by Ev Bishop
Jo laughed. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that—and you’re in luck. I was just making a fire.”
“Perfect timing,” Callum agreed, rubbing his hands together. “It’s awful out there.”
“So that’s the reason you came over—because it’s awful out there?” Jo teased.
“Of course. What else would drive my motives?”
“No idea. None at all.” Jo wanted to kiss the cute smirk off his face.
Callum carried an armful of logs from the wood box by the entranceway into living room, and set them down by the stove with a satisfied grunt. “There. We should be good for the night.”
He glanced at the DVDs scattered across the coffee table. “You were going to watch a movie.”
“I was thinking of it.”
“Could we make popcorn?”
“We could.”
“I thought you’d never invite me!”
“Uh, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Details, details.”
Jo felt something so warm, happy and silly heat up her belly that she started laughing.
“Woman, what’s gotten into you now?” Callum asked, but she couldn’t answer. Smiling like he knew exactly what, he headed off to the kitchen.
Reappearing shortly with a big bowl of buttery popcorn, he settled beside her on the couch.
Jo leaned across Callum, grabbed the remote, and pressed play. Haunting intro music started. “It’s a scary one,” she warned.
“Good, then I can make you hold me and it won’t be flirting.”
Enough was enough. How long could she deny her feelings? “Oh, no, it will be flirting. I promise.” She looked down a moment, then brought her gaze up to meet his.
“In that case, I should tell you something,” he said in a somber tone.
Jo’s stomach flipped. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just, well, I’m already feeling kind of terrified.”
“Oh, you are, hey?” She was about to say something else, but the expression that suddenly crossed Callum’s face—all soft-eyed and half-smiling—made her inhale instead.
“Jo, before we watch the movie, seriously now, I do have to say something.”
“Okay . . .”
“I love being here with you. Everything about our times together and this place is . . . well, wonderful. Thank you.”
For a second, Jo was almost dizzy. And then she was perfectly calm. Perfectly sure. She’d been silly to hesitate. If he loved this place as much as she did, it was only right to share it.
“Callum . . . ”
“Yes?” he whispered.
“I, well, I was thinking today . . . and I agree.”
“You do? Well, that’s good.” He laughed softly. “Can I ask what you agree with?”
“Yes, of course—sorry. I’m just excited.” She shook her head to clear it. “I feel exactly the same way. I love having you here, too. This place—well, it’s just right somehow—like it’s already ours.”
Callum had been nodding and smiling, but his expression suddenly closed just a bit—though Jo didn’t notice right away, only realized it later, in hindsight, when she replayed the moment back and back and back.
“And well, I know you have money to invest in things—and that you like to.”
Callum’s face reddened. Excitement, she thought, misreading him so badly that she’d weep about it afterwards.
“There are various ways we could arrange it. We could do just a straightforward loan with a decent interest rate to make it worth your while, or you could buy shares—or,” she said, her heart beating so rapidly she could feel it in her throat, “you could . . . well, I thought . . . we could—”
On the TV, the movie’s storyline kicked in with a groan of thunder, a mighty crack of lightning, and the sound of a massive tree splintering. Jo jumped. Her hands flew to her mouth. Something was dreadfully wrong.
Callum bolted to his feet. His face was scarlet, his voice so quiet it was difficult to hear.
“That’s what this—” he gestured wildly around the room, “was all for? You and me, all this time . . .” His voice broke and when he spoke again, he was almost yelling. “It was about money? Hitting me up for cash for your make-work pipe dream?”
Jo just shook her head. She couldn’t find words. This couldn’t be happening. What had just happened? What was happening?
“She told me you were grubbing for money, but I said absolutely not—that you were never about the money. That was one thing I was always sure about.”
In the shadows of the TV world, someone started screaming and didn’t stop.
Jo found her voice. It was raspy and sore like she’d been the one wailing. “Get out. Now.”
Callum crossed the room in three angry strides, then stopped. Turned back. “You’re the one who’s pissed off in this scenario? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Jo leaped up too, her muscles tight to the point of being painful. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She swallowed hard. Clenched her fists. Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry. When she finally managed speech, her throat was hot and aching. “You don’t know me at all, do you?”
Callum stared at her, then suddenly went pale. “Wait—”
“Oh, that’s your favorite word, isn’t it? Wait. I waited for you before—and I’ve waited for you these past months, always giving you the benefit of the doubt when you were hot then cold, hot then cold. I’m not waiting anymore. I’m not waiting ever again. I was an idiot to think you’d change.”
He started as if jolted by an electric shock. “What are we talking about—then or now?”
“Now, then, if, when—everything’s connected.” Jo shook her head. “I keep wanting us to be different, to be ready for each other, but we’re not. And we never will be. You’re always going to be looking for an excuse to bail, and I’ll always be waiting for you to leave me again.”
“But—”
“No buts. Do you know how much I loved you, how I mourned you?” She rushed on before he could interject. “And the past few months, no matter how I fought it, I still loved you. And I wanted to tell you more than once—but a little part of me kept saying your favorite word—wait. Thank God I listened—well, until tonight anyway. Don’t worry. It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.”
