by Ev Bishop
Brian laughed. This wasn’t necessarily any less weird, but it would be nice to have an uncomplicated friendship for once. He gripped her hand obligingly and they shook on it. “Sounds like a plan. Nice to meet you, pal.”
Katelyn’s gray eyes warmed at his corniness, shining like slate kissed by the sun. Brian grinned back.
A throat cleared behind him. Jo was there, holding out a plate of buttery waffles. Brian hadn’t even noticed his sister-in-law had left and reappeared again. Where was his head?
Chapter 6
Katelyn wound the landline’s curly black cord around her wrist, then unwound it, then wound it again as she paced back and forth in the cabin’s small living room. Her lawyer Marilee’s next words made her heart thump so hard it physically hurt.
“You need to call Steve and let him know where you and the kids are, especially if he has some new bee in his bonnet. You don’t want to give him any further ammunition for his ludicrous ‘she’s trying to kidnap my children’ complaint.”
Katelyn tried to take a deep breath, then fixed her sight on Lacey and Sawyer playing outside the window on the lawn. They were throwing a yellow and blue ball for an old bristle brush of a dog, while Monster looked on with wary excitement, his whole body twitching. That worked. She felt calmer.
“No judge in the world will fall for that. The signed letter of permission might not give me a legal right to take my kids on a trip in the face of the existing court order, but it does show that Steve not only knew about my plan, he was fine with it.”
“I agree. He’s just tormenting you, but all the same, you need to keep your end of communications with him above reproach. No angry text responses. No bitter outbursts. Nothing that can be construed as argumentative or uncooperative or that makes it look like you’re trying to keep him from the kids.”
“I know, I know. We’re co-parenting. Some contact is inevitable. I get it, I do. It’s just . . . I find him really hard to deal with.”
Marilee sighed. “I know. And maybe that’s the silver lining here. When we go to court we can ask for an order specifying how he’s allowed to contact you, limiting him to text or e-mail, whichever you’re more comfortable with, but until we have a court order saying otherwise, you’re going to have to manage.”
Katelyn nodded and closed her eyes. The white-yellow rays coming through the narrow windows felt searing, not comforting. “He won’t really get it, will he? They won’t give him part custody. They can’t.”
Marilee sighed again and her voice grew forced, as if she didn’t want to speak, but had to. “Honestly, Katelyn, it’s so unusual nowadays to not have shared custody that barring some unbelievable event, I, well, I don’t want to falsely raise your hopes.”
“I . . . I understand. Thanks. I’ll call him now.”
Katelyn hung up without saying good-bye, keeping her eyes closed. It was pointless to rehash everything with Marilee who already knew—in ways that Katelyn was only just learning—how backwards and unfair the judicial system seemed. She knew this ultimate “respect” for both parents’ “rights” was intended to correct past wrongs—to make amends for when the courts had, perhaps, too easily and too quickly severed parental rights and separated families. But now it almost seemed like they protected adults over children. No, Steve had never hit Lacey or Sawyer. Yes, he’d always kept a roof over their heads and food in the fridge. But he’d sure as heck hit Katelyn—and worse, he’d controlled and ruled every moment of her and the kids’ everyday life. What kind of “unbelievable event” was needed? Did he have to actually kill Katelyn before they’d say, “Hey, maybe this guy shouldn’t be parenting?”
Because of things she’d been able to prove initially—his heavy drinking, drug use and a history of battery—she’d been granted full custody, but he had unsupervised overnight weekend access because he had not, or so his lawyer argued and the court had agreed, hurt his children or shown he’d be a threat to them. If anything, the reverse was true. He was invested and concerned about them to a fault. He’d also been more than cooperative about taking the court ordered anger management and domestic violence classes, bowing his head as if momentarily overcome when the judge issued the order, then lifting his chin and humbly expressing gratitude for the “help.”
