Chapter 8 #2
Phil plucks the two-year-old from Mom’s hands and hoists her up in the air as my littlest sibling shrieks with delight. CJ then becomes their favorite person in the whole world when she orders the nearest caroler-slash-candy-passer-outer to make it rain for the whole family.
The kids lose their minds, and even Reese looks pleased to accept a fistful of Jolly Ranchers from a man in a Victorian top hat. I know she’s not used to such a big, loud family, but it kills me how uncomfortable she still is around my favorite people in the world.
“They’re adorable.” CJ’s words interrupt my thoughts. “How sad that all the cuteness skipped you.”
“Har,” I say flatly, but I can’t stop myself from adding, “They are cute, aren’t they?”
She nods. “You’ve got three more, right? Becks, Drea, and…”
“Holly. Also cute, although none of them would be caught dead at a parade.”
“Setting boundaries. Good for them.” She hesitates, then asks, “So that was your mom?” At my nod, she smiles softly. “You really do look like her.”
For a beat, I’m not sure what she means. And then I remember.
The night we met, I told her that Mom had me and Hollis so young, people used to think I was her kid brother, especially given the resemblance.
Then my dad skipped out, and years later she married Phil and popped out my five much younger sibs, putting me into a combination brother-father role that I hadn’t asked for.
Talking about it with CJ that night was the first time I put those resentments into words.
I felt lighter and even more capable of loving them after airing it all out to someone who listened without judging.
Numbness sweeps over me, and as much as I’d like to blame the weather, this chill’s on the inside, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing my heart.
“Yeah, we still look alike,” I say shortly, shoving my freezing fingers under my armpits.
“If you want help,” she says testily, “just ask for it.”
“I’m fine.”
This earns me an eye roll as she tugs off her left mitten. “Here.”
“I said I’m fin—”
“Don’t argue.” She thrusts it at me. “Just put it on, you stubborn jackass.”
Oh god, I want to. So I do, cramming my frozen digits into the thick, fuzzy mitten. It’s an indescribable relief, but instead of thanking her, I say, “Good thing you have enormous man hands.”
“You’re impossible.” Then she shocks the fuck out of me by grabbing my unmittened right hand with her recently unmittened left one and shoving them both into the pocket of her dress. “This is what we’re doing, and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”
Shit. Now I have to say it.
“Thank you,” I mumble, wriggling my fingers to absorb as much body heat as I can.
“Good god, it’s like holding hands with a snow cone.” She shifts so her warm palm covers as much of my hand as possible. “You should have said something earlier.”
“I assumed you’d conjure a bucket of ice water from under your skirts to pour on me if I did.”
Her lips tighten. “Despite what you think, I don’t actually want you to suffer.”
“Sure. That’s why you—”
Although she’s facing away from me to wave at the crowd, her hand tightens around mine in warning. “I swear to god, if you bring up that audit one more time…”
“I’m not the one who wrote it,” I say tightly.
“Fine! Yes!” Still waving. Still smiling. “But I also wrote one that saved you.”
Now my fingers are the ones tightening. “Oh yeah? And you what, buried it so no one would ever see it? Burned it at midnight under a full moon to cast some kind of hex on me?”
Wave-and-smile Victorian Wife vanishes as CJ slowly pivots to face me fully. The look on her face is almost pitying.
“Have you really not figured it out?”
I wave my mittened hand in irritation. “What’s to figure out? You were so desperate for some kind of connection that night, you made up a fantasy about us after a couple of hours, and then you took it out on me when that made-up story was a lie, just like everything that’s come after from you.”
The words taste bitter because I made up those fantasies just as much as she did, but what would be the point of admitting it? Those fantasies died a long time ago.
Judging by her poisonous expression, she’s got no fantasies left about me, either.
“Go to hell, Wyatt.” She pulls our hands out of her pocket and flings mine at me. “I want my mitten back.”
“What?”
“You heard me!” she screeches. The parade crowd has ceased to exist as Victorian Mommy and Victorian Daddy fight it out in their open-air living room.
“You’re serious right now.” I give an incredulous laugh.
“Serious as a stolen…” Her mouth slams shut, and she snaps her fingers at me. “Hand it over.”
“You fucking child,” I mutter. With a disgusted headshake, I tug off the mitten, but I hesitate before handing it over.
Something about this exchange feels off.
CJ’s always an erratic lunatic when I see her, but she seemed to be expecting something from me.
What, I’m not sure, but this is all… wrong, somehow.
Then she gets us back on course by snatching the mitten out of my hand and jamming it onto hers.
“I hope you lose every last one of your fingers,” she says with a sniff before resuming her smiling and waving. She refuses to say another word to me for the rest of the interminable parade route.