“Let’s leave Olive out of this,” I said.
But Aaron called for her again. “Downstairs, now!”
From above, Olive mumbled, “Okay, okay.”
“Why did you lie to Olive about her mother?” I asked him. “Why did you lie to me? Why would you tell us she was dead?”
He studied my face a moment, then nodded sideways at Nathan. “I’m not talking about this with him here.”
“I’m staying,” Nathan said.
“This is a family matter,” Aaron said, turning to him.
A private matter, my mother always said of her battles with my father. A family matter. We don’t talk about family matters outside this house. I didn’t want Nathan watching this family drama either. It was embarrassing, and threatened to reveal too much about my life, to both men.
Evie took an interest in the Tiffany lamp, and I scooped her up. “Maybe you should go,” I said to Nathan. “We’ll be fine, really.”
“Seriously?”
I felt Aaron’s eyes on me, gauging my interaction with Nathan, and lowered my voice. “Your presence here is only complicating things.”
Aaron held out his hand, gesturing for Nathan to leave, but Nathan puffed out his chest and stood his ground. Buddy barked and Nathan did nothing to quiet him. For a tense moment I thought the two men were about to launch into a fist fight. I pictured this for a fraction of a second, with some satisfaction. Burly Nathan whaling on wiry Aaron in his Armani suit. Who would win? Aaron, of course. He would press assault charges and tie Nathan up with legal fees.
I held Evie closer to my chest. “Please,” I said to Nathan. “Just go.”
Nathan shifted his gaze from Aaron to me, his eyes watering. Then the expression on his face changed from anger to resignation, and he pressed his lips together. “All right,” he said, nodding slowly. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He walked to the stairwell, with Buddy following, then looked back at me and said, “If you need me, I’ll be here.” He glanced at Aaron briefly before adding, “I’ll always be here for you, Kira.”
As he slammed the door behind him, I pressed my hand to the pocket in my yoga pants, to the letter hidden there. Maybe not always, I thought. Maybe there were some betrayals our old friendship couldn’t survive.
28
As soon as Nathan was gone, Aaron turned his anger on me. “How dare you bring some stranger into our family business!”
A shower of his spittle sprayed between us, and I stepped back. I tried to sound calm, keeping my eyes on his Adam’s apple as I couldn’t look him in the eye. He had a nearly day-old beard on him, something I’d rarely seen. He usually shaved even on Sunday mornings. “Nathan is not a stranger,” I said. “Not to me.” I swallowed.
“I can see that,” he said, flipping his suit jacket back to put his hands to his narrow hips. “You want to tell me about him?”
“There’s not much to tell,” I said, my voice breaking a little. “I’ve known him and his mom since I was a kid.”
“He seems very protective of you. Possessive of you, I should say.”
“As I said, he’s an old friend.”
“An old lover, you mean.”
Evie began to whine, pulling away from us both, and I lowered my voice as Olive made her way down the stairs. “Is now really the time for this?” I asked.
“He is an old lover,” Aaron said.
I paused. “From years ago,” I said quietly. Not quite lying. “When we were in our teens.”
“Are you still lovers?” he asked, hovering over me. “Is that why you keep coming up here?”
Evie whined again, twisting her body away from him. I glanced over his shoulder at Olive, who now watched us from the stairwell, then looked back at Aaron. His neck had started to blotch, like it did when he drank red wine, in big red hives. The blotches moved up his neck and into his cheeks as if some invisible creature with suction cups were climbing up his face.
“Do you still love him?” Aaron asked.
“No,” I said. “We’re over.” I had no idea if I was telling the truth. I’d come here to tell Nathan it was over, but so much had happened since then. I knew which answer Aaron needed to hear, though, if this conversation was going to be about Madison and Sarah, and not about Nathan and me.
