She stopped but didn't turn around. She couldn't bear to look at him, couldn't bear to look at what they'd done to each other with all their anger and pain.
"I'm a shit," he said softly. "I hear myself saying things I know will hurt you, and I can't seem to stop. But this thing with Kim, it's not about you and me anymore. You were right, it started that way. But then, she, um… Well, these last few days have been… Jesus." He couldn't meet her eyes. "Damnit, I'm in trouble here, Nicki, and I need to talk to you about it."
Oh, God. He actually loved the stripper. Nicole felt her heart grow very, very still.
"She's dancing tonight," George continued. "Her shift starts at ten-thirty. Can you come over about ten minutes after that?"
He wanted to tell her he and Kim were getting married. That's what this was about. "I'll have to check my schedule," she said, heading for the door, keeping her voice cool, professional, as if her last hopes for a reconciliation with the only man she'd ever loved hadn't just been swept away.
"This is important."
"I'm sure you think it is," she said, letting herself out of the one place she'd ever thought of as home.
Chapter Sixteen
Trust good old Marge to try to pretend the situation was completely normal.
Harry leaned against the porch railing, hands in his pockets, heart in his throat, unable to take his eyes off Emily.
She was sitting next to Marge, half hiding behind her aunt, silently staring at him as if he were the devil incarnate.
She was beautiful. She was still pretty tiny, but much of her babyness was gone. She was a little kid now, but, just as when she was a toddler, her default expression was fierce.
Her face was grubby, with clean streaks on it, made from recent tears. Very recent tears. She was still sniffling.
"It shouldn't be too hard to find an apartment this time of year," Marge was telling Allie. "There's a small college in town, and some of the students invariably don't return from spring break. The rest will be leaving next month, so the landlords who've got an empty place will be pretty desperate."
Harry gave Emily a tentative smile.
She retreated behind Marge's arm.
He knew it was too much to hope that she would leap into his arms, but this was ridiculous. Surely she hadn't forgotten him completely. Had she?
"Something tells me I'm going to need a job before I can find an apartment," Allie said. He was going to have to tell her to work on her voice. She enunciated too damn well. And the way she was sitting, so straight, with her legs crossed…
"What kind of work do you do?" Marge asked.
Harry glanced at his watch. "So what happened to Shaun?"
"Em, hon, run and see what's keeping your brother," Marge gently commanded the little girl.
"He said shit," Emily informed them. "And asshole." She looked at Harry as if to gauge his reaction. Or maybe to imply that he was one. Who could know with a kid that little?
He kept his face perfectly bland.
"Please go and get him," Marge told her.
"Is he in trouble?" Em asked, almost hopefully.
"No, he's not," Marge said with the kind of patience Harry himself had had at one time. "Just get him, please."
Em glanced back at Harry as she opened the screen door, letting it bang shut behind her.
He looked up to find Allie looking at him. She was unable to keep a smile from slipping out.
He would've smiled, too, but his stomach hurt too much. Emily probably didn't recognize him. There was nobody he could blame for that besides himself. He'd been gone for too long. Two years was an entire half of her life.
"I guess Shaun's your kid," Allie said.
"I don't know about that." He looked challengingly at his almost stepsister, gripping the railing behind him with both hands. "How 'bout it, Marge. Is Shaun still my kid?"
"I think you better ask Shaun that." Marge turned back to Allie, as if they were sitting together at a garden party. "I'm sorry, what is it you said you do?"
"Well, I—I'm not sure," Allie admitted. She looked at Harry, her concern for him clear in her eyes. "I'm kind of in a transition period, just getting out of a—a bad relationship. I'm afraid I don't have many skills, or education, and…" She forced a smile. "I guess I was thinking about some kind of retail sales. Or maybe waitressing…"
Jesus, what was taking Shaun so long? Didn't he care that Harry was here?
Allie was still watching him, aware that Marge's small talk was driving him mad. She put down her glass of lemonade and stood up, moving to stand next to him, slipping her hand into his, and squeezing it slightly.
So far this sucked. He didn't have to say the words aloud, he knew she saw it in his eyes.
She nodded slightly, holding his hand even tighter. She knew.
Marge knew, too, but the way she dealt with the tension was to play the scene as normal. And normal was making small talk with Allie.
"One of Shaun's friends' mom owns a company called Merry Maids," she said. "A housecleaning service. She's always looking for help. It's hard work, but the pay's much better than working retail or even waitressing. Most of the waitressing jobs are over by the college, and believe me, students don't tip well. I'm a professor at the college, in case Harry didn't tell you."
"Housecleaning, huh?" Harry laughed. The absurdity of Alessandra Lamont cleaning other people's houses for a living cut through his misery, and he glanced at Allie, expecting to see her amused at the idea as well.
Instead, she was nodding at Marge. "Actually, no." she said, clearly as much a pro at small talk as the other woman. "He said you were a writer."
"It's possible he didn't know," Marge replied. "I just got the teaching position last September. Of course, it has been nearly an entire school year."
"The name of that company looking to hire people was Merry Maids?" Allie asked, perhaps purposely trying to steer the conversation away from that barely disguised dig Marge had gotten in.
