Chapter 15
CHAPTER
Rhett
The Present
ALL I WANTED to do was push McKenzie on the swings at the park like I used to. I liked how we had so many things that were just for us. Sometimes it felt like we didn’t even need Lucinda.
Every Saturday we would get up, eat pancakes piled high with butter and syrup, then head off to play for a few hours, leaving Lucinda at home.
However, this Saturday, I woke up to find McKenzie already downstairs eating oatmeal with Mabel, their day planned around going to feed the ducks.
I was livid.
I was McKenzie’s father. I was the one who fed her breakfast. I was the one she looked at with adoration.
I imagined pulling Mabel away from my daughter by her hair and flinging her across the room.
It was strange how the things that hurt the most were the ones we least expected.
It wasn’t the way Lucinda watched me warily with distrust written on her face. Or the way Cliff practically snarled at me every time he walked into a room and found me there. It wasn’t not being able to be in my own home or go to the job I loved so much.
It was that McKenzie had become so quickly accustomed to her mornings being spent with her grandmother and not me. That I had been so easily replaced.
Is this what it would be like if I went to prison?
Would she forget about me completely?
The thought made me want to hit things, starting with my intrusive mother-in-law.
My phone dinged with an incoming message. I had been ignoring most of my calls and texts for days, but I knew I’d have to answer them eventually.
Some were from so-called friends who seemed to only want to tell me they always thought I was guilty.
Jeremy: You should have stayed far away from that girl. Now you’re going to pay for being a selfish dick.
Jeremy and I hadn’t spoken in a long time, but I’d had no idea he harbored such animosity toward me. Though I remembered how weird he was about Jenn. But did that mean he was actually waiting to celebrate my downfall?
“Do you need to take a minute to answer that?” Lucinda asked, her voice decidedly neutral as she looked pointedly at my phone. I promptly put it in my pocket as she poured herself some coffee.
She was more tense than usual, and I forced myself to listen to what she was saying. It was hard to focus on anything right now, though. My every thought was consumed with the realization that I might be going to prison. That I could lose everything.
My daughter.
My job.
My life.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep well,” I said, the lie slipping out easily.
Mabel glanced up at us. She looked between Lucinda and me before her gaze fell back to McKenzie. “I’ll get her cleaned up and leave you two to chat.”
“I can do that,” I exclaimed, reaching for my daughter, giving her my biggest smile. “How about Daddy take you to the park?”
McKenzie frowned in a way that was so reminiscent of Lucinda. “No. Nanna take me.”
Her casual, childlike dismissal broke what was left of my heart.
Mabel waved me off as I tried to pick my daughter up anyway. “No, no, you’ll get oatmeal on your shirt. You and Lucinda talk. McKenzie and I will get out of your hair. Besides, you’re on house arrest, Rhett.” The reminder was a cruel blow. One that Mabel seemed all too happy to deliver.
She scooped my little girl up in one quick motion and headed out of the room before I could even say goodbye.
“My God, Rhett, can you focus? My dad says Judge Balfour won’t talk to him, not that he was surprised. But a judge that plays it straight is the worst thing for you, in case you didn’t know.” Lucinda barely looked at me.
“Apparently the judge loves every opportunity to stick it to anyone and everyone associated with my father,” she continued. “It’s really bad luck that he was assigned to your case. Everything seems stacked against you.”
I scrambled to think of anything or anyone that could help. Cliff always had connections. He always knew someone that could get him what he wanted. Why now, when I needed him the most, did he suddenly have no one to turn to?
“It’s not that hard to understand, Rhett.
” Lucinda sounded slightly patronizing, as if she’d read my mind.
“No one will help you this time. It seems like you’re on your own.
” She slammed her mug down on the counter and it cracked, its contents spilling out.
She put a hand to her mouth and attempted to put her anger back inside its carefully contained box.
The kitchen filled with an empty silence as the coffee dripped onto the tile.
I let the truth of her words sink in.
No one will help you.
I had been thinking the same thing, but to hear it out loud made it all too real.
I was screwed, and we both knew it.
