Chapter 19
Knox
Inarrow my eyes at Finn. His wide grin screams of innocence when I know he’s not innocent in the slightest. “Are you cheating over there?”
Finn giggles as he pulls the cards toward him. “I don’t even know how to cheat.”
I grunt, annoyed that my six-year-old son is beating me handily in War. I’ve only got a few cards left in my hand. It won’t be long now before he takes them all.
Round after round, we play until we get into another battle that I manage to win.
This is why I both love and hate this card game.
It keeps Finn entertained for a long time, but that also means I have to play until one of us either forfeits or loses outright.
I’m usually the one forfeiting for one reason or another.
Dinner is in the oven, so we’re playing until the timer goes off.
I’ve been counting down the minutes.
“Will I ever have a mom?”
I choke on my inhale. “I’m sorry?”
“Leah and Lauren have two moms now, even though one passed away. I don’t have any.”
My heart starts to pound. I’ve been dreading talking to Finn about his mom for years.
I’ve never figured out how much to tell him—or what to tell him—that won’t break his heart completely.
It was probably a mistake, but I always ignored the fact that his mom isn’t around.
This is the first time he’s ever asked about her.
I should have had something prepared to tell him.
“You do have a mom. She just wasn’t able to take care of you after you were born.”
“Why not?”
“Well…” How do I tell my big-hearted boy that his mother was so coked out of her mind, she almost killed him when he was only a few months old?
What are the right words to use to make him understand that she was so addicted that she almost managed to take both of their lives in one night? “She got really sick.”
“Will she get better and come back?”
“No, buddy. She’s not going to get better.” She’s been in prison for the past five years for drugs, distribution, and negligence of a minor. She’s got another seven to go before she’ll get out.
I had no idea how deep the depths of Leona’s deception went.
We spent two years together, and I never once caught on to the evil inside her.
I’m still not sure if it was the drugs, the postpartum hormones, or a combination of the two that caused her to overdose, but that experience will be burned into my memories for the rest of my life.
I was supposed to go out with the guys that night, but I decided to go home early because she’d been struggling after Finn’s birth.
I was feeling guilty about leaving her alone, so I went home to help with the bedtime routine and found her passed out on the bathroom floor.
Finn was in his baby bathtub, and the water was running, filling the tub to dangerous levels.
If I had arrived even minutes later, Finn would have drowned because of her negligence.
I found out she’d stolen thousands of dollars from me to pay for her drug habit, and she apparently had been accused of several other similar grifts, though none of them involved children before Finn.
I spend every day grateful that my intuition told me to go home that night. I probably would have died with Finn had I not gotten there in time.
Finn’s next question pulls me out of my memories. “Can we find a second mom like Leah and Lauren found Gia? I think I’d like to have one.”
My mouth opens and closes as I do my best fish impression. Then the timer dings and saves me from having to look my son in the face and lie. “Yeah, maybe.”
Hell will freeze over before I allow some other woman to become a mother to my son.
I pull our dinner out of the oven, setting it on the counter to cool for a bit before we dig in. As I’m grabbing plates, my phone rings in my pocket. My eyebrows fly up my forehead when I see whose name comes across the screen.
“Farrah?”
Her gentle voice comes through the speaker. “Oh, hi. I…didn’t think you’d answer.”
“Well, I did. What do you need?”
“Right, sorry. Um, I think there’s an animal in my attic.”
“What kind of animal?”
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d have said,” she snaps. “Crap. I’m sorry. It’s just that I can hear it scurrying around up there, and it’s driving me crazy. I tried to see what it was, but then it moved and scared the bejeezus out of me, and I panicked and called you.”
I try really hard to tamp down my laughter. But I fail. “Miss Independent is scared of a tiny critter?”
She growls, and I ignore the sensation the sound sends through my body. “I can’t believe I called you. I’ll just figure it out on my own.”
“Wait, wait. Don’t do that. It could have rabies or something. Just give me a second to grab some supplies, and I’ll drive over.”
“Fine.” Farrah hangs up, and I turn back to Finn. He’s put the cards away and is looking at me with a curious expression.
