“What about Herb and Lois? Can’t they—”
“Apparently they’re both at a doctor’s appointment for Lois, and I’m next on Amy’s emergency contact list.”
Minutes later, I parked in front of the preschool, left Lizzie in the passenger seat with the car running, and rushed into the office. Amy catapulted into my arms and buried her hot, tear-streaked face into my neck. “Nobody...” She gulped, sobbed, started over. “Nobody... came... to get... m-m-me.”
“Oh, my darling girl, I’m here.” I hugged Amy and forced my roiling thoughts down into a deep place, so she wouldn’t feel my anger at Ben and think it was directed at her.
I would fucking kill Ben the second I saw him.
I would kill the goddamned bastard.
How could he forget this precious child? “I’m here, baby girl. I’m here.”
Amy hiccupped. Her breath came in hitching sobs. I hugged her close and patted her back, willing her heart rate to slow down, willing mine to do the same. “Should we go to McDonald’s for lunch?”
I exchanged looks with the preschool director over Amy’s head. This isn’t the first time, the woman’s eyes said. I tried to forgive Ben, or at least put him out of my mind. “Amy, does McDonald’s sound good to you?”
She nodded against my neck and said “umm-hmm,” in a whimpering, trying-to-stop-crying voice.
I buckled her into the car seat Lois had said I could keep, noticing that Amy’s hair—and her teeth—probably hadn’t been brushed in days. My irritation at Ben simmered, a slow rolling boil I kept from erupting into outright anger. We went through the drive-thru of McDonald’s, and had a picnic at the park.
Amy ate most of her food, and Lizzie dutifully finished the rest. When Amy ran off to play, I left a curt message on Ben’s cell. “I’m at the park, babysitting the daughter you forgot about.”
While I had my phone out, I checked for any texts or messages from Ian, but there weren’t any. Had I given him my cell number, or did he only have the numbers to my home and the studio? I tried to remember if he’d—
“Aunt Casey, Look at me!”
“I see you, sweetheart,” I yelled. Tucking the phone into my purse, I gave her my complete attention. “I see you.”
I watched Amy go down the slide, and my sadness for Ben deepened while my anger at him grew. How could he? How could he forget for even a moment that this child waited for him? What in the world was he doing?
I watched Amy slide down again, smiling and waving. A hand touched my shoulder and I looked up to see Ben standing beside me. I realized then that Amy had been waving at Ben, not at me.
“Casey, I’m so sorry.”
“Tell that to your daughter,” I snapped. “She probably thought you were dead, too.” I lowered my voice as Amy ran toward us. “How could you do that to her when she needs you so much?”
Amy grabbed Ben around the legs, and he rested a hand on her tangled hair for a moment before lifting her up. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated, only this time he was saying it to his daughter.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Back at home, I slammed the front door with enough force to break the heavy leaded glass. It didn’t break, but it scared the hell out of my neighbor. Angela leapt out into the entryway our duplex apartments shared, her brown eyes alarmed. Even her frizzy red hair looked alarmed. “Oh, Casey! It’s you. I wasn’t sure what was going on.”
“I’m sorry, Angela.” I opened the door to my half of the house. Lizzie, poor dog, scooted inside to avoid any further slamming that might occur. “I’m in a horrible mood.”
“Me, too.” Angela stepped back and opened her apartment door a little wider. “Come on in. I’ll make hot tea, and we’ll be in a horrible mood together.”
“I can’t stay long. Ballet classes start in an hour.” Would Ben remember to bring Amy or Maryann to class? I doubted it. I followed Angela into her place—almost an exact mirror of mine—and moved a rocketship-looking-thing made of Legos from a kitchen chair so I could sit. “How’s Ray doing in school?”
“Loves his new teachers, thanks for asking. How’s everything with you?” Angela put the kettle on the stove and turned the burner on.
“Ben is being an idiot. I guess he’s entitled, but when he drops the ball, someone else has to pick it up. I feel so sorry for those kids. They’ve lost their mother, and their father is emotionally absent. Lois is trying, but...” I shook my head. “They need more than that.”
