Chapter Fourteen #2
I look at him.
He is five.
Too young for the truth.
Old enough to know lies smell bad.
“Because Jeremy scares her,” I say.
August’s mouth tightens.
There is a world in that little expression.
“He scares me too sometimes,” he says.
My hands curl before I can stop them.
I loosen them slowly.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about that.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” He looks down at Blue Rex. “I’m mad.”
Good.
Good.
Let the boy have anger. Anger is better than shame if someone teaches him what to do with it before it rots.
“Mad’s allowed,” I say.
“Mama says we don’t hit.”
“Your mama is right.”
“Do you hit?”
Well.
Shit.
“Sometimes.”
“Bad guys?”
“Usually.”
“Do you hit good guys?”
“Not on purpose.”
He thinks that over with terrible seriousness. “Are you a good guy?”
I almost laugh.
It sticks in my throat.
“No.”
August frowns. “Are you a bad guy?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“I’m asking.”
I sit back on my heels.
Nobody should have to answer this kind of question before finishing coffee.
“I’m not a good guy the way cartoons mean it,” I say slowly. “I’ve done bad things. I’ll probably do more. But I don’t hurt women. I don’t hurt kids. And I don’t let bad men through doors I’m guarding.”
He studies me.
Then nods.
Apparently that passes whatever moral court he has running inside his head.
Blue Rex would be proud.
He returns to taping the cereal-box door.
Then, quieter, “Do you fake like me too?”
The words go through me so clean I can’t breathe for a second.
Do you fake like me too?
I look at the top of his head. The messy hair. The little shoulders. The dinosaur shirt Sophie found for him because the women around here turn emergency into errands, and errands into love before anybody admits it.
I think about my mother’s door.
Ray’s boots.
The bat in my hands.
A woman choosing fear because love was too expensive.
I think about August opening the bedroom door at four in the morning just to see if I was still there.
No, kid.
That part ain’t fake.
The answer is out before I can make it safer.
He looks up.
My chest gets tight.
I should correct it. Soften it. Turn it into a joke. Say I like all kids or I’m just being decent or Blue Rex won me over through legal precedent.
I do none of that.
“No,” I say again, quieter. “That part ain’t fake.”
August smiles.
Not big.
Not wild.
Just relieved.
That may be worse.
“Okay,” he says.
Then he goes back to the courthouse like he did not just shove a flag into my chest and claim territory.
I sit there on my living room floor while a five-year-old trusts me with no idea how dangerous that is.
I should be terrified.
I am.
My phone buzzes.
I grab it too fast.
Amelia: At the store. All good. Do you need anything?
Do you need anything?
I stare at the words.
People ask that all the time. Most don’t mean it. Amelia probably means practical things. Coffee. Motor oil. Bread. Something normal.
It still lands in a strange place.
No, I type.
Then delete it.
Then type: Coffee filters. Burned through mine. Literally.
A second later:
Amelia: How does a person literally burn coffee filters?
Me: Talent.
Amelia: Concerning.
Me: You asked what I needed.
The dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
Amelia: Anything else?
I stare too long.
The honest answer is yes.
Come back.
I need you to come back.
I need to know you can.
I type: Cheese or the kid may mutiny.
She sends a laughing emoji.
I stare at that too.
I’m a grown man staring at a tiny digital face like it has offered me salvation.
This is humiliating.
August leans over. “Is Mama coming back?”
I lock the phone and set it face down.
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
No.
“Yes.”
He nods and returns to court.
I don’t touch my bike.
I don’t follow.
I don’t call a prospect and ask for eyes on her. If they’re worth their salt, they already tailing her. I don’t text Wildcat for store camera access. I don’t get on Widowmaker and casually ride a loop that would be exactly the opposite of casual.
I stay.
It’s the hardest damn thing I do all day.
August and I build the courthouse until it becomes structurally offensive but emotionally important. We make a jail cell out of a shoebox, which feels a little on the nose, and August sentences a plastic goat to community service for eating the evidence.
By the time Amelia’s truck crunches back up the drive, my body reacts before my brain can pretend otherwise.
I stand.
Too fast.
August shoots to his feet. “Mama!”
He runs for the door, and I catch the back of his shirt before he can fling it open.
“Wait.”
He looks up. “Why?”
“Because we check first.”
He frowns but stays.
I look through the curtain. It’s her truck. Her hands on the wheel. Her face. Alone.
Thank God.
I open the door.
August tears out like a small, loud cannon.
Amelia barely gets her door open before he hits her. She laughs and catches him, grocery bag in one hand, keys in the other. The sound of that laugh makes something inside me unclench so hard it almost hurts.
