by Lexi Wilson
“But it gets soggy when you do it that way. Don’t you remember? That’s why we never make the spaghetti,” Kellie remarked. She was still looking at her tablet as she spoke, and I sighed. I knew she was right. Though spaghetti was one of her favorite things in the world, I didn’t make it very often because I so often ruined it.
The dinner Stella made was by far the best spaghetti I had ever had, and I could tell from the beginning that Kellie had fallen in love with it. At the time, I had thought Stella was just a good cook. But now, I got the impression Kellie had actually fallen in love with the time she got to spend with Stella and the fun way she had made the meal rather than loving the food itself.
“I know, but I’m doing it differently this time. I know how to make it so it’s not going to get soggy. Did you know when you turn off the pasta when it’s nearly done, it’s going to finish cooking when you get the sauce finished?” I looked at her with a mischievous grin, but I could see she wasn’t buying what I said.
I didn’t blame her. I knew that it didn’t really work that way, and I knew she was smarter than that. Odds were that the food I was making was going to turn out worse than when Stella made it, and the two of us were going to have to pretend we were enjoying it regardless.
We hadn’t really talked about what had happened the other night with her mother and the game of Monopoly we had been playing, and I wanted to ask Kellie about it. I knew that she was upset by the way her mother so often treated her, and I wondered how she was getting on with the idea that her mother was back in the house.
Of course, Maisie was spending most of her time trying to find a new nanny to take care of Kellie during the day, and I knew it left Kellie with the feeling her mother didn’t care enough to spend time with her, but that was also something she and I had chosen to ignore. It was difficult enough juggling work and the other responsibilities weighing down on me. I didn’t want also to throw in being emotionally supportive of her, as well.
Even though I desperately wanted to.
“Hey, I just had an idea. I know we were planning on keeping the cheese for the pizza later this week, but we can always get more cheese. Why don’t we jazz things up and throw some of that on the spaghetti?” I winked, and she broke out into a huge smile. I knew she loved it when we put cheese on spaghetti, but again it was a rare thing for us to have the dish in the first place, so it was even rarer she got to make it just the way she wanted.
“What kind did you get?” she cried out in her cheerful little voice as she ran over to the fridge. She threw it open and beamed. I knew there was parmesan inside, her favorite kind of all. It was my favorite to put on the pizza, but it would be even better now going on top of the spaghetti. Perhaps it would be enough to make up for the fact the pasta wasn’t going to be the best in the world.
“Can I shred it?” she asked.
I nodded. “Just be careful with the cheese grater. I don’t want to have to take you back down to the doctor for stitches.”
She smiled at my teasing joke; then she set to work. I knew she was old enough to handle the cheese grater, but I wanted to lighten the mood as best as I could. It was hard enough for us to find things to talk about as it was, anything I could do that would brighten her mood worked for me.
She went to work on the corner of the cheese, but my mind was suddenly turned to other things when my phone chimed. My heart thudded in my chest as I desperately hoped it was Stella.
It wasn’t.
I’m sorry, I’ve been trying to pull myself together, but there’s just no way I’m going to be in to work tomorrow. I already texted Molly, and she said she can handle the paperwork; I just don’t want to get everyone sick! My heart sank as I saw it was Shanice.
She had complained to me earlier that day that she wasn’t feeling well, and I was told she did end up going home early. I felt bad for her, but I understood. I sent her a quick text telling her to take as much time as she needed. I knew she wasn’t going to take any extra time off, but I felt like I was turning into the bad guy at work as it was, and anything I could do to soften the hostility was fine by me.
She thanked me, and I set my phone down.
“Was that Stella?” Kellie asked with a hopeful tone to her voice. I cringed. I was hoping the cheese would be enough to keep her mind on the here and now, but once again she was thinking about the one person I, too, couldn’t get out of my mind.
“No, honey, it was just someone I work with telling me she wasn’t coming in tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. I turned back to the pasta, my heart skipping a beat when I realized I was overcooking it. The only thing I didn’t want to go wrong with dinner was on the verge of going wrong, and I knew Kellie was going to notice.
“I wish she’d come over,” Kellie muttered under her breath. I wanted to reply, but decided it was better just to pretend that I didn’t hear her. I didn’t want to get into the topic with her mother in the house, even if I didn’t think we were going to see her that night.
Scarcely had the thought left my mind, however, than the door opened and I heard Maisie coming down the hall. I felt my heartbeat pick up, but I took a deep breath and let it out as silently as possible. Every time the woman walked into the room, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to fight with her. It was too important to me to be the stable parent for Kellie; I wasn’t going to let this woman draw me in.
Though, I was certain that was what she wanted most of the time.
“What’s this?” she asked as she walked into the room. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t know if she had found something in my room she was going to flip out over, or if she had come up with some other kind of drama to get mad at me about. Either way, I didn’t want to get into it.
“What’s what?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.
“This? What are you doing?” she asked. I turned slightly. She was dressed as though she was going to go out, and she was looking at both me and Kellie with the height of disapproval written in her features.
