The Best Goodbye

by Abbi Glines

  “No. I think if he’d told her, DeCarlo would know.”

  Major nodded. “Yeah.”

  I didn’t wait for more. I went to check on the dining room. I needed tonight to be a success so I could leave and figure out the rest of my life.

  • • •

  Arthur was happy. Customers were happy. And I was fucking glad it was over. Soon this place would be handed over to Arthur’s friend’s son, Jamieson Tynes. All I had to do was train him over the next few weeks and then let him have it.

  It was well after midnight before I locked up my office and headed toward the back exit. The thought of my bed had never seemed so damn good. Today had started before dawn and hadn’t slowed down once.

  “Captain,” Elle called out, and I jerked my gaze over to see her standing just outside the dining room. I’d been doing my best to stay the hell away from her.

  “Yeah,” I replied in a no-nonsense tone. I didn’t want any drama with her. Especially not tonight.

  “Can we talk?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously, this is how you’re going to be? We slept together for weeks. We were in a relationship. You can’t just turn off those emotions like that.”

  I stopped and made myself acknowledge her with an irritated glance. “I have no emotions, Elle. I told you that in the beginning, just like I told you I was just in it for the fucking. Nothing more.”

  “Who are you in love with, then? Huh? Where is she?” Elle raised her voice and took a step toward me. “If she’s so damn wonderful, why isn’t she here fighting for you? Because I’m here. I do love you. She doesn’t, or she would be here.”

  The emotion I didn’t feel for Elle was surpassed by the emotion that always came with any mention of the girl I loved. The one who owned my heart in a way no one else ever would. “She was nothing like you. She was pure and kind. She was selfless, and when she smiled, the world lit up. She was my best friend. My reason for getting up in the morning. That is who the fuck she was. No one will compete with that. Ever.”

  Elle threw up her hands like I was a madman. “Do you hear yourself? You’re talking about her in the past tense. She’s gone. You even know it. Move on! She obviously has.”

  I hated her in that moment. I hated her voice. I hated the way she looked. I hated the air she breathed. I wanted her to shut the fuck up. My body tensed with fury, and I had to fight the urge to bury my fist in the wall. And I couldn’t roar in rage at her to get out of my sight. I couldn’t lose my cool here. Not now.

  All of the disgust and hate I felt toward her was contained in the glare I leveled on her. She would see it, and if she was as smart as I thought she was, she’d never come near me again.

  “She’s dead.”

  Saying those words was never easy. I wanted to throw shit. Anything but admit it out loud.

  I didn’t wait for her response, but the pale color of her face told me she got it. I left her behind and went to my only safe haven: my boat.

  Eleven years ago

  My mother was singing in the kitchen. That was never a good sign. I stopped at the door and put my hand protectively in front of Addy. It was a reflex. As if my mother would hear us and come running like a crazy person and attack her. I knew that wouldn’t happen, but I was also bracing both of us for what this could mean. My mother singing meant she was happy, and that usually meant she thought my dad would be home early for dinner.

  My dad never came home for dinner. He hadn’t in more than four years, ever since he started sleeping with his secretary. Even now that he had a child with this other woman and spent most of his nights with his other family, my mother still pretended that wasn’t the case.

  I spotted the empty bottle of tequila on the coffee table and looked at Addy, who was staring at it, too. This was definitely another bad sign. My mother acting crazy was one thing. My mother crazy drunk was another.

  “Go to your room, and lock the door,” I whispered to her.

  She looked up at me with those big eyes of hers. There was fear there, but there was also determination. She shook her head. “I won’t leave you alone with her. If I lock myself in, you know she’ll come after me, and you’ll fight her, and she’ll hit you.”

  I was taller than my mother now and stronger. Her hitting me didn’t hurt. But her hitting Addy could break her. I wasn’t letting that happen ever again. When I had made the mistake of staying after school to try out for the basketball team, Addy had come home to my drunk mother and ended up with a broken wrist. I still hadn’t forgiven myself.

