Chapter 5
FIVE
Deacon
Brian is more irritating than usual this morning.
He shouldn’t even be working. It’s Sunday.
This entire morning is more irritating than usual.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t had my coffee because it’s all down some woman’s shirt.
I didn’t have time to go and get another because some of it spilled on me and I had to go back to the hotel and change.
“I’ve told you a thousand times that I won’t travel if it means being away from New York Wednesday to Sunday.”
“But the conference is only on Wednesday to Saturday.”
What about my answer is he not understanding? “Then I’m not going.”
“This might be your only opportunity to get in front of ABC Inc. this year.”
“I don’t have time to say the same thing to you over and over again, Brian. You asked me to go, I said no. This isn’t a negotiation. I have a call coming through. I’ll speak to you later.”
Brian is my COO. He’s good at his job. I basically pay him to be tenacious, but he should have learned that one thing I’ll never change my mind about is leaving my kid when it’s my days to be in the house with her.
Gabby has wanted to move our days around a couple of times, but my answer is always no.
I’m not going to confuse Willow. My daughter needs to understand that whatever happens, she’s going to wake up to her mother on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and me on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
That’s just how this works. The only thing that’s ever been flexible is Saturday night.
We started off agreeing to alternate Saturday nights, but Gabby asks me to stay until Sunday so often, we agreed, to keep things consistent, I would stay every Saturday night.
It suits me. I get more time with Willow.
And it suits Gabby, as she gets to go to dinner or whatever the hell she does with her Saturday nights.
There was no call coming through when I hung up on Brian. We both knew that, but I take the opportunity to call my sister. Since we were kids, she’s been the only one who’s been able to pull me out of one of my moods. She knows me better than I know myself.
“To what do I owe this particular pleasure?” she asks.
“I’m just on my lunchbreak, so make it quick.
” Chloe still lives in the UK. I keep telling her to come over to the US, but she was dating some loser in London for years until she found out about his cheating.
She says she has her friendship circle there.
She might be an adult, but she’s still my little sister.
I worry about Chloe. I always have. She tells me that I’m overbearing because I couldn’t keep Penny safe.
That might be true, but it doesn’t stop me from worrying.
“I’m irritated,” I say, like that explains everything.
“Interesting. Can you give me any more meat on the bone?” she asks.
“I bumped into someone this morning and poured my coffee all down her. I think I need caffeine.”
“Is she hurt? Did she have to go to A&E?”
Guilt tugs at my gut. “No, she didn’t go to the emergency room.” I only know that because I saw her in the hotel lobby earlier. But I didn’t even check to see if she was okay.
I’m a fucking arsehole at times.
“You think I need coffee?” I ask. My sister can always figure out what’s at the bottom of my bad mood better than I can.
“No, I don’t think you need coffee. You need a personality transplant.”
“Ha.”
“I’m serious. Did you check on your poor victim? Maybe she’s walking around with third-degree burns.”
“Chloe! Can we focus.”
“Okay,” she says. “What’s going on?”
I give her the rundown about how Brian wants me to go to a conference and how it would be good to meet up with ABC Inc.
“That isn’t it,” Chloe says.
“I really think it is.”
“It’s really not,” she says.
“How do you know?” I bark.
“Why on earth do you think you’re calling me? You’re calling me because you’re pissed off and you can’t figure out why. And I can always work it out. I know you better than I know myself. What happened before your call with Brian?”
“I spilled coffee on the girl.” The more I think about it, the worse I feel. I basically blamed her for not looking where she was going when I ran into her. And I covered her in coffee. “I was a dick to her.”
“Aha!” she says, like she’s in a comedy mystery. “So it wasn’t Brian. You were in a bad mood before that. And it wasn’t the girl, because you were a self-confessed dick to her.”
“I was annoyed that I spilled my coffee,” I say, my tone verging on a whine.
“Not so annoyed that you’d be a dick to the person you spilled it on. I know you, remember. What happened before that? You handed Willow over to Gabby, right?”
I pull in a breath. My morning hadn’t gone as I’d been expecting. Sundays are always the same. I leave the townhouse just before eight and I go and drop my bag off at the hotel, then I head to the office. I don’t have a conversation with my ex about her relationship status.
I hope Willow took the news well. I hope she doesn’t think that this means anything will change. Because it won’t. I won’t let it.
“So, was everything okay at the townhouse?” my sister asks.
“Gabby got engaged.” I push my hands through my hair. Of course I know that’s why I’m pissed off. I just want Chloe to tell me I don’t need to worry. “You think that’s why I’m pissed off?”
“Oh god, every time I think you might be smart, I’m reminded that you’re an idiot. Of course that’s why you’re pissed off!”
“But why? It’s not like I want her back.”
“So you thought you’d call me to externally process the situation?” I can see her roll her eyes through the phone. “Maybe part of you does. Or maybe part of you just wishes you wanted her more. I think you still wish the three of you could be a family.”