I shrugged. “We’re making dinner.”
“We’re making spaghetti, Mom! It’s my favorite, you know. Do you like cheese on yours?” Kellie asked. I thought it was sad she had to tell her mother that this was her favorite dish, and even more sad she was going to try to soothe the situation by offering her mother cheese.
“I don’t want spaghetti. I thought we were going to go out,” Maisie snapped. She waved her daughter aside and turned to me. At least she had the sense to argue with me before arguing with Kellie. That was the one thing I wasn’t going to allow to happen. The moment she started in on our daughter, I would get involved.
“That’s fine if you don’t want to eat with us, but we aren’t going out. We never go out on a Sunday,” I replied. It wasn’t entirely true, but I knew Kellie had the sense not to get involved with the conversation.
Maisie huffed, crossing her arms and stepping forward, taking a seat next to Kellie on the bar stool. “I really wish you would ask me before you go ahead and do things like this. This is a family now, so you aren’t going to be able to live as though you are the only one in the house.”
Her words stung. I knew she was referring to the way I treated her when we were married, and I wanted to blow up at her. I had apologized more times than I could count, and I wasn’t going to take the blame for our fall. It was a two-way street, and she wasn’t the only one to have been hurt by the situation.
In fact, there were many times when I felt she was the one who was pushing for the end of the marriage. Not just me.
“I’m going to ignore that. I think Kellie is perfectly happy with the dish we have decided on tonight, and we would be thrilled if you would stay and enjoy it with us.” I smiled as I pulled the sauce off the stove and set it on a hot pad, then drained the spaghetti. Kellie had her eyes on the cheese in front of her, grating and keeping silent.
Maisie looked from one of us to the other, clearly not sure what to say. Me never inviting her to spend time with us had been one o
f her biggest complaints when we were married, and it was something I was trying to change now. At the same time, if she were to go ahead and sit down with us, she wasn’t going to be right — and if there was one thing Maisie couldn’t stand, it was being wrong.
There was a moment of hesitation in the room before she finally sighed tore her hat off her head, showing she planned to stay. She thrust out her bottom lip and crossed her arms, pouting as though she were a child. But, I was going to ignore the whole thing.
Though her actions did put Kellie and me both in sour moods for the rest of the night, I didn’t allow her to get a rise out of me. I wasn’t going to fight with that woman any more than I could help it. I had broken my own heart to make her happy, and I wasn’t going to let her break me down even further to get her way.
This was all for Kellie. And, I was going to remind myself of that every single time I felt this way. It was all for Kellie, and I was going to insist on that fact until my last breath.
I wanted my daughter to be happy, whether I was happy or not. And if that meant I was going to have to make things work with my ex-wife, then that’s how it was going to be.
As long as Kellie was happy, I was happy.
That’s all there was to it.
Chapter 30
“All I’m saying is that if you refuse to look both ways, you are going to get hit by a car. It’s just a matter of time before your luck runs out, mark my words.” Jace shook his head as he looked at me with a smirk, and I wanted to slap him. I knew he was right in theory, but it wasn’t something that I was going to pursue.
I made a point of crossing at crosswalks, and I felt that I had enough faith in humanity to keep me from getting hit. I never stepped out when it was busy, or when there was someone who was flying down the street, but I did step out with more faith than he did. I had to. If I walked around with the same attitude that he had, I’d never get anywhere.
We were nearly to the office, talking and walking side by side. His apartment was surprisingly close to work, making it possible for us to walk whenever we wanted. I joined him for a bagel along the way.
I knew Jace was trying to get in better shape for Molly. Though he was already a handsome young man who clearly took care of himself, the little things he could do to impress her did add up, and it was clear she had noticed he was working out once again. I didn’t want to say anything to her, but I could have sworn she was also working out.
I didn’t want to get involved in that side of their relationship, but there was a part of me that wanted to tell them such things didn’t matter. I thought Anthony was one of the most attractive men I had ever laid eyes on, and he had thoroughly broken my heart. It had nothing to do with how either of us looked and entirely to do with the shit life threw our way.
There was nothing I could have done that would have changed his mind, even if I had wanted to. Short of somehow being the woman who had borne his child, my hands were tied.
“I’m not going to get hit! I always glance out of the corners of my eyes when I cross. I don’t make a big show of it like you do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not safe,” I replied with a grin. He shook his head.
“You don’t make a show of being safe because why? Are you trying to show the guy who runs you over that you were too cool to see if he saw you before you stepped out in front of him? That might make him question whether you were smart enough to be wife material anyway.” He smirked, and I gave him another look.
“And, who says I want to be wife material? I am a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need to get run over by a man to live!” I was about to continue, but at that moment we both stopped short. Jace reached out and put his arm in front of me, stopping me from walking into the street as a car roared by.
We both stopped for a moment and exchanged a glance, then he smirked once more. “Interesting. If I wasn’t here, you might not be.”
