by Parker, Ali
Linden, who sat across from me, was staring wide eyed down at his own burger meal. His French fries were piled so high in the red plastic basket that they threatened to spill right over the top and onto the table. The burger itself was a mountain of a thing, with a thick bun, loads of cheese, lettuce, tomato, and bacon, and the most dangerous ingredient of all: sauce.
“Mommy,” he said slowly, turning the basket from side to side to try to decide what angle to tackle the burger from.
“Yes, champ?”
“How do I eat this?”
I grinned and pulled his basket toward me. “How about we cheat, cut it up, and eat it like a salad?”
Linden frowned and looked around the diner. His full cheeks reddened. “But nobody eats burgers like that.”
“Pfft, forget everyone else. Tell you what. I’ll cut mine up too.”
He chewed his bottom lip then sat up a little straighter. “Okay.”
Truth be told, it was a bit of a relief not to have to figure out how on earth to bite into the massive beast of a burger. I cut them up in both our baskets, making sure they looked almost the same, and then pushed his basket back to him, warning Linden that it was still very hot and he should be careful.
Like the good boy he was, he puckered his lips and blew on his food.
I smiled and popped a fry in my mouth. “So, what did you think of the Kindergarten school?”
We’d just finished up our scheduled tour of the Kindergarten three blocks away from where we presently sat at the diner.
It was a pretty cool place.
The class already had twenty children in it, but the teachers agreed to take on one more and suggested I come down with Linden before Monday to make sure it was the right fit for him. I liked their approach and the fact that Linden and I could experience the school together for the first time, rather than me having to drop him off and hope it went well and wait until the end of the day.
Needless to say, it did go well.
Linden squirted a generous amount of ketchup into one corner of his basket. “I liked it.”
“What was your favorite part?”
“The science corner.”
“Of course,” I mused.
Linden had a fascination for any thing science. If it fizzed, made a lot of noise, or responded unpredictably in any way, he was all over it. My father had bought him a mock chemistry set last Christmas, and he’d played with it endlessly for months until he lost half the pieces of the set. Knowing my parents, a bigger and better one was already in the works for Christmas this year.
The science corner at the school had been a pretty wonderful little spot for kids like my son. There was slime and jelly and all kinds of substances for them to stick their meaty little hands in, as well as overflowing volcanoes and bubbling vials of colored water.
“What else did you like?” I asked as I skewered a piece of burger on my fork. I tried to ignore the curious looks we were getting as I popped it in my mouth. If there was a fellow parent in the diner, they’d understand.
“The garden center was pretty cool,” Linden said.
“I think that was my favorite part,” I told him.
“How come?” Linden licked salt off his fingers.
“Well,” I said, “for starters, I really like gardening. And I think it’s so cool that you guys get to grow your own veggies. Just think. When the weather gets nice in the spring, you’ll get to grow your own food. How cool is that?”
Linden nodded eagerly.
When I was a kid, I would have been all over growing my own cucumbers, zucchini, and pumpkins. As it was, I was already all over Linden doing it. Maybe if he really enjoyed it, we could start a garden in our own backyard, too. I could picture it now, the two of us bent over, hands covered in soil, knees stained from the grass, backs warm from the sun. When we were done, we could sip lemonade on the back deck, and I could read my book while he played on the swing set.
It wasn’t a bad dream, was it?
Who said a woman needed a man in her life? I already had mine.
Linden reached for his glass of iced water and tipped it delicately toward himself, stretching up as high as he could to purse his lips on the edge and drink. When he was done, he smacked his lips, dragged the back of his hand across them, and went in for another bite of his burger.
“Does this mean you’re excited to go to school on Monday then?” I asked.
I wasn’t entirely sure how Linden was going to respond to being dropped off at a new school. Back home in Atlanta, it hadn’t been a big deal at all. He’d never made a fuss—besides the first three days I dropped him off at preschool last year—and instead was that kid who ran full speed ahead through the front doors, eager to meet up with his friends and start the day of learning and playing.
But not having friends here was worrisome. I wanted him to enjoy himself and not be afraid to meet new people. I myself was struggling with the concept of walking into a new school with hundreds of new faces on Monday. I could only imagine what my little guy might have been feeling.
Linden shrugged one shoulder. “I guess.”
“You’ll make friends fast, Linden. I promise.”
He nodded. “I know. So will you.”
I smiled. When Linden first told me on the flight over here the other day that he was nervous about starting school, I confessed that I too was nervous. It was a completely normal thing to feel. New places and new people made everyone nervous.
He’d asked me, wide eyed and anxious, how to make the nerves stop. I’d said the only thing I could think to say, which was, “You show up with a smile and say hello.”
As far as I knew, that was the easiest way to make friends, and it was the same strategy I planned on using when I walked through the front doors of Annapolis Secondary. Be polite. Smile. Strike up conversations. Hope for the best.
“I think we’re both going to do great.” I pushed my nearly empty basket of food to the edge of the table. My stomach was full, and I was content. “This place will feel just like home in no time.”
