Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Or maybe it was the way Annie’s words seemed to echo something she knew, deep down, to be true. But Bree found herself nodding.
“So right now . . .”
“Don’t make a plan. Don’t rush out to fix anything. Just take it minute by minute and day by day, and trust that at some point, when you’ve had a chance to make sense of all the upheaval, you will know what you need.”
* * *
Spence went through the next few days in a blur of disbelief.
Not because Bree had ended it. No, the part he couldn’t wrap his head around was how much he missed her. How many times he caught himself reaching for his phone to text her, only to stop and remember. How many mornings he woke up curled around his pillow the way he used to spoon around her.
It was never supposed to be serious. Or lasting. So why the hell was he walking around feeling as if someone had ripped him up by the roots and dropped him someplace dry and hot and withering?
Thank God it was the hectic season at work. He needed to be busy, to spend hours talking about drainage and soil composition and sunlight. Those, he understood.
But eventually he had to go home. Home, where he watched too much TV and drank too much beer and, on one dark night, wondered if he should call Carl to see if he was doing okay. Now that they had both been dumped.
That was the night he decided the beer had to stop.
So it was almost a relief when Livvy called him up a week later and asked for a big favor.
“Anything,” he said.
“Carl’s birthday is next week. The kids always baked him a cake and decorated it themselves. I don’t want them to have to miss out on that, but I don’t know if—”
“Say no more. I’ve got this.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Spence. I’ll send over everything they need.”
“Uh, Liv? I know how to bake a cake. I have flour and cocoa and all that.”
“I know you do. And I know that you can teach them how to make a cake that makes the angels weep. But how about if you wait and teach them that on my birthday?”
“Message received. One duty cake coming up,” he said, and this time when he grinned, he felt like he meant it.
* * *
Emma and Max showed up at the appointed time with a bag full of supplies, two aprons, and attitudes so bad they made Spence look like a frickin’ cheerleader.
“Hey, guys!” Maybe if he faked some excitement, they would pick up on it. “Great to see you. This is gonna be fun. Let’s have a look at what your mom sent for you to—”
Emma interrupted.
“A store-brand cake mix. A can of frosting. A jar of sprinkles. And a jerk for a father.”
So that was how it was going to be.
“Em—” he began, but Max cut him off.
“Stop it, Emmie. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I do so. Dad is slime, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him. The only reason I came over here was so Mom wouldn’t feel worse.” She flounced off toward the sofa. “This whole birthday thing is bullshit, and I’m not—”
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Crap. Two minutes and he was already in over his head. “Back it up, Emma.”
She stopped midway through pulling her phone from her pocket and gave him a look that told him he had to choose his words very carefully.
“First, that kind of language isn’t acceptable.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. Have you listened to Mom? Like, ever?”
“Your mother is an adult and has earned the right to say whatever she wishes, especially in her home, where she sets the rules. Likewise, my house, my rules. And my rule is that until you are old enough to vote, you don’t use that kind of language here. Got it?”
“Whatever.”
“Thank you for that enthusiastic response.” Good God, how had Livvy not locked the kid in her room for the next decade? “Now put the phone away and get over here. Your mom wants you to do this and you’re going to do it.”
“Why?”
For the life of him, he didn’t have a good answer. “Why what?” he stalled.
“Why does she care about his birthday? Why does she want to make things like they always were? Why does she want us to make nice with him and act like we’re still this wonderful family?” Tears burned in Emma’s eyes. “I mean, he doesn’t give two shits about any of us, and especially not her. So why the fuck should we—”
“Enough!”
Ten minutes ago, Spence would have sworn that he would never yell at his niece loud enough to make her flinch. Seemed he was wrong about that, too.
“I’m sorry,” he said, forcing himself to speak more gently. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of that going around,” she said in a low voice, and in that moment Spence got a glimpse of the woman she was going to become.
“Em?” Max, on the other hand, sounded as if he had regressed to first grade. “You don’t mean it, do you?”
Be nice, Emma. Please.
“Oh, Max. I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I mean, I know you still love Dad, and I guess I do, too, but I . . . I’m just so mad.” She gulped. “And I can’t say anything when we’re with Mom because she feels so bad already, and she wants us to still see him. But I don’t want to be with him. Not right now.”
“But he’s our dad.” Max’s voice quivered. “You have to love him.”
Spence was about to jump in, offer some kind of reassurance or whatever else he could pull out of his ass but stopped himself just in time. This had obviously been building for a while. And he’d bet that, yeah, neither of them were eager to make things worse by saying anything in front of Livvy. They cared about her. They were good kids.
And right now they needed the chance to speak without worrying about who else might hear them.
“I don’t have to love anyone,” Emma said with a defiant flip of her hair.
“But you do.”
Her scowl was followed by an immediate sigh. The grooves of hurt in her face morphed into lines of compassion. “Come here, Max.” She patted the spot beside her. Max scurried to the sofa, where his sister placed an arm around him and pulled him close. “I guess maybe I do. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t care, right?”
