by Staci Hart
“For starters, yes.”
“You can’t do that! You can’t dictate that. The keys to this house are in my fucking purse, and those children came out of my body. You can’t tell me I can’t!”
“Actually, I can. Your name’s not on the mortgage, and you abandoned us. You forfeited your rights when you couldn’t be bothered to show up for the custody hearing.”
The color rose in her cheeks, but she schooled her face and tone. “Charlie, listen, I’m sorry. It’s been … hard, confusing. I don’t have an excuse; I realize that. But they’re my kids, and I want to see them. This is my home, and I—”
“This stopped being your home the second you decided to fuck Jack,” I said with a steely coldness that surprised her. “You don’t get to show up here after all this time and change the rules—rules you dictated by your absence. That’s not how this works.”
“Mama?”
It was Maven, her voice small. I turned to look, my heart breaking, opening the door up without meaning to.
Hannah stood in the entry with Maven on her hip and Sammy peeking out from behind her. Hannah’s eyes and face were full of emotion, tight and surprised and sad and protective as she and Mary stared each other down.
“Oh, look, it’s the pretty nanny,” Mary said with dry scorn that set the hairs on my neck on end, hackles up and tingling.
“Leave her alone,” I growled.
She set her gaze back on me, heavy and assessing. “Ah, I see.” She took a step back and shut her face down. “We’re not going to get anywhere today, are we?”
“Not today. Not until you make an effort toward ending this once and for all. You can’t pick and choose what you want to do, and I can’t allow you to see them not without an arrangement through our lawyers.”
Mary nodded once. “I want to be a part of their lives, Charlie. Seeing you at the hospital made me realize what I’d been missing. So, however you want to go about that, I’ll do it.”
My eyes narrowed.
It was too easy, and I wasn’t buying any of it. She’d manipulated everyone she’d ever known, me worst of all, and I trusted nothing she had to say, even when it was the right thing to say.
Especially when it was the right thing to say.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“Yes, we will.”
And she turned and walked down the stairs.
I closed the door with trembling hands, the solid thunk loud in the quiet entryway.
Hannah stood where she’d been, Maven resting in one arm, the other around Sammy’s back, her face still just so full, as if there were a thousand things in her mind.
I couldn’t blame her for a single one.
I raked a hand through my hair.
“Why was Mommy here?” Sammy asked quietly, subdued, from Hannah’s side.
I knelt to his level and tried to find a way to explain. “I don’t know, buddy. I’m going to try to sort it out with her, okay?”
“But she said she wanted to say hi. She said she wanted to see me and Maven.”
The heat of the pain seared my lungs and heart until they ached and smoldered. “I know,” I said, not much over a whisper. “I know, Sammy. And I want you to see her. We’re going to try to figure out how, okay? Because since she left, there are some rules she has to follow, that’s all.”
He nodded and looked down at his shoes. “Okay, Daddy.”
I cupped the back of his head and kissed the top of it, closing my eyes against the sting of it all, wishing there were an easy way out, wishing she hadn’t come at all, wishing she’d just done the right thing and gone through the lawyers instead of coming here, hooking the whole lot of us and dragging us down into the depths with her.
But wishes and dreams, though free, couldn’t be counted on.
I stood and met Hannah’s eyes. “Hannah, I’m so sorry. I can’t … I don’t know why she …”
“You saw her? At the hospital?” she asked.
And I pinpointed the newest emotion on her face—betrayal.
I stepped into her and cupped her elbow. “I did. She was outside the door when I came back from getting coffee. I … I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You didn’t want to worry me, or you didn’t want me to know?” The question wasn’t accusing; it was honest and hurt.
“I would have told you, I swear it.” I searched her eyes, hoping she could read the truth in mine. “That night … Hannah, too much happened all at once. And the more I thought about it, the less important it felt. Nothing of consequence was said; all we did was argue. She wouldn’t even come in to see Maven, not even when she was sick, and I … I …” My voice broke, and I swallowed the sadness, the disappointment, the urgent fear that I’d hurt Hannah.
But her worry slipped away, and she nodded once. “I understand. Just … please tell me what’s going on. I don’t want to be surprised, not by that. Not by her.”
“Of course,” I said and pulled her into a hug, sighing. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I. Are you all right?”
I kissed her hair and pulled away. “Not really. But I will be.”
“Yes, you will.” And her smile made me believe it was true.
15
Busy Hands
Charlie
“Explain this to me one more time,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
My divorce lawyer and buddy from college, Pete, watched me from the other side of his desk. “From the top?”
“From the beginning.”
He flipped through his notes and drew in a deep breath. “We filed your divorce papers—fault divorce under adultery claims—in June after she refused to answer your attempts to reach her. Two weeks later, we served her the papers at her workplace along with your settlement agreement, stating you would back-pay her for moneys paid into your home and agree to joint custody with you as the primary guardian. You were granted full temporary custody of the kids on”—he flipped the page—“August 12, and Mary didn’t answer the divorce papers. We’re still a few weeks from being able to file for a default ruling, but there’s very little she could do to change things. She’s relinquished her rights by not participating in the divorce or the hearing for temporary custody. I don’t know many judges who would believe her if she came back around at this point.”
