by Meg Ripley
Then she said, “This is a really hard time for you, isn’t it?”
I almost laughed out loud. Was she serious? Of course it was!
But Peyton nodded sadly and said, “I miss Mommy and Daddy.”
“I know you do, sweetheart. I’m sure Uncle Conner misses them, too. I know a lot of people loved your mom and dad, and everyone misses them.”
“Did you know them?” Peyton asked.
“No, but I wish I had. My sister was friends with your mom. Her name is Nikki.”
Peyton nodded. “She came over lots of times, and sometimes, she would paint my nails.”
“She painted mine last night!” Jessie wiggled her pink nails at Peyton. “I’m not as good as she is, but maybe we could paint nails one day. Would you like that?”
Peyton nodded.
“What else do you like to do?”
Peyton gave a little shrug and didn’t answer.
“Yeah, I get that,” Jessie continued. “Nothing seems fun anymore, does it?”
Peyton shook her head and a tear ran down her cheek. Great. She had been there, what, twenty minutes? And already, she was making the kid cry. I was about to walk in there and put an end to it. But then Peyton did something. She leaned forward and nestled her head into Jessie. She started to cry and Jessie rubbed her back and spoke softly to her. I couldn’t hear what she said and that aggravated me. What were you supposed to say to a crying kid?
After a few minutes, they got up. Peyton stuck her hand right in Jessie’s as she slid off the couch. I thought they would come to find me, but instead, they walked down the hall and turned into Peyton’s room. I inched closer to listen in.
Peyton was showing her around, telling her about her toys and stuffed animals. Actually talking. And then I heard something I couldn’t even believe. Jessie must’ve done something with a stuffed animal; I don’t know what, but it involved a goofy voice. What it did to Peyton was magic. She laughed. She actually laughed.
I shrugged and went back to the living room with my beer and sat down. In under an hour, Jessie had done what I’d tried to do for days. What a fuck up I was. I had no clue. I would’ve messed this kid up pretty good, though. Made sure she had all sorts of issues like me. Made sure she grew up drunk and miserable. Like me.
I sat for a while, hating myself, and both despising and loving Jessie at the same time. Either the pills or the alcohol—or the combination of both—started to kick in and my eyes drooped. I might have slept for a whole hour or two the night before. I had to take sleep when it came, and if it was coming, then I was going to get every minute I could.
I went to Peyton’s door and knocked on the frame. They were engrossed in some game and both looked over at me.
“You can start now,” I muttered.
In a daze, I padded off to my room, which was actually Logan and Alaina’s, flopped onto the bed and passed out.
7
Jessie
“What is this one’s name?” I asked Peyton, holding up a doll with long, pink hair.
“Strawberry. Mommy named her.” Her face fell and she let the doll fall to the ground. She looked at the carpet.
“Do you want to have Strawberry come and play with this doll?’ I held up another one.
Peyton shook her head and tears ran down her cheeks.
“Hey.” I was sitting on the floor and she stood in front of me. I took both her hands in mine. “You can be sad. Be mad. Be whatever you want to be. It’s okay. You can cry whenever you need to.”
Her little chest had started hitching. “But—Uncle Conner—doesn’t like it—”
My chest squeezed, and I almost cried myself.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered. I moved closer to her, and she tilted her head down to me. “I don’t think Uncle Conner knows what to do when you cry. He doesn’t know how to be a daddy yet, and this is hard for him, too. We have to try to remember that, even when he’s being mean, okay?”
She nodded and wiped her cheeks.
“Don’t ever be afraid to cry and let your emotions out,” I told her. “Especially not when you’re with me. Okay?”
She nodded again.
“Are you in kindergarten?”
Peyton nodded.
“Do you like your teacher?”
“She’s nice.”
“That’s good. What’s the best part of school?”
Peyton thought for a moment. “Recess.”
I chuckled. “That was my favorite, too. And gym. I liked to run around.”
“Me, too.”
“What games do you like to play?”
“Tag. I’m good at tag.”
“Oh, that sounds fun. We’ll have to play sometime. Would you like that?”
She nodded.
I was relieved. In all my training to be a teacher, there had been plenty of child psychology courses and instruction on how to connect with young children. If I did end up teaching one day, at least I knew the techniques I studied worked. Peyton seemed to have no trouble talking to me. I wasn’t sure, though, how much was due to my asking the right questions and how much was due to her having such a difficult uncle to live with. If I had been in her place, I might open up to the first person who didn’t snap at me, too.
Hours later, Conner stumbled out of his bedroom and stood in the doorway of Peyton’s room. His t-shirt was crumpled and his shorts were hanging a little too low on his hips. Even like that, with his scruffy, week-old beard and tousled hair, he still looked hot. Nikki was right about that. I didn’t mind the look of him. It was everything else about him that drove me mad.
“You guys okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re great,” I said.
Peyton looked at him, wide-eyed.
“You okay?” he asked, looking directly at her.
She nodded and inched closer to me.
“You hungry?” he asked.
Peyton nodded again. He walked away; to the kitchen, I assumed, and I stood.