“You don’t sound very convincing,” he said. He lifted his hand and for an instant I thought he might slap me, with my baby still in my arms. But then he caressed my cheek and kissed me, first on the cheek and then, ever so gently, in the way that until this day I adored, full on the mouth. His timing was so off, so strange, that the kiss felt less like a show of affection and more like a territorial display. “We’ll talk more about this later,” he said, as Olive’s footsteps approached. He said it gently, but I knew it was a threat. “Now, where are Madison and Vicki?”
For a fraction of a second, I wondered who he was talking about. Then I remembered: he meant Sarah.
Behind him, Olive shook her head slightly, warning me not to tell him. Wearing no makeup, and with dark shadows under her eyes, she looked exhausted. She had dressed in fresh white joggers and a blue T-shirt, but her hair was a rat’s nest from going to bed with it wet after her hot shower.
“I don’t know where they are,” I told Aaron, lying. They were likely still sleeping in the hunt camp cabin. “I imagine they’re back in Toronto by now.”
Olive interrupted us, crossing her arms. “Why did you tell me my mother was dead?”
Aaron, standing between us, looked from Olive to me and back again. “Vicki was—is—a very sick woman.”
“She’s an addict, Dad.”
“Yes, exactly. I didn’t want you pulled into her ugly world. I knew she would only hurt you.”
Olive held her palm out, as if asking for her allowance. “So, what? You tell me she’s dead ?”
“She left us, Olive.” Aaron’s voice clotted, thick with emotion. “I didn’t want you to think your own mother had deserted you—” He put a hand to his chest. “The way my mother abandoned me. I knew exactly what that would do to you.”
I shifted from foot to foot to keep Evie quiet. “But telling Olive her mother was dead—”
Aaron turned to me. “Look, Vicki chose drugs over me, over her own daughter. She chose to leave us, to live in a stinking van on the streets. She chose that, that life, over one with me.”
“So you were punishing her,” I said.
He eyed me for a long moment, shaking his head slowly. But we both knew it was true.
Olive took her father’s arm, turning him in her direction. “You’re always telling me how terrible Maddy is, that she lies.” She poked a finger into his lapel, the carefully folded silk handkerchief there. “But you’re the liar,” she said, her voice rising with indignation. “You told me my mom was dead so I wouldn’t see her.”
“Olive, we’ve been through this. Madison is the one who has been manipulating you. She lies. She lies because she’s desperate to keep you in her life. More than that, she wants you to herself. She wants me out of your life.” Aaron held out a hand to me. “Kira, help me out here.”
Evie, unsettled by the raised voices, leaned away from me and reached for the floor, asking to be let down. I put her down and, as she crawled to the couch, chose my words carefully. “Aaron, I think you were afraid when Olive said she wanted to live with Maddy, afraid of losing her.”
“It’s Maddy now, is it?” he said. “All of a sudden you’re friends?”
I chose to ignore that. “I think that because you were afraid, you were willing to say anything, do anything to make sure Olive would stay with us.”
“So you think I lied.” Aaron scrubbed his hands back and forth through his hair in a gesture of frustration, leaving it ruffled. “Christ, I can’t believe this,” he said. “I drove all the way from Ottawa, overnight, to straighten this mess out for you. And here you are, questioning me, doubting my word, defending Madison—”
Olive jabbed a finger at her father. “You lied, Dad. You l
ied about my mom.” She crossed her arms. “You lied about a lot of things.”
“What do you mean by that?” When her gaze slid to the floor, he gripped her upper arm. “I said, what do you mean by that? What else did Vicki tell you?”
“Aaron!” I said, pulling him back, but he threw my hands off. He didn’t let go of Olive.
“What did she tell you?” he roared.
Olive, scared, shook her head rapidly. I knew that look. She was about to lose it. Aaron was about to lose it.
“Aaron, stop this, right now.”
He turned to me, rage, or fear, darkening his face, but then he let her go. Olive rubbed her arm as she sat on the couch. She put Evie on her lap, facing out toward the room, and hugged her as if my baby was a teddy bear.
I took Olive’s place in front of Aaron, scrutinizing him.
“What?” he asked, smiling a little, as if to say, What are you looking at?
