by Abby Brooks
Claire studies the spot. "Will you put one on David, too?" she asks.
"Of course I will, if that's what you want."
Claire nods and I hold out my wrist for Michelle. When she's done, we all hold our wrists together and stare at the tiny blip of ink. Will the small gesture be enough to last the weekend? If the look on Claire's face has any bearing at all, I think it might. She smiles as she runs her finger over the dot on her wrist.
"How about we get some play time in before Dad gets here?" Michelle asks. No one would know she's struggling to stay calm. The only reason I can tell at all is because she keeps making a fist with her thumb tucked inside.
We all pile out of the truck and I get Pogo's leash clipped on his collar just in time for him to take off, barking and growling at someone approaching. I yank on the leash and do my best to settle him down as a stout man strides us to us. The closer he comes, the more frantic Pogo becomes.
"Sorry about that," I say, still struggling to control the dog.
Michelle comes around the front of the truck, holding Claire's hand with the overnight bag hitched up on the other shoulder. She stops in her tracks when she sees the man. "You're early."
The stranger smirks. "I couldn't wait to see my little girl."
So this is Russell. All I need is one look at the guy to know I like him just about as much as Pogo does. His eyes are all wrong. I get the dog to sit and watch as Claire studies her dad. He doesn’t look at her. His gaze is locked on Michelle.
"That hers?" he asks, gesturing to the bag over Michelle's shoulder.
"You're an hour early." Michelle wraps an arm around Claire's shoulder and pulls her close.
"So?"
"So we were going to play a little." Michelle lifts her chin, nostrils flaring.
"Well, I have plans and I need to take her now." Russell widens his stance. "Unless you're going to refuse. And then I'll just call the cops and tell them you're not allowing me my visitation rights." He lets out a little laugh, lifting the corner of his top lip. I want to punch the guy right in the face. Tell him he can go to hell and to never contact Michelle again. But I won't do that in front of Claire. I'm not going to be the guy who sucker-punched her dad. And I don't know enough about the law to step in with confidence. Would Michelle be at fault for not handing Claire over an hour before the arranged time? It's too risky to push things right now. But knowledge is power and the asshole better believe that I'll be armed to the teeth with information the next time we meet.
Russell holds out a hand. "Come on," he says to Claire, still not looking her in the face.
Claire glances at Michelle, blinking rapidly to keep the tears gathering in her eyes from running down her cheeks. My hands ball into fists and I shove them into my pockets. Nothing about this is right.
Michelle crouches in front of her daughter. "You be good and have lots of fun, okay?" She pulls her in close and gives her a big hug. "I love you, Bear."
"I love you, too, Momma." Claire returns the hug and then Michelle straightens, doing her best not to draw out the goodbye for her daughter's sake.
"Have fun, Little Monster," I say, raising a hand, surprised when Claire steps in for a hug.
It's a quick one, the first she's ever offered me. "Tell Mouse to be good."
"You know I will."
Russell shifts his weight back on his heel. "We good now?" he asks, and then finally looks at Claire. "Get your bag," he says and then turns and starts back across the parking lot.
Michelle hands her daughter the bag and Claire hefts it over her shoulder, dwarfed by the thing. "Go on now." Michelle smiles. "I'll see you in a couple days."
Claire takes a long breath and then takes off after her dad, her thin legs struggling under the weight of the overnight bag.
A thought strikes me. "Does he have a booster seat for her?"
Michelle looks at me, eyes wide and glistening with tears. "I don't know. I doubt it." She takes a few steps after Claire. "Hey! Russell!"
The man pauses half in his car, while Claire yanks on the door handle behind him. He raises his eyebrows and makes a what gesture.
Michelle takes a few more steps towards him. "Do you have a booster?" she calls.
Russell looks exasperated. "What?" He flares his hands in an impatient gesture.
Michelle takes another step towards him and I hold out my hand. "We'll just give him the one in the truck." There's no way he has a booster seat and I will not let Claire climb into that car without one.
"We'll never get it back." Michelle looks so distraught it breaks my heart.
"Doesn't matter. At least we know she's safe when she's with him. And we'll just buy a new one. No big deal at all. Time and money, darlin’." I pull the booster out of the back of the truck and cross the parking lot.
"She needs a booster seat," I say. I don't smile. I don't nod. I just hold the thing out for him and stare him in the eyes without blinking.
Russell sneers. "Says who?"
"The state of Ohio."
"Whatever, dude," Russell scoffs.
"She's not leaving here without it.”
When he still doesn't take the booster from me, I go to Claire, pull open the door, and buckle the booster into the backseat. "There you go, kiddo." I take the bag from her and place it on the floor at her feet.
She stares at me with wide eyes as she buckles herself in, pausing to push her thumb against the ink dot on her opposite wrist. I smile and do the same, and then close her door before looking Russell in the eye. "We'll see you at six on Sunday at Michelle's house." I don't wait for a response. I finish saying what needs to be said and then turn my back and walk away.
Nothing about this is okay. Not one damn thing. That asshole doesn't want to see his daughter. If he did, he'd have dropped to his knees the moment he saw her, floored by how much she'd grown in the last year. He would have pulled her into his arms. Thanked me for the booster seat. Carried her fucking bag for her.