And now, with enough time elapsed and enough smarmy assurances that he was “not the same man anymore,” that he fully understood the ramifications of his past actions, that he no longer used any type of drugs “recreationally” (his favorite defense), she’d been notified that he was petitioning the courts for a new shared custody agreement—and, whether she could fathom it or not, he might succeed, which meant he’d have them a minimum of forty percent of the time, maybe even fifty. That’s why she’d wanted to go on an extended visit to Janet’s, with the aim of getting an apartment and a job once she was there. She had hoped that being out of sight would put her out of his mind. She knew it made her a bad person to wish him on anyone else, but sometimes she prayed he’d find a new woman to fixate on, a new relationship to obsess over. Or that he’d die in a car accident or something. The kids would be sad, but maybe at the end of the day it would be . . . better.
“I just don’t get it. Why now? Why now?” she had moaned to Marilee when she’d first contacted her about the letter she’d received from Steve’s counsel two months earlier.
“He, as you know too well, doesn’t want to let you go. Since none of his other tactics have worked, he has decided that the work of taking care of his children half-time might be worth it because it’s the one thing you won’t be able to do: let them go. He probably thinks you’ll go back to him just so they’re not alone with him. Or that’s my best guess about whatever he’s thinking anyway.”
Katelyn agreed with her lawyer’s “best guess,” and she’d marveled at Steve’s canniness, though hadn’t been surprised by it. At one time, just the threat of him gaining custody would’ve worked, would’ve gotten her to try again. But no longer. Just like how she never wasted time (anymore) almost wishing he’d hurt her really badly, in some way that couldn’t be explained away, so the courts had to remove the kids from him and never risk putting them back with him. She had healed to a point where she knew she could successfully break herself and her kids free. She was playing a long game, yes, but she was playing to win. Eventually he’d grow tired or disinterested—or the kids would get to an age where they had the power to choose where they lived for themselves.
She chanted her mantra for strength under her breath, “Don’t quit, don’t give in, be yourself, believe in love.” Then she opened her eyes, walked to the living room’s bay window and tapped on the glass.
Lacey and Sawyer looked up. “I. Love. You,” she said in sign language, something Lacey had learned in school and taught both her and Sawyer. Her kids grinned, signed back, and returned to their tireless delight in playing fetch.
Katelyn called Steve.
Chapter 7
Brian felt sick with everything he’d seen the past hour or two and he wanted to talk to someone. Plus he needed to rip off the bandage and get calling his mom over with. Perhaps he could nail two birds with one stone. With that hopeful thought, he paced Jo and Callum’s living room, phone to ear, listening to his mother’s number ring.
“Hello?” Caren sounded vaguely confused, like she’d heard a noise but hadn’t quite figured out what it was.
Brian had been increasingly sure he’d be sent to voicemail, so he was startled when she answered and fumbled for something to say.
“Hello?” Caren repeated.
“Hey, Mom. It’s me. Brian.”
There was a pause, then Caren’s voice took on a bit more life. “Brian! Hello—took you long enough to call. You’ve been back a while now.”
Brian opened his mouth to object, but realized he couldn’t. She was right. He wanted to say, “Well, you know the old saying, time flies when you’re having a shitty time,” but what came out was, “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve been busy getting thin
gs sorted with the fire and everything.”
Caren inhaled sharply. “Yes, I was horrified by the news. It could’ve been worse though. Thank goodness you’re safe.”
That was very true, but Brian didn’t find it comforting. “Yeah . . . anyway, I’m just calling to say I missed you while I was gone. We should get together for a visit.” And also, phones work both ways.
“That would be lovely. I look forward to it—no hurry though. If you’re swamped with little details, I understand. I can wait.”
Brian lowered the phone from his ear, stared at it like it was an alien device, then lifted it back into place. “Okay, great. I thought maybe you’d be impatient to know my plans regarding your divorce proceedings or whatever.”
“Actually, I’ve been busy with work and haven’t let it distract me too much.”