Linden kept picking away at his fries and smothered them in ketchup until the ends were soggy and dyed red. The waitress came by with the bill, and I showed Linden exactly how to interact with strangers by walking the walk and smiling. She was friendly and asked Linden questions, and by the time we stood up from our table, they were on a first name basis and he paused in the doorway to wave goodbye.
When our feet hit the cracked cement sidewalk out front, I held out my hand. Linden took it and held it until we were out of the downtown core and heading down the quieter residential streets back to our new house.
Linden rushed up ahead, jumping over cracks and getting distracted by bugs coming out to enjoy the cool evening air.
My phone buzzed in my purse. Before answering the call from my best friend Marie, I warned Linden not to go ahead too far. “Stay in my line of sight, champ. You know the rules.” Linden nodded back at me, and I pressed the phone to my ear. “Marie. Hi, love. How are you?”
“Good, minus the fact that my best friend has been in town for nearly three whole days and I still haven’t seen her. What the heck?”
A grin tugged at my lips. Marie was one of the good ones. The kind of friend who made you feel warm and full and needed. Wanted. “Sorry, it’s been a bit of a wild ride since we landed. I’m trying to get the house in order before school starts up next week, and I don’t have any time left to do anything besides grade papers and cook dinner.”
“You could have called me and asked me to come help.”
“I didn’t want to put you to work right away. I wanted to, you know, get my shit together and then maybe invite you and John over for a nice dinner and show off my new place. It’s way nicer than I expected.”
“Yeah?” Marie asked eagerly. “I can’t wait to see it. What does Linden think? Does he like it?”
I watched my son pause at the edge of the sidewalk to watch some creepy crawly of some sort crawl through th
e grass. He lost interest quickly and scurried up ahead, pointing this way and that at cars going by, dogs passing on the other side of the road with their owners straining on their leashes, and cats watching nonchalantly from their perches on the backs of sofas through living room windows.
“He likes it.” I smiled. “We both do. It’s a change, for sure, but we were ready for one. I’ll be honest, though. It’ll be really nice to see you and John. It’s only been three days, and I’m already aching for something familiar.”
“Well, on that note, what are you doing Friday night?”
“Seeing as how I don’t know anyone here to make plans, nothing.”
Marie giggled softly. “How about coming out to dinner with John and I?”
“Sure,” I said quickly. “I’d love to.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s something you should know first.”
“Oh?”
Marie hesitated. “Yes. Someone else will be there too.”
“That’s fine,” I said, unsure why she thought I needed warning about another person joining us for dinner. I was sociable. And maybe a little desperate to make some connections in this town as soon as humanly possible.
“You’ll probably want to know who that someone else is before you agree to go.”
“Oh,” I said, this time in a deeper, knowing tone.
“Yeah.”
I drew my bottom lip between my teeth. “Jace?”
“You guessed it. He’s taking us out. And I get it if you’d rather not see him. You guys haven’t spoken since our wedding night, right?”
“Right,” I said softly, thinking back to Jace in his black tux. He’d been the star of the night in my eyes. Handsome, rugged, charming as hell.
He’d looked even better at the end of the night when he’d discarded his bowtie and danced with me with the top two buttons of his white shirt popped open.
“Is it weird?” Marie asked.
“What? No. It’s not weird. It’s just been a while is all.”
“Oh good. Bring Linden. John and I would love to see him.”
I considered her request for a minute. “I will if I can’t find a sitter. I have to go, Marie. We’ll talk soon, okay? Send me the details about dinner?”
Marie agreed, and we got off the phone.
Linden and I rounded the corner on our street, and he peeled up ahead to push through the front gate and wait for me on the porch.
My only hesitation with bringing my son was having Jace look at him and see himself in my little boy. I didn’t want that to happen. I couldn’t risk it.
Linden was only now just recovering from losing the man I believed was going to be his stepfather. And so was I. I wasn’t keen on bringing in a new man for him to trust, to believe in, to look up to, only to have it all be blown to smithereens all over again.
No, I would protect my son from that kind of pain at all costs.
But the catch was I was going to have to see Jace sooner or later, and I wouldn’t be able to hide my son—our son—from him forever.
Maybe it was best to bring Linden to dinner and get their meeting over with as quickly as ripping off a band-aid.
Chapter 7
Jace
“Grandpa Bruce,” Paxton said as I pulled him out of the booster seat in the back of my truck.
I hoisted him up and braced him on my hip as I fetched a bag with his pajamas and a couple toys from the floor. “That’s right. We’re at Grandpa’s house. You two are going to have a nice night together. I think he might have even made your favorite for dinner.”
“Mac and cheese!”
I chuckled and closed the truck door with my hip. “Yep. Mac and cheese.”
Bruce was not my father, but he was the closest thing I had to one.
He was Gwen’s father. My ex-wife. Paxton’s mother.
Bruce lived on the other side of town in the same house he’d raised Gwen in, the same home she’d lived in when I met her. Most traces of her were gone now. When she bailed on me and Paxton, Bruce had a hard time getting past it. He tried, Lord, did he try, but he couldn’t wrap his head around how his daughter could walk away from Paxton.