There're only two reasons for him to make such a big deal out of taking her for the weekends. Either his new girlfriend wants to play family, or he wants to hurt Michelle and figured out how to go right for the jugular. Or maybe it's some twisted combination of the two. Either way, I can't sit back and watch as Claire gets used as a weapon and Michelle gets another set of wounds slashed across her heart.
"Thank you." Michelle takes my hand as I draw up beside her. "I'm sorry."
I shake my head. "You don't have to apologize for him. He is not your fault."
"I'm the one who married him." Michelle watches as Russell pulls out of the parking space and speeds past us, his cellphone pinched between his shoulder and his ear. Claire presses her hand to the window, twisting in her seat to watch us as they pass.
"You marrying him didn't make him a dick. I'm pretty sure he came that way." I pull Michelle into my arms. "You did good. Kept things nice and calm for Claire even though I know you were screaming inside."
She leans her head against my shoulder. "I don't want her to go."
"I know, darlin'. I know." I rub her back and hold her close.
I want to hope for the best. I want to believe that Claire will be better off having her dad in her life. I want to think she'll come back from this weekend happier than ever. I want to believe that good things happen to good people and little girls don't get crushed under the weight of bad decisions. But after what happened to Maggie, and what's happening to Claire, I'm having a hard time holding on to that hope.
MICHELLE
From the moment Russell drove off with Claire yesterday evening, my stomach has been tied up in knots. Food makes those knots twist even tighter until it feels like I'm going to start throwing up again, so I haven't eaten much. Work this morning was a joke. As hard as I tried to lose myself in the music, to give all my energy to my students so I didn't have any left to worry about Claire, I was a distracted mess teaching a string of shitty classes to a bunch of tired teenagers.
When I get back to the farm,
I find David waiting for me on the top step of the stairs leading up to the porch with Pogo at his side. He stands as I pull to a stop in front of the house and Pogo bounds down the stairs to greet me.
"There's my beautiful." David leans against one of the pillars and shoves his hands in his pockets. "How are you holding up?"
I slam the car door and shake my head. "Not well." I make my way to the stairs with Pogo following close behind.
"I was pretty sure that's what you'd say." Pogo dashes up the handful of steps to take his customary seat at David's side. "So don't kill me, but I made plans for us."
I pause with my foot on the bottom step. "What kind of plans? Because faking a smile for one more second might as well be torture.”
David beckons me towards him and I climb the steps into his arms. "Well, first, you're going to hop into a bubble bath and soak away the stress of the day." He drops a kiss onto the top of my head. "And then you're going to put on some comfortable clothes."
"So far, so good." I lean in to him.
"And then we're going to go meet your friends, Lexi and Bailey, at Smitty's."
And just like that, all the tension of the day comes zooming right back. "David..." I try to pull away. "I can't handle being social right now."
"I get that, but I think you need to be surrounded by people who love you and will support you through this. The last thing you need to do is shrink up and disappear inside yourself."
I want to protest, but that comment hits a nerve. What happened when I married Russell? I pulled away from all my friendships. Tried to shoulder the burden of it all by myself. I let him close me off and when I really needed people, no one was left for me to lean on. And here's David, telling me to do the exact opposite. Telling me that I need to go out and lean on my friends when things get hard. Russell was afraid my friends meant more to me than he did. David is encouraging me to draw my people close.
"Dad calls it circling the wagons,” he says. "When things get hard, we're all better off if we bring the people we trust close. There's strength in numbers and hope in community." He brushes my hair back off my face. "And I know you don't want to smile and fake being happy, but if you can't be the real you around people, how can you count them as friends?"
I shake my head. "I guess I can't."
"I have a feeling that you haven't been honest with them, though. For example, I'm sure they would be shocked to know that you were struggling with money..." He pauses and raises his eyebrows, waiting for my reply.
"I didn't want to be a burden..."
"No one who knows you would call you a burden. You're a little powerhouse of stubborn self-reliance." David smiles. "There's a difference between being honest and taking advantage. That difference lies in self-reliance. Which you have in spades."
"How do you know how to say all the right things?" I ask.
"I'm just saying what's true." He slaps me on the butt. "Now, go get that bath and then put on your favorite outfit. You can be as quiet as you want, but you're getting out of this house and spending some time with your friends."
I sigh and give a little nod of my head. "Fine. I'll go out. But don't judge if I spend most of the night smiling and nodding instead of talking." I pull out of his arms and then pause as a thought hits me. "How did you know how to get a hold of Lexi?"
"Facebook is a wonderful thing," he says. "Although I guess you wouldn't know since you're stuck in the Stone Age with that flip phone of yours."
"That flip phone is a serious upgrade from the nothing I had last year." I run a hand through my hair and let out a long breath, the tension in my shoulders receding. Just being around David makes me feel better.
"Speaking of phones." David reaches into his back pocket. "I got you something."
My gaze drops to the smartphone he's holding out to me and my eyes widen. "Please tell me you didn't buy that for me."
"What kind of man would I be if I didn't make sure you had the things you need?"