Angela got out mugs and put in sugar and milk while the water heated. “It’s so sad.”
I twisted a lock of hair around my finger, absently searching for split ends. “So what’s got you in a mood?”
Angela leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “Carl wants to give Ray a hunting rifle for Christmas.”
“Ray’s only ten years old!”
“Well, he’s eleven, a year younger than Jake, remember? But I agree with your sentiment.” Angela stirred milk and sugar in the bottom of the cups. “Ray is way too young to be going out into the woods at the butt-crack of dawn to shoot Bambi’s mother.”
“The whole practice of hunting should be outlawed until somebody figures a way for the animals to shoot back.”
Angela didn’t comment. She knew my views on hunting. She shared them, but couldn’t express herself freely without pissing off her husband or his family. She wasn’t from around here—meaning she wasn’t born here—and living in Angel Falls for the last fifteen years wasn’t enough to qualify for permanent citizenship. “English Breakfast, or Earl Gray?”
“Earl, please.”
Angela dropped a tea bag into each cup and poured boiling water over them. I accepted the warm mug she handed me, and we sat across from each other, stirring our tea bags round in the milky, sugary elixir. I despised sugar in iced tea, but loved hot tea prepared the English way.
“You know...” Angela looked up briefly from her stirring then looked down again.
“What?” I took out my tea bag with a spoon and used the string to squeeze out the last few drops.
“I know how you could take care of Melody’s kids.”
The look on Angela’s face made my scalp prickle. “What do you mean?”
“If you and Ben got together.”
My guilty conscience pounced, landed in my stomach, tried to claw up my throat. “Angela. I...” I had no idea what to say, so I just stopped talking.
“I’m not the only one who thinks it’s the perfect solution. I saw Melody’s mom, Lois, the other day at Caroline’s Big Hair Salon, and she said you and Ben used to date in high school. Even she—”
“Ben made his choice,” I interrupted. “It wasn’t me.” Astonished that the whole town was apparently planning my life for me, I pushed my chair away from the table. “I have to get ready for class.” Even though it was unbelievably rude, I ran out of there and escaped into my apartment.
But wasn’t Angela’s suggestion rude, too? I couldn’t decide. Since the wreck, I lived so much in my own head that interacting with anyone seemed like a convoluted maze of do’s and don’ts.
I went back to my bedroom and dressed for class. Then Lizzie and I walked to the studio, where teaching ballet, at least, was simple. Not easy, but simple.
Amy didn’t make it to ballet, but I hadn’t figured she would. If Ben couldn’t remember to pick her up after school, he was sure to forget ballet. I didn’t expect to see Maryann in class, either, but she stormed in when we were working on developpes at the barre. Stifling sobs, she slammed her ballet bag against Lizzie’s ottoman, and stood with her back turned to her friends.
I hurried to give her the hug I knew she needed.
She swiped at her tears with first one hand, then the other. “My daddy is so stupid!”
“Aww, baby, no.” I patted her shoulder. “He’s doing his best.”
“Well, his best is horrible. Look what he did to my hair.”
I smoothed back the tangled mess that had been inexpertly scr
aped back into an off-center ponytail. “It’s not so bad.”
“I tried to put it in a bun, but Mama always did it for me, and I couldn’t get it right. The pins kept sliding out and the bun kept falling down. I asked him to help, but he doesn’t even know how to make a stupid ponytail!”
“I’ll do it for you. No problem.”
The music ended, and another track started. The girls at the barre stood waiting for instruction. “Do y’all remember the combination for frappes?” I took the hairbrush off the stereo cabinet and brushed Maryann’s thick dark hair, a shimmering mahogany fall that reached the center of her back.
“No, Ma’am,” a few of the girls responded. Others leaned against the barre and started whispered conversations.
“Okay.” I switched the music to a long, slow track. “Go ahead and do some stretches at the barre.”
“Can I come live with you?” Maryann asked in a small, trembling voice.
