Chapter Eleven – Alright #2
I set down the boxes I’d brought and started assembling them. Dad wasn’t going to be much help with his burned hand still wrapped, but I needed him to tell me what he wanted to take with him to Beckett’s.
“We can obviously come back and pick up more things if you forget something you really want, but let’s try to take what you’ll need to be comfortable.”
Dad stopped at the dresser, looking down at the frames scattered across it.
His wedding photo was front and center with Mom in a fluffy, Cinderella-style dress and him in a tuxedo.
The other pictures were a collage of memories.
One was of my parents at the hospital, holding a newborn Chelsea.
Another was of the four of us around a Christmas tree when I was a toddler.
And next to it was one of my sister and me squeezed together in the tire swing after Mom and Dad had first hung it.
The ache in my chest grew, not only because of the sorrow on Dad’s face but at the poignant memories. Unsure how much more I could take, I stepped into his tiny walk-in closet, calling out, “Come tell me what clothes you want.”
“Where’s her jewelry box?” Dad demanded. His tone was brittle. Sharp.
I ducked my head back out. “What?”
Dad pointed at the antique vanity Mom had bought from a junkyard and repaired when it had seemed a lost cause.
An ornately carved jewelry box had always sat atop it.
I remembered tracing my fingers over the delicate butterflies and hummingbirds as a kid.
It had been filled mostly with costume jewelry, as we hadn’t had enough money for her to have very many expensive pieces.
But Grandma’s wedding set and Mom’s engagement ring had been in there along with a set of real pearls.
Chelsea and I had always fought over the pearls whenever we’d played dress up, and she’d usually won. But occasionally, I’d played without her and draped them over myself, pretending to be a runway model.
“Did you move it?” I asked Dad.
He stood there, motionless, while I searched around the vanity, lifted the old, faded dust ruffle to look under the bed, and then moved back to the closet, hunting the years of accumulated items on the racks and shelves.
An ugly fear started to form in my head, thinking of the two large suitcases Chelsea and Gavin had taken with them, and the fact Beckett had said she’d cleared out her room. But not even Chelsea would do something so brazen and hurtful, would she?
“You can’t just take things, Maisey.” The anger rippling from Dad’s voice surprised me as much as his words. “I may be losing my mind and my job and my home, but you can’t just take what you want without asking.”
He thought I’d taken it? Pain sliced through me. I came out of the closet again, and the dark look he sent me sent a chill up my spine.
I bit back my instant retort that would have been full of hurt, opting for patience I wasn’t sure I’d hold on to for much longer. “I didn’t take anything, Dad. I’d never take something from your house without your permission.”
Had he taken it and sold its contents, attempting to cover some of the money he owed the bank, and just couldn’t remember it?
By some twist of illogical fate, he’d paid the house insurance five months ago, although it was due again in a month.
It was a small blessing, meaning we’d get a check to cover some of the damages.
But Beckett had been right, we’d need to do a lot of the repairs ourselves.
“Then where is it?” he challenged me.
Pain carved a fresh wound into my soul.
“I don’t know, Dad. You tell me what happened to it. You’re the one who’s been keeping secrets.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it, but I’d be damned if I’d sit there and have him accuse me of stealing from my own family.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady,” Dad hissed. “I’m still the father, and a father doesn’t burden his kids with his troubles.”
My patience snapped completely as I turned away from him and said under my breath, “Please. Like I wasn’t the one to pay all the bills after Mom died?”
“Don’t talk to me that way!” he yelled and then kicked one of the empty boxes. I barely had time to put my hands up and deflect it as it came flying at me.
My hands shook as I righted the box just as Beckett’s deep voice asked, “What’s going on here?”
I looked up to find him in the doorway, frowning. Everything turned fuzzy. Unreal. As if I’d stepped into an ugly dream.
My dad sat on the bed. He said vehemently, “I’m not leaving. This is my home. I’m staying here. I won’t have more of her things stolen from me while I’m not here to watch over them.”
I rubbed a hand over my face and then tugged at the end of my ponytail.
“You can’t stay here, Dad. There won’t be any electricity until they can fix the wiring in the kitchen.”
“I don’t need electricity.”
“You can’t stay on your own,” I said as softly as I could. “Not right now.”
“Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do? I’m the parent!” he roared.
I wanted to scream back. I wanted to tell him to start acting like it for the first time in nearly a decade and a half. I wanted to remind him of all the things he’d left me in charge of while he’d been out driving the country.
The horrible moment when I’d had to call and say Mom had passed in her sleep flashed before me, ripping through my heart and soul.
I’d had to make the arrangements for her body to be picked up while he’d been hundreds of miles away.
Kurt had done more for me in those few hours and days than my own father.
Therapy had helped me try to forgive, but I’d never forget, and I’d never be rid of the scars those moments left behind.
“You know what,” I said, inhaling. “You’re right. You’re the parent. You’re an adult. You can do whatever you want.”
I brushed past Beckett and stormed out of the house. My body was trembling. Years of anger and frustration and sorrow jumbled together, vying for release, trying to burst through the surface.
Outside, I looked back at the house and hesitated for a few seconds. He wasn’t himself. The doctors said the temporary dementia would make him volatile while his body healed.
I needed to have patience.
Then, the paper cut on my hand from where the box hit me throbbed, and my heart tore a bit more.