“I’m going to talk to Uncle Conner for just a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Peyton resumed our game by herself.
Enough hours had passed that I was getting hungry, too. I wasn’t sure what the plan was, how long I would be there, or anything, really. I found him in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge with a beer in one hand and a bottle of whiskey on the table.
“So, I was just wondering…what’s the plan, here?”
“Leftovers.” He didn’t look at me. “People keep bringing trays of food over. We have way more than we can eat.”
“I mean for me. How long do you want me to stay, and when do you want me come by to stay with Peyton?”
“Oh.” He closed the fridge and turned to me. “Um. She has school in the mornings. So, I guess before school and after school?”
“Do you want me to come every day or just on school days? When do you need me?”
“Whenever I work.”
“And when is that?”
He pointed to a calendar hanging on the wall. Beside it, a piece of paper was taped up. I glanced at it. It listed a number of days off for bereavement, but I didn’t see any sort of work schedule.
“So, you don’t need me the next few weeks? You’re not working, according to this.”
“Just be here every day. Before school. After school. Weekends. Whatever the usual wage is, I’ll add 15%.”
I had no idea what the usual wage was, but I threw out a number that seemed within reason.
“Fine,” he replied. “Well, are you hungry?”
“Um, sure, I could eat, if you don’t mind.”
He turned and took a few steps, reaching up into a cabinet for plates. But then I saw that he was stumbling, barely walking straight or standing still.
“Are you drunk?” I accused.
He set the plates down hard. “What if I am? What are you going to do? Call the police? I know all the cops around these parts.”
“No, I just…well, I’ll stay th
en. To make sure Peyton is okay.”
“Yeah.” He picked up a plate and glared at me. “You do that.”
Maybe I should have asked for a higher rate for dealing with his bullshit. “Look, I know you’re going through a lot right now, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be so mean. People might actually like you if you were nicer.” I turned and went back into Peyton’s room, but when a half hour had passed and there didn’t seem to be any food coming, I went back to the kitchen. I found Conner passed out at the table, hunched over his bent arms, his face smeared across the wood surface. Food sat on the counter in plastic containers, unopened.
I searched through the fridge, pulling out several other items and began to heat up some of the leftovers. He must’ve woken from the noise or smell because as I was setting plates on the dining room table, he sat up.
“I think you’d better eat something,” I told him before going off to get Peyton and have her wash her hands.
When we returned to the dining room, his plate was already half empty. He couldn’t even have waited for us? I shook my head, but we sat with him anyway. Peyton and I ate together; she was quiet, though, and it was clear she didn’t want to speak in front of her uncle.
After dinner, I rinsed the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher. Conner stretched out on the couch while I gave Peyton a bath and put on her pajamas.
“What do you and Uncle Conner usually do at bedtime?”
She shrugged and climbed into bed.
“Do you read a story or say a prayer?”
She shook her head.
“Anything like that at all?”
She shook her head again. “Do you want to read a story?”
She nodded enthusiastically. I picked out a book and sat beside her on the bed to read. By the time I was at the end, her eyes were drooping and her head drifted forward, so I laid her down and tucked her in tight.
“I’m really glad that I get to spend time with you,” I whispered and kissed her on the forehead.
“Me, too,” she replied, smiling and closing her eyes.
8
Conner
I woke up somewhere in the dim hours of the morning. My heart raced, and it took a moment for me to recall where I was: in the living room in my brother’s house. Not lying in a ditch in the deserts of Afghanistan. I breathed slowly, using the exercises my therapist taught me. When I had calmed my heart and anxiety, I rubbed my eyes so that I could read my watch.
4 am.
I jumped up. I’d slept enough that I was sober again, and now that I realized where I was, the night started to come back.
Where was Peyton? Where was Jessie? I glanced outside; Jessie’s car was gone. I walked quietly down the hall and peeked into Peyton’s room. She was in there, fast asleep. In the kitchen, the leftovers had been cleaned up, neatly put away in the refrigerator, and the dishes had been rinsed loaded into the dishwasher. The bathroom smelled faintly of Peyton’s strawberry shampoo, and a damp towel hung on the back of the door. I noticed Jessie had left her jasmine hand lotion on the counter and I slowly inhaled the sweet scent. Damn, she’s beautiful. I had to put that out of my mind, though. She worked for me, and it wasn’t appropriate. But I couldn’t deny that my inner bear rumbled at the thought of her lying beneath me.
I tried to shake off the thought and go back through the day, but there were a lot of holes. One thing I knew for sure is that I’d been a little harsh on Jessie, and she didn’t deserve it. I’d tried to get dinner going, but when I’d passed out at the kitchen table, she had picked up the slack for me. She’d gotten Peyton cleaned up and into bed. She’d been there all day. I didn’t know if she’d had any plans or other things she needed to do; frankly, I hadn’t cared enough to ask. I’d been more concerned with drinking my feelings away. What a selfish prick you’ve been, I told myself.