He deflated. His shoulders slumped, and his limbs, rigid just seconds before, almost seemed to disjoint. She didn’t care and she didn’t feel pity.
“I, I—” he stuttered. “I thought, I mean . . . I’m sorry. I misunderstood.”
She pointed at the door. “I don’t care, and I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”
His eyes narrowed. “Of course you don’t. You never want to talk about anything uncomfortable.”
“I don’t? Thanks for the genius insight, Kettle.”
“Listen to me. Please.”
Jo settled her weight on one hip. “Fine.”
She let him bumble through another mumbled apology and jumbled explanation of what he’d thought she’d meant. She heard him out. No one could say she didn’t.
“Well, you’re right,” she finally interrupted. “I didn’t want your money.”
“Well, you did—just not in the gross, greedy way I, like an idiot, first thought.”
She snorted.
“And as for back then, that night . . . you can’t put that all on me. I got scared, yes, and maybe I should’ve talked to you in person, yes again, but—”
Maybe he should have done it in person instead of just not show up?
“You think?”
“Come on, Jo. It wasn’t all my fault.”
“It wasn’t?”
He shook his head, and his mouth opened again, but Jo waved him silent. Her stomach was nauseous with roiling anger and hurt.
“Enough, Callum.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “We had our chance. Maybe it’s natural to always wonder if things could’ve been different—but they weren’t and they aren’t. The only way to live is to
continue moving forward, finding new challenges, making new plans when old ones don’t work. It was a mistake for either of us to think we could have what we used to have back.”
“Don’t say that. That’s what you said about us screwing everything up and not getting married when we were kids, that it was for the best, but—”
“Yes, that is what I said, isn’t it? Interesting.”
“No, please—”
“Good-bye, Callum. Keep well.”
He made no move to leave, so she did.
In her bedroom, door firmly closed, she waited and waited—and finally heard a rustle of movement in the hall, then the exterior door click open and latch shut.
She listened to the night’s deep silence grow and grow, and her heart felt as stripped and bare as the boards beneath her feet. Callum was gone.
Chapter 21
Aisha walked to the sunny spot in the living room and spun slowly, like a model on a catwalk, then flicked her flat-ironed hair over her shoulder. “So, whaddya think?”
Her dad tilted his head, appraising her. “What did your friends think?”
Aisha rolled her eyes. “You can imagine, I’m sure.”
Kathleen had strolled right past her, not recognizing the preppy look Aisha sported. Jade had snorted in complete disagreement at Aisha’s defense that she was still herself, just “new and improved.”
“I just don’t see why you feel you need to change who you are to meet your birth mom. You were fine the way you were. I like your curls. I like your emo Teddy Bear shirts. They’re way less creepy than this Stepford wife look you’ve got on.”
Aisha snorted. “Most parents would be thrilled if their kid, especially their pregnant kid, started dressing more like a grown up and less like a ‘ghoul.’” (She’d actually had a teacher refer to her that way once—until he saw the essays she came up with and was forced to acknowledge she had a brain.)
Charles looked down at his own T-shirt and faded jeans and sighed. “Growing up shouldn’t mean turning into somebody else.”
“Even when you don’t like your old self? I’d love to grow into someone else.”
He sighed again, heavier. “Why don’t you at least let me take you? Why do you have to bus alone? You’re six months pregnant—and it’s winter for crying out loud.”
“Consider it my early-graduation present to myself.”
“So you’ve finished then?”
“Yep. Everything’s in, I’m just waiting on marks. It’s the only thing I did right considering. If I’d gotten knocked up even a month or two later, it would’ve been really hard to arrange the correspondence classes to work properly.”
“It’s not the only thing you’ve done right, sweetheart.”
The thin winter sun that had been lighting the floor where Aisha stood disappeared behind a cloud. The room went gray and the temperature cooled instantly. She shrugged.
Charles sank into his recliner. “Fine, take the bus trip, if you insist. But please, for the love of everything that’s still good in the world, stop wearing the god-awful pastels and matchy-match pants and shoes. You’re killing me and your mother would be beside herself.”
Aisha smiled at his “matchy-matchy” criticism because it was a line stolen directly from her lips. “Mom would love it. It would be a relief.”
“She absolutely would not, and it would not. She’d want you to keep being yourself, whatever that looked like, not wear a costume and try to be someone else.”
“Is that even true? I’ve always felt bad I went to the wild side when she got sick.”
Her dad shook his head. “No, she loved how zany and full of life you always were—skull jewelry, piercings and all. She wouldn’t want you to lose your nerve or edge because of one unexpected setback.”
Aisha studied her reflection the blank TV screen that took up one wall. The girl looking back at her was pretty in a tame pink lip-gloss sort of way, and she looked nice, not haughty or stuck up. Best of all, even with her no-doubt-about-it-baby-bump sticking out yay-far, she didn’t look like a screw up. But straightening her hair wasn’t going to straighten out her life, was it? And being pregnant wasn’t criminal. Just a blow to her pride, that’s all.
Aisha’s voice was a bit froggy. “Okay, okay. I admit—these shoes totally suck, and pink pants? Who invents these things? And you’re right about the trip, too.”
