CHAPTER THREE #2
As long as they didn’t say it in front of me or get in trouble for it at school, I wasn’t going to say a word.
Choose your battles and all that. Plus, both Scott and I were the main contributors to the swear jar.
I’d read somewhere that cussing was a sign of intelligence; I could only hope that was true.
“That would be great, Sutton. Sophia, it’s your week to help me pack the lunches.”
She nodded, and I was pleased to see that she was now wearing a cute dress with tights. She no longer looked like a dumpling. I frowned. But she’d probably be hot in those tights. The calendar might say September, but the temperature would feel like summer until October or November.
I was about to say something when Scott breezed by.
He didn’t say good morning to the kids. He didn’t ask anyone if they had a game, practice, club meeting, etc., after school. He didn’t give them hugs—not even our six-year-old. The younger kids still stared at him with longing.
The teenagers? They’d given up years ago.
He didn’t offer to help me get the kids ready. He didn’t give Sophia a hand with the lunches or make sure Selene’s outfit matched. She was easily able to tell when someone else’s clothing choices weren’t great, but she somehow couldn’t see it for herself.
He didn’t wish them good luck on a test or ask how their friends were doing or find out how they were doing in school.
The truth was that he had no clue. He didn’t know their teachers’ names.
He didn’t know their friends’ names—even the ones who came over all the time and stayed over for dinner and spend the night parties.
He was basically a stranger who had a great job that provided them their home and their upkeep. Love? Interest? Time? Those were things he didn’t give them. Oh, I knew he loved them on some level. But he barely knew them, and it made me want to cry.
I had watched each of my children be disappointed over and over again when he didn’t show up for practices, games, recitals, or spelling bees.
Selene treated him as if he was a stranger now.
I couldn’t say I blamed her. She was perhaps the greatest sports story the town had ever had.
And we had a former NFL star, a collegiate football superstar, and a top-ranked tennis player come out of Indigo Falls.
But Selene? She was… more. She was on an All-Star travel baseball team.
Baseball, not softball. She was the quarterback of the middle school football team even though she was only in the fifth grade.
And she played on the JV girls’ basketball team.
As in the high school team. And her father?
He’d pat her on the head and say, “I’ll make it to the next one, kid. ”
There was almost never a ‘next one’ that he actually attended.
I saw Sammy’s eyes tracking him across the room. “I have a spelling test today, Dad,” he said in his sweet, friendly voice. “And I’ve been practicing really hard. I think I’m going to make a hundred.”
“Great,” Scott said in a voice that couldn’t have been less interested.
Sammy’s little face fell, and he sighed. Sophia bent to whisper something in his ear, and his smile was back immediately.
I winked at her across the kitchen. She was so kind.
“Have a nice day, everyone,” Scott said as he grabbed an apple out of the fruit basket on the counter and left.
I watched him leave with a heaviness in my heart. No matter how great he was in bed, he was a genuinely disinterested husband and father.
And I was about to plot out my course of action.
***
“So… what are you going to do? What do you want to do?” Carrie, my lifelong best friend, asked.
Her pretty face looked solemn. We were over at her parents’ house after school watching our kids play.
Jack and Diane Crenshaw had put in a huge pool with a slide and tons of features that you’d normally find at a water park.
There were also tennis courts, a basketball goal, a magical playground designed by some sort of famous playground designer, and a croquet area.
Diane had given up part of her beloved garden to make sure they had a backyard that was more fun than anyone else’s.
She’d freely admitted it was a devious plot to make sure her grandkids, their friends, my kids, and our other close friends’ children always wanted to come over all the time.
It worked.
All of us were over constantly, which was nothing new for me.
Jack and Diane had been like second parents to me growing up.
Jack was probably the most popular and beloved person in all of Indigo Falls.
He was the town mayor and had been for longer than I could remember.
He was also the town doctor. Diane planned town events, and Jack, who was an excellent singer and guitar player, provided entertainment with his band and was the emcee of everything else.
He emceed karaoke, beauty pageants, 4th of July fireworks, fall festivals, and anything else the town wanted.