"You can't be serious," Harry cut in.
She looked at him, her eyes the exact same shade of blue as the sky. "Why not? I need a job. I have no money, Harry. I've got to do something."
"But cleaning houses?" He laughed. "I don't know, Al. You haven't even really seen the town. How do you know you even want to stay ?"
"I thought the plan was for me to stay," she said quietly. "I know you have to leave soon, but—"
"You have to leave soon? Now why isn't that a surprise."
The kid who pushed open the screen door was nearly as tall as he was. Harry stared, and it took several long seconds for the fact to register. Shaun. This gangly teenager with the changing voice was Shaun.
Emily slipped back onto the swing, next to Marge, her eyes large and accusing.
Harry was speechless.
Shaun was not.
"Well, hey, Harry, how are you?" the kid said, his almost too-handsome face twisted in an expression of hostility, his green eyes—so much like Sonya's—hard behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Instead of holding out his hand to shake, he crossed his arms, purposely burying his hands in his armpits. "Nice of you to drop by." He made a big show of looking at his watch. "But, oh, gee, don't let me keep you. You've already been here for ten minutes—that's at least twice as long as you stayed the last time you came to visit. See you in a year, Dad."
He turned and walked away, down the porch steps.
Harry felt like throwing up. He deserved Shaun's fury. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I know I've made some mistakes in the past few years, but if you walk away from me, we don't have a prayer of dealing with any of it."
Shaun spun back to face him. "Some mistakes? You've made a shitload of mistakes—one for every goddamn day you weren't here—"
"Shaun, you will not speak to your father that way." Marge's voice rang with quiet authority. "Not around Emily, not around me."
The boy instantly fell silent, but he clearly had plenty more to say.
"Let him speak," Harry said.
&nb
sp; "Not that way," Marge countered sternly. "Shaun, keep it clean or keep your mouth closed."
Harry's temper sparked. "I can deal with my own kid, thank you very much."
"Can you really, Harry?"
"Is that what this is all about?" he asked, mad as hell and wishing that Marge weren't looking at him with such concern, such gentleness, such goddamned love in her eyes. How could she love him—and still want to take his kids away from him? "You don't think I can handle my kids anymore so you want legal custody?" Allie put her hand on his arm, her fingers cool against the heat of his skin. He shook her off. "What is wrong with you? How the hell could you do this, Marge?"
"It was my idea."
Harry turned and stared at his son. His idea?
Shaun's smile was bitter. "Aunt Marge tried to talk me out of it. I would have filed the petition for the name change six months ago, but she told me to wait, to talk to you first. But you didn't seem to want to talk to me, so…" He shrugged. "I went to see the lawyers on my own."
"Name change?" Harry repeated stupidly. "You want to change your name?"
"Emily doesn't even know her real name is O'Dell. We've been Shaun and Em Novick for so long, I figured we might as well make it legal. But the lawyers told me they couldn't file anything for me without your permission. That's when the issue of custody came up. I was told that even though I'm a minor, I could sue for transfer of custody, based on abandonment."
"Abandonment." Harry couldn't breathe. It wasn't Marge who'd filed those papers. It was Shaun. His own son.
"Ugly word, isn't it, Harry?" Shaun's eyes glinted with contempt. "But it pretty much describes the situation, doesn't it? Unless you've got a better word for being gone for two years."
Harry couldn't speak. What could he say? Behind him, on the swing, Emily had quietly started to cry. Her muffled sobs were an appropriate soundtrack to this scene as he stared into Shaun's unforgiving face.
"I'm—I'm sorry," he finally said, his voice little more than a whisper.
"Oh, that makes it all better," Shaun said sarcastically.
"Shaun, I don't know—"
"I do," his son told him. "I know it's too late. I know I don't want to be an O'Dell anymore. And I know I don't want you to be my father."
Too late. Despite what Allie had told him, Harry had come too late.
"So just go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and leave me and Em alone. We're better off without you."
We're better off without you.
It was the final knife blade to his already damaged heart. It was a truth Harry couldn't deny. They were better off without him, in every possible way.
He looked around, at the paint that was starting to peel on the railing. At the painful blue of the perfect spring sky. At Marge, holding Emily close, head down as they sat motionless together on the porch swing. At Allie, her face ashen, her eyes enormous in her face as she waited to see what he was going to say, what he was going to do.
There was nothing he could do. It was too late.
He walked down the stairs, past the hardened set of Shaun's face, down the path to the street, where the car was parked. He'd left the doors unlocked—in this part of town, it wasn't necessary to lock. He'd made sure of that before he'd bought Marge this house two years ago.
He took his pack from the backseat and opened the front zipper pocket, took out the custody papers, unfolded them, and signed his name on the dotted line.
"Harry." Allie started toward him, complete dismay in her eyes.
He tossed the signed papers down onto the front walk. "I'm gone," he said.
Neither Shaun, Marge, or Emily moved. All three of them could've been statues, they stayed so completely still.
Allie, on the other hand, was bearing down on him like a freight train.
He climbed into the car and started the engine, hoping he could put it into gear and pull away before she got in. Christ, he might as well leave her behind here, too.