  “It doesn’t hurt me when she hits me. But I won’t let her hurt you,” I said quietly. I didn’t want her to hear us. I wanted Addy safely locked in first.

  She finally sighed in defeat and nodded. “OK. But if she starts to attack you, I’m coming out.”

  “No, Addy. Please. For me, stay in there. I’ll hurt her if I have to.” I didn’t want to hurt my mother. I hated her for how she treated Addy. I hated her because she couldn’t be normal and be a mother. But I didn’t want to physically hurt her. I just wanted to get us the hell away from her. I also knew that if I hurt her, she’d make me pay by sending Addy away. Without me, Addy had no one to protect her the next time. I had to keep her safe.

  “I love you,” she whispered to me, her eyes full of unshed tears.

  We had been saying that for a while now, although I thought it meant something different to her. I was in love with Addy, but she didn’t look at me the same way. She never flirted or tried to get my attention the way other girls did. I couldn’t help it, though. Somewhere along the way, she went from my best friend to the person I wanted to be with forever. We were young, but the shit I’d dealt with had made me grow up fast. It had done that for both of us. I knew what I felt. Addy owned me. She just didn’t realize it.

  “Love you, too,” I replied, then nodded my head toward the steps leading up to our rooms. “Now, go. I’ll handle her. You stay locked in there.”

  Addy gave me one last pleading look, but I pointed to the stairs, firm in my decision. Finally, she turned and quietly made her way to the bedroom that had once been a small office for my father. We had another guest bedroom that Addy could have been given, but my mother had moved her into the smallest room in the house. I often wondered if it was because it was the farthest room from mine.

  With her door closed and locked behind her, I made my way to the kitchen to face my drunk and insane mother.

  My mother’s hair was washed and freshly rolled. She was wearing a sundress and a pair of heels while she stirred something on the stove. There was another bottle of tequila sitting on the bar to her left, and a wineglass beside it full of the liquor. She was singing some old song she called her and Dad’s song. I knew tonight was going to be a bad one.

  “What are you cooking?” I asked, hoping that distracting her from Addy’s absence would work. Announcing that I was home would only remind her of Addy, and lately, she hated Addy more and more.

  She spun around. The black mascara running down her very made-up face wasn’t surprising. When she drank tequila, she usually cried. A lot. “Chicken and dumplings. The baby loves chicken and dumplings,” she said, smiling.

  Shit. She was back on the baby thing again. Ever since Dad had a baby with the secretary, Mom would sometimes pretend that she and Dad had a baby, too. It was so fucking wacked. I’d told Dad and asked him to get Addy and me out of the house and get Mom some help, but he always blew me off. He didn’t believe it was this bad. Yet he never came home to see just how crazy his wife had become. All Dad did was pay the bills and keep money in Mom’s account.

  “I’ve got homework. I’ll leave you to it. You and the baby enjoy the chicken and dumplings,” I said. If I played along, she usually stayed calm. It was when I tried to snap her out of it that she lost her shit.

  “We will. You’ll come have some with us when Dad gets home,” she called out behind me.

  “Yeah, sure will.”

  Then the sobbing
began, and I froze. Shit. This never ended well.

  Rose

  I wasn’t a quitter, but I’d thrown down the gauntlet last night in my moment of anger, and now I had to stick with it. Then I had to find another job. Pulling up to the restaurant, I turned and looked at Franny. I had to take her to her dentist appointment today. “You stay here. Lock the doors. I’ll be right back,” I told her, before getting out.

  “I wish I could come inside and see it,” she said, studying the outside of the place. It really was a nice building. Arthur Stout hadn’t cut any corners, that was for sure.

  “I know, and I’m sorry. But it’s not a good time,” I explained. I didn’t want to tell her I was quitting. Not yet. I needed to find another job first. My little girl could be a worrier.