I stalked over to my truck and slammed the door behind me.
When I turned the engine over, it coughed pitifully, and dread held me in its grip for two seconds before the motor finally kicked in.
I sent a thank you to the universe and then drove away, heading for my studio apartment and the few things I had left to do there.
I’d barely pulled into the apartment’s parking lot before I started kicking myself.
Dad was losing everything. He couldn’t remember what had happened the day of the fire and was terrified of what came next.
Finding Mom’s jewelry box gone on top of everything else was probably just the last straw.
He’d lashed out, and I’d been the body in the wake.
It hadn’t been personal, but it had felt that way.
I mean, how could he think I’d steal from him?
I hadn’t even realized I was crying until a tear hit my hand. I brushed my fingers over damp cheeks and hurried up to my apartment.
As I walked into the tiny studio I’d barely afforded on my own, sorrow filled me.
I’d really loved having my own space for the first time in my life.
I’d loved decorating it without having to ask for permission or wonder if my roommate would be okay with it.
It had been a little oasis for me at the end of my shifts.
Dad wasn’t the only one losing things.
More tears came, and I let them fall over the next hour while I worked.
I dismantled the high-top dining table for two, dragged the mattress and box spring off the bed, and set my power tools to the stubborn screws on the wrought iron bed frame.
I was hot and sweaty, but the tears had worked themselves out and left a numbness behind.
I couldn’t do much else without help. It would take at least two people to navigate the queen mattress down the stairs, and it would take a body with way more muscles, or at least two of me, to haul my boxes of books down to the truck.
The books were my only splurge I’d allowed myself while putting aside for a new car and saving to buy back Titan. Being able to lose myself in the joy of those happily ever afters whenever my reality got to be too much was worth it.
A knock on my door brought me out of the bathroom with the last bit of toiletries I was throwing inside a basket. I looked through the peephole to find Beckett on the landing. I swung the door open and then left him standing there to head back to the bathroom.
“Don’t say anything,” I said over my shoulder. “I know I shouldn’t have lost my cool.”
“You actually think I’m here to call you out for that? If anything, I wish you’d lost your cool with your dad ages ago.”
Why did that hurt so much? Why should I have to lose my cool with my father? Why couldn’t we just have a relationship where loving each other was enough?
In the bathroom, I threw my flat iron and makeup bag into the basket.
Beckett followed me, grabbing the doorframe with both hands as he took me in.
He scanned every inch of me, lingering on my face, which was a mess from the tears I’d shed, just like my hair and clothes were a mess from disassembling the furniture.
I returned his stare, taking in his tall length and the way his biceps flexed as he gripped the frame.
His SRFD T-shirt rode up at his waist, exposing a slim line of tan skin and the waistband of his boxer briefs above his jeans.
The silence that landed between us felt heavy and loaded.
Full of want and desire—things I’d always felt but that I’d suddenly seen in Beckett’s eyes this week too.
A return flame that would do me in if I dwelled on it too long.
Doubt slammed into me. How was I going to live with him for months when just this, just him standing two feet away from me, looking at me in just that way, made my heart race and my thighs tremble?
I inhaled, counted to four, and then let it out.
No. I could do this. I’d done way harder things than spend a few weeks in Beckett’s home.
I absolutely could help Dad and Beckett without losing myself.
Beckett cleared his throat, looking away. “I told your Dad it was against fire code for him to live in the house at the moment. I said he could be fined, and as a firefighter, I’d have to report it.”
I scoffed. “And he believed you?”
Beckett shrugged, lips twitching. “I’m very convincing.
But honestly, I think the idea of owing more money was what motivated him to start packing.
We hauled a few boxes of his belongings to my house, and when Tejas dropped by, he helped me move the bedroom set and the TV your dad had in his room.
I left the two of them reassembling everything at my place so I could come help you. ”
Tears threatened again, but I was able to get out, “Thanks.”
He let go of the doorjamb and stepped into the bathroom.
The small space seemed to shrink even more.
Before I realized his intention, he’d pulled me into a tight hug.
My face was smashed to his chest, with his scent washing over me.
The warmth of Beckett’s hand on my back was soothing, daring me to let down my defenses.
For two seconds, I let myself indulge in the comfort before I mumbled into his shirt. “You owe me another romance book.”
He snorted and then said, “I guess I do.”
He tugged on my ponytail, forcing my head up and scanning my face. His voice was deep and dark when he said, “You’ve been crying. I hate it when you cry.”
“He thought I stole from him, Beckett. That I stole from my own father.”
Beckett’s brows shot up in surprise, and the pain of Dad’s words tore through me all over again. After everything I’d done to try to hold our family together, how could he even consider the possibility?
“Why would he think that?” Beckett demanded.
I shrugged. “It’s probably the meds making him irritable and the trauma his brain has been through with the stroke. But Mom’s jewelry box is missing, and I’m the one who looks after the house while he’s gone. I guess it makes sense he’d think it was me.”
“Chelsea was just there,” Beckett said.
I’d had the same thought before Dad’s accusation had wiped it away. A piece of me didn’t want to believe Chelsea was capable of taking Mom’s things without asking Dad…or me… But another part of me realized it was exactly the sort of thing she’d do. She took what she wanted all the time now.
What would make this any different?