by Grea Warner
“Ed.” Ryan managed to collect himself, turn in our direction again, and bail me out.
“We ... Our little girl could use your help, Ryan.”
“We’re all going in to talk to her,” Irene interjected.
“To be as honest and frank ... whatever it takes.”
The interaction between Ed and his wife was quite interesting to observe. Irene was a fierce woman who could put anyone in their place. But her husband seemed to at least be able to bring her to a pause.
“Yeah, uh, of course,” Ryan responded to Mr. Hynes. “When?”
“Soon. We’re waiting for Maks,” Ed spoke of his son.
“And the doctor is bringing in a mediator or specialist or something,” Irene added, making me assume they were talking about some sort of intervention.
“You sure it’s a good idea that I’m a part of this?”
Irene’s mouth clamped straight and long, but Ed replied, “It will make a difference, Ryan.”
“Yeah. Okay,” Ryan agreed. “But the kids shouldn’t—”
Joel was kind of bouncing around. But Sallie had been carefully listening and observing all of the adult conversation. And both Ryan and I knew it.
“Ry,” I interrupted gently. “Can I talk with you for a minute?”
“Uh, uh, yeah.” He looked at Kari’s parents and the kids and then walked a couple of solid steps to the corner of the room with me. “I’m sorry.” He was the first to speak.
“For what?”
“Geez, I don’t know. All of this. For involving you.” He rubbed his hands violently on his face.
“You want to stay, right?” I asked. “You want to help with the intervention or whatever.”
“Yeah, I mean, I should. She’s my wi—" He stopped himself at the same time I did.
“She’s not your wife.” I was firm and swift with my reaction, even though I knew I should have held into account all the pressure he was under.
“Oh, man, Bethany, I’m ... Please don’t make more out of that than needs to be. I’m just used to saying it. I’ve had to keep saying it,” he pleaded. And when I didn’t speak, he continued, “She’s the mother of my children. The thought of them being in some kind of danger today? I was losing my mind when I had no idea what was going on. I don’t know if you can understand the guilt I feel for leaving them when she obviously isn’t stable.”
“To be with me.” I sighed.
His shoulders dropped. “I didn’t say that.”
“I did, and it’s the truth.” And I felt guilty.
“No ... yes ... look ... ahhh.” He blew out frustration. “Yes, I do think I should stay to see what is going on. I want to make sure she gets whatever help she needs. Because, let me tell you, if she doesn’t and I have to get lawyers back into this, I will. I will protect those kids no matter what.”
Okay. Okay. That was why I had pulled him aside in the first place. Everybody’s emotions were so high, no one could have a simple conversation without arguing. And I didn’t want that to be us.
“Stay,” I said simply.
“But—"
So he didn’t need to worry anymore about what to do or even how I was feeling, I gave him my solution. “I’ll take the kids back to your place.”
“Bethany ...” I think it was his natural inclination to say no. He didn’t want to trouble me. But the other parts of him disagreed. The part who knew he needed the help ... that the kids needed security, safety, and comfort. And the part of him who knew by then he wasn’t troubling me. “Yeah?” he asked. And when I nodded the confirmation of my offer, he said, “Thanks,” and we walked back to the kids and their grandparents. “Hey, kiddos. I’m gonna stay with Mommy. She’s okay. Just want to make sure she gets her sleep.”
“Like Sleeping Beauty,” Sallie offered.
“Yeah, Tink,” Ryan agreed, surely happy that Sallie still had that fairytale innocence. “But it’s getting late. So, Bethany’s gonna take you home, okay?” He glanced at his watch and grumbled once more. “I doubt I’ll be home before bedtime. If you put those pjs right on, though, she might get you a snack or play a game with you.”
Joel seemed nonchalant, but Sallie, who normally wouldn’t have questioned, was a bright girl. She knew the merry-go-round their mixed-up day was on was not normal. She seemed slightly smaller then as she peered up slowly at all the adults surrounding her.
“Sals?” Ryan questioned.