“Sweetheart,” I whispered, “how do you think that would make your daddy feel?”
“He wouldn’t care. We stay at Grandma’s half the time, and when we’re home, he doesn’t pay any attention to us. All he ever does is work on the computer, talk on the phone, and sit in the den like a big fat slug.”
Damn. Maybe Ben wasn’t up to taking care of his kids after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him to take them back so soon. “He hasn’t gone back to work yet?”
“He’s working from home now, except when we’re in school. So he can take care of us, he says. But he totally forgot about ballet, and I had to remind him. Amy’s probably still crying because she didn’t get to come. She didn’t know she’d missed her class until I started getting ready for mine.”
I wrapped a covered band around her hair and started twisting the ponytail into a tight bun. “Would you like me to talk to him?” As if that would help any more than it had before.
Maryann shrugged and wiped her cheeks. “I dunno.”
“How about you plan to come to class a little early from now on,” I suggested, “and I’ll do your hair until your daddy can learn how.”
“What if he’s too stupid to learn?” Maryann wasn’t quite ready to abandon her anger.
“You don’t think I’m a good enough teacher to show a dumb old man how to make a ponytail?” I started poking in hairpins.
“Maybe you are.” A tiny, unwilling smile turned up one corner of Maryann’s mouth. I could see it in the mirror, could feel the tension seeping out of her as I pushed the last pins into her bun. “And you know; you’re old enough to put your hair in a bun all by yourself. There are a few tricks to it, but I’ll teach you.”
“Okay.”
“Shall we dance?” I turned her toward her classmates.
“Yes,” she answered, her confidence bolstered for the moment. She walked to the barre, and I chose music to combine plies with low developpes. Then I led the class in a combination designed to help Maryann get warmed-up before we moved on to Grand Battements.
Lois picked up Maryann after ballet, but Ben called me not too long after I got home. “I hear my daughter is coming to live with you.”
“I didn’t tell her that.”
“I know.” Ben sighed. I could envision him running his fingers through his hair as he often did when something wasn’t going right. “I’m calling from work. I had to go back in to catch up on some things, so the kids are having dinner with Lois and Herb. Can I stop by your place on my way home? I really need to talk to... to someone.” His voice sounded nasal, kind of stuffy, and I wondered if he’d been crying.
“Sure. What time?”
“Is right now okay?”
“Yeah. Now’s fine.”
Ben co-owned a small company that designed and installed communication systems for big corporations all over the southeast. Phones, internet, special internal servers, stuff like that. His office was across town, but in a town our size that was only five minutes away. I rushed to make myself decent.
I had already dressed for bed, and was only wearing a big T-shirt and panties. I put on an almost-clean pair of jeans and rummaged in the bottom drawer for a pair of socks. I had painted my toenails bright red for my date with Ian, and somehow the sight of those ten shining beacons peeping out from under my jeans made me feel guilty. My best friend was dead, her husband and children struggling to pick up their lives without her, and I had painted my toenails a cheery vermillion. I pulled the socks carefully over the new blisters I’d picked up in the last pointe class.
Ben knocked. Lizzie ran to the door and gave a sharp bark.
My heart squeezed when I opened the door and saw Ben’s face. I was right. He’d been crying. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. The tip of his nose was red, and his mouth seemed puffy. I wanted to hug him, make him feel all-better, like I’d have done with any of his children. But Mel’s ghost whispered in my ear. What Ben needed now was tough-love, not coddling.
“Come on in.” I took his arm and led him inside, because he seemed inclined to stand in the entry hall. “Sit down,” I ordered, pointing to the overstuffed couch. “I’ll get you a drink.”
In the kitchen, I peered into the refrigerator. “What do you want?” I called out. “I have wine, beer, coke, water.”
“Beer,” he yelled back. I opened the bottle and poured it into a tall glass. The stereo came on, but I could tell Ben hadn’t chosen a CD, he’d just hit the play button.