“Right.”
“I would still be mad at him. Because he made Mom cry, and that just . . . argh.” She squeezed his shoulders. “I know you want to make things nice for him. That’s good. But this doesn’t feel right. I know it’s his birthday, but I don’t want to act like this is just like any other year, because it isn’t.” Her mouth crumpled. “It won’t be ever again.”
That, Spence decided, was his cue.
“You know,” he said as casually as he could muster, given that he was kind of being ripped apart just by thinking the words, “I have a . . . friend . . . who was really hurt by her father when she was about Max’s age. And he did something even worse to his family.”
“I doubt it,” Emma said darkly.
“He broke laws, then made everyone think he was dead and disappeared for five years. Then the police found him and he went on trial. Then jail. And all of it was in the news big-time, because he was the mayor of the city where he lived.” He made himself grin. “Still think you have it worse?”
Emma’s mouth sagged slightly. Max, of course, had a completely opposite reaction.
“How did he make people think he was dead? Did he leave, like, big piles of blood everywhere? Was he hiding out in a cave in the mountains?”
“We’ll talk about that part later. The point is, he did a number on his family. And my friend was really mad at him.”
“Duh.” Emma executed a perfect eye-roll. But he figured he was getting through to her when she said, way
too lightly, “So what happened? Did she ever see him again?”
“Yep. He moved back to—uh, to her hometown, actually.” No need to clue them in to identities.
“Wait. He did all that and then he, like, wandered back to her turf? Like nothing happened?”
“Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?” To put it mildly.
Max leaned forward. “So what did she do?”
Well, at least he wasn’t fixated on blood anymore. “She didn’t want anything to do with him for a long time. Did everything she could to stay away from him. But then, just recently actually, she, um, she had a change of heart. She figured out that her father was still . . . still important to her.”
Emma snorted. “Oh, please. She just woke up one day and said, oh, my dad is a horrible person but I think maybe I like him after all?”
“It, uh, was a bit more complicated than that.” And a lot harder to accept, given how unhappy it seemed to have made her.
Funny. He’d managed to skip over that part.
“She didn’t want to care about him,” he said, not quite certain if he was talking to the kids. “But she found out that some things . . . some things are out of your control.”
That must have killed her. Bree, the control expert, learning that even she was powerless when it came to emotions.
And the more he thought about it, the more he had some idea of how that must have felt for her. Because despite it all, he would give anything to have her walk through the door right now.
“So, we should bake a cake for Dad because someday we might stop being mad at him.” Emma still didn’t sound convinced, but at least she didn’t sound quite as disdainful as she had.
“No. You should bake a cake for him because none of us can predict the future. And because even though your dad did some pretty awful things, you still want him in your life. Even if you want to keep him on the far fringes for a while.”
“Like, outer reaches of the solar system,” she said, but she was off the sofa and aiming for the kitchen as she said it. “Come on, Maximus. Let’s get this over with.”
Spence rolled his shoulders as he followed them, shaking off the worry that had settled there as they talked. It seemed he hadn’t blown it completely. Thank God for small miracles.
It also seemed that he owed Bree some thanks. And maybe an apology.
Though given that she’d chosen her father over him, he wasn’t sure she would want to hear it.
* * *
Bree thought nothing of it when Jenna asked her to meet her at Neenee’s the next Friday night to take part in a Save the Date envelope addressing party. Bree had felt obliged to point out that the grooms and groomsmen could do this job just as easily as the brides and their attendants, but Jenna had replied that, yes, while the guys were expected to do their share, there were some things that were a lot more enjoyable when accompanied by laughter, mini quiches, and champagne punch. Since that was Bree’s favorite kind of get-together, she was quick to agree.
Besides, it beat the hell out of staying home and wrestling with the book and wishing Spence wasn’t so . . .
No. She wasn’t going to fall down that rabbit hole again.
She was so busy telling herself what not to do that she was halfway up the steps before it hit her that the only extra cars in the driveway belonged to Kyrie and Jenna.
Oh shit.
She stopped where she stood, wondering how badly she’d been had—and why—when the door burst open and Kyrie tumbled out.
“In,” Kyrie said, and grabbed Bree’s arm.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Mom wants to talk to you.”
“Why didn’t she just ask? Or call a Family Council, if attendance was mandatory?”
Kyrie paused on the top step. “Because it’s not serious enough for a Council.”
Well thank God for that. Family Councils were limited to major crises, and Bree wasn’t sure she had any emotions left to spare.
“And,” Kyrie said, “because it’s about Dad.”
Oh.
Bree had been so certain that the subterfuge meant she would be the one on the hot seat that she didn’t know what to say. She settled for scowling and letting Kyrie pull her into the house.