“Aaron, did you hurt Madison and Sarah?”
“What?”
“Did you hit them, or attempt to strangle them?”
Aaron put his hands on his hips. I could smell his anxiety. He was usually so clean and groomed that I rarely smelled real body odor on him. “Madison has been making up that kind of shit for weeks now, trying to get custody. You know that.”
“Yes, but Sarah said you hurt her too.”
“Vicki, you mean.” Aaron threw up both hands. “And of course she did. Madison sought her out, likely paid her off, for exactly that purpose. Please, please tell me you don’t believe them.”
When I didn’t immediately answer, he looked to Olive. She hid behind Evie, who clapped, and Aaron’s handsome, aristocratic face crumpled into ugly grief as he sank to an armchair and cradled his head in his hands. “You do believe them,” he said. “God, that woman is bent on destroying me. They both are.”
“No, Aaron—” I started, but of course, Madison had got to me. So had Sarah.
I put my hand on his shoulder as I considered what to say next. From this angle I could see the small circle of shine beneath Aaron’s hair where he had started to bald. He had always been so vain about his hair, spending a good half hour on it each morning. But now his hair was mussed, that bald spot making him seem so vulnerable. He started to cry, his shoulders shaking, and the anger and doubt I’d carried with me since the night before began to drain away. Maybe Madison was lying after all. Maybe she was using Sarah, and those allegations of abuse, to get full custody of Olive. Maybe she was using me. And I was playing right into it.
“Aaron, I’m so sorry—” I started.
But Olive interrupted. “What was the accident that Sarah had? Why did she leave us?”
Evie laughed a little as Olive bounced her on her knee. Or perhaps Olive’s knees were bouncing of their own accord, as they often did when she was anxious.
Aaron’s face flashed with pain. “She told you about that?”
“She said there was an accident and she had to leave to keep me safe.”
Aaron ran a hand across his mouth. “You nearly drowned. You were really little. Vicki got stoned out of her mind with some asshole she was screwing inside my house, neglected you and allowed you to wander into our pool. I was away on a business trip. You could have died.”
Olive was shocked. “It was me? I had the accident?”
He kept his eyes on his daughter. “Olive, Vicki’s addiction, her illness, makes her dangerous. She wasn’t watching you that day. She was a neglectful parent, and then she simply left us. That’s why I told you she was dead. I thought it would be easier than knowing she had abandoned you. You don’t need a person like that in your life.”
“Aaron, I understand your anger, but it’s so far in the past now,” I said. Evie was reaching for the lamp again. I took her from Olive. “Sarah has been working hard to recover from her addiction. She wants to reconnect with her daughter.” I glanced at Olive. “If Olive wants to see her mom, why not just let her?”
“No!” he said. “It’s my job to keep Olive safe. I won’t allow my daughter to spend any time with that woman.”
“You may not have a choice,” I said. “Sarah is Olive’s mother.”
“She doesn’t have custody,” he said. “I made sure of that.”
“But she must still have access,” I said. “Or be able to get access. And I imagine, now that she’s clean, she’ll pull it together and try for joint custody.”
“She walked out of Olive’s life years ago; she doesn’t get to share it now. I’ll fight her, and I’ll win, just like I did before.”
“Just like you’ll fight Maddy?” Olive asked. She stood. “You’re going to take Maddy away from me too, aren’t you? Just like you took Sarah.”
“Olive, you don’t understand—you have Kira now. We’re a family.”
“For god’s sake, Aaron, think about what you’re saying here. Olive needs a relationship with Sarah and Maddy as well as with you.” I clutched his arm. “Tell me you’re not going to force her to make a choice, the way my mother did. Please tell me you’re not that kind of person.”
Aaron threw me off and I stumbled back, nearly losing my grip on Evie. Shocked, she burst into tears.
Olive, protective of Evie, pushed Aaron in the chest. “You are an asshole, just like Maddy and Sarah said!” she cried. “I hate you! I fucking hate you!” She pushed him a second time. “I don’t want to live with you. I never want to live with you!”
