Starting Over (Treading Water Trilogy)

by Force, Marie

  Daphne rolled her eyes. “The pampered princess will only eat it without the crusts.”

  “So I discovered.” He kissed the top of Mike’s head. “I’ll be out for a while today, but I’ll check on you when I get back, okay, squirt?”

  “Okay.”

  He held out a hand to Daphne, and she walked him to the door.

  “Not a morning person, huh?” he whispered in her ear as he put his arms around her.

  She snuggled into his embrace. “Not usually, but I could get used to this.”

  He tilted her chin and kissed her. “That would be fine with me.”

  She ran a lazy finger over the stubble that had fascinated her daughter. “I’ll see you later?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  After his AA meeting and coffee with Joe, Brandon called Alan. They’d spoken a few times by phone but hadn’t seen each other since Brandon’s last day of rehab.

  “Hey, Brandon, nice to hear from you. What’s going on?”

  “I was wondering if you might have a few minutes free today. I need some legal advice.”

  “You’re not in any trouble, are you?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. Since it’s Good Friday, my office is closed, so I’m just catching up on some paperwork. Come on over.” He gave Brandon directions to his office in Dennis on Cape Cod’s north shore.

  “I’m in Harwich, so I’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” Brandon said.

  Arriving at the office, he saw a sign for Alan St. John, attorney at law, and realized his days of anonymity with Alan were over.

  Alan waited for him in the reception area.

  “You’re looking well, Brandon,” Alan said as they shook hands.

  “Thanks. How’re you?”

  “Busy as hell, but it keeps me out of trouble.” He led Brandon into his spacious office and gestured for him to have a seat on the sofa. “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Alan poured himself a cup and sat down across from Brandon. “What can I do for you?”

  “If I tell you something when I’m not technically your client, it’s still confidential, right?”

  “Of course. You have my word, Brandon. Nothing we talk about will leave this room unless it’s something I’m legally required to report.”

  “I have this friend. She’s a single mom with an adorable five-year-old daughter.”

  Alan raised an eyebrow. “New friends?”

  “Yes.” Brandon knew what Alan was thinking in terms of his recovery. Joe had lectured him again on the subject that morning over coffee. Without naming names, Brandon outlined Daphne’s situation to Alan.

  “Hmm.” Alan scratched his chin as he pondered it. “So she’s had no contact with the grandparents in five years?”

  “No,” Brandon said. “Tell me she has rights, Alan. They can’t just take her kid away from her, no matter who they are, can they?”

  “They’d be hard-pressed to find a judge who’d give them custody. They’d have to prove she was unfit, and it sounds as if they’d have a hard time doing that. But these days, the courts are recognizing that grandparents have rights, too. The fact that she’s denied them access to the child for all these years might be a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “They’d probably get visitation, at the very least.”

  “She doesn’t want them in her daughter’s life at all.”

  “Then she’ll have to decide if it’s worth it to continue living the way she is now.”

  “She’d say it’s worth it,” Brandon said with dejection. “She blames them for her husband’s suicide and fears her daughter would get sucked into their world if she gives them an inch. She didn’t come right out and say this, but I also got the sense the father-in-law is crooked and pays people off to get what he wants.”

  “I hate to say it, but it does happen—not often, fortunately. Let me run this by a family court judge I know and get his handle on it. Why don’t you bring them out to the house for dinner one night this week? Her daughter can play with my girls, and we can hash it out.”

  “That’d be great, Alan. I appreciate your help. Send me the bill for your time.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m happy to help. Why don’t we see what we can do to get your friend out of this mess?”

  Brandon sighed with relief. He’d come to the right place. “Thank you.”

  “So she’s just a friend, huh? The mom?”

  “Um, well…”

  Alan laughed at Brandon’s befuddlement. “I’m sure you’ve already been read the riot act by your sponsor for getting involved with someone so soon, so I won’t add to the chorus. But I hope you’re being careful.”

  “Don’t worry,” Brandon said. “I know what’s at stake—for all of us.”

  “I’ll talk to the judge, and I’ll call you to set something up for next week.”

  “Thanks again, Alan.”

  Brandon left Alan’s office and drove to Foster’s in Harwich where he spent half an hour trying to decide which of the fifty different playground setups would be best for Mike. Since she wasn’t even six yet, he rejected the one with the rock-climbing wall in favor of a tree house, two slides, three swings, and monkey bars. Thirty-five hundred dollars later, there were four huge boxes stacked in the back of his truck. For an additional five hundred dollars, Foster’s would’ve sent some guys over to put it together for him. Brandon scoffed at that. He had a civil engineering degree from Notre Dame, for Christ’s sake. If he couldn’t do it himself, who could?