I thought of Mackenzie’s little face as Mabel took her from the kitchen and how she hadn’t even reached for me.
How long would it be before she forgot about me altogether? Because if I went to prison for murder, I would likely never see her again. Cliff and Mabel would make sure of it.
I curled my hand into a fist and punched the wall. The impact caused paint and drywall to crumble to the floor.
“I’ll let you explain that one to my parents,” Lucinda remarked, displeasure and maybe a little fear in her tone.
I was used to the disapproving looks she gave me, which was standard these days, but recently, there was something else in her expression. A rage tinged with terror I hadn’t seen in years. She was trying to cover it, but I could see it. Lucinda and I knew each other better than most couples did.
“You have no idea what I’m going through. What this is doing to me. Who cares about your parents’ wall? I might go to prison, Lucinda.” I ran my hand down my face. “And like I said, I’m not really sleeping. Every time I close my eyes, all I can think of is—”
“Her,” Lucinda finished for me, that one word icy cold.
I didn’t refute it because lies were what got us here in the first place.
I forced myself to take my wife’s hand, even though touching her made me shudder.
I needed her on my side. I needed her to work on her father so I wasn’t hung out to dry.
As much as I had always resented the Herbaugh name, I needed it now.
I had been able to sway her many times over the years, and I had to try again, for my freedom’s sake.
“I’d like to spend some time with you and McKenzie this weekend.
Maybe we could have a picnic in the backyard since I can’t go anywhere—”
Lucinda made a noise in the back of her throat and pulled her hand from my grip.
Clearly my charm didn’t have the same effect it once did.
I should have known better. Her resentment was stronger than my ability to influence her.
“Are you serious? Sure, let’s have some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pretend you didn’t blow this family apart. ”
My temper, once again, slithered out between the cracks. “You think I don’t know I’m to blame? You’ve spent the last fifteen years reminding me,” I snapped back.
It always came back to this. Every argument we had wound its way back to my betrayal.
To that night and the things I said and did.
I could never forget because Lucinda made sure I never would.
I forced my anger aside and pulled on her arm, making her face me again. “But we both know this wasn’t all my fault. That it goes deeper than the things I did.”
Lucinda wrenched out of my grip, loathing written on her face. I knew how quickly I could change her hate to fear.
“I need to spend time with our daughter,” I said, desperation and frustration sticking to my words like mud. “Do you despise me so much that you would deny me that?”
Lucinda stared at me silently, her eyes dark and tumultuous.
“If I go down for this, I might never see her again, Lucy.” Her old nickname slipped from my lips.
I hadn’t called her that in years. I knew why I used it now.
It was the same reason I had tried to charm her.
I knew her weaknesses. I knew how much she still, deep down, wanted what we used to have.
I could use that now to get what I wanted.
I swallowed my rising hysteria. A small part of me wished she would put her arms around me and tell me it would all be okay like she used to. But over the years, Lucinda had become cold and distant, just as I had, like we both had already said goodbye to our life together.
It hadn’t always been easy, and it certainly hadn’t always been good, but we had gotten through it.
Though our differences were stark, we had always held it together.
Because we had to. The shadow of Jenn’s murder hovered over us, and we knew we had to rely on each other, in sickness and in health, if we were going to weather the storm of suspicion and accusation.
Secrets bound us together tighter than our rings ever could.
“Haven’t I paid for my mistakes already?” I demanded.
We stared at each other, neither of us giving an inch. Both of us were too distrustful and bitter to bridge the gap that had opened between us after years of pretending we were fine.
“I have to go out,” Lucinda announced, her features pinched. “I need some fresh air.”
I watched her go, barely giving me a backward glance. Moments later I heard her car start and the crunch of tires on gravel, and then I was alone in the quiet of the house I despised.
I cleaned up the mess she and I had made, as was our way, then stared out the window, wondering what my life would have been like if the events of fifteen years ago had never happened.
Would I be in business with Cliff? Successful and rich, but miserable doing a job I hated?
Would I finally have come to my senses even without Jenn’s input, and gone on to teach high school math anyway?
Or would I have left town with Jenn, and Lucinda would be the distant memory?