Chloe probably has a point. Even though my setup with Gabby works, I would never have designed my daughter’s life like this.
“And Willow’s going to take it well, right?” I ask. That’s the real question I want answered.
“Willow loves Ray,” Chloe says. “But you need to be prepared.” Her tone’s serious, and I fiddle with the side of my phone, to make sure the volume is up as high as it can be. “Gabby’s engagement has implications for the way you and Gabby arrange things with Willow.”
My stomach falls to the floor. “No it doesn’t. Why would it?”
“Deacon…” She says it like I know I’m not being honest with myself.
“We’ve agreed to this arrangement. Why would things need to change?
” Gabby and I both agreed that this was how things would be until Willow left home.
She made that commitment. That’s why I gave Gabby a huge down payment on her townhouse, despite her having family money.
I wanted everything to be set in stone. And it has been.
Everything works perfectly as it is. It doesn’t need to change.
“Deacon, she’s at least going to want to spend every night with her husband.”
“Not necessarily.” Even to my own ears, I sound defensive.
“Maybe they’ll be happy to come to the townhouse with Willow.”
“I haven’t agreed to that. Ray can’t just move in.
” As I say it, I realize I’m probably being a little na?ve.
But Gabby has to talk to me about stuff.
She can’t just assume. We had an agreement.
I’m not suddenly okay with that agreement being shredded just because Gabby’s decided to upend her life and get married.
“He’s going to be Gabby’s husband. Willow knows him and likes him.”
“What’s your point?”
“You hired the best investigators to check him out. If Gabby’s happy and Willow likes this guy, then you should be happy.”
I’m not happy.
I’m not happy at all.
I don’t want another man staying over in the house with Willow. It’s my house. I paid for it. I should get to decide who stays or doesn’t stay.
But Chloe’s right. I can’t imagine Gabby’s going to want to be separated from her husband three nights a week. “Maybe I can suggest that I do five nights with Willow and she does two. Two nights a week away from each other might be doable.”
“Deacon! She’s not going to want more time away from Willow. I don’t quite know how you ended up with every Saturday night as it is.”
We both let silence settle between us for a few beats.
“You know she might want to revisit this nesting arrangement you have going on,” she says.
Cold floods my veins as if the blood has stopped flowing. Maybe that’s why I’ve been in a shitty mood since I left the townhouse—because a part of me suspects Gabby is going to want to change everything.
“What do you mean, revisit it?”
“She might want to have Willow at her and her husband’s house. Like a more traditional separated couple.”
“But that’s not what we agreed,” I say, dark clouds gathering around my ribs, pushing and pulling.
“But she might want a change in your agreement. You need to prepare yourself.”
“But Willow needs stability. She needs the routine.”
“Right,” she says. “But she can have stability and routine in a different way. Ray’s not going to turn her into an army brat. Gabby and Ray aren’t Mom and Dad.”
“Shuttling between two homes? How is that fair on her?”
“She might like it,” Chloe says. “Two bedrooms. Plus, you’ll be more settled. You wouldn’t have to live in a hotel half the week.”
“I’m fine with things the way they are. More than fine.”
“But you’re not the only person who needs to be taken into account in this arrangement.”
“I’m putting Willow first.”
“Maybe,” Chloe says.
If anyone else had ever dared question my commitment to my daughter, I’d punch them and never speak to them again. Only Chloe could ever get away with it.
“You know I put Willow first.”
“I do know that. But I also think that what you think is best for Willow might not be best for Willow. And anyway, something else might be just as good.”
Nausea rises in my stomach. I can’t think about this anymore. It’s all too much. It’s never even occurred to me that Gabby might want to change our arrangement. It’s worked for years now.
“Not everyone reacts to change in the same way,” Chloe says, her voice softer now.
“I never minded moving in the same way you did.” Chloe was the baby of the family.
She was cossetted. Rightly so. She just didn’t bear the brunt of the changes the rest of us did when we moved to a different base, started a different school, had to make new friends.
Or failed to make new friends. I still hear Penny’s sobs when I close my eyes at night.
As the oldest sibling, she always found it the hardest to adjust to a new school and friend group.
No one realized just how hard it was for her until it was too late.
But Chloe’s right. Gabby getting engaged changes everything about a situation that doesn’t need changing. A situation that works perfectly as it is.
And I’m angry about it. I’m not angry about the woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, who I spilled coffee over. I’m not even angry at Brian. He’s doing his job when he tells me I’m losing out on an opportunity to see ABC Inc. if I don’t go to the Silicon Valley conference.
I’m angry at Gabby because she’s moving on with her life and disrupting the good thing we had going. I’m furious at myself for bringing a child into the world without the stability that children need.
I won’t let Willow go through what we did as children. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.