A small smile lifted her dad’s mouth, but it fell from his face at her next words. “I’ll wait till February. Right now, I’m still good to work. It’s dumb to leave when I can still take extra shifts.”
Her dad opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and only nodded.
Chapter 22
Pale rays of sunlight, if one could call it sun not just the absence of complete dark, crept through the slats of the blind above his desk. Callum turned on his desk lamp, but the small bulb wasn’t bright enough to dispel the gloom and shadows. He should have turned on the overhead light, but was too lazy.
He picked up his phone and listened to his messages—three. The first pertained to something he’d already dealt with, so he deleted it halfway through. The second required more energy than he had at the moment, so he saved it. The third? He hung up mid-listen.
“Ah, Nina, the gift that just keeps giving . . . or rather, trying to take,” he muttered, then raked his hand through his hair. It was time. Time to deal with Nina once and for all.
He got up, cracked his knuckles, and left his office. He was scared, but he was also, amazingly, calm. He couldn’t believe he was sticking to his decision to change aspects of his life, and of himself, that he didn’t like. That in and of itself was already a change. Before, he always chickened out.
Callum approached his father’s office at the end of the hallway and rapped sharply on one of the big oak doors.
“Come in,” his father commanded.
Callum complied, unsurprised that his father was there so early in the day. He’d inherited his insomnia from someone.
“What, you don’t call before coming?” From anyone else in the building, the comment would’ve been a joke. Not so with Duncan Archer. Callum didn’t know if his father could joke, actually. If he could, Callum had never heard him.
“We work in the same office, Da, come on.”
“You know I prefer being called Mr. Archer in the workplace, Callum.”
Like there were so many people around to hear them at 5:30 a.m. Callum almost said as much, but knew it would be pointless. Usually he just avoided calling his father anything in public—or in private.
“You’re in early,” Duncan said approvingly.
Like this was even slightly unusual.
“Yes.” Again, easier than saying what he was actually thinking. He wondered, with no small amount of self-disgust, if he was ever going to stop taking the easiest route, the path of least resistance.
Yes, yes, he was, dammit. Right now, in fact!
“I’m done. Da. Finished.”
“This again? Are you kidding me? Every couple of months you pull this Mary-boy routine. It’s time for you to grow up.”
“And by that you mean, be like you, right?”
Duncan’s square jaw relaxed into a smile, and laugh lines creased by his eyes. He almost looked good-natured if you didn’t know better. “Oh, that would be a terrible thing, eh? Successful. Powerful. A known name.”
“Known all right.”
Duncan shrugged off the insult and insinuation. “You could do a lot worse than ending up like your old man, boy.”
“Pulling the father/son card, really? And when we’re in the office.”
Duncan’s grin became a grimace.
But Callum wasn’t done punching. “It’s pretty easy to be the biggest fish when you’re in a small pond.”
“I’m assuming you came for an actual reason? If yes, get on with it. If it’s more prattle you’re after, call your mother.”
It was amazing how a person never got used to some things. How they
continued to hurt even after a spot was rubbed so raw you’d think there wasn’t a nerve left.
“Leave Mom out of this. I don’t know why she stays with you.”
“And that’s why you’re a shitty lawyer, Callum. You don’t understand what makes people tick. She hangs around for the same reason you’re standing here even though you’d rather be anywhere else.”
Callum lowered himself into a chair when his father said “standing here.” Duncan ignored him.
“Your mom talks a pretty line of lovely sounding gobbledygook but I write the checks. Big ones. How long do you think she’d last without my roof over her head? How do you think those paintings of hers would taste in lieu of groceries, or wrap around her shoulders instead of clothes?”
His roof. The guy acted like she was some impostor, not the woman who’d loved him, or at least put up with him, and raised his three sons.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
Duncan let the lie stand.
“Like I said, I’m finished here. For real. I’ll give you the house back to erase my debt, and since it’s worth more than I owe—”
Duncan made an irritated throat clearing sound.
“I’m asking you to pay the cash settlement Nina feels she’s entitled to and the courts agreed with.”
Duncan shook his head. “No, you brought that one to your bed. You finish kicking her out of it.”
Callum stood again, and Duncan lumbered to his feet as well, planted his hands on his desk and leaned forward, glaring. Callum felt about eleven. His dad could’ve been a pro-wrestler, probably still could be, actually. He still stood almost as tall as Callum, added years not affecting his spine or his deportment one whit, plus he had a good fifty pounds on Callum, all muscle, not fat.
“I’m sick of playing this little game every couple months. Are you serious about quitting this time? If yes, an interesting CV landed on my desk last week . . . someone I’d consider replacing you with.”
Callum tried his best not to show it, but he was surprised. A bit anyway.
“Write a letter of resignation. Give me four weeks of your time, if you can, and make sure you clear as many of your cases as possible, especially get rid of the two lunatic sisters. Waste of time—no money there. The old guy was smart enough to put it in both the girls’ names before he kicked, so court time isn’t necessary unless you’re stupid and can’t get that younger one to see sense and agree to sell and have a probate judge sign it off without a hearing.”