Brian shook his head and wished he’d been able to be so nonchalant about it. “Look,” he blurted. “I totally support your decision, totally get why you want to end it, but I can’t represent you. I just can’t. He’s my dad, my dad and my boss.”
“And you feel it would be uncomfortable?”
There was another brief pause.
“Yes, Mom. I feel it would be ‘uncomfortable,’ to say the very least.”
“Oh, Brian, I’m sorry. I didn’t think . . . You should’ve said so from the very beginning—and you’re right, a visit is exactly what we need. How about lunch sometime next week?”
Brian nodded numbly. “Sounds great. Okay.”
“Good, we’ll talk more then. Meanwhile, do you need anything? A place to stay, money to tide you over?”
“No, no, I’m good.”
“Right then . . . just let me know if that changes.”
Brian couldn’t believe he’d been dumb enough to hope his mom would be a possible sounding board. He ended the Twilight Zone of a phone call and spent the rest of the morning trying to read, but for the first time ever, he couldn’t concentrate on a book. Next he wandered the various paths surrounding River’s Sigh, hoping to burn off his anger and malaise, but it didn’t work very well. What he needed was a run—but he simultaneously felt too drained to summon up the energy for that. Instead, he plunked down on a huge white rock near one of Jo’s perennial beds that lined a trail leading to the cabins furthest from the main house. The bed had been weeded and prepped for warm weather growth, too early and too optimistically. It was mostly cold dirt, with only odd bits of green poking through here and there.
Callum and Jo had left, thank God, for a bank appointment right around the time he’d returned from viewing his destroyed condo and called his mom, so he had a bit of time to try to process things and get a grip.
He pushed his fists into his eyes. He’d been sick with loss and dread ever since Callum gave him the bad news, but he’d still been unprepared for the shock of seeing the aftermath of the fire firsthand—which made him realize too late that a part of him hadn’t truly believed he’d lost everything. Now, though his brain still reeled, he knew better. He knew fully. Half the building was gone—the half that had housed his home. Just gone. The condos on the left side were opened up for the world to view, like an angry giant had slid an evil blade into the seam between the units’ outer wall and the burning hallway and cut everything away, drywall, insulation, framing and all.
The strangely revealed spaces were smoke and water damaged, but otherwise intact. One couch, bizarrely, had a book turned face down on its arm, like its reader had merely hopped up to grab a snack and would be right back. For some reason, that image really got to him.
Because of the ongoing investigation and probable structural damage, even the remaining units were off bounds, possibly forever. As he and the other displaced souls tread the outskirts of the safety tape barricade, he couldn’t imagine which was harder: knowing, as he did, that there was nothing left, or seeing a semblance of your home standing, as if waiting for you, but not knowing what, if anything at all, you’d be able to salvage.
When Brian overheard some officious looking person trying to calm an increasingly hysterical woman who he recognized as his neighbor from two doors down, he strode back to his jeep and left abruptly, feeling all too much like he might join her in falling apart.
His condo, his house, his home—totally destroyed. And the worst bit? That he couldn’t adequately explain to anyone how much it sucked because he’d always made such a big deal of being “footloose and fancy-free” to quote his dad, or “not in a hurry to grow up,” to quote his mom, which was mildly insulting. Good grief, he was thirty-years-old, had a career, and made good money. It wasn’t like he was living in her basement, smoking spliffs, and playing endless hours of video games. Even his brothers always made a big deal about his perpetually single status, asking him when he was going to get tied down instead of just tied up—har, har, har.
But what did his family expect? Of course, he’d never blathered on about how much he loved his place, enjoyed collecting things, and took pleasure in decorating—and not, as his old friend Dave would’ve said, just to create a good place to get laid. Privately, in his own head, as embarrassing as it was, he’d always considered his home a nest, this totally safe place where he could just . . . be.
Neon threads and lines waved against the black background of his mind’s eye. He’d find a new place, of course. And he had good insurance, so financially he’d make out all right. He was always careful with details like that. But it hurt. It hurt a lot. Especially coming as it did, so closely after accepting the hard truth about his parents. It made the loss feel cataclysmic.
