you’re saying? You show up, out of the blue, and you believe you’re what’s best for this family?” Her voice rose, and I wished I could think of a way to comfort her, but I wasn’t sure it was possible.
“No,” I said with a sigh. “I think their father is what’s best for the family. They need to finally get on with the business of making a life without your friend.”
“You don’t understand,” she heaved out, her hands fisting tight. “It’s supposed to be me. Caitlyn said that everyone, the kids and Luke, would need comfort, and the person they would want that from most would be me!”
And yet, Tatum didn’t have this woman’s number in her phone.
She had mine, she had her father’s, her grandparents’, her neighbors’ on both sides.
I had to wonder how big a role Aunt Shelly had in the lives of Caitlyn’s children.
Not to mention that this was eighteen months after her leaving.
Now, there was Shelly’s recently deceased mother to consider.
I had no doubt that her mother’s care had sucked up all of her time, which I respected, but to now suddenly want to step into the space that Caitlyn used to occupy was not possible.
“Did Caitlyn tell you something about Luke?” It had to be that. This woman had been making plans.
“She said how beautiful he always thought I was and how kind and loving. That she talked about me with him for years, and especially when she was planning to leave with Marcello for San Francisco.”
So she’d known about the planned exodus as well. Interesting.
I’d seen pictures of Caitlyn Duchesne, and she had long, dark-brown, wavy hair that was always wild, an olive complexion, and lovely hazel eyes.
There were freckles across her nose and over her cheeks, and all that, combined with a smile that lit her face, made her a knockout.
I was betting that people, both men and women, had probably stopped on the street to look at her.
It was that indescribable it factor that some people simply possessed.
Her friend, in comparison, seemed devoid of any spark at all.
And of course she was, at the moment, mired in grief, but regardless, I suspected the two women were not the same.