There was the slightest of hesitations from his daughter before she reached for a hug from him. “Okay.”
“I love you, little girl.”
“I love you, too, Daddy,” she said and then walked right to me, taking my hand.
I only had a second or two to relish the feeling of being someone’s safe place when a tall doctor, with completely symmetrical circular eyeglasses, emerged. He scanned our collective crew with his eyes before landing on Irene. Whether it was because he already met her or he just somehow sensed she was the force to be reckoned with, I wasn’t sure.
It was on her nod that he did speak, though. “Well, no immediate ramifications, but what we talked about earlier should happen.”
“Her brother is on his way,” Irene confirmed and then added an additional stab, I’m sure, just for me, “This is her husband.”
“Ryan,” he said with a slightly corrective tone and then reached out his hand to shake the doctor’s.
When the man in the white coat had a look of concern at Sallie and Joel, Irene clarified, “The kids are going home.” She swung her head in my direction and gave me a dead-on sneer only I could see. “The babysitter”—there was a gallon of emphasis on that word—“is here. She is going to take them.”
Ryan stomped his boot-covered foot in anger, but I closed my eyes to subtly shake off his urge to say anything. His response was a controlled, low moan before turning on his good-daddy voice for the kids. “All right, Sals and Joel, give Grandpa Ed ... and GiGi”—I appreciated the way he used his own dramatic pause to finally include Irene—“a hug, and thank them for helping.” Even in distress and not really feeling the truth in his words, he showed good manners around his children. As the kids did as they were told, Ryan turned to me. “Bethany, are you sure?”
“Yep.” I pursed my lips together and then added, “Should have left those fish go.”
He grumbled but kept a positive attitude. “Keep them chilled. We’ll get them later. Here. I’ll get a cab back.” He placed the car keys in my hand and purposefully squeezed to interlock our fingers for a second or two. It was all we could say or do.
***
Admittedly, I was a little bit of a pushover. I gave the kids a snack and played a game with them. And it was a little later than their normal bedtime when I suggested they go to sleep. I was a pushover because I knew they needed some happy things to place in their minds rather than the traumatic ones that had previously occupied them.
But I was also guilty of allowing them those perks because I wanted to keep my mind occupied. Playing games and talking with the kids kept me from scouring the internet to see if there were any other articles and/or photos of Ryan and me. It also kept me from thinking—or overthinking—what he was doing at that exact moment. He was with her—his ex-wife, the mother of his children, the woman he had professed love of before—and it had to be an emotional scene. I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to yell or get angry with the person at one of those things. You were to say how you felt and how it would be without them in your lives, right? I tried not to picture Ryan’s face as he said words like those. I tried to realize how important what he was doing was. I tried not to feel jealous. I tried.
I did text him when the kids needed to go to bed, though. Putting them to sleep was new territory for me but, even more so, for them. It wasn’t, I’m sure, that they didn’t trust me. It was just another strike that their world wasn’t quite right. But then again, no one’s seemed to be at that moment.
Can you call? Kids want to say good night.
/> “Hey,” I answered when his ring came almost immediately after I sent the text.
“Hi,” he said right back, and I wondered if he noticed my greeting was once again not my typical Bethany self—everything was too heavy.
“Sorry to bother you.”
“Bethany, gosh, no. How are the kids?”
“They’re ... they’re okay. I mean ... obviously what they saw is going to affect them,” I spoke the truth.
“Yeah.” His sigh was more tired than I ever remembered hearing from him. “Did they talk with you about it?”
“A little. Joel, I think, might want to be a paramedic now.” On Ryan’s welcomed soft chuckle, I continued, “With Sallie, I reinforced what you told her. I didn’t want to say too much.”
“I trust your judgment, Bethany,” he said reassuringly, and I appreciated it. Just hearing his voice made me feel better.
“Other than that, it’s all about the art of distraction. You know ... babysitter tactics.” I couldn’t resist.
“Sorry about that. Irene can be such a witch.”