I smiled in return, but I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to step out in front of the car; I had seen it coming, although I was too absorbed in our conversation to point it out. At the same time, I could have sworn that the driver of the vehicle looked familiar. We were on the same street where Anthony lived, and she looked much like the woman who had been identified as his ex-wife in the office a few days prior.
I had only met her the one time, so I couldn’t be sure that it was her. But I also couldn’t shake the fact I was sure she had just about hit us. Sure, I didn’t think she was being malicious so much as she merely didn’t care there were pedestrians on the sidewalk, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing that was causing her to get out of the apartment so quickly she could have run someone over.
“I think that was Anthony’s ex-wife!” I said as we crossed. Jace gave me a look out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing. I tried again. “What the hell do you think she’s doing that’s making her drive like a hound out of hell?”
“Who cares? I don’t — and you shouldn’t, either,” he replied. I felt my heart sink. I knew he was right. But how could I just not care? That woman had almost run us over, and she had ruined the perfect family that I had grown to love. If she had just stayed away, things wouldn’t have fallen apart. It wasn’t right, and it still pissed me off.
We didn’t say much else on the way to the office. I was shaken by what had happened, and I knew Jace didn’t want to get into the topic once more. He would listen when I would rant, but he never did anything to encourage me to talk about Anthony. He felt the sooner I got over the man, the better. And I had to admit, he wasn’t wrong.
We rode in silence up the elevator, and I laughed as he shoved the rest of his bagel in his mouth before we reached the door. He looked at me with a sheepish smile and shrugged.
“I don’t want Molly to be jealous that I didn’t bring her one,” he said through a mouthful of food.
“You’re spraying crumbs on me!” I said with a laugh. He shrugged once more, but he didn’t say anything else as we pushed our way through the door.
“I told you I wanted it done, and that meant yesterday!” Anthony was yelling at Molly, and I could see she wasn’t sure what to do. This was the old Anthony, and she knew how to handle him, but it didn’t match up with the new Anthony we had all grown to love.
“I’m sorry, but I thought Shanice was going to take care of it! I didn’t hear until this morning she wasn’t coming in, so excuse me!” She threw her hands in the air, but Anthony shook his head.
“She told me last night that she had texted you; it’s not my fault you didn’t bother to check your phone!” he snapped.
“Hey!” I fairly shouted as I stepped into the room. They both stopped and looked at me, and I could see anger clearly written on both their faces. I walked over, my shoulders squared and arrogance in my stride.
“What the hell is going on here?” I asked once I reached them. I put my hands on my hips and looked him square in the eye, waiting for him to answer, not Molly. He crossed his arms, looking down at me with a smirk on his face. I could see he was up for the challenge, but at the same time, there was something else written in his face. It was as though he didn’t know what to do with someone standing up to him.
The situation only made me want to yell at him all the more. I wondered if he knew that his ex-wife was out there driving like a mad woman, and even more importantly, I wondered where Kellie was.
“Well?” I snapped.
“Excuse me, but I am reprimanding an employee who isn’t getting shit done the way it should be,” he replied coolly. I laughed and crossed my arms.
“So, you think yelling at Molly of all people is going to fix that? Do you really think she is going to try to get away with doing shit she shouldn’t be doing?” I didn’t wait for him to answer, turning to Jace who had stopped behind me.
“Who was the one who had carried much of the work of the office when Anthony wasn’t here?” I asked. He didn’t have to answer, of course; it was obvious.
“If it wasn’t for her, Jace, and me working together, you wouldn’t have a business to come back to. I would suggest you think about that before you come in here with your mouth flying and your words cutting through the air as though you can do all this on your own.” I dropped my arms once more, then put them on my hips. I was so angry I wanted to slap him, but I was going to keep this professional.
My eyes were on fire, and I set my jaw. I wasn’t afraid to stand up to him. In a way, I didn’t care if he fired me. He could push me around all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to push around my friends. I would stand up for them no matter what happened to me, and I wasn’t afraid who knew it.
“Alright then, if you think that you guys have it handled out here, then you make sure that the rest of the McAllister project gets done today, and don’t forget about the promotion we’re doing with Murdock’s.” Anthony looked down his nose at me, and I could hear the condescending tone in his voice. I crossed my arms in front of my chest once more, tapping my foot and looking at him with the same condescending look in my eyes.
I wasn’t going to let him push me around, and if he wanted to be condescending, I could do it in return. There were two who could play that game, and I would prove it.
“Okay, is that all? Is there anything else you think you should tell us to do that you weren’t here to tell us to do a week ago?” I raised my eyebrows, and I could see by the look in his eyes he wanted to say something else. But, he changed his mind at the last second and turned on his heel, walking toward his office.
“No, I think that’ll be all. Make sure you get it done, and please leave a copy of the report on the corner of my desk before you go home for the night. Thank you, Stella.” He stopped at the door to his office, looking over his shoulder at me and giving me the same look that he had when I had first started working there.