  He hit a bump, and the million pieces inside the boxes rattled and clanked in the truck bed. “Gives new meaning to the phrase ‘some assembly required,’” he mumbled to himself on the way back to Chatham. “Maybe I should’ve coughed up the five hundred extra bucks.”

  He’d spent several hours one night recently going over his financial situation, and when he was done, one thing was clear—he’d blown through a shitload of money in the last few years, most of it on booze. The two hundred fifty thousand dollars Aidan had given to his parents and each of his siblings after Sarah died was long gone—the first half of Brandon’s share went toward buying and renovating the house he bought with Valerie. Most of the second half was used to buy her out when they broke up. Brandon hadn’t wanted the money from Aidan in the first place and relented only when Aidan insisted that Sarah would’ve wanted them all to have some of it.

  Brandon reimbursed his father almost eight thousand dollars for the payments he made on the small mortgage Brandon still had on the house and sent Colin a check for four grand, hoping it was enough to pay his brother back for bailing him out of jail—twice—and for the bar tabs Colin had paid for him over the years. As far as he knew, Brandon didn’t owe money to anyone else. He figured he’d eventually hear about it if he did.

  Dennis used a complicated formula to determine their annual salaries, and what they made depended on how the business did in any given year. Brandon, Colin, Declan, and Tommy were equal partners with Dennis, and in recent years, none of them had made less than one hundred fifty thousand in a year.

  Brandon’s night of financial reckoning revealed that after all his debts were paid, he had just over twenty grand left in the bank, and the boxes rattling around in the back of the truck had just put a sizeable dent in that. He was ashamed to have pissed away more than a hundred thousand dollars over the last few years on bars, booze, and God only knew what else.

  He would throw every dime he had left at lawyers, if that was what it took to keep Mike with Daphne and to end this crazy cat-and-mouse game she was playing with her former in-laws. His gut clenched when he thought about how expensive a protracted court battle could get. If it came to that, he’d take a second mortgage on his house to pay for it. And if he had any doubt about how hard he’d fallen for Daphne and Mike, he wouldn’t hesitate to swallow his pride and go to Aidan, who still had several of Sarah’s millions squirreled
away. No matter what it took, Brandon would find a way out of this for Daphne.

  Before he went back to the apartments to check on Mike, Brandon had one more thing he needed to take care of. This had been weighing on him, and it wasn’t going to get any easier if he continued to put it off. So he reached for his cell phone and called the number he’d gotten from Erin.

  “Hi, Val, it’s Brandon,” he said when his ex-girlfriend answered.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, sounding tentative. “Erin said you might call.”

  “Am I catching you at a bad time?”

  “Um, no. Not at all.”

  “Do you mind if I come by for a few minutes?”

  “Sure. That would be fine.” She gave him directions to her house.

  Brandon recognized the address as a new development in North Chatham. “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Driving into the neighborhood, Brandon let out a low whistle at the rows of swanky new houses his father called “McMansions.” Valerie’s was a brick colonial with black shutters, a sweeping front porch, and an ornate two-story window over the front door. A stone wall lined the property. She sure has come up in the world since her days with me, Brandon thought as he pulled into the circular driveway.

  Valerie waited for him on a wicker sofa on the front porch, and when she stood up to greet him, he saw that she was well into her second pregnancy. The sun brought out the red highlights in her brown hair, and Brandon thought she’d never been lovelier.

  Her eyes widened as he came up the stairs to the porch. “Look at you.” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “You look wonderful! You couldn’t have had the decency to look like crap?”

  His laughter broke the ice. “You’re gorgeous, Val. Pregnancy certainly agrees with you.” He kissed her cheek and sat next to her on the sofa.

  “God, I can’t get over you. Erin told me you were doing really well, but you look ten years younger than you did the last time I saw you.”

  “I’ve been working out again. Feels good to be back in shape. In fact, it feels good to be back in life, to be honest with you.”

  She rested a hand on top of his, and the sunlight reflected off a big diamond ring. “I’m proud of you, Brand. You’re really doing it, aren’t you?”

  “I’m trying. You’ve got a beautiful place here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “When’s the baby due?”

  “Mid-June, if I make it that far. I was early with Chelsea.” She ran a hand over the baby. “This one’s a boy, and he’s a kicker.”