  I closed the door and waited until she locked it, then headed for the entrance. I needed to drop off my letter of resignation. I figured I wouldn’t get a good reference from him anyway, but I still wanted to do this properly.

  “Thought you were quitting,” Captain’s voice called out, and I spun around to see him getting out of his truck. I hadn’t seen him parked there, but I’d been focused on my task at hand.

  I held up my resignation letter. “I am. Just came to give you this.” I kept my spine stiff. He had no idea of the hopes and dreams he had shattered. Not just mine but Franny’s. She’d never know her dad now, because I didn’t trust him to be the man she needed.

  I couldn’t see his expression behind his sunglasses, but at this point, I didn’t care. I knew how detached and cold he was. He’d probably throw the paper into the trash as soon as he got inside and never think of me again.

  “You sure you want to do this?” he asked, surprising me.

  I paused. Why was he asking that? He’d been mad at me last night for something I hadn’t done. “You aren’t a fair boss. You don’t like me, and I’m not sure why. I work hard, and I try my best to be as professional as I can. But last night you were—”

  “Wrong,” he finished for me. “I was wrong.”

  I closed my mouth, then opened it again, before closing it one more time. I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d seen this side of Captain before, when he’d apologized about being hard on me when Franny was sick. But I hadn’t seen it since then.

  “Listen, Rose, I’m not going to be here much longer. The place is open now, and I’ll be training the new manager over the next few weeks. We have a rub between us, but you’re a good worker. The place needs you. Just because we don’t . . . work well together, that doesn’t mean you won’t work great with the new guy. Stay. Give it a chance.”

  He was leaving soon? What? “Where are you going?” I asked, completely ignoring the fact that he’d just asked me to stay.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Just not here.”

  It shouldn’t matter. But somehow it did. Quitting was one thing, but knowing where he was helped. I couldn’t change the fact that I wanted to know that River was safe and OK. I had made it through ten years of not knowing where he was, and every day I worried and hoped that he was happy.

  Knowing he had become this man who was so different from the boy I had loved was hard, but at least I knew where he was. That he had family here. I wanted to have that peace. If he left, I’d lose that again. And just because my River had become Captain, that didn’t change the fact that I cared. I would always care, because I would always love River. He was a part of me.

  “You look really upset about that, Rose. Any particular reason?” Captain drawled, as if he were amused.

  I forced myself to snap out of it and shake my head no. There was no way I could explain it to him. Even if I tried, there was a good chance he’d hate me for having left him without an explanation all those years ago. If he rejected Franny, well, I couldn’t deal with that. So I said nothing.

  “Mommy, I need to use the restroom,” Franny’s voice called out, and I turned away from Captain to look back at my daughter. She had stepped out of the car and was looking at me with an apologetic frown.

  “OK, yeah.” I turned back to Captain but he wasn’t looking at me. His focus was on Franny. “I need to take her inside to use the restroom. Is that OK?” I asked.

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he stood there frozen. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Not one muscle of his body moved. His focus was locked on Franny.

  She shuffled her feet and watched us. The small smile on her lips as she met my gaze hit me hard. Oh, God. I hadn’t thought about that.

  “Please,” she added, waiting for me to answer.

  My heart was slamming against my chest, as I felt a mixture of anxiety and fear prickle my skin. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Not in front of Franny. Not now.

  “I promise I’m not making this up just to see the inside,” Franny added, as she started walking toward me. “I mean, I want to see it, but I really need to go.”

  Her blond curls, so like my own natural hair, bounced as she walked, and her smile looked almost identical to my own. Her blue eyes danced with mischief, and all I could do was hope he didn’t see it, too.

  Turning back to him, I could see even through the sunglasses he was wearing that he was following her every move. This wasn’t the way a man reacted to seeing a nine-year-old girl he didn’t know. He saw me—his Addy—in her.