That puzzled him too—the continuing extremity of his grief about his parents. But Callum’s latest words on the subject had triggered some clarity. Duncan and Caren were never going to get their act together or learn to love each other properly. Somehow, maybe because they’d hung in there and tried to make it work for so long, ending the marriage now made everything they’d suffered as a family seem extra pointless. It was almost like their divorce hurt more now that he was an adult and no longer expecting it. Maybe if they’d split when he was a teenager, he would’ve been like, “Dudes, so called it,” and just shrugged it off.
Abruptly, the yard quieted. Brian hadn’t even been aware of the birds calling and chattering around him until they suddenly weren’t. From the direction of the main house, a crunch of heavy tires on gravel broke the new silence. Simultaneously, from behind a row of towering cedars, came the sound of a cabin door opening.
Seconds later, Katelyn, oblivious to Brian’s presence, appeared from behind one of the big tree trunks. She stood on the path, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand, and stared toward the driveway.
The rumbling of the approaching vehicle grew louder. Katelyn moved in quick jerky steps toward the parking area. Something about her gait, as uneasy as the silent birds in the treetops, made Brian climb to his feet and follow her.
“Hey,” he said softly.
She looked startled, then gave a small nod and returned her focus to the driveway.
Just as they reached it together, a shiny red extended cab with all the bells and whistles rolled up and lurched to stop ignorantly close to Katelyn. She took a step back and gave no greeting to the large guy who climbed down from the driver’s seat. She stood to his mid chest, maybe, and he probably had a hundred pounds on her petite frame. If Brian hadn’t already guessed, the flint glinting in her eyes would’ve given it away. This was the ex.
As Brian made the connection, the guy noticed him. Something almost imperceptible changed in the way he was carrying himself. His shoulders softened and he shrugged a little, his head bobbing in a friendly manner. He stuck his hand out. “Hi, I’m Steve.”
Brian clasped the proffered hand and shook it warmly. “Nice to meet you. I’m Brian.” Inside his head, he muttered, You can’t play a player, Stevie-boy.
“So how do you know my wife, old friends or something? I sure appreciate you helping her out the other night. A real life saver.” Stev
e’s face was open and his tone was jovial and casual, but Brian didn’t miss how Katelyn inched another step back. Or how the idiot still referred to her as his wife. Any urge he had to be a smartass or give ol’ Steve something to be jealous of died before it was born.
He shook his head. “I dated a friend of hers back in high school. It’s a total fluke we met at the airport and were going to the same place.” Brian gestured at Jo and Callum’s house behind him. Steve’s eyes narrowed as he took in the home’s cobalt blue door, old-fashioned multi-paned windows and cedar sided charm.
Brian continued, “Well, she’s in a guest cottage, of course. This is my brother’s spread. I’m staying with him and my sister-in-law for a bit because my place burned down.”
Steve’s eyes widened and his head jerked a little. “Whoa, no shit? You had a condo in that building that went up in smoke?”
Brian couldn’t help but notice Steve’s voice carried more lurid curiosity than sympathy.
“If that was me, if it was my place that got torched?” Steve shook his head and let out a low whistle. “I’d find the little bastard responsible and make him pay. No one messes with what’s mine. You know what I mean?”
Brian nodded. He did know what Steve meant. Knew exactly.
Chapter 8
As the three of them walked toward Spring cabin together, Katelyn looked back and forth between Steve and Brian and listened to their small talk with growing distress. Stony resignation hardened in her stomach, weighing her down, squashing her voice, making her mute. Everyone bought Steve’s act. He could just seem so . . . down to earth, like such an everyday normal person. She wanted to scream. And weep. She knew his wide-eyed concern was an act. Steve didn’t care about what happened to anyone except in relation to how it affected him. In fact, he’d no doubt find some way to resent the condo fire because it had brought her into contact with Brian.