He didn’t need to tell me. I had been a witness and victim for a long enough time to realize Irene’s true colors. I tried to keep the fact that her daughter was in such distress in mind. But I imagined—pretty much knew—that even without that factor, Irene Hynes was who she was.
“Here.” I changed the subject back to why I had asked him to call. “I’ll let you talk with the kids. Do you know when you’ll be back?”
“Sorry. I don’t. Everything is going to be fine, but there’s a lot of stuff. If you need me, though, I’ll leave right now.”
I wanted to tell him yes. Of course I needed him. Our wonderful weekend had the plug so abruptly pulled out of it, I felt like I should have been the one at the hospital with paddles up to my heart to keep on ticking. But that was selfish, and he was under enough stress.
“No. No,” I denied. “We’re fine. Do what you need to do.” And there was a weird pause. Thank goodness I could pass the phone off to Sallie.
***
The security system let me know when Ryan got back to his house later that evening. It was strange hearing him enter through the front door instead of the garage ... as if he was the guest and not me. In a lot of ways, I no longer felt that. I felt welcomed every time I visited and comfortable entering his house to wait for the kids on show days. But that night seemed to spin the wheels in reverse for a little way down the road of life.
While I couldn’t hear his exact movements in the expansive house, I imagined he glanced into the living room and then went upstairs. That would obviously be where his slumbering offspring were. And he would have to figure, because of the later hour, that I had found similar refuge in his room, too. But that was not the case.
Since his body was silhouetted by the hallway light, I couldn’t tell the features of his face when he did eventually find me. But his words were definitely riddled in concern. “Hey. Everything all right?” He sat down next to me, and I could then see the weariness.
“Hmmm,” was what I managed.
“Why are you down here? Why didn’t you go upstairs?”
I sat up in the guest room’s bed and answered, “It was crowded up there.”
“What?” More confusion from an exhausted mind.
“All her things,” I mentioned the multitude of products in the master bath.
And then he understood. “Oh. Geez, there are how many bedrooms and she was staying there?” A frown erupted on his face at the thought of Kari boarding in his bedroom those couple of nights. “I’ll take care of it. She—"
“Ryan?” I had enough of Kari for the night. It was my turn. “Do you mind if we don’t talk about it? She’s all right, right?” I added when that do-good-to-others thought also entered my brain.
“Yeah ... will be.”
Okay. “Do you think maybe you could just lay here with me?”
His shoulders sagged, but it wasn’t necessarily in a negative way. It was in a way that I knew, in particular with the slight brush of his soft hand to my face, that he needed to let things go, too. He shed himself of his jeans and plaid shirt, lifted the comforter, elongated his body next to mine, and did exactly as I had asked. Those arms felt heavy but so secure as he wrapped them around me and brought me onto his chest. When he kissed the top of my head, it was so sweet I wanted to cry. And by his slightly vibrating movement, I knew he did, too.
“Lenay ...” My name out of his lips seemed serene, needy, and sad all at the same time. And we laid there for a moment or two in silence before drifting off to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
“All right. Sorry, just toaster pastries this morning. No time for special chocolate oatmeal. We all slept in a little late.” I could hear Ryan talking with the kids in the kitchen as I was making my way down the hall.
“I want simaman.”
“Cinnamon.” Came Sallie’s corrective sister voice.
Which prompted Joel to whine, “Daddy!”
“Sallie, he’s trying,” Ryan said, followed quickly by, “Uh, uh, uh, no. Don’t stick your tongue out at your sister.”
I stifled a laugh, picturing what was going on. It truly was Americana ... and so removed from the other aspects of their life—the glitz, glamour, and stages. The kitchen scene was the side of the Thompsons I knew and liked best.
“We got cinnamon,” Ryan continued. “How about you, Sals?”
“Cookies and cream, please. Where’s Bethany?”
I paused my feet on her question, wondering if she asked it because she knew it was late when they had gone to sleep. Or, was she simply used to me sleeping over? Still unseen, I leaned against the wall and waited for Ryan’s answer.
“Getting dressed. She really slept in. You two must have tired her out.” I could hear the teasing in his voice.