Aaron’s eyes narrowed as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “You little bitch,” he said, and he slapped his daughter’s face, hard. It was a practiced move, no hesitation, no clumsiness, controlled and purposeful. The room shifted as if I were standing on the edge of a sand dune and the waves kicked up by a storm were washing my foothold away. I was certain then that Madison had been telling the truth about Aaron all along.
29
Olive held her face as tears welled up in her eyes. Aaron’s slap had left a large red mark on her cheek. “You hit me,” she said, as if even now she couldn’t believe it.
Evie sobbed in my arms, and I held her closer. “Aaron!” I cried.
Aaron, jarred by my voice, looked momentarily confused. He had been lost in his rage, but now his expression shifted as he realized he had given himself away. “I’m sorry,” he said to Olive. He closed his eyes a moment, as if trying to regain control of himself. “What you said—it was like Madison was talking. I just—I just reacted. You know a little of my history with my father, how he hit me. Sometimes, when I’m tired and stressed, it’s like the ghost of my father possesses me, takes over.”
“And how many times did you slap Madison like that?” I asked. How many times would he slap me, or Olive, or Evie?
Aaron eyed me, his face red, sweat on his brow, but didn’t answer.
“I’m moving back in with Maddy,” Olive said.
He shook his head. “Oh, no, you’re not.”
“The social worker will listen to me, put what I want in her assessment. She gives that to the judge, right? If I want to live with Maddy, I can.”
“Who told you that?”
“Maddy.”
“Olive, I’m your father and I have custody. Maddy is only a stepmother.”
“No, that’s not how it works. She’s been my mother for years, since I was little. She has rights. She can get custody too.”
“You have no idea how family court works.”
“When I tell the social worker you hit me, she’ll let me live with Maddy for sure.”
“What did you say?” he asked, his jaw clenching. But he wasn’t asking her to repeat herself. It was a threat, a command to keep her mouth shut.
I shook my head at Olive, warning her off. But she was pissed. “I don’t want to live with you ever again,” she said. “I’m going to tell the social worker I want to live with Maddy, and that you hurt me and Madison and Sarah. Everybody is going to know.”
“You’re threatening me?” Aaron’s face took on the explosive pu
rple hue of fighters or heavy drinkers as he clenched and unclenched his fists. It made him look like another man entirely. I needed to get the girls away from him.
“Aaron, she’s not threatening you, she’s just upset,” I said, trying to placate him, but it looked like he barely heard me. I could tell he was building to another outburst.
“We need to leave,” I told Olive quietly. Still carrying Evie, I picked up my bag from the coffee table and slung it over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
But Aaron blocked our way to the door and flashed me a charming smile. “Kira, this has nothing to do with you and me. We can talk about this. Alone. Without Olive spying on us for Madison.” He held out his hand to Olive. “Give me your phone.”
“Why?” Olive asked.
“Just give it to me!” Aaron roared.
“No,” Olive said. But Aaron banged a fist against the wall and Olive slid the phone from her pocket and handed it to him.
“No one leaves me,” he said. “Do you understand me? No one.”
I held out an arm to protect Olive as I backed us away from Aaron. “Go to the kitchen door,” I told her. “Now.”
As she turned, Aaron shoved me out of the way and grabbed Olive’s upper arm so one of her shoulders was lifted at an awkward, uncomfortable angle. “Is there a basement in this place?” Aaron asked me, calmly, sanely, as if he were only asking where the bathroom was.
I shook my head as I thought of the trapdoor on the floor of the laundry room, the stairs below it leading down into a spider-infested dirt-floor cellar where an old cistern still held water. I hadn’t been down there in years. It had been the setting of many childhood nightmares.
“There’s always a basement in these old houses,” Aaron said, hauling Olive along by the arm like a TV cop apprehending a criminal. You’re coming with me. “Let’s go find it.”
Olive shrieked, “No, Daddy!”
The Almost Wife Page 17