“We really like your car,” Kicker said.
“Yeah,” Cooper affirmed. “Ever since we got here, we keep looking in the driveway, checking it out. It’s ultra cool.”
Jack had a second to catch his breath, which irritated the hell out of him, since he hadn’t realized he’d been short of breath. There was something about that woman. Something damned dangerous. Above and beyond her being on the ditzy side.
Charlene popped into sight between the boys, like they were all old friends, chatting about the Mini Cooper as if they were long-term car cronies.
Charlie told the guys, “She’s got rear disc brakes. Four wheel abs.”
“Five speed?” Kicker asked.
“Yeah. And she’s been getting 28 mpg even in the city.”
“Performance stats?”
Charlie started pelting out numbers and stats that obviously Merry had never heard of, because she shot the kids a confused look. Eventually, though, she gamely tried to rejoin the conversation. “To tell you the truth, I picked out the car because it was blue and had heated seats.”
Charlene shot another look at Jack, as if to say, See? See what I’ve been talking about?
But his boys didn’t seem to mind. They commented on the “frantic” blue color and styling, making her feel part of the group. In fact, Cooper seemed to especially hang close, doing the same unconscious big-brother thing he did with Charlene.
Once the group had finished their car rant, Merry glanced up at Jack again—this time with more composure, and thank God, he’d found some of his by that time, too. “I swear, I didn’t mean to take up all this time. I just asked Charlie to come over to see if you might have a C battery, but I started to worry when she was gone so long.”
Cooper—his shy kid, the one who never volunteered conversation, and certainly not with unfamiliar adults—said immediately, “Charl was going home. But we got to talking about that Valentine dance thing at her school.”
Merry immediately brightened up. “Yeah, her school has so many side activities for the kids to be involved in. It’s really great—”
Before Charlene could react to that comment with abject horror, Cooper said with more of this newfound smoothness, “So we all got talking about how you and Dad might be able to do it together. The chaperoning thing.”
Merry cocked her head. “Your dad? But I can’t imagine why he’d want to go.”
Yeah, exactly, Jack wanted to say. How could she possibly think he’d want to co-chaperone a middle-school dance? How could anyone?
But Cooper was shrugging in that shy, boyish way of his. “We just all thought…it’s got to be weird, coming into a new town. Trying to participate in a new school, where you don’t know the parents and all. But Kicker and I both went to that school, so Dad knows all the teachers and people and all. And if he went with you, you wouldn’t have to be standing by yourself.”
Charlene now looked at Cooper as if he were a divine god.
Jack looked at his son with major parental worry. Possibly Cooper had lost his mind? Kicker was his offspring with the high bullshit meter, not Coop. Coop had never invented fairy tales before. Much less ridiculously unrealistic fairy tales that put his father in an impossibly awkward position.
Merry, thank God, was on his side. “That’s really kind thinking of you, Cooper. But I can’t imagine your dad wanting to be dragged into something like this. And I can handle it, being alone. Charlie and I’ll be fine.”
Charlene looked mutely at Jack. Then his sons looked mutely at Jack.
Merry looked at Jack, too, and silently mouthed the words, “Honestly, you don’t have to, it’s okay.”
But the kids kept looking at him. Charlene, with that ridiculous brush cut and those big mournful eyes. And his teenage brats, looking as if they expected something out of him. And damn it, but when you were a divorced parent, you were always stuck with the guilt thing. Even if you weren’t the one who demanded the divorce, you still felt like you failed your kids, that you had to make up, try harder.
Still. He didn’t remember saying yes to this insane chaperoning plan.
But suddenly Merry shot him a surprised smile, and after that came the exodus. After the door closed, he watched the squirt and Merry walk across the yard—with their C battery—before turning back to the boys.
“What? What were you two thinking of, to get me into something like that?”
Kicker shrugged. “Hey, come on, Dad. It’s not like it’s a hardship. She’s hot.”
“Hot? She’s a neighbor, for Pete’s sake.”
“That doesn’t mean she isn’t hot. Come on. Those eyes. That butt—”
“Get your eyes and your mind off her figure, Kicker. She’s too old for you and it’s not respectful.”
“Got it,” Kicker said gravely. “I didn’t notice her boobs or her butt. Just her face. But she’s still hot. And the kid was the thing. Charlene was so upset about that stupid dance. So it just made sense. You could make it better for her.”
“Why does it have to be me?”
Kicker shrugged again. “Why not? It’s just a couple hours on a Friday night. With a kick-ass date. How hard can it be?”
“That’s not the point.” Jack suddenly realized that Cooper hadn’t said a word. In fact, Cooper had buried his head in the fridge and wasn’t even participating in the conversation…yet now he remembered, Coop had been the one to push the co-chaperoning idea. Jack’s gaze narrowed on his eldest son.
“What?”
“What what, Dad?” Coop emerged from the fridge with a platter of cold cuts. The kid had eaten an hour ago, polished off the popcorn since then, so no wonder he was starving again.
“What put the bug up your behind? Why’d you set me up to do that with her? What were you thinking?”