Once inside, she saw her mother and sisters clustered around the dining room table. Margie hovered in the corner closest to the liquor cabinet.
Probably not a coincidence.
“Okay. She’s here.” Jenna waved to Bree and turned to Neenee. “Now will you please tell us what this is about?”
Neenee sighed as she crossed her arms. “It’s about Bree.”
Chapter Fifteen
Four shocked faces swung from Neenee to Bree, then back to Neenee.
Bree, meanwhile, couldn’t decide if she was glad that she wasn’t the only one who’d been Punk’d, or pissed at how easily she’d fallen for it.
“Guess Dad wasn’t the only one who excelled at trickery,” she said, earning a pointed finger from her mother.
“And that is precisely why I have to be underhanded sometimes.”
If there was any logic to the statement, it was lost on Bree, but she wasn’t exactly winning any awards for understanding people these days, herself included. So she settled for glaring at Annie.
“I told you not to tell.”
“She gave me the Mom look. I can’t help spilling when she does that.”
Classical conditioning at its finest.
“Don’t snipe at your sister, Bree. She’s only trying to help. And the fact of the matter is, I do need to talk about your father as well. But first”—she reached for Bree’s hand—“are you okay?”
Oh hell. Annie wasn’t the only one who couldn’t resist their mother. Bree could hold out against The Look longer than any of them, but one expression of tenderness and she was a goner. Her anger melted faster than icebergs at a climate-change-deniers conference.
“I’ve been better,” she said. “But I’m okay.”
“You need me to whomp him?” Margie posed a formidable figure with her crossed arms and glower. “I’m ready when you say the word.”
“Sounds like he isn’t worth the possible jail sentence,” Jenna muttered, but Bree shook her head.
“It’s not his fault, you guys, okay? It’s just . . . timing. Priorities.”
“You should be his priority,” Kyrie said. “And please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“Margie’s standing,” Bree said as she took a chair.
“Margie hurt her back at shot put practice today,” Neenee said. “And Kyrie has a point.”
“It wasn’t his priorities that were the problem.” Bree stared at her hands, spread flat on the white lace tablecloth. “It was mine. Or, rather, the way they shifted.”
“You mean when you figured out that you weren’t quite as anti-Dad as you thought you were?” Jenna’s words were soft.
So everyone knew everything. On the one hand, Annie was dead meat.
On the other hand, it saved a lot of time.
“Yeah. That.”
Neenee spoke up. “I think this might be a good time for me to tell you all that I have been . . . talking to your father.”
So Rob hadn’t been blowing smoke.
The sisters exchanged loaded glances. Neenee looked from one to the next, then sat back in her chair.
“That’s it?” she said. “I finally work up the nerve to tell you, and that’s the reaction I get?”
“We, um, kind of knew already.” Annie was actually blushing.
“He said something to me when he crashed my office.” Bree felt that confession was probably a survival technique at this point. “And I may have shared that information.”
Neenee threw her hands in the air. “Why do I even try,” she said to the ceiling.
“That’s what you get for raising smart ones,” Margie said.
But Bree wasn’t feeling very smart at the moment.
She might care—reluctantly—about Rob, but her mother was a different story. No one would ever call Neenee Elias vulnerable. The woman had been dragged through hell and back and came out with a grace that made Martha Stewart look like a Pinterest fail.
But the gentle, open heart that was at the center of Neenee also made her more susceptible to a sob story. And if that story was being spun by the man who had once been the center of her life . . .
“Why did you talk to him, Mom?” She had to know. “I mean, us, I can understand. The parent-child bond is the strongest there is.”
“Damn it to hell,” Jenna cut in. Bree nodded.
“Precisely. But you, Mom. The things he did to you are so much worse than what he did to us. Why would you want to have anything to do with him?”
Neenee pulled off her glasses and massaged her temples with her fingertips for a few silent moments. When at last she spoke, her voice was smaller than Bree had ever heard since Jenna had her accident.
“Your father wasn’t the only one who had . . . temptations back then.”
Holy shit. Bree’s jaw sagged. When she looked at her sisters, she saw her disbelief reflected in their slack faces.
“Mom?” Annie seemed incapable of more than a cracked whisper. “Are you saying that you . . .”
Neenee lifted her head, glanced around the room, and burst into laughter.
“Oh my God.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped tears from her cheeks. “Oh, my dear girls, if you could see yourselves now. No. I phrased that very poorly. I did not cheat on your father, okay?” She laughed again, weaker this time. “Oh my God. Like I would have had the energy.”
A collective sigh seemed to echo through the room.
Kyrie nudged Annie. “So much for hoping that you had a different father.”
“I never thought— Okay. Yeah. For one second there, I wondered.” Pink rose in Annie’s cheeks. “Sorry, Mom.”
“Don’t worry. I’m kind of flattered. I was too exhausted to feel attractive back then, so it’s kind of nice to know that people think I might have been seen that way.”
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