He was hilarious, and people often looked forward to him hosting more than the actual events.
Diane was… not beloved. She was feared. She planned everything with the precision of a drill sergeant.
She was a perfectionist who tried to make everyone else be just like her.
But with her grandkids and the children of her daughter’s friends?
She’d shown a softer side of herself that I’d never known existed.
Diane could be intimidating, but I still loved her.
“I’m on the verge of asking for a divorce,” I admitted.
Carrie knew the problems I’d had with Scott over the years, and she’d stood by me through all of it.
So had our good friends Sadie and Melinda as well as all of their husbands.
Well… there had been times Carrie’s husband Thatcher and Sadie’s husband Harrison hadn’t been around.
But that was another story altogether. A long one.
“You think he’s… doing it again?” Carrie’s big blue eyes swam with tears. They were probably tears of anger and sympathy instead of sadness.
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s almost like what happened the first time. He has a new employee at work. I’m picturing a hot young blonde, but she’s never there when I stop by.” I gave her a look. “Convenient, don’t you think?”
Carrie’s mouth was set in a grim line.
“He comes home late, he spends a ton of time in his office with the door closed, and he texts a lot,” I continued. I frowned thinking about it.
“What?” Carrie asked, picking up on my hesitancy.
“It’s just… when I said it’s almost like last time, it’s true.
Almost is the operative word. He truly is working a lot of the time.
He is overloaded with patients. And he doesn’t do any of those things as often as he did when he was having his ‘emotional affair’ with Scarlett.
But he’s still doing them. That combined with him basically being an absentee father and a crappy husband is about to push me over the edge. ”
“I understand,” Carrie said, crunching on a celery stick she’d dipped in peanut butter.
Diane had brought a platter of freshly cut veggies and fruits over. There were several dips to go with it, and you would think she was a super grandma.
But Carrie and I both knew the cook made it up for her ahead of time.
She never lied and said she’d prepared anything.
She just wouldn’t correct anyone who thought she had made it herself.
She enjoyed people thinking she was talented in the kitchen.
I’d seen the frustration on their cook’s face more than once, and I had laughed when Carrie and the cook would exchange a look and then roll their eyes.
“I’m thrilled you’re here as always, Blair, but what brings you our way today?” Diane was always straight to the point, and she could tell there was something brewing.
That brought my mind right back to the divorce.
“I… needed to see Carrie about something, and I knew she was here. I also wanted to see you and Jack, of course.”
She smiled, and I was glad she hadn’t pushed for a more detailed answer. Her eyes were questioning, though, so I knew she had guessed something was up.
A frisson of fear went through me. I’d had a horrible time after my parents split up. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to my babies. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
Carrie leveled me with a look. “Um… yeah,” she said dramatically. “I’ve been telling you to ditch his ass for years.”
She had. All of my friends had. We all knew he was socially awkward and almost never came off well in social situations. He could seem like a real jerk when he was usually a fairly kind man. I knew no one saw the side of him that I did.
But I also knew there was no good excuse for him not taking part in his children’s lives. Or mine. There sure as hell wasn’t anything kind about that.
“You know, Gam wants you to leave, too,” she said gently. “Well,” she amended, “she just wants you and the kids to be happy.”
Gam was what I’d always called my grandma. She was my dad’s mom and had basically raised me.
I crunched thoughtfully on a piece of cucumber dipped in ranch. What Carrie said was true. Gam didn’t dislike Scott. She just hadn’t ever trusted him and was never sure he was good enough for me.
I think she was right about that, and, messed up as it was, I had been okay with him being disinterested in me. But the kids?
That was not okay. They were wonderful, and they deserved better.
“I know the lawyer you used in your divorce…” I sucked in a breath and looked around for her husband Thatcher. I lowered my voice, “is retired,” I continued, “but didn’t you say your dad knew someone else?”
Carrie’s face was caught between amusement and frustration. “It’s fine to say divorce. Thatcher knows what he did. We don’t try to hide it. Yes, he’s both my ex-husband and my husband, but we’ve come to terms with our history.”
“Okay. It just still makes me feel weird to say anything…”