Jack watched as his son slathered mustard and mayonnaise, layered pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and cold cuts into a sandwich that ended up three, maybe three and a half inches thick. His son didn’t choose to respond until he’d taken the first mouthful—which meant that no one could conceivably understand a word he said.
“Say it again after you swallow. I can’t understand you.”
“We have to get back to the basketball game, dad.”
“You thought that up. The chaperoning thing. The going with her. Why?”
“Because…” Coop spotted the box of chips on top of the fridge and grabbed those, too. “She’s the first woman I’ve seen you around since the divorce who wasn’t like Mom.”
Well, if that wasn’t the craziest thing Jack had heard in a month of Sundays. Jack trailed his son back to the game in the living room, close enough to clip his heels. “What on earth does that mean? I haven’t gone out with anyone like your mom—”
“Yeah, you have. They’re all the same.”
“They are not. Besides which, I don’t know what you mean. Besides which, even if they were like your mom, I don’t get what you’re saying, what’s wrong with that.”
Coop plunked down next to Kicker, who was already glued to the tube, both of them eating their seventh or eighth meal of the day, not counting the snacks like popcorn and fast food. U Conn scored. Both boys rose to their feet in unison, shook their jowls, high-fived each other, jogged around the coffee table and then plunked back down on the couch.
Jack wiped a hand over his face. The two of them might be over six feet tall, but they were still both like puppies. Potty trained, but definitely a long way from being completely civilized yet. And since he could remember being fifteen, he knew perfectly well they thought with their hormones ninety-nine percent of the time. No one listened to a fifteen-year-old boy. It would be like trying to make sense of the wind.
“Coop,” he said finally, when that particular sports din had quieted down.
“Chill, Dad. I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of this.”
“I didn’t say you were. I just want to know what you meant. About the women I’ve been around—at least that you’ve seen m
e with—how you think they’re like your mother.”
Kicker didn’t look up. Cooper obviously didn’t want to, but he answered the question, but with his gaze glued to the screen. “Because they are. They’re all into their jobs. They’re, like, competitive. All about their careers. They live the same lifestyle Mom does, filling up every spare second. You fit them in when it’s convenient. They fit you in when it’s convenient.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong. I just said that Merry was different. She’s not gonna look at a guy and think, oh, maybe I can see him on the third Friday of every month, let me look at my calendar.”
“You’re talking Greek. No sense at all. Besides which, no one I’ve gone out with—no one—was like your mom.”
“Okay.”
“I have no reason or intention of getting married again. I’m totally happy the way my life is right now.”
“Okay.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a woman being serious about her career. I’ve never said one word against your mother—”
“I know, Dad.” Cooper patted him consolingly on the knee, then shrieked a four letter word at the referee.
It stunned him that his son could be so wrong, where he could conceivably pick up the idea that the women he’d been with since the divorce were like Dianne. Of course, he’d only aimed for lightweight relationships since then. So naturally that meant he’d only played the game with women who wanted to play by those same rules.
But that wasn’t the same thing as seeking out women who were like his ex-wife. As far as Jack was concerned, that’d be like a man volunteering to be a target after he’d already been shot. It’d be goofy. Masochistic. Dumb.
No one had hurt him the way Dianne had. In fact it struck his ironic buttons now and then that other men groaned and moaned about women cheating on them. Leaving them for other guys.
Jack wouldn’t have minded that half as much as being left for a job. That wasn’t exactly how Dianne had put it, but it amounted to the same thing. He wasn’t enough for her. His love, all he could offer in the way of a home and marriage and sharing parenting, apparently didn’t come close to being important…next to a job she wanted more.
So many jobs in her field had been available around here. He never stood in her way, always applauded her successes. But he also couldn’t pick up and move his nature of work, so when she was offered a position that required moving…well, apparently for her, that was enough of an excuse to quit the marriage and take off.
He’d felt like a rug.
A zero.
His life, his love, his self were all apparently so forgettable that she could walk out on him without a second glance.
He said to Cooper, “I’ve never once—once—been with anyone like your mother.”
“Okay, Dad, okay. Chill. Forget I said anything. Watch the game.”
Yeah, right.
MERRY HAD CHARGED INTO the week with such determination and enthusiasm that she was almost looking forward to June Innes’s next visit. This time, the guardian ad litem didn’t arrive until long after Charlie was home from school. This time, the house was whistle-clean and Merry had the broken nails to prove it. This time, she settled June at the kitchen table with tea and cookies, served with napkins, yet. She was so damned prepared that nothing could possibly go wrong.
Or so she thought. The visit turned out as much fun as being locked in the reptile room at the zoo. June expressed an allergy to ginger cookies and began the conversation with, “The school mentioned that Charlene was in a fight.”
“But that was the first day she went back to school after the funeral, so it was a really emotional time. And there’ve been no problems since.”
“That’s not what the school administration reported to me.” Mrs. Innes was wearing the same outfit as last week, only it was in gray instead of navy blue this time. “I was told that the other children are calling Charlene ‘fag’ and gay and ‘queer.’ Yet you’ve persisted in letting her wear that ridiculous attire.”