“Do you think she knows? That we haven’t filed for the default yet?”
Pete sat back in his chair. “It’s hard to say. We haven’t had any contact from her side at all. I don’t even know if she has a lawyer. There’s a possibility that she could file a petition to set the default ruling aside and have a judge her case, but the longer she goes on, the less likely it’ll be that she can have it dismissed and actually start participating.”
I sighed, the breath drawn from somewhere deep in my lungs. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. She wants to see the kids, and I don’t know how to tell them they can’t see their mother. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t trust her, and I sure as hell think she should have come around a long time ago. But, if she’s coming around now, I probably haven’t seen the last of her. And if she’s going to push for this, I don’t know if I can say no with any just cause. I don’t want to bar her from them out of spite, but I don’t want to put them at risk either. I don’t want her to weaponize them, but not allowing them to see their mother … it’s cruel.”
“Charlie, listen, you know how this works. If you set up a precedence, if you make any kind of agreement with her on custody now while everything is in flux, it could ruin everything. You can’t give her an inch or she’ll take it all. It’s Mary we’re talking about here.”
“So keep her from them until the divorce is final?”
He nodded. “It’s the only way you can guarantee control. If you want to let her see them after that, it’s fair game.”
“This is so fucked up,” I said half to myself.
“I know. Welcome to divorce law.”
“Thanks for your help with this. I know as much about
divorce law as I do about cardio surgery.” I tried to laugh, but it came out as a half-assed chuckle. “I don’t know how you do it. M&A bleeds me dry on the regular, but it’s nothing like trying to sort through people’s failed marriages.”
“Well, it helps when I work for the good guys. It’s the times when I work for the assholes that I really have a crisis of conscience.”
We both laughed at that, and I left Pete’s office, so disgusted and downtrodden and lost in my thoughts that I wandered around Midtown a while, not wanting to go back to work.
Work was the last place I’d wanted to be for days. Weeks. Maybe ever.
I tried to fortify my will by reminding myself of the day I had gone in for the temporary custody hearing. The thought of seeing her for the first time since she’d left had left me sleepless for days, and the anxiety was so real, so pure, so horrible that I wondered if I’d break down in the middle of the courtroom. She was going to come, I’d been certain. She was going to fight, I’d known.
But she hadn’t shown up at all, and that was somehow so much worse.
Now she wanted to see the kids after all this time, and I couldn’t let her. I didn’t even know if she truly wanted them or if she was just trying to manipulate me, but the image of their small faces when I’d barred them from their mother burned into my mind. It was no easier than the thought that she would hurt them, that she wasn’t stable enough to be what they needed.
It just felt wrong, everything about it. Wrong and slimy and sinister.
And there was nothing I could do about it but wait it out.
Hannah
Lysanne’s mouth hung open like a fish as Charlotte’s swing lost momentum.
I’d stopped talking for at least a full minute. “Say something.”
She blinked, her gaping mouth turning into a smile. “I didn’t think you actually had the nerve to kiss him, never mind … all that.”
I laughed and kept Maven’s swing going evenly. “Honestly? That’s all you have to say?”
“Of course not. It’s like you don’t know me at all.” She shook her head and gave Charlotte’s swing a heave. “I’m excited and nervous for you and Charlie. It’s tricky, yeah?”
“It’s only been a few days, so not yet. But I’m sure it will be. Though seeing his ex was probably a glimpse into the tricky.”
“Sticky and messy. I can’t believe she showed up like that. You said she hasn’t seen them in months?”
“Since she left them all.”
“Is she pretty?” Lysanne asked.
I nodded. “She’s beautiful, dark hair and eyes, very … I don’t know the word. Cosmopolitan. Classy. A little scary. But what was strange was that I could see them together, but as if it were a different version of him, one I don’t know.”
“Like he had an evil twin?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes, a little,” I said on a laugh. “They made sense, but they didn’t. I don’t know how to explain it other than that it was odd.” My smile faded. “She’s not fond of me; she made that quite clear. Not that I thought we might be friends. In fact, I hadn’t even really considered her. She’d been gone for a long time … so she was always … fictional, just a piece of his past without a face. But she has a face now, a face and a presence, and I can already feel the weight of it between Charlie and me.”
“I can see that. It’s real now.”
“He was with her all those years. These are his children with her. She is their mother. They’re all facts I knew perfectly well, but I don’t think I really understood them until yesterday.”
Lysanne said nothing, her brows together as she pushed Charlotte for a few seconds.
“I care for Charlie very much, and I’ve already accepted the truth of his past. It just shook me up to see her, to be confronted with her in that way.”
“And that’s understandable. How did Charlie take it?”
“Not well. He was far more upset than me, and the kids were too. Charlie has to shoulder so much.” I shook my head. “It’s why I didn’t make a fuss when I found out he’d seen her at the hospital and didn’t tell me.”