But he wasn't fast enough, and she threw herself into the car a fraction of a second before he jammed his foot on the gas.
He pealed out, leaving huge streaks of rubber on the street behind him, wanting only to get away.
"Lord, Harry!" Alessandra was thrown hard against him. She scrambled to get back into her seat, to get her seat belt fastened. "How could you do this?" She waved the custody papers she'd grabbed off the ground. "How could you just sign away your children?"
Harry didn't answer her. He just pushed the car into higher gear, moving dangerously fast on the residential streets.
"Harry, dammit, slow down!"
He didn't look at her, didn't slow down, didn't do anything but glare at the road, his eyes hard, his mouth a grim gash in his angry face.
"So that's it, then?" she asked. "You sign the papers, walk away, and don't look back?"
"That's right."
"I can't believe you're just going to give up without a fight!"
"Believe it." He took a hard left onto a main road and the back tires skidded, squealing noisily. Instead of slowing down, he pushed it even harder, taking the curves much too fast.
"Harry, please. The speed limit here is—"
"If you don't like it, you can get the fuck out of the car."
He skidded into the oncoming lane as they went around a curve, and a truck swerved wildly, going past them with its horn blaring.
"That's enough!" Alessandra shouted, furious at him for risking her life, furious at herself for thinking she could make him listen, that he would even care to listen.
"Stop this car right now! You can kill yourself if you want, but I want to live!"
If there was one thing she'd learned over the past few weeks, it was that she did truly, absolutely want to live.
Harry swerved into the parking lot of a restaurant on the side of the hill, skidding to a stop in the gravel. He stared straight ahead through the windshield, the muscles jumping in the side of his jaw. "You don't like the way I drive, like I said, get out."
He was ditching her. Just like that, he was going to leave her behind as surely as he'd left his own children.
"How can you do this?" Alessandra asked, her voice shaking. "How can you just walk away from your family?" How could he walk away from her, from what they'd just started? "How could you have spent two years—two years, Harry—away from those beautiful children, to work at a job I know you hate? Didn't you look at them back there? Didn't you realize how special they are? Do you even know how brave and strong Shaun had to be to stand up to you that way? Did you even look into Emily's eyes and see how badly she wanted you to just grab her and hug her? What is wrong with you?"
She was crying now. She couldn't keep herself from crying. "How can you not see that those kids should be at the absolute top of your priority list? God, I would sell my soul to the devil to have a child, and you've got two that you're willing to give away. Fight for them, Harry! How can you not fight for them? You've fought so hard and so long to avenge your dead son, yet you'll do nothing for your children who are still alive! You've got so much, but you don't see it. You only focus on what you don't have. I've got no one, I've got nothing—right now I literally have nothing—but you know what? I've still got more than you do, because I have hope. I look to the future, and I see the possibility of better things. I dream of better things. You've got those better things right there in your hands, and you're just throwing them away to chase ghosts from your past."
She only stopped to take a breath, ready to keep going. She was willing to talk until her face turned blue if she could only make him see what an awful mistake he was making.
But he cut her off. "What do you know about loss?" He turned and looked at her, and she saw a maelstrom of pain and anger in his eyes. "How dare you sit there and pretend to know what it feels like to have your child die?"
"You're right," she whispered. "I don't know anything about it. But I do know that I would make sure that losing one didn't mean I lost all three. I would mak
e sure it didn't mean I'd spend the rest of my life throwing away everything—and everyone—good that came along."
Harry laughed harshly. "Hey, you were good, sweetheart, but you weren't that good."
She recoiled as if he had hit her.
Harry didn't know why his words should upset her so much—she'd just told him she had no one and nothing in her life, so she herself clearly didn't consider last night to be anything special or Harry to be someone who mattered.
She opened the door and as soon as she did, Harry knew without a doubt that, despite everything he'd just said, the dead-last thing he wanted right now was for her to get out of his car.
But it was too late for apologies, too late to halt the anger-tinged words that spilled out of him.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Go back there and make Shaun accept my apologies? You heard what he said. Sorry's not good enough."
She searched her pockets for a tissue and came up empty. "So find out what is good enough." Her voice was quiet, as if that nasty lie he'd said about her not being that good had taken some of the fight out of her. "Get counseling. It'll hurt, and it'll take time, and it'll be much, much, harder than quitting, but my God, you'll walk away from it with your family intact instead of shattered like this!" She gave up and wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
He couldn't meet her gaze. "Yeah, maybe after I bring down Trotta—"
She got mad all over again, her voice rising. "And after Trotta, it'll be someone else, some other bad guy who might've been in the room, who might've known something about the conspiracy that ended up killing Kevin! When are you going to stop?"
"Allie, I need to get this guy."
She nearly spat at him. "Yes, I'm aware of how badly you need to get him. I was nearly a casualty of your last attempt. Now you're willing to sacrifice your family. Why that should surprise me, I don't know. I guess I just never learn. You know, at this point, it wouldn't surprise me at all if I found out you'd set me up for another hit in an attempt to catch Trotta again."
"I wouldn't do that. I promised you—"
"What about your promises to your children? Just by bringing them into this world, you made promises to hem that you're not keeping."
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