She came back.
Not because she had to.
Because she chose to.
I step onto the porch and lean against the post like I have been casual this whole time.
She looks up.
Her eyes find mine over August’s head.
There it is.
She knows.
“You didn’t follow me,” she says.
“Told you I wouldn’t.”
“You wanted to.”
“Real bad.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
Her face changes.
Soft.
Proud.
Maybe a little sad, because progress only matters when everyone knows what it cost.
“Thank you,” she says.
I shrug. “Don’t get used to my personal growth. It makes me itchy.”
She smiles and looks down before it turns into something else.
August is already digging in the grocery bag. “Did you get cheese?”
“Yes.”
“Dinosaur gummies?”
“No.”
His face falls.
She pulls a small package from another bag. “But I got dinosaur fruit snacks.”
He gasps like she has delivered treasure from a foreign kingdom.
“Blue Rex approves,” I say.
August clutches them to his chest and runs inside to show the judge his bribe.
Amelia lingers by the truck.
There are bags in the passenger seat. Not many. Bread, milk, fruit, cheese, coffee filters, cheap pancake mix, a pack of socks for August, and a small paper bag she keeps separate.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I wait.
She sighs. “It was strange.”
“Being out?”
“Being able to decide how long to stand in the cereal aisle.” She laughs softly. “That sounds pathetic.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Her eyes lift. “Jeremy used to call me if I took too long.”
My jaw tightens.
“Then he’d ask why I needed so much time. Who I saw. What I bought. Why I bought the wrong brand.” She looks at the grocery bags. “I stood there today and compared prices for ten minutes because no one was counting the minutes but me.”
I don’t know what to say.
Everything I think of sounds too small.
So I say the only true thing.
“Good.”
Her mouth trembles.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “Good.”
She reaches into the little paper bag and pulls out a pack of coffee filters, tossing them to me. I catch them against my chest.
“Emergency supplies,” she says.
“You save the house from future breakfast fires.”
“I also got pancake mix.”
“Insulting.”
“You need help.”
“I need respect.”
“You need something.”
I grin despite myself.
Then she reaches into the bag again.
This time, she hesitates.
It’s small. Wrapped in thin tissue. She looks embarrassed before she even gives it to me.
“I saw this by the register,” she says. “It was stupid.”
“Stupid is my brand.”
She hands it over.
I unwrap it.
A keychain.
Cheap metal. Gas station quality. A dinosaur.
For a second, I can’t make sense of it.
Not because it’s complicated.
Because it’s nothing.
A stupid, cheap thing from a grocery store checkout.
A woman saw it and thought of me.
And the kid.
And maybe the weird space between.
The ground shifts under my boots.
Amelia rushes to fill the silence. “It’s dumb. I just thought because of August, and you can throw it away if you want. I don’t know why I bought it.”
I close my hand around it.
Hard.
“Don’t do that.”
She blinks. “Do what?”
“Take it back before I get to keep it.”
Her mouth parts.
I tuck the keychain into my pocket before she can say anything else.
“Thank you.”
Her face softens in a way that makes my chest tight.
“You’re welcome.”
We stand there too long.
Grocery bags between us.
Rain smell in the air.
Keys in her hand.
A stupid dinosaur keychain in my pocket.
The porch light is off because it’s daytime, but I feel exposed anyway.
From inside, August yells, “Derby! Blue Rex needs court snacks!”
Amelia laughs and turns toward the house.
I grab two bags from the truck. “Court snacks. Very official.”
We carry the groceries inside. August attacks the fruit snacks like a starving judge with no ethics. I put the coffee filters in the cabinet and the keychain on my actual keys before I can overthink it. It looks ridiculous hanging there beside my bike key.
I like it.
Too much.
Amelia sees me do it.
She says nothing.
She does smile.
The afternoon settles softer than I expect.
Not safe.
Soft.
There is a difference.
Amelia puts groceries away and pauses every time she realizes she knows where something belongs now. August eats fruit snacks in the fort. I install a better latch on the back door while she watches, not because it’s broken, but because it makes me feel useful and keeps my hands off her.
She teases me about needing three locks.
I tell her the fourth is coming tomorrow.
She rolls her eyes.
It feels almost normal.
Which is probably why the world decides to spit on it.
The knock comes near dusk.
Not at the door.
A light thunk against the porch.
I’m on my feet before Amelia turns.
August freezes in the fort, one fruit snack halfway to his mouth.
I hold up a hand. “Stay.”
Amelia moves to August anyway, because no mother on earth obeys an order when her child is in the room.
Good.