But Joel didn’t. “We did not!”
“Daddy did.” Sallie gave her own theory, and I almost laughed again. Maybe even more so when she concluded with “fishing.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Ryan went along with that theory. “Did she show you the fish we caught?”
“Yeah. That one was soooo big!”
Ryan and I had caught a few fish. But none of them were even close to being big. Well, except maybe to the eyes of a four-year-old boy who wanted to be just like his dad.
Ryan did an actual chuckle. “Here you go. Drink your juice, too.” I heard the clank of a couple of plastic cups and was ready to approach when Ryan spoke again. “I’m glad you like Bethany so much.”
“She’s pretty,” Joel commented, and I stopped and secretly listened once more.
“She is.” I could almost hear the smile on his face.
Sallie added her own set of adjectives, as if she just had to outdo her little brother. “She’s smart and funny and ... skinny.”
As I shook my head, Ryan agreed, “She’s all those things, too. So, remember what I said? Bethany has to work and then is going to see her mom and dad. GiGi is going to pick you two up from school, and you’ll stay at their house until tomorrow night.”
“Not Mommy,” Sallie said it as a statement, but it came out a little as a question.
It was for me, too. Since I took the weekend off and was heading to Carolina for Ella’s graduation, I was working an extended shift at the coffee house and couldn’t be there for the kids those two days. It had been okay, though. Kari was going to take them. But, obviously, that all changed. I guess Ryan had made similar arrangements with Irene.
“No, babe, we talked, right? Mommy’s—"
Sallie’s interruption of her father seemed to be almost a recitation. “Tired from her tour. We’ll see her soon.”
“Yeah. I love you, guys.” I could hear the emotional tug in Ryan’s voice before he tuned it right back up. “Come on. Grab your bookbags. We have to catch the school van, and I have to let the front gate know to let Bethany’s ride through in a little bit.”
“What about Eli?”
I was wondering who Joel was talking about and what Eli had to do with their scheduling, when Ryan answered, “I got it packed, buddy.”
And then I remembered. Eli was Joel’s stuffed toy dog. How did Ryan think to do all of that, especially when he had so many other things on his mind? I closed my eyes in silent appreciation and listened as they made their way to the front door.
After grabbing my own cinnamon pastry, I went into the living room. I should have felt rejuvenated, having done a yoga pose and being freshly clothed for the day, but I didn’t, and I really couldn’t put my finger on what exactly had me feeling that way. I think maybe because it wasn’t just one thing. It was a number of things all tied into knots together. And the silence in the house, without two active children and their dad, made the feeling settle in even more.
I heard the front door announce Ryan’s reentry before he found me sitting on the sofa. “Hi, beautiful.”
“Don’t forget funny and smart and ... skinny.” I tried to perk up my ominous attitude and admitted to my eavesdropping. “Those kids ...”
Dressed casually since it was a show day instead of an office day, he smiled and replied, “You have some fans.”
I kicked the instant, self-depreciation thought of No, I didn’t. I was a coffee barista, not a superstar right out of my mind. Because, in truth, I knew what he said was right. I knew those two fans were the best anyone could ask for.
He sat down next to me. “Thank you for taking care of them last night and for, I don’t know, just dealing.”
His kind words only made me want to cry, though, because I realized how much he meant them. But I also knew ... suspected ... feared ... that there was going to be yet something else to deal with. And I already felt like I was teetering on a breaking point.
“I don’t know that I am, Ryan,” I said honestly.
“Tell me.”
“I guess I need to know everything.” Need was a lot different than want but, alas, it was the truth.
He sighed slightly and then began, “She’s being settled into the ... resort. We’re calling it a resort. That’s what I told the kids in case they say anything to anyone.” He confirmed that the previous night’s end result was a rehab facility—surely the best, exclusive one where all the stars went. “Hopefully, it won’t be long. She’s never had issues with drugs or alcohol before. They’re blaming it on a combination of things—exhaustion from a long tour, the trauma physically and mentally of being attacked, the scripts interacting with her pills ...”