“Looks like Farrah needs some help with an animal that got stuck in her attic,” I tell him.
He lights up. “We should pack up dinner and take it to her house.”
“She may have plans, buddy. Or has already eaten.”
“Text and ask her.”
I sigh, pulling my phone out. I send the message to see if Farrah’s eaten or has plans, and she responds with a no. Shit, now I’ll definitely have to bring dinner over. “Looks like we’re packing up and going to Miss Nelson’s house.”
“Yay!” Finn cheers. He grabs the travel case for the casserole dish. “Dad, grab out the cookie dough too. I bet she’d like to have dessert.”
This kid and his big heart. It’s very rare that I get annoyed by his need to make everyone happy. Right now though, I’m wishing he were just a little less generous.
We get the truck loaded with our dinner and the supplies to catch the critter, then we set off for Farrah’s house.
It only takes us a few minutes to go down the road. When we pull into her driveway, Finn gasps. “Her house is pink, Dad! Isn’t that amazing?”
“It’s something, all right,” I grumble.
He’s already got his seat unbuckled when I get parked and is racing toward her front door.
I follow behind him a little slower, partially because I’m carrying all of our shit and partially because I’m dreading spending any extra time with Farrah.
Seeing her all over town recently has been like getting punched repeatedly in the gut.
“Miss Nelson! We brought you dinner.” Finn bounces when Farrah opens her door.
Her eyebrows lift as a wide smile pulls at her cheeks. “That was awfully nice of you. Come on in.”
I follow Finn inside her house, marveling at how different it looks since I was last here. The hallway has pink floral wallpaper that makes eyes water a little. It somehow matches everything else in the house though, so I have to give her a little credit there.
There are still a couple of rooms that need to be finished on the main level, but as we head back to her kitchen, I can see the direction she’s taken the house.
It’s whimsical and fun, everything Farrah has always projected to the world.
It makes me second-guess my disbelief in her constant state of happiness.
Who would choose to make their house this headache-inducing if they didn’t truly want to feel this way every day?
“Dad, you should go set the trap for the critter. Miss Nelson and I can get everything ready for dinner.”
I smirk at my son. “You got it, boss.”
“Seems like we have our marching orders.” Farrah chuckles. She holds her hand out for the covered dish. “I can take that. The attic door is upstairs.”
I watch Finn disappear into the kitchen, talking a mile a minute about his day.
Knowing I’ve got a job to do, I head back out to my truck to grab the trap and bait.
It only takes me a few minutes to get everything set up in Farrah’s attic.
Something has definitely made this place its home.
Hopefully, there isn’t a hole somewhere in her new roof.
I wouldn’t want the little guy to come back over and over again.
I head back downstairs and stop short in the doorway. Finn is sitting on Farrah’s butcher block counter, laughing so hard his face has turned red. Farrah is smiling at him with such genuine emotion that it takes my breath away.
She catches me staring, and her smile dims. I hadn’t ever noticed how profound the difference is between her genuine emotion and the emotions she shows me.
I’ve picked at her time and again because I wanted to see something real, not whatever fake shit she’d been putting on for everyone else.
It never occurred to me that maybe the fake was just a dimmer version of her true feelings.
“Daddy! Farrah says I don’t have to call her Miss Nelson anymore since she’s not my teacher. She was just telling me about how the critter upstairs scared her so bad she almost fell down the stairs. It was so funny.”
I smile at my son, soaking in his contagious laughter. “I bet it was. Are you washed up and ready to eat?”
He nods, holding his hands out for me to help him down. Farrah finishes setting the table, and the three of us sit down together.
Finn remains the sole focus of our attention throughout dinner, but I find myself eyeing Farrah more often than not. The reminder of Finn’s mom tonight might have put a few things into perspective for me.
After being duped by Leona for years, it’s easy to see how I might have put those same emotions onto Farrah.
Trauma recognizes trauma, and I knew the happiness she was showing everyone around her was just a mask.
That half smile never truly reached her eyes, but I was too blinded by my issues to think maybe it’s a mask because what’s underneath is deeper than an acquaintance deserves to see.
What would it be like to experience the full wattage of her happiness?