  Franny’s hand wrapped around mine and squeezed. She smiled up at the silent man watching her. “Hi. I’m Franny. Do you work with Mom like Brad does?” she asked innocently.

  There was a flinch at the mention of Brad, and his gaze finally moved from Franny to me. I felt exposed. I needed to cover up or hide. He was seeing too much, and I wasn’t sure if he’d even put it together. Did I want him to?

  “Who are you?” He finally spoke, his voice gravelly.

  “I’m Ann Frances, but everyone calls me Franny. Who are you?”

  The innocence in her answer made my eyes sting and my stomach tighten. This was not how it was supposed to come out. Not like this.

  I squeezed Franny’s hand. “Go through those doors right there, and turn right. You’ll see the restroom sign on your left.”

  She nodded, before hurrying inside to see exactly what she wanted to see.

  Once she was gone, I turned back to look at Captain.

  “Who are you, Rose?” he asked.

  Who did he think I was? If he saw the similarities between Franny and the girl I once was, then couldn’t he see beyond my hair color, glasses, and mature body to see me, too? “Not sure what you mean,” I replied carefully.

  Captain took a deep breath and looked past me toward the building. “Is that your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  He moved his gaze back to mine. “Then who are you?”

  I wasn’t giving him that. “You have all my info on file,” I reminded him.

  He pulled off his sunglasses, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he studied me. I tried not to hold my breath, but I couldn’t help it. There was a part of me that wanted him to see me. But the part of me that knew he wasn’t my River anymore wanted to remain hidden. Not just for Franny’s sake but also for my own.

  River had wanted to protect me, but this man . . . I wasn’t sure how I’d survive him. He could break me in a way I wouldn’t recover from.

  “Take off the glasses.” Captain’s words sounded like an order, although his voice was just above a whisper.

  I stared up at him. This time, I was frozen. Did he see me now? Was that it? If I took off the glasses, it was over. He’d know, and then what? Would I just gamble on him accepting Franny? Accepting that I’d been hiding my identity all these years?

  “This place is so cool!” Franny’s excited voice called out.

  I couldn’t have been more relieved to see her. Turning from his intense gaze, I headed toward my daughter, hoping the smile I’d pasted on my face was enough for her to get into the car without any questions. “We’re going to be late for the dentist. We need to go,” I told her, as calmly as I c
ould manage. I could barely contain the edge of panic in my voice.

  “I hate the dentist,” Franny grumbled, her excitement suddenly vanishing as she remembered where we were headed.

  “But you want to keep your teeth,” I reminded her, like I always did. I was more than aware of the set of eyes following our every move, but although the heat from his stare could be felt against every inch of my body, I didn’t look back. I kept walking to the car, praying he would just let us go.

  Franny turned and waved at him, and I shut my eyes tightly, wishing my daughter wasn’t so damn friendly sometimes. She climbed back into the car, and I did the same.

  My prayer was answered. He let us go.

  Captain

  I went straight to the employee files and pulled out the folder for Rose Henderson. I read over her personal information, her past jobs, and her address. She’d received a GED. There was no mention of college in her file. She’d been working since she was eighteen and had excellent references from all of her former employers. Especially the elementary school in Oklahoma where she had recently worked as a secretary.

  But this was all bullshit.

  Pulling my cell phone out of my pocket, I dialed Benedetto DeCarlo’s private line.

  “Cap,” was his only greeting.

  “I need info on someone, ASAP,” I told him.

  “OK. Who?”

  “Her name is Rose Henderson. I’m going to scan her file and send it to you now. I need everything you can find on her.”

  “I’ll put my men on it,” he replied.

  “Not your men, you. I want just you checking on this. No one else.”

  DeCarlo was quiet a moment. “Going to tell me why?”

  “I think . . . I fucking think . . .” What did I think? That little girl had looked just like Addy, but what did that even mean? Addy was gone. So who was Rose? “I think she’s connected to her.” I knew he’d understand. There was only one her in my life who had ever mattered.