This time, Merry told herself, she was going to be honest and careful and not lose her temper. “It isn’t ridiculous to her, June. I don’t know why she’s specifically picking the military-look thing. But I think the military aspect makes her feel…strong. And she feels comforted by wearing something of her dad’s, close to him.”
“They’re inappropriate.”
When she finally left, Merry couldn’t get that strident, authoritative voice out of her head. It was Charlie she needed to win over, not June Innes. Charlie, whose trust mattered, not June’s. But darn it, Merry kept hearing the quietly voiced worry that if she didn’t show control over the situation soon, June would “unfortunately” have to take the matter up with the judge.
Merry laid her head in her hands at the kitchen table, the way she used to as a kid, when she just needed a second to regroup.
“I heard her.”
She popped her head back up faster than a jack-in-the-box and produced a soothing smile for Charlene. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t get what she means. About taking ‘the matter’ to court.”
“Honey, it’s her job to go back to the court. She’s supposed to report to the judge about whether I’m a good guardian.”
“Well, you are. I told her. I told her we were doing just fine. So what’s her sweat?”
Merry knew perfectly well that Charlie’d say anything to live at home, so that kind of affirmation wasn’t exactly, well, an affirmation. When she answered, though, she just tried to be truthful. “Mrs. Innes doesn’t think I’m a real strong role model, as far as experience with kids, and she really doesn’t think I have ‘control.’ These are issues she should be worried about, Charlie. But to get specific, this time, she just plain thinks you should be wearing girl clothes instead of your dad’s stuff.”
Charlie brought the milk from the fridge and poured a glassful. “I’m not hurting anybody with what I’m wearing. I’m not breaking any rules. And my dad always said that nobody really had control over anybody else. That that’s just an illusion.”
“Sometimes I think you’re smarter than all the adults I ever knew.”
Charlie slugged down the milk, wiped off the mustache—or most of it—with the side of her hand. When she spoke again, though, her voice was older than the hills. “You’re going to leave, Merry. This isn’t gonna work for you. I got that right from the first. But please don’t go because that dumb woman says you don’t have control. That’s really bullshit.”
“We have to try harder not to say words like bullshit. Because they’ll slip out when you’re with the wrong people. And besides that, I wish you’d try to believe I’m going to stay.”
“I do try to believe.”
But once Charlene had overheard Innes spill out Merry’s past history of job-hopping and life-hopping, she’d added up one and three and decided it all meant that Merry wasn’t going to stay around forever. Another week, no matter how hard Merry had tried, just wasn’t enough time to prove to her otherwise.
It wasn’t enough time for Merry to prove it to herself, either.
“Look,” Merry said, “you didn’t tell me before that kids were calling you names in school.”
Charlie squinched up her nose. “It’s school. Kids call each other names. That’s what they do. It’s not like I care what creeps call me.”
“Okay, but how about if we try to do something to show Mrs. Innes that you’re doing okay?”
“Like what?”
“Like…” Merry thought. “Like how about having a sleepover?”
“You’re saying I can have a bunch of friends over to spend the night?” Charlie asked in a clearly disbelieving tone.
“Sure, why not? You like the idea?”
“It’s okay,” Charlie said. “How many can I have?”
“How many do you want?”
“Hmmm…Sandra…and Bo. Robin. Quinn. Jane. Hmm…”
“That’s a good number. We can do it.”
Charlie said, “Maybe we should forget that dumb Valentine’s dance, though.”
“Nope. We’re doing that.”
“But you’re going with Mr. Mackinnon, right?”
“Um…I know Jack said yes to that, but I don’t know that that’s an absolute positive, Charl.” An understatement, Merry thought. When it came down to it, there wasn’t much she was absolutely positive of these days.
The more she got to know Charlie, the more she got the feeling, deep down in her gut, that there was something huge at stake here. Not just for Charlie but for her. There were things she could screw up and be okay. Things she could fail and move on from.
But she couldn’t fail Charlie. Without failing something hugely fragile in herself.
Merry sensed, knew, the child still felt abandoned. Charlie was still closed off, not trusting, not taking any risks. She was just coasting. And though Merry had read a ton about kids and grief now, as far as she could tell, Charlie hadn’t let it out yet. The loss was still balled up inside of her.
And although Merry had never lost a parent, being around Charlie made her increasingly aware that she had one particular loss still balled up inside of her, even after all these years.
For a woman who’d happily, willfully taken zillions of risks all her life, suddenly she found herself petrifyingly cautious. Not just afraid of making the wrong moves with Charlie…but with Jack.
Jack was raising his sons to be just like him. Adorable. But more than adorable, they were kind and good-hearted and just plain old-fashioned heroes. The kind of guys who watched out for a woman. Who let her be herself, yet still made her feel protected.
And right now, Merry had never felt less protected in her life from the war she really had to win…making a home for Charlie. And for making a place for herself. A place where she didn’t have to run anymore—from life, from loss, or from herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS DAYS LATER when Merry heard the unexpected sound of laughter coming from the garage. She cracked open the back door, just far enough to see Jack’s sons were the source of all the talking. The two of them were hovered over electronics and car parts with Charlie, all babbling on as if they’d shared a shot of joy juice.
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