We were in the same boat.
Leaving a spouse was different. There wasn’t unconditional love there in all cases. And she and I weren’t a good match. At least I could see that in retrospect. At the time, of course, I thought she was everything. I thought we would grow old together.
But things didn’t always pan out the way we saw them in our heads.
There was nothing I was more grateful for in the aftermath of my divorce than Bruce’s steady support. He was there for all our court dates when I didn’t have anyone to watch Paxton, and he was still here for us now. If I ever needed a sitter, he demanded to be the first call I made because he wanted to soak up as much time as possible with his grandson.
I asked him once if he felt like he had to make up for Gwen jumping ship.
He’d said yes.
I didn’t like that. But no matter how I tried to explain that he didn’t owe me or Paxton anything, he shrugged it off, saying someone had to step in, and he was more than happy to be that someone.
Truth be told, so was I.
He was good for Paxton. Bruce was a man’s man by all definitions of the word. After retiring from decades of work for the post office, he turned his garage into a wood shop and made custom furniture which he sold to locals in town. He made everything from coffee tables to shelving units, and no two pieces ever looked the same. Bruce claimed it kept his hands and his mind busy and stopped him from going down a dark road.
I knew what that was like.
I’d almost wandered too far down that dark road myself when Gwen left. If it wasn’t for Paxton, I would have come apart at the seams.
Paxton rested his head on my shoulder as I carried him up the drive to Bruce’s front door. It swung open before I even attempted to free up one hand to knock, and Bruce stood on the other side of the threshold beaming at both of us. His cheeks were rosy, his beard and moustache whiter than I remembered, and he had new glasses.
“Boys!” Bruce exclaimed, throwing out his arms.
Paxton reached for his grandfather, and I passed him over. His little hands instantly went to Bruce’s beard to pinch and pull and grab, and Bruce chuckled, all in good humor, as always. Then he turned his crystal-blue eyes to me—eyes that were very much like Gwen’s.
“How’ve you been, Jace?”
I raked a hand through my hair. “Good. Real good. Keeping busy. You know how it is at the beginning of a school year. How about you? Lots of work going on in that shop of yours?”
“You bet,” Bruce said before dropping his chin to blow a raspberry on Paxton’s belly. My son squealed, squirmed playfully, and then gave a merciless tug on Bruce’s beard. “Ouch! Serves me right, I guess. Huh, kiddo?”
I slid my hands into my jean pockets. “You and I have to go for a beer one of these times. Catch up. It’s been a while.” In my world, a couple weeks without some one-on-one time with my former father-in-law were too many. He was a friend.
“You just let me know what works for you. I’m retired. I can swing anything.”
“You got it.” I grinned.
Bruce looked me up and down, and his blue gaze lingered on my crisp dark red button-up shirt. “That new?”
I ran my hands self-consciously down the shirt. “No. Just haven’t worn it before.”
“Thought you were just going for dinner with Marie and John?”
“I am.”
“And someone else?”
Bruce could see right through me. I chuckled and rubbed the back of my neck. “Mind your own business, old man.”
Bruce threw his head back and laughed. Then he set Paxton down. “Say goodbye to your father, kiddo. Let’s kick him out of here so we can go eat lots of food and candy and stay up past your bedtime.”
Paxton threw his arms around my legs, gave me a short farewell, and then shot
off around his grandfather down the hall.
“Thank God he has one place to go that he loves,” I mused.
“I’m glad it’s here,” Bruce said. “Now go on. I’ll see you later. And if you need him to spend the night because your date goes well, you just let me know and—”
“It’s not a date, Bruce.”
Bruce’s eyes twinkled. “Sure it isn’t.”
I waved him off and turned back to my truck. “Have fun!”
Date, I thought, smirking to myself. This certainly wasn’t a date. It was just the first time I was seeing Emelia in a really long time, and I wanted to make a good impression. What was so bad about that?
“Nothing,” I said aloud, trying to convince myself that the shirt wasn’t overkill. Hopefully, John didn’t say anything. I’d never live it down.
I was two blocks from the restaurant when my phone rang through the speakers of the truck. Expecting the call to be from John, I answered right away, not waiting to see the name that flashed across the screen on my dash. “I’m two minutes away. Hold your horses, man.”
A familiar female voice filled the cab of my truck. “Jace?”
My mood spiraled immediately. “Gwen.”
“Hi,” she said, her tone chipper. “Is now a good time?”
“Is it ever?”
“Don’t be like that, Jace.”
“Like what?”
“Moody.”
“What do you want?” I asked, palming the steering wheel as I turned into the parking lot of the steakhouse I was meeting the others at. I reversed into a space as Gwen answered.
“I was calling to check in and see how you were. How Paxton is. How’s school going?”
“Why are you really calling, Gwen?”
She let out a long, dramatic sigh. “I’m coming into town next week.”
Well, isn’t that fucking great.
She was quiet a minute, as if waiting for me to say something. When I remained quiet and put the truck in park, she continued. “I was hoping there was a good time for me to get some quality time with Paxton. I miss him terribly.”