I cringed. Dave Matthews’ sexy love songs wouldn’t have been my choice for this moment. I resisted the urge to go in and change the music. Calling attention to Ben’s non-choice would be worse than enduring it and changing to something less provocative later. I set the beer on the table in front of him, and curled up in the fat-quilted reading chair with my wine. Leaning back against the cushions, I tucked my feet under me and took a sip. “How are you?”
Ben slouched against the couch, drained a third of his beer in one gulp. “As well as can be expected, considering I’ve lost my wife and am in the process of losing my children as well.” He took another long drink of the beer and looked up at me, his eyes shining, but maybe not so much from tears as I’d first thought.
“Ben, have you been drinking—I mean, before this beer?”
His only reply was a slight smirk. “Amy cries and clings to Lois every time I go there to pick her up. Maryann claims she wants to live with you.” His eyes flashed a brief accusation and then fixed again on the beer glass in his hand. “Jake spends all his free time at Nicky’s house next door.” Ben took a swig of his beer and set the glass aside. “Melody was the glue that held us together, and now that she’s gone, my family is falling apart.”
I felt sorry for him. But my feeling-sorry wasn’t going to help him. I remembered Mel’s legendary backbone-of-titanium, the way she’d ordered her life and everyone else’s around her. I tried to use a little more of that and a little less of my need to single-handedly save the world. “I’m glad you finally realize your family needs you. Now what are you planning to do about it?”
“Do?” He looked shocked at my lack of compassion.
I was kind of shocked, myself, but it didn’t stop me from saying what Mel would have wanted me to say. “Yes, Ben. Do. What are you going to do? I’m sorry if this sounds harsh. I know you’ve lost your wife, but your children have lost their mother.”
Ben hung his head, but I refused to feel sorry for him. Well, at least, I refused to show it.
“They’ve needed you to grieve with them, and you’ve been completely absent. You’ve farmed them out to their grandparents and the neighbors, and now you wonder why they don’t want to come home? How can they trust you to be there for them, when you’ve been unavailable since their mother died?”
Lizzie whined and pressed her nose under my hand. For a second, I saw myself as she must, perched on the edge of my chair, all-but yelling at Ben.
Hell, I was yelling, as if I had any right to chastise anyone. Maybe I’d taken just a little too much of Melody’s backb
one-of-titanium. She knew how to balance it exquisitely with her Smurfy-sweetness, while, clearly, I didn’t. Instantly ashamed, I moved to kneel on the floor in front of him.
He dropped his head into his hands. “You’re right.” His voice was muffled. “I’ve been selfish. I only cared about myself. I couldn’t stand to see my kids because I knew they wanted me to make it better... to fix it the way I’ve always been able to fix everything before.”
He sniffed a few times. I went into the kitchen and spun a few paper towels off the roll. I dropped the loosely-folded wad onto the couch beside him. “I don’t have any tissues.”
“Yeah, you’d make a better bachelor than a housewife.” He tore the towels into neat squares and used one to blow his nose.
I sat beside him on the couch and put an arm around his shoulders. “Hey, don’t be any more of a jerk than you have to, okay?”
“I’ll try not to. But tell me, Miss-know-it-all. What am I going to do about my kids?”
“You might not like everything I have to say.”
He cut his eyes over at me, and I saw a little of the Ben I’d once fallen in love with.
“Hit me.”
“Okay.” I leaned back into the corner of the couch, and thought about the things Melody had always done for their children. “Are you taking notes?”
He nodded, and I began ticking off items.
“One, pick your children up at school on time, every day, Monday through Friday. Maryann said you were working from home most of the time now, so I know you can do it. Put it in your phone’s calendar, and set alarms if you can’t remember. Your children’s schedules are just as important as any of your business meetings. I’ll bet you don’t forget them.”
He winced. “What else?”
“Two, make sure they do their homework before supper.”
“They have homework?” As if he didn’t know.
Of course I ignored him. “Three. Cook supper, and sit with them while they eat it.”
“But I can’t—”
I held up a hand to stop his excuses. “You can make macaroni and cheese, can’t you?”
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