Lysanne’s eyes widened. “She was there?”
I nodded. “I didn’t see her; she didn’t want to see Maven.”
“That’s awful.”
“I want to believe she has her reasons, but it’s not easy to make excuses for her when I’ve spent so much time with the children, when I can see just how wonderful they are and how much they need her.”
“Maybe her reason is just that she’s a selfish bitch,” Lysanne said matter-of-factly.
I laughed. “Wouldn’t that be the easy answer? But nothing’s that simple. Our hearts and minds are more complicated than that, with layers on layers of reasoning and feelings and motivation. There’s always another side. There’s always a reason, even if we can’t agree on whether or not it’s a valid reason.”
“Well, I stand by my theory that she’s just a terrible person—which, in my expert opinion, is not a valid reason.”
I laughed again, and she smiled.
“I love you,” I said, shaking my head.
“I love you too. What do you think will happen with Charlie? Long-term? I mean, you live there for the foreseeable future. What if things go bad? What if his ex comes around more? What if he does something like …” Worry touched her eyes, her brow, her voice. “What if he sleeps with her? What if he—”
I stopped her. “Lysanne.” Discomfort snaked through me.
She clapped her mouth shut.
“We could worry about what-ifs all day and forever, and nothing good would come of it. I trust Charlie to tell me the truth, to be honest and open with me. It’s all I really ask of him, all I require, and I believe he’ll give that to me. In the end, if things don’t work out, I’ll go home. I don’t want to take another job here, not after all I’ve been through.”
“So you’ll run away. It’s the Hannah special.”
I gave her a flat look.
“What? I’m only saying that this is how you like to problem-solve, that’s all.”
“I just don’t want to trouble myself with worrying about things I can’t control.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” she conceded. “I’m proud of you for taking charge with Charlie though.”
I sighed. “I was tired of waiting and not knowing and … being uncertain. And, now … I feel like I belong in a way. I haven’t felt that in a long time.”
She smiled. “I know. And I’m happy for you. What are you two doing tonight?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He works so late, so much.” The words were sadder than I meant to let on. “He took the whole weekend off, so I might not see him tonight. But that’s probably good. We’ve been together for days, and a little time apart will do us good.”
“You sound so pleased about it,” she teased.
I laughed, but her face went pale as she looked past me.
“Is that … oh my God, Hannah, look.”
Quinton rounded the gate into the park, hands in his pockets, smile on his face, eyes on mine.
A surge of anxiety rushed through me, stopping my heart before it kick-started again, banging painfully against my ribs.
“Hannah,” he called as he approached. “How about that? I was just on my way back from a late lunch with a coworker and thought I saw you.”
It sounded rehearsed, pretend, like a lie.
“Hello,” was all I could offer.
“Imagine that,” he said, coming to a stop next to me. “Funny we keep running into each other.”
“Yeah, funny,” Lysanne said as she watched on, her jaw tight, still pushing Charlotte in the swing.
He briefly turned his gaze on her, hard and sharp, before looking back to me. “Can I speak to you for a second? Alone?”
Lysanne’s eyes told me not to. Quinton’s said he wouldn’t relent. We were in public during the day. If ever there were a safe time, it was probably this. So, I nodded.
“Wil
l you watch the children for me?” I asked Lysanne.
“Yes, of course,” she answered, her words rigid.
And then I followed him to the hedges that lined the park.
He turned, smiling serpentine. “I want to believe it’s fate that we’ve seen each other twice now.”
I smiled politely. “Is there something you needed?”
Something flashed behind his eyes, something hot and forbidding. “Just for you to have coffee with me. I wanted to … explain. I mean, the least I can do is buy you a cup of coffee and offer you some understanding.”
My smile faded. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His faded too. “Hannah, really, I only want to talk, I promise.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” I said with a sharpness I hadn’t intended.
It set his shoulders and straightened his back, his chin rising just a touch. “I disagree. I think there’s much to discuss. But I understand. Promise me you’ll call if you change your mind.”
I took a step away, my eyes narrowed and pulse rushing in my ears. “Goodbye, Quinton.” I turned to walk over to Lysanne.
“See you around, Hannah,” he said to my back.
I could feel the place where his eyes watched me. But by the time I was at Lysanne’s side and summoned the courage to look, he was gone.
The weight of the moment left me in a breath that set my hands trembling as I lifted Maven out of the swing and held her close.
“What in God’s name did he want?” Lysanne spat, picking up Charlotte as well.
We made our way to the sandbox—I had to sit down before I had no choice in the matter. “To take me to coffee.”
“He … he what?” she sputtered. “What possible reason could he have for asking?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, miserably. “Lysanne, I think I should tell Charlie.”
Her mouth popped open. “You absolutely should not tell Charlie.”
My brows knit together. “Why not?”
“Because he’ll think you do this with all your bosses.”
“Oh God,” I breathed. “Surely he would believe me. Surely he trusts me.”