With that realization came another, and a lump began to form in my throat. Jessie reminded me of family; of home. My mother was like her, always making sure Logan and I had food to eat—good food, too—making sure we had clean clothes and school supplies, making sure we’d actually done our homework and had managed to shower. She took care of my father, too. He worked long hours to provide for us, and she did everything she could to support that, whether it was pressing his shirts and making him coffee early in the morning before he left for the day or taking dinner to him when his hours grew long. Mom had that quiet, gentle, caring nature that I missed. And I saw it in Jessie.
My family was mostly gone by that point. My father died years earlier; heart attack, of course. He’d always worked too hard and hadn’t shifted and run enough. My mother was so ill, she needed around-the-clock help, so a live-in nurse took care of her. Logan was dead. And Me? I might as well have been. I was worthless to everyone. How was it that I, the most unreliable of all the Griffin men, was the one left standing? It should have been any of them but me.
Logan, too, had the same dedication as my father, yet he’d managed to temper it a bit with some of my mother’s nurturing. He was the kind of dad who woke up early on Saturday mornings after working all week and made pancakes before mowing the lawn. Or who took his daughter out for ice cream in the evening so that Alaina could have time to herself or with friends. He should have been the one to live, not me. Those croc assholes should have killed me.
I got up and took my meds, hoping they would lift the weight off my chest. It was so hard to breathe those days. As I set my empty glass on the kitchen counter, I looked at my printed work schedule hanging by the calendar. My boss had told me to take as much time as I needed, and at that point, I think I’d taken quite enough. I wanted to know what was going on with the investigation. I had to find a way to be active and do something about it. Sitting there all day only made things worse, and now that I had Jessie, I didn’t have to.
It was well after 5. I remember telling Jessie to come before school, but I didn’t think I gave her a specific time. Peyton got on the bus at 8:30, so what time would she arrive; seven, maybe? It would be at least another hour before she was there and about an hour before Peyton woke up. I changed my clothes and headed down to the basement, where Logan and Alaina had built a pretty sweet home gym. Most shifters found the need to work out hard to keep the animal instincts under control, and I was no different.
I spent an entire hour pushing my body to the limit: pushups, sit ups, pull ups, weighted squats, thrusters, bench presses; anything I could do with a barbell, I did it. I rowed and biked. I went for a three-mile run on their treadmill. After an hour, I was wet with sweat, but felt better. I had to remind myself that what my therapist said was true: exercise helped with depression and anxiety, and even kept PTSD tempered, somewhat. It was like all those emotions were somehow stored in my muscles, and when I worked out, it forced them all out of me.
I took a quick shower, brewed a fresh pot of coffee and started to make breakfast. As I was cracking eggs, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to see Jessie.
“I’ll get you a key today,” I said, stepping aside to let her in.
“Oh. Sure, yeah, that would be great.”
“Did you eat? I’m making eggs, and there’s coffee.”
She gave me a surprised expression. “Coffee would be great.”
I poured her a mug and set it down. “There’s milk and sugar and everything.” I drank mine black and took a long sip as I gestured toward the cabinet where the sugar was stored.
“I drink it black, thanks.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, and she gave me the same look back.
“What?”
“You look…surprisingly well rested,” she said.
“You mean sober?”
She lifted a shoulder. “You were looking at me weird, too. What was that all about?”
“I’m just surprised you drink black coffee. I figured you’d have it extra light, extra sweet, for whatever reason.” I shrugged and began to whip the eggs with a fork. “I’m going to work today.”
“I guess we surprised each other this morning, then. I thought I’d find you passed out on the couch and would have to poke you with a stick to get you to wake up.”
I wondered if she meant it to be some kind of joke; some kind of hint that she knew about me with the whole cliché of poking a sleeping a bear. But she couldn’t know. Jessie wasn’t a shifter and neither was her sister. I’d given them both a good sniff to make sure. If they knew, that would mean that Alaina, or possibly Logan, would have told them. They wouldn’t have dared to break the shifter code and tell someone who didn’t need to know, would they?
No, that was crazy. Jessie was definitely not the type to be okay with the concept of bear shifters. If she had any idea, she’d never set foot inside that house. Not only is she working for me, she’s a full-blooded human. Just one more reason to keep her at a distance, I thought. I knew shifters that went through the process of telling their human girlfriends or boyfriends the truth. There was a point when that would be acceptable and eventually, necessary if you were going to marry or have children with a non-shifter. But that conversation terrified me. It was the reason I’d never even considered dating a non-shifter. How would you say something like that in a way that didn’t make you seem crazy or scare them out of their minds? It wasn’t something I didn’t have the skill to pull off.
“Peyton’s bus comes at 8:30,” I said. “I have to get dressed.”
Jessie nodded and set down her coffee before going toward Peyton’s room. I heard them talking; it was muffled but sounded friendly. Cheerful. By the time I headed back into the kitchen in my uniform, Peyton sat at the table, fully dressed, almost smiling, and Jessie was braiding her hair. The kid looked cuter than I’d seen her look since I had to start dressing her; she looked like she did when Alaina had gotten her ready for school. My heart ached, but I forced a smile.
“You look very nice today,” I said.
“I like your uniform, Uncle Conner.”