  “I hear Chelsea’s a cutie.”

  “She’s a sweetheart. We got really lucky with her.”

  “Are you happy, Val?”

  Blinking back tears, she looked away from him. “Yeah. My husband, Pete, is a wonderful father.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s in sales for a software company.”

  “Are you working at all?” She’d been the executive assistant to the CEO of a local bank when they were together.

  She shook her head. “I’m a stay-at-home mom these days.”

  “Erin said your husband’s a good guy.”

  Valerie swiped at her eyes. “He loves me, you know? Really loves me.”

  “You deserve that.”

  “I know you never loved me, Brandon, but I thought if I loved you enough for both of us that one day you’d fall in love with me, too.”

  His heart aching, he kept a firm grip on her hand. “I couldn’t be more sorry for the way I treated you. You were so good to me, and you stayed with me a lot longer than most women would have. I certainly didn’t give you much reason to stay.”

  “I loved you so desperately. I don’t think you ever had any idea how much.”

  Her softly spoken words brought tears to his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. I want you to know that.”

  “Then what was it?”

  Brandon wiped his face and took a deep breath. “I was in love with Sarah. Aidan’s wife.”

  Valerie gasped. “But she’d been dead for two years when we met. I don’t understand…”

  “I’d been in love with her since I was a kid, but she was always my brother’s girlfriend and then his wife. When she died…” He shook his head when he was unable to continue.

  “Does Aidan know?”

  “He does now.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “What did he say?”

  “He was shocked, to put it mildly.”

  “It certainly explains some things.”

  “None of what happened between us was your fault, Val. I hope you see that. I didn’t think I could love anyone after she died. It was like that part of me died, too, or at least I thought it had. I was wrong to become so involved with you when I knew I had nothing to give you.”

  “Thank you for telling me this. It helps to know there wasn’t anything else I could’ve done. I spent a lot of time after I left you asking myself that.”

  “There wasn’t. You were up against the ghost of a girl who was never even mine. I let it screw up my life and yours.”

  “It wasn’t all bad, though, was it?” she asked softly. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

  “We had some great times.”

  A cry from the baby monitor on the table startled them out of their memories.

  “I guess that’s my cue.” Brandon stood up. He wanted to ask if he could meet her daughter but knew he didn’t belong inside the home she shared with her husband. He suspected she knew it, too, which was why she’d met him on the porch.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said, taking the hand he offered to help her up.

  “So am I.” He drew her into a hug. “Can I ask you one thing?”

  She pulled back from him. “Sure.”

  “You didn’t say you love him—your husband. You do, don’t you?”

  “I love him as much as I’m able to, but it’s different. It’s not the all-consuming love I felt for you. That only comes along once in a lifetime. Everything else just pales in comparison.”

  Brandon nodded to show he understood, but he was sorry he’d asked. “Thanks for seeing me. Good luck with the baby.”

  “Good luck with your recovery.”

  “Thanks.” He kissed her cheek and went down the stairs.

  She was still standing on the porch when he drove away.

  Chapter 22, Day 72

  Brandon snuggled with Daphne on the sofa in her living room. They’d been out to dinner with Mike, who was almost fully recovered from her bug, but she fell asleep early.

  Daphne ran her fingers through his hair. “Everything okay? You’ve been quiet tonight.”

  He shrugged.

  “What is it?”

  “I saw my ex-girlfriend today.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not what you think, hon, so don’t go there. I’m not still hung up on her. I needed to see her as part of my recovery. I owed her a big apology.”

  “For what?”

  “I wasn’t very nice to her, and I caused her a lot of pain.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  “You didn’t know me when I was drinking, thank God. I was an awful person, and I hurt a lot of people, including Valerie, my ex.”

  “Those days are behind you now.”

  “I’m still tempted to drink, but then I think about how far I’ve come and what I have in my life now, and I see it’s not worth it.”

  “So it was hard? To see her?”

  “Actually, it was nice to see her. We were together for five years, and it ended badly, so it was good to have the chance to fix that. But she said some stuff that was hard to hear.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “I just have a better idea now of how much I hurt her. I’m still getting used to dealing with things like that without the anesthesia I used to get from booze.”

  “I get this pain, right here
in my stomach, when we talk about this.”

  He winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk about it, because I do. So why did you guys break up?”

  “I never loved her, and she got sick of putting up with my shit while she was waiting for me to come around.”