Chapter 22
Elijah scooted forward in his seat, straining against his seat belt, and clutched the dashboard. “Is that Grandpa’s car?”
Eric’s ebony-brown arm was draped along the driver’s-side doorframe.
You live with a man for thirty years, you know the curve of his arm, the way it rests like it owns the space around it.
A part of me wanted to think it wasn’t him, that I was imagining things.
I checked the license plate to confirm what my own eyes had seen. “Sure is him.”
My stomach clenched as my mind spiraled, conjuring possibilities faster than I could shut them down.
My first thought was that my ex-husband must be dying.
Or at least sick. And he had come to either make peace with me or beg me to take care of him.
The next thing I considered was whether or not we should be buried together.
Why didn’t I think of this before? And my children—bless their hearts—losing their father at such an early age. Eric Jr. would surely fly home soon.
My throat felt lumpy, full of rocks. Calm down. Talk to him first.
“Why is he here?” Elijah had his own worries, his voice tinged with an unmistakable nervousness. It wasn’t just curiosity; there was a quiver beneath his words.
“Let’s find out.”
Eric watched Elijah and me through his side-view mirrors as we exited my car. Is he in pain? All the instincts I’d mastered throughout our marriage reignited. Instinctively, I wanted to take care of him. I guess that’s what happens when you’re programmed to take care of others.
The sweat on Eric’s forehead said he’d been waiting outside for a while, though being hot never bothered him. We argued constantly over thermostat settings.
I stopped at his open window. “Hello.”
“Hello.” He barely looked at me. His jaw was tight. Angry.
My sickness theory dissipated. “What are you—”
“Hey, Grandpa!”
“Hey, EJ! Good to see you. Missed ya, buddy.”
Elijah smiled sheepishly. “I’ve just been…you know…taking care of Grandma. You came to visit us?”
“Need to talk to your grandmother for a minute.” He moved to unfurl himself from his vehicle, so I took a step back and gave him space.
I had not seen my ex-husband since the previous Thanksgiving holiday, when we briefly crossed paths at Terri’s house.
I ate with her, my son-in-law’s family, and Elijah first, at 12:00 p.m., mainly because she needed help with the final touches.
Eric Sr. came over at 3:30. He wasn’t due to arrive until 4:30, but he’d said he’d wanted to be situated for the NFL pregame show.
Terri was both embarrassed and infuriated that her father and I were taking different “shifts,” as she called them. I was staying in my coworker’s guesthouse at the time. “Can’t you both act civilized so I don’t have to stagger serving people on Thanksgiving Day?”
“He’s the one who didn’t want to eat with the rest of us,” I reminded her.
Seeing Eric at my grandmother’s home felt like an invasion. How dare he show up in my Robin Creek world without a life-threatening disease? “Is everything okay?”
Eric stood erect now and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “You tell me, Joyce. How are you?” I detected a hint of sincerity in his voice, like he thought maybe I was the one sick.
“I’m fine.”
“Can we go inside?”
“What’s this about, Eric?”
“Inside. Please. I’ve been baking in this sun.”
It wasn’t like him to use the word please, at least not with me. Despite my apprehension, I let him inside the house and escorted him to the kitchen, where he accepted my offer for a glass of sweet tea.
Eric moved slowly, deliberately, as if every step was calculated to maintain control.
He settled into one of the kitchen chairs with an air of practiced ease, but there was something about the way he did it—how he pulled the chair out with a grating scrape against the floor, the way he sat down heavily, leaning back and rolling his shoulders—that set my nerves on edge.
He drummed his fingers on the table. His eyes didn’t quite meet mine, instead roving around the room with a barely concealed criticism, as if he were inspecting the life I’d built without him.
“Looks nice,” he finally complimented. “But where’s the oven?”
“It broke. I’m gonna replace it. Next week,” I quickly declared, not wanting to give him an inkling of wonder about how I was doing without him. His opinion of me shouldn’t have mattered. I knew this. Yet somehow it did.
“Oh. Good,” he said.
I leaned my bottom against the main counter and planted my hands beside me, making my elbows look like cricket legs.
Eric made me uneasy, to say the least. I wasn’t afraid of him, not in the same way you’d want to keep your distance from a venomous snake.
More like not wanting to get near a cat you don’t know.
It won’t kill you, but it sure can scratch.
Elijah entered the kitchen, cautiously. “Can I…get a snack?”
“Yes,” I answered at the same time Eric said, “No.”