"But I don't need a smartphone."
"Says the woman who hasn't had one yet." He presses the phone into my hands. "It's brand new and I've already added you to my plan. If you don't take it now, you'll just be costing me money."
I stare at the thing, a slow smile spreading across my face. "You spoil me too much."
"That's not true."
"Yes it is. I'm caught up on my bills because of you."
"That's not true, either. You were taking the necessary steps when we met. You would have gotten caught up without my help."
"Maybe. But you can't deny I'm caught up this quickly because of your help."
David shrugs off the compliment. "It wasn't that big of a deal."
"But it was. To me, it was."
I lived my whole life with the nagging feeling that I was missing something. All I ever wanted was to be happy, but I always fell short of the mark. I thought I was fundamentally broken. Unable to accept life for what it is and constantly self-sabotaging myself by looking for more. Now that David is in my life, I have more happy days than sad days. The peace he brings me, the confidence he instills in me, the ability to let go and be who I am instead of wasting energy trying to be what I think people want, it's all stacking together and compounding, and my life now feels so different than what I've lived through up until this point.
"Well, good. Now. Let's skip the part where you protest and tell me you can't take the phone." David takes my finger and uses it to press the power button. "You know I won't accept that answer."
"I love you so much," I say, staring up at him.
A smile twists the corners of his lips. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing that."
The phone vibrates in my hands and I jump, staring down at it as the thing comes to life. "It moved."
David grins. "Welcome to the twenty-first century, darlin'."
"Holy shit, look at you!" Lexi stands back and scans me from head to toe. "You look positively radiant." She pulls me into her arms and gives me a big squeeze. "It's so good to see you looking so happy," she whispers.
"It's been too long," says Bailey as David pulls out a chair for me. "The last time we got together, you promised you weren't going to abandon us, and now look. It's been months since we've had a proper girl’s night."
"Oh hush, Bay." Lexi widens her eyes at our friend. "You disappeared the moment you met this big lug." She jerks thumb at Liam, Bailey's fiancé.
"Not a big lug, thank you very much." Liam glares at Lexi and then gives his attention to me. "It's good to see you, short stuff."
I smile in return and introduce David to my friends. "Although apparently you and Lexi don't need an introduction since you've been conspiring behind my back."
Lexi shrugs. "I had to come up with some way to see you after you told me about what's going on with Claire. I knew you wouldn’t hesitate to turn me down if I invited you to come out with us, just like I knew you'd never turn him down." She jerks her head towards David.
"So dish it, kid." Bailey crosses her arms on the table. "What's going on? How are you doing?"
"I'm fine," I say reflexively.
David sighs. "She is not fine."
Lexi sits back in her chair. "Obviously. But leave it to Michelle to say she's fine when she's not."
"Okay, then. I am not fine." I cross my arms over my chest. "I'm mad, and I'm worried, and I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to do everything I could to find the money for a lawyer and get the divorce done right. I wish I'd called the police on Russell when I could. I wish I'd stood up for myself instead of backed down. I wish I could drive over there right now, pick Claire up, and keep her away from her dad for the rest of her life."
David rests a hand on my knee as my friends stare at me in differing states of shock.
"Called the police?" Liam frowns. "Why would you need to call the police?"
"My ex-husband is not a good man," I manage before our waitress comes over to take our drink orders.
"It's been awhile sin
ce you were here," she says, smiling down at me. "You want whatever we've got on draft?"
I shake my head. "Just an iced tea for me. I don't feel much like drinking." My stomach keeps twisting itself into knots and I'm afraid even the iced tea will be too much for it. My friends order their drinks and don't give me a hard time, for which I'm very grateful. As soon as the waitress leaves, I fill them all in on the drama that has been my life. From the accidental pregnancy, to the marriage I didn't want, to the unending bills, and the anger, the screaming, and finally, the night he pulled a gun on me.
"Holy shit." Bailey shakes her head. "I can't believe you actually lived through all that."
"I met the guy." Lexi sips her Coke. "I suspected it was bad before then, but after? There was no doubt you lived through some serious hard times."
My phone buzzes with a call and I pull it out of my pocket. If I thought I was nauseated before, it worsens by a magnitude of about a million when I see Russell's name.
"Look at you with your fancy new phone." Bailey nods approvingly at David. "I knew I liked you."
I put a finger to my lips and shush my friends before answering. "Hello?" I press my free hand against my other ear to drown out the sound around me.
"Where the fuck are you?"
"I'm out with friends." I frown at the table. "What's up?"
"Well, I'm sitting here in your driveway with a kid who won't stop crying like a little baby. That's what's up."
I can hear Claire sobbing in the background, hiccuping and choking, trying—and failing—to catch her breath. "In my driveway? What's wrong?" I glance at David who furrows his brow.
"I'm returning this brat to you." He clears his throat. "But you aren't fucking here."
I suck in my lips. Hearing him talk about her like that is a punch to the gut. "You weren't supposed to drop her off until tomorrow."
"Well, since you've obviously done everything you can to turn her against me, I thought I'd do everyone a favor and get this over with early. She's been crying about coming home since this morning."
I stand. "I'll be there in like ten minutes."