“Okaaay,” Elijah slurred, wondering which one of us to obey.
Eric, who had no idea of Elijah’s daily schedule, answered, “We’ll let you know when it’s time for a snack.”
Elijah turned and walked back down my hallway.
I crossed my arms. “I know you didn’t drive all this way for tea.”
“No. I didn’t. Can we talk?” My ex gestured toward a seat at the table.
There, in the slight downturn of his eyes, sat an ounce of regret that calmed me enough to join him.
He took another sip of tea, then started. “I’m here because Terri asked me to come.”
“Terri called you?”
“Apparently, someone called her. Some kind of senior citizens’ care organization called her, asking questions.”
“What?” A bolt of indignation shot through me. “What questions?”
“Questions about your welfare. They wanted to make sure you were…well.”
“And they sent you, my ex-husband, to check on my welfare?”
“Terri sent me.”
Weren’t there laws against this? Yes, I had listed my daughter as my next of kin—but this? Didn’t I have rights when it came to unproven allegations regarding my health? Who would I sue first for this humiliation?
“I’m perfectly fine,” I told him. “Sorry you wasted a trip.”
He raised an eyebrow. There was more he needed to say.
I waited, clenching my teeth.
“Terri asked me to bring Elijah home with me.”
I felt a sharp, nauseating twist deep in my gut, as if someone had just punched me there. I swallowed. “Eric, there is no reason for Elijah to leave. He’s just fine here.”
He glanced at the empty space where my oven used to be. “He might be too much for you to handle. And is he safe here?”
“Of course he’s safe,” I spat back. “The person who called Terri was overreacting to my request for help with replacing the oven.”
“I thought you were getting it fixed next week?”
“I am.”
“Then why did the repairman call the authorities on you?”
I cringed. “No one has called the authorities on me. I went voluntarily, upon the repairman’s recommendation, asking for help. It’s a long story, and I don’t have to answer your questions. Elijah is not in danger. I am fine. You can go home now.”
“Terri’s wishes. Not mine,” he repeated as he pressed buttons on his screen, then held his phone to his ear. “I’m calling her now.”
My skin prickled with irritation. I wanted him to leave. Get off my property.
He managed to keep the smirk off his face, but his body language said, Maybe you really are cracking up, woman.
This was how he operated. Passive-aggressive. Makes you doubt yourself enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. How did he manage to bundle all those moves at once? I felt myself slipping back into his spell while we waited for our daughter to answer the phone.
She didn’t, which kind of surprised me because I thought for sure she’d answer her daddy quicker than me. Either she was extremely caught up in work, or she had grown tired of her father’s endless demands without any effort to return the favor.
“I’ll have her send you a text,” Eric said. He took the final gulp of his tea and stood. “I need to get back on the road. Can you help Elijah pack his bags?”
“You help him,” I said. “I’m not your personal servant.”
That was when the smirk he’d been trying to hide peeked out. “How long you been waitin’ to say that, Joyce?”
Well, I had a smirk of my own to share. “Since our wedding day,” I stated coolly.
The corners of his lips dropped, and his silly grin fell with it.
“You’re acting like we had a terrible marriage.
A terrible family. You know I love you. You never wanted for anything, Joyce.
And I was faithful to you. That alone is better than 90 percent of what you would have got from anybody else. ”
I opened my lips to continue, but then I shut them. First, because we had different definitions of love. Second, because this was all déjà vu. He still doesn’t get it. He may not ever get it.
Back to the real subject. “You don’t have to take Elijah, Eric. I will get in touch with Terri later today and let her know that I made an executive decision to keep him.”
“There you go again, unilaterally making decisions that impact everybody else. I’m not driving back out here again to get him. He’s coming with me. Now. Per his mother’s orders.”
Eric was one volume notch away from yelling. I grew up with my father yelling a lot. He wasn’t angry; he was just loud. Loudness always made me shrink, and Eric knew exactly how to approach close enough to the line that it was debatable as to whether or not he’d raised his voice.
“Paw-Paw, stop.” Elijah had entered the kitchen again. “Fine. I’ll go with you. Just don’t yell at Grandma.”
While it was nice to know I wasn’t the only one who’d classify Eric’s tone as “yelling,” my chest caved at the sight of Elijah’s tear-filled eyes. His attempt to protect me nearly crushed me. Children shouldn’t be caught up in the middle of grown-up issues.
“Pack your bags. Let’s go,” Eric ordered our grandson.
“Yes, sir.” Elijah obeyed.